Guild Wars 2

Just a flesh wound.3589:

binidj.5734:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They said some time back that items that give experience can’t be used to progress Masteries. This means those writs can only be used on a char before level 80. After level 80 you can turn 20 of them into one tome and get a shard.

If we could buy HPs with shards that’d be helpful.

Unfortunately no. Not an option, at least currently..

Presumably it will never be an option since it would remove the finite commodity aspect which was the point of splitting them in the first place.

Unless they made a system similar to what they’re doing in WvW which let you buy locked points with shards, which would still be very strange, but would ultimately probably appease the masses.

Divine.7104:

The adept achievement and weapon reward for traiting into the elite specialization does not appear when speccing in PvP heart of the mists. I tested it with every class. Only the ones that unlocked the elite outside of PvP received an achievement+weapon reward. Leaving Heart of the Mists after already speccing does not give the achievement+weapon reward.

Why would it. You’re not actually unlocking it in PvP. Where traits and skills are concerned PvP is an entirely other world.

phys.7689:

Kal Spiro.9745:

phys.7689:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Dynasty.5127:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Honestly I feel like this is BWE4. There’s no way if they tested this system in betas it wouldn’t have made it to the live game.

I have 8 level 80 characters (welcome my latest revenant) and I tried Druid on my 100% mapped ranger and only was able to unlock half of the spec, making it unplayable. Now I hate the design of the Druid, I think Anet screwed that one up. Since it’s such a chore to unlock it, I won’t bother with the spec.

Does this make sense to anyone? Show us something, let us try it, then release the game with us expecting to be adventuring on our new toys and then tell us we need to complete the content on our old specs to unlock the new one?

How it is unplayable, exactly? You get the heal, and I assume at least one of the skills, plus the staff. You get the specral mode just by fitting the trait line, what else do you need to be able to play it? Not to be able to play it fully, but to be able to play it at all?

Pretty sure it’s playable, you just want the whole thing.

You want to know what isn’t playable until it’s done? Herald, because at least for all the other classes you can fit other skills in until you can get the ones you want. Herald can’t do that at all, so until it’s complete the Glint line is only partially functional.

Many people tried pointing this out, you were to busy being ignorant to them to notice it seems.

No one pointed anything out, because until just today no one actually knew precisely how it would even work. My plan had been to unlock herald then put all my points into the skills, having a completely unfilled trait line isn’t ideal, but it’s not bad if I have the skills to go with it. Now that it’s clear how the system actually works it’s clear that Herald, exclusively, is not entirely functional until all 400 points are spent into it.

Only now, after the information is known to be true is it fair to make that claim. It was clear, though, that Herald was always going to be some amount of a problem because no Revenant could come into the game with any extra points.

This isn’t about Herald, this is about Druid, and all the other elites and anyone claiming that the elite is unplayable because they couldn’t completely fill it out immediately. That is entirely untrue.

Scrapper is tied heavily to skills daredevils dodges are gm traits.
Essentially if your traits mattered you are kitten , if your good utilities mattered you are kitten .

But that was the design intention. That you must heavily invest time in hot for progress.

The system would probably be ok if they didnt make masteries a progressive grind.

In other news does mastery earning feel slow and grindy after the first couple ones?

Daredevil and Scrapper are the only ones I have slotted right now, and it’s just what I expected. Not using staff and utilities on Daredevil, I’m doing it for the extra endurance. And yes I want the grand master, but it doesn’t ruin the character just because I don’t have it yet, it’ll just be that much better when I do. Still a fully functional thief. On Scrapper I’m just running the Hammer, which I have at one point into it. Still a fully functional engineer, though.

so your saying, that an extra endurance bar is the main point of DD?
you realize the acrobatic line essentially gives you more endurance via feline grace and endless stamina?

You basically are a kitten thief.

also, last i played engineer, the point was utilities and trait use.
using the same utilities basically makes you a gimpier version of an old engineer, cause you have key traits missing

You get that I can run Daredevil AND Acrobatics together, right? Which I am, actually. It effectively allows me to play my thief the way I played before they changed traits since I automatically have three dodges again. They got rid of the trait that gave you half a bar of endurance back with each dodge letting you dodge three times in a row instead of two.

As for my Engineer the traits I’m losing were not terribly useful to me based on my play style to begin with, which is why I was willing to swap it out for Scrapper in the first place.

I tomed my Revenant to 80. I completed all skill and trait lines. The associated collections for the five trait lines did not unlock. I don’t seem to have any way to unlock them.

phys.7689:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Dynasty.5127:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Honestly I feel like this is BWE4. There’s no way if they tested this system in betas it wouldn’t have made it to the live game.

I have 8 level 80 characters (welcome my latest revenant) and I tried Druid on my 100% mapped ranger and only was able to unlock half of the spec, making it unplayable. Now I hate the design of the Druid, I think Anet screwed that one up. Since it’s such a chore to unlock it, I won’t bother with the spec.

Does this make sense to anyone? Show us something, let us try it, then release the game with us expecting to be adventuring on our new toys and then tell us we need to complete the content on our old specs to unlock the new one?

How it is unplayable, exactly? You get the heal, and I assume at least one of the skills, plus the staff. You get the specral mode just by fitting the trait line, what else do you need to be able to play it? Not to be able to play it fully, but to be able to play it at all?

Pretty sure it’s playable, you just want the whole thing.

You want to know what isn’t playable until it’s done? Herald, because at least for all the other classes you can fit other skills in until you can get the ones you want. Herald can’t do that at all, so until it’s complete the Glint line is only partially functional.

Many people tried pointing this out, you were to busy being ignorant to them to notice it seems.

No one pointed anything out, because until just today no one actually knew precisely how it would even work. My plan had been to unlock herald then put all my points into the skills, having a completely unfilled trait line isn’t ideal, but it’s not bad if I have the skills to go with it. Now that it’s clear how the system actually works it’s clear that Herald, exclusively, is not entirely functional until all 400 points are spent into it.

Only now, after the information is known to be true is it fair to make that claim. It was clear, though, that Herald was always going to be some amount of a problem because no Revenant could come into the game with any extra points.

This isn’t about Herald, this is about Druid, and all the other elites and anyone claiming that the elite is unplayable because they couldn’t completely fill it out immediately. That is entirely untrue.

Scrapper is tied heavily to skills daredevils dodges are gm traits.
Essentially if your traits mattered you are kitten , if your good utilities mattered you are kitten .

But that was the design intention. That you must heavily invest time in hot for progress.

The system would probably be ok if they didnt make masteries a progressive grind.

In other news does mastery earning feel slow and grindy after the first couple ones?

Daredevil and Scrapper are the only ones I have slotted right now, and it’s just what I expected. Not using staff and utilities on Daredevil, I’m doing it for the extra endurance. And yes I want the grand master, but it doesn’t ruin the character just because I don’t have it yet, it’ll just be that much better when I do. Still a fully functional thief. On Scrapper I’m just running the Hammer, which I have at one point into it. Still a fully functional engineer, though.

Osu.6307:

DoctorDing.5890:

Nah. Some of them would be QQ’ing regardless. ;p

Here’s a tip for the complainers: if you find the most enjoyable thing about the game is complaining on the forum then you’re done with the game. Move on.

That describes my experience with ESO perfectly.

That was me when I left SW:TOR the first time. To come here, actually

Where does this take place? It says there are supposed to be people in the initiative, but I can’t find them.

Dynasty.5127:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Honestly I feel like this is BWE4. There’s no way if they tested this system in betas it wouldn’t have made it to the live game.

I have 8 level 80 characters (welcome my latest revenant) and I tried Druid on my 100% mapped ranger and only was able to unlock half of the spec, making it unplayable. Now I hate the design of the Druid, I think Anet screwed that one up. Since it’s such a chore to unlock it, I won’t bother with the spec.

Does this make sense to anyone? Show us something, let us try it, then release the game with us expecting to be adventuring on our new toys and then tell us we need to complete the content on our old specs to unlock the new one?

How it is unplayable, exactly? You get the heal, and I assume at least one of the skills, plus the staff. You get the specral mode just by fitting the trait line, what else do you need to be able to play it? Not to be able to play it fully, but to be able to play it at all?

Pretty sure it’s playable, you just want the whole thing.

You want to know what isn’t playable until it’s done? Herald, because at least for all the other classes you can fit other skills in until you can get the ones you want. Herald can’t do that at all, so until it’s complete the Glint line is only partially functional.

Many people tried pointing this out, you were to busy being ignorant to them to notice it seems.

No one pointed anything out, because until just today no one actually knew precisely how it would even work. My plan had been to unlock herald then put all my points into the skills, having a completely unfilled trait line isn’t ideal, but it’s not bad if I have the skills to go with it. Now that it’s clear how the system actually works it’s clear that Herald, exclusively, is not entirely functional until all 400 points are spent into it.

Only now, after the information is known to be true is it fair to make that claim. It was clear, though, that Herald was always going to be some amount of a problem because no Revenant could come into the game with any extra points.

This isn’t about Herald, this is about Druid, and all the other elites and anyone claiming that the elite is unplayable because they couldn’t completely fill it out immediately. That is entirely untrue.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Honestly I feel like this is BWE4. There’s no way if they tested this system in betas it wouldn’t have made it to the live game.

I have 8 level 80 characters (welcome my latest revenant) and I tried Druid on my 100% mapped ranger and only was able to unlock half of the spec, making it unplayable. Now I hate the design of the Druid, I think Anet screwed that one up. Since it’s such a chore to unlock it, I won’t bother with the spec.

Does this make sense to anyone? Show us something, let us try it, then release the game with us expecting to be adventuring on our new toys and then tell us we need to complete the content on our old specs to unlock the new one?

How it is unplayable, exactly? You get the heal, and I assume at least one of the skills, plus the staff. You get the specral mode just by fitting the trait line, what else do you need to be able to play it? Not to be able to play it fully, but to be able to play it at all?

Pretty sure it’s playable, you just want the whole thing.

You want to know what isn’t playable until it’s done? Herald, because at least for all the other classes you can fit other skills in until you can get the ones you want. Herald can’t do that at all, so until it’s complete the Glint line is only partially functional.

Ok, now that I know how it works, I have to change my stance. I get it, I totally get the design, but other than my herald none of my characters that I’m making elite will even be using the skills associate with the elite, it’s rather bothersome that I have to unlock them as part of the elite. That in order to get the last trait I actually have to put in the full 400 points, it’s bothersome.

The whole design, at this point, is rather disappointing. Of course, once it’s done, it’s done and doesn’t matter anymore, but it’s still bothersome until then.

That’s actually an interesting idea. Considering the size of Fractals I think it could only be the butt end of the fight. Blast open the Karka nest, fight your way up through the spiral then deal with the boss.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Celtic Lady.3729:

So, I get that elites are supposed to be worked for, endgame content, progression for a char, yada, yada.

If we need to play through the jungle in order to fully use the elite spec, then once the jungle content is done and we’ve got the spec, what content exactly are we supposed to use the elite on? Seems like at this point, everything will have been done until the next expac content….

You get that the content doesn’t go away, right? All of the content in the game is always there, forever.

In HoT even the personal story is replayable completely, including the ability to make different choices.

Yeah, but once the content is done the first time on that particular char, it’s done. Why am I going to do it again? Also, I hadn’t heard that every single part of the new map completions in the jungle were totally repeatable. And again, why would I do that on the same char?

No you’re right. Why would you ever play a character again once you’ve done all the things? I mean, you might as well just delete it and start again, right?

Your question makes no sense.

Celtic Lady.3729:

So, I get that elites are supposed to be worked for, endgame content, progression for a char, yada, yada.

If we need to play through the jungle in order to fully use the elite spec, then once the jungle content is done and we’ve got the spec, what content exactly are we supposed to use the elite on? Seems like at this point, everything will have been done until the next expac content….

You get that the content doesn’t go away, right? All of the content in the game is always there, forever.

In HoT even the personal story is replayable completely, including the ability to make different choices.

So much no. I prepared for HoT too. I made sure that I had the skins and transmutation charges I would need for what I want my Revenant to look like. I made his gear and I collected tomes. I made sure that I could play the character I want from day one.

I also farmed influence for my personal guild by running my alts through the personal story so I could unlock the guild weaponsmith before influence went away. I informed myself so that I wouldn’t be wasting resources. I’m actually annoyed with them now that I know influence will be able to be converted into resources for the new system. If I’d known that I would have kept farming it.

I’ve also been running a handful of alts through hero points in tyria. The fact that Maguuma points equal ten doesn’t change the fact that my alts will have 200+ points available to spend on elites immediately, rather than having to unlock twenty challenges for the same effect.

They could have been a little clearer on how Legendaries would work in the new system, but too bad. None of this was ANet’s fault. They didn’t force your hand, nor compel you do make decisions based on half formed information. You chose to do that all by yourself.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

ArchonWing.9480:

One thing I don’t appreciate is some of the posters being accused of not wanting to “work” and “play the game”, especially when it’s defining “the game” as pve.

The game isn’t just about pve. Hey, let’s make it so that to unlock it, you have to do PvP, WvW, and PvE on every single character. What? You wanted stuff handed to you? Afraid of the challenge?

How many people were complaining about having to do WvW for map completion? And hell, I agreed with not forcing PvE’rs to WvW, because you know I had some degree of respect for their playstyle; unlike a lot of posts in this thread or forum that can’t even seem to think of anyone approaching the game differently. I mean, just look at how many random things people consider to be “exploits”. “Stacking in a dungeon is an exploit, because that’s not how I do it!”

I certainly didn’t appreciate pve elitists condescending to them, especially when the difference was the ability to follow a tag and blob down some enemy keep or pay gems to transfer to a stacked server. Sorry, I’m sure I’m not the only WvW’er that rolls their eyes when people tell their cute stories of getting to that Vista in Overlook. Give me a break. And hey, Anet saw the light there. And they thought of a WvW alternative too, so I’ll definitely credit them with that.

But it’s clear some elitists that think that grinding away in their form of progression is the only way worth playing in the game, and everyone else is entitled and spoiled when arguing that anyone who regularly plays WvW to be entitled to any degree is a horrific joke. Oh, and by the way, hopefully some of you discontent folks will raise a glass for this, but this aint just update content— we paid for this so it isn’t a charity case either.

And as I’ve said before, attacking someone personally, because they don’t want conform to your kitten gamer code is not really relevant to the discussion. I mean please, it’s not a high horse one is riding; we don’t have mounts in this game.

No, we are just entitled, spoiled, kitten brats (yes I did type kitten), that want everything handed to us on silver platters with silver spoons (why silver? Why not gold? Actually make that white gold for me please), while we sit on mounds of cash, never knowing a hardship, never worrying about anything except having to actually play a game.

If someone missed the sarcasm in the above, I’m sorry text doesn’t relay it well, but that is dripping with it so much, that someone on lsd could taste the sarcasm. It is probably bitter.

It’s been said countless times, but I’ll reiterate it: We do not expect, nor do we actually want, to be handed everything and not have to ‘play the game’. I too would say if you don’t want to play the game then why are you here (here as in the game, not the forum as this is obviously not playing gw2, just thought I should also state that). But, based on what Anet implied, many expected to be able to play HoT as the elite spec (and really, only having the minor trait is not what many would consider playing as the elite spec, and sure wasn’t the expectation, but apparently yes, that is what Anet considers it)

Whether you agree with the new legendaries requiring sPvP or not, I’d bet 99% see that as optional, not as a core part of HoT. Elite specs, on the other hand, were a big part of HoT. They were billed as a core part of it. Some people don’t seem to believe this… They should go back and watch the reveal of HoT. Reaper and Druid were made out to be a big deal.

They are a big deal, just not the only deal and also still optional. I for one have no interest in either Reaper nor Druid. My interest in Daredevil is the trait line exclusively, not the weapon nor the skills. My interest in Berzerker is the mechanic more than anything, and for scrapper it’s the weapon and traits. I’m not interested in the skills for any of them, because they’re optional. Only for Herald do I care about the skills.

Being able to get the first minor for Daredevil will tide me over for a long while because it includes an extra dodge, until I can finally get the dodge defining grandmaster major.

And I have no interest in Dragonhunter despite originally liking the idea of a bow on guardian (I feel it is very bad implementation but Anet is known for this x.x and ugh trapper runes) and believe that scrapper needs some serious work on balance as some aspects are far too strong. That doesn’t negate the fact that Anet treated Elite Specs as one of the primary features of HoT.

They also treated Raids and Guild Halls as primary features, because they absolutely are. Yet Raiding is locked behind skill, gear and story progression, while Guild Halls are locked behind resource requirements that will likely make some guilds unable to aquire them for a very long time.

Just because something is a primary feature, or a selling point does not mean it is or should be immediately accessible.

Map completion, so, all of them.

Mandalore.8906:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Mandalore.8906:

While i’m incredibly disappointed in that decision (i only started the game recently, hit 80 a couple of hours ago, and i only chose a necro as my first class because reaper looked so cool) and think that it majorly kittens over the more casual players…. considering you continue to earn hero points by “leveling up” after hitting 80, shouldn’t you people who played a lot over the past few years have thousands of hero points by now?

The system got changed recently. You have only a certain amount these days. A set amount for 1-80 levelling plus each skillpoint challenge. Or hero point challenge since the name change.

I don’t want to disagree with you, but… i’m level 80. My exp bar says 80 on the left, and 80 on the right. The bar says i need 254.000 experience points. I just went over that threshold, the bar resetted, and i went from 76 hero points to 77. And that has happened 5 or 6 times since i hit 80 a couple of hours ago. It’s 254.000 experience points every time, and i get a hero point every time.

Either you’re not paying attention to the Hero Points you’ve been collecting while you play, you’re wrong, you’re lying or you have managed to be the only person somehow running under the old system. I personally suspect it’s the first one, because that’s not how the system works anymore.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

ArchonWing.9480:

One thing I don’t appreciate is some of the posters being accused of not wanting to “work” and “play the game”, especially when it’s defining “the game” as pve.

The game isn’t just about pve. Hey, let’s make it so that to unlock it, you have to do PvP, WvW, and PvE on every single character. What? You wanted stuff handed to you? Afraid of the challenge?

How many people were complaining about having to do WvW for map completion? And hell, I agreed with not forcing PvE’rs to WvW, because you know I had some degree of respect for their playstyle; unlike a lot of posts in this thread or forum that can’t even seem to think of anyone approaching the game differently. I mean, just look at how many random things people consider to be “exploits”. “Stacking in a dungeon is an exploit, because that’s not how I do it!”

I certainly didn’t appreciate pve elitists condescending to them, especially when the difference was the ability to follow a tag and blob down some enemy keep or pay gems to transfer to a stacked server. Sorry, I’m sure I’m not the only WvW’er that rolls their eyes when people tell their cute stories of getting to that Vista in Overlook. Give me a break. And hey, Anet saw the light there. And they thought of a WvW alternative too, so I’ll definitely credit them with that.

But it’s clear some elitists that think that grinding away in their form of progression is the only way worth playing in the game, and everyone else is entitled and spoiled when arguing that anyone who regularly plays WvW to be entitled to any degree is a horrific joke. Oh, and by the way, hopefully some of you discontent folks will raise a glass for this, but this aint just update content— we paid for this so it isn’t a charity case either.

And as I’ve said before, attacking someone personally, because they don’t want conform to your kitten gamer code is not really relevant to the discussion. I mean please, it’s not a high horse one is riding; we don’t have mounts in this game.

No, we are just entitled, spoiled, kitten brats (yes I did type kitten), that want everything handed to us on silver platters with silver spoons (why silver? Why not gold? Actually make that white gold for me please), while we sit on mounds of cash, never knowing a hardship, never worrying about anything except having to actually play a game.

If someone missed the sarcasm in the above, I’m sorry text doesn’t relay it well, but that is dripping with it so much, that someone on lsd could taste the sarcasm. It is probably bitter.

It’s been said countless times, but I’ll reiterate it: We do not expect, nor do we actually want, to be handed everything and not have to ‘play the game’. I too would say if you don’t want to play the game then why are you here (here as in the game, not the forum as this is obviously not playing gw2, just thought I should also state that). But, based on what Anet implied, many expected to be able to play HoT as the elite spec (and really, only having the minor trait is not what many would consider playing as the elite spec, and sure wasn’t the expectation, but apparently yes, that is what Anet considers it)

Whether you agree with the new legendaries requiring sPvP or not, I’d bet 99% see that as optional, not as a core part of HoT. Elite specs, on the other hand, were a big part of HoT. They were billed as a core part of it. Some people don’t seem to believe this… They should go back and watch the reveal of HoT. Reaper and Druid were made out to be a big deal.

They are a big deal, just not the only deal and also still optional. I for one have no interest in either Reaper nor Druid. My interest in Daredevil is the trait line exclusively, not the weapon nor the skills. My interest in Berzerker is the mechanic more than anything, and for scrapper it’s the weapon and traits. I’m not interested in the skills for any of them, because they’re optional. Only for Herald do I care about the skills.

Being able to get the first minor for Daredevil will tide me over for a long while because it includes an extra dodge, until I can finally get the dodge defining grandmaster major.

I haven’t decided if my Rev will do Halloween or my main will for it. I’m thinking my Rev because I really like the idea of the bats on him, but if it’s a shoulder item instead of a back item I don’t think I’ll even use it.

Menadena.7482:

Ranael.6423:

Bettik.4982:

Ranael.6423:

I really can’t feel sorry for those people. Nobody ever said that doing World Completion will grant a big advantage to Espec unlock, ever. People assumed it would and played accordingly.

They did say, “The new system will come to the live game before the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, allowing players to experience the changes to core specializations and stockpile Hero Points for their elite specializations. While elite specializations will be available to everyone who purchases the expansion, the upcoming core specialization changes will affect the base game.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/ready-up-core-specializations-summary/

Yeah I know that article. So yes stockpile…
In fact those who have done so have a 50% advantage on the other, you can have up to half your mastery track unlocked in 18 hours…. not so bad. I don’t see written “… and stockpile Hero Points to fully unlock their elite specialization as soon as the expansion will be released”

It is interesting to hear Colin say world completion was around 200 points (he does not know the #? really?). World completion is 179 points. Yes, I know there are more in the borderlands and such, but they have not been part of world completion for awhile now.

I had figured I would get to 140 or so then do a LFG so a bunch of us could help each other with the challenges we were each unable to solo. I have all of my characters above 100 and my original plans were to have my ones most in need of the new specs to have at least 120 by launch.

Don’t know what world completion you’re going, but I have over 200 points and I’m not even done on my Theif

Smokin Dice.9103:

Ranael.6423:

Smokin Dice.9103:

because YOU CAN DO IT IN 10 MIN!.. but you have to rush through all the contant.. so more then 50% of all people will do that.. and that is BAD.

What?!!! assumptions again ? Ok I should stop caring then

how is that an assumptoin? you get HoT, you go into the jungle, you only do HP, you ignore any other contant in there, you get the elite, done. (repeat 8 times)

thats stupid design in my opinion…

Why are you ignoring everything else? That’s nonsensical. Do the stuff while you unlock HPs. You can start spending those points immediately into your elite spec, so while you’re playing the game, as intended, you are simultaneously unlocking your elite spec options and building your class.

Doesn’t that make a lot more sense?

Have we all basically forgotten how to level up? You don’t just get your stuff all at once while leveling, you build it over time. This is effectively the same thing. As you are progressing through the area you find and complete the challenges gaining more and more access to your new spec.

Smokin Dice.9103:

DoctorDing.5890:

Anyhow, getting back to the point. I fully support the OP’s right to cry about something that the OP considers to be unreasonable, even though it is not unreasonable.

Maybe the devs will see the OP’s endlessly bitter complaining and take the opportunity to spend the remaining 17 hours before launch reworking the whole game to meet the OP’s short-sighted requirements.

it is short sighted yes.. in the long run the system is great.. but in the early week of launch, what 50% of all people will do is ignore all content and farm HP in maguuma instead of ejoying it, because it is possible to do so.. and you want to tell me that this is reasonable design?
I can only say it again, if it was locked behind a story gate I would be fine with it, so I could play and enjoy, but the sole fact that you can rush the content to get it early is why people will do exactly that..
If it is possible people will do it…

And that is their business. Let people play the way they want to. It doesn’t hurt anything if they do that. It’s entirely unnecessary to do it, but people do unnecessary things all the time. It doesn’t mean you have to do it too, they’re not gaining an advantage over anyone by playing that way. I’m certainly not going to do it that way once I’ve had enough of Halloween and actually step into HoT.

Bettik.4982:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Bettik.4982:

PopeUrban.2578:

PvE is absolutely a game mode about characters rather than the person playing them. This isn’t a “roleplaying” standpoint, but a basic fundamental fact of PvE world, encounter, and reward design.

I don’t agree with you here, I’m afraid – all game modes should be about the player – the character is subsidiary – the rewards in a game should be designed around the player account, rather than its transitory characters.

You don’t seem to understand how an RPG works. I’m actually curious what RPG, or MMO works this way because I have never experienced it.

Really? I login to PvE as a Ranger. I earn rewards that contribute to both my character and my account. I go to PvP, I’m now a Druid. I also earn rewards that contribute to both. How is this strange…?

But it’s not ABOUT your account, you earn rewards you are able to put toward your account but your experience is about your character.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Hero Points are a finite commodity, and also associated with world completion. Because of those two reasons alone this will never be a thing.

Two very ugly changes coming with HoT. 1.) World completion is now essentially a pre-req to unlocking your Elite Spec (save me the technical talk on how there are 400 hero point sin HoT, yada, yada… Yes we all know that. But if you want to take a character into HoT with Elite Spec and play with Elite Spec from mission one you’re going to be doing core game world competition. 2.) The concept behind the core specializations was that you unlock the ones you want depend on play style preference. Now it’s so you must unlock all core specializations and max all core specialization trait lines before you can unlock the Elite Spec.

Given these two examples you can see HoT is about taking choices away from the player (e.g. choosing not to unlock elite spec) and imposing much more grind than what we had before (world completion for your alts or grind gor hero challenge points in HoT. Pick your poison)

1) Not true. Completing the Hero Challenges will make it easier to get through your elites, but you can also unlock them by doing HoT content exclusively.

2) Since you can unlock all core specs and skills by leveling to 80 alone, this isn’t even a minor concession, let alone a major one.

Based on this I can see that misinformation remains a strong argument tactic for people who don’t like something with no real justification for why.

Bettik.4982:

PopeUrban.2578:

PvE is absolutely a game mode about characters rather than the person playing them. This isn’t a “roleplaying” standpoint, but a basic fundamental fact of PvE world, encounter, and reward design.

I don’t agree with you here, I’m afraid – all game modes should be about the player – the character is subsidiary – the rewards in a game should be designed around the player account, rather than its transitory characters.

You don’t seem to understand how an RPG works. I’m actually curious what RPG, or MMO works this way because I have never experienced it.

Exciton.8942:

Nausicca.6038:

Exciton.8942:

Nausicca.6038:

fireflyry.7023:

I’ve read some pretty valid and well put points from both sides of the fence, no need to derail it with fictional over-exaggeration and belittlement.

People are already over exaggerating with the HP grind.
Actualy, GW2 is the only MMO that allow you to get your BiS gear BEFORE the expac launch.
No level cap increases. No level locking behind instanced dungeons.
Insta lvl 80 revenant with tomes.

The counterpart is… HP. Consider it as the new XP for your elite spec. What’s wrong with that?

Because it is inherently different from XP prior to 80. You could do pretty much anything you like to earn that XP. This HP requirement forces you to do one thing——map exploration grinding.

So if we need 160 HP to unlock the traits part of our spec… that means 16 challenges. Not 160 or 1600.
16
Where’s the grind again?

Because the requirement is 40HP.

16HP means I probably can do it by exploring two maps. Kinda annoying but still okay.
40HP means I have to it over all 4 maps and there is a large chance that they are located at hard-to-reach positions that require mastery. Then I have to grind mastery and then grind exploration before I can unlock my skills/traits.

40 was if you haven’t done any Hero Challenges. If you want to make a Revenant, tome him to 80 and jump straight into HoT you’ll have to go through 40 challenges to get all of Herald.

DKShang.8792:

Ilharn.6813:

Yep, but you compared the guardians weapon with our “new” utilities…
Traps <-> Dragon
Longbow <-> Shield

I thought you were only joking. The opening post essentially says the Herald should get an arrowhead icon because it more closely represents what, a shield? He is not clear on that point. What he is clear about is that the Dragonhunter should get the dragon icon because they hunt dragons. Fair enough and while that is a valid argument hunting is not the same as channeling. In order to hunt you use a weapon of some sorts; rifle, trap, or bow? Hunting is not the same as channeling which is what the Herald is doing; therefore, I feel the dragon icon is best for Herald. My reply was thematic only. The Dragonhunter gained a bow in order to hunt. The Herald gained a dragon to channel. The opening post and my reply were thematic based, not weapon.

Actually he’s very clear on that point. He said specifically it looks more like a shield, and I agree. I assumed when they were datamined that the dragon would be the dragonhunter, because obviously. I also figured we’d get the shield because the only other elite getting a shield was obviously the clock.

Yes Glint is awesome and so the dragon icon fits in that sense, but I mean Dragon is specifically in the name, Herald does not evoke the image of a dragon, Dragonhunter can’t help but do so.

Chronomancer is getting a shield and wells, but the icon they get is the obvious choice of a clock because it’s what they’re about.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Safari Tank.6238:

Just to clarify, you mention minions, spirits, and turrets, but this does NOT include Ranger pets, correct?

Ranger pets are included.

You’re my hero Roy! You’ve fixed one of the most glaring problems that have been asked for since launch. Thank you.

(I assume you didn’t do it personally, so that’s a plural you for the team)

Bettik.4982:

for open world PvE, that’s fair enough, but even so it should have been clearly communicated to the player base, e.g. “guys, if an existing character has world completion, or more than x hero challenges completed in the open world, then you’ll gain access to the elite specialisation; but you’ll still have to complete y more to fully unlock it because that’s where we’re going with this”.

but it wasn’t.

Yup, this is the big mistake they made. It honestly feels like there was some kind of shift recently, though. Within the past week, and not much further back, there has been a LOT of communication on the forums. It’s possible that until that point they wanted to but were restricted for some reason, then realized suddenly after the restriction was lifted, “Oh crap, we still need to tell them this part.”

Still, a blog post would have been very useful a couple months ago. People gripe about the grind, but if they had the ability to do that “grind” over a couple months they’d be more willing. It also would have been nice to implement that WvW thing before HoT.

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

There is more then enough content (if they get their crap together and release it .. cough raids cough) to keep everyone busy without time gating the Elites. We have Raids, Guild Halls, New Maps (for all modes), Fractals, Legendaries, Adventures, Events, Masteries, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. I don’t see how time gating the Elites is productive, how does it affect anyone if you do it as a Necro or a Reaper for example. If they wanted to do something for elites they should have done a quest line of some sort.

The bottom line is, it hurts nothing to have elites playable, the rest of the content is still the same regardless of which class/spec you are using. There is simply no need and all this has done is divide the community and ticked off a lot of players. This is suppose to be an exciting time for GW2 and instead they have managed to turn it into a witch hunt.

Elites aren’t time gated. If you can do the content in one day then you can have elites in one day. Time gating means that you cannot physically complete the content in less than a predefined period because you can only earn specific amounts toward it ever x period of time.

The need is, that’s how they wanted to do it. I would have preferred a different system too. Not the one everyone else seems to want, but still different than we got. But this is what we got, and there isn’t actually anything wrong with it, it’s just one way to do it. It isn’t wrong, it’s just one way.

This should be an exciting time, and for most of us it is. But ANet didn’t start a witch hunt. That “privilege” lays soully on the player base who deluded themselves into thinking they could just have anything without putting any effort into it. That has never been ANet’s style.

Actually that is your definition of time gating, imo time gating is anything that requires you to put in an excessive/lengthy amount of time. If you would have read my full post or any of my other posts for that matter you would have noted I’m not asking it to be handed to us with no strings attached. I would be ok with a small story line quest to unlock it, I would be ok with a realistic amount of HP, I’m not ok with either being forced into the jungle for the quickest method which still won’t be quick, I’m not ok with that slap in the face of an option for WvW players that is completely unrealistic.

Once again, just because Anet slapped the word Elite onto it doesn’t make it Elite. They themselves have stated multiple times that it is not meant to over shadow the core specs it is simply an optional addition.

No, that’s what a time gate is. You can make up whatever definition you want for whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it so.

Again that is your definition of time gate, feel free to look it up and see the NUMEROUS different definitions. I’ll help you out, most of it has to do with Electronics or Time/Space. Saying I can make up whatever definition I want is pretty hypocritical.

Always as “Random” as ever. Within the context of game systems there is very definitely a universally accepted form of the term time gating. Ascended gear is a time gate because you can only make one thread of each type a day. Celestial is a time gate because you can only charge one crystal a day. Laurels are time gated. Guild missions are time gated.

You see the gate is an insurmountable barrier. Gear gating is called such because you are physically incapable of completing the content if your gear isn’t good enough. It doesn’t matter what your skill level is. Level gating prevents you from even attempting content if you’re not high enough level.

Elites are gated in that you cannot even start in on them until you’ve completed all of the other lines. But, once you have unlocked them they are no longer gated in any way but your personal ability and willingness to complete content. It’s not a hard lock, though, so it’s not gated. Perhaps you understand now.

There’s nothing to understand, you’re fabricating a definition that suits what you want to hear or bolsters your argument. I’m sorry if you don’t like people to disagree and point out the flaws, but unfortunately your definition is no more valid then mine. I’m not saying you are wrong and I am right (as you seem to be trying to do) I’m saying because there is no hard definition in this case of Time Gate neither one of us are wrong or right, it’s open to interpretation. Just accept that because you decide something means one thing doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the absolute truth.

Perhaps now you can understand ?

You’re failing to understand and just posting gibberish. This isn’t pointing out flaws, it’s blatantly hiding from facts even when they’re explained to you. You don’t understand the term, you refuse to understand the term, and you actively choose to deny it. Fine. But you’re wrong.

You see I could answer you with the exact same comment. Seeing as how you need that ego stroked though I’ll just go ahead and say, sure, you are always right and everyone who does not agree is always wrong. There you go sport, now you can sleep at night.

I have a challenge for you. Go into game, now or your next earliest convenience, and ask in absolutely any zone, “What is Time Gating?” The answer you will get is the one I described to you. Go into any MMO and any zone and ask, “What is Time Gating?” The answer you will get is the one I described to you.

This is a universally accepted term within the context of gaming systems, not because I want it to be, nor demand it to be, but because it is. I don’t have an ego on this, I just can’t abide people using terms improperly when I can educate them. This is why I say you actively choose to deny it, because I have educated you and yet you continue to claim otherwise.

Hero Points are a finite commodity, and also associated with world completion. Because of those two reasons alone this will never be a thing.

PopeUrban.2578:

Sytherek.7689:

PopeUrban.2578:

Sytherek.7689:

Menadena.7482:

fireflyry.7023:

I’m on the fence with this one but Anet does itself no favors with it’s BWE’s and using this as a selling point for pre-purchase. To me this is the catalyst of much of this complaint and I’m still of the opinion beta testing should be done by beta testers, not used as a sales pitch to customers.

I’ve played a fair few games where at the starting level your a fully kitted out uber-beast of death slaying everything in sight in some huge awe-inspiring battle with all skills unlocked and all weapons blazing full bore. Wahoo this game is friggin amazing!!!

end flashback/dream sequence

You wake up at level one naked holding a wet noodle realizing it will be a LONG time before you feel that way again.

From what I can garner this is exactly what has happened here with giving players everything for nothing to play with, then taking it away. Sure might work ok in an offline RPG but in this genre it just seems to kitten a lot of people off.

It is the same reason (although partly in reverse) of why I skipped most of the BWE content. I wanted to be surprised by the new stuff and I knew I would be getting a good chunk of it after paying $100 for the kittening thing. Not only would I be seeing all the content, but it would be ready for prime time. Now I wish I had done as much of the beta events as I could because I will not see the things I had a taste of for a VERY long time. Especially on all my characters. Oh well, at least I get to play with the revenant specs.

Like someone else said earlier, there is not a match between what new specs I was looking forward to the most with what existing specs I like. In fact, the new spec I like the most is on a spec I loathe and hoped it would reinvigorate the profession. What is the point of my first HOT experience being with a profession I can not stand? I would think they would want people to have as good an impression of the jungle as possible.

Exactly. For me, the new Reaper spec looks fun for my languishing necro. I was looking forward to playing her again with the Reaper’s skills and traits.

But because I wasn’t happy with her existing specs, I never did world completion on her, and she has few hero points. So I’m forced to play her thru HoT with a spec I don’t like to get what I was looking forward to. Where’s the fun in that?

Now, on my mesmer, I like her current spec, like Chronomancer, and have 133 hero points. She might be fun in HoT as I earn hero points.

Funny thing about my Ranger main — she is my only character with World completion, and I have no interest in Druid. I’ll spend the points because they’re there, maybe get a skin.

My other characters are so far behind, I probably won’t play them. My poor engineer has almost no hero points, and like my necro, I was hoping to jump right into the Elite spec.

So I think I’ll be playing my mesmer, if I play at all. At this point, I’m actively looking for a new game.

That’s unfortunate, but the whole point of the system is to add depth and options to characters people, presumably, already like rather than replace characters they hate.

The addition of the revnant is the intended “replacement character”

Like, I see what you’re getting at, but it’s a bit like complaining that characters suck at level 1 and are more fun to play at 80.

If you don’t like the game, that’s a valid opinion, but the whole idea was to add progression similar to new secondary classes and skill trainers in GW1. Obviously if you don’t like necro, and like the reaper, it may be a pain, but it’s highly unlikely you’d be a fan of anything post-reaper as you don’t actually like the class as a class, right?

No, I love the pre-HoT necromancer concept and design. I don’t like how weak it is in so many ways. Reaper fixes that problem. I like the class as it’s being updated.

Consider this… I love my Ranger main, and have 0 interest in the druid. So the 214 hero points I have sitting on her is a waste.

Now, If ANET gave me a way to transfer hero points between characters, I’d be happie r. I did the work, just on the wrong character (years ago).

Not really a waste, think of it as a bank. Knowing you don’t want druid means you have those points in the bank for the next e-spec, right? Maybe a petless ranger spec if we’re lucky!

This is the only reasonable way to look at this. I like my pets, but that’s neither here nor there.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Those same people who screamed will end up defending the system in another half a year if anything comes up to change it.

The only reason to defend a system that you disagree with, is because it’s the lesser of 2 evils. That is the only reason you’d see me defend it in a year.

Welcome to the forums. I applaud your current lack of cynicism.

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

There is more then enough content (if they get their crap together and release it .. cough raids cough) to keep everyone busy without time gating the Elites. We have Raids, Guild Halls, New Maps (for all modes), Fractals, Legendaries, Adventures, Events, Masteries, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. I don’t see how time gating the Elites is productive, how does it affect anyone if you do it as a Necro or a Reaper for example. If they wanted to do something for elites they should have done a quest line of some sort.

The bottom line is, it hurts nothing to have elites playable, the rest of the content is still the same regardless of which class/spec you are using. There is simply no need and all this has done is divide the community and ticked off a lot of players. This is suppose to be an exciting time for GW2 and instead they have managed to turn it into a witch hunt.

Elites aren’t time gated. If you can do the content in one day then you can have elites in one day. Time gating means that you cannot physically complete the content in less than a predefined period because you can only earn specific amounts toward it ever x period of time.

The need is, that’s how they wanted to do it. I would have preferred a different system too. Not the one everyone else seems to want, but still different than we got. But this is what we got, and there isn’t actually anything wrong with it, it’s just one way to do it. It isn’t wrong, it’s just one way.

This should be an exciting time, and for most of us it is. But ANet didn’t start a witch hunt. That “privilege” lays soully on the player base who deluded themselves into thinking they could just have anything without putting any effort into it. That has never been ANet’s style.

Actually that is your definition of time gating, imo time gating is anything that requires you to put in an excessive/lengthy amount of time. If you would have read my full post or any of my other posts for that matter you would have noted I’m not asking it to be handed to us with no strings attached. I would be ok with a small story line quest to unlock it, I would be ok with a realistic amount of HP, I’m not ok with either being forced into the jungle for the quickest method which still won’t be quick, I’m not ok with that slap in the face of an option for WvW players that is completely unrealistic.

Once again, just because Anet slapped the word Elite onto it doesn’t make it Elite. They themselves have stated multiple times that it is not meant to over shadow the core specs it is simply an optional addition.

No, that’s what a time gate is. You can make up whatever definition you want for whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it so.

Again that is your definition of time gate, feel free to look it up and see the NUMEROUS different definitions. I’ll help you out, most of it has to do with Electronics or Time/Space. Saying I can make up whatever definition I want is pretty hypocritical.

Always as “Random” as ever. Within the context of game systems there is very definitely a universally accepted form of the term time gating. Ascended gear is a time gate because you can only make one thread of each type a day. Celestial is a time gate because you can only charge one crystal a day. Laurels are time gated. Guild missions are time gated.

You see the gate is an insurmountable barrier. Gear gating is called such because you are physically incapable of completing the content if your gear isn’t good enough. It doesn’t matter what your skill level is. Level gating prevents you from even attempting content if you’re not high enough level.

Elites are gated in that you cannot even start in on them until you’ve completed all of the other lines. But, once you have unlocked them they are no longer gated in any way but your personal ability and willingness to complete content. It’s not a hard lock, though, so it’s not gated. Perhaps you understand now.

There’s nothing to understand, you’re fabricating a definition that suits what you want to hear or bolsters your argument. I’m sorry if you don’t like people to disagree and point out the flaws, but unfortunately your definition is no more valid then mine. I’m not saying you are wrong and I am right (as you seem to be trying to do) I’m saying because there is no hard definition in this case of Time Gate neither one of us are wrong or right, it’s open to interpretation. Just accept that because you decide something means one thing doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the absolute truth.

Perhaps now you can understand ?

You’re failing to understand and just posting gibberish. This isn’t pointing out flaws, it’s blatantly hiding from facts even when they’re explained to you. You don’t understand the term, you refuse to understand the term, and you actively choose to deny it. Fine. But you’re wrong.

fireflyry.7023:

Kal Spiro.9745:

You didn’t lose Hero points, that’s physically impossible. You have as many and no more as anyone else who did the content. Hero Points are a finite commodity.

That’s exactly the point. They are finite.

Where was it said that poster “lost” points?Pretty sure I read it was complaint on the points being mis-spent when compared to players who have known about this for longer and as such have saved their points more appropriately to avoid the HP cap and subsequent forcing of having to play through HoT content straight away when maybe they would rather not.

Seems a fair call.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

WRONG. Veteran GW2 players who have spent most of their time on a main who played the game 3-6 months after lunch, left and came back in the past six months are also getting burned on this. Many of us used our hero points for crafting purposes back in 2012-2013. While we were gone ArenaNet changed a lot of things. We came back to find we have few hero points (still) but not only that some of our core specializations that we unlocked are now locked again and have to be re-opened with hero points. With hero challenges tapped out our only option is to take our character into HoT and work though 1/2 the game of HoT to be able to obtain the level of mastery needed to even get to those first 20 hero challenges and unlock the full trait line.

According to this he is claiming that people left and came back, apparently with level 80 and 100% skill points completed, to be unable to unlock things. Which is 100% false. All trait lines and skills could be 100% unlocked from being 80. No one lost more points than were owed them for being 80 plus whatever skill points they have. Therefore anyone in this situation, regardless of when they left or came back will be in a good position right now to partially unlock their elite on day one.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Where are you inventing this time from? In just two hours I unlocked half the HPs on the main continent, including all the ones in Orr. It isn’t going to take that nearly as long as people seem to be attributing to this process.

Burning through old content we have all played a thousand times is avoiding the issue.

No, it’s a question of time. The statement was that it would take multiple months to do it with 8 hours a week, and that’s simply not true.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Actually people have reasons for not minding the design, and people have questionable reasons for disliking, and there is no reason for ANet to step in because in two days it will be too late, and in one month everyone will forget all about it just like always happens. Usually because they’ve realized all their complaints were unfounded.

That’s an overly defeatist attitude unless your saying Anet has never ever ever changed a thing in this game based on customer feedback and are totally infallible.

It’s neither defeatist, nor claiming infallibility. ANet has changed their mind. But rarely, and not two days before release of the content. This is simply an observation from someone who has been frequenting the forums for the three plus years this game has been out. People scream bloody murder over things they have decided will ruin their lives without even having the opportunity to test that theory. Then the thing falls and a month later no one is complaining about it anymore because they’ve gotten used to it, realized it’s not so bad, and in some cases realize it’s better than the way they thought. Those same people who screamed will end up defending the system in another half a year if anything comes up to change it.

gavyne.6847:

For me personally, I don’t like it. I suspect I’ll do it for my necro because I really enjoyed Reaper over the beta weekends. But I won’t be unlocking elite specs for the rest of my 11 characters, because it’s simply not fun to do it 12 times.

Prior to Colin’s clarification post, here I was hoping I could access these new elite builds, which would’ve given me the incentives to actually play the new expansion content on various of my alts and classes. Because hey, at least I’ll be playing different builds other than the same classes I’ve played for the past 3 years. Forcing me to have to grind on the same classes I grew tired of playing just to unlock the fun new elite specs, that’s a terrible design decision in my opinion.

It’ll be a design decision proved to actually burn people out faster, it’ll make people not as happy playing in the new expansion, and in turn when players aren’t as happy they don’t spend as much money in the game. I see nobody winning if they keep the design.

All people are asking for is to be able to access the elite specs, so they can play in the new expansion as these elite specs. It’ll at least be something different and fun to do, playing characters that function a bit differently than the same ‘ol same ’ol classes of the past 3 years. Nobody’s asking for anything else handed to them, as there are plenty of things to do outside of elite specs, plenty of things to grind and spend time on, in all game modes.

I was hoping we would have to do something in HoT to unlock the elites, probably each elite, possibly a mastery, but once unlocked they would be account wide and would function the same as any other trait line. That way it would be possible to start a new character with the intention of having them level as that elite. I find this decision disappointing. Not necessarily bad, just disappointing. It doesn’t incentivise me to level my way through content but rather to just auto 80 any character I might want to run as an Elite.

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

There is more then enough content (if they get their crap together and release it .. cough raids cough) to keep everyone busy without time gating the Elites. We have Raids, Guild Halls, New Maps (for all modes), Fractals, Legendaries, Adventures, Events, Masteries, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. I don’t see how time gating the Elites is productive, how does it affect anyone if you do it as a Necro or a Reaper for example. If they wanted to do something for elites they should have done a quest line of some sort.

The bottom line is, it hurts nothing to have elites playable, the rest of the content is still the same regardless of which class/spec you are using. There is simply no need and all this has done is divide the community and ticked off a lot of players. This is suppose to be an exciting time for GW2 and instead they have managed to turn it into a witch hunt.

Elites aren’t time gated. If you can do the content in one day then you can have elites in one day. Time gating means that you cannot physically complete the content in less than a predefined period because you can only earn specific amounts toward it ever x period of time.

The need is, that’s how they wanted to do it. I would have preferred a different system too. Not the one everyone else seems to want, but still different than we got. But this is what we got, and there isn’t actually anything wrong with it, it’s just one way to do it. It isn’t wrong, it’s just one way.

This should be an exciting time, and for most of us it is. But ANet didn’t start a witch hunt. That “privilege” lays soully on the player base who deluded themselves into thinking they could just have anything without putting any effort into it. That has never been ANet’s style.

Actually that is your definition of time gating, imo time gating is anything that requires you to put in an excessive/lengthy amount of time. If you would have read my full post or any of my other posts for that matter you would have noted I’m not asking it to be handed to us with no strings attached. I would be ok with a small story line quest to unlock it, I would be ok with a realistic amount of HP, I’m not ok with either being forced into the jungle for the quickest method which still won’t be quick, I’m not ok with that slap in the face of an option for WvW players that is completely unrealistic.

Once again, just because Anet slapped the word Elite onto it doesn’t make it Elite. They themselves have stated multiple times that it is not meant to over shadow the core specs it is simply an optional addition.

No, that’s what a time gate is. You can make up whatever definition you want for whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it so.

Again that is your definition of time gate, feel free to look it up and see the NUMEROUS different definitions. I’ll help you out, most of it has to do with Electronics or Time/Space. Saying I can make up whatever definition I want is pretty hypocritical.

Always as “Random” as ever. Within the context of game systems there is very definitely a universally accepted form of the term time gating. Ascended gear is a time gate because you can only make one thread of each type a day. Celestial is a time gate because you can only charge one crystal a day. Laurels are time gated. Guild missions are time gated.

You see the gate is an insurmountable barrier. Gear gating is called such because you are physically incapable of completing the content if your gear isn’t good enough. It doesn’t matter what your skill level is. Level gating prevents you from even attempting content if you’re not high enough level.

Elites are gated in that you cannot even start in on them until you’ve completed all of the other lines. But, once you have unlocked them they are no longer gated in any way but your personal ability and willingness to complete content. It’s not a hard lock, though, so it’s not gated. Perhaps you understand now.

gavyne.6847:

Kal Spiro.9745:

gavyne.6847:

All the arguments have been heard and rehashed for many pages now. He said, she said, I disagree, you disagree, blah blah blah. There are clearly 2 sides of the camp and nobody’s going to change anybody’s minds here. People have their reasons for liking this design, just as people have very good reasons for not liking this design. Time for Anet to step in and comment again in my opinion.

Actually people have reasons for not minding the design, and people have questionable reasons for disliking, and there is no reason for ANet to step in because in two days it will be too late, and in one month everyone will forget all about it just like always happens. Usually because they’ve realized all their complaints were unfounded.

You are clearing in one camp and like I said, you have your opinions and you aren’t changing your opinions no matter how good other people’s reasons are. You see their reasons as “questionable”, ever think they see your reasoning as questionable as well?

Still just back & forth, like politics, so pointless by now as it’s just rehashes of the same things said within the first 5 pages of Colin’s post.

Oh, I would absolutely change my mind, and have, for arguments that can’t be broken down to , “Because I wanna.” That isn’t the case here. So no, I wouldn’t change my mind for terrible arguments.

Black Box.9312:

PopeUrban.2578:

Black Box.9312:

PopeUrban.2578:

They have been posting this stuff in blogs for months dude.

They’re not devaluing existing content. They’re setting a precedent for elite specs as relevant to content

An elite spec cost 400 hero points. This is a hard number we know now. This is an inherant part of that system. HoT challenges grant 10 because they wanted to ensure people could actually play nothing but HoT to gain them.

Of course it isn’t designed to allow you to entirely skip progression in new maps. That would be ridiculous. People would literally be saying “why would I waste my time doing hero challenges that don’t give me anything?” and the thread would be just as long and angst ridden as this one.

In stead they built a system in which mastering all of the optional core points means you can skip half of the new ones. Moving forward, you’ll likely see that system continue. You will never have enough hero points to instantly unlock an elite spec, but you’ll always have options in terms of how much of the content you want to do.

Like core world completion because it’s easy and there are more zones? Fantastic! That means you can skip half of the HoT challenges.

Don’t like the first elite spec? FANTASTIC save your ero points for the next one.

Making a comparison between the value of core content and HoT in terms of character progression is simply flawed thinking. Core content is intentionally unchanged, it is intentionally easier, and it is intentionally paced for leveling first and world completion as a secondary goal. HoT, and all content going forward is specifically built, progression wise, around the elite spec system.

Core specs aren’t considered optional. They’re considered “mastering your core class”

Elite specs, however, are optional and exclusive to one another

If you’re mad about devaluing old content, why aren’t you mad that taking an elite spec makes you drop a trait line? Why aren’t you mad every time they release another stat set for gear? Will you be mad when the next elite spec releases and you have to choose between them?

Having ten point challenges do nothing to devalue old content. You need to be 80 to get in to the jungle. If you’re 80, you have your core specs completed. now you can choose to do a lot of simple challenges, a lesser number of harder ones, or a mixture between the two. The entire system is designed so that the core content retains value by making sure all those extra hero point actually do something for you character besides being traded to miyani.

A HoT hero challenge is worth 10 points. A base-game hero challenge is worth 1 point. For anyone who hasn’t already completed the existing challenges, they serve absolutely no purpose. Why waste your time doing things for 1 point, when you can just go to the jungle and do things for 10 points? “Devaluing” doesn’t get any more black and white than that.

Again, because those points never existed primarily for progression purposes in the first place

Again

Core hero challenges are explicitly designed as optional objectives,supplemental to leveling

HoT hero challenges are explicitly designed as required objectives, to completely replace skill gains through leveling with skill gains through challenge completion

They have two different values for exactly this reason.

They’re not devalued, they were already of less value in the first place

Please explain, given your above argument, how exactly this is different from a gear treadmill dungeon series that requires a set of gear from one dungeon in order to complete the next, and is purely sequenced from a “first” dungeon to a “last” dungeon.

Your question doesn’t make any sense. You need the hero points to use the knew specialization, NOT to do any content within the new zones.

A gear treadmill is designed specifically to be able to complete content, only.

gavyne.6847:

All the arguments have been heard and rehashed for many pages now. He said, she said, I disagree, you disagree, blah blah blah. There are clearly 2 sides of the camp and nobody’s going to change anybody’s minds here. People have their reasons for liking this design, just as people have very good reasons for not liking this design. Time for Anet to step in and comment again in my opinion.

Actually people have reasons for not minding the design, and people have questionable reasons for disliking, and there is no reason for ANet to step in because in two days it will be too late, and in one month everyone will forget all about it just like always happens. Usually because they’ve realized all their complaints were unfounded.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Agemnon.4608:

Farming, time, and effort aren’t the problem, ludicrous amounts of it are.

I see this phrase popping up over and over. Could someone define for me very specifically what constitutes ludicrous? Cause I’ve been reading the same things you have and I have not seen anything that I could define as ludicrous. Some of this will take a fair amount of time, which is GOOD, because more time spent unlocking things means more time with the content, and not burning through it all in a week and then wondering why there isn’t more to do.

Even with that, I’m pretty certain some people will accomplish 100% Elites on day one. They may not accomplish anything else, but they’ll have that.

The only people this seems to hurt are the people with way too many characters, of which they need all to have elites, for some reason. I’ve got 13 characters, about, one doesn’t exist yet, but will in a couple days. Of those, though, I only plan on getting elites for 4, one of which can definitely wait until much later to go through the process.

If for some reason I absolutely needed all 13 characters to be elites, that would be a problem, but that would still only be a problem for me for having such an unruly number of characters. It’s not ANet’s fault nor problem. If it takes x amount of time to get the thing, then it should absolutely take x times the number of characters you want to up to elites in order to do that. That’s completely reasonable.

WRONG. Veteran GW2 players who have spent most of their time on a main who played the game 3-6 months after lunch, left and came back in the past six months are also getting burned on this. Many of us used our hero points for crafting purposes back in 2012-2013. While we were gone ArenaNet changed a lot of things. We came back to find we have few hero points (still) but not only that some of our core specializations that we unlocked are now locked again and have to be re-opened with hero points. With hero challenges tapped out our only option is to take our character into HoT and work though 1/2 the game of HoT to be able to obtain the level of mastery needed to even get to those first 20 hero challenges and unlock the full trait line.

The answer is to roll a Revenant and enjoy it’s new play mechanics or to just stick with the PvP side of the game and pretend the new PvE maps don’t exist. Earn the hero points in WvW over time and once you have them all continue on with the HoT story from the beginning so you can experience it as your Elite Spec. This is how you compensate for their incredibly poor, unforgivable design which shows no respect to vertran players or to the casual players who have been using the gem store as a way to compensate for not being able to play as much as some of the hardcore crowd, but still enjoy the game on the same level. It’s very sad that they are doing away with that aspect of the game. There is no way to advance your hero points through gem store purchase so they are forcing all of us to grind content. This is a huge paradigm shift as given enough gold even the casual player committing only 8 hours a week could still buy a legendary (if they were going to force grind for anything they should have done it for legendariles not something that is a core play mechanic, see how kitten backwards this is?). The difference is someone who can only commit maybe 8 hours a week to play will end up spending months to be able to enjoy their Elite Spec in PvE. Whoever at ArenaNet made this decision made a very, very poor decisions.

You didn’t lose Hero points, that’s physically impossible. You have as many and no more as anyone else who did the content. Hero Points are a finite commodity.

Where are you inventing this time from? In just two hours I unlocked half the HPs on the main continent, including all the ones in Orr. It isn’t going to take that nearly as long as people seem to be attributing to this process.

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

There is more then enough content (if they get their crap together and release it .. cough raids cough) to keep everyone busy without time gating the Elites. We have Raids, Guild Halls, New Maps (for all modes), Fractals, Legendaries, Adventures, Events, Masteries, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. I don’t see how time gating the Elites is productive, how does it affect anyone if you do it as a Necro or a Reaper for example. If they wanted to do something for elites they should have done a quest line of some sort.

The bottom line is, it hurts nothing to have elites playable, the rest of the content is still the same regardless of which class/spec you are using. There is simply no need and all this has done is divide the community and ticked off a lot of players. This is suppose to be an exciting time for GW2 and instead they have managed to turn it into a witch hunt.

Elites aren’t time gated. If you can do the content in one day then you can have elites in one day. Time gating means that you cannot physically complete the content in less than a predefined period because you can only earn specific amounts toward it ever x period of time.

The need is, that’s how they wanted to do it. I would have preferred a different system too. Not the one everyone else seems to want, but still different than we got. But this is what we got, and there isn’t actually anything wrong with it, it’s just one way to do it. It isn’t wrong, it’s just one way.

This should be an exciting time, and for most of us it is. But ANet didn’t start a witch hunt. That “privilege” lays soully on the player base who deluded themselves into thinking they could just have anything without putting any effort into it. That has never been ANet’s style.

Actually that is your definition of time gating, imo time gating is anything that requires you to put in an excessive/lengthy amount of time. If you would have read my full post or any of my other posts for that matter you would have noted I’m not asking it to be handed to us with no strings attached. I would be ok with a small story line quest to unlock it, I would be ok with a realistic amount of HP, I’m not ok with either being forced into the jungle for the quickest method which still won’t be quick, I’m not ok with that slap in the face of an option for WvW players that is completely unrealistic.

Once again, just because Anet slapped the word Elite onto it doesn’t make it Elite. They themselves have stated multiple times that it is not meant to over shadow the core specs it is simply an optional addition.

No, that’s what a time gate is. You can make up whatever definition you want for whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it so.

The only thing ANet did wrong was not making clear what the requirements for the Elite would be sooner so that we would know which characters to rush through hero points on before HoT. But only finding out three days before launch it’s more of an annoyance than anything.

I could definitely have had my three characters ready. Of course, I could have done that six months ago when HP requirements were first being discussed, but I didn’t know at the time which elites I might want.

Black Box.9312:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Agemnon.4608:

Farming, time, and effort aren’t the problem, ludicrous amounts of it are.

I see this phrase popping up over and over. Could someone define for me very specifically what constitutes ludicrous? Cause I’ve been reading the same things you have and I have not seen anything that I could define as ludicrous. Some of this will take a fair amount of time, which is GOOD, because more time spent unlocking things means more time with the content, and not burning through it all in a week and then wondering why there isn’t more to do.

Even with that, I’m pretty certain some people will accomplish 100% Elites on day one. They may not accomplish anything else, but they’ll have that.

The only people this seems to hurt are the people with way too many characters, of which they need all to have elites, for some reason. I’ve got 13 characters, about, one doesn’t exist yet, but will in a couple days. Of those, though, I only plan on getting elites for 4, one of which can definitely wait until much later to go through the process.

If for some reason I absolutely needed all 13 characters to be elites, that would be a problem, but that would still only be a problem for me for having such an unruly number of characters. It’s not ANet’s fault nor problem. If it takes x amount of time to get the thing, then it should absolutely take x times the number of characters you want to up to elites in order to do that. That’s completely reasonable.

Gating elite specs does not add value to the content. The new content was going to be present either way, and the people who wanted to do it were going to do it regardless. The only thing this has accomplished is that players now feel pressured to complete the content faster without getting to play through it with the elite spec that they want in the first place.

This does not add time and value to content that was going to be played regardless.

That “pressure” is an illusion invented by yourself, not by what ANet did.

Random.4691:

There is more then enough content (if they get their crap together and release it .. cough raids cough) to keep everyone busy without time gating the Elites. We have Raids, Guild Halls, New Maps (for all modes), Fractals, Legendaries, Adventures, Events, Masteries, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. I don’t see how time gating the Elites is productive, how does it affect anyone if you do it as a Necro or a Reaper for example. If they wanted to do something for elites they should have done a quest line of some sort.

The bottom line is, it hurts nothing to have elites playable, the rest of the content is still the same regardless of which class/spec you are using. There is simply no need and all this has done is divide the community and ticked off a lot of players. This is suppose to be an exciting time for GW2 and instead they have managed to turn it into a witch hunt.

Elites aren’t time gated. If you can do the content in one day then you can have elites in one day. Time gating means that you cannot physically complete the content in less than a predefined period because you can only earn specific amounts toward it ever x period of time.

The need is, that’s how they wanted to do it. I would have preferred a different system too. Not the one everyone else seems to want, but still different than we got. But this is what we got, and there isn’t actually anything wrong with it, it’s just one way to do it. It isn’t wrong, it’s just one way.

This should be an exciting time, and for most of us it is. But ANet didn’t start a witch hunt. That “privilege” lays soully on the player base who deluded themselves into thinking they could just have anything without putting any effort into it. That has never been ANet’s style.

Agemnon.4608:

Farming, time, and effort aren’t the problem, ludicrous amounts of it are.

I see this phrase popping up over and over. Could someone define for me very specifically what constitutes ludicrous? Cause I’ve been reading the same things you have and I have not seen anything that I could define as ludicrous. Some of this will take a fair amount of time, which is GOOD, because more time spent unlocking things means more time with the content, and not burning through it all in a week and then wondering why there isn’t more to do.

Even with that, I’m pretty certain some people will accomplish 100% Elites on day one. They may not accomplish anything else, but they’ll have that.

The only people this seems to hurt are the people with way too many characters, of which they need all to have elites, for some reason. I’ve got 13 characters, about, one doesn’t exist yet, but will in a couple days. Of those, though, I only plan on getting elites for 4, one of which can definitely wait until much later to go through the process.

If for some reason I absolutely needed all 13 characters to be elites, that would be a problem, but that would still only be a problem for me for having such an unruly number of characters. It’s not ANet’s fault nor problem. If it takes x amount of time to get the thing, then it should absolutely take x times the number of characters you want to up to elites in order to do that. That’s completely reasonable.

Those chests include a small amount of XP along with whatever rewards. It has nothing to do with map completion directly.

If you want to complete a map and then open the chest in HoT for masteries, you’re welcome to, I guess.

It absolutely will not work retroactively because you’ve already earned that xp.

Ranatoa.4869:

Would you prefer they lock being able to use the specialization at all behind masteries and other content? That’s how it was supposed to be, in their original plans you would need to be level 80 and have done all the hero challenges in Tyria to be able to fully unlock the core class. People complained that it was too much work so they made so that you could unlock everything by being level 80. Then people complained that they were forced to play PvE to unlock elite specs so we got a method of doing so through WvW. Now we are complaining that we only get access to half the elite specializations within seconds after launch? Quite frankly Anet should stick to their guns on this one because if they just hand over everything then what’s the point? I completely expected I would have to make some progress through HoT before I could even start unlocking the elite specializations so this is a bonus as far as I’m concerned.

I for one would like elites to be locked behind masteries, because masteries are account bound. But that’s me.

I won’t have any of this on day one anyway since I’ll be doing halloween.

Seera.5916:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Seera.5916:

Halvorn.9831:

Seera.5916:

Halvorn.9831:

Tasao.4623:

Core gameplay should NOT be gated behind a grind.

What are you even talking about? In the core game, don’t you have to level to 80 in order to go to cursed shores? So cursed shores is gated behind a grind as well, isn’kitten

Nope, you can take a low level into Cursed Shore. The boundary doesn’t require you to be level 80.

…and be one-hit by rabbits running around there. Come on, you understand, what I want to say.

There are tomes one can use to bypass leveling if you’re a vet and don’t want to grind out to level 80.

There isn’t going to be anything like that for hero points.

Actually there is. It’s in WvW.

Which I’ve heard is going to be a grind to get so you can’t really bypass the grind that way.

I have no intention of doing it. I’m just saying that’s a thing. I’m just going to run HPs on the handful of characters I want to have elites.

It is by no means a grind. It is repetition, but each repetition is guaranteed to get the exact outcome I’m looking for.

Random.4691:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Random.4691:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s 40 hero challenges within HoT. Even less if you currently have excess hero points. Not a big deal…

No it’s not a big deal to you, it’s a rather large deal to everyone who disagrees, which is the majority. (at least in the forum world)

Hey look, Random is making up random stats. That’s not actually random at all, and is to be entirely expected.

Is it, I’ll invite you to go count the negative posts vs the positive posts over in that angry thread. Good Luck have fun, consider it practice for farming those HP.

Wow, post counts, meaningful… wait, no it’s not.

Also, I don’t farm HPs, I just do them, or I don’t.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Here is my take on it… for all intents and purposes originally Anet made it sound as if we would get to use elites day 1. Then they said unlock via HP… then silence. NO ONE could have imagined the staggering 400 HP number that got bomb shelled on us today. Counterpoints have been it’s just 40 HP in Maguuma… How many of those you think are locked behind masteries? It could ve a couple of weeks if not more before some people get to play the elites they thought they paid for.

ANet did no such thing. They said Elites are a thing. -how do we get them? We’re changing skill points into hero points, but you won’t be able to fully spec out with HP from leveling, you’ll need to earn the rest by doing the ones in the world. Then you need to do HPs in HoT to get the stuff for elites. -we don’t want to. Ok fine, you can have a full spec from just leveling, but you’ll still have to do HoT stuff to get elites. -COOL, we get to be fully decked out and elite just by leveling to 80! crickets

That’s pretty much how that went. I know it can be hard to remember conversations from half a year ago, but that was the information we actually got.