Guild Wars 2

While the changes in this latest patch smooth over the most outrageous effect of the new trait system, it does nothing to address the underlying problems:
1. Players still cannot freely access and mess around with the traits to learn them while leveling. Sure, it’s nice that the events are now level-appropriate – but my level 30 character is over fighting for Ascalon in the Fields of Ruin as a Charr, not screwing around in the Krytan Harathi Highlands where Sharky the Destroyer hangs out. Other characters in different geographical areas also have lockouts like this – We’d like to explore the lands relating to our race’s story when leveling, not the one millions of miles away.
2. Character development is still completely dead and bland between levels 10-60 – even when trait points come online at level 30, it takes too long between trait points to enjoy messing around with them. Levels 10-30 are still terrible without any chance of individualization or development at all, and dungeons come online at level 30, but you can’t run them because you lack the traits to survive or thrive. Spreading out trait point gain over the entire run intsead of doubling up after level 60 is mandatory to take this pain away.
3. Even once you start getting traits, five out of every six levels are completely dead.

If Traits are now a form of progression to pursue even after 80, I hope they ditch the gold costs, not the skill point cost. Most people, when leveling, stick to a single build progression – they buy only the most basic items they need (Of the highest quality they can afford at specific intervals), and grab only the skills that complement their build. Post-80 is when they start experimenting. Gold should be restricted to crafting and gear acquisition. Skill points are the currency of “Character Development”.

Yeah, I’m happy that the recent patch was a start, and glad we’re being listened to. But there is still a long way to go to make levelling fun again and to actually allow people to experiment with builds. My ele is currently level sixty, running one trait point in each minor adept trait, and one in a fairly useless major adept trait that I happened to pick up. This is not the way the trait system is intended to work, and it is a direct result of the changes.

Please, put the trait unlocks back to level 11, then one every 5 levels, and have the adept and master traits unlocked by default. (New adept and master traits can be added, and they can require exploration.)

With the recent patch, I was really hoping they would do the right thing to fix this terrible new system. Sadly they didn’t!

You know…..things were going so well before the China release. Makes ya wonder huh!

The change is a massive improvement.

I’m still not buying any more character slots though.

GuzziHero.2467:

The change is a massive improvement.

I’m still not buying any more character slots though.

Oh, it’s a huge improvement. If we’d gotten this on the 15th, we’d still be complaining about it, though.

See, this goes back to my original question, and why it’s such a daft frustration that Anet isn’t talking much on the forums lately:

Where the heck is Arenanet’s head on this whole issue? What are they even trying to do?

I mean, to get this level of complaint and then to pull back.. what, 10%? That’s.. huh.

So I’ve come back from a break and found my talents gone and for the characters I was leveling, I now have to earn talent points. If you enjoy dungeons and group events, then good, but I don’t. So unless I do something I don’t enjoy, I am locked out of many of these traits as far as I can tell.

Or I can spend gold…problem is that despite having several level 80’s I’d pretty much spent the last of my money getting master crafter before I took a break.

So I have a choice, farm money, or do content I don’t enjoy.

It’s WoW all over again.

This is not a dig at people who enjoy that content, I’m just not one of them.

Sartharina.3542:

While the changes in this latest patch smooth over the most outrageous effect of the new trait system, it does nothing to address the underlying problems:

Very well said. One might say that low-level characters are boring and interchangable in most any MMO because the genre pretty much has a “you don’t matter if you’re not doing ‘endgame’” stance. But that is a sorry excuse for not making an effort to change a bad feature for the better and make one’s own game distinguish itself in a positive manner. For example, competing for resource nodes was the standard, GW2 changed that, and now I don’t want to imagine playing a MMO that has players fighting over each little tree, rock or plant.

johnallen.9876:

So I’ve come back from a break and found my talents gone and for the characters I was leveling, I now have to earn talent points. If you enjoy dungeons and group events, then good, but I don’t. So unless I do something I don’t enjoy, I am locked out of many of these traits as far as I can tell.

Or I can spend gold…problem is that despite having several level 80’s I’d pretty much spent the last of my money getting master crafter before I took a break.

So I have a choice, farm money, or do content I don’t enjoy.

It’s WoW all over again.

This is not a dig at people who enjoy that content, I’m just not one of them.

This is not true, unless you’re talking about the 5 new grandmaster traits. Any characters created prior to the April 15th patch will have access to all traits as they are unlocked at the appropriate level.

Whoever decided to go ahead with this ‘new’ trait system design probably never play through with a new character! Did you devs ever test play trying to level to 80?

It is horrible! Boring! Tedious! Expensive! It left a bad taste in the mouth for old players!

Why are we forced to run all around the place doing things for every single trait skills? When I look through found a trait suitable for my play style and decided to try to earn it by completing a mission, BANG! You are too low level for it! Perhaps ok if for gm trait skills but all of them? Where’s the freedom we had before? Who thinks that paying with golds and skill points to unlock is a good alternatives? NOT ME!

I am a causal PVE player, no dungeons no wvw. Got two level 80 warriors, a Charr and a Human. Started a new Norn warrior now at level 36 pure PVE, when I realized how tedious and UNFUN it is for a new character affected by the new trait system I decided to stop playing him. Each level up with no trait points gained now feels so empty. No more creating new alternates for me! Thanks the gods I have created all eight professions(six of them level 80) BEFORE the bloody patch.

spats on floor

If we can keep the good ideas flowing then we might also get to see some of them implemented for the up coming patches. They obviously heard and possibly even experienced the issues with tying some of them to high level map completions so there’s hope.

I’m hoping that the change to adept trait unlocks is proof of them listening, and merely a ‘stopgap’ as they try to reconcile the ease and longevity of the new system with the fun in leveling of the old one. I’m hoping that it’s NOT a case of them completely missing the point of the complaints and just latching onto the single most offensive point… or worse, an attempt to stifle complaints by taking away the old, going overboard with terrible on the new, and reeling back just enough to the point people are terrified/grateful that it’s not as bad as it was.

I’m glad that attempts at fixing the trait system are moving forward, but I can’t help but feel that the changes in the May 20th patch are ultimately too little, too late.

Personally, I think that if the changes to improve trait acquisition had been combined with fixes to the level distribution of trait points or another major change then I’d be feel like things are moving in the right direction. As it stands right now, it seems like anet is going with the minimum possible to appease the players. Of course, it’s possible more changes are coming and I suppose I could interpret the recent patch as the first of many to come, but then why haven’t the plans to fix these issues been communicated? The trait system, and character progression by extension, has been fundamentally broken and needs major fixes, not minor tweaks.

While I’d love to see a major fix rolled out right away or even a rollback to the previous system, I don’t actually expect that to happen. I understand these things take time. What I don’t understand is the lack of communication. Maybe I just missed it, but I haven’t seen any anet replies in the forums or blog posts to the issues raised in this thread, and sure if there was any official communication then someone here would be talking about it.

A lot of people, including myself, have already talked about the issues with the trait changes in this thread. But, I don’t feel like I’ve fully expressed how upsetting this change really is for me. So, for whatever it’s worth, here goes.

When I first got GW2, not too long before the April 15th patch dropped, I fell in love with the game. The heart system and exploration is wonderful. I love the events and joining random people to complete them (an aspect of the game which the megaservers hurt more than help IMO). Everything about the game was accessible and fun. I even enjoy WvW even though I’m usually strictly a PvE player in most MMOs.

I always felt that the character progression, which is easily my favorite aspect of RPGs, was lacking. But, that was easy to overlook with so many other great aspects of the game and for the most part the trait system was enough to hold the progression together.

The trait changes, for reasons already explained in this thread, completely broke the character progression. It felt like an assault against my enjoyment of the game. Luckily, I had some low level characters grandfathered in so I didn’t have to hunt for traits, but even still, leveling up is almost unenjoyable now.

I’ve been patient. I’ve tried to play with the new trait system. But it’s doesn’t work and my patience is running out. I really want to wait for this to be fixed and continue enjoying the game, but I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to just be done. And frankly, after this experience I’m starting to think I’m almost ready to be done with any NCSoft games. Which is a shame since I was looking forward to trying upcoming games, but not if those games are going to have the same lack of direction and poor implementations we’re seeing right now.

While I’m ranting, let me ask the question that’s been on my mind: why hasn’t anyone been fired over this? I know that would sure make me feel better even if it doesn’t actually fix the problems. Just to clarify – I’m not suggesting that anet should find a scapegoat. But, honestly, if this trait system was someone’s “brainchild” then that someone should not be working on this game anymore.

I know this post may be hyperbolic. But I can’t think of any other way to express how angry I am. I’ve never been this upset over a videogame before. It’s like I’m in a bait and switch marriage and I’m just stuck hoping the person I’m with will change back to the person I fell in love with in the first place.

Anet, please just communicate with your customers and let us know what the hell is going on!
I’m going to hang on for a little longer and hope that there will be some good news soon.

While I think reducing the number of trait points was a good idea (was anyone putting like 13 or 27 points in trait line?), like many people I don’t like the new unlock trait system. For two reasons.

One, as a player who’s soon gonna reach lvl 30 with my engineer, I have better things to do than go to the other side of Kryta to defeat mobs to unlock traits that interest me. Not to mention that at least one trait requires me to capture a location inside a WvW map, which is unacceptable. WvW and PvP should NEVER be a prerequisite for anything since some people want nothing to do with that. If Anet plans to make GW2 a PvP oriented game I’d like them to let us know so I can free some space on my hard-drive.

Two, traits are supposed to be core profession improvements that help us survive / support / kill. As such they are invaluable tools for every player whatever their play-style and their level. Traits (like any sort of skill or “expertise” in any MMORPG I’ve played) are a means to an end, yet this new unlock system turned traits into rewards, which are an end in themselves.

Maybe these points have already been made but it won’t hurt to make sure Anet gets the message.

TBH I dont think people putting odd numbers of points in trait lines is that much of a problem. You still get benefit from it and most people, even stupid ones like me, tend to min-max.

Having said that, I dont have a problem with consolidating 70pts to 14. Its the lvl 30-60 change and the means of accessing traits that I find unpalatable.

As others have pointed out, I’m please they rescinded the full-map-completion requirements for trait unlocks, but … it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t address the issues of the leveling slog, the push to endgame and the disparagement of new or low-level players in groups, the drudgery of doing content you don’t like, the very penalizing costs of paying for trait unlocks, and the lack of trait flexibility.

Anet really messed up a good system. These are issues they need to fix.

Personally, I would like to see them “give away” a freebie starter trait in each trait line. I don’t care if it’s a useless trait; getting something would feel better than reaching 80 before getting anything.

Isley.1649:

I have better things to do than go to the other side of Kryta to defeat mobs to unlock traits that interest me.

Then just buy the trait. A few gold/skill points really isn’t that much, you know. Yeah, if you buy every single trait then it’ll cost a lot, but just decide on a build beforehand and stick to it. Assuming you’ve been completing the skill challenges in each map, you should have plenty of points to spare by the time you reach 30.
It’s fairly obvious that the main purpose of the new system is to get rid of excess skill points, after all.

DelusionsOfGrandeur.9287:

Then just buy the trait. A few gold/skill points really isn’t that much, you know. Yeah, if you buy every single trait then it’ll cost a lot, but just decide on a build beforehand and stick to it. Assuming you’ve been completing the skill challenges in each map, you should have plenty of points to spare by the time you reach 30.
It’s fairly obvious that the main purpose of the new system is to get rid of excess skill points, after all.

While I’m still at a loss as to what the actual reasoning was behind the changes (and even more confused as to why it still hasn’t been explained), I would like to think that ANet wouldn’t ruin the leveling experience and build diversity to reduce the number of skill points people have. New mystic forge recipes would do that, as would allowing people to buy certain items with skill points.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

DelusionsOfGrandeur.9287:

Then just buy the trait. A few gold/skill points really isn’t that much, you know. Yeah, if you buy every single trait then it’ll cost a lot, but just decide on a build beforehand and stick to it. Assuming you’ve been completing the skill challenges in each map, you should have plenty of points to spare by the time you reach 30.
It’s fairly obvious that the main purpose of the new system is to get rid of excess skill points, after all.

While I’m still at a loss as to what the actual reasoning was behind the changes (and even more confused as to why it still hasn’t been explained), I would like to think that ANet wouldn’t ruin the leveling experience and build diversity to reduce the number of skill points people have. New mystic forge recipes would do that, as would allowing people to buy certain items with skill points.

New characters are not going to have any excess skill points to spare. I’ve got 1 at 52, 1 at 57 and 1 at 61 and they don’t have any excess skill points yet. Still saving for some of the elite skills that I want.

If their main reason for this new system is so they can get more money from players buying their traits then they will probably not come out and say so. They’d give some nonsensical reason like they did – to encourage build diversity. This new system does the opposite so either they don’t know what they’re doing or they’re lying.

Lazuli.2098:

…
If their main reason for this new system is so they can get more money from players buying their traits then they will probably not come out and say so. They’d give some nonsensical reason like they did – to encourage build diversity. This new system does the opposite so either they don’t know what they’re doing or they’re lying.

Exactly.

To me it just seems like they have their Asian market now, so they’re not bothered about what happens. Or as someone else said on this forum, they’re trying to destroy the game to make room on their servers for their new game.

Yeah that may sound far fetched, but I’m finding it very hard to understand why they have made such massive, game altering changes, that seem to have damaged the game so much.

Lostyus.4250:

Lazuli.2098:

…
If their main reason for this new system is so they can get more money from players buying their traits then they will probably not come out and say so. They’d give some nonsensical reason like they did – to encourage build diversity. This new system does the opposite so either they don’t know what they’re doing or they’re lying.

Exactly.

To me it just seems like they have their Asian market now, so they’re not bothered about what happens. Or as someone else said on this forum, they’re trying to destroy the game to make room on their servers for their new game.

Yeah that may sound far fetched, but I’m finding it very hard to understand why they have made such massive, game altering changes, that seem to have damaged the game so much.

i think they redesigned the game for the asian market, and keeping in mind some of the complaints people had, however. Then they tried to unify the game a bit more so they dont have to redevelop constantly.

as far as listening to the complaints, they kind of went in a drastic version of the direction, and put an end game progression plan into place for regular leveling. If they were going to make traits come with challenges, it should have been solo oriented, and trait specific.
but really the system would be better placed for high end new skills. But even then i think it should be more tailor made to the skills it would unlock.

i know they like keeping players together, but some things are personal, and if they had to do it, they could have made helping another person get their special skills give a portion of what the alternative means of achieving the skill is.
lets say its gold and skill points, then helping a player get em, gives you a portion towards that, say it was a 2 silver 2 skillpoint unlock, you get .5 silver and one skillpoint for helping.

Lazuli.2098:

If their main reason for this new system is so they can get more money from players buying their traits then they will probably not come out and say so. They’d give some nonsensical reason like they did – to encourage build diversity. This new system does the opposite so either they don’t know what they’re doing or they’re lying.

Not saying that this is the case, but if your business model is such that you can’t honestly admit how you make $ (and let’s be fair, it’s a business, it has to make money), then I respectfully submit you should rethink your business model.

For example, I sell things all the time for my business.
I have no problem with my customers finding out how much I’m making on the sale, in fact I’ll tell them flat-out if they ask. I think it’s a fair amount, and it’s therefore not really negotiable. If they don’t like it, I don’t desperately need them as a customer (although I don’t put it so bluntly).

Businesses/people that have to hide how they make money are, ultimately, ashamed of what they’re doing, IMO.

What new game is ArenaNet working on? NCsoft is the publisher, but not developer or server-operator. Anet needs to keep their game as profitable as possible to not get the entire studio cut by NCsoft to make room for a new development team.

Sartharina.3542:

What new game is ArenaNet working on? NCsoft is the publisher, but not developer or server-operator. Anet needs to keep their game as profitable as possible to not get the entire studio cut by NCsoft to make room for a new development team.

actually i think they are working on a new game.
A lot of big names arent actively working on GW2 but they apparently still work at anet. a while back there was some concept art for a game that could not be gw2 on the net. it would also explain their constant struggle for resources, even though they clearly have people who’s job it is.

And gw2, at least last quarter wasnt doing that badly, although i feel like they may have lost a bit of NA/EU money they now increased royalties.
sooo they probably arent in crisis, yet, and they probably are working on something else.

an additional trait preset system would be really nice. it would really improve QoL in game, and would be a great new feature.

Simply vote with your wallet if you’re against the change, there’s no other way. (over a month already, 22 pages, no change but a pathetic bandaid)

Sooner or later they’ll realize what horrible mistake it was to implement these changes or see their active players and new accounts decrease.

First of all, I have 13 level 80’s and 3 with map completion. So, I decided to make a new alt just to see what this new trait system was like. It is a total grind. Anet has gone far from their original stance that GW2 isn’t a grind like other games… really?! I am at level 40 now and unless I want to purchase traits with gold and skill points it’s even more of a grind.

I really have no idea what they were thinking to incorporate this new system. I love the fact that you can change traits at will. I would have much preferred to continue paying for that “service” than to deal with this new trait unlock system. Frankly, I’ve been there done that over and over and this seems so redundant.

As for the new player, I wonder how they can afford to purchase traits and farming them in PvE seems pretty hopeless. I definitely hope that there will be a correction in this system for both new and old players.

I love GW1 and 2 but at this point I am strongly considering finding a new game to play. So many of my guildies have moved on to other games its not even funny.

The traits unlock is real NIGHTMARE for me! Remove this bullkitten kitten! To unlock adept trait at around lvl 35 I need to complete lvl 55 personal story? SERIOUSLY? Complete 100% map on the other end of the world? Mix WvW/PvP with PvE?

NO! I have 5 max level characters and I just started making the last class that seems fun but with this system I will probably just quit playing and check back a few months later if this nonsense is removed.

Are you blind Anet?

GuzziHero.2467:

TBH I dont think people putting odd numbers of points in trait lines is that much of a problem. You still get benefit from it and most people, even stupid ones like me, tend to min-max.

Having said that, I dont have a problem with consolidating 70pts to 14. Its the lvl 30-60 change and the means of accessing traits that I find unpalatable.

Fair enough, although that requires the use of earning points with level gaps, I stopped playing because i don’t wanna grind for 5 levels to get 1 point (5points) i enjoyed the single skill point given each time i leveled, it makes you feel like your progressing more and the extra 10 points it adds to a trait line makes a small but good difference.

They should not have """""Fixed"""""" something that was never broken. Horrible move made by Anet, i hope they lose more players, i know I’ve stopped recommending the game. They went back on their no Grind rule…so yep….stupid. Should re roll and start fresh.

Just watching forums to see if they fix it.

So I started a new character for the first time since the update.
It’s such a boring experience. The thing I loved the most about the game was how much fun I had levelling. The game started at level 10, instead of level 80.

Now it’s a complete grind, like every other generic f2p mmo, and that makes me sad. I don’t know who could possibly have thought pushing traits back to 30 was a good idea.

They need a player council for these things they really do. 10 members at least all from different gameplay types tPVP WvW Open World PVE Dungeoneers and RP so that these people can be on the special test server to see the new content before the rest of the playerbase and give feedback on the changes.

It’s a necessity at this point especially if you’re not going to do the PTR thing and here’s a great example of why. The XIII traits were added to help with diversity issues in the game but they are still frozen only under certain trait lines. They need to float if they are ever going to be considered additions to the build diversity of a class, they can still remain grandemaster, but allow them to be placed in any line so that players can use them how they wish for whichever purpose they need them for. This would for example, allow a bomb healer engineer to be able to make use of Bunker Down and still retain the score of toughness and healing that he needs from the lines appropriate to that build. A player council would have been able to tell them this prior to launching the patch, just like they would have been able to tell them about why putting lockouts to the three columns in really high level zones is a bad idea.

As someone who gets no enjoyment from grinding the same content over and over zerging, dungeons, or group events but still managed to get 5 level 80’s I have to say…

I don’t know as I ever had 40g on my characters at any one time.
What this appears to amount to is a great big nerf to anyone who might be a tad introverted and doesn’t want to be surrounded by people all of the time. Which was the way I ‘play your own way’.

I have no problem with people who love being surrounded by a bunch of strangers all the time, but for me, I had 2 or 3 rl friends I played with or I solo played. So dungeons weren’t really on the cards and group events weren’t very fun for me.
I enjoyed the open world, I enjoyed the variance within which we could do our own thing. Get new gear by crafting, dungeons, random drops, zerg trains, it didn’t matter.

Now I won’t be able to even get all my traits. That’s not the game I purchased, it’s not the game I spent way too many gems buying character slots to play, and yea, I’m a little disappointed by this.

I hear that there are people in Orr again though, doing the events again, and I think that’s great. So i guess if you enjoy large group play, then this is a positive change, and I would never try to force you to play my play-style. If you’re someone like me, then this is a big downgrade.

johnallen.9876:

As someone who gets no enjoyment from grinding the same content over and over zerging, dungeons, or group events but still managed to get 5 level 80’s I have to say…

I don’t know as I ever had 40g on my characters at any one time.
What this appears to amount to is a great big nerf to anyone who might be a tad introverted and doesn’t want to be surrounded by people all of the time. Which was the way I ‘play your own way’.

I have no problem with people who love being surrounded by a bunch of strangers all the time, but for me, I had 2 or 3 rl friends I played with or I solo played. So dungeons weren’t really on the cards and group events weren’t very fun for me.
I enjoyed the open world, I enjoyed the variance within which we could do our own thing. Get new gear by crafting, dungeons, random drops, zerg trains, it didn’t matter.

Now I won’t be able to even get all my traits. That’s not the game I purchased, it’s not the game I spent way too many gems buying character slots to play, and yea, I’m a little disappointed by this.

I hear that there are people in Orr again though, doing the events again, and I think that’s great. So i guess if you enjoy large group play, then this is a positive change, and I would never try to force you to play my play-style. If you’re someone like me, then this is a big downgrade.

I’m pretty much exactly in the same position. It absolutely sucks that they did this to game. No other word for it, it just sucks. Traits shouldn’t be locked behind dungeons or story or wvw.

If they want traits to be unlocked in this system, then traits should have an option in all modes: dungeon, story, open world, wvw. Then a player who loves dungeons can just unlock traits via dungeons, the content they like to play. A Wvwer can unlock them in WvW, content they like to play. And so on.

But ANet only cares about forcing (they say “encouraging”) players into other game modes so they can undoubtedly hype up their game in the next interview with RPS or IGN:

“In April we saw a dramatic increase in players participating in WvW. This is how you can tell we’re really improving the WvW experience for players and they’re loving it. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, we have a lot more “improvements” to that mode to get even more players “interested” in playing it"

I think many posters on this forum are being very single minded in that players who started playing GW2 before this system began got accustomed to all the traits being handed to us with no real sense of accomplishment in getting them and now with many of us rolling alts it feels like a “grind” to go through this system. Think about this though… If you were a brand new player it would be fantastic to go through this and have that sense of accomplishment rather than roll through all the content and in a game like this one that doest really have a treadmill gear grind that sense of accomplishment could go a long way…

Achrisos.1360:

I think many posters on this forum are being very single minded in that players who started playing GW2 before this system began got accustomed to all the traits being handed to us with no real sense of accomplishment in getting them and now with many of us rolling alts it feels like a “grind” to go through this system. Think about this though… If you were a brand new player it would be fantastic to go through this and have that sense of accomplishment rather than roll through all the content and in a game like this one that doest really have a treadmill gear grind that sense of accomplishment could go a long way…

I will agree that some of us used to the old system do feel as though the new system is a grind. And I will concede that a new player may not have that same experience.

However, after that first time through unlocking the traits for their main, do you not believe they will think twice about completing the exact same unlocks for a new alt? Do you really see this move as contributing to build diversity? And as new players do you think they will have the funds and skill points to help with the process?

If it were me I’d be perusing forums and other sites to find the best build for the class I was playing and put all effort into unlocking only those traits. If I was having fun somewhere and unlocked others, great, but I’d not be hunting them all down and especially not if I’d done it all before for a main character.
But that’s just me and this is only my $0.02.

Achrisos.1360:

I think many posters on this forum are being very single minded in that players who started playing GW2 before this system began got accustomed to all the traits being handed to us with no real sense of accomplishment in getting them and now with many of us rolling alts it feels like a “grind” to go through this system. Think about this though… If you were a brand new player it would be fantastic to go through this and have that sense of accomplishment rather than roll through all the content and in a game like this one that doest really have a treadmill gear grind that sense of accomplishment could go a long way…

Totally agree.

I have rerolled a new alt (got all classes to lv80 before patch) to try the trait system which i hate the class originally. Amazingly, lots of new experience and this make me like this class A LOT. Because of the new trait system, many contents was generally ignored by players has been revived. When i was leveling, i found new events that i never met with my 8 lv80 during their leveling. So i decided to take a look, a mini underwater dungeon, met some other players, we take down the underwater boss, and bang new trait unlocked. Thats a very very nice experience that never happens before.

So i maybe the minority that actually love this update.

Crossaber.8934:

Achrisos.1360:

I think many posters on this forum are being very single minded in that players who started playing GW2 before this system began got accustomed to all the traits being handed to us with no real sense of accomplishment in getting them and now with many of us rolling alts it feels like a “grind” to go through this system. Think about this though… If you were a brand new player it would be fantastic to go through this and have that sense of accomplishment rather than roll through all the content and in a game like this one that doest really have a treadmill gear grind that sense of accomplishment could go a long way…

Totally agree.

I have rerolled a new alt (got all classes to lv80 before patch) to try the trait system which i hate the class originally. Amazingly, lots of new experience and this make me like this class A LOT. Because of the new trait system, many contents was generally ignored by players has been revived. When i was leveling, i found new events that i never met with my 8 lv80 during their leveling. So i decided to take a look, a mini underwater dungeon, met some other players, we take down the underwater boss, and bang new trait unlocked. Thats a very very nice experience that never happens before.

So i maybe the minority that actually love this update.

I disagree. The issue isn’t being single minded opinions, anyone can see the ideas released in the April Pack which have very good potential, but the ideas were used horribly. I hate the way the new trait system is set up, it goes against the reason i bought the game and goes against Anet’s NO GRIND policy they like to talk up. I am a new player from jan2014 and played a few hours a week, i made an engineer to lvl 65 and a warrior to lvl 32, i loved how each level from 11 i was given a trait point to invest into a trait line and i could see how it played, now the push back is so far its an absolute joke, 30 levels of flat grinding before i get any trait investment… plus i have to repeat boring quests for 5 levels before i get another point to spend, at least the old system i felt i was given something to spend each time i leveled now its stupid. I felt accomplished receiving a reward each level not each 5 levels.

Someone who has rolled all classes to 80 and agrees that the complaints are single minded should probably think about how he approached the replies. You made a new toon on a class you hate to test the system? Now you like the class, Great. You found new areas and played with players you haven’t before? Great!
That’s not the problem either, the issues is how they did it, they placed trait quests in maps 25 lvls higher then the level to get it, they make you circle a whole map in a lvl 50 something zone for a 30 skill? The idea is Good and we get that, but they Screwed up. How is someone like me a new player able to understand the game at its best when i cant waste or afford the gold/sp to buy the traits and i can’t accomplish the tasks because they are to hard and require a lot of time.You say you love the update because you met some new players and unlocked a new trait, no sweat right? Wrong as not everyone can experience that.

You both should understand that you are the ones who are single minded, all you see is people complaining but you don’t try and understand why we are. The game has been ruined for us and we get what Anet was trying to do but they failed to do it correctly and are hoping for it to slide, i dont think it will to be honest because it’s the stupidest design iv’e seen for a trait point system.

Game experience ruined for players like me and i wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless they enjoy a slow feeling leveling system.

This new trait system is boring and tedious! Making leveling up such a grind. Adept trait unlock in a level 50+ zone? What weed are you smoking Anet?

I’m refusing to play any of my alternates until our woes are addressed! Yes no more buying from Gem Stores for my toons you hear me!

I have played EQ, Daoc, WoW, Rift, and ESO. I have never posted a complaint on a forum for any of these games until now.

Why? The trait unlocking system.

After seeing the feature pack, I decided to give GW2 a try again, and I have enjoyed myself.

However, the new trait unlocking is way too difficult and prolonged. Unlocking traits and playing with builds is one of the most fun aspects of the game. That experimentation allows variety and creativity. Contrarily, the new trait system adds complexity without depth. Grind at the expense of creativity and experimentation. It requires specific tasks rather than freedom to level how we want to level.

It is also especially disheartening to lose traits that I once had. GW2 is otherwise a fun experience, but the new system is demoralizing to the player base. The trait resets are cool, but the rest of the new system is much worse than the old with too high of a requirement for unlocking

Frankly, I am astonished the development team thought this was a good idea. Please consider fixing this.

Crossaber.8934:

Achrisos.1360:

I think many posters on this forum are being very single minded in that players who started playing GW2 before this system began got accustomed to all the traits being handed to us with no real sense of accomplishment in getting them and now with many of us rolling alts it feels like a “grind” to go through this system. Think about this though… If you were a brand new player it would be fantastic to go through this and have that sense of accomplishment rather than roll through all the content and in a game like this one that doest really have a treadmill gear grind that sense of accomplishment could go a long way…

Totally agree.

I have rerolled a new alt (got all classes to lv80 before patch) to try the trait system which i hate the class originally. Amazingly, lots of new experience and this make me like this class A LOT. Because of the new trait system, many contents was generally ignored by players has been revived. When i was leveling, i found new events that i never met with my 8 lv80 during their leveling. So i decided to take a look, a mini underwater dungeon, met some other players, we take down the underwater boss, and bang new trait unlocked. Thats a very very nice experience that never happens before.

So i maybe the minority that actually love this update.

While I agree with the principle of this (I was really excited when I first heard of the new system), the execution brings too many problems with it. If new traits had been added to the current number, then fantastic, I’d have loved that. We’d have had build diversity PLUS a sense of progression.

What this system does however is strip out build diversity and REPLACES it with a sense of progression. As there are already plenty of ways to feel like you’re progressing (some of which were actually also damaged with the update, notably by increasing the level requirements to 30, 60 and 80) this is not a reasonable compromise. We’ve gone from some sense of progression and build diversity, to some sense of progression and no build diversity.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

We’ve gone from some sense of progression and build diversity, to some sense of progression and no build diversity.

Did you mean NO sense of progression and NO build diversity with this terrible trait system. If not please explain how you feel a sense of progression when you have to start at level 30. Plus the frustration getting traits in a very difficult high level area.

Why are they ruining the game? Something is not right here!

There are two good qualities I see in the new trait system – The free retraiting on-the-fly, and the ease of reshuffling traits around. It destroys a bit of build individuality and certainly destroys character consistency (Which means it’s not strictly a good thing), but I find the fun in trying out new builds and traits to be worth that tradeoff.

Even unlocking traits isn’t a bad idea – It encourages getting out and experiencing more the game has to offer, gives another momentary Skill Point sink, and gives something to work toward. However, the current implementation is too aggressive – Adept traits really need to be unlocked immediately so players always have SOMETHING to play around with, while Master and Grandmaster can safely be reserved for unlocking. And, either the requirements need to be different for each alt (Or draw from a pool of tasks), or the traits should unlock account-wide. Or a combination of both, with every profession having a different task for each unlock, with that unlock being account-wide.

Leveling in the new system, unfortunately, is still an unacceptable pain. They need to be better and more reliably paced.

Yesterday, I learned that there are a lot of people who aren’t even aware of just how painful leveling is under the new system – People who had level 80s prior to the patch and haven’t rolled new characters haven’t experienced any of the downsides of the new trait system yet. I met one yesterday running in Frostgorge Sound.

Achrisos.1360:

I think many posters on this forum are being very single minded in that players who started playing GW2 before this system began got accustomed to all the traits being handed to us with no real sense of accomplishment in getting them and now with many of us rolling alts it feels like a “grind” to go through this system. Think about this though… If you were a brand new player it would be fantastic to go through this and have that sense of accomplishment rather than roll through all the content and in a game like this one that doest really have a treadmill gear grind that sense of accomplishment could go a long way…

I disagree. Many posters on this forum thread are voicing their experience and their point of view. They are not speaking for everyone and I think that’s clear. There were also comments from players who were new to the game post-patch, who expressed their dislike of the trait system. If you like the system, that’s your opinion. It’s good for everyone to speak their minds.

I still think it’s important for Anet to know just how many unhappy campers they have now. I don’t know how much revenue they get from players making alts and outfitting those alts with gem store purchases, but they should know they’re going to lose that revenue if their established customers are not going to make more alts. If the system continues to be enormously tedious, requiring unlocks you have to acquire from play you don’t enjoy doing, at level content you can’t yet reach, at prohibitive vendor costs, etc. … they need to know how the player base is responding to what they’ve done.

Think of it this way – with the new system, for any given level my characters are:

-less powerful
-have fewer traits
-have less diversity
-have less traits for experimentation
-need more grinding to acquire traits
-lacking traits they once had on some characters
-demoralizing to someone with limited time to commit
-more likely to be the only one I character I play bc I can’t afford time to grind many other alts with this system.
-less powerful in WvW relative to high level players – the system favors grinders over skill now more than ever

This is not a good system for many people.

@Hawke
Think you pretty much summed it up here! Wonder how many are running around with open trait slots? Because the cost is to high or to hard to get for a trait your not sure will fit your playstyle.

I really do feel sorry for all the new players who didn’t get to experience the trait system the way it is SUPPOSE to be.

Well we know they read the thread based on some of the changes they made in the last patch (which was a small, but good, start) but it’d still be nice to actually hear from these people, assuming they haven’t all replaced their english vocabulary for cantonese and mandarin.

Traits should still not be locked behind WvW, Dungeons, or Story. They should not cost skill points at all. New characters are severely restricted with their character building in ways they shouldn’t be. Having to go out of your way to do a specific task (or save up gold and skill points) to get a trait you wanna try and then find out “Eh, it doesn’t really work well. I think I need to change it” is a huge pile of bs. Then you have to go do some other task you may not be interested in or grind out more gold and skill points and hope that its better.

Yeah, I don’t see smart players going that route. Instead I see them going to the forums/wiki, looking for meta/flavor of the month builds, and then looking for the nearest/easiest champ train to get the gold/skillpoints in order to get their traits that they’re getting because it was the most suggested “build” on the forums.

Thats what this game is now, for new players, in regards to traits: A giant kitteng chore. Not fun, not intuitive, anti-experimentation, anti-creativity. This isn’t adding some new content thats underwhelming, this is fundamentally breaking something that worked just fine.

/applaud

I dont like it, before when I leveled my guard by exploring maps and complete missions since it was good enough and you could feel the progresion and was very cool and no needed to spend any gold to get my traits so i could totaly try crazy builds for free whidout beeing stressed to pay gold or to do somshlt, when ur a newbie u barely have 5 gold in total when ur first character is 80 so paying for traits is a big stepback at least for new ppl.

and i tryied to level my ranger the same way, to explore and missions but is not the same thing, plus Im forced to pay gold or to do some events in UNEXPLORED maps in order to get my tratis wich is fustrating, so i decided to skip everything and level in edge of mists for a few days, since I could not test my ranger till 80.

for new ppl is very bad this new trait system since they cant go in unexplored maps and they dont have gold basicaly you force them to do unwanted stuff in order to get the traits, it reminds me of bad mmos who force you to pay 99999999999999999999999999 golds or to farm a boss with very low rate to get ur skill or buy it with real money.

no know if arena net of the other company is becoming to get very greedy lately.

It still feels like needless padding to a system that didn’t need it. Worse still, it actively discourages experimentation in favor of enforcing exploration. It doesn’t feel appropriate.

I noticed today that the Armored Attack Trait doesn’t sinergize with the Signet of Dolyak… You get the bonus on toughness but it doesn’t count for the 10% to attack… Is the trait only affected by armor and rune stats?

Trait unlocking system: I like it a lot!!
Really good idea and it’s a lot of fun to be revarded with this kind of character progresseion for discovering the game world!

The pace of trait point acquisition is a little weird though. At 30 you get elite skills plus the trait system. Then you get nothing big until 60 (tier 2 traits), then at 80 you get tier 3 plus endgame gear plus dungeons etc. So lvl 30 and 80 are overkill when it comes to new stuff an 31~59 feels a little stale in comparison.
Plus there’s the issue of T1 traits requiring lvl 60++ content to unlock. It’s gotten better after the change but some requirements still feel extremely out of place.
It feels a little too focused on the last levels (2 trait points at 78 and at 80, really? :<).

I love the concept though.

I’ve been playing kind of sporadically lately, especially after completeing this latest meta for the LS and decided to jump onto my grandfathered in Warrior that just needs to kit level 80 to have all of the traits unlocked. He’s at about level 75 now and pushing along and all I can think it, please 80 hurry and get here so I can kit him out and do what I WANT to do with him.

The problem here are the 2 lowbies i have been trying the new system with. Its fun in that I have a friend that I don’t get to game with often, who recently came back to the game, talking about going with me to do some trait hunting. OK, fine, it might be fun to do that. Problem is it changes the way I get to play the game to have fun. It has become a thing that I will have to do if I want a viable character with CHOICES at level 80 and not some meta-build I decide on now and just buy as I go along. I think for me it just doesn’t feel organic enough. Hopefully you all at Anet are now looking at this as a work in progress and are going to implement some things little by little to get it to where it needs to be.