Guild Wars 2

It is pretty badly done.. Was this done to accomadate the China release of the game? Why should we have to suffer because they like grindy, gated games?

The whole leveling experience is boring as hell now. Not only did you wreck the trait system, because the old system was way better and at least gave you something to do while leveling by allowing to pick and choose different traits, but now even the skill points are locked till level 13? Wth..

The patch notes also said the leveling from 1-20 was quicker… BS it is.. It is vaslty slower because you have less tools to kill at your disposal for the first 10 levels…

What a complete piece of crap this new game experience is..

I do like the class balance changes though, my ranger in wvw seems quite a bit more viable.. But honestly, making changes to accomadate chinese players? Is that what happen here?

I don’t think even the Chinese people appreciate the “kittenification” of their MMO.
They probably hired a fresh new temp just out of college to do the Levelling Feature.

I think that’s what’s happening. Either that or they had nothing else to do but bring China’s changes to us rather than work on something that isn’t complete garbage.

PVP is thankfully not butchered but I sure as hell cannot stand what they have done to the levelling experience among any other issues.

You don’t even have all your downed skills until later and underwater combat isn’t open until later as well, never mind the fact that you don’t get your 5th underwater skill until around level 20.

Sadly, yes. That is exactly what happened. And trust me, I feel that!!! I’ve been recommending this game steadily since 2005 to other gamer friends, but I cannot in good conscience continue to do so.

What I find disturbing is the people saying “this is great!”. It is not great. It is not good. It is very bad.

How can people properly learn to play their character/profession if they can’t even access their BASIC skill bar until level 10. And the rally locks are SERIOUSLY lame as well. I don’t even see the point of that particular nugget. This patch to new players/characters is every bit as bad as I anticipated. When they described it on the blog, I thought to myself “no, there’s no way they’re going to do what I think they’re going to do, that would make a horrible new game experience”. But yes, they actually did what I expected they were going to do. Kill the game for new players. Which is a shame, I love having new players around, their excitement is infectious.

Complaining won’t change a thing. In the life of an MMO it takes usually 2 years for developers to admit their mistakes. They aren’t gonna push something as huge a change as this live without feeling confident it is the right thing to do, and so they will cling to that forever. “It was the right decision, Bob.”

Revisit the game 1-2 years from now.

Im unhappy too with this copy-pasted “new player experience” from the chineses GW2.
I wanted to give it a chance, but after reading more about this and watching some videos, i realised it wasnt worth my time to raise a new char from lvl 1 to 80 with all thoses barriers and levelgated content.

The big picture of this is that you are in a huge tutorial until you hit lvl 80… Hopefully for vets, we still have level tomes…

Moreover, i dont see what was the main goal of this achievement…new players? Why are you making new stuff for new players if you are not expecting incomming newplayers from nowhere?

This has been copyed from the chineses version of GW2…i hope you dont dare to copy that insane and toxic VIP system too..

I really pray for a step backward regarding this, until then, you wont see any new character from my account…

psdt1: People seem very angry with this patch…
psdt2: Please, give us a REAL expansion…

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Im unhappy too with this copy-pasted “new player experience” from the chineses GW2.
I wanted to give it a chance, but after reading more about this and watching some videos, i realised it wasnt worth my time to raise a new char from lvl 1 to 80 with all thoses barriers and levelgated content.

The big picture of this is that you are in a huge tutorial until you hit lvl 80… Hopefully for vets, we still have level tomes…

Moreover, i dont see what was the main goal of this achievement…new players? Why are you making new stuff for new players if you are not expecting incomming newplayers from nowhere?

This has been copyed from the chineses version of GW2…i hope you dont dare to copy that insane and toxic VIP system too..

I really pray for a step backward regarding this, until then, you wont see any new character from my account…

psdt1: People seem very angry with this patch…
psdt2: Please, give us a REAL expansion…

Did it ever occur to you that the update of free beta weekends was particularly poor and they’d like to have more of them but they couldn’t do it without actually making the game more welcoming to new players. They did test this. I’m not convinced they tested it with China.

This game needs new blood, particularly since so much of the old blood seems to be discontented. Anet’s way forward is to leave behind the people that can’t adapt to where the game is going and to get new people who like the game for what it is. And that means keeping people from free demo weekends.

Not throwing a bone to long time players who often complain no matter what you do.

Vayne.8563:

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Im unhappy too with this copy-pasted “new player experience” from the chineses GW2.
I wanted to give it a chance, but after reading more about this and watching some videos, i realised it wasnt worth my time to raise a new char from lvl 1 to 80 with all thoses barriers and levelgated content.

The big picture of this is that you are in a huge tutorial until you hit lvl 80… Hopefully for vets, we still have level tomes…

Moreover, i dont see what was the main goal of this achievement…new players? Why are you making new stuff for new players if you are not expecting incomming newplayers from nowhere?

This has been copyed from the chineses version of GW2…i hope you dont dare to copy that insane and toxic VIP system too..

I really pray for a step backward regarding this, until then, you wont see any new character from my account…

psdt1: People seem very angry with this patch…
psdt2: Please, give us a REAL expansion…

Did it ever occur to you that the update of free beta weekends was particularly poor and they’d like to have more of them but they couldn’t do it without actually making the game more welcoming to new players. They did test this. I’m not convinced they tested it with China.

This game needs new blood, particularly since so much of the old blood seems to be discontented. Anet’s way forward is to leave behind the people that can’t adapt to where the game is going and to get new people who like the game for what it is. And that means keeping people from free demo weekends.

Not throwing a bone to long time players who often complain no matter what you do.

Are you paid to do this? Seriously, are you?

Please, active your irony sense before watching :P

I can see the advantage to skill caps, it helps people learn what skills actually do since they have more time with them. rally effect limited sucks but it might help new players learn to not rely on it and rush in more. I’m mostly upset at the lmits to exploration.

I dont agree to forcing people to go back to old area’s just for map completion, i liked being able to wander and find something by accident, that feeling is most likely gone for new players. Thats and stumbling upon JP’s, thats gone due to lock, terrible decision.

dietzero.3514:

Vayne.8563:

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Im unhappy too with this copy-pasted “new player experience” from the chineses GW2.
I wanted to give it a chance, but after reading more about this and watching some videos, i realised it wasnt worth my time to raise a new char from lvl 1 to 80 with all thoses barriers and levelgated content.

The big picture of this is that you are in a huge tutorial until you hit lvl 80… Hopefully for vets, we still have level tomes…

Moreover, i dont see what was the main goal of this achievement…new players? Why are you making new stuff for new players if you are not expecting incomming newplayers from nowhere?

This has been copyed from the chineses version of GW2…i hope you dont dare to copy that insane and toxic VIP system too..

I really pray for a step backward regarding this, until then, you wont see any new character from my account…

psdt1: People seem very angry with this patch…
psdt2: Please, give us a REAL expansion…

Did it ever occur to you that the update of free beta weekends was particularly poor and they’d like to have more of them but they couldn’t do it without actually making the game more welcoming to new players. They did test this. I’m not convinced they tested it with China.

This game needs new blood, particularly since so much of the old blood seems to be discontented. Anet’s way forward is to leave behind the people that can’t adapt to where the game is going and to get new people who like the game for what it is. And that means keeping people from free demo weekends.

Not throwing a bone to long time players who often complain no matter what you do.

Are you paid to do this? Seriously, are you?

Nope, I do it for free.

dietzero.3514

Are you paid to do this? Seriously, are you?

I and several of my friends wonder the same thing, every single topic where someone complains about something, that same person shows up to tell them they are wrong,

The new levelling system is shockingly poor, I know people who have all but abandoned making new toons now, how do they expect newer players to hang around, I don’t know why they are hell bent on forcing these shocking updates down our throats, this update wasn’t a feature patch, no matter what way they chalk it up, it was them throwing the Chinese Client at us, the 2 markets are completely different, its like they are completely disconnected from the playerbase altogether now.

I am so glad I had all my toons maxed out to level 80 before this nightmare rolled around, I really really do pity new players to this game, this was a bad bad update to the levelling system to accompany the horrible “new” trait system, which we where also told was to confusing for people, yet we managed just fine.

And you will see more and more frustrated posts coming over the next few days im sure, but just like when they pushed the megaserver out, all the posts will go ignored, they have all the cards atm, because sadly there just isn’t another game out there to really compete against them, because of there was, there is no way they would push this onto us.

I think the problem with all of the “discontent players” who are saying that the game is now harder for new players and is not at all smooth is that they are seeing it from a veteran point of view. You guys have been playing the game for so long, and these changes are so different to what you are familiar with that to YOU it seems harder, slower and bad. See it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know anything about Guild Wars 2.

Other mmo’s (let’s take WoW) give you generally one skill per level maybe two if you are getting a passive. why should Guild Wars 2 do any different? This system works to let players get used to their class. What do you think would happen if you started WoW with all of the skills? Your mind would probably explode.

Arena Net I believe, is trying to do just that. They are limiting the amount of skills you have at the start to help new players become more familiar with the class they are playing because they don’t have so much on their table at once. And saying that five skills aren’t a lot to handle is probably the wrong thing to say when it comes to general population. I see people asking me what an item does when the description plainly states “IT DOES THIS”.

Anyways I think people just need to chill out and learn to like the system or stop complaining because Arena net will not change what they just added just for you. And to all the people saying “Looks like I wont be playing a new character”. Well shut up than cause it doesn’t affect you anymore.

Rath.6248:

And to all the people saying “Looks like I wont be playing a new character”. Well shut up than cause it doesn’t affect you anymore.

TIL anet should not encourage people to play their game and spend money on extra character slots

Sarrs.4831:

Rath.6248:

And to all the people saying “Looks like I wont be playing a new character”. Well shut up than cause it doesn’t affect you anymore.

TIL anet should not encourage people to play their game and spend money on extra character slots

Give me an example where they have. They have slots available to those who wish to buy it but they aren’t advertising with “Buy more character slots because our game is amaaaazing!”.

Yes it does when you make a new character and find out that almost every single aspect of the game is locked (Even dyes and the wardrobe are locked..). Everyone who comes from other mmos says “Oh, just 10 skills? Its that all? Im used to play with almost 32 skill”

Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch. Not enough? Well extend that to reddit comunity, fan websites,social media etc…

I noticed the majority of posters in these forums either dont play anymore and complain about the game or complain about every single thing anet put out even if it is really good. I personally like the new leveling system. also lvling is faster because it takes less to fill a heart.

Silvercyclone.1462:

I noticed the majority of posters in these forums either dont play anymore and complain about the game or complain about every single thing anet put out even if it is really good. I personally like the new leveling system. also lvling is faster because it takes less to fill a heart.

I don’t know what the kitten you’re talking about. I’m even logged in right now. I have been playing since release and especially the last month ever since I started another character that I kept putting off and was surprisingly enjoyable for me. I thought I would rekindle that by trying two other classes I kept putting off (Ranger and Warrior) only to log into this godawful patch that seems to have ruined almost everything it promised to improve. It even killed off animations from my characters.

There has been nothing good about this patch except the new sigils/runes and some class changes and maybe a few other things here and there. That’s IT. The majority of this patch has been a dismal failure.

Silvercyclone.1462:

I noticed the majority of posters in these forums either dont play anymore and complain about the game or complain about every single thing anet put out even if it is really good. I personally like the new leveling system. also lvling is faster because it takes less to fill a heart.

Did you managed to pass 100 hours of gameplay?

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Yes it does when you make a new character and find out that almost every single aspect of the game is locked (Even dyes and the wardrobe are locked..). Everyone who comes from other mmos says “Oh, just 10 skills? Its that all? Im used to play with almost 32 skill”

Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch. Not enough? Well extend that to reddit comunity, fan websites,social media etc…

The forum and reddit community are but a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Do not try to speak for the massive majority who don’t even give a single kitten about the forums or reddit.

Rath.6248:

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Yes it does when you make a new character and find out that almost every single aspect of the game is locked (Even dyes and the wardrobe are locked..). Everyone who comes from other mmos says “Oh, just 10 skills? Its that all? Im used to play with almost 32 skill”

Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch. Not enough? Well extend that to reddit comunity, fan websites,social media etc…

The forum and reddit community are but a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Do not try to speak for the massive majority who don’t even give a single kitten about the forums or reddit.

EVERY forum and reddit is a fraction of the playerbase. You want to ignore them because they are a fraction? Who should arenanet listen to if not the people on the forums or reddit? No one? Do you see how your logic just fell apart?

This is all actually about key farming, isn’kitten I see no evidence that the ‘veteran players’ complaining about this give a kitten kitten kittenning kitten about onboarding or the new player experience.

Reminds me of SWG with the whole NGE experience, will developers ever learn?

Jade – loving the video!! Killing Barradin through the medium of interpretive dance lol.

Straylight.7529:

Rath.6248:

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Yes it does when you make a new character and find out that almost every single aspect of the game is locked (Even dyes and the wardrobe are locked..). Everyone who comes from other mmos says “Oh, just 10 skills? Its that all? Im used to play with almost 32 skill”

Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch. Not enough? Well extend that to reddit comunity, fan websites,social media etc…

The forum and reddit community are but a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Do not try to speak for the massive majority who don’t even give a single kitten about the forums or reddit.

EVERY forum and reddit is a fraction of the playerbase. You want to ignore them because they are a fraction? Who should arenanet listen to if not the people on the forums or reddit? No one? Do you see how your logic just fell apart?

I never said that Anet shouldn’t take their opinions into account. Again speaking for someone else. What I said was that you as a forum user cannot say “Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch.” because the forum and reddit is not MOST of the playerbase. See where your logic falls apart?

I seriously have no idea why ANet thought these changes would help. It blatantly goes against their Manefesto video that they released around launch.

ArenaNet, you guys are going against what this game originally stood for. Why?

In this state, I just can’t play the early leveling experience. I’ll stick around and play PvP, but I WILL NOT be buying gems (either with money or gold) until they fix the leveling experience.

And I’m also going to tell anyone who will listen to stay away from the game due to the god-awful levelling experience. Which is a shame, because not that long ago I was trying to recruit as many friends as I could into the game…

Rath.6248:

Straylight.7529:

Rath.6248:

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Yes it does when you make a new character and find out that almost every single aspect of the game is locked (Even dyes and the wardrobe are locked..). Everyone who comes from other mmos says “Oh, just 10 skills? Its that all? Im used to play with almost 32 skill”

Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch. Not enough? Well extend that to reddit comunity, fan websites,social media etc…

The forum and reddit community are but a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Do not try to speak for the massive majority who don’t even give a single kitten about the forums or reddit.

EVERY forum and reddit is a fraction of the playerbase. You want to ignore them because they are a fraction? Who should arenanet listen to if not the people on the forums or reddit? No one? Do you see how your logic just fell apart?

I never said that Anet shouldn’t take their opinions into account. Again speaking for someone else. What I said was that you as a forum user cannot say “Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch.” because the forum and reddit is not MOST of the playerbase. See where your logic falls apart?

You’ll never ever get most of the playerbase to voice their opinion. (even in presidential elections not everyone is voting). So what do you do? You take the opinions of a smaller playerbase like reddit or the offical forums because that’s all you have. The only other option is ignoring them. That’s not good.

Now about that logic thing again..hmm

Rath.6248:

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Yes it does when you make a new character and find out that almost every single aspect of the game is locked (Even dyes and the wardrobe are locked..). Everyone who comes from other mmos says “Oh, just 10 skills? Its that all? Im used to play with almost 32 skill”

Just, what were they thinking?!! Most of people DONT like it. Just have a look all of thoses messages complaining about feature patch. Not enough? Well extend that to reddit comunity, fan websites,social media etc…

The forum and reddit community are but a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Do not try to speak for the massive majority who don’t even give a single kitten about the forums or reddit.

Keep telling yourself that while denying the thousands of views all these threads are getting, even when they haven’t been up for longer than a day.

You’re just burying your head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.

I feel really bad for new players. I’m only going to use the level 20 scroll boost and Tomes to level my new characters now. Who thought it was a good idea to gate everything?

Jinroh.4251:

I feel really bad for new players. I’m only going to use the level 20 scroll boost and Tomes to level my new characters now. Who thought it was a good idea to gate everything?

I have lots of level 20 scrolls in my bank. However, the sad part is that that’s not even enough anymore in order to make leveling interesting. I won’t even have my second utility slots unlocked at level 20. So basically, I’ll feel like a level 5 character even after using a scroll.

Just when I though leveling couldn’t be ruined more, they did it. Props to Arenanet.

The only new player experience “improvements” I can agree with to any degree are the story pacing changes and the rewards. But I do fear what the story changes are going to do to BL ticket weapons. Their greed might just backfire on that, though.

I’d like to know what they were thinking with the leveling lockouts and gating. I haven’t heard a single aspect of it that I like, or feel is any sort of improvement. I’m glad I have a level 80 of every profession, because there is no way I am going to make a new character in this horrible system. The previous trait changes/gates were bad enough, but backing off offhand weapons, weapon skills, and utility skills just makes the early experience dull and boring. And if been informed correctly, you can’t even earn skill points to unlock a new/better/different healing skill till around level 13.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

I seriously have no idea why ANet thought these changes would help. It blatantly goes against their Manefesto video that they released around launch.

ArenaNet, you guys are going against what this game originally stood for. Why?

In this state, I just can’t play the early leveling experience. I’ll stick around and play PvP, but I WILL NOT be buying gems (either with money or gold) until they fix the leveling experience.

And I’m also going to tell anyone who will listen to stay away from the game due to the god-awful levelling experience. Which is a shame, because not that long ago I was trying to recruit as many friends as I could into the game…

Manifesto was released two years before launch. That was four years ago. Maybe they’ve learned something since then.

I don’t blame the devs, it’s probably a bunch of out of touch suits making these choices. Wait till they introduce a tier above ascended with an accompanying grind to match.

Vayne.8563:

Anet’s way forward is to leave behind the people that can’t adapt to where the game is going and to get new people who like the game for what it is.

That doesn’t seem to be working for them. Perhaps they should try sticking to a design philosophy for a while and see if they can build a long term player base, rather than continually changing direction and throwing “the people tat can’t adapt” overboard.

I know, just my opinion. I have no evidence or facts to back this up.

I’m not the only one, however, who feels like the game has been lurching about toward conflicting design goals, alienating people along the way. The end result is that you do need to keep getting on new players because the old ones thought they were headed one way and found themselves headed somewhere they didn’t want to go.

I still imagine a GW2 that looks a lot closer to the picture that the devs painted for us in so many blog posts and articles before launch, and was there in its infancy for the first few months after launch. If only it had continued growing in that direction, deepening and maturing. Then GW2 might be humming along with a steadily growing, loyal player base, rather than trying to refresh with a new generation every six months or so as something new becomes the design priority.

One of the more disturbing things I’ve seen lately is a deflation in the posts of some of the most die-hard supporters on forums like this one and Guru. I’ve read posts criticizing recent ArenaNet choices, then done double-takes when I glanced back up to see who posted. Some of the people who we could rely on to staunchly defend ArenaNet in every thread are starting to make qualified defenses or outright complaint posts.

Reminds me of my journey as GW2 proselytizer pre-launch and shortly after launch, to where I am now.

When they announced this change I initially thought that maybe I should restart an alt to take advantage of the leveling rewards.

After bringing up a character 1-15 since the new patch… yes, the leveling experience is awful.

The game at the beginning is reduced down to spamming “1”. The initial game has less substance than most Facebook f2p/p2w apps. Assuming your attention span isn’t completely shredded by the time you make it out of the introduction mission, the following levels offer nothing in terms of customization. No skills, no traits, no off-hand weapons. And then going around Queensdale, most of the environmental weapons have been removed as well.

The general feel of the low level areas is that the number of events has been slowed down, again. Around level 8, I ran out of level appropriate content. I had to get power leveled through some level 15 events in order to get myself up to 10.

The 3 Black Lion chests that dropped and the pop up suggesting I should buy Gems to open them made me want to log out.

It just isn’t fun. They’ve taken some of the best content in the game turned it into a mindless grind.

Seth.1308:

The game at the beginning is reduced down to spamming “1”.

Anyone remember that quote

“I swung a sword. I swung my sword again. Hey, I swung it again, that’s great.”?

Sarrs.4831:

Seth.1308:

The game at the beginning is reduced down to spamming “1”.

Anyone remember that quote

“I swung a sword. I swung my sword again. Hey, I swung it again, that’s great.”?

Looking back, it’s clear Colin was being serious when he said, “hey, that’s great.”

I posted this elsewhere, but I’ll post this idea here. Game companies are about creating profit. They realize that there is more money the closer they develop to the center of the normal distribution curve of any given market. However, no matter your measure whether physical ability, mental acuity, money available, etc. games, in general, are to hard. Particularly if you keep aiming at the top 2% of said curve, this further alienates the rest of the markets population. Believe me if your grandfather or grandmother felt comfortable playing a game, and invited all their other friends to play also, that market is much larger and with larger amounts of disposable income and time to play, which will lead to a more lucrative outcome. Game makers are aiming for the middle of the curve with less focus on the ‘elite’. We can either embrace the changes and help others gain experience and comfort within a given game, or we can leave. You make your choices, you take your chances.

Looks like we’re stuck with this until the next Feature Patch. If we all make it to that.

I think we all would have been much better off if they put all this added New player experience in some sort of tutorial instance, like the opening instance for each race, instead of locking things up out of reach and stretching it out over half of your 1-80 levels.

vaalix.4913:

The patch notes also said the leveling from 1-20 was quicker… BS it is.. It is vaslty slower because you have less tools to kill at your disposal for the first 10 levels…

They probably meant the xp requirement is lower, but yeah, it takes WAY longer without the story being available. I used to get to lvl 7 in 15 min. Now it’s almost an hour.

Vayne.8563:

Anet’s way forward is to leave behind the people that can’t adapt to where the game is going and to get new people who like the game for what it is. And that means keeping people from free demo weekends.

Because new players never become old players. Or are you saying they should just churn?

Have you seen what they did to rangers? No access to the pet window. No way to control your pet. None. It’s horrible.

And this thing of giving us only 1 or 2 weapon skills at first, because it’s too confusing to give us more? I’m a veteran EQ/EQ2 player. I had 20 weapon skills / spells up at all times, from early on. Do Chinese players really like it this way???

The sad truth is, if they make more money off China than they do off NA/EU — it’ll stay this way. What we think about it doesn’t matter when the bottom line is money.

Roybe.5896:

They realize that there is more money the closer they develop to the center of the normal distribution curve of any given market

You are ignoring the fact that there is more than one video game in the market, and that there are alternatives to video games. Video games do not have an inelastic demand curve.

Jade Arkadian.9280:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On3Ya0_4Y

Please, active your irony sense before watching :P

That gave me a very good laugh!