Guild Wars 2

level 61 character that had all trait tiers unlocked…………now i lose 20 trait points

-all that gold……..kitten you.

Have fun grinding! LOL

Such a disappointing change because it kills my desire to ever have an alt again.

The gold and skill point costs need to be reduced by 50%. Honestly, there shouldn’t be a cost at all. Guild Wars 2 has always been about “Play your Way.” Players who don’t want to participate in zerg dynamic events are essentially penalized for this.

It becomes even worse if you’re a player that has multiple alts you enjoy playing.

Glad I leveled all my alts to 80 so I don’t have to put up with most of this BS.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Have fun grinding! LOL

Such a disappointing change because it kills my desire to ever have an alt again.

the kittenty trait leveling system does that now. like leveling a an ele or theif didn’t suck enough…..yay, at level 60, your are as good as you used to be at level 40.

thank god i only have one under 80 character……….

Levelling up alts and playing around with the traits was the main thing I logged on for, logged out with my latest ele having a fun setup..logged back in to 3 largely worthless points.

The prospect of a X0 lvl grind with the mess they’ve left behind..not wasting my time on that, already uninstalled.

No longer the game for me.

Finally, new traits have been implemented. At least you guys are on the right path mechanically, still need to iron out the content releases, but that is for a different discussion.

tigirius.9014:

Wait people aren’t buying the traits because they cost gold?

But we’ve been hearing for almost 2 years now how there’s no struggle to make gold in this game. What happened?

New players dont have gold and they definitly won’t have skillpoints.

This is a huge slap in the face to new players and might even roll them off to other games. It kittenes me off wondering how anet couldn’t think this through.

I don’t know if you can unlock the adept/master traits through events, but I figure they will probably be some group events that no one ever attended to. they better make sure megaserver lives up to said performance because when i was 3x/4x, i sure as hell couldn’t find any guy to do a group event with..

It obviously isn’t the popular view, but I love the new trait system. everything seemed far too easy before. Having to explore and hunt out traits is far more exciting then just having them all and makes you feel good when you manage to unlock them.
We can’t have everything given to us at all times, it makes things boring.
I welcome the changes

the gold isnt really a problem to me, the skill point are though. it means i basically no longer can just use one character slot and keep deleting and creating professions i want to PvP theorycraft with. now i actually have to grind 100 skill points just to get TRAITS, that i normally would just get anyway. its just stupid

WaveyDL.6945:

I only just got this game a few days ago and have managed to get to lvl 35.
My guy was going well and in most things I was having fun. But now he’s only got one trait point (not 25) and I feel like I took a giant step back.
I really liked the speed increase trait I had but I don’t think I can get it again until lvl 50? Did characters who are under 80 just get mega nerfed?

Yes, because arena.net apparently kittens on leveling players. Who cares, the main playerbase is all 80 now.

Leave while you can. I got attached to this game and got disappointed SO hard, between this horrible nerf to leveling alts and the town clothes disaster. It’s harder to get away when you’re already attached to your characters, but there’s a point where you got to draw the line with what you’re willing to take.

UI comment: the new trait UI has serious issues… it’s usable now that I’ve done it once, but is at first confusing. This was on an Ele, so the color codes looked like they applied to the four elements (top to bottom)… they don’t – they refer to the 4 tiers of traits (left to right).

Suggestion – if you want colors, do them on basis of elements. Since that applies only to the elementalists (and would likely therefore be confusing on other classes), replace the color codes with something like a tiny roman numeral or something.

The “click to focus” is good, now that I know NOT to accidentally click in a hexagon (for trait assignment).

You could stand to size stuff down some… not everything needs to look like windows metro or a cell phone.

WaveyDL.6945:

Mystic.5934:

islabella.1385:

I have a level 40 character. Just logged in and boom down to only 2 trait points.

each new trait point counts for 5 old trait points. so instead of 5 to get to next trait skill, it now only takes 1, and every 1 trait now gives as many stats kitten used to give.

And now you have to wait 5 levels to improve your character instead of getting a little better every level.

Enjoy the grind!

I agree.

I am level 41 on my Ele, and now I only have 2 points, and none of them are the support traits I enjoyed which all been either moved to master and grandmaster over the last few big patches…

this is terrible change.

the rest of the patch I like.

This is making it more boring for low levels.

Not a good change in my opinion. I do think a simplified system was in order, I love being able to respec whenever (greatly helps people trying out builds) but it’s a shame it came with such a late and slow character progression.

Before the update I felt every single level made some difference. When I’d finally be able to get master and grandmaster traits, oh the joy!

Now people have to wait until level 30 to spend any trait-points and won’t even be able to access any of the grandmaster traits until level 80. (Unless I missunderstand?) This leaves people with very little room to try out different traits before chosing the build they want to gear around.

I also think the prices of the traits are a bit much, new players are likely still unlocking utilities by the time they hit 80 and 3g is quite a bit for a new player aswell. But I suppose this motivates people to explorer rather than just buy it.

It took me a second to figure out, but I like the new way the traits are done. I do hope that eventually there will be a way to save builds (even just trait builds) that you can switch between quickly and easily ala Secret World, because I think that would make the ability to switch trait lines on the go far more convenient.

I’m really enjoying this change. Have already unlocked several traits just by playing the game. Partied up with some people searching for the Ship of Sorrows and we had a blast exploring the area. Plus, there is another bonus achievement just for reaching the chest.

I hope we see more content added like this in the future!

You guys complain too much

traits: 4% damage increases per mantra that was moved to Domination. There is absolutely no good reason to remove that trait for the dueling tree.

Now, with the ferocity update, mesmer took a hit to their dps. And with the change to the trait, it got even hit harder.

Any reason behind that? Since when mesmer were OP to the point where it had to be blown appart?

I think I will leave this game until significant changes are made to this system. It now requires to much work to get multiple characters fully ‘unlocked’ the one really cool thing this game had going for it was that leveling and having alternate characters was fun, and easy so you could keep the game fresh by playing whichever character you were in the mood for each day. Now if I want the New traits I have to do the same GROUP EVENT on every one of them, I have 6 level 80 characters and two that were leveling. that’s 8 times on an event that I’ve only ever even seen completed ONCE right after launch not because it isn’t attempted, but because there are not enough people willing to help with it. perhaps more importantly I’d have to wait several hours (at least) between attempts on each different character. I never really liked the lag fest that where the larger group events in this game anyhow because it was so hard to tell what was going on due to lag. and now in order to be able to effectively unlock a single character’s skill takes a grind that’s on par with map completion assumeing you’re leveling from 1 to 80. and if you want to buy your skills when good luck to anyone just starting out because it will take you at least two months of play time to get the skill points and gold for it (where you could easily do it just by leveling your character before).

In short this change was done poorly as I feared it would be. So poorly, that I’ve lost all interest I previously had in the game. Best of luck to all who stay and here’s hoping against hope that they realize their mistake and rethink the system.

Hi I’m a new player. I’m am not enjoying the new trait system. I feel weaker now. If I get into detail I’ll just be repeating what has already been said in this here thread.

Not happy that I’ve lost some of my traits!

’Nother nail in the coffin it seems. Can you buy skill points in the gem shop yet?

Blue Panda.5739:

I think I will leave this game until significant changes are made to this system. It now requires to much work to get multiple characters fully ‘unlocked’ the one really cool thing this game had going for it was that leveling and having alternate characters was fun, and easy so you could keep the game fresh by playing whichever character you were in the mood for each day. Now if I want the New traits I have to do the same GROUP EVENT on every one of them, I have 6 level 80 characters and two that were leveling. that’s 8 times on an event that I’ve only ever even seen completed ONCE right after launch not because it isn’t attempted, but because there are not enough people willing to help with it. perhaps more importantly I’d have to wait several hours (at least) between attempts on each different character. I never really liked the lag fest that where the larger group events in this game anyhow because it was so hard to tell what was going on due to lag. and now in order to be able to effectively unlock a single character’s skill takes a grind that’s on par with map completion assumeing you’re leveling from 1 to 80. and if you want to buy your skills when good luck to anyone just starting out because it will take you at least two months of play time to get the skill points and gold for it (where you could easily do it just by leveling your character before).

In short this change was done poorly as I feared it would be. So poorly, that I’ve lost all interest I previously had in the game. Best of luck to all who stay and here’s hoping against hope that they realize their mistake and rethink the system.

All the rest of this I can go pro-con about; but the most poignant for me was “… having alternate characters was fun…”. I don’t think it will be now.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

’Nother nail in the coffin it seems. Can you buy skill points in the gem shop yet?

Knowing Anet, they will use this to their advantage to sell Skill Unlock Packs in the Gem Store…..

On topic, I really dislike this change. I enjoyed using traits wherever I wanted them, now I am restricted to only a few for each tier? So much for diversity in builds. You’re pushing us to cookie cutter builds with this change.

And the whole wait it takes to get trait points while leveling is ridiculous. This really puts a crawl into leveling for new players and old players. It was nice getting traits every level. You felt like you were progressing and all that leveling was worth reaching the next level for that next trait point. Now it’s grind and grind and grind for 30 levels just to get one trait point. Then grind and grind and grind some more just for one trait point. Little reward for a lot of effort.

All in all, it is more restrictive and forces cookie cutter builds and ruins leveling progression. I’m finding it hard to be happy about this patch. Between this and the Wardrobe system, I am just highly disappointed.

Will people even bother using the new Gm traits?

Player.2475:

It’s the crappy new system of allowing you to get traits only after you get to level 30.

This
and thanks for taking out the sense of progression…

It used to be “one more level! then I get a new power!” but now it’ll just be more boring until level 30, and then still slow as peanuts after that.

And then you wonder why people are doing Trains…..

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

’Nother nail in the coffin it seems. Can you buy skill points in the gem shop yet?

Knowing Anet, they will use this to their advantage to sell Skill Unlock Packs in the Gem Store…..

I was wary when I bought Guild Wars 2 because it generates revenue purely with the cash shop and it turns out my suspicions were correct. This is what you get with B2P and I will never make this mistake again.

I don’t really see the big problem here. Leveling is easy and fast enough and the mob has been nerfed to compensate. The new traits may cost some gold and skill points but even if you don’t get them you can still use the old traits.

I’ll add my support to the trait-dissenters here.

I bought the game a month or so ago and have been happily trying out the various professions, figuring out, which one suited me the best. I liked the progression, although it felt somewhat limited compared to other MMO’s I’ve played. Largely because you pretty much unlocked your entire weapons suite immediately and nothing changed from thereon in that department. Likewise, skills got unlocked quickly, at least the must-haves. And then all you did was pretty much just get better at what you could already do.. There was very few ‘new’ abilities/aspects/whatever, added, as you leveled.

Traits made it somewhat bearable, as they made a distinguishable difference each level and at certain intervals, you could tweak your existing powers or even add new effects. It still wasn’t much, especially as I am the kind of player, who loves diversity and multiple avenues of choice in character-building..

But now? Now you’ve taken even that away.. At low levels, which is pretty much all I’ve been at, for the past month, the trait-progession made a significant difference each level, albeit less so, as you gained in levels and the relative power-changes counted for less and less. But now it feels as if my choices have been limited even further and I have to get to level 30 to even BEGIN tweaking my char…

I cannot comprehend the reason for this. It does not make the system better, as far as I can tell and it detracts heavily from the sense of enjoyment of trying out a new profession. Especially since the possible choices and range of possibilities seemed too limited even before these new changes.

If this is somehow supposed to make the game more enjoyable for new players, I fail to see how this is accomplished.. Sadly, for me, the opposite is true.

And when I take into account the many other MMOs out there, which I could play instead, making the game less enjoyable hardly seems like the ideal choice on behalf of the developer.

FateOmega.9601:

I don’t really see the big problem here. Leveling is easy and fast enough and the mob has been nerfed to compensate. The new traits may cost some gold and skill points but even if you don’t get them you can still use the old traits.

Nope, the old traits are locked as well (even on characters created before the update). Either the statement that “existing traits will be available on existing characters” was an outright lie, or nobody in the implementation team was told about it.

Your new trait system sucks and is not grandfathering in people who had specific trait levels unlocked. I have 3 characters that had master or grandmaster levels unlocked and they are now barred from using those levels. Give me my gold back that I spent on the books for those levels if you’re just going to arbitrarily take them away!

You’ve crippled the abilities that these characters had and you’ve made the leveling process even more tedious then it was. No trait unlocks till L30? BORING! Unfun to play. Locked out of grandmaster traits till 80? Seriously?! These should be unlocked no later then L70 and should have just stayed at the level they were.

Now refund my gold or unlock my trait tiers like they were.

Robert.3972:

I’ll add my support to the trait-dissenters here.

This post is pretty on par with my thoughts as well.

I was at level 26 before the patch, having bought the game about a week or so ago. After the patch I rushed myself up to 30, each level before that feeling incredibly pointless. Then I got rewarded with my 1 point and 1 trait. Before I had 3 trait effects and almost a forth. What is the point of the individual levels if there is no noticeable effect except for level tiers?

I like how this will finally help low level characters to find a party for dungeons more easily. /s

I like how 1-15 map are still empty. Megaserver?

So the developers are telling us to grit our teeth and grind through 30 levels. Why would they take away the incentive to level up in an MMO. With every level I get through, I look forward to get to the next level in order to get another trait point to be slightly better, and improve my character one step at a time. So why? Why take that aspect away and instead slap us all in the face and tell us NO, you need to grind though another 5 levels in order to get your feeling of accomplishment. Please, we are not 5 yrs olds that need to behave before you throw us a snack. If we follow this logic, u might as well make the level cap 14 and call it a day. Where is the logic behind the system? They want to make the trait system fool proof but they have messed up. What’s wrong with hitting the dead end a few times along the way? We mess up and from that we learn and improve. Please don’t dumb down the system and hold our hands through the tight corridor. Let’s hope this is just a delayed April Fools joke.

A R W E N.6895:

I like how 1-15 map are still empty. Megaserver?

No, a couple of days after the megaserver announcement they decided to test it on low-population maps rather than low-level maps – after people pointed out that testing it out on 1-15 maps would mean including Queensdale, the most populated map in the whole game (which is rarely empty, and thus wouldn’t make a very good test).

Looks like people will be moving back to tera, warcraft, or ESO now! Good job Anet!

the system was obviously slapped together in 5 minutes with out any real thought except how to monetize it and dumb it down. For those saying there was no point in leveling except for the special tiers you are obviously new to the game. The +10 to a stat for each point is very noticeable and now those elitist dungeon runners will have even more fuel for the fire when it comes to no one lvl 79 or under allowed. And you thought there was no point in each level before LOL. Now you will go multiple levels with out getting anything they might as well remove all the in between levels and just make each level take kitten tons more xp because that’s all they really did with this change.

I had my fears about this change. I logged in to check it out hoping there would be a reason for me to come back. That answer is sadly no.

I just logged in a little while ago. I confess that I haven’t actually played yet. Just looking at the new trait panel makes my heart sink. My ele was at 80 and now has only 14 points to spend? Really? I don’t even really want to play at all right now.

14 total skill points to spend over all those possible slots? This is part where you announce that it’s all part of the April Fool’s joke, right? Because I don’t have the time or energy in my life right now to grind for Ascended gear to make my character as effective as he used to be.

I must say, this part of the update really upset me. I was originally a pre-purchaser of the game due to the fact that I was truly very excited to play this at first, but then I realized how slow and tedious it felt after the first week or so and left it for about 6+months. I just got back into it about a week ago to find the game feeling completely refreshed and fun again. I was leveling relatively quickly and everything felt good. I loved being able to increase my strengths ever so slightly every level with the one skill point you were given and it was a very simple, straightforward system.

Now you guys roll out an update which has completely destroyed the ease of leveling and playing through this game. I had over 35 traits on my level 45 character with specking into every tree. Now I only get 4 traits which only allows me to speck into 4 trees at the most basic level. So essentially all the bonuses I was sporting before the update are now inaccessible because I don’t have enough points. How is that at all fair or balanced? People learn to play with their build based on the bonuses that they’ve chosen and now I feel all messed up and much weaker because I do not have access to all the bonuses I had before. You should have at the very least extended the grandfathering to traits as well so that you wouldn’t mess up people who hadn’t already reached 80. Now the game is loads more difficult and I feel cheated of my time and effort that I spent specking myself out the way I wanted to play.

I hope you take these issues into consideration and perhaps roll back to the perfectly function system the game had before or at least give players who had characters before the update more points so that we can get back the skills we already had before the update.

SimBilly.8047:

I just logged in a little while ago. I confess that I haven’t actually played yet. Just looking at the new trait panel makes my heart sink. My ele was at 80 and now has only 14 points to spend? Really? I don’t even really want to play at all right now.

14 total skill points to spend over all those possible slots? This is part where you announce that it’s all part of the April Fool’s joke, right? Because I don’t have the time or energy in my life right now to grind for Ascended gear to make my character as effective as he used to be.

I would save my energy for grinding out legendary armor (it’s coming!).

Yeah the trait system is amazing on the new traits and learning/needing to do things to gain them like gw1 but not getting a trait a level now makes it even harder to do things.

Legit this made dungeoning at 25 in AC impossible for new players.

There are only 2 possible explanations for these changes:

1) They are going to make Traits or Boosts For Earning Traits an item(s) in the Cash Shop
2) They are trying to drive people away with the clunky, unfriendly, grind-y new system in order to streamline the network traffic for those that will be left, which will also save them money on the monthly data usage bills

These are the only possible explanations. There aren’t any others.

Toeofdoom.6152:

If you buy a third of them you’ll be out 14g (okay, fine) and 120 skill points (WHAT???). I don’t even know how you grind that many.

I had over 400 on my Ranger, last time I checked. I’ve done a lot of grinding on that toon

Unfortunately, none of the new Ranger traits are worth buying.

The leveling process in this game is dry and tedious.

More news at 11.

SimBilly.8047:

I just logged in a little while ago. I confess that I haven’t actually played yet. Just looking at the new trait panel makes my heart sink. My ele was at 80 and now has only 14 points to spend? Really? I don’t even really want to play at all right now.

14 total skill points to spend over all those possible slots? This is part where you announce that it’s all part of the April Fool’s joke, right? Because I don’t have the time or energy in my life right now to grind for Ascended gear to make my character as effective as he used to be.

You should realize that you have exactly the same amount of power you had before. Its just set up so all the points are divided by five. the bonuses you get are the same.

That being said I liked most the content however i am EXTREMELY displeased with the fact that my engineer (who is level 73) and paid for a grandmaster book not that long ago is now not able to access the grandmaster traits! I would really like either my gold back or to be able to access the grandmaster traits. I am playing an explosives engineer and not having the additional range is a very serious nerf for my wvwing…

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

FateOmega.9601:

I don’t really see the big problem here. Leveling is easy and fast enough and the mob has been nerfed to compensate. The new traits may cost some gold and skill points but even if you don’t get them you can still use the old traits.

Nope, the old traits are locked as well (even on characters created before the update). Either the statement that “existing traits will be available on existing characters” was an outright lie, or nobody in the implementation team was told about it.

I didn’t know pre existing chars also had to unlock the old traits.(Havn’t got the chance to play yet.) If so , anet messed up. Hopefully they can fix it soon.

Nitrous Oxide.5326:

WaveyDL.6945:

How is it “better” though?
Makes new players progress slower and the game less appealing. I looked forward to leveling and getting a bit better. now I need to level 5 times to do it?

I don’t understand why it’s a “better” system?

It’s better because they say it’s better!

On the other hand, having only played for a week, I can’t say I’m out much time or effort. If they don’t give me back my traits, I sure as hell ain’t coming back though.

That’s largely the way it boils down with all of the changes ANet makes. Rather than actually discuss and explain the changes they* choose to make, they make choices best on whatever they decide behind closed doors and then just tell the playerbase that good changes are coming.

Myself and others warned them that not really starting character progression until level 30 and, even once it does kick in, making it really slow wasn’t beneficial to newer players or those in the midst of levelling in any way, shape or form. Yes, maybe at level 80 it all balances out to be roughly comparable to what it was before, but if players hate the levelling experience and quit before they even get to 80, what does that really matter?

• Yes, the choices are all theirs despite comments to the contrary about listening to player feedback. Only player feedback that basically slots into what they already have planned seems to be considered and, even then, nothing is ever discussed ir openly explained. It’s just presented to the players as a list of patch notes.

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

Nope, the old traits are locked as well (even on characters created before the update). Either the statement that “existing traits will be available on existing characters” was an outright lie, or nobody in the implementation team was told about it.

I just checked all the eligible alts I have. They all have pre-existing traits unlocked. The only ones I haven’t checked are those that between 1 and 39. Can you provide a screenshot or something?

So i went from having 3 major traits on a lvl 40 character to 1 major trait … what?

I don’t think I’m going to roll any new characters, leveling was already painfully boring so i won’t need any more character slots.

How does this encourage anything other than spending more time doing tedious tasks to either randomly find or earn a trait book or to farm up the skill points and gold to buy the book from a vendor? How is that supposed to be fun?

The old system while maybe lackluster, was better than this, good try but it needs to be rethought this isn’t exiting or fun at all. 3 major traits at level 40 is better and more diverse than 1.

The Mesmer trait “Empowering Mantras” was moved from the Dueling to the Domination line, and the trait “Harmonious Mantras” was moved from Domination to Dueling. The patch notes make no mention of this change.