Guild Wars 2

There were many good and many not-so-good facets to this most recent feature patch, and a few that fell in the middle.

- Commander Tags
Making these account bound and allowing the owners to change colors is a good move. However, I do believe that an option to turn viewing off in PvE areas would be a good idea. I do know that it’s possible to reduce the number viewed by joining a squad, and that does help with the issue a bit. However, during legit PvE events in which commander tags are used (such as guild missions) others in the map may not appreciate having to deal with a few dozen commander tags suddenly appearing on the map.

-Trading Post
This is, by far, the best feature update. The search filters are absolutely amazing and being able to fully search by category is a huge boon. In truth, I can only find one fault with the system, and that is it is now impossible to instantly sell items in your inventory quickly, as the system defaults to “listing” your items rather than selling to a buyer. Perhaps this system was put in place to help negate the buy offers that are for less than what the item is valued at, but when running something fast paced (such as WvW) people want to sell on the fly to clear their inventories and will not be able to do so.

-Early Leveling System
There is a lot of controversy about this. According to ANet developers most of the level gating that has been introduced was not intentional. Assuming this is true, I hope that it will be fixed soon, as it does indeed impede the leveling experience over all. That being said, the “intended” leveling features, such as making it easier to level to 15 and removing some of the complexity of the starting areas, while perhaps a bit along the lines of “spoon-feeding,” I do not feel seriously impact game play.

-Personal Story Breakdown
I honestly feel that certain aspects of this were unnecessary, particularly where the next chapters are unavailable until you hit the level requirement. That being said, the revamped reward system IS a plus and hopefully will encourage people to play through the Personal Story rather than abandoning it once they’ve done it on at least one character.

The level gating is the thing. Whether or not it was an intended feature or unintended bug, I do agree that it’s an issue that should be addressed as quickly as humanly possible.

That being said, I appreciate ANet’s efforts to bring it’s players the best game around. For the most part I find myself liking this patch, and hope that the developers continue to work on behalf of the player base and improve/expand on this great game.

There is something about the breakdown that kind of bugs me a little. With you emphasizing on the collecting of hearts, does it break continuity in some way? (i.e. you are an Asura character and you haven’t done the Snaff Prize Contest yet still some NPCs assume you are the Snaff Savant before that event actually happened) I am not sure about it myself and I’d appreciate some confirmation on that. Because if that is the case, I seriously think THAT is one of things that needs fixing alongside the other flaws the patch has.

I don’t like the level-gating and the cutting out of some of the complexities that this game has to be honest. But I am at least happy that this is just a couple of problems that could use some serious work and I am willing to give Arenanet the time they need to get this fixed or at least coordinate with us related to the whole problem.

Malkavian, I believe that the heart continuity issue is likely the same as the LS continuity issue, in that NPC’s are programed to immediately assume a certain task has been accomplished. I’ll admit, I’m not sure which hearts your specifically referring to, but here’s an example.

In the LS, DE 2.0 and many story NPC’s immediately assume that you have the rank of Commander in the Pact, and have already defeated Zhaitan, even if, with that particular character, you haven’t even finished your personal story. This may be the same with the hearts in question.

I see what you mean. Although if we are going to refer to DE 2.0 as an example, that one is something I can live by as it happens much much later in the game. But in the case of early levelling, I am not sure if such a problem applies. Either that or I am just imaginining things. I know I saw a post like that referring to continuity issues with the patch and I am still searching for it.

EDIT: Found the post, and I just thought I wanna know if this is the case or not. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-rolled-a-new-character-and/first#post4395247