Guild Wars 2

Guhracie.3419:

By “a while” you mean “four posts.” Got it. Thanks for the reminder! I now have a post-it note on my computer with your user-name, reminding me not to engage with you. You missed my point then and took it as a personal attack, which it wasn’t, and are now determined that whatever I say must be an opening for a confrontation.

Look. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. Sincerely. Sometimes I phrase things poorly, and I get hung up on trying to make sure my message is understood without really focusing on my tone, and that often leads to me coming off as abrasive, which I probably am anyway. It’s one of the flaws with text, and, apparently, my personality.

No, you just didn’t understand one part: “The wiki page looks accurate and even if Dulfy isn’t..” So, you assumed that dulfys still is updated and I assumed that people writing in this thread know about stuff like that – so it took me quite a while to understand what your problem was.

Infernia.9847:

I thought adding Keysha’s list to the prior one did cover the issue of unlocking all traits on all 5 characters (4 alts) that we had by default.

So here I fixed the challenge to include both lists:
Dev Trait Challenge

1. They can’t buy the traits
2. They must unlock all of the traits per character
3. They must use all five character slots and finish out each one on a different profession ."
4. They must do it on a non-dev account.
5. They cannot ask their co-workers to fix bugged events, they have to do the bug report system, just like the rest of us.
6. They have to remain ‘unknown’ so they get just as much help as an average player for group events/dungeons. This INCLUDES not being in a guild to start, and not letting anyone know who they are, so they deal with the same stuff we all do.
7. They have to play exclusively to unlock traits, and get all of the traits unlocked.

This challenge should go out to those who made the decision for this to go live. Hmmm, do those decision makers even know how to play the game? If they really do, hows your decision working out for you?

Something tells me you can’t tell us the REAL truth!

I really do think that all of our efforts, including issuing that challenge to the devs, is wasted. I am certain that they have given us our answer, however, they don’t want to come out and say it.

Personally, I would strongly prefer it if they would come out and say it rather than continue to hand out assurances of changes being made for the better in some indeterminate future.

I have put a link to the dev challenge in my signature not for the devs but for the forum dwellers. However, I have my doubts that many forumites look at signatures, much less click on any links.

If nobody stirs the pot in this thread, no other issues are addressed and fixed (like the gem exchange and commander tags), and there isn’t any significant content being released, I believe this thread will fade away within a couple of months. I have been in this fight since the beginning and have watched people fight for change here, only to leave after enough headache, often leaving the game as well.

I am close to being done posting here as well. I am still playing the game but I have to fight to enjoy it knowing what I know about how the company has handled this.

After this thread has died, the traits people will flare up and post when there are content releases, anet fixes other things, and there will be a big flare up next April 15th.

One of the disconnects in philosophy I’m seeing as I do these traits is that players see the traits as being available for the LOWEST possible level, and expect content that unlocks the traits to be appropriate for the lowest possible levels, 30, 60, and 80.

Devs on the other hand see it as a range, and have no problem putting an adept trait in a level 60 area because the traits to them are 30-60, to them you should not expect to run a trait that is earned from a level 55-60 area until you’re level 55.

Players want to slot that trait at level 36.

To me, at level 48, I want to slot a trait that is in a level 55+ zone (Sparkfly Fen, the trait is Profession III)

I think that a good middle ground would be to have all adept traits be under level 50 content, so narrowing the range from 30-50 (maybe 25-50, it should be possible to earn some traits before you can actually use them to spur you on to gain levels so you can use your traits), and all master traits should be 60-75 content (rather than 60-80, maybe even 55-75) and grandmaster traits are all level 75-80 content.

I should add that downscaling makes being able to unlock a trait before you can earn it still feel appropriate. The first trait I unlocked around level 35 or so was Arms I, which was in a 15-25 level zone (Kessex Hills, finding a splended chest in Earthlord’s Gap), and since I was downscaled it felt fine.

So I think that traits currently located in Sparkfly Fen and Timberline Falls could move to Kessex Hills, Brisban Wildlands, Snowden Drifts, and Diessa Plateau possibly. More appropriate feeling zones to earn traits in have been Gendarran Fields, Fields of Ruin, Lornar’s Pass, Dredgehaunt Cliffs, and Harathi Hinterlands, with Bloodtide Coasts kind of pushing the limit but still feeling appropriate.

Here’s another nugget of feedback.

Developers probably think that players can simply ask for help from other players or guildmates for inappropriately leveled content to unlock a trait, or story dungeons, etc.

HOWEVER, the response other players will give you is “you can buy the trait at the trainer”

That defeats the entire purpose of earning it in the game. Buying a trait for skill points and gold should be for convenience, not a necessity, which it becomes if a trait unlock is too high leveled or requires a group and the content is not something groups of people normally do (world bosses that people do for loot anyway okay, story mode dungeons not okay)

One thing you could do that might make some people happy and be relatively easy to implement would be to simply allow any character of any class to talk to any trainer and buy the trait books for other classes. The trait books obviously wouldn’t work with the wrong class, but you could put the account-bound but not soulbound trait books into the bank and use them for another toon.
Basically, allow us to use our extra skill points we have on our 80s to buy traits for our alts. People with an over-abundance of skill points have obviously learned the game, and it gives people who have tons of skill points and nothing to spend it on something else to do with them.
I have no desire to make a legendary for my ranger, she already has weapon skins I think fit her character perfectly, and they’re of ascended stats, so I’d rather use those skill points to benefit my alt if I could by buying up all the traits she needs. I know that eventually the alt may have extra skill points too, but that won’t be until awhile after she’s level 80 when I’ve done more map completion, and I’d rather have the traits before then.

Dubbleyew.1029:

One thing you could do that might make some people happy and be relatively easy to implement would be to simply allow any character of any class to talk to any trainer and buy the trait books for other classes. The trait books obviously wouldn’t work with the wrong class, but you could put the account-bound but not soulbound trait books into the bank and use them for another toon.
Basically, allow us to use our extra skill points we have on our 80s to buy traits for our alts. People with an over-abundance of skill points have obviously learned the game, and it gives people who have tons of skill points and nothing to spend it on something else to do with them.

Which would be extremely unfair for new players who have it the hardest with this system anyway.

Jana.6831:

Which would be extremely unfair for new players who have it the hardest with this system anyway.

Jana, are you actually trying to accomplish something in this thread besides trolling? Because that is all you seem to be doing. You criticize BOTH sides of the issue. On one hand you say the system is a huge mistake. On another hand, you seem to support Anet, because ‘they have the numbers’, and on yet ANOTHER hand, any suggestions that would help the veterans, you complain it isn’t fair to new players.

When someone has that many hands in one thread, I have to wonder where the joker in the deck is.

The best way to understand traits is to experience them in game, not reading a tool tip, not reading a guide and certainly not being gated on an essential part of game play.

I should be able to randomly mix up my traits from the choice of ALL the traits to learn what they do, as I have done with my Grandfathered character.

Whilst i applaud no longer having to schlep to Lions Arch to retrain and paying for it – making it difficult/expensive/overly time consuming/forcing particular play to learn what traits do by PLAYING them is just plain wrong.

Levelling a non grandfathered and grandfathered character at the same time is a real eye opener…

So apparently it is only 5 people posting here, so I thought I will also add my voice (3rd time in 7 months) that this change sucks and it is the main reason I mostly lost interest in this game since I like to and I always do have plenty of alts in MMOs.

Also, +1 to the dev challenge, but I am not holding much hope about it either.

Devildoc.6721:

One of the disconnects in philosophy I’m seeing as I do these traits is that players see the traits as being available for the LOWEST possible level, and expect content that unlocks the traits to be appropriate for the lowest possible levels, 30, 60, and 80.

Devs on the other hand see it as a range, and have no problem putting an adept trait in a level 60 area because the traits to them are 30-60, to them you should not expect to run a trait that is earned from a level 55-60 area until you’re level 55.

Players want to slot that trait at level 36.

To me, at level 48, I want to slot a trait that is in a level 55+ zone (Sparkfly Fen, the trait is Profession III)

I think that a good middle ground would be to have all adept traits be under level 50 content, so narrowing the range from 30-50 (maybe 25-50, it should be possible to earn some traits before you can actually use them to spur you on to gain levels so you can use your traits), and all master traits should be 60-75 content (rather than 60-80, maybe even 55-75) and grandmaster traits are all level 75-80 content.

Reducing the range of content that adept traits can be unlocked with isn’t fixing the problem though. Like you said, players want to be able to slot that trait AT level 36. So it would actually make more sense to have adept trait content span from levels 20 to 35, then master from 35 to 60, then grandmaster from 60 to 80. However that could introduce the problem of players having all these traits but being frustrated at not being able to use them. But I still think that would be better than waiting until level 55 to get an adept level trait, cause that is just freaking ridiculous.

Keysha.2815:

Jana.6831:

Which would be extremely unfair for new players who have it the hardest with this system anyway.

Jana, are you actually trying to accomplish something in this thread besides trolling? Because that is all you seem to be doing. You criticize BOTH sides of the issue. On one hand you say the system is a huge mistake. On another hand, you seem to support Anet, because ‘they have the numbers’, and on yet ANOTHER hand, any suggestions that would help the veterans, you complain it isn’t fair to new players.

When someone has that many hands in one thread, I have to wonder where the joker in the deck is.

Well, I’m able to think and not just demand stuff that suits me best. I support whatever is the better option in given situations, I’m not all black and white. If you call that trolling I can’t help you, I guess.

Edit: To make it clear:
1) This system is a mess – to me and most who write in this thread – it has boiled down to only a few people writing in this thread who get very angry if anything goes into any direction they don’t like, like me giving tips how to get traits, like people saying they like the system, and who act like you who calls me a troll because “I have to take either the one or other side”.

2) We aren’t the whole of the players, so we can talk all day while 75% of the player base gets 10 traits a day. Anet can see that and from that conclude whether or not the trait system is “a success”. They can then read some of the middle suggestions in this thread which had some people who actually tried to get traits and told of their experiences to see how to improve it. They can try it themselves all they like, still they are experienced players and make 1% of the player base, so it’s possible they try and deem it okay which without having a look at the numbers doesn’t mean anything.

3) (I’m just talking about what I have experienced when I was a new player, so talking about me and the ~20 people I knew back then, maybe the usual new player knows more than we did: )
New players have yet to find extern websites, they might have problems getting skillpoints in the first place because various reason and it might well be that they have no idea about traits and also no idea how to make a proper build. So they do a dungeon and die all the time and someone mentions traits of which they have maybe 5 blue ones – They naturally want to get traits sooner than later afterwards but have no skillpoints to pay for them. So by suggesting that one can buy the trait books with other characters it’s shifting not solving the problem.

Gregori.5807:

I really do think that all of our efforts, including issuing that challenge to the devs, is wasted. I am certain that they have given us our answer, however, they don’t want to come out and say it.

Personally, I would strongly prefer it if they would come out and say it rather than continue to hand out assurances of changes being made for the better in some indeterminate future.

I have put a link to the dev challenge in my signature not for the devs but for the forum dwellers. However, I have my doubts that many forumites look at signatures, much less click on any links.

If nobody stirs the pot in this thread, no other issues are addressed and fixed (like the gem exchange and commander tags), and there isn’t any significant content being released, I believe this thread will fade away within a couple of months. I have been in this fight since the beginning and have watched people fight for change here, only to leave after enough headache, often leaving the game as well.

I am close to being done posting here as well. I am still playing the game but I have to fight to enjoy it knowing what I know about how the company has handled this.

After this thread has died, the traits people will flare up and post when there are content releases, anet fixes other things, and there will be a big flare up next April 15th.

Unfortunately I too agree that the effort of issuing this challenge may be wasted. It’s just that there are 100’s if not 1000’s of excellent suggestions in this thread and there isn’t much left to suggest.
I did mention metrics at the dev’s disposal and still believe that spreadsheets, graphs and numerical data is only half the picture. Nothing beats experiencing the content of the current trait acquisition system for giving those in charge of fixing this a ‘feel’ for what players experience.
What looks good on paper may translate horribly in game. When comparing the numbers of a certain trait that the majority of players have bought instead of acquired they will know exactly why. A trait with an event that’s bugged, takes a long time to acquire, or requires completion of difficult content will become clear. It won’t be the same as a ‘new player’ experience but it will give them an idea of what this system promotes.

I would like to see just one dev post they’ve done this on all 5 characters with every single trait unlocked on them all.
I still have hope. And thanks for the signature idea, I used it myself.

Infernia.9847:

Gregori.5807:

snip

Unfortunately I too agree that the effort of issuing this challenge may be wasted. It’s just that there are 100’s if not 1000’s of excellent suggestions in this thread and there isn’t much left to suggest.
I did mention metrics at the dev’s disposal and still believe that spreadsheets, graphs and numerical data is only half the picture. Nothing beats experiencing the content of the current trait acquisition system for giving those in charge of fixing this a ‘feel’ for what players experience.
What looks good on paper may translate horribly in game. When comparing the numbers of a certain trait that the majority of players have bought instead of acquired they will know exactly why. A trait with an event that’s bugged, takes a long time to acquire, or requires completion of difficult content will become clear. It won’t be the same as a ‘new player’ experience but it will give them an idea of what this system promotes.

I would like to see just one dev post they’ve done this on all 5 characters with every single trait unlocked on them all.
I still have hope. And thanks for the signature idea, I used it myself.

^^I think the challenge is worth writing down. Even if it does no good, which I think is the case, we are on record as having made the suggestion… along with similar suggestions and the myriad of other often excellent suggestions.

If this causes damage to the game, nobody can say that we didn’t try to prevent it.

Of all individual suggestions, I think the challenge one is the best as you explained.

If it were possible, I would somehow make the devs hit this cold like we did. They would have to google, get stuck at bugged events without knowing they are bugged, get stuck waiting for random event chains to start, etc.

This from Keysha, who is sitting next to me: “Ideally would be a brand new player to GW2 playing the game for traits with a dev watching over their shoulder, keeping their mouths shut… and just watching how this player has to do it on all 5 characters. Because then it would be a brand new player who doesn’t know the tricks, locations, or timing of events.”

I would give them the entire trait experience from our point of view.

Maybe what we need is for the one Anet voice to do the challenge.

What say you? You’re an experienced GW player Gaile. Would it be possible for you to make 5 different toons (non-grandfathered in) and attempt to go through and obtain through actual game play, while anonymous to the gaming community, all of the traits as they are laid out in the game currently? If you are the one tasked with communicating with us, and then tasked with bringing the info back to the devs, then is it possible for you to take on this challenge as its been laid out? Walk a mile, etc, etc…

This would mean trying to find a guild to help and all that other stuff that a somewhat new player might have to deal with.

To be honest, best way would be to rollback back to April before patch, back to the original system. There wasn’t complaints about traits like there is now.

People could get varied builds more quickly and experiment with them like it was till this update.

There is absolutely no need to change traits behind some events/bosses/map completion.

GW1 was and still is very practical/versatile/flexible with skills & builds, GW2 used to be before this trait update……

7 months…jesus.

What does it need to get attention to this issue?
Bad press from gaming sites like Eurogamer, Gamespot, Kotaku?

jucca.8219:

What does it need to get attention to this issue?
Bad press from gaming sites like Eurogamer, Gamespot, Kotaku?

I wouldn’t mind if the trait system got some bad press. That’s pretty much what bothers me most about this game. Pretty much the only thing stopping me from making new chars and recommending this game to people. If they fixed the trait system I could wholeheartedly tell people the game is fun.

jucca.8219:

What does it need to get attention to this issue?
Bad press from gaming sites like Eurogamer, Gamespot, Kotaku?

They have had it over this issue. And it has been dropped.

Keysha.2815:

jucca.8219:

What does it need to get attention to this issue?
Bad press from gaming sites like Eurogamer, Gamespot, Kotaku?

They have had it over this issue. And it has been dropped.

I don’t remember any bad press about the traits. I tried to find some and all I could find were articles talking about the “exciting trait update.”

their data on it is probably also bad. However, they want a new better solution most likely, which they will not interact with us on. It will take them quite some time to design, implement and test. And if it sucks? well it may change after a similar time change. The sad part is the old system was fine. The feedback they heard was misunderstood, and the execution very poor.

i think a big problem with this games development, is it tends to focus too much on revamps, and not enough on new things.

Sadly It seems like the metric they’re using is quarterly financials. If you go by those, most of the design decisions have been good ones. Maybe with this last quarter’s numbers our statements about playing less and not recommending the game due to this system will carry more weight.

Eitri.2608:

Sadly It seems like the metric they’re using is quarterly financials. If you go by those, most of the design decisions have been good ones. Maybe with this last quarter’s numbers our statements about playing less and not recommending the game due to this system will carry more weight.

by quarterly finanicials, they have been continually losing 5-10% per quarter over the last 4 quarters.
So i doubt that the descions can be seen as good in that light.

It may be unrelated, but all indications are that profits have gone down since said changes

Aaaaand now my one reason for even trying to log in semi regularly has been eliminated (yay for dying/dead WvW), so I have even less of a reason to fire it up.

At one time i probably wouldn’t have cared since I would have gladly been in PvE churning out alts and the like, but well…

Have fun Anet.

I might log in to unlock the story steps just in case this trait thing gets fixed, but if not…it was fun while it lasted.

I don’t even know what to think about it anymore. Few month ago staff member said that they will look into this (though the message itself was like 4 month late), but since then I haven’t heard anything. I have only single character with unlocked traits, and I really can’t think of farming to unlock traits for the others.

All these pages, all these replies…Anet…by my Aunt Essie’s best Sunday garters, your trait system is not working…dooooo something

I think I made four new characters after the trait change. Two are totally not being played and are useful only for the additional storage space they afford me.

The other two, Guardian and Ranger, are being played only because I had the luxury of knowing what traits and skills I needed…not sure what I will do if those chosen traits are nerfed

Hmmmm…I have an idea. Karma is put into the Wallet to be shared with all characters on account, how about sharing Skillpoints the same way?

There are probably a thousand million reasons why this idea would not work which is too bad as it would give players a way of feeding skillpoints to affected alts, and the Devs would be freed from the chains of having to create a new Trait system.

Anyways, I will be watching this thread.

Lisa.

I made a new alt recently and it is my first since the new trait system has been put in place. This is painful. There are a few i think are fun but after grinding so many traits im frustrated. I enjoy a little bit of eotm and wvw but i cannot sit in a zerg for hrs waiting and wishing to take the points i need for a trait. My fps drops like crazy in wvw and making me wait for one camp just makes me arghhhh. And yes i know i can buy them… but i am trying to help a new player out and since new players dont have the stupid amount of gold and sp’s we require to unlock im doin it the long way.
I really like the idea of the devs challenge. There has to be a halfway point to making this trait concept work better.

The one character I raised under this system has only the traits that match his initial build idea, and about 3 more I randomly bumped into. Actually, I am still missing one trait I want.

I feel locked into this one build. Experimenting means hours of work, or a bunch of gold. Neither is appealing, and so I don’t experiment.

When I was new I was clueless about laying out a build — it took lots of experimenting to get to where it feels comfortable. How are new players suppose to learn when the time/gold cost is so high?

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

When I was new I was clueless about laying out a build — it took lots of experimenting to get to where it feels comfortable. How are new players suppose to learn when the time/gold cost is so high?

Anyone from Anet care to answer this question? Same with me, as I got the traits unlocked with the old system, did alot of experimenting. Now that was fun! IF I was to make an alt now, Edge of the mist till 80, then buy what I need.

Seven Months… This is a complete joke.

I know this means nothing by now, but my wife recently wanted to re-make her Elementalist and I was sadly pre-occupied with something else and she ended up deleting her old one (it was about 1.5 years old, so grandfathered in). All she needed was a total makeover kit because she didn’t like the face/coloring and such.

Now she has to go through some stupid trait hunt just to play her character. It was honestly better when we had to pay to re-trait, because at least then we had access to every trait to change.

GSNairb.1456:

I know this means nothing by now, but my wife recently wanted to re-make her Elementalist and I was sadly pre-occupied with something else and she ended up deleting her old one (it was about 1.5 years old, so grandfathered in). All she needed was a total makeover kit because she didn’t like the face/coloring and such.

Now she has to go through some stupid trait hunt just to play her character. It was honestly better when we had to pay to re-trait, because at least then we had access to every trait to change.

kitten man you should’ve warned her not to delete her character. That sucks. I’m sorry.

Daggos Skelito.2910:

IF I was to make an alt now, Edge of the mist till 80, then buy what I need.

To me they even screwed up doing it that way by restructuring the trait progression. At least when you got a point every level from 11 on you could feel like you were contributing more and more as an uplevel. Take, for example, the fall reduction traits. Those are pretty critical if you’re going to run with a zerg in WvW.

GSNairb.1456:

I know this means nothing by now, but my wife recently wanted to re-make her Elementalist and I was sadly pre-occupied with something else and she ended up deleting her old one (it was about 1.5 years old, so grandfathered in). All she needed was a total makeover kit because she didn’t like the face/coloring and such.

Now she has to go through some stupid trait hunt just to play her character. It was honestly better when we had to pay to re-trait, because at least then we had access to every trait to change.

I know that feeling.
Just before the update in April I filled up all my character slots with place holders – just in case. After the patch, in a momentary lapse of reason, I remade an engineer I was working on to get a different look – as of right now it’s still sitting at level 38, untouched since early May.

hmmm…so any dev got guts to take this challenge?
Well, they say " talk the talk and walk the walk", common should be someone out there to take this challenge?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/62#post4563621

Oh well, just so that someone does take this challenge, i’ll make it a little more interesting. From Mon-Fri, I have a job and therefore only get about 3 hours play, weekends, I admit I play a fair bit. so how does 5hrs Mon-Fri each day and weekends as long as you want sound.

OMG what have I asked. My bad, just remembered, ArenaNet’s policy is not to tell us anything.

Buried alive… buried alive…

Did I say before this was a snub? I was wrong. At this point, every patch that goes by that leaves this redesigned trait system in place, every day that goes by without someone at anet offering some indication of what they intend to do about it, or if they intend to do anything all, stands as a brazen flip of the ol’ bird to every player, new or old, with a character created under this system.

Isn’t that special.

Seems have decided to tell us that they will work on fixing the Greatest Fear plotline. Understandably, they have declined to give a timeframe, other than stating it needs a fix and the resources it will take mean it can be a while. At the very least, thy have said something that people can hold against them if they fail to deliver.

Its not an immediate result, but it means Anet have said that they are getting round to fixing thi s mistake (not a bug, a conscious decision to change an aspect of the game, unless bugs have attained a level of sentience to alter story script to make it seem a dev decision. Just in case, I would just like to welcome our new AI overlords.)

So what does this mean? In my opinion, Greatest Fear was the second longest persistent thread around a design issue behind this one. If Anet can come into this thread with something similar, it would be a real boost.

Simply, is Anet aware of the issues around the (I want to say new, but that would be stretching truth at this point in the game) current system, and will they be looking to address these issues. And just in case the old line is repeated, considering feedback is not the same as promising to change the system in response to it. I think after over 7 months, it isn’t unreasonable for us to be given some information, in particular if there are any planned changes in response to this feedback.

We want a statement that we can actually hold Anet accountable for, in the same way the Greatest Fear thread now has. Are Anet in a position to give us that? And if not, can they be honest with us to say they are not going to work on this system anymore?

The current round of silence after silence, with nothing in real acknowledgement or update does nothing for Anet’s attempt at rebuilding trust. This has gone on so long because of Anet’s Exodus, and no doubt they are unsure how to handle this after so long. Honesty is the best policy. So, the simply, tl;dr question is thus;

Will this system be changed in response to the 7 months+ worth of feedback?

A simple yes or no answer at this point would be more substantial and have more meaning than pretty much all of Anet’s responses in this thread thus far. Its not unreasonable for us to receive that answer at this stage, I believe.

Ugh, it’s so insulting that the “Greatest Fear” is yet another issue that will be resolved before traits are handled. At this point, it’s probably safe to assume that absolutely nothing is going to be done about traits. They might throw us a bone, but that’s about all I would hope for.

I imagine precursor crafting will be implemented before this system is fully reviewed and revised. I suspect we’ll see flying mounts wearing capes before this system is addressed. They should just lock this thread and be done with it.

Every time I see Gaile Grey or another CM having a throw away casual conversation about nothing of importance ( recently some Sylvari NPC outfit) and I think of the complete lack of even BASIC response to this thread – I lose my mind…

Rococo: If you have a bit of unpleasant work in front of you (for job or home) most people tend to want to ignore it. Its less stressful that way. As time goes on, i think this thread is basically that “thing” that the devs knows is there and are trying desperately not to think about/acknowledge openly since it causes them stress.

That being said, my overall sympathy on that front has worn thin to the point of non-existence. I “played” the new LS yesterday, and when my wife chimes in with, “That’s IT?!?!” then i know where this whole thing is headed. Seriously, if the LS content is going to be so easily done (WITH distractions mind you), and they are putting that much effort into it, then I can’t imagine how daunting this very real problem must be for them. Anet has created a problem with the leveling system that detracts from everything they have communicated about what they wanted their game to be, and we have consistently shown a light on it.

Sorry Anet, but a hole in the roof is a hole in the roof. Ignoring it won’t make it go away and the problem will only become more evident as time goes on.

I dunno. Ignoring the problem seems to be making me go away.

This is literally how threads of great importance get left behind, closed or die.

So much has been said from one end, it’s starting to just resemble one person talking to themselves pacing back and forth with an onlooker only peeking in to say “are you still pacing back and forth? keep pacing back and forth…”

This reminds me very much of the first CDI; Open for TOO long with very, very little response from the devs, considering they were the ones that came up with the idea but failed to execute it.

I’m putting my bet here that, it’ll eventually get Gaile or a mod coming in saying that this thread has now run its course, and “the feedback was valuable” but that they’ll close the thread as they feel they’ve exhausted all talking points, and still they’ll tell us nothing about the status of trait changes.

For the love of all that is good in the world, SOMEONE from Anet say SOMETHING about the traits. Staying silent only reinforces a lack of trust between player and company.

You’re better off just adding the line:
“….but besides this, the trait thread needs to be addressed”
To the end of any post for any thread from now on, and get everyone else to do so to highlight it’s a big deal.

nethykins.7986:

This is literally how threads of great importance get left behind, closed or die.

So much has been said from one end, it’s starting to just resemble one person talking to themselves pacing back and forth with an onlooker only peeking in to say “are you still pacing back and forth? keep pacing back and forth…”

This reminds me very much of the first CDI; Open for TOO long with very, very little response from the devs, considering they were the ones that came up with the idea but failed to execute it.

I’m putting my bet here that, it’ll eventually get Gaile or a mod coming in saying that this thread has now run its course, and “the feedback was valuable” but that they’ll close the thread as they feel they’ve exhausted all talking points, and still they’ll tell us nothing about the status of trait changes.

For the love of all that is good in the world, SOMEONE from Anet say SOMETHING about the traits. Staying silent only reinforces a lack of trust between player and company.

they will take what they like from this thread, they will spend money building it to co,mpletion, and then they will give it to us.
If it is bad, you can look forward to another year, or possibly never for a fix.

the sad part is they have learned very little from these big misteps, their overall policies make it more likely to occur again and again.

nethykins.7986:

I’m putting my bet here that, it’ll eventually get Gaile or a mod coming in saying that this thread has now run its course, and “the feedback was valuable” but that they’ll close the thread as they feel they’ve exhausted all talking points, and still they’ll tell us nothing about the status of trait changes.

I’ll take your bet a step further, they’ve circled the date when they feel they can say that on their calendar.

It’s an interesting case study in community management since it basically demonstrates how long it takes a community to go from hopeful at a public response to disappointed. Maybe they’re waiting for it to get hostile so they can cite that as a reason to close the thread.

It honestly won’t behoove them to do that. We’ve played nice and kept the discussion in this thread for the most part instead o flooding the boards with post after post on this issue. To close it would open the door for that, which they most likely do not want.

Eitri.2608:

It’s an interesting case study in community management since it basically demonstrates how long it takes a community to go from hopeful at a public response to disappointed. Maybe they’re waiting for it to get hostile so they can cite that as a reason to close the thread.

Or maybe they’ve said all that they can say at this point and are waiting for substantial news before disseminating further information. I don’t see what ArenaNet has to gain by hoping for a thread to go hostile just so they can close it. I understand that many of us are disappointed, but comments like these don’t promote constructive dialog and only serve as a distraction from the actual issue, which, as you might remember, is the overly complex and burdensome trait acquisition system. I think that we have pretty much said all that needs saying regarding its deficiencies. The general consensus appears to be that it blows, and most players liked the old system better with regard to ease of skill acquisition. Now the ball is in ArenaNet’s court, and we’ll just have to wait and see what they do with that information. I’m sure that when they finally decide what to do about it we’ll see an announcement. These theories about ArenaNet deliberately trolling players by withholding information and shutting down threads out of spite aren’t going to expedite the announcement.

Bernie.8674:

Eitri.2608:

~snip for brevity~

~snip for brevity~

My reply is going to be long enough without quoting everything. No disrespect intended.

I don’t believe they are trolling this thread or wanting it shut down.

I believe that they are not going to do much about the issue and, instead of coming out and saying so, they are hoping the issue will die. And… it is. Most of us who have been in this fight since the beginning are gone. Others have come in, joined the fight, and left.

I believe that Anet does not want to close this thread, rather they want it to die a quiet death and be buried. This thread keeps the issue from spilling into the main forum, or it used to. By now if this thread was closed, the issue would pop up here and there, quickly dying down. If it had been closed a few months earlier, there would have been a kaboom.

Anet can act quickly when they want, as they showed with the gems issue and commander tag issue.

There is no constructive dialogue left to have. All ideas have been posed, extensive brainstorming has taken place, and all that is left is an echo chamber of us complaining to ourselves.

After 7 months with a couple of devs and Gaile coming in to offer platitudes and promises with no followup (other than more platitudes and promises), I can’t imagine there would be any reason to expect us to not be a bit put out.

I realize this post will not contribute new views or offer new solutions, as I’m quite sure everything on the issue has been said already by players more intelligent and eloquent than myself. I’m just posting to show that trait unlocking is still an important topic for some players (such as myself).

I’m slowly leveling a character now with a friend, by means of completing maps. For what it’s worth, I’ll write my thoughts from my experience with the “new” trait system.

I like that some traits are locked behind story mode dungeons, personal story chapters and the temples in Orr. I would also love to see some traits linked to “world bosses” that are part of the fixed rotation (such as the Shatterer). Those aren’t hard to get and lead people to an aspect of the game they might miss during their normal manner of play.

But I don’t like traits being locked behind random champions and events. I’m lucky I am going through them with my friend, but I can imagine myself and others having a whole lot of trouble getting these traits when playing alone. You can call out in map chat, but hardly anyone will respond to the call, because the events are just time consuming and not rewarding, except for the trait. The best and most obvious example of this is, of course, the Overgrown Grub in EB.

I like the concept of unlocking traits, as it gives you something to do when “working on a character”. But I would tie them to events (event chains) that are more easily accessed/completed. Maybe some could be tied to Renowned Hearts/vistas/poi’s/skillpoints, so that just completing maps already gives you a basic set of traits. Another way to implement some traits may be “capture a supply camp/tower/keep/stonemist castle in wvw” (not a specific camp/tower…). Some could be put in EotM, tied to airport/observatory/wurm tunnels and the other special objectives.

This way the traits will be more easily obtained (I don’t think gathering traits should be a show of “skill”), will take players to different aspects of the game for a bit (good way to show new players around) and it will take some time to gather all of them, which will give collectors a sense of satisfaction when completing their character.

TL;DR: I like the concept, but as others have already pointed out, I find that it was implemented a bit poorly.

Gregori.5807:

There is no constructive dialogue left to have.

I would disagree there. Perhaps a little true in dialogue between the players, but in terms of dialogue between the community and Anet, there could well be a lot of constructive dialogue still possible, but only because so far it hasn’t been a dialogue. A dialogue is an exchange between at least two parties, and frankly, it has only been one way traffic. I would like to see a dialogue started, but I feel and know that it won’t happen. And the last 7+ month of silence is my evidence to support that claim.

All we have is Anet posts from other threads, and try to see if they have some relevance to what is happening here. As such, the Anet announcement on My Greatest Fear, i took to have a bearing on this, and read that Anet are too occupied with doling out new content and features to even look back and sort their old problems out.

The reassurances that our feedback is valuable is meaningless to us, because we have 0 evidence that anything has changed in response to that feedback, and with Anet’s awful policy of not announcing things beforehand, we’ll never have that assurance until a change is made. The fact that in the short time between announcements nd implementation, whatever the feature, the assorted problems that occur were all predicted by the players says to me that perhaps we should have a bigger role in proofing concepts before implementation. There are more of us than developers, so there is a good chance a little issue we think of may not have been considered by the devs, who are perhaps too involved in the process to take a step back and evaluate it ore objectively.

Perhaps things will change along those lines for the better in the future. Anet’s persistent lack of meaningful communication damages their development process. So often, really good ideas are scuppered by the execution of them. Features need to be more rigourously tested against the aims they were trying to accomplish, as well as the broader aims of the game. The current trait system does not promote build diversity, particularly beyond one character (the more characters you have, the less likely you are going to unlock everything for all of them), which was a stated aim of the system, and unlocking the traits is a tall order for new players, particularly with the inexplicable gating beyond some event chains, and the alternative cost.

But nearly 8 months after implementation, and absolutely NOTHING in the way of substantive contribution from Anet, I have no hope for a relook at this system, and am so distrustful of Anet that I no longer buy gems, and look towards the next feature patch not with anticipation, but with dread and wondering what part of the game they are going to hurt next. Even their attempts at better communication have had no impact on this thorn in our sides. I see no hope at all for a change to come now. I would love to be proven wrong, but that isn’t going to restore my faith or respect for Anet a great deal at this stage.

the longer they wait, the less they profit.
do they hate money or are they working on GW3 to fix their mistakes?

I keep coming back… every. single. day… to check this thread, hoping and downright praying that ANet will do something to fix the trait system that they broke on Apr 15.

I agree with posters above that there has been NO dialogue about this. My only hope is that new players find this thread and come in there and give their views on the system (not NPE, that is separate).

How do you feel about the cost of traits to buy them (gold and skills points)? How do you feel about the types of things you are required to do to obtain them through play?

I know that when I first started GW2, I probably would have quit had I been required to go through the current system. Did I know a lot about traits when I started? No. Do new people know any better? I highly doubt it, because other than being randomly awarded here and there, traits are still not well explained in the game. Even worse, you now MUST go to the wiki or another site to even fathom how to obtain them!

I also know that as a new player, it took me FOREVER to get gold in the game, and skill points. I remember the days of looking at the T3 human cultural armor and it’s cost and thinking “oh no way will I ever have that much gold!!” So now, new players are put off from getting the “fun” stuff if they EVER want to buy traits rather than grind them out doing content they may not even want to do or know how to do.

Please, if you are a new player, or even a vet player just leveling a new toon using the current trait system, PLEASE leave a comment here. Let the developers know how this system affects you.