Guild Wars 2

Adjusting the prices for individual traits to make them comparable to pre-patch prices (a fraction of the cost of the original trait books), would go a long way to smoothing things over by making traits affordable again.

Cross.6437:

Adjusting the prices for individual traits to make them comparable to pre-patch prices (a fraction of the cost of the original trait books), would go a long way to smoothing things over by making traits affordable again.

I just typed up a bunch of stuff that I thought could help smooth things over but then deleted it all. Because honestly smoothing it over won’t cut it. Its BS that a person can not just play the game the way they want like we used to be able to do. The old system was perfect and it wasn’t broken. Forcing this crap on everyone so your metrics show people in areas that used to be empty is really lame. There is no other reason than that for why it was done.

The one thing that really gets me is that they released such a broken system and they have done almost nothing to fix the issues with the system or the issues created by the system. I understand it takes time to fix things but they could and should be at least do a fix or two every month.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Cross.6437:

Adjusting the prices for individual traits to make them comparable to pre-patch prices (a fraction of the cost of the original trait books), would go a long way to smoothing things over by making traits affordable again.

I just typed up a bunch of stuff that I thought could help smooth things over but then deleted it all. Because honestly smoothing it over won’t cut it. Its BS that a person can not just play the game the way they want like we used to be able to do. The old system was perfect and it wasn’t broken. Forcing this crap on everyone so your metrics show people in areas that used to be empty is really lame. There is no other reason than that for why it was done.

The one thing that really gets me is that they released such a broken system and they have done almost nothing to fix the issues with the system or the issues created by the system. I understand it takes time to fix things but they could and should be at least do a fix or two every month.

Agreed. They claimed that the point of this was to get people to experiment with more traits. Even if they drastically lowered the prices on traits, I’m pretty sure putting a price on individual traits at all actually discourages experimentation and just encourages people to cherry pick the ones they think they want.

The old system combined with the free re-trait button would’ve been perfect to let people experiment with traits.

tofumon.5924:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Cross.6437:

Adjusting the prices for individual traits to make them comparable to pre-patch prices (a fraction of the cost of the original trait books), would go a long way to smoothing things over by making traits affordable again.

I just typed up a bunch of stuff that I thought could help smooth things over but then deleted it all. Because honestly smoothing it over won’t cut it. Its BS that a person can not just play the game the way they want like we used to be able to do. The old system was perfect and it wasn’t broken. Forcing this crap on everyone so your metrics show people in areas that used to be empty is really lame. There is no other reason than that for why it was done.

The one thing that really gets me is that they released such a broken system and they have done almost nothing to fix the issues with the system or the issues created by the system. I understand it takes time to fix things but they could and should be at least do a fix or two every month.

Agreed. They claimed that the point of this was to get people to experiment with more traits. Even if they drastically lowered the prices on traits, I’m pretty sure putting a price on individual traits at all actually discourages experimentation and just encourages people to cherry pick the ones they think they want.

The old system combined with the free re-trait button would’ve been perfect to let people experiment with traits.

Yes. This whole traits thing is mind boggling. The worst idea in he history of online gaming perhaps.

At the end of it all, this is what will be cited as the cause for the decline and eventual death of GW2. It will be a slow and agonizing death, but the prognosis is final.

Looks like the theory has been proven. If it doesn’t effect current money(read gem sales) it can go on back burner. We have almost 60 pages here and over 6 months of suggestions and still nothing. When will you fix this A-Net?

Galphar.3901:

Looks like the theory has been proven. If it doesn’t effect current money(read gem sales) it can go on back burner. We have almost 60 pages here and over 6 months of suggestions and still nothing. When will you fix this A-Net?

I’m surprised new players are even playing this game at all past level 36ish when the whole thing becomes a giant grind with minimal reward.

How? How is this still being left unfixed?

Seven months. Three thousands posts, almost entirely negative. 138,000 views.

I stopped playing GW2 since the update, just move onto other games and let this place die. Ego-hungry gem store customers will/can only support the dying game for so long…

Since we are not subscribers, only way to get the message across to this ignorant corporation is to protest with your wallet (refuse to buy gems) and time (just play something else so the active player population drops).

The more I watch red names reply around this thread and solve (or seriously try to solve) issues that have come up since this trait destruction, the more disgusted I become.

Since they took a stance of talking to the community (to a degree), the ignore of this issue becomes louder and louder.

After having abandoned my alts I am still in the game to a degree because I can play my 80s and generally ignore a lot of this, but knowing how deafeningly loud our ignoring is is taking the will out of me to even play them.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

How? How is this still being left unfixed?

Seven months. Three thousands posts, almost entirely negative. 138,000 views.

Clearly because Anet knows better what we enjoy, than we do ourselves… :S

I have two level 80 alts now, fully equiped, both with about 5 traits that I just randomly got while playing. Those two characters will never have traits if this system stays in place.

I won’t spend 100+ hours farming them and I can’t really afford them, even if I was willing to pay for them… Which I am not.

I’m giving you guys a suggestion right here: Every time Anet posts something about Guild Wars 2 either on Facebook, reddit,… whatever, we copy-paste the link to this thread as an answer to whatever they posted. We all keep doing that until we get some serious answers from game designers in here. End this bullkitten!

Oh, we’ve been getting an answer. Every day. Not in the form of a written statement, with words and grammar and punctuation, but in the form of a very specific and calculated action that speaks volumes.

It’s called a snub.

SNUB
verb (used with object), snubbed, snubbing.
1. to treat with disdain or contempt, especially by ignoring.

Flytrap.8075:

The leveling process in this game is dry and tedious.

More news at 11.

NEWS ALERT!

The leveling process of ALL games is dry and tedious. (Especially if you’ve done it multiple times for alts.)

Look for our 4 part, overly dramatic, exposé coming soon!

Peace.

Castrin.8972:

NEWS ALERT!

The leveling process of ALL games is dry and tedious. (Especially if you’ve done it multiple times for alts.)

Look for our 4 part, overly dramatic, exposé coming soon!

Peace.

The levelling process in this game used to be really fun.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

…
The levelling process in this game used to be really fun.

I agree, but it’s not any more.

Castrin.8972:

Flytrap.8075:

The leveling process in this game is dry and tedious.

More news at 11.

NEWS ALERT!

The leveling process of ALL games is dry and tedious. (Especially if you’ve done it multiple times for alts.)

Look for our 4 part, overly dramatic, exposé coming soon!

Peace.

Actually, leveling alts was previously my favorite part of this game. I have 12 level 80s and was looking forward to several others, prior to April’s feature patch. In the last six months, I’ve gotten exactly one character to level 80.

Castrin.8972:

Flytrap.8075:

The leveling process in this game is dry and tedious.

More news at 11.

NEWS ALERT!

The leveling process of ALL games is dry and tedious. (Especially if you’ve done it multiple times for alts.)

Look for our 4 part, overly dramatic, exposé coming soon!

Peace.

Leveling in this game is way worse than leveling in other MMO’s because from level 30 to 80 you earn basically nothing of value.

ANET seriously fix this. One of the worst changes I have ever seen in any MMO. The cost is enormous.

I want to go WvW when I hit 80, not…not spend SKILL POINTS and GOLD or an incredible amount of time to unlock what should be unlocked by default!

Hi Gaile While I’m sure we all appreciate your response, I believe the reason that the thread has gone from suggestions to merely complaints is that probably every possible suggestion has already been made, yet players still want to voice their concerns and opinions on these still-bad April changes. We also don’t want the thread to fall to the wayside or be forgotten. As others have pointed out, this issue may not affect all players immediately, but it DOES affect ALL players eventually.

As people come across issues with the trait system, they look on the forums for a place to voice their own issues. If they can use this thread to do that, then I think that keeps it all together and keeps the company AWARE that this is still an issue, and a very important one, because it is ruining fun for many.

To boot, most of us probably do not understand why it is taking this long to see actual changes to this system. It is unreasonable for us to wait YEARS for fixes to this broken system.

The biggest glaring issue with the current trait system is that it ruins the playing of alts. My suggestion is that each dev or designer who is looking into it start and level an alt from scratch, without twinking and without significant help from friends. I assume most of them have at least one level 80 character that they created and leveled under the old system.

While leveling this new character without help from any other characters, they should be evaluating whether it’s more or less fun than the previous system. Is it really better to get the traits later? Is the progression rewarding enough or are there too many empty levels? Does unlocking each trait feel like a worthwhile challenge or an artificial barrier? Does the system meet the initial goal of encouraging learning about and experimenting with a variety of traits?

It seems like the overriding design goal for GW2 at the beginning was to make things fun. It seemed like the team looked at each decision from the standpoint of, “which is the more fun of these two options? Pick that one.” Experimenting with traits is fun, playing uplevel WvW and feeling like you can contribute is fun. Trying out a new class in a reasonable amount of time is fun. All of these things are less fun with the current traits system. Please bring back those funs.

I’m just curious when Anet said they couldn’t be bothered to read the entire thread, did anyone reply with a summary of “Just change it back to how it was and have additional desirable periodical traits added that you gain from sitting, begging, rolling over or whatever”? And not tied to the LS.

I still can’t fathom the NPE changes though (ramble)…Stay on target Paul. This is the traits thread.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I promise that you’re not being snubbed (Tachenon, you made me both smile and wince there, with your definition of the term). Please know this thread is serving a good purpose and that is is offering the dev team valuable information. The fact is, though, there’s simply nothing new to say on the subject right now.

We know that you’d like to have some info on this subject. But until there’s something of substance to say, devs wouldn’t post in the thread due both to their generally busy schedules and to our practice of talking about matters of this sort only when we’re able to provide something of substance, within a meaningful timeframe.

Having said all that, your input is extremely valuable, and that’s why it was requested back in April. We reached out to you, and you provided a good deal of insight, and of good value, too! With subsequent changes to the game, your input shifted to address current concerns. That’s very meaningful to those team members following this thread and we thank you.

We’ve said it before, but giving details about for a suggested change is better than saying “I don’t like it.” If you can say why, and give a proposed fix, that’s very useful to the team. You are not in any way obliged to do this, you know that and I’m agreeing. I’m just making the suggestion to put the most value on your time in posting and the devs in reading.

Thanks.

Problem is we don’t know it is serving a good purpose. The lack of interaction on this thread does nothing but lend to the feeling that we are being ignored here. You undoubtedly have a different opinion, perhaps because you know a little bit more than you are allowed to say or have discussed the issues raised here with the devs who are working on this. But for us players, we have been left out in the cold. A few days or weeks without a noteworthy response is fine when devs are working on it. These long months without a whisper do nothing but give us an impression that Anet doesn’t care. Its not enough to be doing something,y ou have to be seen to be doing something.

This thread is the best testament there is to the need for much much better communication than what we have had in recent months. There has been little to no enagagement, and that is why we feel dejected about the system.

Also, with an entire feature patch released since the start of this thread, not to mention all the updates, Living Story etc, all those are a lot of things to work on and take time and effort. For the most part we applaud that, but then, with so much effort being put into moving forward, we can’t be that sure you are stopping to fix the issues raised. It seems to us like Anet are happy to forget about the issues that were created in the past, and just carry on regardless. When it comes to such an important and touted system, and with such a long time with no apparant movement from Anet, you can surely forgive our frustration with this. In terms of an MMO lifespan, it feels like this system is being addressed at a glacial pace. And again, not helped by no dialogue with the devs on this one.

Its a sad truth that while I enjoy levelling, I still am more likely to end up on one of my old alts, purely because I have enough traits unlocked on them to attempt some real customisation. Build experimentation is something much encouraged by Anet, allegedly, but its hard to do when the requirements for even the most basic traits are so prohibitive. Its great for the top tier ones that you should have to work for, but for the average joe traits? No, it is ludicrous.

And yet even with the discontent, we haven’t had much of a lifeline here. I understand in this matter Gaile you are just the messenger, so I hope I’m not shooting at you too much here (and if I am hopefully they are missing the target!), there has been so little from Anet that I can’t help but wonder if Anet would have handled this differently if only it had been reported by the online gaming press that the players were unhappy over something and thus threatened their image to potential new players. Perhaps an unworthy thought, but one I think is understandable give the events of this thread.

Gaile Gray.6029:

But until there’s something of substance to say, devs wouldn’t post in the thread due both to their generally busy schedules and to our practice of talking about matters of this sort only when we’re able to provide something of substance, within a meaningful timeframe.

(Emphasis mine)

This statement makes me think two things.

First, I think that keeping customers updated is “something of substance”. I understand that it’s not fun to pop into a thread to announce that there is no new information to report, but that is no reason to keep customers in the dark.

Second, what is a “meaningful time frame” for a customer to continue to experience radio silence on an issue of importance to them? I think it should be a bit less than seven months (not for an implementation, mind you, but for at least a status update). This is something I’ve mentioned before, but it bears repeating: This is about managing customer expectations.

You folks (as a company) seem to be unwaveringly committed to the position that no update at all is better than an update that says “We’ve hit a snag, but we’re still working on this”, and I cannot for the life of me understand why. Google any number of articles about managing customer expectations, and you will find that nearly every one of them will tell you the exact opposite.

For example:

From “Managing Customer Expectations”, by Naomi Karten:

“But when uncertainty-creating situations occur, most customers would rather have a little information than none at all.”

From “Managing Customer expectations is key to aligning it with business”, by Harris Kern

“Communicate, communicate, and communicate
You can’t manage expectations without communication. In fact, you can’t manage anything without communication. And in this case, if some is good, more is better. The customer continually needs to know how you’re making progress on her problems, what you will deliver, and what you need. Don’t let daily pressures crowd out the continuing dialog that is essential for success.”

From “10 ways to communicate more effectively with customers and co-workers” by Calvin Sun (Oh, this one’s my favorite):

“The area where I live, southeastern Pennsylvania, has a large agricultural presence, in particular involving the production of mushrooms. While they are growing, mushrooms are kept in a dark building and are covered with fertilizer.

Your customers will become upset if you treat them the same way. Keep them informed of developments involving them, particularly with regard to technical problems and outages. In particular, keep them apprised even if nothing is going on."

You get the idea. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, is it considered good communication or effective customer expectation management to allow an issue to sit and stew for months without an update. Please feel free to correct me with a source.

And again, Gaile, this is not directed at you. This is a deeply ingrained flaw in your company’s business ideology that continues to frustrate many of your customers and severely compromise the potential of a relationship built on trust and respect. The longer it continues, the less likely my continued customer loyalty becomes.

Gaile Gray.6029:

And the devs have made it clear that there’s no chance that these concerns will be forgotten. Absolutely no chance of that at all.

Forgotten? No. Have any action done on it? Also no.

All I have to say about this thread at this point is that there is no point. We have given our opinions and suggestions, had a dev come in about page 43 and toss us back on the hamster wheel of ‘give us some specific suggestions’ (in other words, just keep posting and thinking we care), and now had Gaile come in and say we are being heard. NOWHERE does it say they are acting on any of this.

It’s been long enough that we have our answer. They don’t give a flying kitten what we want, what we feel, or what we care about. They did it, they are sticking by it, and if they wait long enough we will just shut up and accept it, because that is our only option.

There is a choice of creating and leveling new characters or not. I choose NOT. So to some extent we do have a choice. I’m still enjoying playing the game with my level 80s for the most part and as long as I do I’ll continue to play GW2.

At least my infraction point was worth it.

The main problem, Gaile, is that by leaving the game in the situation it is in for so long, Anet is now actually incurring physical wrath from its playerbase. Surely those in charge are not so daft as to be blind to the fact that if the players are not capable or willing of recommending the game to their friends, it can and will damage the long term prospects of that game.

These are not epoch-making changes being requested in this thread. I absolutely understand that programming is not a simple matter of ‘make it so’ and it is, but these changes have been disrupting gameplay flow and limiting player options for nearly 7 months.

If I bought any other product and had to wait 7 months for a customer complaint issue to be addressed, there would be legal action on the table by now.

It feels, whether or not it is true, that because we have already paid for the product in full, our concerns and complaints are being tossed in the shredder. That is why you are seeing the passion and anger (and yes, I am first to put my hand up and admit that I am an offender in this regard), within this thread.

WE FEEL IGNORED

Simple as that. If you are providing a service to a customer, and whenever they speak you turn your back on them, surely you can understand how that customer feels.

All the information is in this thread, and the other threads about the failed megaserver, the hatred of the NPE (although I personally don’t have an issue with that), the outfit limitations, and so much more. All we players can hope to do is keep this thread alive so that one day, maybe, Anet will address the yappy little dog biting its ankle and throw it a treat.

The way the news on the SAB was delivered was a prime example of the callousness of Anet’s communication. It wasn’t even a ‘no SAB ever’ or even ‘for now’. It was a slimy, milktoasted way of saying "Yeah, we hear you but no we will not even address your concern’.

I actually feel sorry for Gaile having to deal with all this negativity, including from myself, and having to try and report this to people within the company who don’t care… or at least act like they don’t.

minbariguy.7504:

You get the idea. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, is it considered good communication or effective customer expectation management to allow an issue to sit and stew for months without an update. Please feel free to correct me with a source.

And again, Gaile, this is not directed at you. This is a deeply ingrained flaw in your company’s business ideology that continues to frustrate many of your customers and severely compromise the potential of a relationship built on trust and respect. The longer it continues, the less likely my continued customer loyalty becomes.

+1 each second of every day the ANet communication policy remains in place

With so many pages of posts it’s probably been mentioned before but what boggles my mind is why ArenaNet would attach a “skill point” cost to “traits”. I personally don’t mind the gold cost, we had to spend gold on the master trait books, but skill points should NOT be attached to traits, especially with 25 point heal skills and 30 point elite skills! Not all of my toons are swimming in extra skill points.

minbariguy.7504:

You get the idea. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, is it considered good communication or effective customer expectation management to allow an issue to sit and stew for months without an update. Please feel free to correct me with a source.

And again, Gaile, this is not directed at you. This is a deeply ingrained flaw in your company’s business ideology that continues to frustrate many of your customers and severely compromise the potential of a relationship built on trust and respect. The longer it continues, the less likely my continued customer loyalty becomes.

+1 Trillion

Still won’t get them to tell us anything though –

Gaile Gray.6029:

Understood. Suggestions that have been made are good; they don’t need to be repeated. It’s a huge thread, but it’s extra meaty and it’s been and will be read.

And the devs have made it clear that there’s no chance that these concerns will be forgotten. Absolutely no chance of that at all.

Hi Gaile.

Firstly, THANK YOU for responding. I realise this is all you are able to tell us, and it is absolutely appreciated that you have provided as much as you can. Please do not take this as a criticism of the communication you have just provided as “not good enough”. You’ve done the best you can, which is absolutely all we can ask.

That said, while it is fantastic that you have communicated this to us, the dissatisfaction we feel at this should be communicated to whoever is in charge of this issue. The trait system is a core function, integral to alts. It has been broken, in a way that is the antithesis to the justification given for the change, for seven months. This thread is 3,000 posts long, almost entirely negative. Players have left. Players have stopped recommending the game. Players have stopped having fun. This is absolutely not okay.

Again, I 100% appreciate you coming in to speak to us. Especially knowing you’ll be attacked because you don’t have news. But it needs to be communicated to someone that it is not okay that after seven months you don’t have news to give us.

I really don’t like posting this. I don’t want this to be taken as “we won’t be satisfied with communication unless its good news”. That isn’t the case. It is definitely better that you communicate with us, good or bad. But, I hope obviously, it is also vital that we are able to reply with concerns when that news is bad.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I promise that you’re not being snubbed (Tachenon, you made me both smile and wince there, with your definition of the term). Please know this thread is serving a good purpose and that is is offering the dev team valuable information. The fact is, though, there’s simply nothing new to say on the subject right now.

Having said all that, your input is extremely valuable, and that’s why it was requested back in April.

I know it sucks to bring bad news but, after seven months and “simply nothing new” the dev team is snubbing us, by the definition Tachenon provided.

Seven months Gaile.

I am guessing that, with the fix to the gem store (that took a matter of days), we flared up again and someone said that you, lucky you, had to go in an quiet us down again. Same thing as when Jon came in to tell us that the thread is too long and to put us on a hamster wheel after enough of us hollered loudly enough in another thread for a dev to come into this one.

I would respect the devs coming clean and saying “deal with it” rather than these wishy washy pseudo-promises of some nebulous “fix” somewhere in the future.

A month or so after this was rolled out would have been time for the pseudo promises. By now the sell date for these empty promises is long gone.

Gaile Gray.6029:

And the devs have made it clear that there’s no chance that these concerns will be forgotten. Absolutely no chance of that at all.

Please relay this to the devs: prove it.

After seven months and all the activity around us, I don’t believe it. Put their money where their “mouths” are, where they are forcing yours to be, and prove it.

Keysha.2815:

…NOWHERE does it say they are acting on any of this.

It’s been long enough that we have our answer. They don’t give a flying kitten what we want, what we feel, or what we care about. They did it, they are sticking by it, and if they wait long enough we will just shut up and accept it, because that is our only option.

+1

I was about to say the same thing. They are doing nothing to fix this situation and that is why they have nothing to say.

Look at the recent gold exchange farce, one of Gailes first replies made it very clear that the peoples outrage would have no effect on whether they changed it or not, they would only change it if and when it was desirable to do so! Desirable to who? Not the customers, as they made it very clear that they didn’t like it. So that means it was Anets desires that they meant. IE they do what they want and not what the customer wants. It was only the media backlash and the prospect of losing income that made them change their minds.

The thing is, this farce is, and will in the future lose them money. As has been pointed oout in the thread on previous posts, this will be a slow burn, it hasn’t had an immediate impact. How they don’t realise that is beyond reason.

I’ll be honest, since April, my respect for the company has totally gone. This was/is a brilliant game, I used to love it, but with the way Anet has treated its customers, their lies, and condescending actions and words towards us, it’s made me go off the game so much, I don’t play it any more. (I pop on the forums a lot in the hope that somehing has changed, go into the game maybe once or twice a month).

Gaile Gray.6029:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Hi Gaile While I’m sure we all appreciate your response, I believe the reason that the thread has gone from suggestions to merely complaints is that probably every possible suggestion has already been made, yet players still want to voice their concerns and opinions on these still-bad April changes. We also don’t want the thread to fall to the wayside or be forgotten.

Understood. Suggestions that have been made are good; they don’t need to be repeated. It’s a huge thread, but it’s extra meaty and it’s been and will be read.

And the devs have made it clear that there’s no chance that these concerns will be forgotten. Absolutely no chance of that at all.

Time for some idioms.

Talk is cheap.
Words not deeds.

And the thread is overloaded with useful suggestions, the best one of which (in my opinion) would be to simply revert the system to the previous model, while retaining the ability to change on the fly.

Perhaps charge a small gold or skill point fee to reset traits.

Gaile Gray.6029:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Hi Gaile While I’m sure we all appreciate your response, I believe the reason that the thread has gone from suggestions to merely complaints is that probably every possible suggestion has already been made, yet players still want to voice their concerns and opinions on these still-bad April changes. We also don’t want the thread to fall to the wayside or be forgotten.

Understood. Suggestions that have been made are good; they don’t need to be repeated. It’s a huge thread, but it’s extra meaty and it’s been and will be read.

And the devs have made it clear that there’s no chance that these concerns will be forgotten. Absolutely no chance of that at all.

As many of us have already posted, these trait changes are terrible and were not even needed in the first place. All of my personal reasons for disliking these changes have already been mentioned, and I won’t repeat them.

But I just wanted to make a quick suggestion just in case the Dev team is sticking with this idea of purchasing each trait individually as an alternative to the grind. I feel that they are ridiculously priced. Especially in an economy where 1% are rich, 5% are well off, and 94% are dirt poor (I’m in this group). The cost on these traits are way overpriced, AND they require Skill Points as well. Skill Points are not very easy to come by for a character you are trying to level. (especially not anymore with the more recent changes.) I find my self constantly starving for both Gold and Skill Points, so this alternative is really not an option for me.

However, One currency that I have literally millions of and nothing to spend it on… Karma. I get boat loads of Karma every day, and my millions keep growing. Why not just make these Traits purchasable with Karma. That way we would at least have something to spend karma on.

Again, the above suggestion is only Just in case the devs are not willing to bend on this idea of purchasing traits individually. I personally feel like there was absolutely nothing wrong with the old trait system to begin with.

Ms. Gray, I’m so sorry. You’re in a terrible position here and none of my rancor is directed at you. If you had been in your current position from this thread’s inception, and had been able to interact with us all along, I feel like the mood in the thread would be very different from the one that was cultivated with the “mushroom” approach over the past six and a half months. But I do feel like we’ve been fed a very specific type of fertilizer in this thread.

The most simple fix would have been to make the cost of the old traits no more than 10g, in total, and leave the cost of new traits as-is. But right now, you’ve got bordering on seven months’ worth of characters where people have spent ridiculous sums of money and skillpoints to avoid this terribly balanced trait-hunt. So if there is an incoming change (and I sincerely doubt that), you’re going to have angry people to contend with, because the cost of traits is one of the more offensive things about this system.

At this point, you’ve got to be asking yourself if it’s worth upsetting all of those people versus losing those of us who are no longer having fun. I think you’ve already decided that we are an acceptable loss. I think you’re convinced that the damage has already been done, and I think maybe you’re right. Nearly seven months, with not even a “Soon” in sight, I doubt many in this thread even believe anything is being discussed. I am certainly of the opinion that the discussions regarding this thread have revolved around the idea of locking it and hoping fervently it sinks into oblivion.

Anet, I think I was wrong. We are a problem which, if ignored, will go away. And, sadly, I guess that’s fine for you.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We know that you’d like to have some info on this subject. But until there’s something of substance to say, devs wouldn’t post in the thread due both to their generally busy schedules and to our practice of talking about matters of this sort only when we’re able to provide something of substance, within a meaningful timeframe.

Thanks.

Busy with what?

Busy making another MOBA?

It is obvious that Guild Wars 2 is not getting the attention of 300 employees who work at ArenaNet.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Understood. Suggestions that have been made are good; they don’t need to be repeated. It’s a huge thread, but it’s extra meaty and it’s been and will be read.

And the devs have made it clear that there’s no chance that these concerns will be forgotten. Absolutely no chance of that at all.

Please do me a favour and tell somebody to either fix the “Branded Devourer Queen” event chain or to chose another task for that trait as it’s bugged and has been at least since April now. I’ve actually unlocked all but 3 traits and 2 of them are map completion, so this one will be the only trait I will be missing. So it is possible to unlock “all” traits but the effort is just too much – I’ve been on it quite a while – the problems occurring are plenty and someone who isn’t used to this game might despair. I was lucky that “Story Dungeon Completer” is a daylie today so I have been able to get 3 traits – as one example – I knew that my chances getting a story group were good today, small details I wouldn’t have noticed as a new player.

And I’m not so sure I want to repeat all of this for my other two characters who have been created after April 15th – and I’m not so sure I want to create the last class I’m missing. Yes, I like having all traits, I’m that weird.

Terrible system.
Leveled up a necro to 80 last week. Yesterday decided I should get the boring job done and get the traits I need but I quickly gave up.
I was shown a waypoint in Harathi and that I have to help X to kill Y. Great… I went there and that was all. I had no idea what to do, where exactly the event was.
Do I really have to alt-tab and open wiki to get REAL useful information?
Not going to mention how boring the trait system is after 4k+ hours played.
Well, gg for you I guess. I bought the traits. You made me waste some precious gold I really need.

Months pass and all we get is another we are listening?

How about telling us what you’ve heard — that way we know you are listening.

Used to love leveling new toons, despise it now. I feel for Gaile being dropped into this mess. I’m certain that despite several thousand replies on the 4/15 debaucle of changes when they high-tailed it to China, Arenanet will not change anything! Sadness…..

/15 char (This sig, while longer a week ago is over 3 lines according to Anet LOL, yes, I also suffer from altitis)

lol I don’t know why people expect anything different.

NcSoft have never and will never change, they address what they want to address (usually anything that results in more money from the cash cows buying pointless crap from the store… moo moo MMOOOOO) and ignore everything else (ignore by saying "we are looking at this and will respond Soon™ "
(unless it is an in -game farm which could affect incoming gold thus impact on not getting enough money from the gem store, then you can guarantee near immediate action and nerf)

Their current IP Wildstar is flopping and dying at a phenomenal rate, GW2 is being treated exactly as it has been for the past 2 years which is a nice way to fund other projects, they are working on a MOBA in a market that is already over-saturated and they missed to boat on releasing Blade and Soul (the 1 game that western mmo players actually wanted to play) I quote “Currently in development for the West” that message on site since December 2012 lmfao

So what is left for NcSoon™ ?

Maybe it is time to stop churning out mediocre crap and actually put effort into 1 decent title and actually manage it properly rather than letting your CM’s just trot out the usual platitudes?

Thing is, we have nothing but the word of Anet that they are listening, yet have on our part a 7 month old thread with almost zero communication that says something very different. Considering feedback is great, but we have nothing at all to suggest that the consideration is anything more than waffle to shut us up. 7 months and nothing in the way steps forward, either proposed or implemented. For all the proof we have of what Anet have done or are doing, we can just as easily assume nothing at all has happened as we can that they are looking to address this. Being so closed off does nothing but make us distrust Anet more and more. Anet has abandoned its players on a core mechanic for over half a year. There are no two ways about it. Anet have plodded on regardless and to the best of anyone’s knowledge, done nothing about an issue that is of great concern to many.

At the current rate of what we know, it isn’t a stretch for this to go to a full year without any solid thing from Anet about changes or real response to feedback. I for one have zero confidence Anet are doing anything, despite Gaile’s efforts to assure us. Fact is, without real communication of what Anet are doing, we have nothing really anymore to have meaningful dialogue about. Everything that could be suggested or complained about has already been done so in a variety of ways by a fair number of people. It hasn’t been much of a feedback or a dialogue with Anet over this because Anet have not done anything in terms of talking about this system or how it might be developed with us.

Anet abandoned pretty much the entire community while it was off on its Chinese adventure, really only after a catastrophic interview did they come back and try to outreach again. We see countless threads about issues people have in game and we generally get the “we are listening” lines but then nothing to show for it after, not even a statement from Anet saying why they are going to keep with said system or that they are happy with it.

And as I believe I’ve said before, its funny how that attitude only seems to change in response to PR disasters picked up by other sites, such as the recent gem exchange. From my perspective, I feel that Anet (as a company, I find the individual members of the team largely very nice and understanding) care nothing for the concerns or feelings of the community, but only for their frankly well-tarnished reputation. Perhaps they should remember word of mouth is a powerful advertiser.

To which i would say, if Anet feel that that belief is uncalled for or unjustified, they are very welcome to prove us wrong by real substantive action. That is the only way they can restore trust now to me, and likely many others.

tkpfin.4928:

Gaile Gray.6029:

We know that you’d like to have some info on this subject. But until there’s something of substance to say, devs wouldn’t post in the thread due both to their generally busy schedules and to our practice of talking about matters of this sort only when we’re able to provide something of substance, within a meaningful timeframe.

Thanks.

Busy with what?

Busy making another MOBA?

It is obvious that Guild Wars 2 is not getting the attention of 300 employees who work at ArenaNet.

Given the fact that it took them 2 years to put a kitten back piece filter on the trading post, i was asking my self the same thing lol.

Apolo.5942:

tkpfin.4928:

Gaile Gray.6029:

We know that you’d like to have some info on this subject. But until there’s something of substance to say, devs wouldn’t post in the thread due both to their generally busy schedules and to our practice of talking about matters of this sort only when we’re able to provide something of substance, within a meaningful timeframe.

Thanks.

Busy with what?

Busy making another MOBA?

It is obvious that Guild Wars 2 is not getting the attention of 300 employees who work at ArenaNet.

Given the fact that it took them 2 years to put a kitten back piece filter on the trading post, i was asking my self the same thing lol.

GW2 time.

Two years = soon.

Yeah, the previous system was decently functional . . . but it had its glaring issues (paying for trait resets), and this one is mostly functional and has more glaring issues (several trait masteries on bad bad bad terrible things to do to unlock them).

I don’t advocate a rollback so much as I advocate Account-wide unlocks for them so every player doesn’t have to unlock each Trait Mastery on each character. Oh, and moving some of them to events or options people do most of the time and make more sense would be good, thanks.

Seriously, ANET, do something, even if it’s wrong. The odds of it being worse than this current iteration are potentially favorable, depending on how convoluted it is, and I see that as a worthwhile risk, at this point.

I am just so unbelievably gobsmacked that this hasn’t been addressed. If you have the metrics that show this system is serving its purpose, I would LOVE to see them. Even if it’s not exact numbers, seeing approximately how many people with post-April patch characters have all their traits unlocked, have functional builds, have options for build diversity, hunted vs. bought their traits, and have done any of those applicable things on more than one character. Oh, one last metric: How many level 35-50 characters created post-April feature patch have been mostly discarded or outright deleted or accounts abandoned.

You guys know that you should have people taking note of all these metrics, right? This isn’t news to you or anything, is it? Anet, I’m being serious. I really don’t know how much you understand, at this point. Isn’t player retention important to your bottom line?

I think that the trait system is more fine than god-awful as people make it out to be.

It is annoying for power-levelers but it is fun for those that play the game.

One thing that I feel ANet needs to add in is a Quest text or a notification whenever you are high enough level to find a trait. Most traits are level-based anyways.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait_guide#Trait_unlock_methods_sorted_by_level_range

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Yeah, the previous system was decently functional . . . but it had its glaring issues (paying for trait resets)

Paying for trait resets isn’t a glaring issue is it? How expensive was it?

tofumon.5924:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Yeah, the previous system was decently functional . . . but it had its glaring issues (paying for trait resets)

Paying for trait resets isn’t a glaring issue is it? How expensive was it?

The big problem, more important than the money cost, with trait reset was the need to speak to an npc to reset them, so you couldn’t change them when you wanted