Guild Wars 2

It kind of reminds me of GW1, how you earned certain skills (particularly elite skills) from doing certain quests or killing certain bosses. However, after completing one or two characters’ skillsets I remember not wanting to go through that again.

All I can say is thank goodness I’d already leveled one of every class to 80 :/ I dread any eventual expansion…

One problem I have noticed, on top of all the others. The little map viewer to show you where you get something? It should show you the lay of the land like a Scout. A Scout shows you exactly that while you are looking at it, and then leaves heart events shown. As it is now, you just see the stylized map if you haven’t been there. This is just silly. What is even the point of it if it gives you no real information?

To be noted, though. I have never been in the map at the time of looking. It could be another symptom of megaservers and just not showing anything because you aren’t in the map at the time.

Can we also get some kind of ping from the people at Anet that they are even listening to the things said in this thread? It honestly feels like there is a whole lot of “hope it gets buried on the forums” which is really upsetting.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Can we also get some kind of ping from the people at Anet that they are even listening to the things said in this thread? It honestly feels like there is a whole lot of “hope it gets buried on the forums” which is really upsetting.

I won’t let that happen!

There has been some very constructive feedback in this thread. I do hope that some of it forms the basis of sensible tweaks/alterations to this very messy system.

Aiglos.2907:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Can we also get some kind of ping from the people at Anet that they are even listening to the things said in this thread? It honestly feels like there is a whole lot of “hope it gets buried on the forums” which is really upsetting.

I won’t let that happen!

There has been some very constructive feedback in this thread. I do hope that some of it forms the basis of sensible tweaks/alterations to this very messy system.

My hope is that they were focused on rolling out the megaservers, and now that that’s done they can get on top of things like this.

I really hope that’s not being too optimistic…

I don’t post much, but after leveling a new alt to 36 just now i had to chime in, Rubbish! Absolute piece of rubbish game change, nuff said. Thanks Anet, you took the fun out of leveling, really don’t know how you do it. So very disgusted with this change.

Guardian trait buffs are somewhat disappointing and too much focused on PvP.

You keep pushing guardians towards condition but by giving guardians only burning makes it impossible to build around it. Give us more access to conditions such as chill, bleed, cripple and weakness. Otherwise skills such as Amplified Wrath and especially Radiant Retaliation are never going to be used.

Communal Defenses looks promising for WvW. But only because it has some unintended side effects where aegis can be applied to an unlimited amount of players. When this is eventually fixed the cooldown will make this skill useless.

The other two traits (Force of Will and Purity of Body) feel like they were handed out to us because you took them away from us in the first place. But now we actually have to sacrifice more trait points.

Umm…I don’t really like those new trait changes. I do appreciate new traits they added and I find the idea of unlocking traits fun, but there are parts of it that I don’t like. I just got my new character to level 20 using a scroll/tome(I don’t remember the name) that grants this level instantly. While I do appreciate this quick “progression”, it’s not really satisfying. In fact, if I was to level up normal way, I would probably be pretty annoyed at level 20. You unlock traits at level 30, that is WAY too late. Not everyone is patient enough, and the weapon skills and utility skills itself aren’t what makes the combat fun. It was always about traits for me, and now unless I’m high level, I can’t enjoy the game as much. This is a serious problem. This patch was supposed to be all about diversity, but it ended up in making new players bored(except for megaservers, thank Dwayna for that), unsatisfied and annoyed. Levels don’t matter much anymore. You could as well turn 80 levels into 50 or 40, since you get 1 traits every few levels now anyway. I hope you understand my point.

I would suggest to move traits to level 20 at least, though I think the game would be much more fun if anet moved traits to level 10 for all players. It would also be great if leveling up actually felt like improving…

CC Danicia.1394:

Nynuwe.5893:

PS: I am deeply concerned no moderator has yet to appear here to intervene. That no developer has peaked in to aknowledge some of the concerns brought up here.

The thread was doing remarkedly well for a long time, which is why it had little interaction from the Moderation Team. There has been plenty of debating, only a tiny bit of off-topic, which quickly got back on track.

We saw the first reports about this thread this afternoon. Thousands up thousands of posts are made every single day and although we wish we could review them all, it’s just not physically possible, so any assistance we can get from players using the report function is greatly appreciated.

All this said, we have cleaned up the thread. Please keep it on-topic and clean. Thank you!

If the feedback was actually ever taken into consideration, we wouldn’t be here right now.

I’m not trying to de-value your position (I worked for another game company doing Community/Forum interaction work, ironically the “CC” title is the same there, so I am well-aware that this isn’t a fault of yours), however the bottom line is that there’s such an immense detachment from reality between the players and developers that simply stating that a lot of posts are made justifies a lack of attention is simply covering for what is a broken company dynamic. I’ve been there, said the same things you have, and totally understand why you’re saying these things, but the community shouldn’t simply be appreciable for a response stating that the concern has been noted.

I was revered for my work (and I started as a player) because of what I managed to achieve and do for the people who asked for my assistance. Until those in charge of major decisions like these make educated ones and actually start acting and making good decisions which are demonstrated through good game update implementation, no amount of sugar-coating PR is going to stop cynics like me from actively eschewing people away from GW2.

Rather than telling your developers and decision-makers about some of the discussed topics, pitch them the prospect of trying to comprehend the player perspective and come up with creative solutions to resolve these issues while still bringing money to your studio.

Good solutions and implementations make money. Until that actually starts happening, you’re on a sinking ship. Better to replace some planks before they break while docked rather than trying to plug leaks while out in open water.

Dysfunctionaldud.2865:

Although, that actually just makes me more disappointed in anet that they let this go live in the first place.

Spot on, but it’s even worse than that. They had almost exactly the same system for the first GW1 campaign (‘Prophecies’). Despite being fairer than the GW2 version (you could bypass the skill quests for a very reasonable cost), it was so unpopular that they abandoned it (when the ‘Factions’ campaign was released).

Isn’t the definition of sanity doing the same thing again and expecting a different result?

So, another fun bit for me last night was taking my lowbie through Obsidian Sanctum. I was going along fine until I missed a ledge and had to double back and when I did I had an ever so helpful enemy player (ranger) notice i was an uplevel and proceed to jump all over me. Now, pushing aside the fact that as an uplevel I still took down about a fourth of their health before being in cooldown and half health myself, the fact still remains that NO ONE is going to get this trait in this way unless A) they are not on an uplevel, they are doing the JP with others to watch their back, or C) people are not using the JP to farm bags.

sigh Really Anet, I’m glad I have level 80s to play the game with since it frankly sucks to be anything but right now. There is no way I’m dropping that much coin and SP on buying those traits so my build on any lowbie is going to be horribly stunted and certainly not diverse. So yeah. Thanks I guess for making me play the game in the way you and the meta would have me play it, with people I don’t even know, and in armor that I won’t reskin until level 80 as well since the cost to reskin before then is also too high. Kudos. I don’t see many new players staying with the game once they learn how absurd it is to get the same things that those of us with level 80s have.

I just noticed something else. Like the rocket turret, Bunker Down mines aren’t affected in any way by anything you choose in the Explosives trait line that affects explosions. Damage isn’t increased, explosion range is not increased, etc.

Mobs are literally standing right on top of these things and not dying it’s like Reserve Mines completely useless.

I guess I’m really an odd man out on this one. I quit playing for a while and came back last week and created a new character, and I’ve actually been enjoying the the new trait system. It’s pushed me to explore a bit more, which has been fun for me. I haven’t, however, really had much interest in any of the new GM traits that I’ve seen on my current level 80’s — none of them have really stood out over the old GM traits, but it is nice to have the variety. My only real complaint about the new system is that some of the lower-level traits require access to areas that are far outside the level range for their respective tiers, which is a little odd and frustrating. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment, but I enjoy it overall.

I think that’s also one of the saddest parts to all of this: I’ve yet to really try out any of the new GM traits on my 80s just because the rest of this system is THAT infuriating.

:/ Of course since my 2 mains are a Guardian and an Engie I am now worried what I will encounter just from reading the things in this thread as well.

I don’t have a problem with the new grandmaster traits needing unlocks – it reminds me of capturing elite skills in GW1, which could be fun as long as I didn’t have to get a huge pug together to do it.

However, I just rolled a new Mesmser, my first of that class, and when I hit lv30 I discovered that most of the ADEPT (as in 1st tier!) major traits required things like 100% map completion of zones like Frostgorge Sound, killing dungeon bosses, etc. to unlock them. I know I can pay 10 silver + 2 skill points for each trait, but I don’t have lots of level 80s with tons of gold sitting around and I don’t enjoy “farming” to get more money. At this level I’m using my money to purchase necessities and using skill points to unlock slot skills, and there’s no way I can clear Frostgorge or Orrian zones to unlock my Adept major traits!

What this does for my play style, effectively, is forces me to grind up to 80 using only major traits that I unlock by happenstance through personal story mode and PVE. Furthermore, it limits my ability to re-spec and try out new trait/stat combinations during the levelling process, which I thought was supposed to be the whole point of this change… Lastly, the wiki estimates unlocking all traits on one character with money will cost just over 40 gold, whereas unlocking all three trait tiers used to cost, what, just over 12 gold?

I understand you don’t “have” to unlock them all – just get the ones you want, right? – but what if you want to experiment and see how traits you might not normally use interact with others? Are we supposed to just rely on theorycraft and math, instead of practical experience? In my mind, that also discourages real gameplay.

TL;DR – To my mind the cost of trait unlocks seem far too high for new players/toons, and in my playstyle this all but eliminates build experimentation.

The folks who comment that the new system is very harsh on new players / alts in the low levels are quite correct. I’m trying to level a new alt by earning the traits and it’s a really bad experience. I feel weak vs. content due to a lack of trait points, and a majority of Adept traits are literally impossible for my character to earn via gameplay at the level I can start slotting them (36).

The impossible unlocks and lack of traits feels quite unfair in the low levels.

I’m really sorry for posting again, but reading back through this thread:

phys.7689:

well the truth is this system is designed to make the leveling process weaker, and incentivize people to want to level up to get to the real game. They are going to be making it take more exp to level, and give more skillpoints to those who pay monthly in china.

Im sure there are some differences in our version, but they definately want people to feel like they need to level up more….

Is this at all true, or just BullKitten with a capital BK? I mean I know Anet posted in the news blog that they want to make the push from 60-80 more worthwhile, but this sounds preposterous! I love PVE and the story, and I already wish there were ways to play a finished, geared character through the story/PVE realm instead of waiting until I’ve completed the main plot for the “real game” to begin.

It certainly appears to me that this trait unlock system is shifting even more focus toward “end-game” content, and makes personal involvement in the story/pve world seem like an obstacle to grind through.

I just finished leveling an alt to 80 yesterday. In fairness, I haven’t played levels 15-30 since my second character thanks to crafting, so this is mostly a post-30 commentary. She was level 5 before the patch hit, so I did have all my traits unlocked, and thank the sweet baby Jeebus I did. She was my first Necro, so I had no idea what to do with her in terms of build and playstyle yet and I went through several trait combinations that I wouldn’t have been able to try if I had to unlock all the content. I don’t have the money, the aggregate skill points, and would not have been close to half of the feats completed for unlocking everything I cycled through. Even with an internet guide, I had to learn how the skills worked in combination with the traits before I could find something I liked using.

However, I didn’t feel like I was “missing” anything by having a slower trait point gain. I had no issues with survivability, I never found it hard to complete events (thanks in very large part to the Megaserver), and it never felt like a grind until I did some map completes that I do on every character, and I acknowledge that that was fully my choice and in no way should be required for anyone else. It probably didn’t feel slow or agonizing because a lot of my excitement was saving for my skills and figuring out how they worked.

TL;DR: leveling process with full traits? Not too bad.

The requirements for the early traits are a bit too harsh. By the time you get your first Major Trait slot, I think you should have at least 6 different traits unlocked just for playing the game up to that point.

So many of the first tier traits require 100% map completion or doing story mode in a Level 50+ dungeon. This makes traits completely inaccessible in the early game. I mean, look at this set of requirements for the 2nd set of traits.

I Find the splendid chest in Earth’s Gap.
II Complete Twilight Arbor in Story Mode.
III Defeat Ulgoth the Modniir and his minions.
IV Earn 100% completion in Lornar’s Pass.
V Earn 100% completion in Bloodtide Coast.
VI Earn 100% completion in Fireheart Rise.

I – Level 20 in Human area. Other races will not be anywhere near here
II – Level 50-55 dungeon
III – Level 43 group event
IV – Level 40 zone
V – Level 55 zone
VI – Level 70 zone

What’s the point in giving out trait points at level 30 if you can’t do anything until you’re level 50?

Katai.6240:

The requirements for the early traits are a bit too harsh. By the time you get your first Major Trait slot, I think you should have at least 6 different traits unlocked just for playing the game up to that point.

As I said earlier in the thread(don’t expect anyone to read back for it), this is my biggest problem with this system. No hands down. They want to increase build diversity by bring zerk closer to everything else, and then in the same patch they make it so new players can’t even look at their traits or even know they are a thing without looking at the wiki until level 30? In what way does this help build diversity in the slightest? Saying they did it because people didn’t understand the system is a crock because this system is more obtuse than the old one ever was. Just giving a point as they are now every 5 levels starting at 15 and going back to 40 Master and 60 Grandmaster would be perfect. No more 14/14/14/14/14 celestial builds(which they brought up in one of the ready ups). Make adept traits unlock in a reasonable manner and not make them based entirely off of “Trait Line -> Number -> Do This Content For Trait” and the system would be fine. Great, even.

They could at least try to add something to soften the blow instead of going in and gutting all the game-play before level 80, now you can’t choose where to go and how to level, now you are dragged by the ear across the continent doing busy-work to get your traits.
Now I can go for 5 levels at a time and just feel like a spectator, not earning a single thing, not choosing what to do, not being in control of my character at all.
In no conceivable way have these changes improved any system I use while leveling, or to define my character; the only benefit of the system is an easier time for devs to implement new earn-able traits.
These changes to traits are just about as anti-player as you can get.

Keep the new traits and take out the current way we obtain trait points. Its horrible. The old version was better. I honestly don’t want to travel all over the place or pay insane prices to unlock them now. It also sucks the new grandmaster traits aren’t even unlocked in sPvP! What gives? You messed up hard Anet.

Creating new characters is also unfun now…yeesh. Promising changes then just defaecate all over it with bad ideas.

Khisanth.2948:

Gibson.4036:

I was dismayed to see all of my traits on my mid-level character disappear into ArenNets strange choice to fix something that wasn’t broken.

I am not very happy with the current implementation either but people did ask for this so it isn’t just something that ANet wanted to change. Maybe not exactly this but there certainly plenty of request for something like it in the CDI. I believe it was the horizontal progression one.

I don’t recall ever seeing someone ask that traits be bumped back to start at level 30 instead of 10. That was what I was referring to when I mentioned all my traits disappearing. Since that character was already created, he’s grandfathered in to already having all of the pre-patch traits unlocked.

As for getting new traits out in the world, I generally got the impression people were asking for additional traits to go find. An no one, that I know of, asked for traits to be unlocked with something as large as an entire zone completion, let alone for a zone that is much higher than the level required to use the trait.

It continues to surprise me how ArenaNet has chosen to fulfill various things “the palyers asked for”. It never seems to be in the straightforward, simple way you would expect while reading the communities request.

“Gives us horizontal progression by letting us get new traits out in the world like we captured elite skills in GW1.”

You’d think the straightforward thing would be to start introducing new traits (which they did) which you could get by defeating a particular champion.

Instead, we have a seemingly random set of requirements to now unlock the same traits our other characters got with three relatively cheap trainer books.

The players complain that there isn’t a lot of progression past 30.

You’d think the straightforward thing would be to create more master traits that could be earned through activity in the world.

Instead, they push all traits back behind level 30, not filling out the progression process, but simply moving the 60-80 progression doldrums to 10-30.

I don’t believe it’s true, but it kinda feels like they approach every player suggestion as if trying to overcomplicate it. Or as if giving the players what they ask for would spoil them too much, so they have to throw in a downside to balance things out.

I wish when you give me the option to redo my traits you would leave my traits as I have them and let me change them instead of just setting everything to 0. I’m tired of having my traits how I like them and coming back and having to redo them. Just give me the chance to change time once and translate the traits I have to the new system.

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

I wish when you give me the option to redo my traits you would leave my traits as I have them and let me change them instead of just setting everything to 0. I’m tired of having my traits how I like them and coming back and having to redo them. Just give me the chance to change time once and translate the traits I have to the new system.

I understand a certain amount of frustration, especially if you play a bunch of alts and can’t memorize all your setups. There are simple and very necessary reasons for the reset of traits, however.

If traits change, or if their position in the trait line up change or their behaviours change significantly, it’s far simpler to reset everything back to zero on loadup than to try to code around all the edge cases where builds become invalid or where buffs might remain applied that aren’t provided correctly any more, or any such case like that.

Take the trait change we just went through – it’s easy enough to adjust a character to the new system if he’s split his trait points evenly up into five point chunks, but what if he’s levelling or for some other reason has an odd number of traits in a line? 15 traits – easy; a minor, an adept, and another minor. 17? How do you reapportion that?

That’s just one problem.

Believe me, Arenanet isn’t the only company to do that. It’s part of living in an MMO – at the very least we’re not experiencing complete trait revamps every couple of months, like some games have gone through.

Probably been said before, but the ‘Unlocking traits via killing X’ feels like a good idea that’s been implemented in the worst possible way. I’ve been standing around at the Gates of Arah for ages waiting for the defense event to start on the slight chance that the High Mage spawns (Because there’s zero chance of the zerg allowing the event to fail), and the only thing I can think is “Why is this tied to one single creature’s death? Why not award the trait on completion of the event to either take or defend the gates?”

Frankly, this encourages the exact opposite of good gameplay, these traits actually require people NOT PLAY THE GAME in order to progress.

I logged on just to add to this conversation. The New system is entirely bullocks. The trait reset thing I quite nice and all, but I do not feel that in anyway justifies the utter middle-finger given to new players. I recently decided to make a warrior to level with my friend who just joined the game. The task ahead of us is infuriating. It would take WEEKS to unlock all the traits in this game(unless your rich and have a lot of skill scrolls). Let alone for a brand new player like herself, she has to constantly ask me “What should I get” and there is no options for her to try new things. Literally, I feel upset when she says “I wanna do this” and I have no basic reply-because all of her traits are locked in areas she will not see until she is 80. Certain classes by the way rely on traits to a very heavy degree(ele’s I know for a fact need them). These changes were painful and need to be changed. Theres a lot of things I wanna buy in the cash shop, with real money but I simply can not do it-Not with these settings in place. It would be easier for me to sell my liver on the black market then go through the new Leveling+Trait system. Honestly, It’s simply rubbish. Anet should feel ashamed. Shame on them. Also this discourages new players and Alt making-Ill be darned I ever make another character.

I concur that the new trait system is awful… what’s the point of leveling now, and I mean from a game design standpoint. Why do we have 66 completely dead levels?!

The horizontal progression was provided by the skill points scattered throughout the world, encouraging the “Do your own thing” mentality by allowing you to rack up points by taking the challenges you want/stumble across, and save up for the abilities you wanted or distribute as you saw fit, instead of having the game lock critical content off from players. At least the elite skills in GW1 weren’t mandatory for play!

Luckily, all my characters were made before the lockoff, so they have their traits unlocked. Unfortunately, they’re still stuck with absolutely kittenty progression, and far fewer special abilities than they used to have.

That said, the ability to change traits freely is nice. But not at the expense of everything that was lost, such kitten levels of advancement and character building.

If something doesn’t change, between the Charr armor issues, lack of official Roleplaying server clusters, and this new trait system, I think I’m quitting the game entirely.

The trait system is a pretty important part of this game and it’s been absolutely ruined, on top of that there has been no recognition from devs to players. I haven’t heard any news or opinion from anet about this system. It’s been about a month and ANY acknowledgment would be awesome, whether they change traits or not, because if i know the answer than i can either be patiently waiting for them to fix it OR i can just go find another game that i don’t have to grind so much on, the PvE was fun and reasonably paced. Now i have to grind for 36 hours just for 2 trait points. When before i could enjoy world events and group events and still level up with fun. I can’t give an opinion on the actual obtaining of traits as i haven’t played since this horrible update, but from what i have read you failed terribly on that too.

So is it being fixed? Yes or No. One word will at least give us a clear mind. Not a maybe or a “we’re looking into it”. A decent confirmed answer, for an important aspect of this game.

I also believe this topic should be discussed or opinionated by more players to keep this thread alive due to its important role in game play, by the looks of things Anet seem to be waiting for this to bury itself.

I’m concerned that’s the case as well. The legitimate outrage over parts of the last patch seems to be dwindling. People have said what they have to say, and these threads are dropping to page two more often.

I don’t want Arenanet to get their attention back from China and decide the players have gotten it out of their systems, so to speak, and it’s safe to continue forward as if there were no problems.

The requirements to earn traits definitely need to be looked at. Also, I think a more even point distribution (i.e., one every five levels) would make leveling feel smoother and more rewarding.

*We shouldn’t be waiting until 30 to start getting traints.
*We shouldn’t need to 100% clear lvl70 zones for Adept/any traits. Make it a specific fight like Skill Point challenges? Sure. Clearing entire zones for a single trait? Get outta here.
*We shouldn’t have such a huge gap of 6 levels in between trait points.
*We shouldn’t have to wait until max level to get GrandMaster traits.

We should have the previous trait mechanics. Keep the free reset, keep the change of 70->14 (pointless but does no harm), but why on earth would you intentionally make such a vital part of character development worse by such a great amount?

I love the new trait-implementation, but the requirements for specific adept traits are way off. Anet said that this wasn’t intended… but now I wonder: how could this happen? There must have been thoughts behind those high requirements, but no word on this anywhere.

Can someone from Anet clarify on the “it wasn’t intended” mystery? Seems like a rookie mistake to me, am I wrong? I don’t suppose this is some kind of bug in any form…

This trait system change alone sucks all the fun out of leveling an alt. Before the patch it was a lot of fun, trying out your character in areas, and at level 30+, trying out different trait builds and weapon/slot skill matches to see what worked and what didn’t work.

But now, I don’t have the motivation to even continue leveling my alts, especially when it’s either farm champs on my level 80s to get skill scrolls I can use on my low levels just to UNLOCK the traits (which is now difficult thanks to the champ loot drop change), or wait until level 80 to unlock most of the traits due to quite a few of them having ridiculous requirements. It’s a lose/lose situation.

By the Khan-Ur, change the requirements for the adept traits. Level 30-59 is good enough for the adept traits, and 60+ for the master/grandmaster traits. But making it so we have to 100% level 80 areas for ADEPT traits? Just shoot me now, that’s asking too much in terms of how long we have to wait (especially since most of the traits locked behind those level 80 areas are subpar).

A really big problem I didn’t mention last time I posted is that requiring specific events to unlock traits really brings us the worst of both worlds when it comes to quests vs events for open world content.

The drawback to events has always been that they work on their own schedule, not that of any player, so there’s never a guarantee that there will be an event available. This had previously been relatively well offset by the spontaneity of events coupled with there not being a need to do any specific event, any event will do.

Obviously, that last bit doesn’t apply when you have to clear a specific event to unlock a trait. You’re told to go into that field and kill 10 centaurs, but there’s no guarantee the centaurs are even there, nor any indication of when they will be.

It reeks of preparing to have fun rather than having fun.

There are a lot of problems with the trait system now. I guess I should try giving constructive criticism this time.

The biggest flaw that stands out to me, and the one that is read as “Leveling is now boring”, is most likely the excess of Dead Levels. A Dead Level is any level gained without any benefit or player choice – traditionally, just an increase along the math treadmill. There are two ways to solve dead levels – Give the player a choice of math bonuses, and/or a special ability. Traits in GW2 prevented levels from being Dead. I can’t remember much of the first ten levels, but there was enough going on with them that the lack of traits isn’t really noticed – I think it’s because the free skill point on level-up is still meaningful at that point, and you’re still unlocking weapon abilities.

Sure, the trait points were only mathematical bonuses except every fifth bonus, but they were a bonus you could choose – even if most players went in a single direction. That hasn’t been solved, though, and at least it was possible to be more fluid when playing around with the ability to play around with the 1-4 “useless” traits before a special ability unlock before you recovered them and tossed them into spec path for a special ability. There were also more special abilities in general. Now, the intervening levels are completely dead – no math boosts to play with, no visible progress toward your next special ability. There needs to be something gained on level up more substantial than a skill point at the middle levels, even if it’s not a trait point.

Locking traits to the world is also a misstep. I’m glad none of my 3 characters have to put up with it yet. You’re trying to capture something from the original Guild Wars that doesn’t work with the new game’s design ethos, and it was never like this in the original, either. It’s not even preparing to have fun, and more like trying to pry a paycheck. The skills were supposed to be the things you unlock through adventuring. Traits are more inherent to the character, and the current unlock system, from what I hear (100% completion!?) is terrible. Unique, Interesting challenges would have been one thing. Being forced to do EVERYTHING in a zone goes against the game’s primary design philosophy. Especially just to unlock something you should already be allowed to have.

On that note… the free swapping of skills is a mixed bag. On one hand, it kind of makes up for the loss of so many lesser traits and points (I should have had 8 trait points at level 50, not 4! And 3 tiers of traits to choose, not two!), since it allows swapping them out between battles to fit a situation as needed. On the other, it destroys character identity and uniqueness, making everyone the same amorphous blob of potential.

I’m trying to find a way to politely phrase how terrible the trait lock system is. Traits are part of my class and possibly race! Not random treasure to be found lying around the world. They are the options for customization of how to play. And, locking them to specific events violates the “Have Fun” design philosophy of the game, as others have said, by forcing characters to undertake specific tasks. At least with the expensive skills, you could get the skill points from anywhere, and spend them on any skill you wanted, instead of having to gain the traits you want in a specific order (Because of proximity/difficulty of the trait-giving tasks) for specific tasks in a specific way. Especially because the way the game wants us to play isn’t fun.

That said… I think the new trait system, aside from the trait-lock system, might be better for PvP, since the fewer traits available and shorter trees means it’s easier to kitten and balance the combinations. but I don’t do PvP. And, the leveling really needs to be fixed.

Yesterday, I was roaming in Cursed Shores to level up my level 50 thief (awesome levelling in Orr, btw) when someone shouts “Grenth up”.

I wanted the trait on my ele so I take her (I was in a party, so it was easy to find the server back) and we fail. Miserably.

At this moment, Arah is opening so I take on that event and go there, we succeed. Good.

Right at that moment, Grenth is up again. Yeah, that was fast, but I’m not complaining. So I park my ele next to the entrance and switch to my guardian with the blue dorito to give some directions and some orders to have it succeed (including the infamous “if u r dead, respawn, u noob”). We succeed the priest event. Great, loot time. I switch back to my ele (yay megaserver you put me again on a wrong map), I join when there are still 2 minutes left. And we succeed the event.

I got a chest with the dragonite. But anything about a trait? no. Did I have that trait before? No, and I still don’t have it.

So, I guess this is one more bug.

Fror.2163:

Yesterday, I was roaming in Cursed Shores to level up my level 50 thief (awesome levelling in Orr, btw) when someone shouts “Grenth up”.

I wanted the trait on my ele so I take her (I was in a party, so it was easy to find the server back) and we fail. Miserably.

At this moment, Arah is opening so I take on that event and go there, we succeed. Good.

Right at that moment, Grenth is up again. Yeah, that was fast, but I’m not complaining. So I park my ele next to the entrance and switch to my guardian with the blue dorito to give some directions and some orders to have it succeed (including the infamous “if u r dead, respawn, u noob”). We succeed the priest event. Great, loot time. I switch back to my ele (yay megaserver you put me again on a wrong map), I join when there are still 2 minutes left. And we succeed the event.

I got a chest with the dragonite. But anything about a trait? no. Did I have that trait before? No, and I still don’t have it.

So, I guess this is one more bug.

you get the trait for killing the risen priest, not cleansing the shrine. Your ele would came for the wrong event

phys.7689:

you get the trait for killing the risen priest, not cleansing the shrine. Your ele would came for the wrong event

Thanks for clarifying this. Is it written like that in the game (when you hover the glass next to the trait name)?

If I put it correctly, I had the choice to either lead the event, make it succeed for everyone and not getting the trait or let it fail because no one would respawn without being given the command by a commander?

Also, this is a major reward, it should be rewarded at the end of the event chain, not in the middle of it.

From bug, this issue goes to fail.

We could use some map icons that can be see across zones and that disappear once the trait is unlocked.

I’ve created a new character to test the new system.

It’s awful.

Character: Warrior.

Open PvE:
I was able to solo normal mobs 6 lv higher than mine with 0 traits, white stuff and some trinkets.
It’s a war and stats scales differently, so it’s normal, but probably some other classes will have hard times (i.e. mesmers).

• Every time I gained a trait point I had nothing to spend it on.
• Many Adept Traits are bounded to high level zones.
• Many traits require you a 100% zone exploration (totally unnatural).
• Some traits tell you to defeat the “Guy X” and point you to a generic location, making you roam without a clear destination (i.e. Champion Kol Skullsmasher).
• From all the Jumping Puzzles available, Obsidian Sanctum was all they could think about?

Dungeons:

• Organized groups: no problem, guildies can carry you. All you have to do is stack and let the others deal the real damage.
• Pugs: you were not welcome before the patch due your low level/gears, even if you had the right level for a specific dungeon. And how they fixed it? Now you also have no traits.

The idea behind the new traits acquisition it is not bad itself, but it has been implemented in a totally wrong way.

I wisehd for this new system, but I never though my wishes would have been granted by a monkey’s paw.

I’ve also found it sad that the scrolls for leveling alts are only available to players who’ve received the birthday package and they only level the alt to level 20 which was the previous standard.

Why haven’t these things become available from monthlies on level 80’s and why hasnt the scroll been updated to reflect the new level 30 system? Wouldn’t that have helped in this situation?

tigirius.9014:

I’ve also found it sad that the scrolls for leveling alts are only available to players who’ve received the birthday package and they only level the alt to level 20 which was the previous standard.

Why haven’t these things become available from monthlies on level 80’s and why hasnt the scroll been updated to reflect the new level 30 system? Wouldn’t that have helped in this situation?

i was thinking the same thing actually. They could at least change that to be level 30 or even 35 now since its not like its going to drastically change the power level of the player.

one thing I thought about recently: why do people spend so much thought on a part of the game-experience that makes up for a very little percentage of their playtime.

I mean: you spend a few days/weeks on leveling up a character and months/years for playing that character. I don’t want the excitement gone when I’ve reached 80, so in that spirit the new trait-system makes a lot of sense. It’s something to progress your character when he’s reached max level even further.

Sure, some players won’t like this since until now once you’d reached lv.80 your progression was mostly over and you were on an even playingfield – some consider this one of GW2’s strenghts but on the other hand others found GW2 becoming stale too fast because there’s nothing to work towards to.

It’s probably bad communication from Anet’s side that they have turned the trait-system into a long-term progression system away from a leveling system.

Horrible, the next time a dev gets a bright idea that dev should be forced to actually play the game for an hour to check if they’re genius idea is actually worth it. In this case it is not.

Can’t preview available traits in a selected slot without spending points? Thanks for adding the extra work to the previously easy system, numpties.

Paul.4081:

Horrible, the next time a dev gets a bright idea that dev should be forced to actually play the game for an hour to check if they’re genius idea is actually worth it. In this case it is not.

Can’t preview available traits in a selected slot without spending points? Thanks for adding the extra work to the previously easy system, numpties.

you can easily preview each of the traits in the list on the left, just click on the traitline and not the slot.

I am a purely PvE player.
I have 27 characterslots ( Yes call me addicted on making and levelling them )
I have 17 Level 80s, all traited and in exotics, except main.
I have and want 0 legendaries, chose to buy 20+ slots over a single precursor.

On levelling I loved how one 80 ended up differently traited, even on same weapon sometimes.
That was possible because 3.10 gold bought all traits and from L11 ( say 16 ) you could start experimenting.
And assigning that one traitpoint upon levelling forced me to look ahead and choose a path I wanted to try.

No More.

Now after update a player like me will have to come up with a quick and least tedious way to get just those tested traits I know are best.
No more switching, just copy the known setup from before.

Only my main has 300 skillpoints to spare to buy all.

The way I see it this kills experimenting and anticipating.

Yes I know people will tell you “You can get all for free”
But the reason I lasted 27 characters is I was perfectly fine with PvE alone.
And I know many people who choose NOT to do group content ( too much ).

What I don’t understand and i hope to clarify is the changes in trait system will NOT lead to more experimenting. People don’t grind stuff they DON’T need to craft their target just because it’s nice.
Nobody now kills Queensdale Elite Spider just “to experiment” .. they killed the Champion because it gave results.

Just wanted to speak my mind.

P.S. Get me a title for having 27 characters ;-)

BigfootArisen.6509:

Katai.6240:

The requirements for the early traits are a bit too harsh. By the time you get your first Major Trait slot, I think you should have at least 6 different traits unlocked just for playing the game up to that point.

Just giving a point as they are now every 5 levels starting at 15 and going back to 40 Master and 60 Grandmaster would be perfect. Make adept traits unlock in a reasonable manner and the system would be fine. Great, even.

This. This exactly.

I’ve played with the new trait system for a few weeks now, wanting to give it a fair shake before making up my mind. I agree with most of the feedback here. To summarize:

- Some of the new tier III traits are awesome. Others are downright dumb, and seem more appropriate to tier I or tier II. Some are clearly in the wrong trait lines, making them impossible to effectively use in builds. I have the most experience with Guardian, so I’ll just point out that people might actually be able to use Amplified Wrath if it were in the Radiance line with ALL THE OTHER BURNING-RELATED TRAITS. That’s just one example, there are lots more. I know I’m not alone in feeling like Grandmaster traits should be pretty universally awesome (even borderline game-breaking) to make it a really hard choice, and something to focus a build around.

- Making us wait for traits until level 30 makes the levels 20-30 EVEN MORE of a grind than they were before (and that’s always been the “grindiest” part of any character leveling, imho).

- Trait points now come too infrequently at low/midrange levels for me to feel rewarded by them.

- The exploration requirements for tier I traits are far, far too difficult. It honestly makes me wonder if there was an error in the update, they are so far out of whack. I also have to add, I LOVE exploring in this game. Map completion is one of my favorite activities, and I try to do everything in a map (not just for completion, but champ events, etc.). And with that being my favorite part of the game, this system is too harsh for me. Now, 100% exploration of Queensale, Snowden’s or Metrica for a tier I trait? Sure. But not of Blazeridge, which puts a tier I trait out of my reach until at least 15 levels later.

- Unlike many people here, I do want to point out that I LIKE the idea of rewarding world exploration with additional character-specific unlocks. Of course, I’m a dedicated explorer, so naturally I would like to be more rewarded for doing what I enjoy. But I’m seriously questioning whether traits were the right choice for that reward, and even if they were a good choice, the way this was implemented initially was very poorly thought through. I feel like character development has suddenly been restricted with this ridiculously elaborate and multi-tiered bottleneck, where before it felt smooth and organic.

[FINAL SUGGESTION]
Make trait points 1 per every 4 levels starting at level 24 (assuming I did that math correctly). Revert Master traits to open at level 40 and Grandmaster at level 60. Adjust the exploration requirements for major traits so that Tier I traits can all be acquired by doing activities (exploration, dungeons, events, etc.) in zones under level 40. Tier II traits unlock in zones under level 60. Tier III traits unlock in zones under level 80. Note that these breakpoints now perfectly match up with the Master/Grandmaster unlock levels! Keep the no-cost trait resets, since the economy is now balanced around that. And for the love of all that’s fluffy, re-think which of the new traits is in which line, and buff up the ones that aren’t as impressive so they are worth buying a full line of traits to get them.

I’ll just copy my post from Reddit —

Really, I like it pretty well, but a few improvements I could see—

1) One trait point per every 5 levels starting at level 15. Keep it an even spread. Gives you something new between your level 10 skill slot and level 20 skill slot, and something between the level 20 and level 30 elite slot opening. By level 30 you’d have 4 trait points to spend that might have good synergy with skills and your elite by then.

Adept would open at level 15, Master at 40, Grandmaster at 70.

2) Traits should unlock in areas relevant to their levels. Adepts in level 15-40 zones, Master in zones up to 70, GM in 71-80. Some story mode quests should grant a choice of adept traits.

3) If not already (I have no way to test, my slots are full) traits should unlock per account, not character, for those that like multiple races of the same class.

This feature, where to get traits you are required to either spend skill points (which are very, very valuable during leveling) or endure unspeakably, intolerably dull, boring, repetitive grinding is the first unjustifiable, way-off-base, player-hostile design decision ANet has made in this game. I spend most of my time in WvW. Like, almost all my game time, actually.

I started an elementalist a few days ago, and leveled her through crafting. My 3 other 80s all hit the level cap before the patch, so this was my first experience post-patch. I cannot describe to you how annoying is it to have to run all over the game world, spending literally hours to get a single Master-tier trait. My ele is Sylvari; the location for either Rock Solid or Soothing Disruption is near Sorrow’s Embrace. I realize I was probably not choosing an optimal path to the location but it did indeed take 2+ hours to find the spot, go through the event, find the champ, down him, and get my trait.

Then to get Rock Solid (or Soothing Disruption, I can’t remember which was which) I had to run Molten Factory or something. I can’t tell you how long that took because dungeon crawling is not fun for me. I play this game for the WvW aspect, and nothing else.

I realize that a lot of people do a ton of PVE anyway, and they level their characters through quest/map completion, yadda yadda yadda. I’m not one of those people.

Please, please revert this terrible set of changes. I know you won’t. But gooby pls.