Guild Wars 2

This^ + 1 million

Simple questions:

1) If a player has level 80 characters that have all skills unlocked without doing any PvE skill points, will those characters need to obtain PvE skill points (65 or some other number) to reclaim the core traits which they had already legitimately earned?

2) If so, why?

I’m posting this because I’m tired of the trolls in other threads and hoping for an official answer.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

lol I hope they triple the requirements and make it 100% world completion just so I can see these entitled whiners explode…

Since when does wanting to keep the skills you’ve alreadyearned make a person entitled? Trolling much?

spoj.9672:

Except i dont think its fair that someone is able to work on unlocking their elite specs if they havent done enough hero challenges to completely unlock the core specs. Thus a debt is needed. Its essentially saying they never have to complete those extra skill challenges (they arent complete on the map but they may aswell be because you got free hero points).

And you are completely misunderstanding me on my other points. Dont really know how to explain it any other way. I know exactly how they want things to work. You repeating those to me has no relevance.

AGAIN, the point is that the system announced will privilege PvE world completion over other forms of gameplay. I’m not asking that others reach my number of WvW ranks, so why should I be asked to reach their number of ‘skill challenges’?

spoj.9672:

Why you need to do this on every alt i dont know. Ill only be doing it on 1 of each class. Because doubles of classes only serves the purpose of cosmetic variation.

Not really true. You are forgetting the synergies you can get between racial skills and other traits, which I intentionally use in my builds. I’d rather do dishes, which I hate to do, than run around chasing skill points. At least with the dishes, the effort makes my life better. I play games to have fun and relieve stress, and skill point chasing is the opposite of that for me. Especially when I’ve already made the necessary investments to unlock all skills. Here’s how it went for me:

1) I understood what needed to be done to get a toon to level 80.
2) I paid money to a-net for skill slots.
3) I invested time and resources to level the toons (a chore which I hate).
4) I legitimately unlocked all skills on my toons.
5) A-net then changes the rules of the game, such that I would never have purchased most of my skill slots nor done the chores I’ve already done had this system been in place.

I’m glad you don’t mind, but I do.

spoj.9672:

2mins per hero point is pretty reasonable. As long as you arent clearing mobs along the way and you have a few waypoints in various maps.

Once again, the point is that many WvW players have fully-geared, fully-unlocked alts that they play only in WvW. I have 14 toons with various levels of map completion, some with less than 10%. It’s clear that PvE-only players do not understand the WvW player point of view. For perspective, imagine that A-net announced that your traits would be locked until you had sufficient WvW player kills to earn them back, forcing you out of PvE and into WvW to do it. I’m sure you’d be a bit annoyed!

choovanski.5462:

plus, there is going to be a grind for elite specialisations, so its grind for new stuff + grind for the old stuff we just took from you.

my opinion is simple, all existing 80s should be grandfathered in with full unlocks. they have to unlock elite specialisations, and that’s enough. let people play the game instead of grinding to play the game.

+ 1 million.

spoj.9672:

…logically its the only choice they have to provide a better system for the future. And you have so much time to prepare for the patch. You dont really have much grounds for complaint at this point…

There are certainly other ways they could make us earn the skill unlocks. For instance, they could make them dependent on having X-number of player kills in WvW. Then all the PvE-only players will lose the traits they’ve already earned. No worries though, since they can come play catch-up in WvW to earn them back. I’m sure that would be just fine with everyone, right?

Lightbringer or Shadowbane both sound good to me.

I have 14 lv. 80 toons with full skill unlocks, and I play almost exclusively WvW, with the occasional quick PvE daily. One of my toons has full map completion: been there, done that. How would you feel if A-net removed skills you had already earned, and told you that you could only have them back if you played tic-tac-toe or go fish for hours on end. That’s basically what the ‘skill challenges’ are. Utterly pointless, skill-less filler-fecal-content that is a complete waste of my few hours of available free time that could be spent ‘playing the way I want’. All I and others are asking is to keep what we’ve already earned. Anyone who doesn’t get that is either reading-disabled or a childish troll.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Maybe a single player game but MMORPG are jammed packed with random crap design to waste your time as much as possible and not necessarily for fun.

…and this has not exactly been a formula for success. Most MMOs are struggling at best, and this is a large reason why. GW2 strives to be better than the others, so copying their failures would be a poor business plan.

And they could have made the unlocks dependent on jumping puzzles completed. Or fractals. Or sPvP wins. Or Keg brawl, Belcher’s Bluff or Crab Toss wins. Or World Boss kills. Or WvW keep captures. Or dungeons.

Just pick your least favorite facet of the game, and imagine you now have to do it for many hours just to get back what you’ve ALREADY EARNED, instead of ‘playing the way you want’. No one is saying things should never change, just that the changes should not massively revert progress already earned.

…and I’d be just fine w/ that. PvE to earn the new stuff is fine with me, as long as everyone has to do it.

It’s easy to say that hero points should be limited when you’re a PvE player with one toon and world completion. When you have 15 lv. 80 toons (only 1 w/ world completion) and spend (nearly) all your game time in WvW, it is a problem. Not only have I paid for character slots, but I’ve put in the effort to unlock everything. To tell me now that I have to do 65 ‘skill challenges’ 14 times over just to get back to what I’ve already earned is just a wee bit… problematic. :/

The specialist uses light to beat back the darkness, so SHADOWBANE.

Grandfathering would be a simple solution to this supposedly complex problem, but that would potentially rob A-net of the opportunity to force players to play new (and old, boring, pointless) content. How hard can it really be to say ‘all characters with all core traits unlocked will still have them unlocked when the transition occurs’? Or is there someone who actually believes that ‘skill challenges’ are not laughably (and ironically) misnamed?

The basic problem is that PvE players who are obsessive about map completion can have everything unlocked right away on all their toons, while hard-core WvW players who only do PvE when absolutely necessary will have to do a lot of PvE just to get back to the traits they already legitimately unlocked before. It’s patently unfair, since it lavishly rewards one playstyle while severely disadvantaging another, all for the sake of ‘ease of coding’.

I think they should tie trait unlocks to WvW player kills. I mean, why not? If you have no player kills, it should just be a simple matter of catching up a bit, right? When you look at it that way, you may actually see the absurdity of the anticipated unlock system. You don’t want to have to kill X number of opposing players? Too bad, ‘cause that whole ’play the way you want’ thing was just another bit of marketing spin.

True, but neither do they have anything to do with skill.

“Play the way you want,” as long as it’s pvE zerker build.

So why the superior attitude from the PVE crowd, and why base all progression on PvE skill(less) challenges?

ReaverKane.7598:

Actually, World completion gives a ton of exp, a ton of craft mats, stuff like BLC Keys, Exotics, etc. Mechanically its a very rewarding activity. Exploring the World is fun… If people prefer to run around in packs from point to point, ok WvW for them, but i don’t see much the point of people complaining because they got through the game without playing the vast majority of it.

The ‘majority of the game’ is actually the thousands of opposing players to be killed in WvW (and PvP), not the repetitive, skill-less soul-sucking borefest that is PvE. PvE already gives more material rewards without also now tying character progression exclusively to it. I run in small havoc groups groups and solo in WvW more often than zerging, while PvE is generally Champ-train-zerging for mindless gold/mat/gear farming. If that’s your thing, fine, but don’t try telling the WvW community that your way is better. =/

Hey, just give me 1 ‘hero point’ for every X number of WvW player kills a toon has, and all 14 of my lv. 80 toons will have everything unlocked. If they added that count to the ‘skill challenges’ count almost all veteran players would be happy, whether they lean toward WvW, PvE or some combination of the two.

All you PvE players who are basically telling WvW players to just suck it up and waste time on pointless and boring ‘skill’ challenges would be singing a different tune if A-net had made your character skill unlocks contingent on getting a certain number of WvW player kills to unlock each skill. Yes, we can do PvE skill challenges, because they require no skill, just a tolerance for hours of boredom. Those are hours we could be in WvW. What ever happened to ‘play the way you want’?

I have 14 lv 80 toons because I want to have 2 of each profession with completely different specializations, playstyles and builds. I’m pretty tired of people who say or imply that their way of playing is the right way, and everyone else is wrong. A-net’s mantra has been ‘play the way you want’. If I have worked to unlock everything on 14 toons it should not matter how I did it, as long as it was within the allowed system. Giving a huge advantage to players who replay each map on every toon, doing pointless completion ‘heart’ tasks and ‘skill’ (LOL!) challenges, while disadvantaging players (with actual skill) who spend their time in PvP and WvW instead of PvE would be absolutely maddening.

PvE requires little skill. It’s pretty ironic if you ask me.

I have 14 lv 80 toons. I rage-quit (for a year!) after they made it so that I had to unlock new skills when every toon after I had had them ALL unlocked. I WILL NOT mess around with all the BS unlocking busywork again. I think existing toons with everything unlocked (i.e. all 14 of mine) should be grandfathered in. Do they really want everyone to quit because they are forcing us into dull, repetitive, BORING maps over again in order to make it interesting for new players? Quite an anti-marketing campaign if you ask me. =/

Here’s an idea I think might make WvW a lot more fun to play:

1. Any player with a commander tag can form a Roaming Squad of up to 12 players

2. Whenever a Roaming Squad kills the commander of an opposing Roaming Squad, each member of the winning squad gets a bonus of +1 to all stats, to a maximum of +15

3. Any Roaming Squad player killed drops a loot bag with higher level value depending on the squad’s current bonus

4. A commander’s Roaming Squad bonus is reset to zero if the commander dies or if all of the other squad members die, or if the commander logs off, switches maps or turns off the commander tag

5. Roaming Squad bonuses are inactivated (but not reset) when the commander is inside any walled structure or within a set distance away from another commander

6. At every PPT tick, a Roaming Squad commander’s current bonus is added to his server’s PPT score

It seems that this might be working as intended.

Perhaps A-net sees their system as ‘working as intended’. I don’t see anything other than marginal changes on the horizon. Many of those changes are good for brand new players, but most are also bad for me personally. None of the changes will fundamentally improve the core mechanics that make WvW (endgame for me) a zergfest. Zerging is only fun for the 1st 12000 hours.

Regarding dyes: I have lots of alts with lots of duplicate dyes, some of which were only available through gem store purchase. I am very disappointed that I will be receiving a low-value item (unidentified dye) to compensate for this. I would be very happy if instead all duplicate dyes returned an unopened, tradable dye of the same type. That way, each player would receive back the same value they had put into their dyes.

I understand if this is impossible, but it would seem much fairer than the announced solution.

I’m going to make a positive post and see what happens. I have lots of alts with lots of duplicate dyes, some of which were only available through gem store purchase. I am very disappointed that I will be receiving a low-value item (unidentified dye) to compensate for this. I would be very happy if instead all duplicate dyes returned an unopened, tradable dye of the same type. That way, each player would receive back the same value they had put into their dyes.

I understand if this is impossible, but it would seem much fairer than the announced solution.

It’s very clear that the cap is due to the limitations of the engine. A-net is simply not going to redesign the engine (ROFL) to address this. I used to complain about this… months ago. I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee. Now I just hang out in town and show off my new outfits.

Notice that most parties, especially those doing high level content, have a mix of classes. There’s a reason. While there is no ‘trinity’, a party of mixed classes gains lots of synergies from different professions. I could go on to give endless examples, but longtime players are familiar with this.

I think we should get achievement points for petting the Shatterer and becoming his friend. Then we can all stand around and show him all our cool outfits. We need a friendly World Boss who gives us compliments on our fashion choices. It would be so kewl if we had a Dragon Tamer Achievement! Not everything has to be about combat, you know!

Wealth? You yourself said that in-game items have zero value.

First, I don’t plan to turn to the legal system, even if I did have a case. The point is simply that A-net is destroying a lot of the ‘virtual value’ that players paid for in good faith. Even if A-net has the ‘legal right’ to make me feel duped and ripped off I think this is a terrible business move. people who haven’t paid money for duplicates come out ahead, but then again they don’t have a history of buying a lot anyway, right? People like me who spent a lot and feel ripped off will either not buy gems any more or quit the game altogether.

The Revenant.4970:

Correctemundo. It’s like saying you deserve lottery winnings because you bought a ticket right before the winning ticket was sold.

Actually a good analogy would be if the lottery sold you fifty tickets and I only bought one. The lottery then issues a statement saying “It doesn’t matter how many tickets you bought. Everyone who bought any number of tickets now has exactly the same chance to win.”

The lottery “just changed how tickets work”, right?

If we’re counting the players feeling frustrated, duped and ripped off due to having paid a lot of real money for duplicates ,add me to the total.

I could not possibly agree w/ the original poster more. I’m feeling really duped and ripped off.

I am in the same boat as the OP, feeling really ripped off. Those who didn’t pay a ton of real money to get duplicates of dyes/skins/outfits, tec. for their alts find it really easy to tell others to stop whining…

If you look at the whole presentation it shows clearly that this is an area of unsettled law in both the EU and the US. Legalities aside, I feel quite ripped off, and that’s all that counts. If A-net does refund all duplicated dyes, then my entire thread will be moot, and I will be quite satisfied with the outcome.

As it is right now, a duplicate dye that is worth 100+ gold on the TP will be replaced with a random unidentified dye. Hardly just compensation. If they instead gave me back an unopened dye of the same kind that I could then trade or sell on the TP, that would work very well.

Count me among the people heading for the exits entirely because of the nature and timing of these changes… and I used to buy a lot of gems…

A-net likely had many of these new changes ready long ago, but they made a decision to hold them all and release them all now in order to coincide with competitor releases. Sure, some of them may have only been finished recently, but most of them were surely not. They may not have known the exact date of release, but clearly they waited strategically.

The Revenant.4970:

There’s no such thing as an ‘investment’ when you buy electronic items in a virtual world. Etc. etc., blahblahblah.

Not necessarily true, as is made very clear here: http://www.slideshare.net/jaspurewal/the-use-and-legal-status-of-virtual-goods-and-currencies

Whatever the legalities, this move essentially means that A-net has sold me something under a clear set of terms, and then changed the terms of the sale after the fact so as to erase the value of the items sold. A very bad business decision! Why would I ever buy gems again?

Too little, too late. Had they made these changes earlier I might not be switching to ESO. Holding back on all these improvements and dumping them on us right at the launch of ESO was a colossal blunder from my POV. I hate being manipulated, and that’s exactly how A-net has made me feel.

Too bad A-net won’t be refunding any of the time I’ve spent getting to 13,000 AP. Sigh Whatever, other changes have been worse. :/

As the owner of 11 level 80 characters, I have spent a lot of gems to buy the special event dye packs from the gem store. In many cases I bought 10 or more packs in order to try to get multiples of certain dyes so I could have them on more than one character. I used multiple of copies of the same dye on different characters when I could have sold them on the trading post for 100 gold or more in some cases. These dyes were purchased with REAL MONEY and used up only BECAUSE THEY WERE SOUL-BOUND. Now, I’m out all of that investment… and extremely frustrated and angry about the whole thing.

What now?!

Look, I have 11 lv. 80 characters. I’ve already done all my unlocking. I’m sure not gonna go do content I’d rather not play 11 times over just to unlock traits I should already have by virtue of all the effort I’ve already put in. I’ve been here since early access, and I’m done jumping through hoops. These new traits should be unlocked by default, at least on all toons that hit lv. 80 more than one year ago.

One more nail in the coffin.

Don’t you see, this whole trolling, slow-rolling, drip-dripping rollout is entirely and exactly timed to coincide with ESO early access opening. That by the way is at 7 a.m. ET on March 28. Regular access ESO launches on 4/4, the same day ast the last scheduled GW2 blog post reveal. Coincidence? Yeah, right…

No, there are people with far more WvW kills than I. Bragging wasn’t my point. My point is that I’ve invested a lot in the game. If WvW were implemented well, I’d spend all of my gaming time there. As it is, WvW is extremely below its potential. I play WvW more and more rarely now. -_-

They could have released many of these LONG ago, but they’ve held them back. They’re doing this now to divert attention from the release of a certain combat MMO competitor. Personally, I don’t like feeling manipulated, and I most definitely do. My plane from Tyria to Tamriel leaves in just over a week.