Guild Wars 2

Well, I am back for my periodic check to what has happened with this miserable trait system. As suspected, nothing. I stopped playing long ago though I did love game, thus I peek in to see if this has been changed.

The April patch which foisted this upon us turned me off completely, and my few friends who had come to play after I had been so enthusiastic about gw2….they left. They hated the new trait system, having started characters somewhat before the April disaster. When the change came they left not long after.

I was lucky enough to have 7 characters to 80 before the patch, but lost interest in the direction the game has taken.

I log in once in a great while to mess about for a bit but that is all. I have simply gone back to a game that I find more fun. GW2 is just way too different ( in a bad way) than it was when I began long ago. It is not the game I came to love anymore.

Yeah, I’ve really only been logging in to “get” the living story updates, but I haven’t played in a couple months it seems. I periodically check this thread to see if anything has been acknowledged by the Anet team, and then just wander away again, sad.

I stand by my statements a few weeks ago; nothing about this is going to change, with the possible exception that they might add traits to the gem store, so you could pay cash to trait a new character that doesn’t have skill points or gold.

But, they’ve put the game on rails, they’ve told the player how they want them to play, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign that they’ll return to the “play how you want” ideology.

duckideva.6358:

Yeah, I’ve really only been logging in to “get” the living story updates, but I haven’t played in a couple months it seems.

Same here. Log in, zone in, log out, enter second account details and do the same. Exit to desktop for another 2 weeks.

Maybe we need to organise a party of those of us who have become jaded and frustrated, see if we can have some fun and get back into the game.

I have been playing The Secret World but gotta admit… I’m kinda bored of it in a way I never did with GW2.

Mo Mo.1947:

I like the idea of unlocking traits BUT the unlock requirements need to be more broad or generic so people can unlock them without playing parts of the game they don’t want to play.

IDEA: Traits are made to enhance your skillset. Why not unlock traits similar to the way you used to unlock weapon skills? The more you do a certain type of thing, the closer you get to unlocking a trait.

Example: Necro: Unlock “Training of the Master” trait (which boosts minion damage) after slaying 150 foes with summoned minions.

This is probably the most constructive thing I’ve seen in this thread. I second this idea. I finally put my finger on what’s making traits so annoying, and it’s the fact that they fall into two categories:

1. Perform some grindy, out-of-the-way, task that most players won’t ever accomplish through the course of normal levelling
2. Do a dungeon with your guild because very few PUGs are going to take a player who isn’t level 80 and/or hasn’t even unlocked their traits yet

Mo Mo’s idea lets you unlock the traits that are most suited to your individual play style simply by playing the way you want to. If you consciously choose to unlock a trait it forces you to practice that play style without the trait so that when you do unlock it you can fully appreciate its benefit. This is far superior to anything that’s currently in the game.

As an aside, I recently got my baby engineer into the ‘70s. He has three traits unlocked, and one of those was purchased from a trainer for 50 silver and 5 skill points. I even unlocked a grand master trait through a Straits of Devestation event, and I don’t even have the ability to increase my traits enough to access grand master traits yet! It’s ridiculous for me to be in my 70s with only two basic traits equipped because everything else is gated behind crazy requirements. What new players would ever run dungeons while levelling? Even if they knew about the LFG system, 80% of the groups want 80+ players, 50% want experienced players only, and most of are looking to do explorable. If this were like GW1 where you could H&H most normal mode missions I would be more tolerant of unlocking skills through that type of content. Sorry… I know this has all been said before, but I had to vent a little.

Tachenon.5270:

Hello forum my old friend
It’s good to see you bug again
People citing things that no one said
People writing words that won’t be read
And a dev team biding with cotton balls in their ears
Disappears
Within the the sound of forums

Nice! But you forgot to finish it, so here goes:

In rage-filled posts I carefully read
With a persistent sense of dread
’Midst accusations of white knighting thrown
The best idea is always our own
Sometimes our cries were stilled by a post from ArenaNet
That conveyed regret
And touched the sound of forums

And in the angry huffs I sensed
Rumbles of belligerence
Posters writing without thinking
Posters responding without reading
Posters accusing devs of never having cared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of forums

“Fools,” wrote I, “you’re not alone
Our pleas are one collective groan
Present ideas that the devs can use
Be constructive; please do not accuse”
But my posts were consigned to rot in hell
And echoed in the wells of forums

And posters still ranted and raved
Convinced this game could not be saved
And reassurances are forthcoming
In promises of updates incoming
CC Danicia wrote “feedback, issues, or questions, please use this thread
Based on this post”
And whispered in the sound of forums

@Bernie – I agree that Mo Mo’s idea is a good one. But at the same time this exact kind of suggestion can be found towards the beginning of the thread and again after there was a dev comment about the size of the thread being so large and hard to pinpoint all the good suggestions. There is even a few posts in here where people had taken the time to write out entire trait lines in a similar fashion. All these good suggestions have been lost in the ever growing numbers of posts. People are cycling and repeating the same kind of ideas because the thread is so massive.

This was one of the reasons why I asked if the devs would simply go through and accomplish the unlocking of all the traits on multiple characters to see for themselves. Doing this would automatically give them an idea of what needs changing and how.
I really don’t think this change was play-tested to its fullest when implemented. The unlocks looked good on paper and a few tested here and there but did anyone really try it out to its fullest?

Gilosean.3805:

Deamhan.9538:

3. Missing out on things come to past.

This is where I disagree with them but this is their reasons that I’m listing so I’ll list it. Basically it has to do with the living story, major events, and the rewards that can be obtained at the time. They didn’t like the idea that they “missed out” on these things just because they didn’t play the game at the time.

This is a huge irritant for me too. It’s immersion-breaking. If I was in Tyria, there’s no way I wouldn’t know about the LS events. And I hate that content existed in the game before, and now it’s taken out. It’s one of my huge pet peeves with games. I like exploring and collecting, but when I’m trying to explore a moving target (with content coming and going) or can’t ever finish a set (like minis) I just lose interest.

I understand them wanting to charge for the story, but when the story drives the whole world, that seriously messes with the credibility of the world.

My take on it is that I agree with the concept but don’t like execution of it. What’s immersion breaking for me is when the exact same npc is standing in the exact same spot for days/weeks/years.

Take The Elder Scrolls games (NOT the MMO) where the NPCs actually have a daily routine. As if they have lives. Now imagine if NPCs could actually manipulate the game world on their own. That the game world changes and evolves based on the actions of both NPC and PC where each individuals’ action is a ripple in a pond. Some ripples come together to form waves that make a big lasting impact (the destruction of LA being the result of this as opposed to just Dev design) while others cancel each other out.

For every action there is an automated reaction. For each mission complete or story ended, a new one is seeded taking into account hundreds, if not thousands of factors ranging from whether or not the mission was a success or failure (meaning a failure doesn’t mean you try again) to the little details on how story played out. How the PCs interacted with NPCs. etc.

A world where the NPCs have daily/weekly routines. Where they can kinda act on their own, where both NPCs and PCs can interact with the game’s world to the fullest extent possible. Where the world actually moves forward on it’s own accord without devs having to “update” the advancement.

Now that would be a ‘living, breathing, world’.

Hey, no trait changes again, but Anet “listened” and gave us mail carriers.

Yeah.

Thanks again Anet for proving you only have time/staff to dedicate to things that might line your pockets with more money in the short run. At this point you might as well add mounts and customizable homes that will also cost gems since that is where this game is headed.

Ridiculous. I didn’t think I could be this disappointed in a game company. I honestly didn’t expect a trait change this go around, but to implement this nonsense? And then make it such an obvious money grab too?

TRAITS! Can we PLEASE focus on fixing the TRAITS!!! Can we please implement even a FRACTION of the suggestions from this thread?!?!? Can we be told if it even kitten matters anymore to you??!?!?!?

Bernie.8674:

Tachenon.5270:

Hello forum my old friend
It’s good to see you bug again
People citing things that no one said
People writing words that won’t be read
And a dev team biding with cotton balls in their ears
Disappears
Within the the sound of forums

Nice! But you forgot to finish it, so here goes

“Fools,” wrote I, “you’re not alone
Our pleas are one collective groan
Present ideas that the devs can use
Be constructive; please do not accuse”
But my posts were consigned to rot in hell
And echoed in the wells of forums

And posters still ranted and raved
Convinced this game could not be saved
And reassurances are forthcoming
In promises of updates incoming
CC Danicia wrote “feedback, issues, or questions, please use this thread
Based on this post”
And whispered in the sound of forums

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/23#post4091348
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Traits-Condensed-Thread/first#post4495157
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/24#post4123028
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/4322498
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/4532325
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/4461938
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Improve-Trait-unlocking-Simple-guidelines/4241025
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/4076617
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-Went-Wrong-1/4390739
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-s-wrong-with-Traits/4568166

Seriously, how much more constructive could I be? At this point, I would like ANET to do anything because there’s a solid probability that whatever they do will be an improvement. This is just a handful of my most well-received posts in this thread (and others, about traits). CC Danicia doesn’t even work for ANET anymore. Babies have been made and born in less time than this thread has existed.

Edit: I seem to have misunderstood the intent behind the addition to the song. Apologies, but this still stands for those sniping about constructive commentary.

Guhracie.3419:

At this point, I would like ANET to do anything because there’s a solid probability that whatever they do will be an improvement.

Considering this is ANet, I’m not so sure. We get the occasional quality of life upgrade (ex. Wardrobe), but they’ve also done this trait debacle, the NPE was a slap in the face, rewards continue to be RNG…

At this point, I almost expect them to move trait acquisition to rare drops in Black Lion chests. :\

well, one thing is true right now, even WoW doesn’t force you this amount of grind just for traits……and i despise WoW grind…..

Don’t worry folks! Forum reorganisation is far more important than gameplay!

heh, just imagine if they drop all extra stuff and start improving the game…….

sadly, the forum “improvements” look like they will end up confusing things more than helping them.

But hey, I guess if you really like PvP and really hated the siege disablers in WvW then you are a bit happier this week.

So, where do we think they are going to bury this thread? I can’t imagine it being left here for devs to see. Especially after all this time.

I had a discussion with a guildie this morning. She was really irritated with the trait system as she was leveling a new toon. She was pretty disgusted by some of the things she was required to do to get traits, especially the ones that forced her into WvW and doing events that she couldn’t wait around for to start. I hope she comes in the thread and gives you a first hand account.

ANet, there have been more than enough options and suggestions put forth in this thread. DO SOMETHING. For goodness’s sake. Do it. Do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anything!!!!!!!!

Stiiiiiill waiting at Balthazar for something to happen. I’d figure after 15 minutes, the Risen should be swarming this place for a defense event.
What a waste of my time.

Again, as has been iterated several times, don’t make us wait for trait events. Make them triggerable by anyone, at any time.

Hey really I think it could be worse. I don’t particularly like everything about the current trait system but it isn’t a gamebreaker.

Let us have a moment of reflection:

In these dark dark times when we are all subtly inconvenienced by individual trait unlocks, let us reflect upon our fortune as we remember the heinous days of old when we were just trying to grind past level 35 in Aion and couldn’t do important quests in open PvP zones without getting ganked repeatedly by a max level sadist with shining bleach-white wings.

Mo Mo.1947:

Hey really I think it could be worse. I don’t particularly like everything about the current trait system but it isn’t a gamebreaker.

It actually very nearly is a gamebreaker…

I just hit 80 with my character I made pre-patch and the game just suddenly got SO much more fun. Like 200% more fun, not even kidding. Because now I finally actually feel like I have a real character because I have enough trait points and access to all the traits so I can actually build something with traits that work together. Someone making a character post-patch isn’t going to have all the traits to experiment with. They won’t get to experience the joy of trying all the different traits out unless they go out of their way to unlock all of them, which they may or may not enjoy. This update made getting traits more difficult than it should be, and playing this game without traits feels like playing 1/2 of what it should be.

sorudo.9054:

well, one thing is true right now, even WoW doesn’t force you this amount of grind just for traits……and i despise WoW grind…..

The irony is that WoW practically eliminated skill acquisition altogether. They recognized that being forced to endure a grind just to play your character as it was intended made no sense. The only barrier to skill acquisition in WoW these days is character level. I don’t think that ArenaNet needs to go that far, but it would be nice if the requirements weren’t absolutely insane (100% area completion for an area that may or may not be in my story line just to get a basic trait — seriously?) and/or if they were restricted to grandmaster skills. I don’t have a problem skill hunting at max level. On the other hand, it’s pretty crazy to hit level 75 with only 3 skills to my name, one of which was purchased for half a gold and another of which isn’t even available because it was a grandmaster skill that was unlocked through partiticipation in a world event.

I know I’ve said this before, but Guild Wars 1 really had this down pat. Most skills were trivial to acquire, but elite skills had to be captured or unlocked through PvP. There really are no interesting choices here. Most traits require us to either perform some insanely tedious/improbable task or purchase the traits at prohibitively expensive prices.

tofumon.5924:

I just hit 80 with my character I made pre-patch and the game just suddenly got SO much more fun. Like 200% more fun, not even kidding. Because now I finally actually feel like I have a real character because I have enough trait points and access to all the traits so I can actually build something with traits that work together. Someone making a character post-patch isn’t going to have all the traits to experiment with. They won’t get to experience the joy of trying all the different traits out unless they go out of their way to unlock all of them, which they may or may not enjoy.

I just hit level 80 with a post-patch character and I have a total of 5 traits scattered across various trait lines, one of which I purchased for 50 silver. I have a random grandmaster skill that I didn’t even really want but managed to get through sheer luck by being in the vicinity of a world event. At this point I feel like I really have no idea how this character was intended to be played. I’ll eventually find a guide that directs me to the skills I want and pick and choose for them. That is, if I can muster up the enthusiasm to even play that character anymore.

Bernie.8674:

tofumon.5924:

I just hit 80 with my character I made pre-patch and the game just suddenly got SO much more fun. Like 200% more fun, not even kidding. Because now I finally actually feel like I have a real character because I have enough trait points and access to all the traits so I can actually build something with traits that work together. Someone making a character post-patch isn’t going to have all the traits to experiment with. They won’t get to experience the joy of trying all the different traits out unless they go out of their way to unlock all of them, which they may or may not enjoy.

I just hit level 80 with a post-patch character and I have a total of 5 traits scattered across various trait lines, one of which I purchased for 50 silver. I have a random grandmaster skill that I didn’t even really want but managed to get through sheer luck by being in the vicinity of a world event. At this point I feel like I really have no idea how this character was intended to be played. I’ll eventually find a guide that directs me to the skills I want and pick and choose for them. That is, if I can muster up the enthusiasm to even play that character anymore.

Yeah see this is why I’m reluctant to make a new character until they fix the trait system. I’ll be stuck to getting enough traits for one build, but then if I want to experiment I have to hunt or pay for a whole new slew of traits.

Hastily writes in journal
Nearly eight months since the start of this thread….
So far, our presence has gone unnoticed…
I fear the end is near for me.. But I cannot lose hope yet.
Hope… is all I have left…
I find myself more frequently thinking of the place I once called home…
Will things ever be the same? I do not know….
…. I do not know….

A single tear drop falls on on the page.

~ F a d e T o B l a c k ~

I’ve leveled 2 80’s since September (a Guardian and Engineer) and I must admit that the Trait System has had a chilling effect on my enjoyment of the leveling process. I have leveled two 80’s under the pre-April GW2 as well, so I do have a frame of reference.

I expedited leveling as much as possible, using boosts and EotM Trains, Traits unlock were sporadic and random making it difficult at 80 to have a build fleshed out. The SP and gold costs got increasingly more difficult to cover, especially on my second post-patch 80 who needed some build versatility.

Now I have my Elementalist, by far the worst yet to level compared to the others. He is at level 27 at present and it has been a fairly stark experience.

Having leveled an Elementalist at launch (now deleted) to the same level range, I can attest to the fact that the lack of Trait Progression really impacts on enjoying the class.

Level 31 is a long wait, and then only for one Trait!

Kuldebar.1897:

I’ve leveled 2 80’s since September (a Guardian and Engineer) and I must admit that the Trait System has had a chilling effect on my enjoyment of the leveling process. I have leveled two 80’s under the pre-April GW2 as well, so I do have a frame of reference.

I expedited leveling as much as possible, using boosts and EotM Trains, Traits unlock were sporadic and random making it difficult at 80 to have a build fleshed out. The SP and gold costs got increasingly more difficult to cover, especially on my second post-patch 80 who needed some build versatility.

Now I have my Elementalist, by far the worst yet to level compared to the others. He is at level 27 at present and it has been a fairly stark experience.

Having leveled an Elementalist at launch (now deleted) to the same level range, I can attest to the fact that the lack of Trait Progression really impacts on enjoying the class.

Level 31 is a long wait, and then only for one Trait!

Ouch. Eles depend so heavily on traits, too.

I never delete any characters, on the basis that I’ll come around to playing that class again some day. This update makes me very glad I don’t delete, because I have 1 of every class made before the patch. I’m not going to make a new character until the trait changes are fixed. I’m kind of sad that I won’t get to go through every racial story, but that’s what YouTube is for I guess.

SenorMoody.5908:

Hastily writes in journal
Nearly eight months since the start of this thread….
So far, our presence has gone unnoticed…
I fear the end is near for me.. But I cannot lose hope yet.
Hope… is all I have left…
I find myself more frequently thinking of the place I once called home…
Will things ever be the same? I do not know….
…. I do not know….

A single tear drop falls on on the page.

~ F a d e T o B l a c k ~

The thread is 8 months old? Do you know many traits could’ve been unlocked in the time it’s taken to write all these posts? :P :P

You can’t call minimal grind gamebreaking. Is this your all’s first MMO? It’s so easy and fast to level characters.

If you’re complaining about it affecting gameplay, look at how you would play the game normally going from zone to zone gradually increasing levels.

If you played the game “normally” instead of speed leveling your alts in EotM and the such you’d have a lot of the traits done naturally. You’d also have to spend more time on each character though.

EotM is the blessing from ANet for leveling alts. Trait unlocks is the price you pay for the convenience.

Some of the trait unlocks could be more universal and less specific, but it’s not “gamebreaking” suggesting you do a little something to earn a little something.

Mo Mo.1947:

Some of the trait unlocks could be more universal and less specific, but it’s not “gamebreaking” suggesting you do a little something to earn a little something.

Oh, it very much is to me. I’m dead serious when I state that this is by far the biggest kittenup of an update I’ve seen in any MMO I actively played.

vana.5467:

Mo Mo.1947:

Some of the trait unlocks could be more universal and less specific, but it’s not “gamebreaking” suggesting you do a little something to earn a little something.

Oh, it very much is to me. I’m dead serious when I state that this is by far the biggest kittenup of an update I’ve seen in any MMO I actively played.

You can’t even agree with that small snippet? The idea of earning something with a little bit of effort?

Just quit this and all other games that don’t have cheatcodes enabled. Quit all multiplayer games. Just go singleplayer RPG all the way and mod your way to victory.

There is a slight chance that I may have quoted the wrong post of yours.
Regardless, it should be obvious what I was referring to.

The issue is NOT having to earn something. it’s the sheer workload in relation to the reward we get. As I have said before, the way some of these traits are unlocked is fine, in my opinion, for grandmaster traits. Below that, they can be a lot of ffort, particularly for new players and those with alts.

Of course there is a cost if you want to skip that, but that is pretty steep, especially for new players (the ones Anet have really been pushing to capture of late),a nd also for multiple characters made after the patch hit. Especially when looking at how it was beforehand.

Not only that, but having to unlock things with so much time and effort needed, it diminishes build experimentation – a stated goal of this feature was to increase it. Also, just for reference, Anet appear to agree changes are needed back in about page 40 or so. The issue isn’t that we are whining without foundation, its that Anet have said it isn’t quite right, but still have shown nothing to say they are going to fix it, despite them knowing its something that needs changing.

Well there is entry level build experimentation in Heart of the Mists. As far as build experimentation otherwise I think that’s something for more established players. A more established player should have enough cash to buy a few traits if they don’t want to do the unlock award.

There is definitely a problem with the specific requirements of some traits. Like someone mentioned before, the traits that require you to defeat particular bosses in Orr can be annoying if you aren’t there when the right events are running.

And as far as ANet not giving us day-to-day details. If you think about it it’d really just bring more upset back-seat-driving from the community.

If they’re working on a solution, it means they are brainstorming alternatives and testing them out. Some of the alternatives they test out they will discover to be flawed and decide not to implement. It’s better to find the flaws in private than to lay it all out for the community to pick apart.

I think the issue is that they have gated content which was previously available, and restricted choice in the name of freedom. They have had the nerve to tell us that more restriction will result in increased enjoyment.

The doublespeak of ‘making traits more approachable’ (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/) whilst locking them away is such a complete PR clusterfornication that whichever PR officer allowed that quote out into the public domain should either be sacked, or sent to work for the British government press office.

Just as the April feature pack included “Social play improvements” (LFG) whilst simultaneously attempting to destroy social play as regards roleplaying, what the trait changes did are in complete contrast to what they were meant to do.

I mean, seriously… if Anet wanted to alienate its experienced and most passionate players it could not have gone a better way about it than making the April MegaFailPatch.

Oh wait… NPE.

Mo Mo.1947:

The thread is 8 months old? Do you know many traits could’ve been unlocked in the time it’s taken to write all these posts? :P :P

You can’t call minimal grind gamebreaking. Is this your all’s first MMO? It’s so easy and fast to level characters.

You’re missing the point that this is a serious impediment to the new player experience. Just because I started MUDding over 20 years ago and am inclined to level to 80 regardless of what traits I have doesn’t mean that everyone else is going to be the same. The goal of the trait system was ostensibly to make the new player experience more engaging, and it has done the exact opposite. You’re also ignoring the fact that some of these trait unlock requirements are insane. I don’t care how long you’ve been playing MMOs, you’re not going to capture WvW towers by yourself. Sure, you can buy them, but the costs are prohibitive for new players. The discrepancy between dungeon rewards and everything else in the game is ten-fold, in my experience. Without traits you have trouble in dungeons and without dungeons you have trouble acquiring traits.

For reference, I started GW2 in May (but I played GW1 extensively). My main character has the “Been there. Done that.” achievement, but he still has a signficiant portion of his traits locked. I can’t imagine traiting my other characters. Even in GW1, skills that were unlocked on one character unlocked account-wide. It’s just puzzling to me that a company would take something that worked perfectly well and reimplement it in such an ill-conceived manner. The fact that this is being pointed out by veteran MMO players is scant comfort for the new players that are even less equipped to deal with this.

Mo Mo.1947:

A more established player should have enough cash to buy a few traits if they don’t want to do the unlock award.

Im a casual player been here 2 years – I don’t play the TP, I don’t farm, I gather, do some crafting and every now and then have a few days doing a lot of World Bosses, I don’t even buy that much armor – I NEVER have more than 200 gold.

I currently have 7 character slots with only 3 grandfathered and levelled and 2 that I DESPERATELY want to reroll that are grandfathered, that’s FOUR characters at 43 gold to pay for, almost my entire bank of cash ( im trying to trait one naturally in the world but there is no way I can do that four times) and no skill points to actually spend on you know skills because im having to spend them on friggin traits.

Mo Mo.1947:

If they’re working on a solution, it means they are brainstorming alternatives and testing them out. Some of the alternatives they test out they will discover to be flawed and decide not to implement. It’s better to find the flaws in private than to lay it all out for the community to pick apart.

Gosh, it sure is odd they didn’t brainstorm the alternatives and test it all out and find the glaringly obvious flaws in the trait system redesign in private before they laid it out for the community to suffer with it for 8 months while they sat back and once or twice asked us to sum up the bad parts and offered up the ‘hey guys, how about giving us some constructive suggestions because we’re listening!’ standard operating placation.

Or maybe they did find the flaws and just went ahead with it anyway. Unlike the happy little faux pas with the gems/gold exchange, this one is a bit of a sleeper. Maybe they figured it would take a while for this percolate up into community consciousness, and the handful of players who noticed it early on and spoke out would be labeled as whiners and chicken littles by their peers, and by the time it became noticeable to the player base at large, well, ha ha tee hee, too late to do anything now! Because at that point too many players would have suffered through the silliness getting their traits, and oh, hey, wouldn’t want to upset them, now would we. And, oh, btw, we’re going to reorganize the forums so potentially embarrassing topics like this will fade into the obscurity of pages 2, 3, 4, etc., much more efficiently.

Tachenon.5270:

Gosh, it sure is odd they didn’t brainstorm the alternatives and test it all out and find the glaringly obvious flaws in the trait system redesign in private before they laid it out for the community to suffer with it for 8 months while they sat back and once or twice asked us to sum up the bad parts and offered up the ‘hey guys, how about giving us some constructive suggestions because we’re listening!’ standard operating placation.

Or maybe they did find the flaws and just went ahead with it anyway. Unlike the happy little faux pas with the gems/gold exchange, this one is a bit of a sleeper. Maybe they figured it would take a while for this percolate up into community consciousness, and the handful of players who noticed it early on and spoke out would be labeled as whiners and chicken littles by their peers, and by the time it became noticeable to the player base at large, well, ha ha tee hee, too late to do anything now! Because at that point too many players would have suffered through the silliness getting their traits, and oh, hey, wouldn’t want to upset them, now would we. And, oh, btw, we’re going to reorganize the forums so potentially embarrassing topics like this will fade into the obscurity of pages 2, 3, 4, etc., much more efficiently.

I can see far more veracity contained in your “conspiracy theory” than the one Mo Mo espoused that fingers anyone critical of the April Trait Changes as being be in the service of Blizzard the Illuminati of the Gaming Universe.

OK, since it still seems to be real easy for people to come in here and just start spouting off both assumptions about the rest of us in here as well as far too easy dismissals of every valid concern/complaint brought up in here over 8 months, let me re-cap…AGAIN.

General Consensus:
Over-all the “new” trait implementation is a “broken” one in that it plainly flies in the face of what Anet originally stated it’s goal to be (not only with the traits themselves, but later on with the NPE).
Although many of us veterans MIGHT have the funds (in both gold and skill points) to outfit one or two additional alts simply by buying traits, MOST players (new and vet alike) do not have those funds. Let alone to also outfit their toons with appropriate armor/weapons/runes/sigils/accessories.
Many of us were not/are not opposed to unlocking NEW and GM level traits with difficult content, but we ARE against having to jump through ridiculous hoops to unlock basic traits that are tied to core functionality of a class.

Now that those key points are out of the way, let me explain in some more detail here personally: I have explicitly leveled 2 toons to 80 in this new system after already having one of EVERY class at level 80 prior to it. I chose the 2 classes that I both knew fairly well, but that I’d want to see how they fared under the new system. Of them, only ONE feels “complete” in so far as I literally lucked into a set of trait unlocks that meshed with the direction i had in mind for her. That being said, she also has ZERO flexibility. I either run this build as is or she is completely useless. Now in PvE she’s just fine as is. I can go through the rest of the PvE game and never think twice about her set up. She will be a horribly bad toon to take into WvW though and since I like spending more of my time there, she is useless to me. The other toon I’ve have to “make work”, and once again, in PvE I am confident I can survive, but thats not because she is a good build, its because i am a vet player and can make her survive. New players won’t have it as easy and WILL quit the game.

This next part is important for all the people complaining about our complaining: I LOVE this game and this world. I WANT this game to succeed. I want more players in it. I want more stories to be told. What i don’t want is to see something as goofy as this trait change MISTAKE to be the thing that will make people stop coming to the game and in essence kill it slowly. I’ve not bought a gem card since April, and many I know have not as well. At one time I even considered getting a second account, but that is never going to happen as long as this trait system is in place. It literally took the fun out of the game for me to the point where i can’t even force myself to finish dailies most days. I honestly can’t imagine how new players feel once they hit this wall for the first time. And it IS a wall.

What gets me is that the designers have time to make videos of the content that’s coming up but do not have the time to discuss and fix important aspects of the game that require reworking.

I actually like the idea of going out and doing world events to unlock new traits. I was perfectly fine doing this for the new grandmaster traits.

But going back and applying this unlock system to EVERY trait in the game —- traits that were previously accessible to everyone —- was truly idiotic. It just forced an unnecessary time / gold sink on players with no real gain. I’ve heard so many people complain about this system in voice comms or in-game chat, and I’ve never heard one positive thing said about it. It is very much disliked.

If you want to give players an incentive to go out in the world and earn traits, that’s fine. Either introduce new traits and give them unique unlocks, or, if you REALLY want every trait to be earned, allow us to unlock 1 trait of our choosing whenever we complete a dungeon, mini-dungeon, large world event, jumping puzzle, 100% map complete a zone or capture a significant objective in WvW. Make it a one-time thing so you can’t just keep farming the same thing for unlocks.

On my Necro the other day, I 100% completed Snowden Drifts (it’s my favorite zone) but got no traits unlocked because it wasn’t Gendarren Fields. Or I helped capture an upgraded enemy Garrison in a WvW Borderland, but didn’t unlock anything because I didn’t karma-train Stonegaze Spire in EoTM. For crying out loud, if you’re now going to force us to “earn” our traits, at least give us some freedom in how we go about it.

Fudge.9527:

I actually like the idea of going out and doing world events to unlock new traits. I was perfectly fine doing this for the new grandmaster traits.

But going back and applying this unlock system to EVERY trait in the game —- traits that were previously accessible to everyone —- was truly idiotic. It just forced an unnecessary time / gold sink on players with no real gain. I’ve heard so many people complain about this system in voice comms or in-game chat, and I’ve never heard one positive thing said about it. It is very much disliked.

If you want to give players an incentive to go out in the world and earn traits, that’s fine. Either introduce new traits and give them unique unlocks, or, if you REALLY want every trait to be earned, allow us to unlock 1 trait of our choosing whenever we complete a dungeon, mini-dungeon, large world event, jumping puzzle, 100% map complete a zone or capture a significant objective in WvW. Make it a one-time thing so you can’t just keep farming the same thing for unlocks.

On my Necro the other day, I 100% completed Snowden Drifts (it’s my favorite zone) but got no traits unlocked because it wasn’t Gendarren Fields. Or I helped capture an upgraded enemy Garrison in a WvW Borderland, but didn’t unlock anything because I didn’t karma-train Stonegaze Spire in EoTM. For crying out loud, if you’re now going to force us to “earn” our traits, at least give us some freedom in how we go about it.

Well said Fudge. I agree wholeheartedly.

Here’s the thing:

In an ideal world they’d have enough people working on this to give us a robust trait hunting system that:

A- Puts adept level traits tied to things in 30-40 zones, master level in 50-60 zones, and grandmaster in level 80 zones
B- And also make them meaningful to the traits themselves OR if that is too much work at LEAST meaningful to the trait line as a whole.

I believe this would both foster exploration while being mindful of doing level appropriate tasks for the reward at hand, which is improving your toon.

Realistically they could/should probably make the tiers auto-unlock except for 1 from each tier at the level gated levels, and make the locked ones tied to either prolonged events in the world or gold sink just THOSE traits. Then if they ever add NEW traits, those should be locked and tied to things to do in the world.

OR

They leave their trait hunt the exact way that it is to really force new players out into all the parts of the world and game as they are doing now BUT severely drop the cost of buying the traits so new players and vets alike don’t have to grind just to get their toons to a workable place.

I mean, seriously anet. My first suggestion here would be CRAZY fun to play and might even get those of us that have played through the game now a few times over to go out and explore again, but we all know you will probably go for the low hanging fruit suggestion at the end there.

It would still be better than the nonsense we have now though.

Here is idea so that everyone gets what they want:

Keep the new system. Anet gets a money sink, players who enjoy unlocking can keep unlocking.

Have an option to turn off new system. Grants all traits to the toon – done!

Esreyr.6304:

Here is idea so that everyone gets what they want:

Keep the new system. Anet gets a money sink, players who enjoy unlocking can keep unlocking.

Have an option to turn off new system. Grants all traits to the toon – done!

How would Anet keep their money sink with this system? The type of player who would spend money to unlock the skill is the same player who will shut it off! The irony here is that the system was presumably put into place to reduce the rate of progression and placate the players complaining about the lack of progression. Unfortunately those players lacking progression are the very ones who were grandfathered out of the current system! Progression wasn’t broken for new players; it was broken for old ones. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how the current system came to be. Most other aspects of the game work in the exact opposite manner:

• There is no single task that fills those quest hearts; players are presented with a set of choices and can perform one or all of the given tasks
• There is no single way to gain XP; players get it by completing tasks, doing dailies, PvP, or participating in WvW.
• There are many ways to farm for holiday tokens: instances, quests, gathering, or just by killing mobs.
• Dungeons have multiple completion paths. ArenaNet could have stopped at just one and left it at that.

All of these design choices tell me that the team is well aware that players enjoy choice and variety in their playstyles. That’s why I’m so puzzled at how this system could have been foisted on the game. Worse, it’s been in place for eight months now with no indication that it will ever go away!

Esreyr.6304:

Here is idea so that everyone gets what they want:

Keep the new system. Anet gets a money sink, players who enjoy unlocking can keep unlocking.

Have an option to turn off new system. Grants all traits to the toon – done!

Unfortunately that would never happen since most people would turn it off and they’d lose their gold/money sink and a vast majority of players that did it once, would just shut it off later further decreasing its effectiveness.

Mo Mo.1947:

If they’re working on a solution, it means they are brainstorming alternatives and testing them out. Some of the alternatives they test out they will discover to be flawed and decide not to implement. It’s better to find the flaws in private than to lay it all out for the community to pick apart.

Once again, why was a perfectly awesome trait system changed? Also, why didn’t they do what you mentioned above? I agree “It’s better to find the flaws in private than to lay it all out for the community to pick apart”. Why did they do exactly this???

Mo Mo.1947:

Hey really I think it could be worse. I don’t particularly like everything about the current trait system but it isn’t a gamebreaker.

Mo Mo, you’re misunderstanding where the frustration with this change is coming from. GW2 is a BTP model, with that model comes the expectation that any changes to the game will improve it. Since players can’t vote with their wallets by unsubscribing, they will do so by simply not buying products from the same company again. The reworked trait system makes the game significantly worse than the game we bought.

The change is a reflection on the lack of foresight of the development team, did they really not realize that they would have to take away some of the traits that players had earned? Did they really not realize they were introducing a tremendous grind to the game? Were they intentionally doing these things? Furthermore the handling of the change from a PR standpoint has been terrible.

As GW2 is a BTP game, a thread like this is the only way for customers to express their dissatisfaction with the current trait system.

Mo Mo.1947:

Hey really I think it could be worse. I don’t particularly like everything about the current trait system but it isn’t a gamebreaker.

It’s not a gamebreaker for players who were grandfathered into the old system because they already have an established main character that is capable of running dungeons, max crafting, and a full complement of traits.

For players like me (i.e. players who started post-patch), on the other hand the system is prohibitively expensive. After seven months and 4 level 80 characters I am sitting on 35 gold and have yet to max a single crafting skill. I have one traited character who runs dungeons when my guild is inclined to bring me along or on the rare occasions when I luck into a PUG that is willing to take an inexperienced ranger with limited traits on their run.

Unlocking Adept traits is completely broken. Looking at a single trait line, the more ridiculous choices include:

• Capture Inferno’s Needle or pay 10 silver and 2 skill points
• Earn 100% completion in Gendarran Fields or pay 10 silver and 2 skill points
• Earn 100% completion in Blazeridge Steppes or pay 10 silver and 2 skill points

At level 80, the silver is trivial to come by, but at level 30 I probably won’t have it. Furthermore, as a PvE player there’s no way I’m capturing Inferno’s Needle anytime soon. On top of that, Gendarran Fields is level 35 on the high end, and Blazeridge Steppes is level 50 (!!!!) on the high end, so a new player is going to have time unlocking those traits naturally by level 30 without help.

And these are just the Adept traits. For Master traits we have things like:

• Befriend the ogre camp so they will join you as allies or pay 50 silver and 5 skill points.
• Complete the Citadel of Flame in story mode or pay 50 silver and 5 skill points.
• Defeat the Terror Seven Krewe Leader or pay 50 silver and 5 skill points.

Even at level 80 I’m hard pressed to befriend the ogre camp. I basically have to join an EB zerg for a few hours and hope that they do well enough to befriend the ogres for fun. Maybe if I was in a WvW guild this would be easier. As for the others, CoF is a level 75 dungeon and the krewe leader is a level 68 event. How am I supposed to do these at level 60???

Now let’s look at some Grandmaster traits. We have:

• Discover Death’s Anthem or pay 1 gold, 50 silver, and 10 skill points.

Seriously? For Adept traits we have 100% area completion but for GM traits we have a single POI? What kind of sense does that make? The other two GM traits I see involve completion of world events, which is also relatively easy.

TL;DR – Why is it that GM traits are locked behind reasonable (if not trivial) requirements, but for pre-GM you’re forced to go to extremes? Who reviewed that system and decided that it made any kind of sense?

Mo Mo.1947:

If you’re complaining about it affecting gameplay, look at how you would play the game normally going from zone to zone gradually increasing levels.

Uhhh I’m pretty sure there have been posts by players who are leveling up “normally” who have only unlocked like 4 traits by level 80.

Bernie.8674:

sorudo.9054:

well, one thing is true right now, even WoW doesn’t force you this amount of grind just for traits……and i despise WoW grind…..

The irony is that WoW practically eliminated skill acquisition altogether. They recognized that being forced to endure a grind just to play your character as it was intended made no sense. The only barrier to skill acquisition in WoW these days is character level. I don’t think that ArenaNet needs to go that far, but it would be nice if the requirements weren’t absolutely insane (100% area completion for an area that may or may not be in my story line just to get a basic trait — seriously?) and/or if they were restricted to grandmaster skills. I don’t have a problem skill hunting at max level. On the other hand, it’s pretty crazy to hit level 75 with only 3 skills to my name, one of which was purchased for half a gold and another of which isn’t even available because it was a grandmaster skill that was unlocked through partiticipation in a world event.

actually they did go that far, a new character needs to grind to level 23 to get all normal skill slots unlocked, pre-september you could unlock them from point one.
i am lucky enough to have enough chances for a lvl 20 scroll but sadly, the game only starts around lvl45, way to much grind to get there.

I’d be happy if they made you have to earn your Grandmasters, and left the rest to unlock as they did before. That would be a compromise which I think most would agree with.