Guild Wars 2

For me the patch destroyed GW completely. I’ve tried to play it but it just doesn’t feel the same anymore. The level locking is awful and completely ruins the immersion. Before the patch this game was one of the best MMOs and games in general out there, not so much now. It just saddens me that the developers destroyed this game completely. This game was not hard to learn even for new players. Don’t fix what is not broken is not something the devs seem to undersand. And this is not a hate or troll post, I’m just curious if there’s anyone else who feels the same way.

So.. you are making a post about a patch that was released almost a year ago and which have since seen multiple changes and fixes to the system?

Yes, but the personal story is still level locked. It feels disjointed at best.

I’m leveling a char to 80 right now, the old fashioned way with map completion, hearts and events. Level 54 now. The NPE is no big deal and it certainly didn’t ruin it.

(By the way, there was level locking in the old version also).

Wasn’t there a suggested level, but you could play the personal story anyway when you wanted? At least it was so when I played it. Equipment had level locks, yes, but not the personal story.

Gerrod.4608:

Yes, but the personal story is still level locked. It feels disjointed at best.

Actually based on what I have seen people actually prefer the current version. Before the update it was still technically level locked. Sure, you could still do the instances, but most of the time they were simply too hard (due to how levels work in the game). Which could rather easily lead to a situation where you complete a single instance and then wouldn’t be able to complete the next one until you have leveled up a level or two. As opposed to now where you unlock each section together and thus will always be “on-level” when you unlock a story step, with each story step being grouped together within its own arc.

Simply a matter of preferences I suppose. I for one prefer to be able to do a whole arc in a row as opposed to a single instance, grind for level, do another instance and so on.

Gerrod.4608:

Yes, but the personal story is still level locked. It feels disjointed at best.

Since the personal story was placed in areas you couldn’t easily reach unless you were the appropriate level, it doesn’t make that big a difference. Try going to Orr on a low level and see what happens. Not only do things hate you, they really, really hate you because you are low level. The odds of getting chased down and one shot rise as the difference in levels grows greater.

How I enjoy the game now? Same way I’ve always done. I have fun doing whatever I want. Map completion, crafting, exploring, or just having fun. Nothing’s changed for me.

Well, that is a valid point. Maybe I should give GW2 another chance and see if the system grows on me. Thanks for the answers.=)

Sept patch from last year? Granted NPE went south, it was considered a temporary setback since most players could level to 80 in 2-3 weeks without much difference in effort.

I would say the failure NOT promoting the system’s strengths, and instead thinking the issue was it being “too confusing”. At the time, the process was perfectly fine; but what would had made things MUCH easier on players was finding a better way to introduce them to Traits earlier in the game. Arguably half a build rests on the weapon skills, and the other half on Traits… the Utilities are that extra 20% to push it over the top.

To this day I still believe traits should had been introduced around the same time you introduce utilities. While weapons are generally more of the focus in builds, the trait relationship to utilities and their effects are a lot more obvious at face value. Every trait line had at least 1 adept trait that impacted one of utility types. Realizing that, new players will start looking for that concept more whenever something else would unlock along the way.

When I first started, it wasn’t until level 50 that I started to see traits as combinations…. because until level 50, I only had enough trait points to see 1 Major trait of ONE trait line.

And stop using immersion in the wrong context like that. It doesn’t help the cause at all.

Things like that can affect immersion as a whole, so it was not in the wrong context.

I remember a post shortly after launch on a different forum, where the person was complaining he couldn’t do the whole personal story from the start at one go on his low level char. Instead he had to do some then level some to be able to do more. So, level locking has always been here. It’s just set up differently.

Now that I’m doing the new system on my new char, it does feel better. Instead of doing one or two story instances and then breaking it off to level, I’m doing whole arcs at a time and actually doing the personal story as it comes up.

I didn’t do that on my old, from launch chars. Each one did fragments of storyline. It was disjointed and I would forget what was happening in the story by the time I got back to it after a few days of leveling. This method, the story line is clearer and more immersive as I don’t have to stop in the middle of the story to level up.

My only disappointment (very minor) with the current level gating is that previously, if I wanted a challenge, I could do PS missions below their recommended level. It was a nice change of pace.

I actually like it better. Like somebody else mentioned, it’s nice to do the whole story arc in one go.

September 14, 2014? O.o

The new system is pretty good:

-The levelling rewards are pretty neat. The new box that shows upcoming rewards is also great as it shows you exciting things yet to come. I find this more rewarding and it incentivises getting to the next level in your current play session.

-Getting to level 10 is much faster than it was.

-It’s simpler for new players, or players that are new to MMOs. Having the story set in arcs means it’s more memorable and keeps you on track with the story. It’s less complicated for new players- the problem before was that you could play stories higher than your level, which resulted in new players going in massively under-levelled and not really realising why they were failing.

-Having skills level-locked means that new players will devote more time to understanding the one new thing they unlocked. This system is easily bypassed by veteran players who are swimming in tomes of knowledge or insta-20 scrolls.

Gerrod.4608:

For me the patch destroyed GW completely. I’ve tried to play it but it just doesn’t feel the same anymore. The level locking is awful and completely ruins the immersion. Before the patch this game was one of the best MMOs and games in general out there, not so much now. It just saddens me that the developers destroyed this game completely. This game was not hard to learn even for new players. Don’t fix what is not broken is not something the devs seem to undersand. And this is not a hate or troll post, I’m just curious if there’s anyone else who feels the same way.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I think the game is far better now than it was at launch (with some minor exceptions).

I do feel that ANet has no idea how to roll out certain types of content. The NPE should have been a good thing for the game, not divisive. The problem is they made it sound like something from which MMO regulars would benefit directly, which was silly and misguided, at best.

The point was: they identified tons of people who played and left the game, who would have stayed, had something like the NPE been in place to start with. More players means a stronger community, which ultimately benefits the game and therefore veterans. I don’t understand why they thought veterans would embrace additional gating of any sort.

That said, aside from the recently-departed trait system, I find it easier and more fun to level toons, despite the gating (with some exceptions of a few removed hearts). There are a lot of features that came with the NPE that reduced leveling tedium.

tl;dr I’m sorry the OP likes the game less; I personally prefer it now.

Gerrod.4608:

The level locking is awful and completely ruins the immersion. Before the patch this game was one of the best MMOs and games in general out there, not so much now. It just saddens me that the developers destroyed this game completely.

So the fact that leveling a new character now takes 10-20 more minutes in the early stages completely ruined the game for you? I agree with you that it was an unnecessary annoyance, but if little things like this put you off, I can’t even imagine how would you react to some of the more drastic changes in game mechanics and possibly even major bugs. Just learn to live with it.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Gerrod.4608:

The level locking is awful and completely ruins the immersion. Before the patch this game was one of the best MMOs and games in general out there, not so much now. It just saddens me that the developers destroyed this game completely.

So the fact that leveling a new character now takes 10-20 more minutes in the early stages completely ruined the game for you? I agree with you that it was an unnecessary annoyance, but if little things like this put you off, I can’t even imagine how would you react to some of the more drastic changes in game mechanics and possibly even major bugs. Just learn to live with it.

It seems more likely that he is refering to the experience itself, not the increased duration of the experience.

Ashen, thank you. I don’t care about the duration of leveling up. Some people just make their own assumptions before READING THE POST. And I know I’m not the only one who does not care for these changes.

My only gripe with the NPE is a minor one. It is that when I get gear that I do not want, I end up destroying it to free the spot in inventory.

/s on
I’m sure that salvaging or selling these items for minimal coin would break the game, though.
/s off

I find that it does not matter to me that the PS comes in several episode chunks vs. coming one episode every 1-3 levels. However, I enjoy the GW2 story less than I did any of the GW campaign/expansion stories. Also, I found the PS more engaging back at launch while there was still some semblance of danger in the early episodes. Now, I find little interest in doing it.

One oddity is that I find myself under-leveling in zones more now that I did at launch. Before, it always seemed I’d finish a zone at about the time I’d reach the end of its level range. Now, I’m seeing things like finishing QDale at L12 and Gendarren at L31. I’m not sure what combination of factors to attribute this to, and I’m not sure it has anything to do with NPE. My guess is that I’m running into less events than I remember doing on older characters.

Still, even with that, I’m enjoying the game almost as much as I once did, and the differences have little to nothing to do with NPE.

I don’t think the patch really affected how I play (and a lot of what I do is playing on low level characters). The most annoying parts were fixed a week later (mainly they reduced the level requirement for utility, elite and profession skills).

Some parts of it I really like. The content guide and the level up rewards in particular. Between the two I think new players are getting a lot better guidance on what to do and how to find it and I’ve seen a dramatic reduction in “I’m doing my quests but I’m too low level, do I have to grind enemies now?” type posts as a result.

Most of the things which still bother me, like rangers not getting the pet panel until level 5, are short-term annoyances at most.

Yeah, I guess it just takes some time to get used to these changes. The game is otherwise really awesome, the world, the races, the exploration, all very well done.