Hero point problem and solution

Sorry if this sounds a little rant-ish at the beginning, but now that HoT is a couple days old and I've had time to understand all the ramifications of the new content, one key aspect has got me depressed. I honestly like the vast majority of the new content. I like the new maps. I like the mastery system in the new zones as well as Tyria. I like the changes to fractals. I look forward to raids. I have no real opinion on wvw, but that's mainly because they are basically deserted. The one change that is REALLY bumming me out is these hero points. Now I consider myself a casual player. I don't mind having slow progression as long as I can keep plugging away at it at my own pace. That being said, the process for acquiring hero points is quite problematic. I don't mind doing map completion in the new zones to get to the hero points, but the fact that I can't actually get many of them due to the champ mob being in my way is a huge frustration. Basically, many of the hero points in the new zones are not soloable. But, given GSCH's size and organizational prowess, I think I have a solution.

We all probably want to unlock elites on multiple toons, and getting 10 points per challenge in the HoT zones is preferable to grinding them out in the rest of Tyria or wvw. Keep in mind that hero points are character-specific, so we're going to have to do this on EVERY toon. Now there is a solution to this predicament for a guild the size of GSCH. Just like with guild challenges, hero challenges don't require much coordination. They really just require bodies to take down the million-health champs. If we could do guild-sponsored hero point runs, I am fairly sure we could knock them all out fairly quickly. Lakshmi led an event on Friday night and I think something like that is just the ticket. As a guild, if we just make an event out of it and form up and efficiently move from hero challenge to hero challenge, we should bust them all out in a hurry. The HoT masteries like gliding, mushroom bouncing, etc are all account bound! Hooray! That means none of us needs to do a lot of prep prior to the event other than run their toons through the maps to get the waypoints, assuming we have achieved the minimal number of masteries beforehand. Essentially, once you have the masteries down, getting everything BUT the hero points is a piece of cake. The way I envision it, we all just meet in VB and move from hero point to hero point in and orderly fashion until we bust them all out in every zone or until we run out of time, whatever comes first. So, the big question is, does anyone want to step up and volunteer to lead. I'd be happy to but family duties really prevent me from leading prior to 11 PM EST on weekends. I used to lead fractal and dungeon runs after 11 PM but I think that was too late for most folks. I guess I could put it on the calendar and see how much turnout I get. Anyone else interested? Fog, any thoughts about having a weekly SORC hero point run?

So.... feedback? Does that sound like a plan or am I missing something? 

Let's set something up.

What time zone are you in, I am Central, and can usually play for an hour, or two, on weeknights. I generally log on early Saturday and Sunday mornings. Early is usually between 6 and 7 am. If we can work out a time that works for both of us, we can set up an event and see who else might be interested. I can't say that I know where all of the HPs are, but we can figure that out.

HPs only, gliding required, bouncy mushrooms preferred? Waypoints in VB unlocked? Schedule for an hour, and get done what we can get done?

Let me know your thoughts I am sure we can assemble something without too much trouble.

I'll put it on the calendar for next Friday at 11 PM EST. Between now and then I'll determine which HP's have a boss fight and map the shortest distance between them. Off the top of my head I think everyone who wants to participate should have at least VB waypoints unlocked, and have masteries in gliding, Super Mario mushrooms, and updrafts. I'll try to explore Auric Basin this week too so if we knock out VB in a hurry we can press on.

Epic forum rage on this subject btw. Thought I would include a good (unedited) summary someone posted regarding the HoT grind and some common complaints. 

A few facts about the expansion which explains most of the complaining

• A character going into HoT without map competition will not be able to unlock enough the Elite Specialization trait line to play with the Elite Specialization until near the end of HoT. Most of of us were hoping to play most of HoT with our Elite specialization not earn them an end-game reward. We don’t want full unlock immediately but a much faster pace where we could have them playable for most of the HoT content. As designed we can’t. That is worth complaining about. Unrelentingly if need be.

• People were complaining about gated content and ArenaNet listens, which proves in spite of your thinking that continuing to talk about this issues and complain about problem with the game is bad thing, it’s actually a positive thing for the game. It also proves the game needs some work and ArenaNet is listening trying to rationalize when appropriate to take action. Those who choose not to speak their minds have no voice.

• The new map events are not solo-able. Many events take a mid-size group to complete and often times no players are around for those events. There are a lot of people who play with friends often and have rushed though the content together and they are wondering what all the complaining is about, essentially clueless and unempathtic to those who play the game differently than they do.

• The Mastery system requires players to repeat events to gain XP to level them. As designed it is the first time in GW2 grind has been a requirement of progression. The game was launched with an anti-grind, casual friendly manifesto which this design is counter to. This is why the complaints are valid. If you’ve come recently to GW2 from [name any other MMO here] then you may not get why people are so upset. It’s because we’ve held GW2 to a higher standard than your normal grind everything MMOs. Sadly no it’s just another one of them. If you disagree about the Mastery’s being grind, then you need research what grind is, they absolutely are country to one of the tenants GW2 who created to counter.

• The mega-server balancing algorithm needs to be tweaked to take into account players coming for hero points and the position of they groups on the map. The server population is holding together in small packet to take on events and they are leaving many events void of players.

Event added to schedule for 11 PM EST/8 PM PST, Oct. 30. 

Nice going on scheduling the events - but dang, I cant't even decide which specialization I want to play as I have 5 toons maxed out and had enough points to at least unlock the weapon spec and equip it.  But they play so differently and what I thought I might like - I don't and what I thought I wouldn't I kind of do.  So dragging 5 toons through the story is a bit of a grind regardless of anything else.  

As an example - I really thought I would love the Druid - after about 8 hrs. of play, not so much.  I didn't think I would like the Scrapper, but after just a couple of hours I really kind of do. And then I thought I would hate the Revenant but she is actually kind of cool, but will I like the specialization - no clue, she's only level 22.

I still have my Necro, Elementalist, and Thief to go through... :(

So, I have lots of characters to take through the challenges and even will still do the Druid since once maxed she might be lovable.

But, in conclusion - the expansion was well worth the price as it is giving me many, many more hours of play. 

Its going to be a few weeks until im in a place to even be able to do those. For me priority one is unlocking and upgrading the guild halls. I still have only earned 1 mastery point so im a bit behind. Its definitely somethinh to look into. Theres a even bigger fight i want to lead that youll see soon in your travels.

I'm not pleased with this 180° change of design for GW2, but it is not something that they can, or will, change.  It is what it is, so its up to us to either accept it and play the game as designed, or move on to something else.  This style of game is what a majority of players want, so its the smart business decision to give it to them (as evidenced by their huge sales numbers).

Hopefully Anet will do something to balance things out for those of us WvW'ers, who don't want to waste 100's of hours grinding on PvE crap in the HoT zones.

Sekkerhund,

Why would you have to spend 100s of hours grinding on PvE crap in the HoT zones when you can unlock every mastery point in the game in WvW now?

I can't remember his name but there is a new merchant who you can buy a thing that "completes" a random hero point challenge. There is an option for Tyria hero points and an option for Maguuma hero points and it literally just picks a random uncompleted hero point and gives you credit for it on that character.

Just to test it out, I ran a fresh character into VB last night and got all the necessary waypoints in 15 minutes. I know I said you need ALL waypoints, but honestly you only need Jaka Itzel, Pact Encampment, Faren's Flyer waypoints at a bare minimum. Then, I started over from the beginning and got to all the non-soloable hero points (6 total) in 15 minutes. Assuming a large group is going to be pokey and have some glide fails, and we will have to fight the champs, we can probably hit all the hero points in 30-40 minutes. That means, in 2 hours, we can do VB 3-4 times on different alts. So I reiterate, get those wps unlocked on every toon beforehand to make the most of the event.

@ Sekkerhund, I am pretty sure the amount of hero points you can buy wvw is limited. 

Actually, I think a great idea would be if Anet turned wvw ranks into currency that can be swapped 1 for 1 for hero points. Now that max rank points is down to 1000 or so, I have 400 that are going to waste. 

Osu, 

I just responded to your post on the official forums before noticing it was you who posted but I want to put the same info here.

Your Hero Point unlocking in WvW is only limited by how fast your level up your WvW Rank. As you level you iwll get a new item/currency called Proofs that can be traded with Badges of Honor for and item that will complete a randomly selected hero point in Tyria or Maguuma. You can keep buying these auto-complete items until you have unlocked all the hero points in that area.

These item will choose an uncompleted hero point for that character anywhere in the maps for the one you get and mark it as complete so you will be unable to get hero points if you do go do PvE, so consider that when considering the WvW unlock method.

See https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/earning-hero-points-in-world-vs-world/ for the details from the official announcement a week ago.

When i did the wvw point version it game me hero points not mastery points. I stillhave to grind pve levels in hot to unlock mastery levels.

Fog,

Yes, what would Maguuma masteries do for WvW players anyway? They are not usable in the content.

Additionally none of the Tyria masteries really apply to WvW either. Fractals is oviously only useful for Fractals. Legendary crafting requires spending a large amount of time in PvE and spend a lot of gold to get value out of.

Pact Commander Mastery I hope none of is benefits effect WvW because they are more likely to have a negative effect than positive. Using the Mentor tag in WvW could let players effectively talk over Commanders in chat due their "special chat tag" and Noblese Oblige changing revive speed feels like a major advantage if it works in WvW.

The big thing is that until now WvW players were forced into playing PvE to unlock all their skills and traits or wait until they get enough hero points from leveling. Having to spend countless hours in PvE to unlock your elite specialization would have been a big slap in the face to WvW mainstays as the PvE players who grinded out Maguuma PvE would have easy access to them. Hence why this feature was added.

"Having to spend countless hours in PvE to unlock your elite specialization would have been a big slap in the face to WvW mainstays as the PvE players who grinded out Maguuma PvE would have easy access to them. Hence why this feature was added."

It was my understanding that it's much faster to grind HoT for hero points, than to gain ranks in WvW.  WvW levels are account-wide, and isn't each rank level a certain % more WXP required than the last?  Or, is it is static amount each WRLevel?  We also didn't get a conversion for current ranks gained.

If I'm wrong, then please let me know.  This is something that really does vex me and actually kinda kills my enthusiasm for getting back into the game.

edit: I guess I should explain that last part.  My mesmer, Nelfaar, is custom built for PvP, around confusion and torment.  Unless they made huge changes to how those mechanisms work in PvE, I'd have to completely rebuild her to function in a PvE environment.  That would be no small amount of gold and time involved.

"Your world rank increases as you gain WXP through your accomplishments in WvW. The first 4 ranks (up to rank 5) only require 1,000 WXP; after that, each rank requires 5,000 WXP." -GW2 Wiki

So while you won't get credit for past levels all future levels will count and are no harder to get than previous levels.

From what I have heard people are unlocking their mastery at roughly the same speed by KTraining EOTM as they are rushing past all other HoT PvE content for just the Hero Points. Not that EOTM is really more WvW than PvE but WvW definitely doesn't seem that much slower.

I understand the wvw hero points now. Still kinda of a pain in the butt, and MUCH slower than the 10 per you get in the new maps. For now I am going to stick with my plan to do group events to get all the hero points in the new zones as that seems to be the the most efficient way. After 2 weeks of VB and another 2 weeks in AB, I should have those zones cleared on the toons I actually play for stuff other than rich ore mining. I see dulfy has an AB hero point guide up so I don't have to figure that out by myself.

The more I think about it, giving 200 hero points for map completion and ONLY for map completion is a pretty cruel thing for Anet to do. Basically it says we only respect the accomplishments of pve'ers. It's kinda like a parent telling one child he/she is the favorite in front of the other 2. After maxing all my wvw masteries, I now have almost 400 unused wvw rank points and those are all meaningless. If Anet really wanted to be completely fair, they would have allowed map completion, wvw rank, and spvp rank all weigh equally in the equation to determine starting hero points. And why we're on the subject, why map completion by character? For all the things that we do in the game in the various pieces of pve content, be it map completion, dungeons, fractals, living story, personal story, etc., why did they land on map completion as the standard for game "success?" Mindlessly running from POI to vista to heart for 50 hours per character is the thing we should most rewarded for? Really? That's the pinnacle of achievement in this game? SERIOUSLY? It sounds pretty kittening dumb when you say it out loud, don’t you think?

Osu,

Hero points are not weighed by map completion. Hero points replaced skill points in the world when they made the pre-HoT trait changes. They are at specific places out in the world and you can just run to them, do them and get the points without need for completing hearts, going to pois or fighting any other mobs.

Technically there are 12 hero points in WvW as each borderland had 3 and EB still has 3. So PvE players had to go into WvW to complete them all.

Osu, my Auric Basin map event runs until 12pm EST on Friday.   I think many people would love to attend both (myself included, hehe)!  Any chance you can schedule it at a time that doesn't overlap?

I tried EotM last night for an hour and a half. With boosters, I ended up with 17 of the WvW turn in thingies. No Mastery experience that I know of, but it was progress. 

I think a combination of events and EotM will be best for me. EotM may be a bit slower than the HoT HPs, but I don't have to prove mastery in map chat and/or LFG  while waiting for enough people to claim the points.

I think what I like least about Hot is the group aspect of many of the HPs. HoT has a lot of good things going for it, but the changes to HPs are not on that list. The masteries are fine (although the Tyria line doesn't seem terribly useful for me), the maps are good, the events are great. The HPs though require either being in the right plane in the right instance at the right time, or mastering map and guild chat, along with LFG, while waiting to get enough people to clear the point. The advantage EotM has is that it is progress, I am able to work towards the point, no standing and waiting involved.

@Lakshmi,

My bad. For some reason I thought your event was 2 hours. Since I don't think many people can take 5 solid hours of running through Jungle, I'll move my event to Saturday.