Guild Wars 2

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

Nahhhh. Might as well add “Level immediately to 80!” and “Unlock World Completion!” and “Five Full Sets of Ascended Armor and Weapons: Fully Outfit Your Default 5 Character Slots!” to the gem store. And these are all clearly “pay to win” or rather “pay to not play”

The only thing I agree with is LanfearShadowflame’s point, which builds directly off of something in GW1

This is the point of disagreement that divides player son this issue. Some of you really believe the Elite Spec is something that should be worked for and essentially gifted at or near the end of HoT for players who have no pre expansion hero point prep. Some of us believe the Elite Specification should be a feature of the expanshion and it’s play mechanic a major part of our play experience though the game not some near end game reward for our hard work. The elite skins and weapon mods you should have to work for and can come near end game. The core play mechanics of the Elite spec you should not hsve to work though 70% of the expansion just be able to have full trait unlock so you can make a viable build.

There are things you work for in games (Mastery’s already gives us those) and there are things you should be given as part of the new play mechanics to make the expansion feel new. Elite Specs fall into the later category.

Swagger.1459:

Full elite unlock- 4000 gems

You’re welcome devs and players for this awesome idea!!!

Something a bit more balanced and realistic would be 100 gems for a Hero Challenge Tome of [HoT map name here]. The tome would unlock a random hero challenge point on the map. These items have already been coded for WvW so creating a gem store tome to accomplish the same thing would be trivial.

$10 = 800 gems = 80 hero points
$20 = 1600 gems = 160 hero points
…
$50 = 4000 gems = 400 hero points

Considering how many players will want to roll a Reveneant and NOT go core game map competition on him this is an easy cash grab for ArenaNet. We’re all so upset over the cost of Elite Spec unlock we’d be thankful for them to take our money to let us have the Elite Spec unlocked for $50 at this point.

Doing this would be in-line with the original manifesto of keeping GW2 causal friendly. It will also help eliminate the grind for hero points. ’

Reasons why my suggestion is good

• Utilizes existing code for it’s unlock mechanic, creating a gem store counterpart to an existing in-game item should be a very trivial task for the developers to get this in the gem store immediately

• Scales to meet players hero point needs so it aids all players willing to pull out the mastercard. Doesn’t matter if you need 100 hero points or 400 this system would give you an option to buy vs grind which again was part of the original GW2 manifesto to keep the game accessible to those who have a life outside he game.

• Gives ArenaNet a simple way to turn this problem so many are complaining about into an immediate strong revenue stream (some players will shell out $50 for the 400 hero points, essentially buying the game twice)

• All the rage in these threads helps ArenaNet justify the gem store items. If people scream “what I’m having to pay for the game over again” ArenaNet can simply point out the new items are a way for more casual players to obtain what those who did map competition worked so hard to get right away. They can point back to these forums as their reasoning and be off the hook entirely.

It is a win-win

sharkswithlazers.7632:

So to break it down. Anet announced heart of thorns almost a year ago. I wanted my account to be ready to dive in and enjoy the experience. So I spent many hours of my time grinding away at map completion and grinding for .

Oh look a non casual player is now kittening on the other side of the argument. He’s not only upset that he won’t get the eiire Elite Spec at launch, but also miffed that they are going to award 10 hero points per challenge in HoT making it so those of us smart enough not to grind will still be able to unlock.

Look kitten kitten, its like this. You probably have 218 hero points (because that’s the cap) you’re going to spend 60 of those just to unlock the elite panel (not traits awarded for that unlock) then you’re going to only have to do 3-4 hero challenges in HoT to get your full trait line unlock. So before the first map is done you’ll get to have your Elite Spec usable. By time you’re 50% done with HoT you should have everything. That’s your reward for all that grind. Deal with it. Think about all that work you put into getting a legendary. Hundreds of hours of game play just for a little weapon skin (now the most redundant weapon skins in the game it seems) with an insignificant stat advantage over it’s exponentially cheaper exotic counterparts. In GW2 core game grind doesn’t award you much and it’s been a very good thing that it doesn’t. It’s unfortunate that’s all about to change.

Those of us who have not done map completion won’t even be able to create a viable Elite Spec build until we’re about 70% into HoT

BTW it was not confirmed we would even spend hero points on unlocking the Elite Specializations until this week. It was all speculation before, they never confirmed how these would be unlocked. Data miners were tossing numbers like 170 out months ago but nothing was confirmed or denied. Although grind doesn’t award you much in the core game, when it comes to the HoT it will be all about the grind for hero points and xp for Mastery’s nothing else will matter to most of the PvE fan base because of how they have structured this.

Coolster.2536:

So, a lot of people are QQing about needing 400 Hero Points to fully unlock the elite spec.

What I know:

• Each Espec gets 12 new traits (3 minors and 9 majors)
• Each Espec gets 6 new utilities ( 1 heal, 4 utilities, 1 elite)
• Each Espec gets 2 profession specific skins ( 1 armor, 1 weapon)
• Each Espec gets a new rune and sigil

Now I don’t know how many runes and sigils the lines will grant, so for simplicity’s sake, I’ll guess we will get 1 sigil and 1 stack of 6 runes (do you honestly want to unlock the same rune six times?).
So that’s a total of 22 things this elite spec will unlock. And we know it takes ~200 HP to unlock half the elite spec. So that’s 11/22 things. And we also know that the skins, runes, and sigils are last (Who needs those DH gloves). So that means, depending on the order of the Espec, we’ll either get 11/12 traits and no new skills or all 6 skills and half the traits. Neither of those seem bad to me. Take this with a grain of salt or a grain of sugar, I just wanted to put this in perspective for some people. But, then again, people will QQ over anything, so what do I know?

That’s because you’re not looking at the division. The devil is in the details and the details are what have people upset.

Here’s what we know regarding cost
60 hero points just to unlock the Elite Specialization panel (zero trait lines unlocked with those 60 hero points, unlike the core game specializations where 60 hero points will not only unlock but also max trait line). Then you’ll require another ~200 hero points to level the trait lines from 0-max and be able to create a viable Elite Spec build.

So for those who have done core game map competition on the character they are planning to play first in HoT things won’t be so bad. You’ll be going in with 218 hero points . You’ll spend 60 of those to unlock the trait line (bringing you down to 158) then you’ll have to do 3-4 of the new 10 point hero challenges in Heart of Thorns and while you won’t have weapon skin, mods and all utilities, you will have the entire Elite trait line unlocked to make a viable Elite Spec build going into the second map of the game. So essentially as a reward for your map completiion effort in the core game you’ll get to earn enough of your Elite Spec for it to be usable 30% into Heart of Thorns. For those of us who do not have map competition (gained all hero points in core game) on the character we want to be our HoT main, we’ll have a much more difficult time most of us will be progressing Elite Spec entirely in HoT which means we won’t be able to make a viable build until we’re about 70% done with the game (assuming each of the 3 maps have about 133 hero points to be earned).

None of us wanted the Elite Spec to be a reward for finishing Heart of Thorns yet for more casual types and even hardcore players who don’t play on their alts much, that’s what they’ve turned it into.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Yes. Have fun. Simply use 80 tomes of knowledge and do 35ish hero challenges in the news map. You will be done by the first day.

There are only 40 hero challenges in the entire Heart of Thorns game. Those 40 hero challenges are spread across three very large maps. Progression on those maps is said to be blocked and require x Mastery level to be completed. So what you’re suggesting “in one day” is grossly under exaggerating what’s coming.

And what is coming? Love for the lush new world and rich narrative? NO. By designing the Elite Spec unlock to work in the way they have it will be all about the Elite Spec which means grind for XP to unlock the Mastery’s needed to get though maps to the hero challenges. This is what ArenaNet has reduced Heart of Thorns to.

It’s not the most of us don’t care about the new story narrative. I think many do, but we care about obtaining the Elite Spec much more than anything else because most of us want to take the spec into dungeons or into WvW so it will be all about the grind for Hero Points and XP for Mastery’s to facilitate the Hero Point hunt. This is now what the game is all about.

Historically ArenaNet has gone live a few hours before the posted time. I wold begin checking around midnight CST

Vayne.8563:

You’re ruining your own HoT experience. Anet isn’t responsible for that. Some of those points are undoubtedly for the skin anyway, not the spec.

No one wants the Elite spec to be their prize for completing HoT, we all want to play HoT with the Elite Specs. So for those who have not done world competition learning that we have to play though about 70% of HoT before being able to max trait lines and play the spec is infuriating.

As you will learn over the coming days, what the OP is planning to do Everyone else will be doing also!!! People want the Elite Specs. Yes we want the new maps and story narrative too, but for most the Elite Specs are the biggest part of what lured us in. Even for those who want the story a good number want to experience HoT from the beginning playing as something new. Most will hop on the train with players who jump in and do nothing but grind hero challenges for the first few weeks (or months for the more casuals) before unlocking their Elite Spec then go back and do the instanced story.

A lot of people don’t come to the forums so expect an exciting time on launch day, but by early to mid next week expect everyone to be hero point grinding leaving dynamic events that don’t award hero points abandoned and large chucks of these rather difficult level 80 jungle maps abandoned. Those who go into the game grinding hero points are just playing it as ArenaNet intended. They knew people would do this. They knew it would divide the PvE community and turn the game into a grind fest. They also know that’s what gets the most players pulling out the credit cards for the gem store.

I hope their strategy backfires. I believe it will and many who bought and have played GW2 because of it’s casual friendly, anti-grind design will either quit PvE or quit the game altogether. That’s probably ok with ArenaNet as the flood of F2P customers that came on board in recent months will convert to HoT purchasers (if they haven’t already) and they will inherit the game and it’s new model. The new players coming in are far removed from that original 2011 manifesto and will be oblivious to the changes that have taken us so far from it.

The non HoT purchasing F2P customers will continue to use the gem store. So boat loads of revenue will be flowing in from gem store purchases for F2P accounts and HoT grinders looking for boost items. This is what the changes are all about. Future content will be just as grindy as the PvE side of GW2 makes it’s full transition to becoming another trashy F2P MMO. Hope I’m wrong, but the patterns are pretty clear. This is how they maximize profits by tossing most of their philosophy for changing MMOs out the window and simply doing what every other publisher has been doing. Kind of sickening really. I doubt even a good number of the developers and design team understand what’s really going on with these decisions. It’s all about the $$$

Might as well start a suggestion thread like this. I like the idea so I’ll offer mine as well. My suggestion is much simpler and requires to changes.

1.) Remove the ridiculous requirement that all of our core specializations be unlocked prior to elite specialization unlock. Most people unlock have unlocked the specializations they want to play with (the game was designed that way after all).

2.). Make the elite spec unlock itself (what they are charging 60 hero points for now) completely free, but make it so a player must spend 60 hero points to take the elite spec trait line from 0 to max, where max = all traits unlocked and optimal builds available without the elite armor skins, etc.. Take the other 340 hero point demands and make it so if they want the elite spec armor skin, weapon, etc…that portion of the elite spec remains heavily achievement based. That would give players the elite skins, elite runes, etc… to work towards along with Mastery’s of course and at the same time make the Elite Specs available very early on.

Ragion.2831:

style.6173:

Dhampyr.2813:

I expected horizontal progression. Elite specs were marketed as horizontal progression. Being a form of progression I expected to have achieve that progression, not be granted it for free.

I get what your saying, I really do but i think the train of thought was wrong

Horizontal progression is fine. Forcing people to spend points on trait lines that they do not want is a problem. 400 hero points is also way too many. This is the single largest anti alt decision that ANET has ever made.

Really bad move

Actually MMORPGS traditionally dont encourage making several characters. They are supposed to be about you living a second life, in a completely different world. You pick a character and you become that character. The content on these kind of games are supposed to take so long to complete that the very idea of alt swapping to do them again should be absurd.

A lot of people intuitively still feel this way. The character most people start on or have been through most of the game with is what they identify with. You might read a lot of people saying that they are going to re roll because their class has x or y issues but they will never feel the same way about the class they are swapping to as they do their original.

So it really doesnt matter how many points it takes and how elite specs are unlocked as long as it is a fun experience, fun to use the class and fun to play the content. What you guys should be more worried about is if the new content will give much more rewarding, challenging and entertaining experiences and not bedtime stories like the base game.

Except in this one it IS that way. They explicitly stated that the unlike most MMORPGs GW2 was designed to encourage you to play on an alt for end-game content. That was a large part of their thinking behind the branching personal story lines (a feature that ultimately failed). I don’t know any players who always play on the same character in this game.

And neither of you are considering the players who don’t have world competition on any character…. World complementation is optional sub system in the game. The assumption that everyone has it on at least one character is ridiculous. Some players went on to PvP or WvW after finishing the last dungeon and completing their personal story line and that was an acceptable thing to do and a very rational thing for a player without a lot of time in game to choose to do.

Had we known it’s importance months ago we might have chosen to spend some time on it, but they purposely waited until the week of release to drop this information.

In other shreds I said it’s horrible design. Actually it’s worse, it’s intentionally grind inducing, greed-driven design.

Dhampyr.2813:

No they did say we can play it if we did world completion, but they didn’t say to what extent we could. They have now confirmed 60 points will unlock the elite. So while we can “play” the spec it wont be optimal.

A trait line on a specialization that’s not maxed will not be viable for play on max level maps. You will be able to equipted you elite spec weapon but do nothing useful with it on the HoT maps.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

Sorean.5379:

It works just like any other training line – except all the skills, traits, skins, abilities, etc. are all inside one full training line that costs 400 points to get everything in the entire line. It costs 60 points to unlock and be able to play as the elite specialization itself.

The way I see it,to play as the Specialization itself you only need 60 points.

The rest is used to unlock the armor skin,weapon skin and the runes.

If you want to play as a Dragonhunter for example,all you need is 60 points and you will already be able to wield a Longbow and your profession icon will change to the Dragonhunter one.

Pretty sure you’re wrong. 60 points unlocks the traitline. But it will take an unknown amount of points to unlock the traits and utility skills.

Correct. Confirmed by Colin and this is a point of confusion for many saying “it’s not that bad”. For your core specializations 60 points not only unlocks but also maxes (does full trait unlock) on a specialization tree/trait line….. For the Elite specs it’s going to be 60 hero points just for the unlock byou will need another 170-200 hero points to take that trait line for zero to max and create a viable Elite Spec build to play with on the difficult level 80 maps. The last set of hero points will get you the elite skins, weapon mods, etc…

Donari.5237:

I do think (though I’m not sure) that Mike and Colin talked about horizontal progression for characters in the original HoT announcement at PAX South, as part of why there would be no level cap raise.

Mastery’s fullfill that objective just fine.

Dhampyr.2813:

I expected horizontal progression. Elite specs were marketed as horizontal progression. Being a form of progression I expected to have achieve that progression, not be granted it for free.

I get what your saying, I really do but i think the train of thought was wrong

They were not marketed as horizontal progression. Explain in detail why you feel that way and please reference comments made by the ArenaNet staff the validate (make sure you provide links). I will accept if I’m wrong about this, but I’ve read quite a bit and have been looking for such comments hidden in the cracks. I think you’re wrong.

1.) It just doesn’t make sense to punish the more casual players this way
No one expected the Elite Specializations to be our reward for finishing Heart of Thorns, we expected to be able to play Heart of Thorns with them… for players who don’t have the 200+ points banked from core game map completion, they will have to wait until they are about 70% into the game to have enough unlocked to make a viable build(70% into Heart of Thorns, 3 maps with 400 hero points. about 133 hero points per map, map unlock likely dependent on mastery unlock so expect layered grind). For those of us in this situation the Elite Specs are going to be a reward for finishing the game and not something available to us to play the majority of the game with. If you can not see why this has many people upset then you are being very narrow minded.

2. As planned the system will encourage the player base to grind for hero points ignoring story missions, events, adventures, etc…
You’ll have a large part of the community that will do nothing but grind for their Elite Specs (which will also mean grinding for Mastery’s). That’s what this system will reduce the game to, a glorious hero challenge hunt. Some will return to story after unlock but by that point most will finish capping hero points then immediately transition to helping with the guild hall. The story missions that deliver the narrative of GW2 will be ignored probably even more so than the personal story chapters have been. It makes players only care about the grind.

2.) They know!
So here’s the disturbing part for me. The developers behind GW2 do a lot of analytic research on their player base (some of those tools they have showcased). They know the game will be reduced to a grind fest. They understand exactly what they are doing. Likely, they have figured out this is why every other trash MMO on the market operates the way it does. It funnels players to the in game cash shop. It was recently announced Eric Flannum (one of the most brilliant minds behind GW2’s amazing play mechanics) made a decision to leave to work elsewhere. This all makes me wonder if he left because he had a problem with the integrity of what they were about to do. Keep in mind when you go with a F2P model putting the focus on grind when cash shop items help with the grind is a proven model for keeping revenue high. It’s the dirty side to what the free to download and free to play model is bringing to the game.

Random.4691:

Well Colin/Anet do you have anything to say about this crap show you created ? Or will you just tuck tail and hide as usual ?

Man up, either come out and say “sorry sucks to be you” or “we understand this may not have been the wises of choice and will have a work around before launch”.

They won’t change a thing. I believe this has been carefully architected for months. In fact the 170 hero point requirement that was found during data mining was probably planted so the data miners would find it and report it and soften the blow when they dropped the bomb on just how much it would really cost.

They have the data to know that when players play more they also spend more in the cash shop. So all the 2011 GW2 manifesto rhetoric about anti-grind and causal friendly play is being retired to impelment a new strategy of “whatever keeps them playing all the time” agenda. They no longer care about your other time commitments. If they loose the casual adult players well they’ve run the numbers. We aren’t their best customers so instead of encouraging us to come in they are now holding the exit door open for us and pointing the way “thanks for playing, thanks for your money… too bad you couldn’t sacrifice time with your girlfriend, kids, college degree, second job, sick grandmother, etc… You should have known our original manifesto was a pipe dream that would not be sustainable. Thanks for believing and good luck”.

sephiroth.4217:

Entitlement Thread ahead.

Can players/buyers of HoT atleast have an option on if we would like to grind elite specs? That way, people like myself who work and have family commitments can still enjoy the game for being a game and let us use our elites like everyone else, while those who enjoy grinding can go grind for it?

I agree with you. There is a legion of players who agree with you. But regarding structured PvP you will have everything unlocked. You’ll have acces to the elite specs. For WvW you will have to earn it through hero points. If you play GW2 mostly for WvW yes you essentially bought an expansion that you will have to invest hundreds of hours in to be able to enjoy any new play mechanics.

Looking at it from a high level thei decision had to be made based on maximizing monetization of the cash shop. Forcing players to grind so they would have incentive to buy boost items in cash shop. Perhaps this is how they are paying for the F2P accounts by taking from the rest of us? I’m not sure but it seems that way

You have zero chance at suing them. In fact you can’t do that according to the term of use. Bottom line is it’s a product. You aren’t happy with it return it and I do imagine if you asked ArenaNet for a refund you could get them to do that, but I’m not sure.

It’s possible you could find some attorney out there will to take up a class action lawsuit and reference all the hours you put into it, but I honestly think it would never make it to court and even if it did you would not win because they haven’t broken any laws.

What they have done is conceal this vital piece of information until right before launch. A big “surprise suprise casual players, but HoT isn’t designed for you…”. I see it as an unethical decision on their part, but as players we have options. One of those is to just walk away. I’ve decided to just focus on the PvP side of the game since that’s where all the fun is anyway.

Pezz.4758:

please dont take this as rage or hate or anything but i gotta vent im a little ….meh.

So i main necro, followed the scrapper hype all through the info releases. After trying it on the beta weekend i was hooked. I had a partially leveled engy, so i finished it, grinded out all his skills, all his exotics, some ascended, crafting , bought skins went HAM.

now i find out, to even play the elite spec, i have to grind ANOTHER at least 170 points.

So doing the math, thats either basically doing map complete now in 3 days to find enough to unlock it. OR waiting till HoT, where they are 10 points each. BUT assuming 5-10 per map like currents maps, i will be half way through HoT open world content BEFORE even being able to use the spec properly.

Like i said im not raging but i cant lie, kinda killed the hype for release when i know its just going to be a grind to even START playing.

“Play how you want” ha, ya right.

I feel your pain and truly hate that they have made this decision. It is an attack on the casual player in GW2. Have only 4-8 hours to spend a week in-game? Your choice is grinding for those beefy 10 point hero challenges in HoT (which will require HoT map completion) or just enjoy playing through the game casually doing the story missions and getting to meet/unlock your first Elite spec sometime in 2016 after it’s old hat . It is designed to make you grind and want to be on 24/7 just like every other trash MMO out there. GW2 core game was above that and strived to be casual player friendly. Apparently that’s not as lucrative as appeasing a more hard core crowd.

If you are a casual player your best bet is to focus on WvW or PvP those two aspects aren’t any more or less casual friendly than they already were, actually PvP is probably more casual friendly thanks to the league system.

For PvE roll a Revenant and endure level 1-80 again (hopefully you’ll have one of those instant level 30 scrolls from a b-day gift and a boat load of tomes of knowledge packed away, if not it’s all good, you’ll just have to play though all the core game content again I’m sure level 80 won’t take long. You’ll get new mechanics of Revenant but you won’t have the new maps to play him on (your guild mates can describe the new maps to you on team speak, so you have that). Why are you being so greedy and wanting both new maps and new play mechanics right away for your $50? If ArenaNet did that how would they get you to spend money on boosters in the gem store? How would they pay for all the F2P accounts they are now hosting? You need to be a good GW2 citizen and understand the business model. _Hopefully you know I’m being sarcasitc, but truthfully I’ve made peace with it. After raging about it, I’ve accepted it. I’ve had a lot of fun for not much investment in this game. Their decision to make the expansion anti-casual friendly is their right and at least the PvP side of the game will have leagues. It’s not like I won’t be getting my moneys worth one way or another.

Morfedel.4165:

I have officially lost interest in this thread. Reading a laundry list of useless ire is accomplishing nothing. Off to other threads. GLHF!!!

I imagine ArenaNet is reading it laughing at how with HoT they are really pulling one over on the more casual players. I’m sure if you hounded them they would probably refund your money for the expansion at this stage but I don’t expect them to change their view. It’s clear they no longer care about the casual player base and their aim is to maximize profits off items like gem store XP boosters by providing mastery’s that require XP and reinforcing the need for those mastery’s by tieing the Elite Spec unlock to them (you have to have the mastery’s to get to certain points in the map where those beefy 10-pint hero challenges will be and you’ll have two a do a lot of HoT map competition as well). Want to do HoT casually? You can meet your Elite Spec sometime in 2016. Meanwhile the group you play with are on-line 24/7 grinding away for theirs as you go out of sight and out of mind. I believe Heart of Thorns is an expansion designed to flush the casual players from the game or to push them out of the PvE part of the game.

Whoever set the rules for Elite Unlock

• must have all core specialization trait lines maxed
• must spend 60 hero point just to unlock (no traits get unlocked with those 60 points, that’s just to make the panel available with zero elite traits)
• No ability to use Spirit Shards or other items to contribute to Elite Spec

Whoever set this up hates the casual GW2 player. Their new mission is to make you give up the things you love outside the game to grind. It’s no different from other MMOs but it is a very different message than what they were preaching in their pre-launch 2012 manifesto. It signifies they have sold out the casual player to the hardcore player demands.

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 for hero challenge points in HoT. Pick your poison). Something else very different. They are making it so casual players have no gem store option on the hero points for Elite Spec unlock. No hero points were never available though gem store, but hero points were not tied to the functional aspect of the game play. By level 31 (about 1/3 of the way in) you had a full bar. All weapon skills (the functional aspect of GW2 core game) you could unlock very quickly. In level 80 zones you are going to be able to afford to switch to the Elite Spekittenil you have the traits maxed. So they are focusing you to play though 1/2 of the content before being able to utilize them.

They are essentially saying kitten the causal player base, you’re all going to grind for it or just accept you won’t be able to get to your Elite Spekittenil 2-6 months into the game where you finally are able to unlock (those of you play 20-40+ hours a week don’t understand the world those of us who only commit 4-8 hours a week in game live in). HoT by design is very much about flushing the casual players and trying to recruit the hard core crowd. Some will like that about it some will not. That’s subjective.

What is not subjective is that kitten-ing on the causal player base is a really scum bag thing to do that goes against the design principles and philosophy of what was GW2.

Vague Memory.2817:

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.

This is one of the most lucid and honest post in the entire thread.

It’s true. They already have the Mastery system for achievement based play mechanic changes. The Elite Specs should be part of what it means to be in HoT from he very beginning for those who choose to use them. The only explanation foe why the Elite Specs became an achievement based unlock (one that largely discredits existing achievement from core game I might add) is money. They have the numbers and realize in order to get to the new hero challenges in HoT players will need masteries. Masteries unlock with XP. The strongest XP boosters can be purchased in the cash shop/gem store.

So instead of showing some integrity and giving players incentive to come into HoT with their elite specs and enjoy a special time playing the first new map with exciting new play mechanics they have chosen to divide the PvE community. Probably about half will focus on grinding for hero challenges/xp ignoring the story and not interested in helping players along the way. The players who approach HoT in that way will be rewarded with Elite Spec unlock first.

That has strong potential to trash the game as it will divide players and guildies on their objectives. It also transitions GW2 to a paradigm similar to the grindy often criticized, “dime a dozen” MMOs that focus on grind. Consider this and the new F2P model and you see what they just did with your favorite game.

Was ArenaNet pretentious enough to believe players will be so excited about the new maps and mastery grind that they would be willing to prolong unlocking their Elite Spekittenil half way though the HoT content? Taking the high road, I believe this may be exactly what it is. The new maps are well designed but alone they are not exciting. As designed players have strong incentive to grind for hero challenges in HoT and to focus on nothing else until that’s accomplished. This also really undermines the team that put so much work into the instanced story aspect of the game because since most of us will be bringing to unlock our Elite Specs the instanced story will be passed over and maybe someday will come back to it.

Where was the creative team when it came to fuses the Elite Specs into the game story? In the trailer we have Rytlock (a warrior) who goes into the mist and comes back as a Revenant (as if Revenant was planned to be Warrior’s elite spec at one time). There is no way they have fused Elite Specs into the story/lore so they are purely a core functional play mechanic unique to HoT. Core play mechanics should not be based on long term achievement. Unlockable during early levels or though tutorials, yes. Long term achievement. No. Mastery’s are the unlock able Non-core play mechanic. It takes a very greed driven company to force players to do both

As I’ve said a few times Horrible design.

At least those in charge of PvP are doing some great things.

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.

Mikeskies.1536:

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.

Your character is alive. In GW2, leveling up and completing hero challenges unlocked progression for your character. For elite specialization, it should be self-evident that gaining access to them requires your character to complete challenges to achieve that. Your character will become elite through character growth, i.e. playing the game. How elite specializations are unlocked should be looked at as exciting to complete challenges to unlock the elite inside your character, not an inconvenience.

I could see your perspective if they had worked the Elite Specs into the lore of the instanced story. By that I mean 2-3 instanced story missions into HoT you begin unlocking the Elite Specialization because doing so is part of the story. But they didn’t go there with it. At this point Elite Specs are just a functional mechanic that helps distinguish HoT from the core GW2 game. They are part of what make HoT unique from a play mechanic stand point. The developer already has masteries a player works towards unlocking to alter play mechanic. The way it stands they give existing players not creating a new Rev nothing new functionally when they take an existing character into HoT. In expanshion game design theory you balance “new and shinny” that’s free to players that make the content feel distinguished from what must be worked to achieve. Their stance is that the new maps alone are all the novelty a player needs for the content to feel new and exciting. I find that very pretentious on their part. I made a few BWE#3 characters and spec’d them just like my current main and alts without the elite specs. The new maps were boring and really lacking without having access to the new mechanics. I enjoyed working towards mysteries to unlock new secondary play mechanics but strongly felt and still feel the Elite Specs are something every player who paid for HoT should be entitled to with reasonable existing investment (FYI anyone who values their free time is not likely to have map competition on all their alts nor should they GRIND to go obtain map competition for every alt just to get the foundation 218 hero points from the base game needed.)

This is the most kitten ridiculous, poorly thought out design decision ArenaNet has ever made regarding GW2. It undermines the casual gamer with a day job or full time student who loves the game but doesn’t have 24/7 to repeat the same content over and over again (world exploration on your alts is a type of grind. If you disagree you simply don’t value your free time as much as some of us). It’s a slap to the face of every gamer who bought into their philosophy of making an MMO for everyone.

Elite Spec should have been treated similar to weapon skill unlocks. The 60 hero points should not be required just to unlock the Elite Spec chain. That should be something you are given as part of your HoT purchase. From there 60 hero points should be all that’s required to take the Elite Spec chain from 0-max. The other 340 hero points required should be all about unique elite spec skins, weapon mods, etc… I am 100% ok with them requiring a player to have to work on unlocking the skins, etc… but the core play mechanics of the Elite spec should be available from the moment your level 80 enters HoT and all you should need is 60 hero points to max out the elite trait chain, the skins, etc.. optional and something you work for.

There is plenty of achievement based content to make players work towards in HoT without locking players who don’t want to grind out of being able to play with their Elite Specs. The new vertical maps, adventures, etc.. alone are not enough to give it much value. Having to work my way though 1/2 of the HoT game content just to get to the point where I have my Elite Spec trait line maxed and can actually begin using it is kitten ridiculous. Unacceptable and against the vision and philosophy behind the GW2 core game.

Healix.5819:

By completing the existing world, you will be 50% of the way through every time they add a new elite specialization. Considering these specialization include other stuff, you’d likely be able to fully unlock the necessities about 25% of the way through the expansion. That’s a huge difference if you actually wanted to use it.

Why scour Tyria for 1 pt each? Because the world will always be there and there’s still map completion and additional rewards. Eventually you’ll have nothing better to do, unless you’re one of those people.

That’s right all you have to do is get world competition (all 218 hero points from core maps) for all your alts. No big deal. What else where you wanting to do in game with those 30-50 hours of play? Something new and exciting? Or poor little kitten, you should know all MMOs force you to repeat content and grind. Sure in 2012 there was that manifesto video where ArenaNet talked up the tenets of their philosophy on grind and making an MMO even those with college degrees to earn and day jobs could play casually and still enjoy. But it’s 2015 and most of those people have left it seems. What’s left are a core group seemingly hell bent on shifting the game back to a more traditional MMO paradigm which of course means baking in a lot of grind to compensate for poor or lack of design. That is of course just my perspective, but the evidence is there.

What’s more…

And if you have had a character since 2012 launch and you happened to have spent most of your hero points crafting before ArenaNet changed Spirit Shards to a currency and you’ve done most hero challenges and have few hero points well then you’re just SOL. Consider that your GW2 veteran tax. Not to worry however, there are 40 hero challenges worth 10 points each in HoT spread out over it’s three maps that’s about 13 per map of course you won’t be able to get to many of those until you’ve leveled up masteries because they will be blocked so mastery required. So by time you make it half way though HoT content you can look forward to finally being able to unlock your Elite Spec and enjoy the second half of HoT as whatever your elite is. We won’t be seeing too many Heralds anytime soon.

Simple fix

1. Remove the ridiculous restriction on characters having to have unlocked all core specializations before being able to put hero points into the elites Make it so they have to have unlocked 3 out of the 5 trait lines or something, but most of us aren’t using all our specializations. That’s why they are specializations so we can pick and choose which ones we wanted. To force a player to have all of these unlocked makes no sense except for the purpose of the time sink it imposes to make a player go after the hero challenges. Horrible design.

2. Provide a gem store canister item that gives the player a hero challenge or teleports them to the nearest hero challenge and gives them x amount of time to finish it before teleporting them back. Something novel like that which players who are time strapped (or just the intelligent players who despise grind and have more important life things to do…. Hello ANet, we aren’t all going after the kitten legendaries. We don’t all have world competition). The requirements they are putting on elite specs goes against the original vision of the game in regard to making it accessible to more casual players. I guess they discovered more casual players aren’t bringing in the revenue so kitten them. The instant canisters would give those with time constraints the ability to spend real money on obtaining the Elite Specs. Although it’s expensive a player can do that now with Legendaries even. It makes much less sense to lock off Elite Specializations to the more casual types since the Elite Specs are a core functional part of what makes HoT new and exciting. A legendary isn’t core to the game, a unique skin or mod isn’t core to the game, it’s a reward you work for. The Elite Specs themselves are functional.

arkealia.2713:

So you want elite spec unlocked right away? With all skins unlocked as well including all new legendaries? billions of each mats in the bank? All maps unlocked with an instant teleport to wherever you want option? Dev Menu? OHKO button? Cheat mode?

I don’t even remember anyone crying at GW2 release because they didn’t have all their skills and weapons unlocked right away.

Are you sure you really want to play and enjoy the game?

Edit: I can understand the frustration for wvw players

No. With game design there is a balance between what aspects of a game you give to the player at the beginning or though tutorial levels. Things that are core utility to making the game new, fun and overall novel that are a functional part of the game you give to the player very early on. The ability to unlock all weapon skills for your class is a good example of this. A player in the core game does have to work to unlock weapon skills on a new character but it takes very little effort because this is a core mechanic of the game. it’s not content or a reward they are trying to achieve.

The new Elite Specializations are a core aspect of HoT that give it value. It’s a modification to the functional aspect of the game that make it feel new and exciting. To force a player to make it though 50%+ of the HoT content in order to be able to have enough traits unlocked to create an effective build devalues the game. We already have masteries, adventures and legendaries that give us grind-hungry MMO PvE players enough to feed on. They should not have made it so a player has to work that kittenly to get to a functional aspect of the game. It should feel completely new right away and Elite Specs were the pathway to accomplishing that. The Elite Spec unique skins, mods etc.. could be a progression that takes a player a long time, but as it stands we are looking at 200 her points being required just to get the trait paths unlocked to make a competitive build. For a player starting with 0 hero points that means grinding though the hero challenges in core game on alt or waiting until your 50% though Heart of Torns to have them. That’s horrible design.

Tasao.4623:

Halvorn.9831:

Tasao.4623:

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

There’s plenty of other content other than Cursed Shore to do when you’re not at 80.
But that’s to be expected while leveling. But if you want to dive into the jungle, or do world bosses, or do halloween content, or anything else out in the world on an alt, being faced with a big grind just to unlock your elite spec’s base functionality is absurd. The CONTENT is what should occupy you. Not the unlocking of the abilities and traits you want to use on that content.

Do you require your elite specs to go to the jungle? No.

You want to do it. Like someone who just starts the game and wants to go to Arah.

What the heck did you all expect the content to be? Of course there has to be some sort of time drain. No company on this planet can provide you with thousands of hours of non-repetitive endgame content.

GRINDING HERO POINTS IS NOT “CONTENT”. Especially if you have to do the same grind 9 times to cover every class in the game.
And reducing or removing that grind still leaves 99% of the HoT intact.
Your character is your avatar. Your tool. Your bridge between yourself and the content. Blocking off a chunk of that bridge for literally no reason does NOTHING to enhance the content you’re playing, and reducing or removing those blocks does nothing to cheapen all of the content they’re adding.

Elite Specs are a TOOL via which you experience content. They are hardly content themselves and any grind to unlock them is automatically unwarranted as a direct result. People just want to play HoT, or do Halloween, or run dungeons, or fractals, or WvW. But this decision to gate off elite specs behind an arbitrarily huge hero point hurdle directly inhibits a player’s ability to do that content as they choose to do it.

This is bad design. Period. You don’t like my comment, don’t read em, don’t respond to them, don’t use this forum at all if you disagree with literally anyone at all. THAT is the logic you’re telling us to use when we criticize this design decision.

^^^ You nailed it. From info released it seems they’ve decided to bake grind into every aspect of GW2 though heart of thorns. It seems PvP will be the only approachable aspect of the game for busy college students or working adults (the league system seems to actually favor the casual player given them tiers to strive for even if they can’t play enough to make it into the higher divisions). They want everyone who plays PvE to have to grind, which is usually done by a developer just as a way to compensate for poor design, by giving the player more of the same hoops to jump though. Fortunately we still have PvP and WvW changes and of course the Revenant all of which still have me excited (hope they don’t change their minds and expect you to achieve some other grind task in order to make a Revenant… That would not surprise me at this point)..

The whole kitten problem could be solved if they took away the “must unlock all core specializations first” rule or if they gave us a new gem store item that when used created a on demand hero challenger you have to take out to earn 10 hero points (kind of like instant banker works). The later would at least give those of us with less time on our hands an option to pay into the cash shop for functionality that as you’ve said is not content but a core functional aspect of the expansion

Schurge.5194:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Schurge.5194:

@SamTheGuardian

You should change your name to “SamTheMasterOfHyperbole.”

what you see as something small I see as a big deal. You have your reasons for being passive on this I have mine for not being passive about it. One thing I said weeks ago that I felt would really hurt HoT is if the developers decided to make it so that for most players the Elite Specs weren’t available until 50% into the HoT content. They have done exactly that. 400 hero points available in HoT spread out of 3 maps (~13 hero points per map) assume 200 hero points to unlock enough traits to make a viable elite spec build and most won’t be there until half way though the expansion.

If you just play with a main and you’ve got map explorer done and all the core game hero points of course you don’t see the big deal and we won’t be looking at it the same way. On the positive side at least we have Reverent to look forward to.
.

I always expected elite specializations would take a bit of time to get and even expected people who don’t like PvE (like myself) to have to do quite a bit of PvE to use our specs in PvP (and I would prefer that as opposed to everyone being able to flip-flop with zero investment). With this genre I expect to have to do a bunch of bull-stuff in order to get to the parts I actually want to do. We take the good with the bad. I can’t wrap my brain around why any of you expected anything different. This game has always been this way. At launch PvP players had to grind to 80 for WvW and grind through the cluster-kitten that was 8v8 to get to Arenas.

You have zero grind in PvP. It’s an aspect of the game that actually respects a players time but allowing you to put all your effort into improving your skill. The reason it’s the fastest growing segment of the game is because PvE has had no end game… Even if all I do is play PvP from now on the $50 invested in HoT will have been worth it.

As for PvE. In game design theory you have balance of what you give to a player for free and what must be worked for. We already have masteries and adventures to grind. You can bet a good number of those 40 hero challenges will be locked away on parts of the map that require masteries. With a game expansion it should feel new from the start. There is plenty in the game to work for besides Elite Specs. They should be free to us for buying the game. In BWE#3. Just for kicks I created a few beta characters on BWE#3 and configured them exactly like my non-betas. Stripped off the elite specs and went to play the HoT maps. How was that experience? Boring as kitten. The Elite Specs add a great deal to the freshness this expansion brings. All this bickering is a bit early the real screams and shots will come Saturday when people realize just how bad this is going to be for the PvE crowd. Again, I see it as a win for those who decided to abandon the PvE side of the game or just leave it for a while to see if things change with the Elite Spec prereq

ChavaStark.9147:

If we have 40 challenges in the jungle that would make 400 points so It wont take as long and if it just like regular challenges like in Tyria then there really is no problem here.

Hate repeating myself, but to state again. The 40 hero challenges are spread across the three new maps. The maps are huge! so saying it “won’t take long” is like saying taking a new character and get map competition and 40 hero points in the core game “won’t take that long”. Prob 30-40 hours of play. Actually it could be hundreds of hours of play because you may need some of the masteries done to make it though certain parts of the maps to get to those illusive 10 point hero challenges.

Another negative is that a lot of players will focus on getting all the new hero challenges and ignore any kind of linear approach though the game world. Getting their Elite Specs fully unlocked will be all they care about. You’ll probably see guild teams focused on finding hero points instead of playing through the story and event content int he game. This will probably go on for first several months post launch. Along the way guild teams/parties will find their guild hall and focus on taking it at this point the progression of the story becomes a side note or perhaps even meaningless because the new focus is guild hall defense/building up and elite spec hero point challenges. Guildies will be pressured to scout out hero points instead of just playing though the new content as intended. Kind of game busting because it puts players at odds with each other

Schurge.5194:

@SamTheGuardian

You should change your name to “SamTheMasterOfHyperbole.”

what you see as something small I see as a big deal. You have your reasons for being passive on this I have mine for not being passive about it. One thing I said weeks ago that I felt would really hurt HoT is if the developers decided to make it so that for most players the Elite Specs weren’t available until 50% into the HoT content. They have done exactly that. 400 hero points available in HoT spread out of 3 maps (~13 hero points per map) assume 200 hero points to unlock enough traits to make a viable elite spec build and most won’t be there until half way though the expansion.

If you just play with a main and you’ve got map explorer done and all the core game hero points of course you don’t see the big deal and we won’t be looking at it the same way. On the positive side at least we have Reverent to look forward to.
.

velmeister.4187:

Guild Wars 2: Grind of Thorns?

I enjoy reading the articles posted on the front pages. But, I really got totally lost in the description of what a player needs to do to obtain a legendary weapon in HoT. Not only it seems convoluted as described in words (maybe a small VISIO diagram would have helped), it also seemed that the main objective of the designers was to slow down players from obtaining these desired items rather than to create a satisfying feeling of achievement.

I honestly believe the entire mastery system is a layer of grind and on top of that grind, now we have map and fractal grind, and on top of that WvW grind, and it does not end there, sPvP grind for shards of glory.

My simple question to ANET, why are you trying to create a grindfest in a game that simply does not need one? Why are you trying to do that every other MMO ends up doing — adding layers of grind to create pseudo-content?

Before we get the first post discrediting this OP by usual argument about working hard, casual player, blah blah bullkitten, screenshot attached to counter some of the usual nonsense. Yes. I played this game. A lot. And still do.

Almost everything about HoT is in fact grind. The Mysteries are XP grind, the Elite Specializations are Hero Point grind, the Legendaries are extreme examples of grind in the game. When you start in HoT there is nothing remarkably new about your play experience coming into the expansion. Every nuanced new feature you will have to work to achieve though some play elements that will be grinded by some to obtain things faster than others. This was done on purpose by the designers and yes it goes against the games initial manifesto and vision of having an MMO for everyone to enjoy, even those who can’t be on 24/7. The bottom line is they have run the numbers and figured out those who love to grind (the stereotypical MMO player) are the ones spending the most in the cash shop anyway so HoT is catering to them now and the original ’we are for the casual player" spirit has left. They will point you to the core game if you want that I guess.

In sticking with the original “we are your casual MMO option” manifesto there should at least be cash shop items to help, but there is nothing for hero points.

Jephiroth.3197:

The initial 60 point investment will unlock the elite line and give you your minor which will allow you to use the new mechanics. The rest will be up to you to earn/spend more points on. If it follows a similar pattern to the other lines, you’ll need ~40 points to unlock the utilities, ~10 for the elite skill, ~10 for the heal skill, ~60 in trait abilities. Since these are ELITE specializations, you can guess that the points are ramped up (hence the HoT content awarding x10 hero points).

I’d guess
~100 for the traits,
~100 for the utilities/elite/heal,
60 for the initial unlock,
40 for the rune,
50 for the weapon skin,
50 for the armor skin

That would put us right at the 400 mark.

Say hello to your Elite Spec finally becoming available as you prepare for the last battle in HoT -or- choose to go into HoT grinding for Hero Points. Bearing in mind the new maps are huge they are just vertical. 20-30 hours doing map competition in core game to get 200 hero points, then expect to spend 10-20 hours (probably much more) running around HoT searching out 20 of the 10 point hero point challenges you’ll need to finish it off.

If you are limited on play time per week or you want to do something other the grind away for hero points expect to spend months, perhaps years at this. If your main is starting with 0 hero points because you’ve spent them all on crafting, unlocking, etc… This is completely unfair, but such is life.

As with most of the new systems it’s designed to bring players into the game and make them play 24/7. This coming from a game who’s initial design was very much “we are for the casual MMO player” and we will never require grind.

Kitten you ArenaNet. You lied to us and you’ve taken the core thing I was looking most forward to and you’ve made so unless I decided to take time away from my job, family and other hobbies I don’t have much to look forward to in PvE. You can say “that’s how MMOs are” and you’re right EXCEPT THIS ONE WAS PROMISED TO NOT GO DOWN THAT PATH. Which is why many of us decided to choose it over other games out there to invest our time in.

On the positive side this does help my decision to focus on PvP and perhaps WvW and to give much a less of a kitten about PvE. Sad thing is the BWE instanced story was actually quite good and I was actually looking forward to PvE again in GW2 Oh well. Enough ranting, my apologies to all it’s just this is such a big let down to hear they’ve made this decision. I’m done responding, they will not change their mind. They think the map designs alone are all the novelty players deserve out the gate for their purchase of the expansion. I don’t agree with that and no amount of discussion will change it because while the maps are great, without the elite specs it really doesn’t feel all that new.

TJgalon.5012:

I wonder what was wrong with the topic already made?
also, 400 points is not quite right. Colin said to start you only need 60, how far that gets you who know, but any left over hp after maxing out the core traits first, is a bonus towards that. Plus jungle hp give you 10 points each.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

My biggest problem with it is this, why am I being forced to unlock core specializations that I never use in order to get to my Elite Spec? What if I never use Zeal on my Guardian so I’ve avoided spending hero points on that core specialization. Why am I being forced to unlock trait lines I will never use anyway? Makes no sense.

It a elite skill that why. You need your core understanding to develope into a elite.

What are you saying makes sense from a lore perspective (although it’s a bit of a stretch). From a functional perspective of user experience it’s ridiculous. What makes sense from a player perspective should win regardless especially considering we are talking about a game that made “no-grind” manifesto a core part of it’s marketing for years leading up to its release.

I don’t use those core specializations and NEVER WILL yet I have to spend hero points to unlock them. As a player I think it would be much better design to put me in a situation where I can choose to sacrifice unlocking a core specialization in favor of spending those points on an elite specialization. In that scenario, It’s still going to take me some work to unlock the Elite beyond my level up hero points, but a much more reasonable amount of effort.

My biggest problem with it is this, why am I being forced to unlock core specializations that I never use in order to get to my Elite Spec? What if I never use Zeal on my Guardian or Earth on my Elementalist, so I’ve avoided spending hero points on those core specializations. Now in order to unlock Dragonhunter and Tempest I have to spend 60 heri points to unlock Zeal, etc.. just to have prereq done to be able to spend the first 60 hero points on the Elite Specialization unlock. Then I have 340 more to get it done. Consider this and also consider the XP required for Masteries. There has to be a balance between the novelty delivered with an expansion with zero effort from the player (the player did spend $50 for you to deliver to them something that feels like a new game), you have to balance what is worked for and what is given right away and I am very disappointed in the decisions they made on how a player will obtain their Elite Spec. Without having those things from the beginning the expansion is likely to feel like more living world content being tossed at us with everything requiring repeated content to unlock. Probably the best choice for those who aren’t children, have day jobs, etc.. is to roll a Revenant. At least they are giving those who bought HoT the option to create one of those without some ridiculous grind

Eirian Direstorm.9748:

Currently, just leveling to 80 gives you enough to unlock all the current lines. —I’ve been leveling an engi for the past two weeks, and every few levels you get a lump of hero points as part of the reward for leveling up.

For the elite, you can run hero points in regular pact Tyria, you can do hero points in HoT maps, you can buy them with new WvW currency (maybe there’s a PvP currency too, I can’t recall).

Really, it’s not that bad.

It’s all perspective. Honestly it may be very bad for some. With level up awards you have enough to unlock all core specializations and most utility skills, if you do that it will leave you at 0 hero points. Currently the only way to obtain hero points besides level up awards is hero challenges, those will give you 1 hero point each. There are around 218 of them in the game. If you have an alt that you have not done map completion on you will be doing map completion on that character in the core game (say hello to 20-30 hours of just running around the world to get those 218 points one at a time). I think that’s ridiculous.

Yes new HoT ones will be 10 points each, but how many hero challenges per map do you expect to see? Keep in mind if you are at 0 hero points on a character you will need to do 40 of the new hero challenges to get to 400 points. With only 3 new maps it’s hard to envision that being feasible until near the end of content in the expansion.

I guess it’s not that bad if your expectation was not to have access to the Elite Spekittenil the mid or end of the expansion or if you don’t mind focusing your effort on finding and “grinding” hero points

Trustilotous.9672:

Considering the new hero challenges in the HoT maps give 10 hero points each and with the amount of hero points currently attainable in game, getting all traits/skills unlocked and then spending 400 for the elite is pretty light honestly. I think it’s in a great spot. Also, to clarify, Colin said you’d need 60 points to “start” playing the elite spec, which I assume means 60 points gets you that very first passive in the spec which gives you your new weapon and special profession ability (ex. reaper shroud, celestial form, etc).

Well, how many hero challenges will there be in HoT? Currently we average around 7 hero challenges per map. Let’s say HoT gives us a high number like 10 per map, that’s still only 100 hero points per map of the 400 you need. If it takes 200 hero points to get to the point where the Elite Spec can be useful most will be either grinding hero challenges or end up not unlocking the Elite Spekittenil the later half/end of the expansion. If that is the case, it’s really horrible design. The elite specification play mechanic is probably the biggest value of the expansion. We want to play the expansion with them out the gate at launch, it greatly enhances the game feeling new. If you can’t put together a good Elite Spec build until the last 20% of the expansion that’s really a waste.

IMO they should have incorporated the Elite Spec into the instanced story and made it so we were full unlock (except for elite skins and armor item) at the end of the 2nd or 3rd story instance. That would have gotten people focused on the gameplay and not the hero challenge grind, Still want to know what exactly we get when we spend 60 hero points towards the Elite Spec.

ColinJohanson.2394:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Unless I am mistaken just to unlock half of the training line, we need 212 hero points?

It’s 400 points total to unlock everything in an elite spec training line – I just can’t remember off hand how many points folks have currently if they have done all the existing ones, but it’s right around 200. The rest you’ll need to earn in jungle to unlock the deeper skills/traits/etc. in the training line.

You only need 60 hero points to begin using your elite spec, the points you spend after that continue to unlock more skills, traits, skins, etc.

Again, hero challenges are worth 10 points each in the jungle. So no you don’t need to go do 200-400 jungle challenges.

Unless you’ve been playing since launch and you spent most of your hero points early on. What exactly do we get for 60 points?

I’ve had this character since launch. Prior to Spirit Shards being a currency we had to spend hero points for crafting certain items. I spent quite a few on crafting. Also Prior to the trait line changes I had unlocked everything after the update (this was a few months back) I had two trait lines locked as if I had never used them which I had to spend hero points to re-unlock.
Given the problems and changes to how hero points behave and what they can be used for some old players are getting a really horrible deal with this.

We need an explanation on how many of the 400 points will be required to have access to all the traits to make an effect Elite Specialization build. Colin said “you’ll need 60” which would be the same as the other core Specializations. Will the other 340 be needed just to obtain the elite spec armor skins and unique armor piece? If that’s the case, I don’t have any complaints with the way it’s planned except for on my older characters who used hero points as currency for other things.

For players rolling new characters, just be conservative with the utility skill unlocks and go do 10-15 hero challenges in the core game.

Does this mean if you have if I have an Ele with Fire, Arcane and Water specializations unlocked and maxed that I will also have to unlock all trait paths in Air and Earth (which I never use) before I can begin to unlock Tempest (Elite Spec)?

Colin has cleared up what it will cost to unlock the Elite Spec. You’ll need 400 hero points, but as a prerequisite to beginning to unlock it you’ll have to have all the trait lines already maxed. So for example if you play an Elementalist, you’ll have to have all existing trait lines/specializations (Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Arcane) completely maxxed before you can begin to put hero points towards the Elite Spec (which again will cost 400 hero points on its own).

This will encourage players to grind hero points over everything else and for me I know it will dappen the overall new feel of the expansion at launch. I am 100% ok with the 400 points to unlock the full Elite Spec trait line, but absolutely hate the prereq to unlock all other traitlines. That’s ridiculously because I just don’t use all of them. Since I see this as creating grind to get to the new class play mechanics and since those mechanics were such an important part of my BWE experiences I have to say I don’t understand this decision. As much as any MMO aspires to be anti-grind the eventually descend there, don’t they. What the kitten happened to casual friendly? The hero point acquisition is a time sink. How about sticking to your original manifesto and giving those of us who have jobs and don’t play 24/7 some way to obtain these through the gem store? I’d have no problem if you took that path with it either, but as stated to be implemented once again we have very bad design decision IMO.

Oh well, at least we have them unlocked in PvP. I suppose that will continue to be the only aspect of the game I care about. Love this game, strongly dislike the game design leadership decisions like this because they go against the original vision and manifesto of taking most of the time sinks in an MMO and making those available to more mature players with lives and time commitments through the cash store.

Ah the question What to do when your pug faces a premade. It’s sort of like the same question “what should the crew do when the ship is sinking and there is no realistic hope for keeping her a float” the answer is to abandon ship. You don’t have to rage quit (although I will admit I have on occasion in unranked matches). If you see the opposing team is a guild team you know they are premade, even if they aren’t on coms they have a clear advantage. If they are on coms you have zero chance. You can announce in map chat “we both know that premade vs pug is a waste of everyone’s time. It’s not sharping your premade and it’s not much fun to be on the receiving end of a battle that can’t be won without a major upset. It’s out of respect for the game and each of you that I’m bowing out”. That’s how everyone should handle it. Or you can stay in game and spend spend 8-10 minutes of your life on nothing of value.

Solo and Premade queues are coming with guild teams, leagues patch. At least for HoT buyers. Until this patch is in treat premade solo joint queuing as any other bug in the game.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to pop on here and clarify something very specific, and very important, about the “Heart of Thorns” storyline. The first chapter titled “Prologue: Rally to Maguuma”, which some of you have played a beta version of in our previous BWE releases, is set in a public multi-player tutorial style map, very similar to the way that new players start in a multi-player tutorial map. It is NOT a private story instance.
As such, the rules for story steps in public maps apply, namely that even if you are in a party with your friends together in this map, EACH party member must complete the story step individually in order to receive credit toward unlocking the second chapter “Torn from the Sky”.

In short: if you want to party up to get into the “Heart of Thorns” storyline and enter the first story instance “Torn from the Sky” together, PLEASE make sure all party members have completed the “Prologue: Rally to Maguuma” story chapter first.

The game WILL allow you to enter the “Torn from the Sky” instance even if you have not completed the prologue step, but you will NOT earn progress on “Torn from the Sky” until you’ve completed that step, which may result in party members needing to re-do the prologue and “Torn from the Sky” a second time to get full credit.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this might cause, but hopefully if you all think of the starting prologue experience in terms of the starting tutorial maps, it will be clear.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing you all playing through the “Heart of Thorns” storyline and giving us your feedback here. See you in game soon!

I asked during BWE and no one responded. Continue to wonder what the purpose is of a tutorial level in HoT. If a player had masteries unlocked for the tutorial and it was designed to showcase what they will be able to achieve and let the use these play mechanics just for the tutorial it would make some sense. But it does’t.

From a game design perspective what do you feel this tutorial offers to players? Every player entering this map will be on a level 80 character, most have done multiple dungeon runs, world bosses, etc… So what exactly is this tutorial teaching? If it’s not teaching anything then what is it’s function? I’m not angry, just curious what the thought process was if the designers would be willing to enlighten us. As it stands it just appears to be poor design because it seems every character we want to bring into HoT has to go though this pre-story mission #1 tutorial.

Usse.2795:

yes, running generosity.

I actually got “Hit” 5 times… that went to 8o k burning?

Say what you will, all you come off as is a burning build trying to defend cheese.

Burning Burst Guardian has it’s weaknesses. It’s not OP. Go watch the World Tournament Series Grand Finale where the Abjured take on Orange Logo. Orange Logo ran a burn guard on their team for that match, Abjured had two D/D Eles and they destroyed. Although not as popular anymore Survival Ranger is still one of the best class builds in the game. In competitive play you don’t show up to win but then complain because other players are running with the best class builds they can use.. The goal is to maximize your teams utility doing whatever you can that is not banned.

When it comes to competitive anything, the fun is in the win. Nothing else really matters. That mentality is not going to be for everyone. For those I would say WvW and PvE are calling. Go play a part of the game where you can find the fun.

If you call class builds like burn guard and D/D else “cheese” you sound like an idiot because the pro teams at the very top are running variants of those same builds.

Vapour.7348:

triggerhappy.3871:

This thread can be exploited to encourage A-net as if they had done well when they removed solo queue.

No they did a TERRIBLE thing when they removed SoloQ.

There hasn’t been word from them that they’ll ever bring it back so I’m trying to help out with doing our best with what we have.

This is what I said about the time they removed SoloQ

Best to play ranked. You still may get a premade but at least there you get the balanced maps.

Amaya.1483:

Thats what i said, balance is ok so far now. The other Problems are way bigger anyway

True, after three years I agree the game has become much more balanced than at launch. I think that balance is a big part of why the pvp side of the game has grown so much in 2015…. Now they are about to toss Elite Specializations, new weapon/armor mods and a new class into the mix, likely taking us back to the unbalanced mess it was at launch in 2012. Good times ahead.

Truthfully, they should probably keep the Elite Specs and Revenant out of ranked play for the upcoming season just to give the devs time to balance them. That would protect the integrity of the current meta and all the hard works that’s gone into getting us to this point in balance.

Gav.1425:

We’ve demanded Build Saving since launch, but no luck.

If ANet wants people to not HATE stronghold, we need Build Saving to people can swap to their SH build when the time comes.

The same goes for deathmatch. Courtyard is the best map in the game (this is fact), but people can be resistant because they can’t just pull a DM build of of their kitten .

With Build Saving, you can.

Thanks for Combat Mode, BTW. Kinda wish someone had been working on Build Saving for all that time, tho.

Agree 100% with you build saving. I’ve come to believe they don’t do this so players will buy another character slot and create alts with specific builds; a baked in inconvenience to direct players to the gem store to spend real money.

Here are my thoughts on the maps:

Courtyard is the only death match map in the game. Structured PvP at the pro level in GW2 is more tactical than that, it’s about point capture + kills, with focus on point cap/decap and defend. It’s what is used for pro play because when all else is equal it requires the most skill. I doubt you will ever see Courtyard in pro play. Courtyard is great for private solo tournaments and a lot for fun especially for newer players. Wish we had a few more death match maps to pick from than just courtyard.

Stronghold and Courtyard should be queued separately from the conquest/point capture maps. Maps not in the ranked/tournament/pro play rotation (e.g. the god awful Skyhammer map) should also be a checkbox when queuing. When you force players doing unranked to play on maps like sky hammer that are too unbalanced for ranked play you’re just asking for people to leave game because for those focused on improving their ranked game those maps are a waste of time.

I’ve read the articles on league division progression and previous articles on guild team leaderboards. The latest article “Announcing the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League” has a subsection titled “What if I don’t make the cut” where it states the league team leaderboard has been renamed Guild Challenger League

Prior to reading this I was envisioning a guild team leaderboard that showed ranked guild teams not individual players (there as an article explaining how guild leaders could create guild pvp teams in HoT), but since there will only be eight guild teams in the Guild Challenger League, now it seems we won’t see a a guild team leaderboard at all! Is this true?

Also, while the article is focused on Pro play this comment has me worried “… we strongly felt that there should be a clear and concise path of progression for any team to attempt to make their way into the Pro League.”. Does this mean ArenaNet’s view is that all guild teams playing sPvP have the goal of making it into The Guild Challenge League?

One of the original stated goals of leagues and league divisions was to make GW2 sPvP more approachable to the semi-pro and casual players (those of us with day jobs, families, etc.. who just love the sport of gw2 pvp and want it to offer more than random matches and dungeon gear).

Take a look at your ESL tournament teams. There is an archetype age range and gender for pro team play. That archetype does not represent the majority of pvp players. Having been part of a pro team in a different game about five years ago, I know the time commitment it takes to be at that level and the personal sacrifices a person makes to accomplish that (it’s like anything you want to be the best at). A successful league system will make pvp more fun across the board by giving those in each division the ability to compete with like-skilled teams and have their own bracket at season end.

I’d like to know what league divisions are going to bring for the other 95% of us who don’t make the Guild Challenge League. Most of us know we won’t make the Challenge League because we aren’t able to devote the time needed to it to even be a contender. Those of us who can rationalize the req to accomplish that know from the season start we won’t be going all the way to the very top. What do leagues give us? Will you hold division tournaments at season end so each league division can have a “best of division” champion? I believe adding that one feature would solve this problem. Please explain what league divisions will bring for those of us who just want to be the best in our division? We need to at least be able to know where we rank.

Also, can you please explain pip ownership? When a pip is earned does it belong to a player or a guild team? If it belongs to a guild team is it just applied to the guild in general or does the pip rank only show when the guild team that earned it is in party together? When the pip is lost is it lost for all players in the guild team roster. Is a pvp guild team roster limited to only 5 players or can we have more and let the team captain(s) do rotations?

Thanks

Sidenti.6035:

Look, I’ve played SWTOR and Neverwinter. I’ve seen what happens when communication restrictions are loosened on F2Ps. YOU DO NOT WANT THAT.

I’ve had exactly one goldspam message sent to me since signing up on the first day of F2P. One. That’s more than worth a lockdown on F2Ps. If they want communication options, they can do like I did and plunk down their cash.

This has nothing to do with F2Ps and nothing I suggest would enable gold spammers. I am suggesting a tool to enable guild officers to send out mass mails to guild members. Bearing in mind ArenaNet logs every mail transaction and can query those transactions (e.g. “show me table of all transactions where WarriorJohn.2352 sent duplicate message where recipient was not a guild member”) Technically this is very trivial task with relational databases systems. Trivial to sniff out abuses and trivial to ban them though automated scripts.

But what the hey, I’ll go through the OP’s suggestions point-by-point.

• What you’re asking for would require more maintenance and new code added to a feature that simply doesn’t warrant it. The in-game mailing system is one of the last things that should require regular maintenance, and it should NEVER require new code. Anything that requires more maintenance without a tangible financial return = bad in the coding world.

With all due respect, if the in game mail system can not facilitate the player base then it should absolutely be given attention just as any other feature in the game. Your opinion on it is noted and perhaps shared by others, but you are not considering the position of someone trying to communicate with their guild and the utility of such a feature (especially given the importance of guilds in HoT). You also lack the technical knowledge to consider how trivial of a task this would be. So you’re not even coming into the discussion from a position of understanding the real impact in terms of resource effort it would be. I am in a position to generalize that given my experience and background in Computer Science and Software Engineering. What are you bringing to the discussion other than a brash opinion that is apparently founded in ignorance of the technical nuance and you are relating everything to some experience with gold spamming in another game (which is off point… again guild officers having additional features to mass mail only guild members does not facilitate gold spammers in any significant rational way). It appears you are simply replying to this thread to be argumentative, even competitive with a misunderstanding of some of the core request and ignorance of implementation effort.

• Absolutely not. Allowing indiscriminate transfer of gold between guildmates opens up a prime vector of attack for goldspammers by giving them plausible cover for their actions. By not having an environment ripe for abuse, ANet helps cover our behinds as well as their own.

Again, this is an easy nightly report audit done through automated scripting. Total effort required to implement less than a week or two to go from zero code to fully tested and ready to be patched by a competent developer. I am generalizing but I have dealt with similar systems and can infer a ballpark estimate on this. How would this work? Nightly the script could make this query “show me all accounts that have gold transfer transactions where the majority of those transactions are from users new to gold sellers guild, where gold seller and and guild buyer are in the same guild”. This is rough pseudo code for standard query syntax used against relational databases systems. Since I’ve been polling ArenaNet’s job posting for the last several years I can tell you they are using some standard storage that would make this a trivial task. I could go on but I don’t think you’re coming at this from a point to have to technical discussion on it because you are ignorant in this area.

• Basically, what you’re asking for here is to give some admin powers to regular players. I trust I don’t have to tell you what opening that particular Pandora’s Box means on the security side of things, given your degree and experience. (But I will if you like!)

With this bullet point you actually prove that you don’t even grasp that I am asking for. When it comes to mass mailing, I am asking for officers in the guild to have a sort of CC capability to send a single message to all members of the guild that hold a certain guild rank.

And finally:

• I’m glad you at least acknowledge it’s a reach, but come on, man. Do you honestly expect ANet to be chomping at the bit to get into yet another business model? That would require either hiring more personnel (and the payroll increases that come with that – by the way, I’d like to mention that us players are the primary source of ANet’s income so that means we’d be seeing passthrough) or taking existing personnel and repurposing them (taking dev time and ability away from the game itself). Enjin, GuildWork, hell, even Facebook/Google+/Whatever Else There Is In Social Media are all in the game and all much more well-established. There’s no point in ANet expending the time or manpower when these options (and many others) already exist, many for free.

I appreciate that you’re having a hard time communicating with some F2Pers, but honestly? That’s on the F2Pers for not paying in. (And no, I’m not going to feel sorry for any poor people playing. I was poor too. Get paid if you wanna chat, F2Pers.) -Sid

Actually with all the money coming in from the Heart of Thorns expansion it would make sense for ArenaNet to consider additional revenue streams. Your response on this shows you clearly are clueless of the value of expanding to new but related markets when the time is right. We are near a product release (HoT) meaning the product is going to go into maintenance which means in the very near future resources will likely be freed up work on other things. The website is largely the same it was at launch. I don’t know the size of the web team, but offering a guild site hosting services could be a great way to spend some of the HoT profits and invest them into a new revenue stream. Your F2pers comments were entirely off base, you have no technical knowledge on the subject at hand so you’ve made some grossly exaggerated assumptions on effort required to implement what I’m asking for. What’s more, you’ve proven through several comments that you didn’t even have a good grasp on what I was requesting (well, not the more points anyway) before you responded.

I imagine you’ll post some rebuttal, that’s fine. You’re free to but I won’t be wasting any more time on a response. There’s just not enough to work with.

We want to hold an officers meeting and in-game mail a short message to all guild officers with itinerary, date and time. The way things currently work the guild member trying to send the in-game mailer out has to send them one at a time and every 2-3 sends they will be blocked with a “can not send due to excessive sending” message. The is absolutely no reason why the e-mail spam filter can’t make exceptions when it sees the mail is going from guild member to guild member or at least when message is going from a higher privileged guild member to a lower privileged guild member. A have a degree in Computer Science and many years programming. This should be very trivial. Not being able to do this is infuriating and can cause problems (e.g. some officers end up receiving notices much later than others). There is no reason we should be required to rely on third-party software and services for guild communication

Here are some ideas to improve the in game tools for communication

• Make exceptions for all restrictions on guild member to guild member communications. Spam filter should be off. If a guild officer is spamming guild members that is a situation the guild can deal with. The member can choose to leave the guild if the leadership doesn’t take care of the problem. Lifting the spam restriction makes sense for guild member to guild member communication

• Allow guild members to send gold to each other without restriction or fear of being banned. This will allow guild leaders and officers to collect in game gold as contribution to third-party and first party services the guild wants. For example, collecting contributions for private guild tournament entrance fees, custom arenas, etc…

• Events and timers that can be set by guildies. This would give officers the ability to create mini games and to broadcast “An event is about to begin” messages to all guild members..

• This last one is a reach, but would be nice to have. Provide guild website hosting option though ArenaNet (something similar to GuildWork.com but first party). This could be something we could pay for with gems to maintain and another revenue stream.

RevanCorana.8942:

This is a much more suited name for this game

Power Warrior:
double ignore pain every min – immune to damage for 5 sec x 2
3 sec block every 20 sec
Rampage (unkillable faceroller that touch you once, you ded)

Power Engi:
double elixir S every min – immune to everything for 3 sec x 2
3 sec block every 16 sec
5 sec stealth every 50 sec
AOE spam
Rampage 1/2 the time

Power Mesmer:
kittenload of stealth even post nerf
Blink, 30sec cooldown
3 sec rooted invulnerability every 12 sec with sword
1-3 sec invulnerability every 50 sec
Ok portals are fun

Starting to see a pattern here…
block block block
blind blind blind
invuln invuln invuln
baa baa baa
meh meh meh

Anyone knows where is the action based mmo?

You forgot to mention Burn Burst Guardian or Survival ranger after Heal As One boost… It’s almost as if all the classes are OP when given the right buildout, which of course means none of them are really OP given a team where everyone is skilled and can play an optimal build for their class and team objectives.

The community will always find the must optimal build for playing a specific role with a specific class. It’s natural selection or what we call meta. If a class can only play one role does that mean it’s unbalanced? I don’t think so. You can always take a vacation from PvP and go run any build you want in PvE, right?

Does this accurately distill what has been made public about leagues? Is there anything I can add?

http://iono-pvp.guildwork.com/wiki/pvp-guild-leagues

Thanks