Guild Wars 2

Well it seems we’re almost to the 20th page so I still hope this is being read,

I made another character just for the sake of trying the leveling system. I made a necro. It’s my second, my first necro I leveled in the fgirst few weeks after release.
I got 10 lvl 80’s 1 of each profession and 3 warriors

I’m lvl 68 now with this character (now 4 days old) doing dungeons or dungeon swap leveling, some Eotm power leveling and well the leveling goes ok. So I’m at lvl 68 now, I effectively unlocked 6% of the map ( well the grove, black citadel, gendarran fields did story on AC, AC paths 1,2,3 TA FW/UP , I made a waypoint in each city. I am lvl 400 tailor already. I did what I did before on my last 8 alts.

I unlocked 3 traits by playing:
spiteful talisman,
minion master,
bloodthirst,

So I’m 12 lvls from becoming lvl 80. I have 8 trait points, and I cannot make a build, I cannot try out anything… I can walk through anything, got rare gear, and rings, gold and gear from EOTM, but I really cannot be bothered to go and get my traits. It’s stupid, because I have 10 fully equipped characters there’s no real need for me to do all this stuff to unlock everything. Why would I want map completion AGAIN? I did it 4 times already, I made 2 legendaries and there is no reason why I would do ANOTHER world completion, grinding full maps again.

And yes of course I could buy all traits… But WHY?

I liked the books for unlocking the traits, It made you feel powerfull each time you got one and openened it… Now I’m just thinking well what could I do next, not the least interested in what will come next, not in a positive way, doing a region completion takes 1 hour maybe 90 minutes on a big one if you grind it to the max.

I do think the XIII traits could be hidden behind events. It could open up new idea’s for players, but I must say I’d like the old books with the traits back for all I to VI, VII to X and XI to XII traits, (the Adept, Master and Grandmaster books.)

This new trait system is boring compared to the former one
It makes leveling a pain.

• For ppl wanting to make (additional) alts its a real bore…
• It doesn’t allow for build testing or creativity during leveling.
• It requires stuff I really do not care for, It requires world bosses I do not have time for being almost 40 with 1 daughter and a pregnant wife
  *Alternatively it requires gold to open (have some) and skillpoints… Well I get some points during WvW but I need utility skills as well AND Elites…… I will also need lvl 80 gear and weapons… buying all traits and gear sets me back quite some gold….,w hich I have but other ppl with limited experience& ingame gametime just wanting to level an alternate character after the first one will not have the resources, and will get stuck, which is truly annoying, and possibly game breaking.

I think the idea of coupling traits to events was good, but you should have just made books for the lvl XIII traits and left the system as it was. I find the system moderately interesting for a starter player, and boring beyond imagination for a veteran player.

No body in our guild has made any effort to try and level an alt after the patch and actually tried to do events. The concensus in our guild is arenanet has made yet another gold sink. Noone in our guild likes the system.

IMHO the last patch brought us:

• new traits, which was good,
• a quick change system for traits which I find very nice,

BUT Anet also introduced:

• new trait UNLOCKS which was awfuly bad,
  which I find horrendous, being detrimental to gameplay experience of both veteran and new players alike by being slow and grindy, requiring too many features which should be done because of other reasons…

Suggested changes:
Leave the books for lvl XIII traits as is.
Return the trait books for adept/master/grandmaster
Make a system whcih allows me to remember builds and auto stes them, skills and traits.
If you do insist on requiring bought traits remove the skillpoinr requirement. We also need to buy skills. not enough skillpoints means: no traits… no skills…. if you do not want to do all your devised chores.

And 70 dead levels on top of the horrific Trait Unlock system. They should have kept the core traits for everyone.

Buying individual traits would be far less painful if you didn’t have to buy/hunt ALL of them.

Really I’m not bothered so much by doing some event to Unlock a Trait. But when I make an Asuran Engineer, and want to unlock the Speedy Kits Trait, and it tells me to do so I have to travel to the other side of the globe and complete an entire map just to unlock an Adept Trait……wtf?

I really enjoy the idea of doing some event to unlock these Traits, but they should be reasonable and should never include Map Completion or Group Events. I don’t mind the traveling, I mind the time it takes to complete an entire map. I don’t mind the challenge, I mind being unable to to achieve the task without a group of people there to help me achieve a personal goal.

So being traitless at lvl 42, decided to go get one. This one sounded good because I was in the next map “Help Shining Blade Kimber defeat Kol Skullsmasher”. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS THINKING?

“Kol is a champion giant having a great deal of health and can take over 20 minutes for a large group to kill”

Buying the trait isn’t an option because….uhm…I need the skill points to BUY SKILLS!
Please look up EPIC FAIL!

Daggos Skelito.2910:

So being traitless at lvl 42, decided to go get one. This one sounded good because I was in the next map “Help Shining Blade Kimber defeat Kol Skullsmasher”. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS THINKING?

“Kol is a champion giant having a great deal of health and can take over 20 minutes for a large group to kill”

Buying the trait isn’t an option because….uhm…I need the skill points to BUY SKILLS!
Please look up EPIC FAIL!

ehh i ve never seen it take that long, he also scales to the group, you dont need 20 people at all, i think i did it with like 4 before, but not sure, that was a long time ago.
Honestly i prefer these ones to the map complete ones, though i will say that it wouldnt be a bad idea if the challenges, especially the adept teir werent something that scales well from 1 player and higher.
This is personal growth, only support/group traits really make sense to have events that require a group. (note its fine if you can use a group, or it scales to a group)

I wonder if the trait system would be improved if they simply unlocked all adept traits, so you always have traits to play with – even if you end up having to slot Adept traits into higher-tier slots while working on getting the higher-level traits (Which should be unlockable BEFORE the slot itself unlocks.)

There is one thing that’s made me mad beyond all reason: now when I create a new character I’ll have to do random stuff across the map to unlock my traits. This is incredibly annoying and time-consuming. And if I decide to actually buy all the traits, I’ll need to spend WEEKS farming up the gold and skill points!

Honestly, I will NEVER buy a character slot if the game stays like this. My play time is extremely limited as it is, so if this game requires me to spend hours doing things I’m not interested in, sorry, I’ll just grow tired and stop eventually.

Please stop introducing subtle “grinding” into Guild Wars 2, it’s ruining everything! If I wanted to spend my time FARMING, I would have chosen another MMORPG, thank you.

My suggestion: automatically unlock all Adept, Major and the two original Grandmaster traits. This way, players will have a decent pool to make builds and entertain themselves. For the extra Grandmaster traits, you can keep the quests (such as “Defeat the Risen High Priest of Grenth”), because they are actually challenging and interesting end-game content.

Hint: This is the first time I’m getting on the forums, and I’ve accessed them just to say how dissatisfied I am.

I completely echo Ehrotic Avenger.7426, this is also the first time I have been on the forums, as this new feature is sucking far too much of my enjoyment out of the game, and this is the first time i have felt like it is a grind in GW2. If we wanted to grind to simply level our characters, we would be playing other games, this was the main thing that made me love playing this game above other MMOs and it feels like it is fading away.

I love the ability to go through the traits without having to get them refunded every time now, however as a player who cannot spend that much time with the game, I am very disappointing that the time I do have to spend on it now has to be spent on random events, maps and in WvW that I do not enjoy if I want to level any new characters.

One thing I always loved about this game is that it had so much variety, if you did not want to play in WvW or PvP you could still get the full enjoyment of the game, and vise versa, now that is completely impossible, and the cost of the traits make it impossible for people who cannot purchase or earn that much gold and SP quickly enough. I now do not want to make any new characters, or level the ones I do have, which saddens me as at this stage I will not get the enjoyment of 4 of the classes I have not leveled up yet. I have spent 4 hours today (got some time off, thought I would see how it goes) and unlocked one measly trait through gameplay. I don’t think I will be spending in gemstore and making new characters until changes are made.

Even just taking away the SP cost for buying traits would help, we already have enough things to spend SP on.

Please consider adjusting the new trait system so those of us who can only play a couple of hours a week can still enjoy making and leveling new characters, otherwise I fear many people will move on to other games where they don’t feel punished for making new characters.

Edit: anyone got any idea when the devs will be looking at these threads and providing us with feedback/any actions that will be taken, as I know many of us will not be playing/playing new characters until something changes?

Yeah, i pushed my lowbie warrior through gendarrin recently and saw the little trait unlock thing pop up and when i went to look at it:

1- I couldn’t equip it since I hadn’t gotten big enough level wise to have the points to chose it and…

2- Even if i did, it wasn’t even a trait i would ever use. Ever.

So yeah. Yay?

Since this seem to be a major issue, I would like to hear what Anet is going to do about this.

Sartharina.3542:

I wonder if the trait system would be improved if they simply unlocked all adept traits, so you always have traits to play with – even if you end up having to slot Adept traits into higher-tier slots while working on getting the higher-level traits (Which should be unlockable BEFORE the slot itself unlocks.)

That’s a really good idea!

OK, so Anet, I get that you are all in full on silent mode at least until after this joke of a tourney is done.

(And it IS a joke. Seriously, don’t structure it like this again, or better yet just don’t do WvW tournaments until you’ve fixed all of the WvW issues that have come up in the past.)

But keeping all that in mind, i also know you all aren’t blind. I know you HAVE to be seeing this thread. Can you please at least give us something like, “Hey we know this is something you all have been focused on and we will try to start addressing it after [[[insert date here]]].”

Even if its a post to say that you are planning on having REAL specific talks with about ways to fix this. Because it is broken. No amount of smoke being blown places will change the fact that the trait system as it stands is categorically broken at the moment.

What astounds me, ASTOUNDS ME, is that some of the starter traits requires you to complete events in high zones zones.

eg.

Line 1 trait 5 = 100% completion in Blazeridge Steppes.
Line 2 trait 1 = Complete Twilight Arbor, lvl 50 dungeon.
Line 2 trait 6 = 100% completion in Fireheart Rise.
Line 4 trait 6 = 100% completion in Mount Maelstrom.
Line 5 trait 6 = 100% completion in Frostgorge Sound.

This. Is. Ridiculous. Not to mention forcing players into WvWvW unless you want to spend all your game-earned money (or of course buy gems) and skill points to get some traits.

Quite simply, if this had been in place when I started GW2, I wouldn’t be here now. Anet – this is very likely costing you players. Introducing grind to such a degree like this is even more pathetic than the way Ascended was handled, and you saw the backlash from that.

I won’t be making any more characters whilst this charade is in force. No more characters = no more money to buy gems to make them all fancy.

GuzziHero.2467:

What astounds me, ASTOUNDS ME, is that some of the starter traits requires you to complete events in high zones zones.

eg.

Line 1 trait 5 = 100% completion in Blazeridge Steppes.
Line 2 trait 1 = Complete Twilight Arbor, lvl 50 dungeon.
Line 2 trait 6 = 100% completion in Fireheart Rise.
Line 4 trait 6 = 100% completion in Mount Maelstrom.
Line 5 trait 6 = 100% completion in Frostgorge Sound.

This. Is. Ridiculous. Not to mention forcing players into WvWvW unless you want to spend all your game-earned money (or of course buy gems) and skill points to get some traits.

Quite simply, if this had been in place when I started GW2, I wouldn’t be here now. Anet – this is very likely costing you players. Introducing grind to such a degree like this is even more pathetic than the way Ascended was handled, and you saw the backlash from that.

I won’t be making any more characters whilst this charade is in force. No more characters = no more money to buy gems to make them all fancy.

Dude, your sig. Spot on.

And yeah, I took my warrior into Obsidian just to see if it was possible. Nope. Griefers all over the place. And before anyone says so: no, I should not need to have level 80s there to protect or port me to the end of a JP for an adept level trait. If it actually requires that then the system itself is broken. Full stop.

Yeah, this game is ‘Play how you want to play unless it conflicts with how we want you to play’.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

The biggest thing I keep wondering is why the hell did they do this to traits rather than skills. They should put all the traits back to how it was before and then attach skills to events and things instead. So we still get to have the skill hunting but we get to keep our leveling progression so you feel stronger as you level. Any new traits should just get added to the list. For new skills maybe add a new area and attach them to completion of an event or boss there.

Exactly, when this was discussed in the CDi thread I thought it was going to be based around skills not traits. Which would make far more sense.

Got to lvl 78 grinding Edge of Mists and to my surprise, didn’t even unlock grandmaster…huh? So dump the points wherever and deal with it when you hit 80. Isn’t this when you start your build these days??

The other alts before this system grew with each level. This one at 78 feels like lvl 40. Which makes me believe new players are at a disadvantage to those players before this craziness. Really, I’m missing something here, how is this good?

I had a thought for fixing the trait system for people with multiple characters before this change. Since the trainers have the books and the books are labeled as Account-Bound, yet we cannot buy them unless we are the same class…make it so we could buy a trait book regardless of class once the character is level 80. That way endgame people can spend their large amounts of SP on trait books for alts.

My thief that I made after the feature patch just hit 80 yesterday. At level ~75 I had only 3-4 traits unlocked… Note that 1 or 2 of them were unlocked in WvW. Seeing the requirement to get a trait seems as if ArenaNet tells me how I should play: go to this territory, find this, complete this map, finish that dungeon…

I really, really dislike the new system; it doesn’t give us any flexibility as in trying out new builds or even trying out the build you want unless you complete half the world map and half the dungeons. So now, instead of being able to actually experiment with my thief build, I had to pick one from the internet and just go and mindlessly grind the traits.

Please reconsider the new system, it does more damage rather than helping out.

GuzziHero.2467:

What astounds me, ASTOUNDS ME, is that some of the starter traits requires you to complete events in high zones zones.

eg.

Line 1 trait 5 = 100% completion in Blazeridge Steppes.
Line 2 trait 1 = Complete Twilight Arbor, lvl 50 dungeon.
Line 2 trait 6 = 100% completion in Fireheart Rise.
Line 4 trait 6 = 100% completion in Mount Maelstrom.
Line 5 trait 6 = 100% completion in Frostgorge Sound.

This. Is. Ridiculous. Not to mention forcing players into WvWvW unless you want to spend all your game-earned money (or of course buy gems) and skill points to get some traits.

Quite simply, if this had been in place when I started GW2, I wouldn’t be here now. Anet – this is very likely costing you players. Introducing grind to such a degree like this is even more pathetic than the way Ascended was handled, and you saw the backlash from that.

I won’t be making any more characters whilst this charade is in force. No more characters = no more money to buy gems to make them all fancy.

I thought about making a new character just to see what the fuss was about, but.. Nope. No more character slots from me. (I already have a bunch to work through anyway, from before the trait “improvement”.)

HAHAHA, wow Anet. So much anger on these boards so ya’ll set up to re-release your 2 most successful events. Bravo for the sleight of hand. Well played. You might get some breathing room come the 20th. Might.

I agree with pretty much everybody else on here haha, YOU WREKKED THE TRAITS

When the patch came out on April 15th, I was all for trait unlocking. It makes getting traits more meaningful and gives more objectives, making levelling up more interesting. I created a new character and played him without support from my other 12 level 80 chars and without (much) “feeding” from my well-filled bank, collectible and gold wallet.

My conclusion: Some of the trait unlocks actually work. But others are ridiculous, as pointed out in this thread already.

But what is more important: There are simply too many unlocks. Unlocking traits lasts much longer than levelling to 80. Much, much longer. That means: when you are level 80 your character is unfinished. You have only access to some traits, and possibly not to those you plan to use. That restricts your ability for choosing a build – which is quite sad, because planning and testing and replanning your build is or was an enjoyable process so far.

And buying traits is not a feasible solution, at least not for new players. My new character had about 25 gold at the end of the levelling process (clothed in level 74 greens mostly). That does not go far. And of course exotic gear would be nice, too. I have bought him that now, but only because I threw the non-feeding rule overboard.

Now, the next alt. All this again? No way. I officially close my alt-levelling shop. Alts from now on are created only to farm transmutation charges.

My proposal for a change:

• Trait unlocking only for grandmaster traits (X, XI, XII, XIII). That restricts it to 20 unlocks at a level where you can already “stand your ground”.

• First trait point at level 15, then another one every 5 levels – basically as it was before, where you could get your first trait at level 15, too.

From my point of view this is the second time ArenaNet really dropped the ball (the first time being introducing ascended gear). And this time it hurts even more.

I like that idea… though, honestly, there probably wouldn’t be a problem with having one of each lower-tier trait require unlocking, especially those that are worthless on their own, but synergize with others.

Here’s another solution that may work.
1- make all the old Adept/master/grandmaster traits unlocked as before.
2- Add a new trait to each trait level that requires unlocking. Just like they have done for Grandmaster trait but add one to each category of the Adept and Master levels as well.
or
Scrap the new system, give back the old system, only require unlocking for new traits added, and finally let’s get some new skills to unlock or even better, new weapon skills to unlock and switch between.

Feel free to blast the idea, it was only a passing thought.

I am not creating alts any longer. Levelling multiple characters doing the exact same thing for each and trying to get through requirements …. bah.. it’s been said plenty of times before. See above 20 pages for reasons I just can’t stomach a new character post patch.

In the meantime, enjoy the nice slight of hand and have fun at the Bazaar of Four Winds.

Probs my 4th reply on this thread. Never used forums before until this awful stupidly designed trait system.

But…what if they did this by purpose? So the Chinese players buy heaps of gems to make the game easier, since they’re a larger audience. Cause seems awfully strange to me Anet hasn’t responded about a topic that literally builds someones character and the game itself. Stuff em

Thing is, there have been some GREAT ideas in this thread. Seriously top notch ideas that 1) make sense, 2) don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, and 3) honestly should not take too many update cycles to implement/test/and release.

Here’s the thing A-Net: i LOVE the idea of unlocking the traits. I even like the spread. TBH, i have NO problems with the starting at 30 and spreading it all the way out to 80. None. Its where and how those lower ones are achieved that is complete and utter garbage along with the cost to “just buy them”. We all know it. Please take some of what’s been said here into consideration. PLEASE look over some of the ideas about tying them to hearts and possibly secondary heart quests that can be done at more level appropriate times. make the adept ones easier to get and the master ones a bit harder, and then the GM ones even harder still. THAT is how it should be.

xShufflezCoy.8241:

Probs my 4th reply on this thread. Never used forums before until this awful stupidly designed trait system.

But…what if they did this by purpose? So the Chinese players buy heaps of gems to make the game easier, since they’re a larger audience. Cause seems awfully strange to me Anet hasn’t responded about a topic that literally builds someones character and the game itself. Stuff em

Personally, I think this has EVERYTHING to do with the China synch. Sure, the publisher is Chinese, but they still require updates and such from Anet, and it makes some things so much easier if they are in synch.

As said by Claudius and others, this heavily restricts your ability to fine tune your skills as you level up. Some skills that are reasonably intrinsic to a character’s optimal roles are locked behind those high level unlocks I mentioned above, with some professions e.g Speedy Kits for Engineer. You want to run with a WvWvW zerg, speed boons are important. But you now have to be lvl 80 or near to hope to unlock it.

Also, I am guessing that these traits are all unlocked for PvP. If not, PvP players are going to have a bad time of it! And if so, they can use traits in PvP mode then find they go out into PvE or WvWvW and, confusingly, half their traits are gated from them!

Good idea but some of the unlocking requirements are stupid.

Best idea I have heard so far is to go back to the trait system that ACTUALLY worked. Then lock grandmaster and any new stuff on the way.

Tell me when this happens so I can get a few more alts going!

So, any bets on how quickly this post will find its way to page 10 after the may 20th update?

PookieDaWombat.6209:

So, any bets on how quickly this post will find its way to page 10 after the may 20th update?

I don’t think it will, i’m really annoyed with the way Anet has handled this thread and for as long as one person keeps commenting Cough with constructive posts it has no reason to be put so many pages down. Let’s say this someone kept doing it, they can’t be in trouble on the forums either since its a highly relative topic. Trait system sucks, and people like me can’t enjoy the game anymore. (Bought Jan 2014) So this system has ruined my game, no way in hell can i unlock those traits or get that amount of sp/gold. Plus i don’t even want to since leveling is such a drag now. Which annoys me because i really enjoyed this game before this system.

I am enjoying leveling up a warrior under the new system. It is a challenge, and one that benefits from leveling at a natural speed compared to EotM zerging or dungeon swapping. You’re rewarded for getting out into the world and doing stuff. I like that.

But I’m not entirely sure its the best setup for a completely new player. Some of the things are required are pretty drastic, and I could see them being overwhelming to inexperienced players.

I expect things will be tweaked a bit. Maybe with the lower tier traits being put in the lower level zones, and scaling the challenge with the character/player’s experience.

GuzziHero.2467:

As said by Claudius and others, this heavily restricts your ability to fine tune your skills as you level up. Some skills that are reasonably intrinsic to a character’s optimal roles are locked behind those high level unlocks I mentioned above, with some professions e.g Speedy Kits for Engineer. You want to run with a WvWvW zerg, speed boons are important. But you now have to be lvl 80 or near to hope to unlock it.

Why does an adept trait have unlock requirements so high? Surely the unlocks should be based on the trait level.

morrolan.9608:

GuzziHero.2467:

As said by Claudius and others, this heavily restricts your ability to fine tune your skills as you level up. Some skills that are reasonably intrinsic to a character’s optimal roles are locked behind those high level unlocks I mentioned above, with some professions e.g Speedy Kits for Engineer. You want to run with a WvWvW zerg, speed boons are important. But you now have to be lvl 80 or near to hope to unlock it.

Why does an adept trait have unlock requirements so high? Surely the unlocks should be based on the trait level.

Beats me. But thats the requirement to unlock Line 5, skill 6. Its insanity!

I didnt think much of this change until I started leveling a new character. Boy leveling is boring now. Levels dont seem to mean much apart from you have to buy gear to keep up your crit chance etc. This is not a good change.

So I just started messing with a new character in the new system, and I’m pretty appalled that the adept level traits require things like 100% map complete of a level 40-50 zone, or 50-60 zone. You should conceivably be able to do these at the level they can be used. (I know I’m not saying anything new here.)

I don’t mind the leveling process, or the fact that I have to do things for traits, or that traits start later. All that would be livable, but paired with impossible tasks, it’s just nightmarish.

I don’t think Anet is going to get a pass on this from the player base. They’ve screwed up too badly, IMO.

I haven’t logged in at all since hitting L36 on my new alt— which I haven’t the heart to play now. However, I continue to watch the forums to see if/what they will do about this situation and their continued silence doesn’t bode well, even if they’re busy. What they do about traits will determine whether I play again— regardless of their very visible sleight of hand.

Imagine trying to level up doing only WvW!

43 gold and 360 skill points to be able to fully use your character! What a slap in the face. The whole unlocking system needs to be much more accessible to people. Unless I have a pool of freinds to help, who exactly is going to take my underlevelled character into dungeons? Or mini dungeons (Flame Temple Tomb, i’m looking at you)? What if i’m an unsocialble type? What If I dislike 100% map completion? What if I find the story dull? What if I play at unsociable hours? Or if there’s noone on the map to help with group events?

All this with without traits / stat increases from traits. I just don’t understand the thinking.

Build diversity will take an even bigger nosedive for characters going forward. Why bother spending money or grinding 100% map completion to unlock all the traits when you can get the few that you use?

Please reconsider!

Running waypoints use to be so much fun for me. Dumping the trait points in toughness and vitality at a lower level made it possible. Dashing into a camp with much higher level npc’s and barely making it out was a rush for my friends and me. Leveling as you go made getting much high waypoints a challenge.

This way of leveling is no longer feasible with the new trait system. So much has been taken away and makes me wonder, what really is going on here??

Oh i agree that we should keep this one alive. Lord knows I still have a bit to say about it. From my perspective so far:

I have 2 alts i’ve been taking through this new system, a warrior and a guardian.
I haven’t had any real problems running in the areas that I’ve run in, either because of the overall scaling of NPC mobs and/or because of my knowledge of the classes since I already have fully leveled 80s of those classes. I’ve also not been TOO pressed about not having certain traits unlocked (although there were a few times where I really wanted certain ones on my warrior).

Unfortunately, as has been said 234354353232 times now, the traits unlock system is not feasible for anyone not already max level, and it certainly is of no use to anyone before 80 now. This means tons of pre-80 people running around without enough Sp or gold to get those traits opened ending up at level 80 being very under powered and ill-equipped for certain PvE areas and most if not all PvP aspects of the game. It forces brand new players into a meta build, and all but kills build diversity on anyone that isn’t already a level 80.

buckeyecro.9614:

Ultimately GW2 needs more of an emphasis on CONTROL and SUPPORT capabilities and needs to have thousands more possible combinations of builds, and several hundred more viable build combinations distributed throughout the existing professions, instead of the relatively few viable build combinations possible in the game today. There is probably only 40-75 viable builds in the game today, most heavily represented in the order of the Warrior, Guardian, Necromancer, and Thief. It needs a minimum of about 100 viable builds for each profession.

The trait system is a major system that can allow this to happen. I think it needs a major overhaul, and the trait system’s current iteration fails to build upon the established fundamentals of the previous system.

Nevertheless, how can this be done?

[Read My previous post on Page 16 of this thread for my proposed answers to this question]

Like many of us has stated previously, the trait system needed a major overhaul such that it eliminates the barriers that limit build and niche diversity. The trait and ability system in general is a great starting place for opening up new niches for professions and players to fill in the game.

Its current iteration fails to open up many viable builds for more professions. We still see a relatively stagnant ‘meta’ that hasn’t evolved much for a very long time.

Here’s the thing I feel inhibit build diversity:

Monster, encounter, and overall game-play mechanics favor doing ALL out Damage.

There’s not much need for Control and Support roles because the game-play does not necessitate these other roles, except in very limited circumstances, and the tools available to professions to fill these other roles are lackluster and ineffective.

Nerfing damage output will not help much- if at all- unless the mechanics change and dictate other roles for success.

For Example:

Create encounters that DO NOT REQUIRE KILLING for success. Killing the creature will actually cause it to fail. (This should help a little bit). Then create better abilities to better fulfill these new niches.

EDIT:

The trait system is flawed in many other ways as many others have stated, too. Especially for new and below level 80 characters. All else considered, if it fails to open up more viable builds, then the game-play will remain relatively stagnant for level 80 characters- this must be avoided.

Just adding to the noise: levelling is now somewhat more painful than was really necessary. Two steps forward and one giant leap for Tyrian-kind backwards.

Not particularly enjoying this change at all, and I have been testing it for a little while now. Previously, we could enjoy a fuller game whatever level we were - now it has a tepid quality during approximately two-thirds of the process (my own personal experience, the mileage of others will invariably vary). The game’s "epic from the get-go" idea was not broken - it certainly didn’t warrant the change in trait acquisition.

I’m an altaholic, and this whole thing has me wondering if I’ll have to change my ways after I finish my current character. I never really thought I’d have to do that with this game. I’ve taken breaks from it, but I’ve never really considered quitting. There’s still enough good points to ensure that I’ll stick around (aided by the lovely guild I find myself a member of), but there’s less joy to be had in what I previously found the most fun. * sad panda moment *

Maybe it was stated already, but has anyone tried to make an Engie or Thief from the ground up under this new system? I know i am sort of easy mode-ing it with the War and Guard. If so, how has not having adequate access to traits affected your playing through the game with a lowbie?

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Maybe it was stated already, but has anyone tried to make an Engie or Thief from the ground up under this new system? I know i am sort of easy mode-ing it with the War and Guard. If so, how has not having adequate access to traits affected your playing through the game with a lowbie?

My newbie is a ranger- no leveling scrolls used at all. Skill scrolls from drops only. Hit level 39 last night. I didn’t have any problem with traits not showing up until level 30, but the lack of access to certain slot abilities is really quite upsetting. I haven’t decided how to proceed, frankly.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Maybe it was stated already, but has anyone tried to make an Engie or Thief from the ground up under this new system? I know i am sort of easy mode-ing it with the War and Guard. If so, how has not having adequate access to traits affected your playing through the game with a lowbie?

I made a necro and I can tell you, it’s a walk in the park with new mob difficulty. It’s also really boring for the most part because the majority of traits I’ve read the descriptions of, that actually sound like they might be good, are inaccesable to me due to either
1. being WvW for which i’m ill equipped and can’t stand anyway (there are three in Wvw I want)
2. High level zones, one of which is level 80…for an adept trait kitten
3. being on bosses on the new bloody awful boss sync system, bosses which are never on when I’m able to play.

I can wait til I’m level 80, I suppose but the others I’ll have no choice but to buy at extortionate prices.

This is not my idea of fun. So i’m basically running almost traitless at level 40, with nothing changing any time system. Progress feels slower, more of a grind. It’s boring due to lack of experiementation and lack of advancement between skill points, the knowledge that skills are out of reach for no good reason, just make it drag out.

Frankly, trying to get more than one of the adept tier traits has been pretty soul destroying. Mean while I’ve been accidentally finding master tier traits, which also sucks because I know I can’t use them for at least 20 levels.
tl:dr Progress in less challenging and less interesting than before.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Maybe it was stated already, but has anyone tried to make an Engie or Thief from the ground up under this new system? I know i am sort of easy mode-ing it with the War and Guard. If so, how has not having adequate access to traits affected your playing through the game with a lowbie?

I’m hating the cost of leveling a light armour class, the armour / cloth cost is crazy for new players. Just hit 30 and I have 3 traits unlocked, I’m not sure how many i’ll have when I hit 80 but it probably won’t be that many more.

After leveling 14 or 15 80’s (I’ve deleted several) and starting a mesmer from the ground up, I’m so disappointed in how the change in traits is. Honestly, why on earth would you (Anet) decide that finishing a level 60-70 area such as Mount Maelstrom be doable by a level 36 toon? I imagine you’d rather have people just purchase them from the trainers.
The previous system was working just fine. It wasn’t confusing like you had touted during the feature patch. Even I, an old woman, was able to figure it out. The new system does absolutely nothng for a player to try different builds out. Yes, a toon made before the patch has a chance to do that, but the new system is without merit. For this, my last toon, I’ll choose a build that is online, and ONLY unlock those traits. I refuse to unlock the other traits until I’m level 80, since I’m not going to pay 3g for GM trait.

This system has the repercussion of many players running around traitless until they are 80 as well. And there have been many good suggestions on how to scale traits, so I won’t reiterate. It’s kind of sad because leveling was what I enjoyed most about the game. but not now. Unfortunately, I won’t be buying any character slots in the future.

Ehrotic Avenger.7426:

There is one thing that’s made me mad beyond all reason: now when I create a new character I’ll have to do random stuff across the map to unlock my traits. This is incredibly annoying and time-consuming. And if I decide to actually buy all the traits, I’ll need to spend WEEKS farming up the gold and skill points!

Honestly, I will NEVER buy a character slot if the game stays like this. My play time is extremely limited as it is, so if this game requires me to spend hours doing things I’m not interested in, sorry, I’ll just grow tired and stop eventually.

Please stop introducing subtle “grinding” into Guild Wars 2, it’s ruining everything! If I wanted to spend my time FARMING, I would have chosen another MMORPG, thank you.

My suggestion: automatically unlock all Adept, Major and the two original Grandmaster traits. This way, players will have a decent pool to make builds and entertain themselves. For the extra Grandmaster traits, you can keep the quests (such as “Defeat the Risen High Priest of Grenth”), because they are actually challenging and interesting end-game content.

Hint: This is the first time I’m getting on the forums, and I’ve accessed them just to say how dissatisfied I am.

Have to agree with Ehrotic Avenger just read about the new trait system again and personally see it as because of this grinding people will quit, can say for sure I won’t be buying anymore character slots if this continues.

-Zeo

dkspins.4670:

After leveling 14 or 15 80’s (I’ve deleted several) and starting a mesmer from the ground up, I’m so disappointed in how the change in traits is. Honestly, why on earth would you (Anet) decide that finishing a level 60-70 area such as Mount Maelstrom be doable by a level 36 toon? I imagine you’d rather have people just purchase them from the trainers.
The previous system was working just fine. It wasn’t confusing like you had touted during the feature patch. Even I, an old woman, was able to figure it out. The new system does absolutely nothng for a player to try different builds out. Yes, a toon made before the patch has a chance to do that, but the new system is without merit. For this, my last toon, I’ll choose a build that is online, and ONLY unlock those traits. I refuse to unlock the other traits until I’m level 80, since I’m not going to pay 3g for GM trait.

This system has the repercussion of many players running around traitless until they are 80 as well. And there have been many good suggestions on how to scale traits, so I won’t reiterate. It’s kind of sad because leveling was what I enjoyed most about the game. but not now. Unfortunately, I won’t be buying any character slots in the future.

I agree with every single word except one…

You aren’t ‘old’, you are ‘of superior life experience’

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