Guild Wars 2

Scruffy.3982:

“This new system for acquiring traits in the game brings back an aspect of the original Guild Wars that we really liked [my italics], which was exploring the world as a major component of character progression” (quote from Roy Cronacher, announcing the April Feature Pack).
Who exactly is the ‘we’ he refers to? Because I don’t think he can have been referring to the GW2 player-base. I have scanned the various forums and I can’t see any posts that were clamouring for this change to the perfectly good trait system we had before.
The announcement for the April Feature Pack begins by saying that “Once you reach the appropriate level, we want you to be able to dive right into the system and start playing around with it, so you’ll unlock each tier for free!” Ending sentences with exclamation points does not make them more palatable – so I get to level 60 and the master level traits for my necro are unlocked but I don’t have any trait points spare to start being able to “dive right into the system”.
The announcement continues “As part of this approach to making traits more approachable, we’ve pushed back the level at which the different trait tiers unlock for new characters in order to better pace the early game experience and to add more meaningful character progression from levels 30 to 80.” ‘Approachable’? Where are the players who were saying that the traits were not approachable? And as for the the idea that the early game experience will now be better paced – this is simply not the case as can be seen by the vast majority of negative comments above. “Meaningful character progression” is another phrase that has absolutely no meaning – running all over the place from dungeon to WvW to area completion does not give invest my character progression with meaning. It invests it with grinding and lack of enjoyment. Everything to do with character progression changes from being enjoyable to a chore.
“With this system, spending traits will be much easier for new players to understand. Right now, there is the possibility for someone who doesn’t really know the system to spend 11 trait points in one line and 14 in another and wind up with a less effective build.” Again, I would ask where were the new players scratching their heads over the old trait system? Were they such a sizeable number that the system had to be changed for their benefit? My new necro, built post-April 15, is level 60 and I don’t have any build, let alone a less effective one. I have a random accumulation of unlocked trait points that bear no relation to one another. Under the old system I was able to experiment with builds as I was progressing – I didn’t mind the cost of refunding my traits, it was nothing compared to now.
As I said before the implication that the trait changes were done for the benefit of players has not been borne out by the vast number of posts welcoming the new system or congratulating the developers on a job well done. For a game that seemed to take pride in listening to its player-base I would like some evidence of which player-base was listened to for these changes.

well said

if you are going to keep the trait discovery system, please make the unlocks a lot more accessible!
You could use a system like skill points, where we have a choice of traits we can unlock rather than setting each trait to a specific task.
Perhaps the tasks can be lowered to completed hearts / events / jumping puzzles rather than group content in high level maps.

The current system is really, really off putting and I myself do not have the motivation to carry on levelling now I hit 30 last night which is the polar opposite to how I felt when I got characters pre patch to level 30.

Scruffy.3982:

“This new system for acquiring traits in the game brings back an aspect of the original Guild Wars that we really liked [my italics], which was exploring the world as a major component of character progression” (quote from Roy Cronacher, announcing the April Feature Pack).
Who exactly is the ‘we’ he refers to? …

“With this system, spending traits will be much easier for new players to understand. Right now, there is the possibility for someone who doesn’t really know the system to spend 11 trait points in one line and 14 in another and wind up with a less effective build.” …

To be fair, there were 67 pages of CDI Horizontal Progression suggestions – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first – I’m not going digging for examples, but there really were many suggestions for the concept of unlocking traits. I’m even okay with the concept; it’s the execution that I find extremely lacking and I think many others would agree.

I agree with you and others who’ve stated that the previous trait system was not difficult to understand. Further, if Anet was just worried about newer players “wasting” traits early on … (and isn’t that experimenting with builds?) … then implementing free trait point reallocation would’ve solved the problem without all the fuss of an entirely new system.

How they should have implemented the new trait system:

Trait Points

The old 1 level for each trait point with a total of 70 points starting at level 11 is fine or the new 5 levels for each point for a total of 14 points starting at 15 also works.

Unlocking Trait Tiers

The 3 trait tiers unlock at the levels they did before:

Adept unlocks at 11 or 15 (depending on the type of trait points used)
Master unlocks at level 40
GrandMaster unlocks at level 60

Trait Unlocks

I like the idea of unlocking traits but here is how I would do it:

Each tier has a pool of tasks, say 12 or 15, similar to the pool of daily or monthly tasks. To unlock all the major traits in a tier would require doing any 6 of the tasks from the pool of tasks. (Edit: I guess only the adept tier has 6 possible major traits. Master and GrandMaster have less) The tasks can be from PvE, PvP and WvW but would be appropriate to the level of character. All adept tasks would be in areas of the game that a level 39 or below could reasonably do. All master tasks would be in areas for a level 40 – 59 character. GrandMaster tasks would be in areas for characters level 60 and above.

Lazuli.2098:

How they should have implemented the new trait system:

Trait Points

The old 1 level for each trait point with a total of 70 points starting at level 11 is fine or the new 5 levels for each point for a total of 14 points starting at 15 also works.

Unlocking Trait Tiers

The 3 trait tiers unlock at the levels they did before:

Adept unlocks at 11 or 15 (depending on the type of trait points used)
Master unlocks at level 40
GrandMaster unlocks at level 60

Trait Unlocks

I like the idea of unlocking traits but here is how I would do it:

Each tier has a pool of tasks, say 12 or 15, similar to the pool of daily or monthly tasks. To unlock all the major traits in a tier would require doing any 6 of the tasks from the pool of tasks. (Edit: I guess only the adept tier has 6 possible major traits. Master and GrandMaster have less) The tasks can be from PvE, PvP and WvW but would be appropriate to the level of character. All adept tasks would be in areas of the game that a level 39 or below could reasonably do. All master tasks would be in areas for a level 40 – 59 character. GrandMaster tasks would be in areas for characters level 60 and above.

If I could forcibly hire you to the dev team, I would.

After giving this new system a try, I wonder how many are running around traitless. For me it adds more confusion and complication. Starting new alts are not an option at this time. Sad!

All we can do is wait until the 20th. Do the right thing Anet!

How about making traits purchasable from the karma vendors throughout the map? You can scale the cost of each one depending on its classification: Adept, Master, Grand Master. Each costs karma and skill points.

This system would alleviate the problems created by the megaserver involving temples. I, for one, cannot get the Lyssa event done because it is never contested when I actually get in the zone. And waiting in a zone for an event that may never happen is not an option. Paying gold for a trait just because ANeT messed up and didn’t actually think this through is not an option either.

Or, for the temples themselves, put them on a world boss timer that always activates, like Jormag or Shatterer. The temple becomes contested for a certain amount of time every 2 or 3 hours. You have around 20 minutes to actually activate the Lyssa portion of the fight. After that it plays like normal.

I can tell I’m in the minority here, but I prefer the new traits system.
I hated having to wait until a predetermined level before unlocking the next trait tier. The price in gold is easy to meet, obviously, and since it takes six levels to gain another trait point, it shouldn’t be hard to keep aside a couple skill points for it either.

You still need to wait until a predetermined level to unlock the next trait tier, though. It’s just been increased by 20 levels.

The new system literally does nothing better than the old system except for free on-demand resets, which I don’t even consider as part of the “new” system.

Hell, even keeping the reset price there but allowing it to be on-demand would have been nice as to compensate for a lack of gold-sinking if they got rid of unlock prices.

Regarding the comment about ANet’s speach before release:
My thoughts exactly. I don’t know how they claimed that this new systems makes levels have a more impacting sense to them, or how the pace becomes better for new players. The system achieved just the opposite.

Actually – I don’t mind the idea of unlocking traits, but I still stand by the belief that all Adept traits should be unlocked by default, just so there’s SOMETHING to put in available slots.

And yes, this new system has made the game absolutely unbearable to be less than level 80 in.

It’s been a while since I first posted in this thread, I thought about new players back then but realized that I struggle with this system as well when I created a new character. I’m a former pve player who is now only playing wvw. I created a mesmer after the patch, leveled her in EotM and wvw and needed some traits. Most importantly for wvw: condition removal which is a trait for mesmers. Requires100% map completion of Herathi Hinterlands – time consuming and annoying but ok. I then did the Obsidian Sanctum Jumping Puzzle again and yet again once more as I was killed off by someone waiting for me the first try when I was 99% done. I then wanted to try to do a full trait line and had to do the Veteran Fleshgazer mini dungeon. Hadn’t done it before and better don’t ask me to do it with you as I still don’t have a clue. Anyway; I found how to start the dungeon and thanks to the megaservers a lot of people joined and killed the mobs. Then there was a jumping part and we had to find stuff in the dark. I had no idea where to go to unlock the last door, so I jumped around trying to be useful. But I died and when I came back the veteran has already been killed, so I got no trait. The second time around I played it safe and stayed by the door. Sorry to the people who did this with me, I really am. I then had to do some map completion of Fields of Ruin. Completing the map was the easy part, getting there was not. That took me about a day. I then abandoned my quest to complete a trait line, especially as I’m not making friends in pve with my knight’s gear, can’t do a dungeon with that. Since I like GS best (for now), I discovered that I “only had to kill a champ in Mount Maelstrom” to unlock GS training. Since the Megaservers seem to get old I soloed him, took me 15 mins. Which isn’t the problem, the problem is that they have a tendency to reset if one takes too long. So, in short: Anet- this doesn’t work. First of all, it’s really hard to see the traits, it was easier before, I now have to chose trait lines before I can see what the single traits do and it’s hard to keep track of the traits one still wants to unlock. Second: Most of the traits aren’t soloable, unless one is really experienced and even then not everything is soloable. Also: The megaservers will likely desert again after most of the people have unlocked their traits, so there won’t be any help when trying to kill champs or open some heavily guarded chests. I really don’t understand the whole april 15th patch, I guess, it’s like you didn’t think about the impact the changes will have and I don’t know if I’ll have the patience to wait until you realize that the class balance is really off (thanks to the crit damage nerf) and that the “new” trait system is a pain.
Edit: For people reading this, please keep in mind that I’m a wvw player, the nerf did next to nothing in pve since the mobs have been nerfed as well, but it had a huge impact on the balance in wvw and maybe pvp (I’m no pvp player).

Jana.6831:

It’s been a while since I first posted in this thread, I thought about new players back then but realized that I struggle with this system as well when I created a new character. I’m a former pve player who is now only playing wvw.
…
I then had to do some map completion of Fields of Ruin. Completing the map was the easy part, getting there was not. That took me about a day.
…

I sympathize with you but since I have not started a new character since the patch and plan to never do so under this system I can’t say I actually feel your pain. Thought I’d let you know there is a faster way to Fields of Ruin if you ever plan to do that map again. There is an Asura gate in the Rurikton District of Divinity’s Reach that takes you directly to the Stronghold of EbonHawke in Fields of Ruin. I didn’t discover it for quite some time and it makes quite a difference in getting there.

DeceiverX.8361:

You still need to wait until a predetermined level to unlock the next trait tier, though. It’s just been increased by 20 levels.

Upon re-reading the wiki entry for traits, I see that you are correct. Dunno how I managed to miss that the first time round.

The problem still remains that even if you research which traits you want for build A and maybe build B, most people will then just stick to build A and build B and forget about anything that isn’t “useful” to them, or isn’t already deemed “the best” as per the current meta. So instead of fostering experimentation a diversity they are forcing people to meta build or have sub par/pointless builds. You can’t honestly argue that this change was to stop people from making sub-par builds (11 in one 14 in another), and then turn around and tie people’s hands so they either do a meta they hate, on maps they hate, or opt to play with whatever happens to unlock whether its helpful or not. Frankly Anet you’re feeding into more horrible builds this way than helping.

Congrats.

Didn’t read the whole thread so sorry if it already get mentioned.

Please remove the confirmation window, when you put trait points into a traitline and bring back that dropdown menu where you can choose your traits. This new list on the left side of the traits is just a pain to use.

Old system: I buy and consume one item. Wow, look at all the options! I’ll spend the points and get X trait.

New system: I wander around on some self-appointed quest to unlock one trait. Some of which cannot be done solo, so I’d better hope I a) want the same build as everyone else or b) have a really supportive guild.

I wouldn’t even be opposed to these kinds of quests, but shouldn’t they be for like rare items that can’t be sold instead of, you know, BASIC GAME FUNCTIONS?

This new trait system is horrible and I will explain why:

• Leveling Stigma
  Newcomers pre-patch had it rough when joining explorable dungeons, now that they are far behind in traits/unlocked, they are highly undesirable, creating dissatisfaction to newcomers.
• Limits class discovery
  With all traits locked, it limits players to a build or two, if any at all, leveling should be about having fun discovering different builds, how things interact with each other, what works and doesn’t work, but now that process is ruined behind locked traits, some classes are even dependent on some traits! Ironically you can change traits on the fly now, but unless you were grandfathered in post patch, you cannot play around with traits!
• Late entry to traits
  Traits starting at level 30 is way too late, traits starting at level 11 was fine, since at that time you had most weapon skills unlocked, most profession mechanics unlocked, then traits were the next thing to master, not so any more.
• It creates empty levels
  Asides from some minor boost to stats, almost all levels are now meaningless, that layer of depth was removed for the worst.
• Unreasonable unlocking requirements
  Fully Exploring a level 80 zone for an adept tier trait?! what were you thinking! Compound this with the already mentioned must have traits from some classes and this is a recipe for disaster!

Possible solutions, or compromises:

• Revert trait unlocking back to level 11.
• Make REASONABLE requirement for traits (or scrap it all together, with a few exceptions to new traits)
• Award 1 trait point per level starting from level 11 (like pre-patch),
  This would resolve the empty levels problem, Once a character reaches level 80, clicking a trait line once increases that trait line by 5 points (in a sense, it would be like it is now, but now leveling-up doesn’t feel so hollow, with this recommendation, it would go back to the old 30 point system instead of the 6 point system, it’s the best for both worlds as high level players don’t have to click 30 times to max a trait line!)

I’m a bit late to the party because all my characters predate the big patch, so I had not even known about the exact nature of the new unlock system until stumbling across it today while browsing the wiki. And honestly, I was just stunned. The fact that even a single person, nevermind the team as a whole or at least a majority, could have decided that high-level zone completion should be a requirement for an Adept trait really worries me, and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. As it is, the game has become a lot more unfriendly to new alts and especially to new players, and that is never a good idea. Honestly devs, please reconsider this system — for your sake and ours.

Trait gain should not be as back-loaded as it is now. If anything, it should be more front-loaded so that building up a new character becomes more fun because each level means more and the build one wants to play is not so far out of reach. Level 35 is way too late for a crucial aspect of character customization.

Also, while some traits can be build-defining, traits are passive and thus innately less “exciting” than active skills. That makes having to jump through hoops for each and every trait doubly annoying — I’d rather unlock (some) skills through (ideally class-specific) challenges and tasks, not traits.

At the very least, though, the unlock system NEEDS to be reworked so that each trait has a level-appropriate requirement. Adept traits should come from sub-40 zones and Master traits from sub-60s. WvW and dungeons should be off the list altogether IMO, given how hostile much of the community is towards non-“optimized” characters.

Honestly, this is one of the worst changes I’ve ever seen in a game. Most changes are supposed to make players happy. This one was just a flat-out slap in the face to everyone who wanted to make a new character. I seriously can’t fathom how anyone thought this was a good idea.

I mean, really? I have to either spend ridiculous amounts of gold and skill points for traits which are VITAL to my character, or spend dozens of hours going on some stupid fetch quest around the world, doing things I have no interest in? Not to mention that some of the requirements are just plain unreasonable. Map completion to unlock a SINGLE trait? Who came up with this?

This update is now a month old and I’m dumbstruck.
I was certain the trait system and the megaserver were sort of mistakes. Something that would get fixed in a few days. They are, after all, as Gonefishin and others have said, some of the worst changes ever seen in a game.

But they’re still here. Nothing to indicate they will be fixed.

I just can’t believe this is real.

I am someone who owns 12 characters.
It is already tiresome to level them up each, but I enjoy making unique and diverse looking characters.
Of course, I also want to play each character.
I want to play around with various builds but now I run into a wall.

Do you think I want to travel everywhere around the world, hoping to catch events so I can unlock a single trait for a single character on every character?

Sure I could spend gold and skill points to unlock them.
But I don’t have that much money to unlock them all on every character.

Then there is also the insane amount of skill points.
I don’t have enough skill points for them all on every single character…
It’s insane!
There are other things I want to do with skill points as well.

It may be fun for a first-timer to explore around the world and unlock traits.
But even a first-timer doesn’t want to do it again and again and again in the future.

Suggestion: make unlocks account-bound.
Once the event is completed once on an account, the player has various traits unlocked for his current and other (future) characters that are earned from the event.

DonRobeez.3560:

It may be fun for a first-timer to explore around the world and unlock traits.

It’s not.

Chadramar.8156:

WvW and dungeons should be off the list altogether IMO, given how hostile much of the community is towards non-“optimized” characters.

I didn’t even think about that, but you are exactly right. “So I can’t get this trait because I don’t run full zerker and no one will do the dungeon with me.” Like I said, you now need a very supportive guild to party up for goals that are purely personal.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.” -Colin Johanson

i wonder if this is truth or ****?

gw2 is starting to feel more like a grind fest then anything else even the drop rate of this game is so horrible ppl sit and farm low lvl zone champs all freaking day and when a totally new person comes into that area it makes them think that is the only way to lvl/get loot. I mean really is that what you want new players to come into gw2 to think ?
and yes i happen to of overheard this and to what a newcomer himself said.

lack of content/and many many other things is just whack, and now the Dew date to wild-star is going to have a massive amount of players base leave gw2 dew to the lack of so many things and im talking about guild/guilds with the size of 300+ ppl now imagine if they arnt the only guild whose talking about doing so.

(this is more about what ive heard then my own view on this)

Bilacus.6104:

This update is now a month old and I’m dumbstruck.
I was certain the trait system and the megaserver were sort of mistakes. Something that would get fixed in a few days. They are, after all, as Gonefishin and others have said, some of the worst changes ever seen in a game.

But they’re still here. Nothing to indicate they will be fixed.

I just can’t believe this is real.

Its worked out well for me. Before the feature pack, I was spending way too much time playing. I haven’t played a single minute since April 18th. I’m free!

After the update there are more gold spammers whispering me, twice a day now

DarkShinobie.5174:

gw2 is starting to feel more like a grind fest then anything else even the drop rate of this game is so horrible ppl sit and farm low lvl zone champs all freaking day and when a totally new person comes into that area it makes them think that is the only way to lvl/get loot. I mean really is that what you want new players to come into gw2 to think ?
and yes i happen to of overheard this and to what a newcomer himself said.

lack of content/and many many other things is just whack, and now the Dew date to wild-star is going to have a massive amount of players base leave gw2 dew to the lack of so many things and im talking about guild/guilds with the size of 300+ ppl now imagine if they arnt the only guild whose talking about doing so.

(this is more about what ive heard then my own view on this)

Wildstar is also a product of NCsoft; same people that made gw2…so they wont mind if people leave one of their games for the other.

Bilacus.6104:

This update is now a month old and I’m dumbstruck.
I was certain the trait system and the megaserver were sort of mistakes. Something that would get fixed in a few days. They are, after all, as Gonefishin and others have said, some of the worst changes ever seen in a game.

But they’re still here. Nothing to indicate they will be fixed.

I just can’t believe this is real.

Yeah the megaserver isnt that nice and it destroyed the server communitys…….(lol) . Me and my guild havent really felt that bad about it, as far as I know of.

Absolute trash. Why am I being gated from every trait?

I have to complete zones (and not even low level ones?) just to get some adept traits?

I’d almost understand if they made adept traits really cheap and easy, master traits somewhat harder, or something. But that’s just ridiculous. I’m just going to purchase exactly the traits I need and forget the rest.

No more alts for now… This new change is nothing more than a gold/time sink, and that’s just disgusting.

Well the new ele is ticking along, up to level 54 now, all in EoTM/wvw. Levelling feels so aimless when you only get a new trait point every 6 levels. Will I unlock every trait? Not a hope- I might unlock a few, but mainly I will work out EXACTLY what build I will be running in wvw and just unlock them. Want build diversity? Try another game, this one now actively discourages you from even trying, or even rolling alts.

Completing a zone as a staff ele just isn’t that appealing to me- but then the devs play burst thief or zerk warrior/guard, so they won’t have even considered other classes.

It’s a terrible change which seems more like an April fool’s joke that went wrong ‘hey, let’s kitten up the trait system’ and someone took it as a real suggestion and then they went and implemented it…

ArchonWing.9480:

Absolute trash. Why am I being gated from every trait?

Because, thanks to Anet, ‘Once you reach the appropriate level, we want you to be able to dive right into the system and start playing around with it’. Locking some away behind level 80 zones, and dungeons where parties insist you are “lvl 80 zerk war or gtfo” allows you to access new traits more easily!

Also, ‘As part of this approach to making traits more approachable, we’ve pushed back the level at which the different trait tiers unlock for new characters’. Apparently traits are more approachable, when you have to wait longer for them!

But remember, ‘Acquiring traits will be a horizontal progression system’. Completing a level 80 zone to acquire a trait you have access to at level 30 sure is horizontal! Just curl the top and tail of the 3 around to the centre and it becomes an 8! See – horizontal!

[/sarcasm]

((All quotes taken from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/ ))

Centurion.7296:

Bilacus.6104:

This update is now a month old and I’m dumbstruck.
I was certain the trait system and the megaserver were sort of mistakes. Something that would get fixed in a few days. They are, after all, as Gonefishin and others have said, some of the worst changes ever seen in a game.

But they’re still here. Nothing to indicate they will be fixed.

I just can’t believe this is real.

Yeah the megaserver isnt that nice and it destroyed the server communitys…….(lol) . Me and my guild havent really felt that bad about it, as far as I know of.

The thing is, the Megaservers at least have a goal, and they (sort of) achieve it. Maps were dead, now they aren’t. Sure the system for putting players with friends doesn’t work very well and guild missions (especially challenge) can be a nightmare now, but there was an actual problem solved there. Moreover, people actually asked for them. The system works, it just needs tweaking.

The trait changes don’t just make some aspects worse, they actually make the thing they were brought in to improve worse. No one asked for this change, and as far as I can tell, almost no one who has made a character since the patch wants the change (many actively hating it).

I don’t think comparing Megaservers and Traits is helpful, because they are not really comparable in the damage they did to the game. The megaservers were good for many people, but damaging (severely) in specific areas that need to be worked out. The trait system has made a massive part of the game horrible, and in a way that is entirely counter to the reason we were told they were brought in.

I like the idea of unlocking stuff. I really do. But the implementation is just baffling.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Centurion.7296:

Bilacus.6104:

This update is now a month old and I’m dumbstruck.
I was certain the trait system and the megaserver were sort of mistakes. Something that would get fixed in a few days. They are, after all, as Gonefishin and others have said, some of the worst changes ever seen in a game.

But they’re still here. Nothing to indicate they will be fixed.

I just can’t believe this is real.

Yeah the megaserver isnt that nice and it destroyed the server communitys…….(lol) . Me and my guild havent really felt that bad about it, as far as I know of.

The trait changes don’t just make some aspects worse, they actually make the thing they were brought in to improve worse….[snip]

I don’t think comparing Megaservers and Traits is helpful, because they are not really comparable in the damage they did to the game. The megaservers were good for many people, but damaging (severely) in specific areas that need to be worked out. The trait system has made a massive part of the game horrible, and in a way that is entirely counter to the reason we were told they were brought in.

I like the idea of unlocking stuff. I really do. But the implementation is just baffling.

They are totally comparable but you only seem to list two of the problems people have mentioned (did you even bother to read more than this one post?)

Maps are now, well too overfilled, Hearts and events are now nothing but auto attack fights, frantically trying to get a hit on mobs before they die, there is no need to dodge, heal or buff, there is no skill left to them. Every event now seems like a zerg.

Level 80 characters now fill the maps a lot more, killing things in one or two hits, making it even harder to get credit for kills never mind events.

Because there are so many people on maps now, there are loads of people complaining about an increase in lag, also people having to lower their graphics setting just to play the game, were before the patch, they didn’t have to.

In Europe you either have loads of different languages filling chat, or leave the auto-block on so that you can’t hear them, but then you also can’t hear the many multilingual people there are out there who choose to speak English. This affects maps but also boss fights because it now creates confusion or a lack of communication.

Map-chat is now more filled with grief/arguing.

Bosses are now on a schedule, (which was only brought in because of the Megaservers) this has many bad effects. People play an event chain, and if it isn’t the right time of day there will be no boss to fight at the end of the chain, new comers might not even know there was meant to be a boss so will just be left with a ‘story’ with a crap/weird ending.

Because of the boss schedule some people now only get to fight one boss a day, the same boss every day of the week as they have their own lives and only get a certain amount of time online.

These big boss fights are now just lag fests, causing many people to have low frame rates and many people are complaining about being disconnected.

Because there are so many people fighting these bosses, a lot of people are not getting any reward.

Also the two things you mentioned, guilds not being able to join up to do guild quests, and friends not being able to get on the same maps.

RP’ers have now lost their friendly environment and now are instead subjected to abuse and ridicule.

Longer loading times because of the increase of people (minor, but a problem that wasn’t there before.)

All sense of community has gone, people cannot recruit for WvW because they are not sure if the person is actually from their server or not.

There is now a hell of a lot more gold spammers, everyone who has mentioned this has said it has only increased since the introduction of Megaservers.

Many people chose less populated worlds because they enjoyed playing with less people or because their PC’s could not handle too many people on the maps. Now their choice is gone, where before, the people who complained of dead maps could at least guest to more populated servers.

So yeah, this has damaged the game for a lot of people and made it feel horrible for them. I’ve actually stopped playing this game now (I’ve moved on to another MMO but still check in case they see the error of their ways) because of the traits but mainly because of what is listed above. I wouldn’t call it a problem solved, that would be like burning your house down so you don’t get any more spiders lol, you’ve solved the spider problem but erm…

Some people may have wanted maps more filled, but they did not ask for all of the above.

Lostyus. Guild wars 2 is a MMO. Most complaints you listed are a result of playing with a large amount of people. What exactly were you expecting?

Of the points that weren’t:

Multiple languages – A flaw in the sorting algorithm for selecting your map. This isn’t an inherent problem with megaservers, its just something that needs fixing.

World Bosses – The problem you raised is easily fixed, if need be, by simply having the bosses spawn at different times each day. But even then, is this a real issue? The megabosses can be spawned manually by a guild. The other bosses are loot pinatas that are basically interchangeable. If you’re missing out on fighting a specific boss that you really enjoy for some reason, then I sympathise, but that’s a tiny price to pay for encountering actual players in an MMO. Maybe try and kill it at the weekends if you can.

RPers – I sympathise with the most, but take up a tiny fraction of the community. I think cities should be server based, for this reason. But beyond that, unless the server system could handle a way to opt in and out of the system, this is a genuine sacrifice that hurts few to help many.

WvW recruitment – Do it in WvW. This isn’t even a consideration regarding improving the PvE side of the game. If you absolutely need to spam recruitment in PvE, specify your sever in the message. Again though, I think cities should be server specific, including LA when it comes back.

Gold spammers – I have no idea if this relates to the megaservers or not. But as far as I can tell, it seems related to hub areas, specifically the Vigil Keep. When LA returns, and if cities are server specific, this issue would hopefully go away.

So again, the comparison seems to me both unfair and unhelpful. The megaservers, while implemented in a way that needed the dev team not to fly off to China immediately afterwards, were implemented for a reason, and at the request of a large part of the playerbase. The trait system was implemented in a way that goes counter to the stated reasons for putting it in, and after no one asking for it. It would also be much, much easier to fix.

Allow me to sum up the BRILLIANCE of this horrible new trait unlock system:

Master of Consecrations- Earn 100% completion in Frostgorge Sound.

An Adept Level (Unlocked at level 30) Major trait is unlocked by map completing a level 80 zone… How is this meaningful character progression? It forces new players to waste skill points they don’t have to unlock important traits that are otherwise off limits because of the unlock requirement. Or, they’ll ignore it until they’re a higher level and can actually unlock it, which hinders build diversity and effectiveness. Most, presumably, will opt for the former option.

What’s the point of this system if so many (not all, but a lot) of the trait unlock requirements make people go, “kitten it, I’ll just buy it from the vendor.”?

It gets worse. Speedy Kits is valuable for Engineers, a profession that relies on manouvrability. It is in the same place, Line 5 Skill 6.

Tentonhammr.7849:

What’s the point of this system if so many (not all, but a lot) of the trait unlock requirements make people go, “kitten it, I’ll just buy it from the vendor.”?

To make us pay for stuff that we used to get for free.

If they would roll back the entire trait update and redo it all using skills instead I believe it would go a lot better. Using SP and gold or special event unlock for skills while leaving the old trait system alone and adding all new traits to the list for free is the way to go. Traits are to important to the leveling process it doesn’t make sense what they have done. Its like a dev that knew what he was talking about mentioned it to his boss that didn’t know jackkitten and his boss mixed up traits and skills and then pushed the wrong thing through. I believe that if they had used skills instead of traits, even with attaching such a huge cost for purchasing the skills this thread would not exist.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Lostyus. Guild wars 2 is a MMO. Most complaints you listed are a result of playing with a large amount of people. What exactly were you expecting?

Really? So all is normal, and if a game has a lot of people all these things are normal and as the game intended?!

The game was not like this before, now it is. You are trying to trivialise how the game now is. There is no use for any other button other than auto-attack, as I said you don’t need to dodge or anything, that isn’t how the game was, it was once fun, now it is nothing more than a faceroll all the time. They haven’t added more people, they’ve crammed everyone in to to few a servers. There is nothing fun about combat now.

Multiple languages – A flaw in the sorting algorithm for selecting your map. This isn’t an inherent problem with megaservers, its just something that needs fixing.

It is a problem of the Devs thinking this mega server would work as well in Europe as in the US, or maybe they just didn’t think. You seem to think it’s just algorithms but how can this system work in the EU? They are counting the EU as one part so people will be mixed from all over, all speaking many different languages, this cannot be sorted by tweaking the algorithms, because either you just won’t be able to hear the non native speaker’s (as is now) or each country would have its own area/server, which isn’t what Anet wants with its Megaservers as they want us packed in like sardines.

World Bosses – The problem you raised is easily fixed, if need be, by simply having the bosses spawn at different times each day. But even then, is this a real issue? The megabosses can be spawned manually by a guild. The other bosses are loot pinatas that are basically interchangeable. If you’re missing out on fighting a specific boss that you really enjoy for some reason, then I sympathise, but that’s a tiny price to pay for encountering actual players in an MMO. Maybe try and kill it at the weekends if you can.

It is a major problem for people who took Anets motto of ‘’play how you want’’ and played it their way, now they can’t. It might not be a problem for you but it is for them an it wasn’t like this before the MS. Only big guilds can afford to spawn the bosses, small guilds and people not in a guild still do matter and their choice is gone. You can try to simplify things all you want, but each ‘fix’ is part of the whole.

RPers – I sympathise with the most, but take up a tiny fraction of the community. I think cities should be server based, for this reason. But beyond that, unless the server system could handle a way to opt in and out of the system, this is a genuine sacrifice that hurts few to help many.

WvW recruitment – Do it in WvW. This isn’t even a consideration regarding improving the PvE side of the game. If you absolutely need to spam recruitment in PvE, specify your sever in the message. Again though, I think cities should be server specific, including LA when it comes back.

Gold spammers – I have no idea if this relates to the megaservers or not. But as far as I can tell, it seems related to hub areas, specifically the Vigil Keep. When LA returns, and if cities are server specific, this issue would hopefully go away.

So again, the comparison seems to me both unfair and unhelpful. The megaservers, while implemented in a way that needed the dev team not to fly off to China immediately afterwards, were implemented for a reason, and at the request of a large part of the playerbase. The trait system was implemented in a way that goes counter to the stated reasons for putting it in, and after no one asking for it. It would also be much, much easier to fix.[/quote]

People might have asked for more in a map but I don’t think they wanted to be in areas packed this tight, try going over to the Megaserver thread and reading the complaints there.

Also I thought this was the MS thread and I’ve taken it well off topic so I’ll leave it there. I’m not doing this to have the last word, but this could carry on for a while as you seemed to skip over most stuff and trivialize the rest of what I’ve mentioned. I do think you put these opinions to the people in that thread though.

Right, I’m kind of late to the party here – see, I have a level 80 Engineer, who’s been level 80 for a year.
I started a Ranger, and leveled them to 30, just recently (only reaching 30 last night). This was the first time I actually saw the unlock requirements, and…really?
More approachable, this is supposed to be?
I will probably never play this Ranger again, because this is absurd.
Here are my trait choices at level 36, if I don’t buy any, and actually try to unlock them at level-appropriate times:

• Signet Mastery (Marksmanship)
• Keen Edge (Marksmanship)
• Pet’s Prowess (Skirmishing)
• Shared Anguish (Wilderness Survival)
• Nature’s Bounty (Nature Magic)

I haven’t counted WvW unlocks, despite their level-nebulous nature. This is because I abhor WvW as a whole, and every single time I enter it, I’m greeted with the Outmanned ‘buff,’ which does wonders for resolving that pesky “Hey, let’s try WvW” thing. Capturing these points, while Outmanned, while every single lowbie in the game needs to do exactly the same thing if they don’t want to buy the trait? Not likely to happen.

I also only checked ‘level appropriate’ by ‘This area caps at level 36 or less,’ so there might be a small margin of error.

Anyway, let’s look at my build ‘options,’ at this point:
Marksmanship offers two choices, Power and Condition Duration: +20% Signet Recharge Speed, and Sharpening Stone on Player-to-Enemy<75% HP hit.
Skirmishing offers one, Critical Chance and Ferocity: Pets deal more critical hit damage.
Wilderness Survival offers one, Toughness and Condition Damage: Pets take your crowd-control conditions.
Nature Magic offers one, Vitality and Boon Duration: Regeneration you apply lasts 33% longer.
Beastmastery offers none, Healing Power and Pet Attribute Bonus.

Obviously, I’ll go Marksmanship – sure, I can reset my traits, but I still have to consider my gear and its synergy with my traits. It also seems like Marksmanship’s traits would be far more useful in PvE. So, here I am, I’ve gone Marksmanship.
Power gear it is; I’m obviously encouraged to use Signets, by the dearth of choices, so I will…despite actually wanting to get Master’s Bond as my first trait, because I’d rather not just buy the manual, and 100% Frostgorge Sound at level 36 is a stubborn fool’s errand.

And this system was supposed to encourage meaningful character growth? I don’t find slogging through badly-considered unlock requirements until I’ve finally obtained the ability to make the choice I’d wanted to make all along meaningful, fun, encouraging or approachable.
Having to slog through levels 1-29 without having anything except for utility skills and gear I hesitated to craft until I could see the requirements for trait unlocks, I also didn’t find approachable or feel like it improved pacing of the game – I felt like it hurt it, in fact, and if I were a new player, I wouldn’t just be quitting right now.
I’d be asking for a refund, and that’s not an exaggeration.

Here, let me explain:
It was a wholly unsatisfactory, grindy experience leveling this new character from 1-30, and frustrating to discover that I’d have a grand total of five traits I could pick from if I didn’t just buy them from the trainer, like the requirements of the rest of the traits seem intended to encourage.
From 1-29, I couldn’t even pick a set of gear to start crafting, because it’s impossible to check the trait unlock requirements until 30, making choosing a build to go for very, very difficult indeed.
Then I hit 30. My character has 0 Tier 3 skills unlocked, one Elite Skill unlocked, and the only alternative to these absurd trait unlock requirements is to spend skill points that will continue to be required for unlocking skills until about level 60, if I recall my Engineer’s progress properly.
If I didn’t already have a level 80, in fact, I would’ve stopped playing at level 25 or earlier, because it’s simply not particularly fun to level a character who can’t even be built in any meaningful way except for skill, weapon and pet choices.

Well, I won’t be advising anyone to buy new character slots, and I’m glad I didn’t buy any in the last sale. My new alts are officially going to be running around without traits until level 80, and then I’ll only get the ones I need for my build. If the intention with free trait resets was to allow for more build diversity, that has failed horribly.

If you’re going to have 100% zone completes unlocking things, at least have it unlock all the adept traits in a certain line. Having it unlock a single trait is just punitive, especially when it’s high level zones for low level traits. This is just SO. BAD. And has anyone done the math on the cost in gold and skillpoints to unlock all the traits at the vendor? I want to say it’s around 450 skillpoints and 100g per character.

Ah, I see the issue Lostyus. We’re talking at cross purposes. I wouldn’t trivialise the issues with megaservers in a megaserver thread. My concern here is that I don’t want the complaints about traits (which are problematic on every level) to be taken as a general “players are never happy” by mixing them up with megaservers (which are problematic, but not in the same fundamental way).

I’m cautiously optimistic about the changes thus far.

Guhracie.3419:

I’m cautiously optimistic about the changes thus far.

As am I. It looks like they are moving in the right direction on some of this. Kudos to listening to us about the map completion=low level trait stuff. Now about some of the other reqs that might be a bit wonky and we might be in a good place. Thank you.

Here’s my idea for it
Start traits at level 11 again
Add one more tier to make it so that people can continue to add traits through level 80
Keep unlocks but have them be stuff that is more relevant to levels

Guhracie.3419:

Well, I won’t be advising anyone to buy new character slots, and I’m glad I didn’t buy any in the last sale. My new alts are officially going to be running around without traits until level 80, and then I’ll only get the ones I need for my build. If the intention with free trait resets was to allow for more build diversity, that has failed horribly.

If you’re going to have 100% zone completes unlocking things, at least have it unlock all the adept traits in a certain line. Having it unlock a single trait is just punitive, especially when it’s high level zones for low level traits. This is just SO. BAD. And has anyone done the math on the cost in gold and skillpoints to unlock all the traits at the vendor? I want to say it’s around 450 skillpoints and 100g per character.

Did the math. Unless I’ve made an error (which is entirely possible):
10s 2sp x30 [3g, 60sp] Adept
50s 5sp x20 [10g, 100sp] Master
1.5g 10sp x8 [12g, 80sp] Old Grandmaster
3g 20sp x5 [15g, 100sp] New Grandmaster

Totals up to 40g, 340sp.

I agree that moving the first trait gain back to level 11 would be a huge positive change, because the new back-loaded model makes levelling less fun and versatile and gives people less time to experiment before hitting 80.

Still, I’m very glad for those new changes to the Adept unlocks. It’s a big improvement from the high(er) level zone completion nonsense.

dislike:

- traits start now with lvl 30 my idea: lvl 10
- two way system either champ or pay my ideas: buy with karma from renown hearts, events, dailies, monthlies, other champs, veterans and elites…
- still to many useless and/or misplaced traits and/or trait lines e. g. Inner_Fire from "When you are set on fire, you gain fury. " to “When you set a foe on fire, you gain fury.”

This is a good start to fixing the level gating for trait unlocks. The Lyssa fix is really helpful, thank you! Also, thank you for dropping the map completes for the impossible zones.

General comments:
Perhaps having PvE alternatives for the WvW unlocks would be nice? Especially the Obsidian Sanctum. Yes, I know I can buy it super cheap for money and skills (10 silver, 2 sk or something low?) but I like adventuring. Other people might too. Conversely, make a complete set of WvW unlocks for those that never do PvE.

Personal Story levels for Adept unlocks maybe should be adjusted downward another set? Start when a character chooses their order and go up to the discovery of Zhaitan’s scout?

Dungeon unlocks: the player attitude around dungeons is quite unfriendly, in my personal opinion. Having a third alternative (or fourth, if WvW alternatives become viable) would be lovely. Wish list for the future.

I personally would like to see a wider range of unlocks with less specificity along the lines of “complete one commune skill challenge in each of the six regions of Ascalon” or something. That would feel more like “progressing,” rather than checking off a list of sights to see.

Some specific traits to look at:

Line 3, IV – Victurus the Shattered, level 58. Probably still too high for an Adept.
Line 4, VI – Krait Witch in Timberline, level 60. Certainly too high, since this fight is actually kind of hard.
Line 4, X – Source of Orr, level 80. Yes, it’s a Master level trait, but this is deep in the level 80 series of the personal story. It’s also the only level 80 Master unlock. Consider swapping it with Line 4, XI – Honor of the Waves or making it a different personal story step.

On the other hand;

Line 2, VII – Windy Cave chest, level 30-something.
Line 4, IX – Dredge Commissar, level 50.
Line 5, IX – Taidha Covington, also level 50.
All of these would be better served as Adept unlocks instead of Master unlocks perhaps?

Karka Queen still needs more spawns per day if you’re going to have a chance of unlocking that trait as well.

TL;DR – Good emergency measures. In the months to come, I hope to see more evolution on this system.

GuzziHero.2467:

ArchonWing.9480:

Absolute trash. Why am I being gated from every trait?

Because, thanks to Anet, ‘Once you reach the appropriate level, we want you to be able to dive right into the system and start playing around with it’. Locking some away behind level 80 zones, and dungeons where parties insist you are “lvl 80 zerk war or gtfo” allows you to access new traits more easily!

Also, ‘As part of this approach to making traits more approachable, we’ve pushed back the level at which the different trait tiers unlock for new characters’. Apparently traits are more approachable, when you have to wait longer for them!

But remember, ‘Acquiring traits will be a horizontal progression system’. Completing a level 80 zone to acquire a trait you have access to at level 30 sure is horizontal! Just curl the top and tail of the 3 around to the centre and it becomes an 8! See – horizontal!

[/sarcasm]

((All quotes taken from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/ ))

It is indeed shocking how they could use these words to describe this. If they had only kept the system to the new traits, then it would be horizontal progression.

But this is nothing but vertical progression. A bit more polished, but a polished kitten is just a kitten . And vertical progression is like a poison to this game. At least the ascended stuff is just 5-10% at most and can be considered optional. Not having most of your traits is crippling, is an unneeded roadblock to build diversity, and while the gold costs aren’t critical to established players, it sure would be terrible to a new player atm.

It’s not like rolling alts was disadvantageous enough. It’s also not like they’re perceiving that most content is centered around 80s.

I wish I could joke about this, but this along with the megaserver has been a disaster. I did not pay for this game to become a beta tester for whatever gimmicks they’ve come up with. Requiring high level zone completion for adept traits? What kind of organic progression is this? I’m more inclined that they were throwing darts to figure out unlocks, because thinking that a sentient life form would have come up with this is insulting to all life forms that exist. Though at least the new patch notes have shown some progress….

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Tentonhammr.7849:

What’s the point of this system if so many (not all, but a lot) of the trait unlock requirements make people go, “kitten it, I’ll just buy it from the vendor.”?

To make us pay for stuff that we used to get for free.

If they would roll back the entire trait update and redo it all using skills instead I believe it would go a lot better. Using SP and gold or special event unlock for skills while leaving the old trait system alone and adding all new traits to the list for free is the way to go. Traits are to important to the leveling process it doesn’t make sense what they have done. Its like a dev that knew what he was talking about mentioned it to his boss that didn’t know jackkitten and his boss mixed up traits and skills and then pushed the wrong thing through. I believe that if they had used skills instead of traits, even with attaching such a huge cost for purchasing the skills this thread would not exist.

And that just nails it. Making us pay for crap that we should have already.

Anymras.5729:

Guhracie.3419:

Well, I won’t be advising anyone to buy new character slots, and I’m glad I didn’t buy any in the last sale. My new alts are officially going to be running around without traits until level 80, and then I’ll only get the ones I need for my build. If the intention with free trait resets was to allow for more build diversity, that has failed horribly.

If you’re going to have 100% zone completes unlocking things, at least have it unlock all the adept traits in a certain line. Having it unlock a single trait is just punitive, especially when it’s high level zones for low level traits. This is just SO. BAD. And has anyone done the math on the cost in gold and skillpoints to unlock all the traits at the vendor? I want to say it’s around 450 skillpoints and 100g per character.

Did the math. Unless I’ve made an error (which is entirely possible):
10s 2sp x30 [3g, 60sp] Adept
50s 5sp x20 [10g, 100sp] Master
1.5g 10sp x8 [12g, 80sp] Old Grandmaster
3g 20sp x5 [15g, 100sp] New Grandmaster

Totals up to 40g, 340sp.

Well, my estimate was high by quite a bit. Thanks for this! It’s still pretty punitive, though.