Guild Wars 2

I was skeptical till an in game friend told me I should try it and I must say the NPE (bugs aside) is much better than leveling an old character! You level faster and feel more rewarded. As a veteran player it’s mildly irritating not having an offhand weapon or weapon swap till later but I definitely feel the new NPE is great.

Aside from trait acquisition. That still sucks…really, really sucks. Dear lord please change the trait acquisition.

Tarnsman.8092:

Aside from trait acquisition. That still sucks…really, really sucks. Dear lord please change the trait acquisition.

Curious have you attempted to play a character to level 80 with the new acquisition method unlocking all of your traits as you go?

If you have not try it. See if it is really as bad as you feel it is now. If you feel that some traits are just out of balance or too hard or out of your way to get during your normal leveling experience.

Post in this link with that information.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/50#post4426079

What I’ve been saying all along. It’s a much better system, over all. Some inconveniences early on but much better for me over all.

anzenketh.3759:

Tarnsman.8092:

Aside from trait acquisition. That still sucks…really, really sucks. Dear lord please change the trait acquisition.

Curious have you attempted to play a character to level 80 with the new acquisition method unlocking all of your traits as you go?

If you have not try it. See if it is really as bad as you feel it is now. If you feel that some traits are just out of balance or too hard or out of your way to get during your normal leveling experience.

Post in this link with that information.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/50#post4426079

I personally have not, I have one slot and a toon in it level 20…Started after the last major change…I will try it and if I do not go insane from it I will most likely post…

Oimmuk.3185:

anzenketh.3759:

Tarnsman.8092:

Aside from trait acquisition. That still sucks…really, really sucks. Dear lord please change the trait acquisition.

Curious have you attempted to play a character to level 80 with the new acquisition method unlocking all of your traits as you go?

If you have not try it. See if it is really as bad as you feel it is now. If you feel that some traits are just out of balance or too hard or out of your way to get during your normal leveling experience.

Post in this link with that information.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/50#post4426079

I personally have not, I have one slot and a toon in it level 20…Started after the last major change…I will try it and if I do not go insane from it I will most likely post…

If you do go insane please do post why you went insane a game should never make you go insane. I personally have not provided my feedback as I do not have a character until now that was not grandfathered in. Leveling to 80 takes time.

Oimmuk, I highly, highly suggest starting a new character from level 1. Play through the game and keep your mind as open as possible.

What I’ve found with the current NPE is that it’s actually really, really good. The problem is that it wasn’t in place at the very beginning of the game, so us veteran players have tasted the forbidden fruit and can’t forget it.

I’ve made a few characters, but always brought them to EotM to try out the NPE. This defeats the purpose. I finally made a character and played it for a while. What the leveling felt like was… well, the first time I played GW2, both in Beta and after Release. It was a nice experience. I had to suppress my knowledge of the game, though, and just let the game give me things bit by bit.

Additionally, after 99% completing my starter zone, I was level 13, which is really, really good. Both in Beta and Release, completing all towns and then finishing the starter zone would leave you at around level 11. This is after the “experience fix” in/after Beta because starter zones would leave you underleveled.

The reason I 99%ed the map was for quick leveling later, but it’s not necessary. Getting to 100% is fine, as well (it’s just preferably to leave towns at 99%, at the very least. If you wanted to min-max your Map Completion + PvE Open World Leveling, you’d also minimally map towns, but that’s a bit more in-depth).

grrr you people, I still have alts to level up but you people are going to make start yet another alt to try this out!

Galen Grey.4709:

grrr you people, I still have alts to level up but you people are going to make start yet another alt to try this out!

Don’t worry I can help you. I still think it’s mostly bad with a few good changes here and there.

Then again I dislike a lot the linear hand-holding gameplay standard for most AAA games these days.

Wolfheart.1938:

Galen Grey.4709:

grrr you people, I still have alts to level up but you people are going to make start yet another alt to try this out!

Don’t worry I can help you. I still think it’s mostly bad with a few good changes here and there.

Then again I dislike a lot the linear hand-holding gameplay standard for most AAA games these days.

If you could explain what you think is hand-holding they could improve it to make it less so.

I haven’t leveled to 80 yet. I plan on doing that with this new guy. 1-80 with no “cheating” from my other characters to contaminate the experience. I’m looking forward to the journey since I haven’t leveled a character to 80 in over a year so it will be fun to get back to some of the areas I haven’t visited in a while and see what has changed in the environment as well as the leveling.

Gating all the weapon skills.

While the old system wasn’t super effective and didn’t give a lot of time to learn each of the skills (I like the automatic unlock of all the skills, maybe a best of both worlds having both systems in place? You automatically unlock all at certain levels, but if you use a weapon a lot, you’ll unlock the weapon skills. This will help newer players (or players with lots of skills, cough Elementalists cough) while not slowing down veteran players. Additionally, if a player enjoys a weapon skill a lot, they will unlock the skills for that weapon.

This would require a lot more kills to unlock each skill to work effectively, but it would be nice.

Preventing offhand weapons until level 7 (unlock of 4th skill).

This actually hurts all players. Two handed weapons give more stats (stats not attack) than one handed weapons. Players will have less potential stats which doesn’t make a big difference, but then the real problem is with Thieves. Thieves have different 3rd skills based on their offhand weapon. Since offhand weapons are disabled, they effectively don’t get their third skill until they unlock their fourth skill. (Yes, there is the 3rd skill for no-weapon in offhand, but that was added as a last minute to allow players to have 3 skills in the Tutorial Instance which won’t happen anymore.)

I really do like the third skill in the thieves weapons, even without them holding an offhand, but since they’re not only watered down, they also cost a lot and have long cast times (in some cases). This, however, is a complaint from me since the beginning of the game. Oh well, one can keep wishing.

Just two things that could be changed to improve the NPE, in my opinion.

anzenketh.3759:

Wolfheart.1938:

Galen Grey.4709:

grrr you people, I still have alts to level up but you people are going to make start yet another alt to try this out!

Don’t worry I can help you. I still think it’s mostly bad with a few good changes here and there.

Then again I dislike a lot the linear hand-holding gameplay standard for most AAA games these days.

If you could explain what you think is hand-holding they could improve it to make it less so.

Nah this thread is for stating opinions so I stated mine. I’ll get into details in a thread for discussing.

Wolfheart.1938:

Galen Grey.4709:

grrr you people, I still have alts to level up but you people are going to make start yet another alt to try this out!

Don’t worry I can help you. I still think it’s mostly bad with a few good changes here and there.

Then again I dislike a lot the linear hand-holding gameplay standard for most AAA games these days.

hehe thanks

from how they’re described I too think they’re not enjoyable but enough people said they find them okey or even an improvement that now I have to know. I dont want to criticize something that just sounds bad but in actually isnt. Ohh well project for the weekend, the other characters can wait a few days

Esplen.3940:

(Yes, there is the 3rd skill for no-weapon in offhand, but that was added as a last minute to allow players to have 3 skills in the Tutorial Instance which won’t happen anymore.)

Thieves always had 3 skills with offhand empty. =)
Edit: Or maybe I just really didn’t get what you meant.

I’ve run a character of each race through to getting the key, just for the heck of it. Did not have any issues with gaining skills, and the leveling went pretty quick. I stopped at 13th or 14th level, but I think I will gain some more levels with the two I have left.

A big bonus was I learned I was dodging wrong. I new something was wrong when I fought the Karka Queen. She would roll; I would dodge back and live, but many other players would die… it was awkward… But after the dodge tutorial, I am now doing it correctly. I let the Karka Queen kill me and wait to get rezzed, When the chest spawns, I dodge into it. I feel like a real pro now.

Jana.6831:

Esplen.3940:

(Yes, there is the 3rd skill for no-weapon in offhand, but that was added as a last minute to allow players to have 3 skills in the Tutorial Instance which won’t happen anymore.)

Thieves always had 3 skills with offhand empty. =)
Edit: Or maybe I just really didn’t get what you meant.

You do and you don’t.

The third weapon skill with offhand empty wasn’t intended to be there. The reason it was added was so that Thieves would have a third skill while in the Tutorial Instance (Explosive Intellect, Fury of the Dead, Defending Shaemoor, The Great Hunt, Fighting the Nightmare).

Of course, the reason for them to have that third, empty attack (empty offhand, that is) is now gone because you won’t have access to your third skill in the Tutorial unless you kill roughly 7,000 of whatever enemy is in that zone. And no, I’m not exaggerating, it is roughly 7,000 unless you use Tomes of Knowledge or Experience Scrolls.

When you get to level 7, you can equip an offhand which will let you actually utilize that third weapon skill to get the intended effect.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about:

Twisting Fangs is a weaker Death Blossom. They have the same cast time and roughly the same delays. They cost the same initiative. Twisting Fangs hits only once and for roughly half the damage of Death Blossom (2 less Bleeding stacks). Twisting Fangs is not a Whirl Finisher. Twisting Fangs does not evade attacks.

Repeater is a weaker Unload. It costs the same amount of initiative. It has a longer cast time. It hits for roughly half the damage of Unload with 3 less shots. It is, however, a Projectile Finisher, but with the lessened number of shots, the theoretical amount of Finishes that occur is 62.5% of the amount Unload will get.

Stab is a weaker Larcenous Strike. The only advantage to Stab is that you can spam it, but it doesn’t cleave and still has pretty bad damage. Stab and Larcenous Strike have roughly the same damage. Larcenous Strike is unblockable. Stab does not have a chain, but costs as much as the initial skill on the Larcenous Strike chain. Stab also has less of a damage co-efficient than Larcenous Strike (the others aren’t included because they haven’t been recorded).

Tl;dr: Twisting Fangs is a weaker Death Blossom, Stab is a weaker Larcenous Strike, Repeater is a weaker Unload.

I’d be okay with them being weaker, if they weren’t copy-pastes and then toned down.

KerryTT.4792:

A big bonus was I learned I was dodging wrong. I new something was wrong when I fought the Karka Queen. She would roll; I would dodge back and live, but many other players would die… it was awkward… But after the dodge tutorial, I am now doing it correctly. I let the Karka Queen kill me and wait to get rezzed, When the chest spawns, I dodge into it. I feel like a real pro now.

The dodge tutorial came up in the ui as something one of my lvl 80 chars should check out so I did it… I don’t feel that my results were as good as yours though, maybe I did it wrong.

It’s good to see posts from people who have actually tried the NPE rather than posts by those who haven’t yet are completely convinced how terrible it must be. .

One thing you have to bear in mind if you’re comparing the current NPE to initial reactions is that there was another patch on the 16th which made a lot of changes:

• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the Content Direction System to direct players to higher-level zones when a more appropriate zone was nearby.
• Fixed a bug that would occasionally direct players using alternate characters towards the dodge tutorial before level 4.
• Diving goggles now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis.
• Fixed a bug that occasionally unlocked collection items incorrectly.
• Fixed the text in the options menu for the Content Direction System.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some accounts from having vistas now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis.
• Skill challenges now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis as originally intended.
• Utility slot skills 2 and 3 now unlock at levels 17 and 19, respectively.
• The elite slot skill now unlocks at level 31.
• Elementalist F4 commands, mesmer F3 commands, and guardian F3 commands now unlock at level 17.
• Mesmer F4 commands and engineer F4 commands now unlock at level 19.
• Skill Challenges are now visible at level 13 instead of level 15.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2014-09-16

There was also a bug/various bugs with different things which caused veteran players to be locked out of certain things that should have only been locked when levelling the first character like the Trading Post and WvW menu.

It may not seem like much but some of those changes make a big difference. Especially the utility skill unlocks, initially the NPE meant you didn’t get your final utility until something like level 27 and your elite didn’t unlock until level 40. For some professions (engineers for example) not having access to more than 1 utility is a big problem and it made them extremely boring and frustrating to play.

I’ve always made new characters periodically so I was familiar with the old system, I made 3 (and engineer, ele and ranger) between the 9th and 16th and I’ve made the same 3 again since then.

I can honestly say if they’d kept it as it was originally released I’d be done with levelling new characters unless I had enough scrolls/tomes to jump them to level 30/40. As it is now it’s still frustrating on some professions at low levels (I hate not being able to name or control my pet on a ranger) but it’s playable.

i started a char and got that char to level 60 before news of the patch and made one right after. only problem i really had was the removal of stuff in started areas. none of it was hard at all to understand. the traits lock hurt a bit but the chest of useable gear kept me geared up near my level. both my new and older char are both at level 60. the removal of stuff from starter areas made it feel longer mainly cause it seems there is less i like about the newer areas and i used to get close to level forty before leaving the newbie areas after patch i felt the need to move on after level 20. the newer experience to me felt like it took longer and is more of a chore. this is my personal experience and i think it was due to the stuff being removed from starter areas.

I’ve been leveling a new character since the NPE was released, some thoughts (I haven’t leveled a new character in a long time, so maybe not all the changes I mention are recent…):

- The new rewards given on leveling are a nice touch, they’re certainly more meaningful and useful than before.

- I think the new story system with an arc of related story missions every 10 levels is not bad.

- At level 40, I seem to have fewer trait points than I remember, I think that is a step backwards from the old leveling system. I don’t mind the traits needing to be unlocked individually so much, since there are only a handful of traits I actually want to use and I have enough gold/knowledge scrolls sitting around. I want to be able to use more traits earlier though.

- I used a lv20 scroll, so I can’t comment on the early leveling.

- Leveling doesn’t really feel more troublesome than before, I still do my routine of story missions, hearts, dynamic events, and EOTM, feels roughly the same.

- The new TP makes it somewhat easier to buy the gear I want for the character.

- Overall it seems more polished than the old system. Viewed without comparison to the old system, I think the new leveling system is fine. I I still think the old system was totally acceptable, though.

voidwater.2064:

- I used a lv20 scroll, so I can’t comment on the early leveling.

This is why you didn’t notice the majority of things people have complained about. By level 20 most things are unlocked so you wouldn’t see any difference except for gaining skill points in batches and traits unlocking later.

I’ve leveled one character to 80 post NPE, and I have another at 64 as of this writing. Its a much better system overall. 1-10 goes lightning fast, and many of the lower levels also feel faster. PS changes are nice and welcomed, unless you only used it for key farming. Between level rewards and PS step rewards, you have a steady stream of either usable equipment or materials (or money) coming in. I even had a race to Cursed Shore with a level 2 post NPE, which was much more difficult than it would be pre-NPE.

Overall, its like the BLTC changes. People don’t like change, but once you’re as proficient with it now as you were before, you’ll have a much better experience.