Guild Wars 2

Did Anet shoot themselves in the foot with the changes they made to traits and the rest of the leveling process?

There are 2 types of veteran players at polar opposites to each other. The first type does not enjoy leveling, finds it a grind, can’t wait to get to level 80 so they can compete in difficult challenges and enjoy farming for gold and rewards. Second type enjoys leveling, the whole process was fun. When they get to level 80 on a character they want to start a new one so they can do it all over again. They find farming for gold and rewards a grind. Most of us are probably somewhere between these 2 extremes.

The first type are not likely to have as many alts as the second type and when they buy character slots and other things from the gem store they usually have enough in-game gold. The second type is more likely to buy gems with real money since they don’t farm for gold as much. And since they buy a lot of character slots they spend a lot of real money on enhancements for their characters and to convert into gold for crafting.

The first type is more likely to not be bothered by the new trait and leveling experience since supposedly it goes by faster. The second type finds the new changes have ruined the fun and enjoyment of leveling so no point in buying any more slots. These changes have alienated the veterans who used to funnel real money into the game.

Will the new players cover the lost revenue?

I think this is a gross simplification of the situation. There are more than two types of players, but I can understand simplifying that bit to make the point understandable.

I’m an altoholic and most of the people in my guild like to level new characters. And most of the people in my guild, over all, like the new NPE.

So my guild had one guy leave and he’s back since the changes that have been made. No one else is frustrated or whining or even annoyed. And most of us like getting stuff as we level.

The personal story changes are probably of more concern to my guild than the leveling changes to be honest. And Anet is working on those.

Lol, Kaiyanwayn. I’m afraid you’re going to get reported for this comment soon by some white knight.:P

Vayne, I think you and your guild are some kind of “special type” of people. Whenever there are some changes that are almost unanimously disliked by the community, both here and at reddit, and you can read them all over the chat in GW2, you fellas seem to love those changes. You guys are some merry men, that’s nice to see here!:D
Well, you are allowed to, ofc, but it smells rather… weird.

With less focus on spending points in traits every level, they want you to focus on actually playing in the game world, exploring etc.

yes with Quip:) it was coming sooner or later, anet had been testing to see how far they could stretch/push opposing parts of the playr base for a while now.

I think part of the reason the NPE blew up was not necessarily because it was solely to blame for everything, but because it became that one point that united a much larger part of the playr base enabling everyone to use it as a scape goat to vent built up frustration, I was thinking about it yesterday and for a moment these forums appeared to me as the classic historical scenario of peasants demanding/rebelling against their lords on failed promises etc, and the NPE being the fuel that sparked it to open rebellion.

I guess the lesson is that ppl arnt as dumb as big corps supposedly think, eventually if a company stops showing good faith to its loyal’s, resentment will start to build up, and it will only be a matter of time before it finds a way to be released.

Did Anet shoot themselves in the foot with the changes they made to traits and the rest of the leveling process?

Well, they definitely winged a toe, but I think they can still walk on it. Hopefully they can still revert a lot of this though.

Alex.9567:

yes with Quip:) it was coming sooner or later, anet had been testing to see how far they could stretch/push opposing parts of the playr base for a while now.

I think part of the reason the NPE blew up was not necessarily because it was solely to blame for everything, but because it became that one point that united a much larger part of the playr base enabling everyone to use it as a scape goat to vent built up frustration, I was thinking about it yesterday and for a moment these forums appeared to me as the classic historical scenario of peasants demanding/rebelling against their lords on failed promises etc, and the NPE being the fuel that sparked it to open rebellion.

I guess the lesson is that ppl arnt as dumb as big corps supposedly think, eventually if a company stops showing good faith to its loyal’s, resentment will start to build up, and it will only be a matter of time before it finds a way to be released.

Actually people are dumb becasue they dont focus on the important matter but insignificant thing as 9/9 update, which in grand scheme of things, is insignificant.

Trait change was/is much more “dangerous” to new players, while NPE could potentialy retain more players in early levels.

So yeah, dumb.

Oh, and trait change was requested by “community”. just as now some other things are requested by “community”, so theres that also.

Could someone with drawing skills make a cartoon with the personified A NET sliding down the slippery slope, riding a treadmill, digging their own grave, while at the same time shooting themselves in the foot? Throw in some RIP for each and every release since the start of the game and make sure they are hemoraging players. It does not need to make any logical sense.
Edit: if the are also picking the pocket and generally abusing a defenceless player all the better.

MikaHR.1978:

Actually people are dumb becasue they dont focus on the important matter but insignificant thing as 9/9 update, which in grand scheme of things, is insignificant.

Trait change was/is much more “dangerous” to new players, while NPE could potentialy retain more players in early levels.

So yeah, dumb.

Oh, and trait change was requested by “community”. just as now some other things are requested by “community”, so theres that also.

i tell you the way you reason has enlightened even the heavens.

You’re simplifying the situation a bit too much but you got the right idea only personally I think people are just focusing too much on the emotion on the thing then the impact it really has on things.

You basically mentioned to groups of people the hardcore who want to get to max level and farm and get rewards.

The casual crowd who wants to enjoy leveling and what the game has to offer.

There are more types of casual and hardcore players but I am just focusing on the two you specifically mentioned, this may or may not apply to other groups.

Hardcore farmer crowd is largely uneffected by these changes in my opinion. Someone who just wants to max level in order to maximize their farming isnt going to level up by playing the game, they’re going to use scrolls, crafting and other such short cuts to get to max level as fast as possible.

The casual player who enjoys leveling up may be some what affected. It depends on the individual. However most of them I’d imagine will not. I mean if you enjoy leveling up alts, what is exactly you enjoy? unlocking weapon skills in a few seconds? having vistas marked on your map? earning skills points? I dont think thats the answer for many of the cases. I’d imagine what they enjoy is the dynamic events, exploring and that kind of content. I mean think about it, before it took like 10 – 30 seconds to unlock weapon skills. If thats what you enjoyed then your enjoyment for the next 80 hrs or so was over in a couple of minutes at most (if you actually decided to unlock all weapons). If earning skills points was what you enjoyed it was just a second or two of enjoyment every 10 mins to an hour. Simply speaking to enjoy leveling up alt after alt you had to be the type of person who appreciates intrinsic rewards because in such an activity extrinsic rewards were never present. Unlocking skills, gaining skills points and all the other stuff that are now gated are all extrinsic so effect on that type of player are probably minimal.

I am the type who enjoys leveling up and playing alts. I dont like the changes at all, I dont see the value for me of these changes… on paper they’re just bad for me. In practice I dont think they’ll affect me at all. I am not in a rush, I want to experience dynamic events and story. It was nice I had all my weapon skills unlocked after 30 seconds before that now it takes 1/2 a hour or so doesnt affect me much. No challenge I will find at level 5 requires I have all my weapon skills unlocked after all.

Now if Arenanet actually is right and manages to retain more player with this, then great. For the most part I have a feeling people are more angry at the idea then how its really effecting them.

it is to soon to know, they just migh be tunning the game for further improvements, this lvl gate would make more sense if they introduced more utilities and more weapons as example.

Anet always shoots themselves, they really like the PAAAIIINN!!

Two things, and both assume I accept your general classifications, which I don’t, but I guess for sake of argument, I’ll play along.

First, I’m probably a 2, or closest to 2. That’s what I felt reading along, that if these are the only two choices. Then I got to the conclusion part and felt it was backasswards. As someone that loves leveling, if it takes me longer to enjoy that experience, then I’m excited about it. I’m actually enjoying the changes, minus some things here and there that they are slowly ironing out.

Second, and we’ll keep with your “doesn’t make sense to do things that hurt gem shop sales” theme, if it’s the 2nd group of lolly-gagging, casual, shiny visual loving folks that spend all the money, why would they take things away like running animations, khakis, and other mix and match outfits that we dearly love to make America and NASCAR healthy and appropriate?

At any rate, the first imaginary group should be happy because they still aren’t spending money in the gem store and are still leveling up character by sitting around WvW and EotM, so what has changed for them?

Corpus Christi.2057:

Lol, Kaiyanwayn. I’m afraid you’re going to get reported for this comment soon by some white knight.:P

Vayne, I think you and your guild are some kind of “special type” of people. Whenever there are some changes that are almost unanimously disliked by the community, both here and at reddit, and you can read them all over the chat in GW2, you fellas seem to love those changes. You guys are some merry men, that’s nice to see here!:D
Well, you are allowed to, ofc, but it smells rather… weird.

As far as I know, no one in my guild liked the trait changes, though.

Edit: You know, I think that it’s more than that. My guild is casual and I think most players are casual. And most casual people don’t post on forums. So my casual guild, which mostly doesn’t post on forums like the changes.

The forums, of course, are going to be made up of harder core players. The casual playerbase won’t get the same representation here. So it’s not really strange that a casual guild likes shinies and bells and whistles more than a hard core guild. You guys look at mechanics, we look at flavor.

Are there more of us, or more of you?

Vayne.8563:

I think this is a gross simplification of the situation. There are more than two types of players, but I can understand simplifying that bit to make the point understandable.

I’m an altoholic and most of the people in my guild like to level new characters. And most of the people in my guild, over all, like the new NPE.

So my guild had one guy leave and he’s back since the changes that have been made. No one else is frustrated or whining or even annoyed. And most of us like getting stuff as we level.

The personal story changes are probably of more concern to my guild than the leveling changes to be honest. And Anet is working on those.

I think you’re situation with that 1 guy is a gross simplification LOL like that one guy represents the levelers or the nonlevelers in the game.

I just came back too, doesn’t mean it’s working as intended. I’ve been struggling since the changes to get my final character to level 80 and when I reach that level I’ll be struggling to get his traits because I have what has been dubbed one of those “unlucky accounts” or “permaDR” which strikes post level 80 and causes all kinds of havic not for bots mind you but for legit players trying to play the game and feel rewarded.

I work part time but I feel that I simply don’t have to time or the energy to go find every forgotten event to get my grandmaster and master traits and I’m not converting gems to gold because those days are gone right now.

Add to that the frustration of GW2’s game hating routers (my spouse can’t login despite working with support and I’ve even tested it with everything protective turned off the other day only to find the game STILL crashes on his Windows 8 machine with twice as much memory as mine with better tech software for maintenance and with aq much better graphics car so basically he started his WoW sub because “At least on that game he doesn’t have to worry about it crashing on him” And I have to agree. I did research and this problem that anet is blaming on Routers goes all the way back to BWE2 and here it is 2 years later and they still haven’t fixed it. Near as I can tell either there’s a stream of information that doesn’t use a standard port for the purposes of port forwarding, or their game tries to make a small VPN when it launches).

So yes my frustration is 2 fold but you gotta ask yourself. Why hasn’t the gold requirement for Traits been recended, there have been just as many posts about that from the previous feature patch all this time and why isn’t Karma + Skill points the choice for traits? Karma + SKillpoints just means people have played the game, and since Karma is global, Alts made for veterans would have no trouble at all progressing their Alts traits which is STILL a major problem for most.

I also have to say that I’m baffled that they moved MOST of the personal story stuff towards the end of the game, wouldn’t it make it more fun for new players to experience that at the beginning for the most part? It would have helped to have kept some of that story too to make the number of personal story events compatible with making them heavier at the beginning than at the end.

I like the game, I just dunno if I can keep playing it if they aren’t going to listen to us. The previous feature patch has received just as much attention as this one has. In a few months time there will be another feature patch, will we still be seeing the skill cutoffs and the personal story the way it is? Will it include post level 80 rewards like Dry Top to help fix the rewards issues across the entire game? Will we continue to see problems like this in the future because there’s no Feature only PTR?

Vayne.8563:

…
As far as I know, no one in my guild liked the trait changes, though.

Edit: You know, I think that it’s more than that. My guild is casual and I think most players are casual. And most casual people don’t post on forums. So my casual guild, which mostly doesn’t post on forums like the changes.
…

These two statements contradict each other.

If you read the first line of my opening post you’ll see this thread is about how the trait changes effected the leveling process, removing the fun. The 9/9 NPE changes didn’t help it at all. It doesn’t matter if the leveling process is faster or slower if it isn’t fun. If enough players who used to buy character slots and inventory slots and boosters and BLTP keys for those characters with real money no longer find the leveling process fun then Anet will be loosing revenue.

This post was mainly discussing which veteran players are more likely to spend real money in the gem store and which players are most unhappy with the changes over the last 6 months. Since I think they are mostly the same group I think Anet has made a mistake.

Lazuli.2098:

Vayne.8563:

…
As far as I know, no one in my guild liked the trait changes, though.

Edit: You know, I think that it’s more than that. My guild is casual and I think most players are casual. And most casual people don’t post on forums. So my casual guild, which mostly doesn’t post on forums like the changes.
…

These two statements contradict each other.

If you read the first line of my opening post you’ll see this thread is about how the trait changes effected the leveling process, removing the fun. The 9/9 NPE changes didn’t help it at all. It doesn’t matter if the leveling process is faster or slower if it isn’t fun. If enough players who used to buy character slots and inventory slots and boosters and BLTP keys for those characters with real money no longer find the leveling process fun then Anet will be loosing revenue.

This post was mainly discussing which veteran players are more likely to spend real money in the gem store and which players are most unhappy with the changes over the last 6 months. Since I think they are mostly the same group I think Anet has made a mistake.

Okay to clarify. Over all, my guild didn’t love the trait changes, but my guild did like the NPE, which is what many people have been complaining about recently.

I don’t think anyone is slitting their wrists over the trait changes but it’s not something that we prefer. That said, my guild is made up of a lot of people, some of whom are younger, but many of whom are older. And we do spend money on the game. Because you know, no matter how much I’ve spent, this is cheaper than golf.

How many people will continue spending money on the game. I guess we’ll see with the next quarterly report.

Corpus Christi.2057:

Lol, Kaiyanwayn. I’m afraid you’re going to get reported for this comment soon by some white knight.:P

Vayne, I think you and your guild are some kind of “special type” of people. Whenever there are some changes that are almost unanimously disliked by the community, both here and at reddit, and you can read them all over the chat in GW2, you fellas seem to love those changes. You guys are some merry men, that’s nice to see here!:D
Well, you are allowed to, ofc, but it smells rather… weird.

Yeah, I fully expected my punishment. I can handle some extra credit on my account, I have been nice for monthes now.

Those changes are just unnecessary. Even if they were good, which they are not, noone would need them in a two years old game. Maybe if they had a new expansion release, then we could live with it.

But for now, they waste the little ressources ANet seems to have for useless stuff. This game needs to go places after two years, like Cantha or so. But instead they reinvent the leveling wheel – what is this, an alpha version?

And I am surprised that not more people at ANet question those decisions.
Like people who actually work on the game must go like:
“Kitten, I won’t program this bullkitten in our beautiful game. This ruins everything!”, every singe feature patch.

Who makes those decisions? Noone playing the game would think they are a good idea anyway.

This is what puzzles me…

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Lol, Kaiyanwayn. I’m afraid you’re going to get reported for this comment soon by some white knight.:P

Vayne, I think you and your guild are some kind of “special type” of people. Whenever there are some changes that are almost unanimously disliked by the community, both here and at reddit, and you can read them all over the chat in GW2, you fellas seem to love those changes. You guys are some merry men, that’s nice to see here!:D
Well, you are allowed to, ofc, but it smells rather… weird.

Yeah, I fully expected my punishment. I can handle some extra credit on my account, I have been nice for monthes now.

Those changes are just unnecessary. Even if they were good, which they are not, noone would need them in a two years old game. Maybe if they had a new expansion release, then we could live with it.

But for now, they waste the little ressources ANet seems to have for useless stuff. This game needs to go places after two years, like Cantha or so. But instead they reinvent the leveling wheel – what is this, an alpha version?

And I am surprised that not more people at ANet question those decisions.
Like people who actually work on the game must go like:
“Kitten, I won’t program this bullkitten in our beautiful game. This ruins everything!”, every singe feature patch.

Who makes those decisions? Noone playing the game would think they are a good idea anyway.

This is what puzzles me…

What gets me is that eve if the leveling system wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t bad. There was no reason to rush these changes like they have in a two year old game. They should have taken their time to ensure everything was polished. There are a number of issues that needs to be addresses while they revamp leveling. For instance:

1. Some weapon sets are just terrible without later skills. Someone who starts the game as a staff mesmer is going to wonder why mesmer is so awful because the 4 and 5 skills are vital to that weapon set. By contrast, a GS warrior will barely notice when 4 and 5 unlock. A new staff mesmer is just going to be more confused than before this update.

2. Dungeons and WvW are considerably more difficult for low levels thanks to trait and skill changes.

3. Develop a system to actually teach people how to use the skills as they unlock them. When someone unlocks bundles, there should be an event that teaches them how to use bundles

Both feet, multiple times.

The skill & trait system is simply awful, dis-organised, illogical and turns every toon into a clone of every other. Build variation is practically zero and just gives the impression that no one gave one second of thought to what they were doing.

I have to wonder what the hell the alpha and beta testers and those taking feedback were doing?