Guild Wars 2

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

I’m a western player. I have no idea what you’re talking about. And players saying it wasn’t what we wanted? How many players? Have you not noticed every time someone complains about too much grind in HoT, roughly half the posts in the thread are by people who don’t mind or even like it?

I think you’re over-estimating your opinion as something that is some sort of majority opinion. I think it’s probably a minority opinion. Of course, I think my opinion is probably a minority opinion too. I think most people don’t think deeply enough about their gaming experience to register much of an opinion at all.

A good thing Vayne is here to tell us what everyone else is thinking.

You’d be a lot better off sticking to the topic at hand instead of continuing your personal attacks against me, as you’ve often done in the past.

You see the OP was the one who was talking foir Western audience, but you’re not calling him out, are you? Nope. You’re calling out my response.

If you weren’t so busy trying to disprove what i say, you’d realize the irony here.

But each post like this you make only makes my posts look better, so thanks.

Kampilan.3895:

Gaile Gray.6029:

We wanted to let you know that this year’s Halloween Festival will be ending on Wednesday, November 4.

We hope you enjoyed the celebration! I know I had a blast!

Thanks so much, Gaile. I only have one Achievement left to Event Completion and the extra day is a godsend. More time to hunt pumpkins! And more time to farm for ToT bags

And, yes, thoroughly enjoying it. Gives me a chance to run my Ranger through the paces (not yet on Druid, though. Seeing how my old build stacks on PvE).

Bought the Hexed Outfit! Naisu

Tons of pumpkins in Queensdale if you haven’t looked.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Vayne.8563:

Frankly I think that anyone who thinks the zone is too difficult, should avoid it and go play in the old zones, which are very very easy.

This is such a lazy man’s argument and gets trotted out blithely any time a discussion of balancing the HoT content comes up.

Many people bought this game based on the content available – core Tyria maps were a huge part of this – so it set the tone for the game, and people based their decisions to buy largely on it. This is simply logical sense.

Then the content and the maps change significantly and people express their concerns about it. And they’re told not to expect to be able to play any of it or even bothering to buy new content or expansions. They’re told to just keep playing content they’ve done over and over without expecting anything new. This is ridiculous.

When you spend your money using the evidence available and see a game and say, “Hey, this game is fun and terrific for my playstyle,” it isn’t exactly surprising if they would like to have some new content in line with what they based their buying decision on in the first place. This doesn’t make them bad people or stupid people.

They certainly deserve some respect and not the cesspool ideology of “go find a real game to play” and “stop being a stupid, worthless noob,” “L2P,” etc. ad nauseum the kind of stupid, pointless things people say because they need to feel superior to anyone disagreeing with them.

It’s not a lazy man’s argument. It’s an argument to say that they made a game intentionally harder, based on the way that some people wanted harder content. They’ve already nerfed several hero point.s They can’t make every area of the game for everyone. It’s not possible. End game content really is meant, sometimes, to be end game content.

And I’m pretty sure that anyone paying attention would have known it was supposed to be harder. That said, it’s really not that much harder. It means learning some things to get through it. For example, if there’s a sniper and you take him out faster, then you have a better chance of survival, because the snipers will kill you fast. But they also die very quickly.

The problem is if you make an expansion with end game content too easy, then everyone gets through it in a few days, and everyone says the expansion sucks. Right now, you have a small minority of people who are saying this. And it is a small minority right now.

I have an ultra casual guild, and it is ultra casual. I only have a single person right now who feels the content is too hard and they can’t get through it, and this is a person who hardly ever has time to play.

If they make the game for that person, the game becomes unplayably boring for alot of other people. Even Orr was nerfed to make it easier. Some people, many even, preferred it before the nerf.

HoT is four end game zones. It does what Eye of the North does. It adds harder, more challenging, end game content to the game…and progress as well.

If you’re trying to solo it you have to be smarter, but in fact, if you belong to a guild, or even if you have one or two friends to play with, the zone isn’t that hard.

Yes, you may have to adjust your play style.

Asking for a zone to be nerfed is far more lazy than saying people need to be reasonable about their expectations. There aren’t that many people by percentage that can’t do this content. But there are people who try a couple of times, don’t really figure anything about and get frustrated.

I can get you a portal to the top if you need it. Just contact me in game. And no, I don’t charge.

As for the diving goggles in the Silverwastes, which someone else brought up, this is why people should join a decent guild. We had a mesmer there, as an anchor, portaling people back up until they got it.

I’d fill out a service ticket. Very often they’ll correct stuff like that.

darkm.4839:

Canakun.8031:

tl;dr the content you consider to be grind is the content i consider to be meaningful gameplay.
maybe you feel like you’re grinding because you’re not having fun, in which case: stop playing the game if it’s not fun to you.

If grinding away is your idea of meaningful gameplay, then fine. It’s not to me, and it’s not to a lot of people. Which is why they made Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 with a “no grind” philosophy. Which frustrates me that they keep adding meta-events with rewards that require you to grind those meta-events. It wouldn’t be a problem if it were a map or two out of 5 or 6 maps. But it’s every map. 3 of 3 maps. A disappointingly small amount of maps, all of which are grindy in nature.

I don’t have fun grinding meta-events. I have stopped playing, but I do love and enjoy Guild Wars 2 in its core. Hence my thread giving my opinion and criticism of the content provided.

No, playing the game is not grind to me. I enjoy playing the event chains, because I enjoy the event chains. I don’t play them to get experience. I play them for fun. Which is not grind. Frankly I think that anyone who thinks the zone is too difficult, should avoid it and go play in the old zones, which are very very easy.

Fans of been asking for more challenging content for a long time. Something in the game has to require some challenge.

And it’s not that people can’t do it. It’s that they don’t want to learn how to. Not everything in the game has to be for everyone.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Well that’s what I’ve been referring to as my people ‘the silent majority’ that liked the old ways and the old world and frankly hate the new way.

Yes, no one every complained about how boring world bosses are, and how standing there and pressing 1 is destroying the game. I’ve never seen that complaint /s.

And people think I’m out of touch.

Pro tip: get some princess doll tonics and jump as a princess doll. They’re cheap and they’ll make your life a lot easier. In fact, there are a number of cheap humanoid tonics you could use.

I’m a western player. I have no idea what you’re talking about. And players saying it wasn’t what we wanted? How many players? Have you not noticed every time someone complains about too much grind in HoT, roughly half the posts in the thread are by people who don’t mind or even like it?

I think you’re over-estimating your opinion as something that is some sort of majority opinion. I think it’s probably a minority opinion. Of course, I think my opinion is probably a minority opinion too. I think most people don’t think deeply enough about their gaming experience to register much of an opinion at all.

I’ve soloed most of HoT. Sometimes you have to adapt your play style to beat new content. If you are doing something and it’s not working, what have you tried to make it work? That’s part of what makes it a game. The challenge of figuring out how to beat it.

I’ve had a couple of crashes. More than I used to have but not significant enough to affect me game play. I’m probably crashing once a day. I assume they’re working on it.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Astrella.8930:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

social justice warriors.

Do tell. Is it the fact that they acknowledged that hey, lesbians and disabled people exist???

No, the fact that they beat us over the head with them using pretty stereotypical blunt force theatrics. “Oh, lets go pick out curtains” Really? I am disabled BTW. Tiami makes me a bit ill in both design and characterization. Designed to be pitied. No thanks. Honest, subtle integration would have been far better. Obvious tokens are tokens.

They only beat you over the head with it if you’re sensitive to that. I never felt beat over the head with it. Because when I see someone who’s a lesbian I see a person and when I see a handicapped person, I see a person. I just see people.

It’s sad that so many people feel beat over the head with labels.

As for exaageration in the genre, it’s the rule for a reason. Half the people skip cutscenes and don’t read text. What you see as beating over the head, I see as making accessible to those not paying attention.

Hear hear!

OP, I understand where you’re coming from and I’d like to see more things attained in game without having to go to the wiki. That’s one of my biggest issues with the game. It’s worse with something like halloween because it’s a limited time event. You don’t really have time to figure stuff out.

But there’s also crafting like mawdrey which is far more confusing but something you can eventually figure out if you bang your head against it enough. It’s a long term goal, a major quest and it’s a pain in the rear, but it’s doable.

But judging the entire game on your early experiences isn’t necessary the best way to go about things, particularly here. This game was made for people to not be told what to do. It’s actually a selling point. I don’t want to follow an arrow around. I want to explore and discover.

Unfortunately, part of that process will be going to a wiki. However, I don’t have to do it nearly as often as you might think.

Lazuli.2098:

I thought so too but the reason I ask is 3 of my characters should have the same amount of hero points. They are all level 80 and all have 100% map completion. Yet my mesmer ( my main) had 10 more points to put into her elite specialization than the other 2. She does have 1 HP from Dry Top and 5 from Silver Wastes that the other 2 don’t have. She should have 6 more points than the other 2. So I’m wondering where she got the other 4 points?

SIlverwaste and Drytop hero points and WvW hero points don’t count toward map completion, so you may have those.

StickerHappy.8052:

Vayne.8563:

Use boosters? I’m running all sort of boosters, food, fireworks, celebration booster, XP booster…I have 15 mastery points spent so far.

Some of these boosters you have to buy for gems. Not really sure I wanna spend money on that.

Once you reach the second to the last or last tier of each mastery, tell me about it.

Celebration boosters are free with dailies. Birthday boosters you get for long term playing. Gold can be traded for gems to buy boosters, unless you’re a free to play player (which if you’re playing HoT you’re not). Food, utilities and fireworks can all be crafted or in the case of fireworks bought off the trading post.

They also said play how you want. You don’t have to grind, you CHOOSE to grind. I’m leveling my masteries without grinding. What’s the issue?

JUN YANG.4328:

tons of people. you thinks so??
there area so many veteran quite because of pricing. there so many veteran given negative fee back after HOT launch.. why you think will have tons of people.

anet now are waiting for “fee play” player to join in after they enjoy enough the core game.

So all the full maps we get to are hallucinations. Just about everyone in my guild of 200 bought HoT. I think you aren’t paying attention.

Use boosters? I’m running all sort of boosters, food, fireworks, celebration booster, XP booster…I have 15 mastery points spent so far.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

IEatCabbage.1907:

you have to be level10 because they don’t want a free to play player who would 1. troll players 2. don’t even know there skills and jump in pvp right away

How can you possible know that? Honestly, F2P is Anet’s future, one they deem worth driving Veterans away for. They are gambling that F2P will buy Hot in greater numbers than the vets walking away from a 180 degree turn in design philosophy.

Yes, because the 200 vets in my guild didn’t all buy HoT. lol What an imagination.

gavyne.6847:

Thank you so much for this Dulfy!

If any Anet devs happen to check this out, I just want to say how ridiculous it is that you gate map completion and hero points behind these Masteries and in the case of Auric Basin, you gate map completion there with a hard meta event. Shame on you. It’s almost like you don’t want people to finish map completion despite folks putting in the time to play them thoroughly.

Saying shame on you because you don’t like something. Shame on you.

YOU have a problem with it. I’m sure some other people do. But you clearly don’t know as much as you think about game design.

It’s an end game map. There are four of them. If everyone could just run through them and get anything, in a week people would be saying they had nothing to do.

Don’t shame the devs because you personally don’t liked something. That’s a borderline personal attack.

If you dont’ like something, say you don’t like it, but this level of hyperbole helps no one.

Every MMO gates stuff, because no MMO can create content faster than content locusts can consume it. If you want map completion play the game. Shame on Anet for making people play the game to get achievements.

Shakes head.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Chipofsalt.4673:

…
1) You don’t need your elite spec to play through HoT.
.

Clipped everything else from your post because really everything else you say is just to support 1. No one is going to disagree with you. We don’t need our elite specialization to play thoug HoT. It comes down to the majority feeling the Elite Specialization should be something we can enjoy the new content with and play though vs receiving it as an end-game award.

You have proof of this majority, or are you just assuming it’s a majority. I don’t assume any such thing and I don’t believe there is a majority that want it. I think there’s a very vocal group of people that want it, but you’d have a hard time proving it’s a majority.

For example, I know a lot of people aren’t even in love with the elite specs for their profession. My wife mains a guardian, she’s not enthused by the Dragon Hunter. She doesn’t care if it takes a while to unlock it.

I don’t particularly care if it takes me a while to unlock content either, because I like progression.

Most people probably don’t even follow the game as closely as we do here on the forums. A bunch of people are just running around the new zones, happy to have the content, and they’re not even thinking heavily about the mastery.

I do think there’s a group of disenfranchised people who are very loudly complaining that they don’t have access to their masteries right away. I think you’ll have a very very hard time proving their a majority.

As often happens, people assume their strongly felt feelings are echoed by some kind of majority. It’s very rarely true.

fellyn.5083:

You know what happens when you tell everyone to go away who disagrees with you?

You’re left alone.

It’s great that you like it but that doesn’t change the fact that people are making valid complaints. Doesn’t change the fact that the direction Anet is taking in HoTs is pretty much the complete opposite direction of anything else they’ve ever done in the past. And subsequently everything that drew players to the game in the first place. Or that they nerfed the kitten out of vanilla content to make the new stuff more appealing.

But yeah, people are just being lazy and want everything now.

Also it’s pretty silly to think that only people who have complained a lot in the past are doing so now especially when we see a lot of people who say they never or rarely post on the forums and are doing so because they’re disappointed with how things are.

Yes alone with everyone else enjoying the game. Don’t know why that’s an issue.

To be fair, there are legit complaints, but many of them are just people who are like special interest groups who want the game tailored for their specific demographic, even if that demographic isn’t that large.

Razor.9872:

DaShi.1368:

Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.

Just because you think you understand it doesn’t mean there is a problem.

Well there definite is a problem. The problem is that small groups of people always think their demographic is larger than it is in the overall scheme of things. Therefore they believe the changes they want made to the game make sense from a development perspective.

It’s like a small group of people who are so sure of their own desires, they think everyone must want them. It happens all the time in politics, in games, everywhere.

That’s the real problem here. Human nature.

WvW players who don’t want to engage in the rest of the game are only a very small percentage of the population…they simply don’t believe it.

jazzllanna.1278:

RapidSausage.4620:

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

No I don’t expect them to be just given to me but when I cannot even port back to complete it that is a problem. I also am pretty concerned how the maps are going to be in a few months because honestly there are not many people in the areas where I am now so how few will there be then? I do not understand why it was such a huge jump from the old skill points to the ones now and yes, I get that it is worth 10, but really that is just so they can make up for the huge number you need to get the the elites.

Call out in map chat and have someone pop a commander tag. You’ll get more people pretty fast. I have yet to find a point that doesn’t work with.

It’s even better because even if you’ve done it, you can get the reward for it once a day.

hurrado.2346:

Vayne.8563:

hurrado.2346:

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

hurrado.2346:

DaShi.1368:

That’s right folks. If you don’t like the PvE, just shut up about it. This game isn’t for you.

That is what Vayne seems to think.

Maybe they should lock the specs behind doing an excessive amount of whatever content he enjoys playing the least, and see who is complaining then.

It means that you can’t just play one area of the game and expect to get the rewards at the same speed. You’re in a place now where you can get every single point just by WvWing without ever leaving WvW. That’s an improvement.

But all we here from WvW is complaint. Shrugs.

I’m okay with that.

It’s not a problem for Vayne, so it shouldn’t be a problem for others.

When a change is made to this game that I don’t like, I try to look at the overall picture, because it’s NEVER just about me. I don’t complain about what I don’t like if I can see the reason things have been done. Many changes have inconvenienced me. I see why they were done and I move on.

There are many people who already have over 200 skill points on their characters. The game needed both account and character progression. Masteries are account progression,. elite specializtaions are charater progression.

You don’t have to like it, but it’s unlikely to change, because they’re more benefit to the game by leaving it this way than changing it.

I’m not saying it’s about me. You are.

Except now the fact that there are legitimate problems it seems to be “JUST about you” many players are left in the dust and its just unacceptable and most suggestions are very reasonable. People don’t want a grind, that isn’t what this game is about and it should not be about.

You got me wrong, mate. I have MORE characters than you. 31 80s. I simply see why the decision was made. It’s NOT all about me.

So who is it about then, since the design must not have been about players like me, and if its not about players on the other end of the spectrum like you, WHO EXACTLY is this expansion catered towards. It definitely isn’t the casual playerbase of GW2, it isn’t the WvW crowd, it isn’t even about many in PVE who wanted to play the new specs through the new area.

That leaves A-net and the hardcore grinding group. If those are the people this game is about then it’s not the great game that it had been before release.

And yes it should be somewhat about me, seeing as I paid money for it.

You’re simplifying the situation. Let’s say you LOVE loud music and live in an aparttment building. Is it reasonable to let you play loud music, if everyone else gets inconvenience? What about if only 70% of the people were inconvenienced?

That’s the issue here. Most people don’t even know about traits or specs. Most people log in, kill some stuff and log off. That’s most people. Most players don’t follow a meta. Most players probably don’t know the 4 down skill rezzes you.

So most players are less likely to be inconvenienced by this anyway. The people in your group are WvWers who don’t like anything but WvW. This isn’t a huge group of people. We’ve been told by the devs it’s a small group. We know that.

Now people SAY they don’t like grind, but people also say they want stuff to work for. Which group does Anet support. What about people who say they don’t like grind and leave the game because they’re nothing to do? Plenty of those.

There’s far more going on here than you and me.

hurrado.2346:

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

hurrado.2346:

DaShi.1368:

That’s right folks. If you don’t like the PvE, just shut up about it. This game isn’t for you.

That is what Vayne seems to think.

Maybe they should lock the specs behind doing an excessive amount of whatever content he enjoys playing the least, and see who is complaining then.

It means that you can’t just play one area of the game and expect to get the rewards at the same speed. You’re in a place now where you can get every single point just by WvWing without ever leaving WvW. That’s an improvement.

But all we here from WvW is complaint. Shrugs.

I’m okay with that.

It’s not a problem for Vayne, so it shouldn’t be a problem for others.

When a change is made to this game that I don’t like, I try to look at the overall picture, because it’s NEVER just about me. I don’t complain about what I don’t like if I can see the reason things have been done. Many changes have inconvenienced me. I see why they were done and I move on.

There are many people who already have over 200 skill points on their characters. The game needed both account and character progression. Masteries are account progression,. elite specializtaions are charater progression.

You don’t have to like it, but it’s unlikely to change, because they’re more benefit to the game by leaving it this way than changing it.

I’m not saying it’s about me. You are.

Except now the fact that there are legitimate problems it seems to be “JUST about you” many players are left in the dust and its just unacceptable and most suggestions are very reasonable. People don’t want a grind, that isn’t what this game is about and it should not be about.

You got me wrong, mate. I have MORE characters than you. 31 80s. I simply see why the decision was made. It’s NOT all about me.

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

hurrado.2346:

DaShi.1368:

That’s right folks. If you don’t like the PvE, just shut up about it. This game isn’t for you.

That is what Vayne seems to think.

Maybe they should lock the specs behind doing an excessive amount of whatever content he enjoys playing the least, and see who is complaining then.

It means that you can’t just play one area of the game and expect to get the rewards at the same speed. You’re in a place now where you can get every single point just by WvWing without ever leaving WvW. That’s an improvement.

But all we here from WvW is complaint. Shrugs.

I’m okay with that.

It’s not a problem for Vayne, so it shouldn’t be a problem for others.

When a change is made to this game that I don’t like, I try to look at the overall picture, because it’s NEVER just about me. I don’t complain about what I don’t like if I can see the reason things have been done. Many changes have inconvenienced me. I see why they were done and I move on.

There are many people who already have over 200 skill points on their characters. The game needed both account and character progression. Masteries are account progression,. elite specializtaions are charater progression.

You don’t have to like it, but it’s unlikely to change, because they’re more benefit to the game by leaving it this way than changing it.

I’m not saying it’s about me. You are.

hurrado.2346:

DaShi.1368:

That’s right folks. If you don’t like the PvE, just shut up about it. This game isn’t for you.

That is what Vayne seems to think.

Maybe they should lock the specs behind doing an excessive amount of whatever content he enjoys playing the least, and see who is complaining then.

It means that you can’t just play one area of the game and expect to get the rewards at the same speed. You’re in a place now where you can get every single point just by WvWing without ever leaving WvW. That’s an improvement.

But all we here from WvW is complaint. Shrugs.

I’m okay with that.

hurrado.2346:

Vayne.8563:

hurrado.2346:

Unloveableone.6082:

hurrado.2346:

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

The expansion is incredibly awesomely overwhelmingly fantastic.

What disappoints me is the number of posts on this forum, claiming exactly the opposite. These wonderful devs poured their heart and soul into this rich experience, and you’re all kittening on it because there is the slightest bit of challenge.

No one on here is asking “How do I do this?” It’s all “I can’t do this.”

Put your fingers to use learning how to rise to the challenge, instead of demonstrating your stereotypical Internet rage.

You might just find not only this game, but life, more enjoyable.

It’s too easy to follow the herd. There’s no value in being that kind of person.

Did you by any chance read that forum topic with somewhere near 2k responses? Players know how to do it, and that is what is disappointing them: you have to grind, period.

People want to play their elite specs, not grind for days/weeks/months on end on specs they have played for the last three years to unlock them.

Then play the kitten game. I’m already fully Berserkered out after two days of game time. It’s not hard if you’re not lazy. Stop whining and go play a single player game then.

I have played the game, been EOTM farming, 20 hours and only got 75 hero points, and guess what, it was a grind, I tried, and I mean tried to do the new PVE zone but after already hating PVE and then falling off the edge, and not knowing where anything is I rage left that zone.

Yes you have to learn the zone. You have to learn where to go. You gave up too fast. No one’s fault but yours.

Everyone is so used to following a star in other games to get a place to talk to an NPC to get a wall of text to follow an arrow to another star, they forgot how to explore, how to think, how to solve puzzles.

The new zone isn’t that hard to figure out and it doesnt’ take that long to figure out, but if you give up at the first sign of trouble, there’s not much I can tell you.

It’s much more fun to actually learn the zone.

You don’t understand, I DO NOT want to play that zone, I don’t do open world PVE, and that hasn’t changed. I do PVP, WVW and fractals almost exclusively. I hate map completion nonsense and don’t want to grind through it even once, and to do it for each character? That is nonsense.

Then that’s fine. If you don’t play that zone, don’t play it. But this game consists of PvE, WvW and SPvP. PvE is a HUGE part of this game. THis game wasn’t sold on WvW alone. So if you are choosing to ignore a part of the game, and you have a way to get it playing the part of the game you like, there’s not much anyone can do about it.

It’s like going to an amusement park and only liking shows and not liking rides. Of course you’ll complain. You don’t like what the park is offering.

But they’re not going to make it so that it’s so easy to get it in WvW that people have to flock there to get it, because that would kitten off the PvEers.

Seera.5916:

Some players wanted to experience the new content (excluding elite specs) while playing fully unlocked elite specs.

With this change, most players have to experience the new content (excluding elite specs) while playing either a core spec or a partial elite spec.

ANet didn’t communicate that they felt the elite specs were part of the end game character progression. So many people assumed that what unlocks it had, if any, would not take as long as they’ve discovered the current method takes.

I wanted enough money to buy a legendary the day I started playing. The question is, is that want a reasonable thing. I don’t believe it is.

People also wanted progression and for years have complained about lack of progression. The Elite spec is the character progression, and the masteries are the account progression BY DESIGN.

So people can want anything they want, but it isn’t going to affect design decisions that run much deeper.

I have five characters with world complete and another that’s almost completed the world. If they significantly lowered the point total,, I’d have no character progression. And that’s good for some people and not good for others. Furthermore there are a lot of people it’s good for that don’t think it is.

Both my sons played Guild Wars 2 until they got their max level gear and stopped playing. They came back only when ascended gear came out. They got their ascended gear and stopped playing again.

Too many people need stuff to work for that’s linear, to max out their power. It’s unfair but that’s how it is in this genre. If you want to blame someone, blame WoW who set up that situation and everyone ended up copying it.

It’s what players have come to expect when playing an MMO.

Anet’s first responsibility to the game is to keep people playing it. And the masses, unfortunately, have been programmed by other games to need something specific to work towards.

Decado.9304:

Coulter.2315:

I don’t understand why people are upset either, I got my elite spec fully unlocked early Sunday and didn’t start playing until late Friday evening and had all the Masteries required for story on Saturday.

Its literally opening weekend and people are saying because they didn’t get something instantly its suddenly a “grind.” Everything I did to get my Masteries and Elite Spec was new content – no repetition of events or areas – just exploring and the Story.

The expansion is beautiful, the mobs are fun to fight, the maps are huge with so mmany hidden fun bits, the meta events are well designed and the story was pretty good too. Clearly a lot of work has gone into it and people are too busy obsessing over not having access to a GM trait instantly that they are missing the fun.

If this is how people react to all the work put in I hate to imagine how the devs are feeling – because it isn’t a fair representation of what we got… Mob mentality or just too much hand holding in the past? And people who say “you only are having fun because you played the game more” are basicly saying “you have fun the more you play” (‘less is more’ only works for makeup).

Oh look, another one who thinks the problem is that people didn’t get insta access to elite specs. Seriously can you read the complaints before posting first?

Virtually every complaint I have read regarding elite spec cost of 400 pts is complaining about the steepness of it and the need for it to be reduced, NOT ELIMINATED but reduced so that people can obtain then in reasonable time (especially those of us, and there are many, who dont PVE)

hell i even threw in some napkin maths 4 or 5 posts above yours to give some idea of the issue and still you couldn’t understand it…..

Yes, but you’re ignoring the fast that many MANY people have world complete and those people already have over 200 points. I was halfway to my elite specialization on five characters.

If they lowered the cost significantly I’d have had it in a day. And that’s bad for the game, not good for the game.

Because there needs to be some feeling of progression. It’s one of the biggest complaints about this game prior to the patch.

Anet doesn’t make decisions about a few people. They make decisions about the game as a whole.

hurrado.2346:

Unloveableone.6082:

hurrado.2346:

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

The expansion is incredibly awesomely overwhelmingly fantastic.

What disappoints me is the number of posts on this forum, claiming exactly the opposite. These wonderful devs poured their heart and soul into this rich experience, and you’re all kittening on it because there is the slightest bit of challenge.

No one on here is asking “How do I do this?” It’s all “I can’t do this.”

Put your fingers to use learning how to rise to the challenge, instead of demonstrating your stereotypical Internet rage.

You might just find not only this game, but life, more enjoyable.

It’s too easy to follow the herd. There’s no value in being that kind of person.

Did you by any chance read that forum topic with somewhere near 2k responses? Players know how to do it, and that is what is disappointing them: you have to grind, period.

People want to play their elite specs, not grind for days/weeks/months on end on specs they have played for the last three years to unlock them.

Then play the kitten game. I’m already fully Berserkered out after two days of game time. It’s not hard if you’re not lazy. Stop whining and go play a single player game then.

I have played the game, been EOTM farming, 20 hours and only got 75 hero points, and guess what, it was a grind, I tried, and I mean tried to do the new PVE zone but after already hating PVE and then falling off the edge, and not knowing where anything is I rage left that zone.

Yes you have to learn the zone. You have to learn where to go. You gave up too fast. No one’s fault but yours.

Everyone is so used to following a star in other games to get a place to talk to an NPC to get a wall of text to follow an arrow to another star, they forgot how to explore, how to think, how to solve puzzles.

The new zone isn’t that hard to figure out and it doesnt’ take that long to figure out, but if you give up at the first sign of trouble, there’s not much I can tell you.

It’s much more fun to actually learn the zone.

Cosbuster.4379:

Let me tell you a story…

I was frantically searching for hero points in the first map in order to unlock the elite spec on my necro. After wiping at several of them, I finally found an unguarded one by gliding down toward the bottom of the map.

I was so happy when I discovered it, the feeling of exploring and being rewarded for it was almost overwhelming. Then I found out I couldn’t click on it and the npc kept saying I wasn’t worthy. Locked behind some mastery I assume. Instantly turned the game off.

When all you had to do was ask in map chat and people would have joined on you and done the point. You need to l2p this game.

pessimist.7294:

This mastery system is a pure kittenblock. Ive grinded for over 5h now and only unlocked the 2. Tier of gliding. I dont even have the mushroom jumping masteries now. Aside from the pretty map this AddOn has been pure disapointment until now.

I don’t see how you can grind for five hours and be that far behind, unless you’re not keeping up buffs maybe. By the end of the first 8 hours of play I had updraft use, bouncing mushrooms and some of the later stuff mastered. I barely touched the HoT content today, as I was in the Labyrinth with the guild and I’ve already used 8 mastery points.

You must be playing extremely inefficiently.

DeceiverX.8361:

And this is why we have complaint threads on the subject.

The reasons for the gating are arbitrary and at no real benefit except to force more people to play the new maps for longer periods of time.

Actually you don’t know that the reasons for gating are arbitrary. You only know that reasons have not been offered, which is a completely different thing. You may believe they’re arbitrary but I guarantee you Anet discussed this long and hard. I know this company for a long time and they have reasons for everything they do, even if they don’t share those reasons.

My kids used to think I made arbitrary decisions because they didn’t understand my reasoning, and sometimes, I didn’t explain it. But my reasons are virtually never arbitrary no matter what they thought.

Raziel.4216:

^ Game has 7m registered accounts.
Let’s say, for your argument’s sake, that you read 100 thousand angry posts.
How does 100.000 represent 7.000.000 ?

Forums are NEVER a good source of information for videogame satisfaction, people don’t go to a forum to talk about how great stuff is.

That’s why companies use other metrics to know what their playerbase likes.

And in almost every thread, half the people are saying it’s not a big deal. It’s hardly like every complaint thread is one sided.

Not to mention the fact that there are probably less than 50 people actually complaining, but you keep seeing them pop up in each thread, because they’re MAD.

People have already leveled their elite masteries 2 days into it. I haven’t but it’s not my focus. I unlocked the profession with 60 points that I had on most characters already and I’m just playing in the new zone without worrying about it. I’ve played these characters for three years, what’s another month?

In the meantime I’m leveling my ACCOUNT WIDE masteries. You only have to do that once and every character that enters the jungle will be able to glide, use bouncing mushrooms etc.

Having the time of my life in the expansion. The game is a blast. I do, however, have trouble grinding through some of these forum posts.

I’m having a ball in HoT and very few people I’ve talked to in my guild (1 actually so far) doesn’t like it. If my guild is any indication most people are having fun.

Of course, my guild knew they’d have to get points for both masteries and elite specs, because I’ve been keeping them up to date.

But yeah, over all, the reaction of the hundred or so people who logged in today has been overwhelmingly positive.

Three is probably less than Anet considers a guild (they’ve said as much in the past or at least implied it). Due to complaints from smaller guilds, they set the total down to 3.

The thing is, guilds were designed to get people to play together. That’s their function. Anet discouraged single player guilds since launch by awarding single players doing events less influence.

What’s the point of being in a guild if you can do everything solo? How does that encourage people to be more social (and face it, some people need the help).

There are many people in my guild who are happy, but they never joined a guild until the game encouraged them to, by making guild missions desirable. By getting people to try guilds out, these people expanded their horizons and, in my opinion, ended up with a better gaming experience.

Because it’s not just about guild halls. It’s about dungeons, it’s about fractals, it’s about the upcoming raids, it’s about having someone to help you out when there’s a champ on a skill point, it’s about sharing information.

You may personally want a 1 person guild, but encouraging people to play together is one of the things MMOs should probably do better.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Good job, Sio! lol

People should be able to use real money to catch up to those who have more time to play. People should not be able to use real money to get ahead of people who are actually playing the game. The ability to buy power is the very definition of pay2win.

I wouldn’t mind if Anet did something like this in a years time, allowing people to catch up (but I don’t believe they will).

They should absoluteliy not do it before almost everyone has their elite specializations unlocked.

Make sure you enter the code as soon as you get it.

Thanks to everyone at Anet. Hope you’re all finding some downtime in all this.

Tapioca.9062:

Why are the skins even mixed in with the spec?

We were told time and again that masteries were to be the ongoing progression introduced with HoT, not the new specs. I was looking forward to playing the new content with the new spec not scrambling to find 20 – 40 hero challenges across four maps and hoping there’s content left once I actually have the spec unlocked.

I don’t think they’re mixed in, I assume they’re at the end (I could be wrong). The point is that means you need 400 to unlock everything including the unique skins for that specialization. Which means you could theoretically play the profession long before you actually get 400 points.

Smokin Dice.9103:

Ranael.6423:

Smokin Dice.9103:

there are no assumptions.. only facts.. and these facts will ruin my gaming experience.. since I have to spoil myself of contant I wanted to enjoy slowly

Well you first assumed you would be able to use a full Espec directly after launch. As far as I understand this is where you are disappointed…

I assumed that I would be able to unlock all skills and trait if I farm all HP in oldtyria for a whole day with my revenant, yes… but now I am forced to go into the jungle and rush to the first HP even if I dont want to

I’m willing to wager with the points you have, you’ll be able to unlock a major portion of the spec. I still think you’re complaining prematurely.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

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. For they will hop on the train of 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. 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.

So if you’re going to play HoT for 3 months (and I’ll be playing longer) and it takes you 3 day to unlock your elite spec, big, fat hair deal.

Honestly, I’m not sure what’s wrong with people today. Just be glad you never played Ultima 4.

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.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

If we’re talking about an unnecessary grind how about people like me that meticulously did world completion to level a class that felt awkward only to look forward to more grind to unlock the elite spec you were shooting for because you will only have half of the class you want to play made available; I didn’t want to play half a Reaper this Friday I wanted to play as a full Reaper.

I want to be 20 years younger and twice as rich, but we don’t always get what we want. You can unlock the greatsword with 60 points. That’s the start of the reaper. Hell I’ll have the track half done by the time the game launches, because I have over 200 hero points ready to go on my necro.

Since you don’t know now how much more you’d need to get all the skills and traits, you’re at the very least complaining prematurely.