Hero Points are outdated

[Gravitron.7982]

2 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

No. I'm saying you only need to get one elite spec, and it takes about 2 hours if you join a train.  I don't know anyone that buys a WoW expansion and 2 hours later they're geared for end game content.

I'm saying that I don't even need elite spec to get into end game content at all in fact, unlike WoW where you'd have to level and then gear.

I'm saying that just by playing the game, normally, in either WvW or PvE, you'd have enough hero points on a character to unlock the elite spec the moment it game out. Unless all you do is raids, or all you do is fractals, if you play the zones, you'll have the hero points. If you play WvW, you'll have the currency to buy the hero points.

Of you spent 2 hours with a train (and I can do this solo on any class, so you know, in about the same amount of time) and unlock an elite spec.

You're complaining about unlocking a single elite spec in 2 hours.  That's six hours for all of them.

 

The OP complains compared this to WoW and says that you don't have to do this in WOW. No you have to level and gear. This is less grindy faster and better. 

 

That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying you have to play like me, because I don't generally buy them with WvW currency and I do my own hero point runs without a group, and somehow, I get elite specs unlocked in 2 hours.

If this is the big grind afer and expansion comes out, because you know they haven't been coming out every year, people don't know what grind is. That's what I'm saying.

Well gaining the Elite Spec just finishes the character itself, much like grinding a WoW character to 70. After that the character itself has everything it needs for combat unlocked, the focus at this point shifts to the gear. The distinction here is between the character's abilities, and what the character wears. In WoW, after 70, you grind for gear, but those activities are two parts. 

In the GW2 there are 3 parts, 1-80, then elite spec, then the gear. 

[Gravitron.7982]

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

A hero point.  And...

Another hero point.  Somehow they look different to me.  Most would define grind as repeating the same activity for an extended period.  You appear to define it as having to do anything you don't want to do.  Which is fine.  You're welcome to your opinion.  I don't see much point in arguing semantics further.

And in both the player is farming...the same thing.... a hero point node! Wow that's crazy riiiight? 

[AliamRationem.5172]

38 minutes ago, entrailsgalore.4150 said:

And in both the player is farming...the same thing.... a hero point node! Wow that's crazy riiiight? 

I see.  So even though it's two different bosses, it's still grinding because they're both spawned by hero points?  Ha! Trick question! Balthazar isn't spawned by the hero point.  He just guards it!  Win on a technicality!

I hope you realize how pointless this is.  Anyway, it's been fun.

[Gravitron.7982]

8 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I see.  So even though it's two different bosses, it's still grinding because they're both spawned by hero points?  Ha! Trick question! Balthazar isn't spawned by the hero point.  He just guards it!  Win on a technicality!

I hope you realize how pointless this is.  Anyway, it's been fun.

Well if I do one quest that has me kill one boss, then I do another separate quest that has me kill a different boss....what activity would that be called?

Edited April 25, 2023 by entrailsgalore.4150

[Linken.6345]

28 minutes ago, entrailsgalore.4150 said:

Well if I do one quest that has me kill one boss, then I do another separate quest that has me kill a different boss....what activity would that be called?

playing a game.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, entrailsgalore.4150 said:

Well gaining the Elite Spec just finishes the character itself, much like grinding a WoW character to 70. After that the character itself has everything it needs for combat unlocked, the focus at this point shifts to the gear. The distinction here is between the character's abilities, and what the character wears. In WoW, after 70, you grind for gear, but those activities are two parts. 

In the GW2 there are 3 parts, 1-80, then elite spec, then the gear. 

I got my elite spec before the expansion came out on 15 characters. When you can level in WoW that fast let me know. My ascended gear works just fine with no upgrade. Maybe a stat swap.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Vayne.8563

[AliamRationem.5172]

35 minutes ago, entrailsgalore.4150 said:

Well if I do one quest that has me kill one boss, then I do another separate quest that has me kill a different boss....what activity would that be called?

The point was...who cares?  Ultimately, you have your opinion of what grinding is and whatever you want to call it, it's pretty clear it can be condensed into "stuff I don't want to do but feel compelled to do because it unlocks stuff I want."  That's totally fine.  I happen to love HoT HPs and wish we had more of that instead of another expansion full of watered down enemies that don't take any effort to dispatch.  That's fine, too.  We just don't agree on what constitutes compelling gameplay and appropriate rewards.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, entrailsgalore.4150 said:

Well gaining the Elite Spec just finishes the character itself, much like grinding a WoW character to 70. After that the character itself has everything it needs for combat unlocked, the focus at this point shifts to the gear. The distinction here is between the character's abilities, and what the character wears. In WoW, after 70, you grind for gear, but those activities are two parts. 

In the GW2 there are 3 parts, 1-80, then elite spec, then the gear. 

I find this statement to be completely disingenuous.

First of all, I never grind a character to 80 anymore, because after you're here for a relatively short period of time, you have tomes to level characters completely to 80 without doing any grinding at all. Furthermore, every time a wow epxansion comes out you have to grind every one of your characters to that next level milestone. This isn't true in Guild Wars 2 at all. you level a character to max once and it stays there. When an expansion comes out, you have account bound masteries and hero points. But since you can have those hero points ready before that expansion ever launches, I'm not even understanding the point. If you already have max level characters in WoW and Guild Wars 2, and an expansion launches, on Guild Wars 2 you dont' have to level and you could very easily already have the hero points you need to unlock your elite spec. You can't do that so easily with leveling and gearing up in WoW.

 

And in Guild Wars 2, you don't have to gear up at all, because you already should have ascended gear, so you can stat swap or you  have exotic gear, in which case you can buy something easily on the TP. There are very few sets that's no longer true for.

The real truth is there's no way to compare Guild Wars 2 to WoW in this because they're completely different systems. But for characters already 80, WoW is much worse to progress your character, because you have to wait for the expansion to launch to do it. You can complete your elite spec by either banking hero points on your 80 before that expansion ever arrives, or you can play WvW and bank the currency to buy them as soon as it lands. Guild Wars 2 is superior for WvW players and open world PvE players at the very least. And in PvP in Guild Wars 2, those elite specs are automatically unlocked simply by buying the expansion. So yeah, I'm not sure what you're on about.

[Forum Moderator.3419]

Hi Everyone,

Just a reminder to keep it civil. I've removed some posts.

Regards.

[Linken.6345]

58 minutes ago, Forum Moderator.3419 said:

Hi Everyone,

Just a reminder to keep it civil. I've removed some posts.

Regards.

Some post thats an understatement 😁

[Vayne.8563]

On 4/25/2023 at 8:15 AM, entrailsgalore.4150 said:

I don't think I am in this case. I think that you (and others) see any form of criticism against GW2 as a personal attack, and feel you must defend GW2's honor. I'm merely pointing out that the game does not give you the entire class right away, you have to earn the first half, then earn the 2nd half by "actively playing". Getting on your mount, and manually running to a hero point node, then fighting the NPC that spawns, is still actively playing, it's not passive.

You can disagree with me as much as I will disagree with you. Just try to remember that I'm not saying your game is good or bad lol, I am just merely pointing something out and agreeing with OP. I don't see how any game can get better if no one can be honest about it's short comings.

And wow gives you an entire class that you have to start leveling from 1 again. They're different systems completely.

Are you trying to tell me, when a new expansion comes out giving you a new class that you're not starting from level 1 in WOW? Cause I think you are. You start a character and level it from one.

 

I'm not getting a new class. I'm getting a new elite spec. It's fills a similar niche to class in Guild Wars 2, but is in fact, not a seperate class. So if you're already 80, all you have to do is either have points banked already, or have played WvW for the currency to unlock it. The moment the expansion launches.   The moment EoD launched, the second I loaded it, I went into 15 characters and I unlocked the elite spec.

 

In WoW, you'd have the class immediately. Then you'd have to start leveling it. From level 1.  I was done in minutes. You'd be done in days.

 

On top of that, you'd then have to gear, but I already have gear. In my case, the vast majority of that gear is legendary but assuming I had to change my stats to play that elite spec, I would simply statswap ascended armor in the mystic forge.

 

The idea that somehow it's easier or faster in WoW is ludicrous to me.  Even if I had NO hero points banked and never WvWed, it would still only take me a couple of hours to get the hero points I needed to fully unlock a character.  You'd be leveling and gearing in WoW.  If you played the game between expansions you'd have what you need, and if you didn't it's not that hard to get.  To me this whole thing is just a silly conversation.

 

I don't see criticim of Guild Wars 2 as a personal attack. I see people saying things that are inaccurate as something that needs to be addressed because misinformation is bad for not just this game for any game.

I've defended other MMOs on this forum and reddit when people attacked then without provocation too.  Because I don't really like any kind of misinformation. It helps no one.

 

But trying to single out people for pointing out the differences in the game system and them calling them partisan isn't really helpful.  What you're essentially saying is "you don't agree with me, so you must be defending the game".  Sometimes people don't agree with you because they have a different opinion.

[vicky.9751]

On 4/21/2023 at 4:03 AM, lezbefriends.7516 said:

They require you to navigate the most annoying crevices of new maps, and it's bad design to require you to fight a boss when you don't have the powerful traits necessary to defeat a boss. So you basically can't trait your new skills as you go, you have to use a meta build and wait till you're nearly finished gathering all the HPs to slot them in. Bad and outdated design all around.

 

Edit: Also, this is 2023, people have 50+ characters. It's artificial content (akin to gear treadmills) to make them run through maps for hero points on every. single. character.

This is literally the only reason why this game is fun, exploring maps with crevices and levels. I got so sad playing open world in ffxiv where maps are just a flat backdrop for the story. Also, hp trains dont take long. you can start an episode of the story on your alt just to get 1 waypoint open in the expansions.

[AliamRationem.5172]

8 minutes ago, vicky.9751 said:

This is literally the only reason why this game is fun, exploring maps with crevices and levels. I got so sad playing open world in ffxiv where maps are just a flat backdrop for the story. Also, hp trains dont take long. you can start an episode of the story on your alt just to get 1 waypoint open in the expansions.

Hopefully with this new "mini expansion" model they'll give us a taste of that HoT magic again.

[Fueki.4753]

8 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Are you trying to tell me, when a new expansion comes out giving you a new class that you're not starting from level 1 in WOW? Cause I think you are. You start a character and level it from one.

Out of the four classes added to WoW, only Monk started from level one.

Before the level squish, Death Knight started at 58 and Demon Hunter started at 98 (both now start level 8).

Evoker currently starts at 58.

5 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Hopefully with this new "mini expansion" model they'll give us a taste of that HoT magic again.

As long as they leave out the rotten aftertaste of the Tangled Depths, that'd be fine to me.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Kanok.3027]

On 4/21/2023 at 3:44 AM, knives.6345 said:

For HP's I cannot solo, just pinged on map chat. Surprisingly, there are like 3-5 players coming to help. Not sure if they all need the HP, but people will come.

This right here.

I usually solo almost all the HoT Champ HP's on a daily basis and if I see someone doing them and having some trouble, I'll usually jump in to help them get it done and pretty quickly. It's not difficult to ask for help and a lot of people will usually drop what they are doing and come over to help, whether they need it or not. Heck, some will even help new players get to the locations via various means so they don't have to do the work of getting masteries taken care of just to get to these HP's.

I think it's a good mindset to ask for help when needed unless you know you can solo it without issue. Also, yeah, WvW/PvP are two other modes you can do to get HP's on alts. I have nearly 4k Testimonies saved up from doing a year's worth of WvW. If I want to make an alt and get them all their stuff instantly, I now have that option because ArenaNet has given me options to getting it done.

[Luthan.5236]

I would not mind if this got changed. Personally I liked to explore the maps - especially the first time with my main. For the other chars I also get map completions cause I like it. Looks just nice on the mini and normal map.

But I can see that this is annoying for people that want to make secondary chars for fun or for trying another class/profession - where they want to progress quickly. And with that much content in the game there is not really a reason anymore to force people to do hero points to explore different regions. +the points itself are not that much of a challenge. More like ... time consuming. (Not that much time though imo.)

We already have the items from ... WvW I think (?) where you easily can unlock stuff. But not everyone plays WvW I guess. There are soo much laurels and not much use ... they could maybe add thosre items also to the laurel vendor - then being an option only for long-term players that have gathered up a bit on laurels. (New players still needing to play the maps normally.) And/or tie it to having completed stuff on at least one char (main) first before it can be unlocked in another/easier way.

But again - to avoid misunderstandings: I am not against it. But I do not need it for myself. I don't even use the WvW item. I manually try to aim for (sloooooowly) full world completion on all my chars. Have a main + a 2nd char (2nd "main") ... and working on the 3rd one. Trying to explore the elite specs in the regions of the expansions they got released with. (Sloooowly.)

Edited April 26, 2023 by Luthan.5236

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

As long as they leave out the rotten aftertaste of the Tangled Depths, that'd be fine to me.

I think it was brilliant.  What's not to like?  You have your exploration challenge to discover map completion objectives segregated from the events which are all conveniently located near waypoints and wallows for quick and easy access.  On top of that you have handy UI elements to tell you at a glance where events remain incomplete and then when you get to each area of the map it even tells you exactly which event is in progress.  And unlike most everywhere else in the game, doing the events actually gives you pretty solid loot in the form of chest spawns.  To cap it all off there are those big metas that are still popular to this day.

It's crazy to me that we abandoned this system.  It's the best open world design I've ever seen and we traded it in for boring flat maps that nobody seems to like, judging by how dead PoF maps tend to be.

[kharmin.7683]

14 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

It's crazy to me that we abandoned this system.  It's the best open world design I've ever seen and we traded it in for boring flat maps that nobody seems to like, judging by how dead PoF maps tend to be.

I'm not sold that the design of the maps is the reason.  To me, evidence suggests rewards are more indicative of whether or not a particular map is well populated.

[Fueki.4753]

23 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I think it was brilliant.  What's not to like?  You have your exploration challenge to discover map completion objectives segregated from the events which are all conveniently located near waypoints and wallows for quick and easy access.  On top of that you have handy UI elements to tell you at a glance where events remain incomplete and then when you get to each area of the map it even tells you exactly which event is in progress.  And unlike most everywhere else in the game, doing the events actually gives you pretty solid loot in the form of chest spawns.  To cap it all off there are those big metas that are still popular to this day.

It's crazy to me that we abandoned this system.  It's the best open world design I've ever seen and we traded it in for boring flat maps that nobody seems to like, judging by how dead PoF maps tend to be.

If I wanted to explore a bowl of Spaghetti, I could do that in real life. The whole map is a mess and the minimap hardly helps navigating it Most of the time, the minimap actually just adds to the confusing layout. All the parts are connected in anti-intuitive manners.

The stink bug meta is in just one part of the map and it's not the rewards that matter to begin with. The whole map layout in its entirety is what matters.

That's why Draconis Mons and Tangled Depths are without contest the worst maps in the game. No other map comes even close.

[vares.8457]

14 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

That's why Draconis Mons and Tangled Depths are without contest the worst maps in the game. No other map comes even close.

Tangled Depths is one of the best maps actually. It’s not boring flat like so many other maps. But yeah, a lot of players seem to prefer boring. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by vares.8457

[kharmin.7683]

11 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

Tangled Depths is one of the best maps actually. It’s not boring flat like so many other maps. But yeah, a lot of players seem to prefer boring. 

What is boring or not is highly subjective.  Anet seems to believe that the majority of their customers prefer a more "standard" map to ones like TD.  Or, equally as likely, Anet no longer has the resources (money, devs, time, etc) to make more complicated maps.

[The Boz.2038]

Tangled Depths is a masterclass in map design.

[AliamRationem.5172]

55 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I'm not sold that the design of the maps is the reason.  To me, evidence suggests rewards are more indicative of whether or not a particular map is well populated.

Are we talking specifically about the meta?  If not, most of the event chains (with a few exceptions) are easily done by a single player or small group.  You don't need a massive squad to unlock the chest spawns on these maps.  Some are more loaded into the event chains and others the meta (e.g. most of the loot in TD comes from the chak cache spawns from regular events while most of the chests in AB come after completing the octovine).

[AliamRationem.5172]

40 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If I wanted to explore a bowl of Spaghetti, I could do that in real life. The whole map is a mess and the minimap hardly helps navigating it Most of the time, the minimap actually just adds to the confusing layout. All the parts are connected in anti-intuitive manners.

The stink bug meta is in just one part of the map and it's not the rewards that matter to begin with. The whole map layout in its entirety is what matters.

That's why Draconis Mons and Tangled Depths are without contest the worst maps in the game. No other map comes even close.

Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the map.  It's by design.  The exploration (i.e. map completion) objectives are intentionally located without marked pathways leading to them to force you to explore with your eyes rather than using the map.  However, the events are all located on marked pathways near the waypoints and wallows, making it easy for players to reach the action quickly.

If all you wanted to do on this map was participate in the events, it requires only a minimal understanding of the layout.  But of course, since you hate the place you think the map doesn't work and the designers are idiots.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

What is boring or not is highly subjective.  Anet seems to believe that the majority of their customers prefer a more "standard" map to ones like TD.  Or, equally as likely, Anet no longer has the resources (money, devs, time, etc) to make more complicated maps.

Obviously, TD isn't everyone's cup of tea.  But HoT overall is obviously a popular design and it's been many years since we've seen anything like it.  I hope you're wrong about the resource scarcity and we can see a return to that level of creativity in design.