Guild Wars 2

My problem, with the new GM traits, is that I can’t find one worth using.

…and I’ve leveled every profession to 80.

Lheimroo.2947:

I think the idea of playing content and doing challenges to get traits as you level is in essence a great idea; especially as there’s an alternative of money/skill points.

It’s a bit hit or miss. How good the idea is is directly related to how good the content is. All the good and bad a particular piece of content is now directly connected to any associated traits.

Also.. skill points may be plentiful at late game, but early on they’re a bit scarce, and requiring yet more of them if you want to get traits ‘the easy way’ is a bit of a screw job.

They are and they aren’t. I have an alt that tries, with mixed results, to be heavily/only map completion for leveling and the like. She had tier 3 utilities by like lv15 or 16 and has a 30 point elite at lv40. I still have more points than that implies. The points are there, but really scattered about.

I haven’t read or tried any of the new traits, so I won’t comment on them.

I will comment instead of the changes to traits while leveling. Now I don’t want to brag, but I have a certain history of pointing out bad ideas that get changed later on (i.e. character bound wxp). I can’t wrap my mind around why this would be a better system, so let’s see if I’m making another good call.

New trait system fine what ever, i havent played with it and i am willing to give it a shot, But what really put me off was that when I logged in i found that not only was my level 57 mezmar not able to level to master, but the 10 gold i spent on the book went to waste.

The least i could have gotten was a master skill book in my inventory for later use.

This has probably been mentioned before by someone somewhere, but instead of handing out 2 points at levels 66, 72 and 78, why not hand out only 1 point at those levels, and start earlier… hand out 1 point at levels 16, 20 and 26? That way people on their way to level 80 can actually see some progression on their character, they can see the strength increase of their character at earlier levels, and leveling up becomes less of a chore.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Dusty Moon.4382:

This system is similar to the system in GW1. I would think the GW1 fans would appreciate it, I guess not.

No it’s not.

In GW1, you hunted a boss for an elite skill. You had henchmen and heroes and could solo the bosses no problems. And you could go get it whenever you wanted. The boss was always there. No waiting for other players, no fail timer to have to beat, you could do it when you wanted at your own pace.

In GW2, you have to do the massive scale world events to get a trait. Not a skill, a trait. Grenth? Karka Queen? Yeah. You have to rely on other players to not mess things up just so YOU can get a new trait. And it’s all on timers as well. So you can’t do it whenever you want, you have to deal with boss timers before you can even get a chance to get your new trait.

And over time, after players have got the trait, and no one is doing those events anymore, good luck getting your trait with no one to help.

So yeah. It’s nothing like it was in GW1.

You could buy skills, if you had skill points, so it is EXACTLY THE SAME as GW1 (if you had them unlocked).

Are these traits account bound?
Like if unlock it on my warrior for PvE can i use it on my PvP character?

If not the case, are there any plans to make them like that?
It would be kindof stupid if i would reroll my character for pvp and i have to buy the skills every time.
Not to mention i need 100 skill points for it all the time.

Rentapest.6503:

Well, I just tried to do the event to unlock my new “Read the wind” ability because i REFUSE to pay more gold.

And was immediately throw into overflow sigh where is the megaserver?! And there is nobody there, no event.

So it’s now either wait days for some dumb event or waste 20 skill points and 3g on an ability that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN BY DEFAULT!!!

I’m forced to participate in some stupid Arrah and kill a high wizard that doesn’t exist and that I cannot kill on my own.

I was surprised by this. I have been lvl 80 for a year. I had all my traits from books yet i have to spend more gold and skill pts again for traits with this update.. I like the update but this is really stupid. And i refuse to do this.

Hey all.

Could please someone clarify this to me? I was level 40-41 yesterday, had at least 30 trait points distributed. Today I logged in and all I got is 2 new trait points, which is like 10 olds, right? So what happened? Did I lost some traits? Did I miss anything?

Thanks!

wmtyrance.3571:

Rentapest.6503:

Well, I just tried to do the event to unlock my new “Read the wind” ability because i REFUSE to pay more gold.

And was immediately throw into overflow sigh where is the megaserver?! And there is nobody there, no event.

So it’s now either wait days for some dumb event or waste 20 skill points and 3g on an ability that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN BY DEFAULT!!!

I’m forced to participate in some stupid Arrah and kill a high wizard that doesn’t exist and that I cannot kill on my own.

I was surprised by this. I have been lvl 80 for a year. I had all my traits from books yet i have to spend more gold and skill pts again for traits with this update.. I like the update but this is really stupid. And i refuse to do this.

You can actually go out and find the traits for free. Paying gold is a shortcut for instant traits, going out into the world and unlocking them doesn’t cost anything.

There are about four different aspects to the trait system:

- The actual powers/skills you get
- The costs associated with unblocking certain tiers
- The reduction from 70 to 14 points
- The distribution of those 14 points through the leveling curve

Of those four the last point is critical, and the reason is that no one at Arena.net still dignified us of an answer about this choice. There’s just no apparent reason why they decided to make the power gap between a level 80 and everything below MUCH, MUCH greater. Were level 80s too weak before?

In WvW this is a huge nerf. What’s the point of making levels 1-79 much weaker than before? Were underleveled characters dominating the battlefield before that this nerf was necessary?

DemonRax.7983:

Hey all.

Could please someone clarify this to me? I was level 40-41 yesterday, had at least 30 trait points distributed. Today I logged in and all I got is 2 new trait points, which is like 10 olds, right? So what happened? Did I lost some traits? Did I miss anything?

Thanks!

It’s all explained here
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/

Overall I think the update was fantastic. The ability to add and remove trait points on the fly will help tremendously.

That said, I don’t care for the changes to the trait UI. I liked the little drop-down arrow on each of the traits. It made it much quicker and easier to find what I wanted. I think having the locked skills appear in the list to the left and the unlocked appearing in the drop-down would work much better.

Anet managed to kitten 2 groups with 1 update:
The new players are forced grind and do buggy events in order to level up. They are artifically slow down and they cant even do other stuff like WvW because they dont even have the most trivial traits unlocked. Really motivating especially since you can “buy” those traits with an amount of gold and skillpoints new players dont have. Why dont you just put them into Gemshop??? Would be the same exept people can spend their real money to progress.
You know that there are people who dont have time to play 6h a day because they have to work right? And after work they get into another “work” where they have to grind the kitten out of this game in order to make some progress. Probably those people will rip your game out of your hands because this makes it soooo popular. Who never wanted to be a slave and even pay for this?

Old players also have to pay to unlock the 13. trait on a skilltree and those fancy trait reset shopitems have become pretty useless.
If you want to level up an alt you will probably feel like one of those poor souls who just startet playing: Slow down by a complete garbage traitsystem, packed with 200 other people into 1 map where its especially funny when you have to do the heartquests and 20 people trying to kill this 1 monster because they all need it.

Developers of Anet whatever you are smoking, swallowing or inject, just stop please. Or at least take a smaller dose. Listen to your fans who cry up in agony instead of celebrating yourself for every update like it is something revolutional while its actually making things more difficult in a bad way. Things like the wardrobe system already exists in other games for years and even there its better implemented.
After all you probably forgot that the soul of a game is its community and the players.
Without them this whole thing is just an empty hull made by 0 and 1 and right now GW2 is losing its soul. 1 more “gamebreaking” update like this and its soul will be gone.
Forever.

I’m somewhat neutral on the new trait unlock system – if you persevere at it long enough, you’ll get it, whatever it is, so it’s not a really big deal.

It also doesn’t add much to the game, so really I’m like, “What for” – that pretty sums up my feelings on the idea of unlocking traits in this manner. It’s kind of pointless, but whatever, if it helps dev’s sleep at night, fine.

What really bothers me is that traits don’t do much except shuffle math around.

What I mean is, that I really loved Diablo 3’s rune system, in that every rune you unlocked fundamentally changed the way in which the skill worked giving you tons of diversity and customization options. I never get tired of trying out new combinations of skills in that game.

In GW2, it doesn’t matter how I trait myself – the skills always function in precisely the same way they did before – no new animations, nothing. The only difference is that I have to do some math to figure out which particular combination of trait points yields the best result.

The trait system in GW2 is nothing more than book keeping, a job for an accountant.

I want a trait system that actually fundamentally changes my gameplay.

I want traits that alter skills significantly.

This is just min/maxing, and it’s boring as kitten.

Can we atleast get some way of moving faster again? It was the first trait I headed for but now i’m running in slow motion again until 50-something.

Karizee.8076:

wmtyrance.3571:

Rentapest.6503:

Well, I just tried to do the event to unlock my new “Read the wind” ability because i REFUSE to pay more gold.

And was immediately throw into overflow sigh where is the megaserver?! And there is nobody there, no event.

So it’s now either wait days for some dumb event or waste 20 skill points and 3g on an ability that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN BY DEFAULT!!!

I’m forced to participate in some stupid Arrah and kill a high wizard that doesn’t exist and that I cannot kill on my own.

I was surprised by this. I have been lvl 80 for a year. I had all my traits from books yet i have to spend more gold and skill pts again for traits with this update.. I like the update but this is really stupid. And i refuse to do this.

You can actually go out and find the traits for free. Paying gold is a shortcut for instant traits, going out into the world and unlocking them doesn’t cost anything.

Yes i know i can do this. Thats not the point. The point is if you already had all traits through the old system at lvl 80,why should you have to do either. And to do the quest for the free trait isn’t soloable either. It feels like a slap in the face to all lvl 80’s that already put their time in the game and had their traits. Everything else about the update is good but this feels wrong.

Sorry I didnt read all six pages but the new trait system is beyond great. Its fantastic and heres why: Theres this little thing called verticle progression. Its where your character gets stronger and stronger usually by equiping better gear. After a while equiping better gear gets old, because it doenst add any new mechanics to the game it just raises your stats by some arbitrary number. And then it super sux when the devs add in ascended gear that takes forever to get and is super expensive. Its a massive grind to craft to 500 to be able to make that crap.

Now in come traits. Traits are horizontal progression. They are good, the opposite of sux. They dont make your character stronger they add new mechanics and make him different. They give the player something to work towards if they have gotten tired of what they were doing before.

TLDR; Stupid players grind gear that gives them a stat boost, smart players look for different ways to play the game and accomplish their objectives. Dont fill GW2 with stupid people, keep adding more traits and have us work to get those instead of gear.

Most of new traits are horrible, not worth getting at all. Someone ran out of creativity.

I’m not sure that anyone at anet cares how we feel about how boring they just made the first thirty-something levels of their game, but surely they can at least see how much of a balance issue this is for WvW.

There is no reason for the new trait distribution to be so back-loaded. There was no reason for it to change at all, really. How could anyone actually have thought this to be an improvement?

I like condensing five points into one, that’s a streamlining change that makes sense. I like the IDEA of traits as rewards for game content. But pushing the tiers back like this is not improving the game. And it’s most certainly not making it less confusing for newcomers, or whatever they said their justification was.

baalblade.8465:

Most of new traits are horrible, not worth getting at all. Someone ran out of creativity.

A good example of this is the new guardian trait “Amplified Wrath”. It basically does the exact same thing as another Grand Master Trait in the same trait line named “Kindled Zeal”, namely increase the damage of the Guardian’s only condition (burning).

Not only is it lazzy, it’s made worse by the fact that “Amplified Wrath” is always the better choice in any build and situation compared to “Kindled Zeal”, effectively making “Kindled Zeal” defunct. It also doesn’t try to solve the problems that condition Guardians have at all, despite the developers showing during a livestream that they’re well aware what the issues are.

It just feels like they quickly made something up without much thought or planning to give the Guardian class some new grandmaster traits, merely because every other class also got new traits. They keep hammering on “we like where Guardians are” and these new traits are exactly in line with that thinking; they change absolutely nothing.

I have 5 level 80’s, a level 40, and two level 30’s, and I’ve been playing for about 9 months. I hate the trait changes.

As a glance at my character count demonstrates, I like alts. I enjoy all the work Anet has put into the different zones, and appreciate the vast amount of content there. My play experience is largely enjoyed through the leveling process across all zones.

The trait change just takes a big steaming dump on that style of play. It backloads all the traits; the push-off of Grandmaster traits to level 80 in particular was a horrible disincentive. A great part of progression is customization; this used to be a combination of traits, weapons, and utilities. Gear has a backseat until all the triple-stat options open up in the late levels.

The trait changes are a huge disincentive to starting new characters — it boggles the mind why Anet thought it was a good idea. The excuse that “players weren’t efficiently allocating their points” to get the 5-point traits is BS. A tooltip solves that.

The old system was superior to the new. The new system offers absolutely nothing except new traits. It wasn’t broken, it hurt no one. Please undo this garbage.

For me the problem about the new trait system is that some traits are just too hard to get by doing events. At the moment I am trying to get the “amplified wrath” trait, but i have been there the whole day waiting for the event to come and the right event still didn’t appear because we first have to fail an event for it to trigger it seems. The problem being is that some people don’t want the event to fail because they want to do the arah dungeon while others want it to fail so they can get the trait. I don’t think it should work this way so that only one group can benefit. Buying the traits with gold isn’t a problem but buying them with the skill points is just way too expensive.

Suggestions:
1. Make the events required for traits certain to appear (e.g. choose other events which don’t require another event to fail).
2. Make the trait also available after completing events that keep the related event chain related dungeon open.
3. Reduce the skill point cost to perhaps a ratio of gold:skillpoint 1:1. Though i don’t think the purpose of the update, which was having people go out in the world to explore, will benefit from this.

New traits nice seems like Adept tier for Grandmaster it seems like trash.

Problems with the new trait system:

- Upleveled characters do not stand a chance in WvW. It was already hard before this change, now it’s pointless to enter WvW before hitting 80.
- Unlocking events are bugged and/or random/unpredictable
- Characters below lvl 80 are even less likely to be included in dungeon runs (e.g. engineer without grenadeer trait)
- Leveling up is even more boring than before, due to much slower character progress

Good:
- resetting trait spec anytime anywhere, although the interface feels a bit clumsy

Could you please add a way to preset and save 2-3 trait distributions for a quick and easy swap?

bad decision indeed

New trait system…meh. I feel sorry for anyone leveling up any character now and especially for new people having to wait until they are level 30 for any trait points. It was a pain leveling to get trait points before, I can’t imagine waiting until 30 to get, what 5 points? I will have to ask what the new people in the guild what they think of losing their traits.. I guess it’s called horizontal progression because you go nowhere?
Not real thrilled at the price of the new traits or being forced to do events that I’ve done plenty of times previously just to open up a skill, which are not all that great, ex. Read the wind.

I really don’t like this change. This takes away alot of the fun every time you level up. It’s cool to reach a new level and see “ooh, a new point to spend” making getting to the next level exciting. Now all that matters is every six levels. I’d rather have some modification to the skill point system, the trait system was fine. Not to mention it makes it feel like I have no control over how my character turns out early level, which is really important for people who just started playing.

I don’t understand the point of this. The old trait system was one of the best I’ve seen in an MMO and I have been bragging about it to other MMO players since launch.

The whole reason I enjoy leveling is to get skills or improve my character abilities incrementally. The way you decided to hand out trait points is counter-intuitive and provides zero value.

I really hope you revert this system, even the UI for it is a down-grade.

Naevius.3185:

At level 30 in the old regime you had 1 minor (5-point) trait that you won’t have in the new system. Hardly game-breaking.

at level 30 in the old regime you had 20 points, or what would now be 5 points. in the new regime you get 1, or the equivalent of 5 old points.

Essentially you have the same build options at 30, that you once had at 15.

many many people seem to be misunderstanding this.
traits dont unlock until level 30, and then you only get 1 point every 5 levels. you will be level 50 before you have the same options you once had at 30. they essentially START the trait system at 30, its not like at level 30 you unlock what used to be at 30

GarthDreamWalker.7806:

New trait system…meh. I feel sorry for anyone leveling up any character now and especially for new people having to wait until they are level 30 for any trait points. It was a pain leveling to get trait points before, I can’t imagine waiting until 30 to get, what 5 points? I will have to ask what the new people in the guild what they think of losing their traits.. I guess it’s called horizontal progression because you go nowhere?
Not real thrilled at the price of the new traits or being forced to do events that I’ve done plenty of times previously just to open up a skill, which are not all that great, ex. Read the wind.

you hit level 30 and you get 1 point, which is the equivalent of 5 old points. at level 60 they start giving out 2 trait points (equivalent of 10 trait points) so that you get 70, or 14 by level 80.

Its a really bad change for fun while leveling, and learning about traits. You get most your points when you are almost done leveling

The new trait system is boring for new players

Previous System
You get one trait every 5 levels after level 10, at level 20 you have a minor trait and major trait to play with. You unlock Tier 2 at level 40, unlock Tier 3 at level 60

Current System
You get one minor trait at level 30, one major trait at level 35... And you unlock Tier 2 at 60, unlock Tier 3 at level 80.

See the difference?

30 levels... I don’t know how this will help GW2 to get more new players, it is 1/3 of the experience and they spend it without one of the key elements of the game.

Some players do not understand the change and defend with "traits don’t get too useful until around 30"

Oh my Dwayna.. do they even know what they were saying? Old traits became useful at 30 because there were 2 minors and 2 majors! Now the new player will get only 1 minor. Based on their flawed logic, the new trait can only become useful at level 48.

For old players like me the change does not matter much, we have birthday boosters to boost our new character to level 20 and 10 levels for us to enjoy the low level without traits is definitely fine. So this is just a feedback.

Katsuki.1674:

The new trait system is boring for new players

Previous System
You get one trait every 5 levels after level 10, at level 20 you have a minor trait and major trait to play with. You unlock Tier 2 at level 40, unlock Tier 3 at level 60

Current System
You get one minor trait at level 30, one major trait at level 35… And you unlock Tier 2 at 60, unlock Tier 3 at level 80.

See the difference?

30 levels… I don’t know how this will help GW2 to get more new players, it is 1/3 of the experience and they spend it without one of the key elements of the game.

Some players do not understand the change and defend with “traits don’t get too useful until around 30”

Oh my Dwayna.. do they even know what they were saying? Old traits became useful at 30 because there were 2 minors and 2 majors! Now the new player will get only 1 minor. Based on their flawed logic, the new trait can only become useful at level 48.

For old players like me the change does not matter much, we have birthday boosters to boost our new character to level 20 and 10 levels for us to enjoy the low level without traits is definitely fine. So this is just a feedback.

best way to level for a new player?
*1 travel back in a time machine and make a charachter a year before today
*2 play spvp until you get 10 tomes of knowledge

now you can log in and have fun with the game, unlocking traits, and doing quests for them as you go.

also some people really have no idea how some classes play without traits. id say necro mesmer dont work too well/entertain much without traits.

The best without traits is probably warrior.

The new trait system is cool for helping new players discover content.

But for veterans who just want to play WvW? It’s a nightmare.

If it were a little gold and a skill point or two per trait, that would be fine. But at 20 skill points per trait it will break the bank for a long time on new toons. Previously, you could afford to level 100% through WvW (slow but fun), and you didn’t have to touch other content if you didn’t want to. That’s technically still possible, but to unlock all the traits it’s going to cost 300 skill points for just the grandmaster traits.

Even on my main, I don’t have the skill points to unlock the new traits because I am constantly spending them on superior siege and saving up for my legendary. And then I can’t even do the temple events to unlock because apparently those are the new champ train, so they’re never contested.

Please please please lower the unlock cost for traits. Let me play my WvW, don’t force me to farm trait unlocks.

The read the wind mission takes place in ORR which is usually dead and requires some events to happen…..guess its there way of getting people to play in ORR because it has been dead for a long long time there…..good luck with that

Katsuki.1674:

The new trait system is boring for new players

Previous System
You get one trait every 5 levels after level 10, at level 20 you have a minor trait and major trait to play with. You unlock Tier 2 at level 40, unlock Tier 3 at level 60

Current System
You get one minor trait at level 30, one major trait at level 35… And you unlock Tier 2 at 60, unlock Tier 3 at level 80.

See the difference?

30 levels… I don’t know how this will help GW2 to get more new players, it is 1/3 of the experience and they spend it without one of the key elements of the game.

Some players do not understand the change and defend with “traits don’t get too useful until around 30”

Oh my Dwayna.. do they even know what they were saying? Old traits became useful at 30 because there were 2 minors and 2 majors! Now the new player will get only 1 minor. Based on their flawed logic, the new trait can only become useful at level 48.

For old players like me the change does not matter much, we have birthday boosters to boost our new character to level 20 and 10 levels for us to enjoy the low level without traits is definitely fine. So this is just a feedback.

This is the main central issue that everyone has a problem with.

The point of redesigning the trait system, as mentioned in ANet’s “Traits Unleashed: Forty New Traits and More!” page, is to make the trait system more user-friendly for new players. That is a wonderful goal to pursue, I can’t agree more with them on that. However, the trait system didn’t need actual fixing because the system was already easy to understand:

“One trait skill every five levels after level 10, with your first possible major trait skill at level 20. Unlock Tier 2 at level 40 and Tier 3 at level 60.”

I can’t speak for the entire GW2 playerbase, but before the patch, I haven’t heard any complaints about the difficulties of this system. Now, the system goes as follows:

“One trait point at level 30 and every six levels after, with your first possible major trait skill at level 40. Unlock Tier 2 at level 60 and Tier 3 at level 80. Two trait points will be given every six levels from level 68.”

Though having one trait point every six levels (since one current trait point is the same as six old trait points) makes sense (no real change there), the trait skills you learn are delayed by at least 15 levels. Players, especially newcomers, will find level progression boring and meaningless. What’s the point of experimenting with a build if you can’t even work on it until level 30?

ANet, you just made it harder for new players to be attracted to playing this game because you have restricted build experimentation.

The one thing that I do like about this trait system revamp is that you need to actually work for your traits, rather than simply having them unlocked. Unfortunately, WvW players have been suffering for this decision, since it is essentially required to be level 80 to play on a level field with everyone else. What happened to “jumping right into every part of the game”?

The idea of the system change has potential. Its implementation is downright awful.

Here are some of my suggestions that could improve the system (and restore player confidence):

• Fuse the old and the current system together. Allow the character to earn one trait point every five levels from level 10, rather than every six levels from level 30 and two trait points from level 68. 14 points that unlock minor and major traits are easier to work with than 30 points that can only unlock trait skills every 5 points.
• Earning your trait skills is fantastic. But the way you earn your trait skill should somehow be related. For example, someone had mentioned mining ore to earn a trait skill in Earth magic. And the new “Dual-Wield Agility” for warriors could be unlocked by killing a certain number of enemies while dual-wielding weapons. This makes it more realistic than “fight world bosses” or “complete events in Orr”. Not everyone likes group events.
• Do not place the same restrictions for PvE on sPvP and WvW. You can’t “jump right into WvW” if you have to complete events in PvE to refine your build, for example. This makes the game much more PvE-centric rather than well-rounded. Some people play the game strictly for sPvP or WvW. Don’t force the players to do something they don’t want to do.

I made a previous post in this same thread hastily without delving deep enough in the gameplay. So I refine my request here: If you aren’t going to roll back to the traditional system, please make altercations that can cater to both new players and veterans. I’m hoping my above suggestions can be taken into consideration for your decision.

The field retrait/respect is awesome.

However, the new trait system in it’s entirety, is a huge turn off. I am glad I have 7 level 80 characters. I will not make an 8th. The only class I do not have is Mesmer, and with this new system I have absolutely no desire to level one.

I dislike every aspect of the new system, especially considering that the old system struck as me as perhaps the best I had seen.

Sorry to add to the negativity, but I do find this to a be massive let down and totally unappealing. I’d be very, very pleased to see this done away with.

Why do I have to do pve zerging over and over to unlock basic functionality of my character? What happened to play the way you want to? I want to wvw and have the freedom and ability to tinker with my build and try out different skills and traits. Except I can’t because I now have to go bash my head against some lame pve content. And I certainly can’t afford to just purchase these traits outright, at 20 skill points per book thats 100 per character. And with 9 characters thats 900 skill points. Your new system put these traits out of reach for me. Thanks Anet.

Overall I was very excited for the update, but I am disappointed with one aspect of the new trait system. As others on this thread have mentioned, those of us running characters under 80 feel like we are getting short changed. I scrambled to get my alts to level 40 based on the following quote:

“All major traits will be locked on characters created after the feature pack. All existing characters created before this feature pack will have all previously existing major traits unlocked.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/

I spent time completing hearts and maps for experience, spent all my scrolls of knowledge and the gold for the trait guides necessary to get my alts setup so I wouldn’t lose the trait progress that I had. All of my Master level traits, which were unlocked 2 days ago, now won’t be available until level 60!

Did we read this correctly? Should I have them available now? Or, does the above quote mean I don’t have to pay for them when I reach 60? In which case I feel like I wasted my time, scrolls and gold racing to 40.

I think Anet should reduce the required level for traits to 15 and allow us to earn a point every five levels instead. I can’t imagine trying to level up my ele and mesmer without access to traits, and now I’ve put them aside until things change.

I don’t normally complain/post much on this forum because I just tend to play the game and let the changes wash over me like jazz. We just run as a group and enjoy the content. Not bothered by milking the extra 1% or 2% crit chance or condition duration out of my stats. I have a life.

However I do think this element of this change will affect the game experience of most casual and hardcore players. By only allowing a trait or stat increase every 5 levels puts a hold on a players feeling that they are progressing. It feel like all the main interesting content (WvW, events etc) are all now reserved for L80/endgame characters. Its a bit of a spit in the face for those of us who have enjoyed and supported that game over the last year and a half.

Also, for those of us who do have L80 characters and have put all the game time and grind in to get to that stage we find out that a lot of it was now for nothing? We have to spend more in game gold and time to get our toons back to their initial stats? It’s not the odd 1% / 2%, its major traits and effects.

ANet, although the rest of the update was good (not sure it required so much hype to (note: it didn’t)) you hare in real danger of driving away a lot of casual players with a change like this. Why should I put in the time when you can take a lot of it away from me?

I do not understand the logic in pushing traits back to level 30. Does 1 point per level REALLY daunt new players that much? I want to know how many complaints Anet got from “new players” that feel like the game would be SO much less challenging if they didn’t get any options until half way through the game. If you insist on making traits start at level 30, which is ridiculous IMO, then quit making the most important/main mechanics of builds be MASTER traits! What you have done now is effectively make all builds impossible/useless until level 60. This is supposed to be better for everyone? New players are not your player base, EVERYONE is your player base. You can’t cater to one group and expect the population to just roll with it. If traits at level 30 are here to stay, then I propose you switch ALL master traits and first tier traits around. I can’t think of a single viable build on any class that functions at maximum efficiency/power without a single master/grandmaster trait.
Also, the new grandmaster traits. Why would you give us massive group missions to unlock the new traits? Traits are adjustments to your character. My trait does not effect someone elses gameplay. Therefore, why would you require me to form a group or pray to dwayna that there will be people there to take down these massive bosses just to unlock a trait that merely tweaks my toon? I entirely support the idea of unlocking grandmaster traits. I think its cool and gives you a great sense of accomplishment and meaning to get that. HOWEVER, it should be instanced or soloable.
Please make sure all new players are warned before buying your game that there is 0 customization options until about 3 hours into your first character, and even then you really wont have much too work with until max level. “Come buy our game! It’s super fun and awesome as long as you pour countless boring and meaningless hours into it and reach the maximum level where the TRUE fun and customization beginsssss!”
Rant over, incoming flamers/trolls.

Q- Doesnt this screw new players @ lvl 30 trying to do dungeons?

Dusty Moon.4382:

This system is similar to the system in GW1. I would think the GW1 fans would appreciate it, I guess not.

Dont forget on Gw1 u had a dual class system with loads of skills u could unlock in pvp and buy on pve.

On gw2 every player as the same bar depending on weapon, as traits+armor are your stat system, its a completely diferent model, if we had several skills to choose from the weapon would be more fun tho.

It’s a bit boring to wait for 30 for trait points, in fact it might turn new players away from the game, a very bad thing.

Maybe, have the new trait progression start earlier, like level 15 or 20,
with a tutorial mail sent to explain about them, to new players?

Definitely explain about the use of traits,
that you can respec at any time for free, and how to get new grandmaster traits.
That way new people know what they are for, if they’re confused or something.

Sephrye.1628:

It’s a bit boring to wait for 30 for trait points, in fact it might turn new players away from the game, a very bad thing.

Maybe, have the new trait progression start earlier, like level 15 or 20,
with a tutorial mail sent to explain about them, to new players?

Definitely explain about the use of traits,
that you can respec at any time for free, and how to get new grandmaster traits.
That way new people know what they are for, if they’re confused or something.

I started playing after the most recent sale. If this new trait system had been in place then, I wouldn’t have bothered playing to level 30. Playing at low level was more fun in this game pre-patch than any other mmo I’ve played, but now it feels like a huge grind.

I have to voice my opinion on this ‘new trait system makes it easier for people to understand’ argument. It’s rubbish.

Seriously, to whoever though this up, what time and age do you think we live in? Were you raised in the Sierra games period perhaps, where forgetting to pick up an inconspicuous piece of cheese would result in permanent game over 3 stages later, all the while without any hints or online guides to help you?

Because we don’t live in that age any more. We live in the now, the now in which there is a tutorial for every trivial, menial task one could ever come across. And we know it, because most of us spend over half our day online, via pc or smart-phone.

It’s downright insulting to think that a large percentage of players would have had trouble figuring out how trait points used to work. And even if we assume that this is so, which is asinine, then giving us the choice to change our traits at any time, free of charge would have been the fix all along.

I’m sure there are reasons for these changes, but the ones I’ve been given are really lacklustre.

Also, I have to wonder how large this group of struggling people must have been for you to change the trait system for, considering you apparently care diddly-squat for the significantly sized RP community.

What mostly angers me is not as much the decisions made as the inadequate, if existing, justification of the changes. For some reason I feel like I’m constantly being lied to or deceived, and when people are calling them out on it there’s only silence.

In general I find the idea for getting traits great.
But I think you should have considered giving different classes different things to do for unlocking their traits. Why should every character have to do the same things? There are enough events ingame that it could have been spread out more. And what is really bugging me is the trait with the Karka-Queen… with the new boss timers, I will never be able to do this event during weekdays… considering that I have nine characters that need to unlock this trait it will take me at least five weeks to unlock… Also the unlocks by temple events are often a real problem… since there are people doing the defend-events… which is a legit thing to do, to keep the temples free, but if you need to to the cleaning temple chain for the traits it gets annoying…
P.S. I know I could get the new traits with gold, but honestly I want to do these new things, I just thing it should be improved.

Terrible design choices as regards the events that need to be done to obtain the new traits- karka queen, temples, etc are a bad choice. They should have been new mini bosses inserted (that drop nothing except the trait chest to prevent farmer hogging them) on instant respawn within a defined area, but instead the lazy, ill-thought out option is taken.

Also resetting all toons trait points was completely unnecessary- but then so was condensing to 14 points from 70, and changing start points to higher levels.

Not sure who they got to test these changes before release but pretty sure it wasn’t people who play more than one toon or even play the game itself.

qwertyrda.8291:

I don’t know if this suggestion is already in this forum but I’d like to put in my two cents anyway.

Having the feature where you can respec the traits of your character at will, developers should also add a “traits profile” where players can save trait builds so that they can input multiple builds that fit different situations, and can implement them when those situations arise.

I was hoping for this too, I call it Dual Spec. I’d like to have it because traits still have the problem of not being useful underwater. Even with all burst zerker gear specs of old, there was still traits that weren’t chosen on land that would make all the difference while swimming.