Guild Wars 2

Taida.4987:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Is it true that a baby Ranger cannot name it’s pet?

You unlock ability to name, switch and put pet on passive at level 5. You can charm another pet and immediately swap to it when game asks you, but it will go back to your starter if you die below level 5.

I am… stunned. Really?
Can’t swap?
No downed state because you unlock that? My head is spinning…
I saw that a new toon is actually told to go to Frostgorge Sound to see the new challenges…
You don’t unlock the weapon skill as you use the weapon?
No underwater skills? That makes zero sense.
No gathering ability
No dyes
no armor
no
no
no
… wow, sure does tempt me into buying the game if I don’t have it

Not making a new toon until this kitten is cleared up.

Some of the changes simply did not seem to make sense logically. Here’s some that stood out to me.

Learn to dodge: Great idea in theory, new players should learn the game mechanics and how to dodge but it was so poorly implemented I’d think it was meant as a joke if I didn’t know it wasn’t. In game, red circles mean get the heck out of it, so how in any way does the dodge tutorial make sense, by teaching players to dodge INTO the red circles?

Being unkillable in parts of tutorial? I didn’t experience it, but having seen the video magic Mike posted, I don’t understand how it helps a new player, in the “learning” stage, to not be able to die? Being able to stand in front of a big boss and not need to do anything? What part of these things teaches a new player any skill they need for the game as they go forward?

Personally I feel a simpler tutorial system is fine for brand new players, but there certainly should have been more logical thought put into how and what you’re teaching the new players and it really would have made sense for it to be optional (at least for any account with a lv 80 on it).

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Is it true that a baby Ranger cannot name it’s pet?

Yes, because pet options are a F4 skill which is too confusing.

This patch got a mixed response from me based on the different things that were added and changed. As such, I would like to express my views on each of the main areas that were changed, starting with what I liked.

1. Crafting Backpacks

These are great. Love them. Granted for those of us with two handed weapons they kinda feel like they get in the way but overall love that you created a craftable back piece that you can choose your set of stats for after making it. Really cool guys, keep this.

2. Commanders

I don’t do much PvP, however I like the new set up. Increasing the gold amount, to me anyway, helps weed out those that want to be commanders because they know what they’re doing and the ones that want to be one just to be one. And making it available on all characters was something that should have been made available from the beginning, but do put a level cap on when it shows at least.

3. Level up rewards

I actually like this. Having weapons made available to you for free as you level for the early game, along with getting a few starting things free, does help get your new character rolling, whether you’re a veteran with alts like I am or a brand new player. Just give us the option to turn off the hints and tips that come with it.

Now the bad parts are all, unfortunately, related to the issues with the new early game.

1. Skill bar

This is perhaps the worst thing that could have been done. It does the exact opposite, by limiting what you can do to the extreme. New players need room to experiment, to play around with. That’s was a hell of a selling point for the game. The training with weapons, feeling like as you use the weapon your character is learning it better, that was the 2nd biggest selling point for this game for me. It was unique, and I loved it. Now having it given to me each level makes the game feel more generic, losing much of its charm. Please, change this back to its original state. No other way will work for me now.

2. Personal Story

What upset me most about this wasn’t the fact that you level locked different parts of it, it was the fact that the story doesn’t start until level 10 now. The story was the number one sellint point for this game for me. It’s the number one selling point that you guys pushed out for so long, since before launch. And to have it limited to level 10 or higher instead of going into it right out of the gate turns a lot of people off. In my personal opinion there are two ways to fix this. Either add another episode starting at the very beginning, or revert this change completely.

3. The elementalist change

Seriously, in my opinion it was annoying enough that I had to wait until level 10 or 15, can’t remember which, to unlock Earth, which is the element I wanted to start off with. Now with this increase in the level to unlock the different elements, once again you’re not actually helping new players learn the game better, but rather holding them back from learning it. For this my suggestions are to revert it back to the way it was or at least allow us to choose which element to start off with so we get what we want to use at the start. The elements are their weapons. Their physical weapons are simply how they channel those elements. Let them be used.

I will note that I had this in a separate thread, however pdavis.8031 did point this one out to me so I figured I’d repost this in here.

A bit off topic: Can we please stop with all “X was too confusing for new players so they locked it behind a higher level” posts? It’s been one day and I’ve already seen it used for everything from posting on the forums, to logging into the game. (Yeah I know I touched on it myself, and deeply regret it now) It’s starting to get old, and offers nothing in the way of feedback. Thank you.

On topic: As far as the classes changes, I haven’t seen too much of a difference, but didn’t spend too much time on my level 80s to notice. Spent all my play time on a new character to learn about the new leveling system.

You know….. playing a game be it a console or PC game makes no difference if it’s a RP, FPS or MMO half of the enjoyment is learning and figuring things out on your own, yeah a gentle nudge in a given direction is needed by some of the players who are overwhelmed but figuring things out is what makes a good game great as long as the content supports it, GW2 has taken a giant step backward in my opinion.

Having said that some of the feature pack are welcome changes like the crafting UI and the TP, I know Anet is trying to please everybody and draw new players into the game but I can’t help but wonder what the average IQ is of their intended audience?

If I was a new player I’m not sure I’d jump the hoops to get to lvl 80, I think I’d feel the game was for a audience much younger than I am, or at a much lower skill level than the average MMO player, not sure I’d even try to level another alt but at least I have a couple of those instant lvl 20 thingies and enough tombs of knowledge to get way past the entry level hump.

Here’s my short version overview:

Good stuff:

• Trading post changes – It may have some kinks to work out, but it is FINALLY usable and searchable. Previously I was discouraged from using it due to long load times
• Collections – Rewards are a bit off but it’s something to do. I can’t complain about having more reasons to play the game
• BL Chest changes – Making the good stuff more common is good for both ingame payers and real money payers
• Level up rewards – Running level 50s with level 12 gear was probably the REAL reason people were having trouble, gear and stat combos tend to take longer to learn (even for hardcore players) than skills.
• Ranger GS and Axe changes – Because I main ranger
• Commander tag changes – Eventually. Just give the players a little time to cool down and stop trying on their new tags
• Changes to the WvW season achievements and rewards
• Optimizations – I think it feels a lil better, can’t be sure though
• Collections again – Just just… I LOVE stuff like this. I hope we have a long future of new cool collections being added to the game.

Bad stuff:

• Nerfing the alt experience for the good of a “majority” whom we will all probably never see past level 30 anyway – Also where can we go to get our voices heard just as theirs were?
• Arah P2 apparently broke
• Cannot see feet in hero window
• Can no longer auto-login in launcher
• Female human animations got damaged even more
• Key farm destroyed – I didn’t even like doing it that much, but it was basically the only thing that edged BL Chests on the not-immoral
• People talking about business rather than gameplay on the forums – I almost don’t blame the devs if they don’t want to read the crap we post
• Frost Spirit stealth nerf – It’s not just a nerf, its pretty much a removal

We are in a state of fallout though. Communication is going to be THE most important thing now. Despite the collections, we’re still afraid that those of us who love the game don’t have a future mapped out for us. We feel like we’ve all banded together for two years and plotted out what we want and what this game needs, yet somehow this mysterious “majority” got their voice heard beyond ours.

And this was pre-reinforced when after two long years of saying “out-of-combat first person zoom, out-of-combat first person zoom, out-of-combat first person zoom,” we STILL had a dev speak in an interview saying people might get confused in combat from that perspective.

DarkWasp.7291:

Here’s my short version overview:

Good stuff:

• Trading post changes – It may have some kinks to work out, but it is FINALLY usable and searchable. Previously I was discouraged from using it due to long load times
• Collections – Rewards are a bit off but it’s something to do. I can’t complain about having more reasons to play the game
• BL Chest changes – Making the good stuff more common is good for both ingame payers and real money payers
• Level up rewards – Running level 50s with level 12 gear was probably the REAL reason people were having trouble, gear and stat combos tend to take longer to learn (even for hardcore players) than skills.
• Ranger GS and Axe changes – Because I main ranger
• Commander tag changes – Eventually. Just give the players a little time to cool down and stop trying on their new tags
• Changes to the WvW season achievements and rewards
• Optimizations – I think it feels a lil better, can’t be sure though
• Collections again – Just just… I LOVE stuff like this. I hope we have a long future of new cool collections being added to the game.

Bad stuff:

• Nerfing the alt experience for the good of a “majority” whom we will all probably never see past level 30 anyway – Also where can we go to get our voices heard just as theirs were?
• Arah P2 apparently broke
• Cannot see feet in hero window
• Can no longer auto-login in launcher
• Female human animations got damaged even more
• Key farm destroyed – I didn’t even like doing it that much, but it was basically the only thing that edged BL Chests on the not-immoral
• People talking about business rather than gameplay on the forums – I almost don’t blame the devs if they don’t want to read the crap we post
• Frost Spirit stealth nerf – It’s not just a nerf, its pretty much a removal

We are in a state of fallout though. Communication is going to be THE most important thing now. Despite the collections, we’re still afraid that those of us who love the game don’t have a future mapped out for us. We feel like we’ve all banded together for two years and plotted out what we want and what this game needs, yet somehow this mysterious “majority” got their voice heard beyond ours.

And this was pre-reinforced when after two long years of saying “out-of-combat first person zoom, out-of-combat first person zoom, out-of-combat first person zoom,” we STILL had a dev speak in an interview saying people might get confused in combat from that perspective.

Actually, pretty much this for me as well.

I do think that collections would have been a PERFECT scavenger hunt for percursors, however.

I’m just gonna repost the comment I’ve just made on another thread because I didn’t see this one, I didn’t read all the comments so I’m sorry if I’m just repeating something that has already been said :

Ok so as a new player who got to experience both the old and this new game start as I had only reached level 7 before the patch I feel like I could share my opinion :
I think that this idea of a “new player tutorial” is good so people who don’t want to learn by themselves can learn how to play it gradually so they can enjoy the game as much as everyone else (I personally didn’t mind learning on the go when I started playing just before the update but I can understand people who prefer a more “traditional” beginning)
BUT there are seriously some restrictions which need to be really tuned down : not being able to use underwater abilities before level 8 ? That is really not necessary, what’s the point in that ? It’s not like new players will find that mechanic so hard to understand that they need to have spent a couple hours in the game to get it, just make it available from the start just like it used to be so that the rivers won’t be filled with the corpses of thousands of young warrior who couldn’t defend themselves against some violent fish ! And the same goes for gathering/mining/etc.
Another thing that is understandable is the fact that veteran players DO NOT want to go through that tutorial all over again when they create a new character (something that is always a recurrent pain in the neck in all the MMO’s I’ve played) and a way to go around it would be to offer people ability to not follow the tutorial experience through a “Is this your first GW2 character ?” option during the character creation.
Now, I know close to nothing about game development and even less about the way an MMO’s features evolve so I do not now whether such an option would require a lot of work from the developers of GW or not in order to be implemented (if it is even possible), but here you go this is my idea to make the game enjoyable to the most people possible so feel free to bash it if you want to (just don’t be too harsh )

Well, having leveled a couple of new characters in two different starter areas I have to say that I’m not going to have a problem rolling new characters. Except for running out of spaces, of course.

I’m still not, and never will be, a fan of elite skills coming at 40, and underwater skills coming late as well.

Schools tried dumbing down their curricula in order to prevent drop outs. Tell me how well that worked.

NewTrain.7549:

Schools tried dumbing down their curricula in order to prevent drop outs. Tell me how well that worked.

I don’t mean to be rude, but that comment isn’t very helpful. This thread is for feedback.

Small anecdote:

I have a friend who decided to start playing this game four days ago because he’s been watching me and my husband play for months.

As of Monday night, he had three characters, all between level 5 and 11. He had played for several hours already, spread out between the three toons.

Yesterday, he came over and made a character, a Sylvari Ranger. In an hour, he had almost reached level 15. The leveling process is /clearly/ faster. He also avoided the cow debacle everyone seems to be so upset over.

He had some notes that I wanted to post here. He is a long-time WoW player, so he is not new to MMOs in any way.

• He was very glad he didn’t have to grind out his weapon skills again, as compared to his first few characters.

• One of his first questions to me was “What craft do I have to have to mine ore?” Then, it was “Where do I get tools? All these vendors look the same until you talk to them.”

• “What the heck are all these icons on the ‘hero’ panel? There’s a /lot/ of unexplained clicking going on here. There’s also a ton of stuff in these menu buttons at the top that I have no idea what they do.”

• He had no idea that there was a hot key for access the trading post.

• “What’s up with being able to go to these POIs and Vistas, but not seeing them on my mini-map anymore?”

• He thought the personal story was great now because he wasn’t getting lost between hearts and the plot.

• “I have no idea how to craft. This isn’t intuitive at all.”

• Dodging is really hard to learn to do manually when you come from a game that does it by stat.

• “Wait, why is it just now telling me that I unlocked salvage kits? I was already doing that, wasn’t I?”

• His final comment: “GW2 is awesome and I’m really loving it! I just really wish there was more explanation for what the heck the mechanics of the game are. You know what would be really helpful? An in-game tutorial that tells you how to do stuff. Maybe something that you could skip after the first time, but something that explains to you what all of these buttons mean.”

Rhundan.7829:

NewTrain.7549:

Schools tried dumbing down their curricula in order to prevent drop outs. Tell me how well that worked.

I don’t mean to be rude, but that comment isn’t very helpful. This thread is for feedback.

I’m sure you see the irony in your own post then.

Besides, I didn’t think the metaphor was unclear, but since apparently metaphors are hard to understand I can explain. Simplifying an arguably difficult task (leveling) doesn’t necessarily mean that more people will complete the task (level 80). It simply means that those who were able to complete the task (level 80) no longer feel any accomplishment from it and the system itself (Guild Wars 2) becomes a laughing stock.

Oh, and just to be clear, this is feedback on the new player experience not achieving its designed purpose.

I really, REALLY dislike all the shiny flashy pop-ups. It was bothersome with renown hearts, but now that it happens every time I level, I just can’t take it. Too much useless going on on the screen!

I tried to properly review the feature pack and it came out way too long, so I’ll cut to the important parts: skill/ability locking and personal story. This is from the perspective of a semi-veteran PvE player who has created a ranger since the patch and played to level 10.

Skill and Ability Locking: I seriously question the decision to lock skills so extensively. While I agree having all your skills available at once could be overwhelming, this was not the situation. I believe the previous system for unlocking weapon skills worked admirably: it was refreshingly unique, it made logical sense (you’re practicing and figuring out new techniques) and it gave you a chance to figure your skills out gradually, one at a time. Furthermore it gave you that chance every time you picked up a new weapon, something the new system denies you.
The new system fulfills only the third of these, only for your first weapon, and in my opinion much too slowly. It is now practically impossible to unlock even your second weapon skill during the tutorial area, yet the second and third skills are vital to give the player a sense of agency in battle. Instead of an epic and engaging fight, the tutorial boss now becomes a simple auto-attack battle, which cripples the experience of those vital first few minutes.
My recommendation would be to use the old system to unlock weapon skills, at least for the first three, fast enough that the first three unlock before the tutorial boss.
Not only that, but the ‘downed’ state seems to me far too important to leave out in the first few levels. The 2nd and 3rd downed skills are important, but can perhaps be delayed a few levels to make the whole experience less overwhelming. The only way for players to learn this is to experience it, so stopping them from doing so won’t help anyone. I also think not allowing the player to die in the tutorial is a bad idea – it cheapens the experience if the player notices they have that safety net.
Finally, not giving the player a starter underwater weapon just seems silly. I don’t see why you should remove it when it starts with learning one simple skill just like everything else. It makes the lower levels that bit less varied, and leaves low-leveled characters defenseless should they meet a hostile creature underwater, unless they are savvy enough to purchase an underwater weapon themselves.
All in all, while spreading out the learning curve is all well and good, you should make sure you aren’t taking all the engagement out of the lower levels and hiding the ways your game stands out by doing so. Remember that these levels are where you are making your first impression. The tutorial is short, but there is plenty of room for spaced-out tooltips to explain these most vital features.

Personal Story Changes: I can completely get behind the idea to shorten the gaps between story instances in the same chapter. In my opinion the personal story works a lot better without so many fits and starts. However, I feel this change is too heavy-handed, and removes any aspect of choice the player has. I think it should be possible to go into your next story instance while slightly under-leveled if you really want to – I have recently started playing through the game with three friends, and we make such easy work of the story instances that we have often gone in early to make it a challenge.
Perhaps a better approach would be to “bunch up” the recommended levels of instances so that you have one-level increments within a chapter, and perhaps a five-level gap between them. This makes the story run more smoothly while still leaving the ultimate choice of when to attempt it to the player. It would also pull forward the starting level requirements for each chapter, and thus get rid of that unfortunate ten-level gap before the start of the Personal Story.
And why oh why did you switch chapters 7 and 8? This creates all sorts of inconsistencies in the continuity – now you ‘meet’ Sayeh after already having fought beside her several times, you defeat the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan before the original encounters with the Eye and Mouth, and you airdrop into the heart of Orr long before securing the area on foot, not to mention ending up wandering the Cursed Shore at level 70.
I really think the only remedy for these consistency problems is to switch them back. Changing the order of Personal Story events now would require serious rewriting, and just isn’t worth it when the story isn’t actually in any way ‘broken’ to begin with.

In summary, this is by and large a very good feature pack, with some technical hiccups particularly with miniatures, but the level-based skill locking replaces a perfectly good system with something worse and ruins the tutorial area, and the Personal Story changes remove too much player choice and create sweeping continuity problems.

If anyone has more feedback (and im sure you do, as there is a thread about it every 5 minutes) would you kindly post here to keep things organized. Thanks!

The leveling system leaves much to be desired.
Though I do love how they describe what attributes are being upgraded.
I also like the small bit of loot for certain levels.

The skill gating is just not acceptable though.
I have to wait until I’m level 10 to use all 5 spots?!
It should have been level 5 at the most.
Another thought would have been to keep the old system, but if you unlocked one weapon skill set you unlocked them all.

Then there’s the gating on the F1 and other F keys.
This is frustrating as a player.
The gating doesn’t give players a sense of “ooh what’s next?” it gives players a sense of “this game is dragging me by the nose, I wonder what (insert another title) is up to?”

The rest of the updates were fine.
I liked the crafting, I liked the minor tweaks to the game, but I cannot recommend leveling up anybody now.
I’m so glad I got my lvl 80s early. I might not even want to level up my extra Norn warrior from 38 now.

The other frustrating factor is how we have to wait until 40 to fully unlock the character.
That’s halfway through the leveling process!
No I will not make any more characters, save the (now) occasional key farm.

I get that ANet was consolidating code with China’s framework.
I even get that now they could offer trial accounts where it stops at level 10.
It doesn’t mean I have to like it.
A character shouldn’t have to be level 10 to be at the beginning in terms of what a character can do.
That mentality is just as sick as the “now I’m at 80 I can finally play!” types.

China’s influence on the game has spoiled my ability to enjoy leveling new characters.
This is a shame, and I really did try it out.
I just can’t recommend this game for new people now.

Everything is “too confusing.” It’s a running joke now. I’m sorry, but none of this stuff is “too confusing.” Stop treating us like we are 5 yearsold. I take that back, even a 5 yearold wouldn’t be confused. Stop with the gating. That’s not GW2. It goes against everything this game is about. We are not Chinese gamers. We don’t accept things that they accept over there. And don’t even think about bringing over VIP.

Stop with the horrible mini pet culling. You are screwing many of us who love our mini pets (and have bought pets from the store). If you run in full maps or happen to run with large guilds you basically will NEVER see your mini. This is unacceptable and I will not buy any more minis from the shop until this is fixed. Culling of minis should be something we can toggle on and off in the Options section.

And finally, the megaserver “improvements.” They are not improvements at all. When a map is flagged for closing it needs to STOP allowing people to join that map (must also stop people from joining in/taxiing on the map). It must also properly warn everybody on the map that the map is closing. Currently this does not happen. Only a few people get the warnings and the rest just suddenly find themselves kicked from a map. This was incredibly disruptive when we had triple head wurm attempt occurring and suddenly this silly system kicked us all from the map.

Please Anet, rethink all these changes. They don’t work for us.

This person’s video review is very poignant. This is from a new player’s perspective but as someone who has been playing for a year, I agree with everything he says. He does mention the new features he likes in the middle of the video too.

AlexisToran.5719:

In summary, this is by and large a very good feature pack, with some technical hiccups particularly with miniatures

The mini culling is intended according to Anet:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Miniatures-Have-Been-Hidden/page/2#post4392943

A horrible change. Yes they are working on something “in the future” to make it better, but call me skeptical….

The only acceptable way for me is to make this culling part of Options and allow players to adjust it themselves.

pdavis.8031:

A bit off topic: Can we please stop with all “X was too confusing for new players so they locked it behind a higher level” posts? It’s been one day and I’ve already seen it used for everything from posting on the forums, to logging into the game. (Yeah I know I touched on it myself, and deeply regret it now) It’s starting to get old, and offers nothing in the way of feedback. Thank you.

Except that all feedback is not rosy happy unicorns and lemon drops. Sometimes it’s a nasty stinky cheese sandwich on moldy bread.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Taida.4987:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Is it true that a baby Ranger cannot name it’s pet?

You unlock ability to name, switch and put pet on passive at level 5. You can charm another pet and immediately swap to it when game asks you, but it will go back to your starter if you die below level 5.

I am… stunned. Really?
Can’t swap?
No downed state because you unlock that? My head is spinning…
I saw that a new toon is actually told to go to Frostgorge Sound to see the new challenges…
You don’t unlock the weapon skill as you use the weapon?
No underwater skills? That makes zero sense.
No gathering ability
No dyes
no armor
no
no
no
… wow, sure does tempt me into buying the game if I don’t have it

Not making a new toon until this kitten is cleared up.

Till level 5. In the new system, that takes about 15 minutes.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

pdavis.8031:

A bit off topic: Can we please stop with all “X was too confusing for new players so they locked it behind a higher level” posts? It’s been one day and I’ve already seen it used for everything from posting on the forums, to logging into the game. (Yeah I know I touched on it myself, and deeply regret it now) It’s starting to get old, and offers nothing in the way of feedback. Thank you.

Except that all feedback is not rosy happy unicorns and lemon drops. Sometimes it’s a nasty stinky cheese sandwich on moldy bread.

Yes, but said nasty sandwiches don’t need to be hurled at the face.

@one prarie

Yes, I understand not all feedback is not “rosy happy unicorns”. I’m not expecting it to be. But using “its too confusing so they locked it” when discussing log in issues is not feedback. It’s just getting overused, and isn’t really funny anymore.

@Tobias

I agree. There is a right way and a wrong way to provide feedback.

Penarddun.6827:

This person’s video review is very poignant. This is from a new player’s perspective but as someone who has been playing for a year, I agree with everything he says. He does mention the new features he likes in the middle of the video too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqJlKjwrKB4

Just finished that video…WOW! He makes a lot of great points! But hearing his reaction kinda makes me sad. I agree, it WAS a great game, and still is, at level 80. I really hope the devs take some time to watch this and maybe reconsider some of these changes. It’s not too late.

Let’s face it guys… There’s apparently a new gamer demographic out there anet is catering too…
This demographic can no longer research, explore, or even figure things out by simply thinking.
The gamers of old are too experienced with mmog’s and are being washed out bythe flood of incompetent, inexperienced gamers…
Forget casual and hardcore.

Vayne.8563:

All this patch did was change 1-15 zones to tutorial zones, so people can relax into a character. They’ve greatly increased the speed of leveling. It took me an hour or so to get to level 7. So level 1-15 you level through super fast (or use a 20th level scroll if you have to) and most of the major unlocking is done.

But what this has done is given people more information about what happens when they level.

Anyone who doesn’t think this was necessary hasn’t spent much time on player helping players forums.

Valid points if this was the year 2012.

I started to play GW2 about half a year ago. It was a present from friends. I enjoyed the game very much, but as it seems, just for a short time. At the moment I feel like somebody stole my game and replaced it with a similar looking but nontheless different game. I feel like quitting at the moment, although I’ll miss it. I feel bad about my friends who gave it to me for my birthday such a short time ago. Such a waste of money. If I’d bought the game myself, I certainly would be furious now, since this new post-patch GW is a different game in many key aspects. I cannot believe I was thinking about buying more character slots just a few days ago!

Now, Anet, you won’t see my money any time soon if you do not remove this stupid gate locking. I most certainly will not invest time in a new character, if the tutorial part is 40 level long! In any other game players are already bored, if they’re forced to play a 10 minutes tutorial part again in a second run! If you change that, maybe, maybe I can live with the changes in the personal storyline (although I do not like them). Its all such a shame since many other changes of the september feature pack are really good.

Suggestion: Keep the tutorial part of the game for new accounts so new players can profit from it and other players do not get frustrated. Or even better: Include tutorial features in the game that can be accessed by new players (or older players with memory lapses) if they want. Maybe in an instance. Your game, Anet, is a MMO. You can create flexible tutorial features. You don’t need to handle this like a normal game!

As for the “game experience” (yes, I understand, the changes are not meant to be a tutorial. They are about “player experience” and “rewarding gameplay” and not making the game “too confusing”): Before it was fun and free to explore and rewarding. Now it will be certainly speed leveling for 40 levels to everyone who isn’t playing his or her very first character! Before, yes, it was confusing in times for a newbie. But now the game handles it’s players like they are really stupid!

BTW: Watch this topic related video, if you haven’t so far, it is very sarcastic and very funny and very fitting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On3Ya0_4Y#t

GW2 has adopted Common Core. NO GAMER LEFT BEHIND!

Darude-Sandstorm.

Vayne.8563:

Till level 5. In the new system, that takes about 15 minutes.

It’s not all about the speed. In fact, it does appear to be faster to level up. But it’s FRUSTRATING and BORING to do so. It wasn’t so before this feature pack.

“No, don’t even kittening ask me to log in anymore. Every single thing I was excited about during the beta – every reason I preordered the collectors edition – has been systematically removed. Don’t even kittening ask me anymore.”

This is the response I got from my friend minutes ago when I showed him the update to new characters. This update has scared away most of the remnants of my guild and close friends that played. Everyone I know who was looking at buying the game changed their minds because of the changes to new characters (they had seen me play and tested out the game when they came to visit). Everyone who left before left because of the April patch and general lack of updates outside of living story (non of them cared about living story). I am one of the few of us who still logs in.

This is heartbreaking.

My only problem with the new feature pack is how much locking was done even though it isn’t too bad like so many exaggerate I still find its a bit too much. I can understand why it was done (so people really know their class; first hand and not through build forums imo) but I think the better loot system is a good way of learning your class in lower levels and still fair to high level toons. Also the speed of leveling is very good! Thanks for that one. Most other things are ok for me and the TP is one of my favorite add ons!

Frustration is what i got from this feature patch.
play as a new character in the game is total nightmare. WHY THE HELL EVERYTHING IS LOCKED?

Ronnie Hu.1694:

Frustration is what i got from this feature patch.
play as a new character in the game is total nightmare. WHY THE HELL EVERYTHING IS LOCKED?

Not everything is locked. Skills and skill point nodes, and ele and ranger function button things are locked. Maybe something else but everything else you can do.

I have no problem with the TP changes and finally making Minis part of Wardrobe. What I do have a problem with is what most people are frustrated with as well: Weapon Skills and Skill Slots being restricted to the player until they hit X-level. (Btw, what’s up with now quests and so forth say “Level X” instead of just “X”? I thought the number alone was self-explanatory. Trying to be like WoW?) I loved having to use my weapons in order to learn their skills, and personally never found it boring. It was all about experimentation, and you got the chance to see them in action. Now you level up super fast in the early levels and get the skills without much effort, and each weapon you equip has those skill slots unlocked immediately. This does not help a player learn about their weapons.
Also, I disliked Talents being pushed to 30 in the first place. Now Skills are pushed back as well. And what i hear about Ele attunements just terrifies me. How in any way is this supposed to be helpful? As I said with weapons, it’s all about letting the player experiment and find out what works best for their style of play. It does no good to restrict a player from being able to customize their character’s stats and so forth. Now all you can do until then is customize how they physically look, as the Wardrobe system is still available.
My suggestion would be to restore the old system of weapons and skills. For all I care, everything else can stay. But what’s been done to Weapon Skills, F Skills, the rest of the Skill Slots, Skills themselves, and Talents… it’s a bit overkill and I really can’t understand the logic.

Vix.6730:

Vayne.8563:

All this patch did was change 1-15 zones to tutorial zones, so people can relax into a character. They’ve greatly increased the speed of leveling. It took me an hour or so to get to level 7. So level 1-15 you level through super fast (or use a 20th level scroll if you have to) and most of the major unlocking is done.

But what this has done is given people more information about what happens when they level.

Anyone who doesn’t think this was necessary hasn’t spent much time on player helping players forums.

Valid points if this was the year 2012.

Valid points for now. No MMO can survive without new blood. All MMOs have natural attrition and lose people over time. If they can’t replace those people, they die.

Anet needs to find a way to get more players into the game. I strongly suspect the free weekends have been failures, or they’d have had more of them. So they want to increase the odds that someone will stay who’s never played the game.

This is a business decision, not one meant to kitten off players. Most of the leveling experience is going to be better, but the first 15 levels sorta suck.

Is it a pain? Maybe a bit yeah. Does it deserve this level of hate?

I don’t think so.

Moyayuki.3619:

And what i hear about Ele attunements just terrifies me.

Do they really only start out with Fire Attunement? Does the elementalist still start out with scepter? Autoattack is hilariously weak on scepter in Fire Attunement. I remember when I first started my ele I was so annoyed at how long it took to kill everything, and that was with having access to Water Attunement. On the bright side, that dragon’s tooth skill is extremely powerful, and it’s only the second skill. So, maybe it won’t be so bad.

Is it true that you don’t unlock Earth Attunement until level 24? Because, Fire Attunement and Water Attunement are boring, and I only really found Air Attunement fun on scepter/dagger or scepter/focus. Leveling an elementalist would be boring now since I’d basically be camping Water Attunement and spamming scepter 2 for a long time.

I’d be more concerned with ranger, actually. Do you seriously have to unlock profession skills? Being able to “heel” your pet is almost necessary on a ranger, as it can aggro things that you don’t want it to aggro and the only way to get it off of something once it attacks is by using F3 or F4. So, now, you’ll just have to be really careful with your positioning to make sure that some random monster doesn’t attack your pet or you don’t accidentally aggro something that you don’t want to fight. Can you at least still STOW your pet, or is that level-gated as well?

Vayne.8563:

Is it a pain? Maybe a bit yeah. Does it deserve this level of hate?

I don’t think so.

Yes, but this is what happens in a post-SAB-Riots world where bad behavior gets the attention. Now, less snark.

I don’t mind the hate so much as I mind people running with something which was proven untrue and repeating it like it’s fact (“Heh, can’t gather or salvage until it’s unlocked.”) or sniping at red posts with some variation of “I don’t believe you”/“you must be lying”.

Vayne.8563:

Vix.6730:

Vayne.8563:

All this patch did was change 1-15 zones to tutorial zones, so people can relax into a character. They’ve greatly increased the speed of leveling. It took me an hour or so to get to level 7. So level 1-15 you level through super fast (or use a 20th level scroll if you have to) and most of the major unlocking is done.

But what this has done is given people more information about what happens when they level.

Anyone who doesn’t think this was necessary hasn’t spent much time on player helping players forums.

Valid points if this was the year 2012.

Valid points for now. No MMO can survive without new blood. All MMOs have natural attrition and lose people over time. If they can’t replace those people, they die.

Anet needs to find a way to get more players into the game. I strongly suspect the free weekends have been failures, or they’d have had more of them. So they want to increase the odds that someone will stay who’s never played the game.

This is a business decision, not one meant to kitten off players. Most of the leveling experience is going to be better, but the first 15 levels sorta suck.

You’re contradicting yourself. On one hand you say MMO’s need new blood and this was a business decision, and the other you say the first 15 levels will now kinda suck? The first 15 levels were some of the game’s strengths. Seems to me this release will be putting off more new players.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t mind the hate so much as I mind people running with something which was proven untrue and repeating it like it’s fact (“Heh, can’t gather or salvage until it’s unlocked.”)

Blame Arenanet for that one. They apparently didn’t list all of the game changes in the patch notes. I encountered several things in-game that I don’t remember reading anywhere in the notes. So when people started saying that salvaging was locked, or that diving goggles were locked, or that jumping puzzles were locked, or that the wardrobe was locked, or that the trading post was locked, I had no way to verify whether it was true or not because I’m not willing to delete one of my characters to open up a free character slot to create a new avatar to test all of the claims out. And no, I don’t have a ton of gems sitting around to buy another character slot just to test out what craziness Arenanet may or may not have put into the game.

So, if someone would finally make a comprehensive thread about what is level-gated and what is NOT level-gated, then maybe you would hear less nonsense. And no, I have not seen a single thread like that. Every post I’ve seen that claims to list all locked content has not been a complete list.

Vix.6730:

Vayne.8563:

Vix.6730:

Vayne.8563:

All this patch did was change 1-15 zones to tutorial zones, so people can relax into a character. They’ve greatly increased the speed of leveling. It took me an hour or so to get to level 7. So level 1-15 you level through super fast (or use a 20th level scroll if you have to) and most of the major unlocking is done.

But what this has done is given people more information about what happens when they level.

Anyone who doesn’t think this was necessary hasn’t spent much time on player helping players forums.

Valid points if this was the year 2012.

Valid points for now. No MMO can survive without new blood. All MMOs have natural attrition and lose people over time. If they can’t replace those people, they die.

Anet needs to find a way to get more players into the game. I strongly suspect the free weekends have been failures, or they’d have had more of them. So they want to increase the odds that someone will stay who’s never played the game.

This is a business decision, not one meant to kitten off players. Most of the leveling experience is going to be better, but the first 15 levels sorta suck.

You’re contradicting yourself. On one hand you say MMO’s need new blood and this was a business decision, and the other you say the first 15 levels will now kinda suck? The first 15 levels were some of the game’s strengths. Seems to me this release will be putting off more new players.

Not a contradiction at all.

The first 15 levels suck for an experienced player, or at least they’re more limited. You also get through them in under an hour, or I did anyway.

I didn’t actually say they’d suck for a new player learning the game who never experienced any of it.

Suggestion – when starting a new character, players should be able to choose whether this new character has ‘Beginner’ or ‘Veteran’ status. A Beginner status character has the new level gated system, whereas a Veteran status character has no such level gating, other than the restrictions that were already present before the feature patch.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

Is it a pain? Maybe a bit yeah. Does it deserve this level of hate?

I don’t think so.

Yes, but this is what happens in a post-SAB-Riots world where bad behavior gets the attention. Now, less snark.

I don’t mind the hate so much as I mind people running with something which was proven untrue and repeating it like it’s fact (“Heh, can’t gather or salvage until it’s unlocked.”) or sniping at red posts with some variation of “I don’t believe you”/“you must be lying”.

actually, the UI tells you that you have unlocked it, also colin said their may be bugs in some stuff that is supposed to be account unlocked and not account unlocked. So really, blame bugs for that, not players.

Simonoly.4352:

Suggestion – when starting a new character, players should be able to choose whether this new character has ‘Beginner’ or ‘Veteran’ status. A Beginner status character has the new level gated system, whereas a Veteran status character has no such level gating, other than the restrictions that were already present before the feature patch.

Actually the first character should not have that choice, but all subsequent characters should.

It’s jarring when you realise that a lot of folks have stated that ANet do not know / care what their player base want.

Some features of this patch are an atrocity and it makes me question why I still want to click on that little Guild Wars 2 Icon sitting on my screen.

I don’t like feeling like a walking talking wallet.

Vayne.8563:

Simonoly.4352:

Suggestion – when starting a new character, players should be able to choose whether this new character has ‘Beginner’ or ‘Veteran’ status. A Beginner status character has the new level gated system, whereas a Veteran status character has no such level gating, other than the restrictions that were already present before the feature patch.

Actually the first character should not have that choice, but all subsequent characters should.

Sounds good to me :-)

Playing mesmer and elementalist without traits, F1~F4, skills….etc
Is this the expert mode?

The whole new leveling system has ruined any chance of me purchasing new character slots. The entire leveling system is now a mess of rubbish. Waiting for level xx to access whatever is a horrible idea. I thank god that all but one of my characters is a level 80, if I had to go through all that to get my characters to level 80, I would have quit guild wars a long time ago. The original leveling system in GW2 was great, I can’t beleive that they took a good thing and totally ruined it. The fun factor of character leveling is now ZERO! I won’t be leveling my new character now, I will just use it as a mule, at least it will see some use. They had a good system and trashed it. I feel really sorry for people that are just starting out and have to go through all the waiting to unlock everything, I could not imagine the horror of going through all of that for all of my characters.

I am so glad I finished leveling my 12th alt before the patch, and I think that this has discouraged me enough for stop being an altoholic in this game. Leveling and story was the reason why I loved having so many alts. Now I couldn’t care less. I have 11 lvl 80 characters and the last 23 lvl human one will probably stay at that level.

Anet, please stop think of us as a bunch of drooling babies. Yes the tutorial was needed, but not in this way. Obtaining weapon skills actually taught the players about them. Levelgating is an awful way and probably the worst one to pick if you want to prolong the leveling experience. Story gating is also silly. I don’t understand the reasons for all this. If you had feedback from China, why did you implement this, if they didn’t like it?

Trading post is nice BTW but that is probably the only part of this feature pack that was fine to me.

Anet, I love this game and I have to join the crowd of people that don’t like the direction it is heading on. Now is a very important time to listen to feedback.