Guild Wars 2

OP I think the issue is that you are looking at the training tab. Once you have spent hero points to unlock traits, they are spent and cannot be refunded, exactly like skill points were when unlocking skills.

There is a build tab to actually change which traits are equipped.

Exactly – it doesn’t hurt your level 80 characters, because they have should have enough points earned from hitting 80 to completely unlock all of the skills, and all of the specializations. If your build is no longer working as well for you, or you just want to change it up, just spent all your points, buy up all of skills and specializations, and change to your heart’s content.

For some fresh 80s, it might even be a little bit of a boon, since you may not have had enough skill points to buy everything in the old game.

It also doesn’t hurt the very low level characters, ones that haven’t earned any points to spend yet. (I don’t know what level that is, someone said 30, but it might be lower.)

However, for my 37 warrior, it’s kind of an annoyance. I was thinking today I could finally spec out of Strength and go to something else. Instead, I log in and find all my points have been put into Strength for me. Now that kind of sucks.

Sure, assuming I make 80 on this toon someday, it’s really just a temporary thing. I just have to power through it, scour the map for skill challenges (sorry, hero challenges), scrounge up enough to break into another specialization, and generally make the best of it. In the end, it’s just a game, right?

But that’s also the problem – it’s just a game, not real life. Like a country-western song, if you play it backward, your wife, your truck, and your dog all come back.

They trained my ele in Earth.. all the traits in Earth.. I don’t WANT these. She’s 30th level, I need those traits in AIR.

I’m also extraordinarily frustrated right now.

Logged in on my leveling elementalist to find all points already spent into Earth.

Not happy right now.

I don’t like the new system, but it is not a nightmare as such. The information of the trait setting is overwhelming. It confused me, but after a second thought that would be old wine in new bottle, I finally can understand that left navigation-alike panel is nothing function as navigation. And the tab over the left panel (navigation-alike ) is so dark and colorless which is really cannot get people’s attention.

3 lines specialization is so lamb, which cannot fully meet my actually my need. Tons of useless skill have to take up forcefully. That is very very disappointed. Yes, it is much easy to master, because there is nothing much variation. This making me remember what has been happened in WoW, as to expect children under 10 can play it after completely redesign the system. But the fact was my nephew at 10 cannot pick up how to play GW2 when I shown him (that is a pity only some children are talent to MMO at 9 or 10).

There is no ‘unspending’. Only ‘overspending’. The 3 visible lines = what you choose. Dislike a line? go to that marker, open the window and choose the other line you want. Then put traits in there. Keep ‘overwriting’ (by choosing something else over a line you dont like’ until you got what you want.

Aerlen.5326:

They trained my ele in Earth.. all the traits in Earth.. I don’t WANT these. She’s 30th level, I need those traits in AIR.

Then yes, that sucks, but it barely will slow you down, to play a little to earn a few more levels and skill challages to earn what you want though.

TJgalon.5012:

Aerlen.5326:

They trained my ele in Earth.. all the traits in Earth.. I don’t WANT these. She’s 30th level, I need those traits in AIR.

Then yes, that sucks, but it barely will slow you down, to play a little to earn a few more levels and skill challages to earn what you want though.

somehow i have a feeling you were unaffected? it is sort of a ‘minor bump’ along the road, but if you had multiple characters under level 80 it hurts pretty bad to have to like… play to FIX your character if that makes sense? like you’re also leveling and explorin at the same time, but it just feels like a kick to the gut that wasn’t really necessary .

did you guys even take a single look at it?

just click on the little arrow at the left side of the traitline and take another traitline…

if you cant change the traitlines on lowlvl characters though then i agree that would be stupid… (i dont have any lowlvlchars that are high enough lvl to have traits…)

and those of you who mean the unlocking…
ofc you cant redo unlocking… that would defeat the purpose of having to decide what to unlock first

edit:
thx for clearing that
i see the point that that the unlokcing points were already spent to skills that you didnt want to spend them on on lowlvls… thats really stupid

I have a ranger who got some traps, which i can’t see the use of, but it not a big deal to me, and yeah, my level 80 engie. But if your already playing anyways, you earn though points back quick enough. leveling not hard and skill challages for places in the game, i am surprise that you have no points to put where you want, but maybe you got really unlucky, but it hard to say, since I am not you, I am just saying, it wont take long to fix also.

Orangensaft.7139:

wtf did all of you even take a single look at it??

just click on the little arrow at the left side of the traitline and take another traitline…

i think the op understands that now.

a lot of the people in this thread are upset because their lower than 80 characters got autobuilt.

Orangensaft.7139:

wtf did all of you even take a single look at it??

just click on the little arrow at the left side of the traitline and take another traitline…

and those of you who mean the unlocking…
ofc you cant redo unlocking… that would defeat the purpose of having to decide what to unlock first

We didn’t have a choice! Arenanet chose for us on logging in! This is why we are upset.

Orangensaft.7139:

wtf did all of you even take a single look at it??

just click on the little arrow at the left side of the traitline and take another traitline…

Let’s hope. When you spend points buying into skill categories, you can’t unspend them. The interface is the same for traitlines, you buy into them. I don’t assume we can unspend the points there as well.

TJgalon.5012:

I have a ranger who got some traps, which i can’t see the use of, but it not a big deal to me, and yeah, my level 80 engie. But if your already playing anyways, you earn though points back quick enough. leveling not hard and skill challages for places in the game, i am surprise that you have no points to put where you want, but maybe you got really unlucky, but it hard to say, since I am not you, I am just saying, it wont take long to fix also.

it won’t take terribly long to fix, however it was also very unnecessary. there should have been at least an option to not autobuild. it just feels demoralizing to have to play to GET the specs you want rather than logging in and having them be available to you at your level!!

i have four characters that are currently under 80, and believe me it seems like kind of an undertaking to fix em all.

Well thanks for nothing Arenanet. Going to delete my elementalist and start over since you ruined her build and it’s faster to start over than to get to 80 with a crap build.

This is garbage. My other ele was ALSO auto specced into earth 100% and while that’s okay for him (would have preferred water but I planned on taking earth for him too), it is absolutely NOT for my air build ele. In fact, all 12 of my lowbies were auto specced! For ten of them, it was fine because it reflected traits they were building on.. but for both eles to be shoved into earth like that – no option to fix…

And to those saying “well just level to 80”, greeeeat. I level slow. I like to enjoy the process and to experiment with builds as I go so that each toon plays just a little differently. For both eles, I am now stuck with a trait line I wouldn’t pick at that level and will be forced to grind to fix a mistake I didn’t make.

i agree anet should definitly
either:
1) reset the points spent for unlocking
or
2) introduce some way to let players reset those points 1x (so that players who just spent all points on all of their chars dont have to redo that..)

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

There is no ‘unspending’. Only ‘overspending’. The 3 visible lines = what you choose. Dislike a line? go to that marker, open the window and choose the other line you want. Then put traits in there. Keep ‘overwriting’ (by choosing something else over a line you dont like’ until you got what you want.

That’s fine, but a newer character that’s sub-80 cannot unlock the other trait lines because they won’t have enough points to unlock them.

Orangensaft.7139:

i agree anet should definitly
either:
1) reset the points spent for unlocking
or
2) introduce some way to let players reset those points 1x (so that players who just spent all points on all of their chars dont have to redo that..)

I wholeheartedly agree with this for all <80 characters, and I encourage anyone affected by this issue to submit a support ticket. If your 80 cannot unlock what it should be able to, also contact support. On one hand, I’m surprised at these results, but on the other, it is patch day, and that tends to come with many unexpected happenings.

As usual on patch day, so far, I can only read about the experiences of others for hours, so I have no horror stories yet. Good luck to all.

Aerlen.5326:

This is garbage. My other ele was ALSO auto specced into earth 100% and while that’s okay for him (would have preferred water but I planned on taking earth for him too), it is absolutely NOT for my air build ele. In fact, all 12 of my lowbies were auto specced! For ten of them, it was fine because it reflected traits they were building on.. but for both eles to be shoved into earth like that – no option to fix…

And to those saying “well just level to 80”, greeeeat. I level slow. I like to enjoy the process and to experiment with builds as I go so that each toon plays just a little differently. For both eles, I am now stuck with a trait line I wouldn’t pick at that level and will be forced to grind to fix a mistake I didn’t make.

Yep, 100% agree. They autobuilt my Ele into a spec I do not play and never liked. Good job Anet. If I wanted to play “your way” to this extent, I’d still be paying Blizzard to play WoW based on “their new vision or the highway.”

I also level slow. I enjoy exploring and doing things. It takes me months to get to Level 80 because I also enjoy multiple professions across different characters. I’m glad I didn’t pre-order HoT yet, because unless Anet fixes this stupid decision for low level characters, I’m done spending money with them.

I’ve got 2 lowbie characters under < 25 and one under <40. Granted I didn’t really spec them out, because I’m taking my time with them (dragging my feet on them if you will). Learning each class as I go along. I have no problem with this new system. Once I get to 80, I know the whole world is in my grasp. And I’ll have a far better idea what playstyle I want when I get there.

OP (and others having this issue), if you are still struggling perhaps this will help.

Traits now work sort of like skills used to in that you have to learn (unlock) them first, and after you have done so you can swap between them freely (or at least swap between trait lines, of which you can choose three).

The confusing thing is that you unlock/learn everything, both traits and skills, in a different panel than you use to select the traits that you are going to use at any time.

The panel for unlocking and learning traits/skills is one below the trait icon that you’re used to seeing. That new icon you’ve never seen before is the one that lets you learn the traits. Do that first and then go back to the trait panel to select the ones you want.

You should have enough Hero Points to unlock everything, so go ahead and do that all in one go. Then you never have to worry about it again and can swap your traits whenever you like.

For hibari and other that keep saying we shold have enough hero points to unlock everything. That is true only for lvl80 characters. On lower level we DON’T HAVE ANY POINTS, ALL OUR POINTS ARE ALREADY SPENT ON BUILD THEY GAVE US, AND WE CAN’T TRAIN ANYTHING UNTIL WE LEVEL UP AND GET MORE POINTS.

P.S. Sorry for caps, i was just frustrated that people asume we are idiots that don’t understand anything. We know how to unlock and select traits, but on lower level characters all points are spent on build they gave us.

The preselect of builds for pre 80 characters was not needed and it only caused problems.
It would be much better if they let the creation of builds entirely to players,they
wasted their time here in adding this to the game.
Since they went this way,what they must do asap is to add a function in the UI or a NPC where you can reset your available Hero points.

Aenaos.8160:

The preselect of builds for pre 80 characters was not needed and it only caused problems.
It would be much better if they let the creation of builds entirely to players,they
wasted their time here in adding this to the game.
Since they went this way,what they must do asap is to add a function in the UI or a NPC where you can reset your available Hero points.

I couldn’t agree more. They should really add a NPC where you can reset.

Well, I had a lot of Skill Points (saved) to spend on a number of my toons waiting to get enough to do what I wanted when I wanted, after patch I now have all my SP/HP spent in the exact place I did want them…. fine lvl 80 toons get to do what ever they want and have points to spare.
My question is why didn’t they just refund points spent and let the player put them in areas they want at the level the toon is at for the play style they are exploring, would that have been so hard.
Also a post had, and I am paraphrasing, well you should have known it was stated in the poi, what is the poi????

Rex.6954:

Well, I had a lot of Skill Points (saved) to spend on a number of my toons waiting to get enough to do what I wanted when I wanted, after patch I now have all my SP/HP spent in the exact place I did want them…. fine lvl 80 toons get to do what ever they want and have points to spare.
My question is why didn’t they just refund points spent and let the player put them in areas they want at the level the toon is at for the play style they are exploring, would that have been so hard.
Also a post had, and I am paraphrasing, well you should have known it was stated in the poi, what is the poi????

Refunding would have been the significantly easier thing for them to do. They chose to spend a lot of time coding a system that tried to mimic what you had selected because they felt that was the option that would cause the least amount of player confusion and annoyance. Based on the volume of posts on the subject, it seems they chose correctly, you just unfortunately happen to be in that smaller group that was confused/annoyed.

Not confused just annoyed, For example my Warrior, no points in defence at all, duel axe and rifle all points (I had left for later) went into defence and shield skills. How is this helping, please, mtpelion.4562, enlighten me!?

Rex.6954:

Not confused just annoyed, For example my Warrior, no points in defence at all, duel axe and rifle all points (I had left for later) went into defence and shield skills. How is this helping, please, mtpelion.4562, enlighten me!?

It’s not helping you. It’s also not forever and the time you spent complaining about it you could have done a few hero challenges and moved on like some of us.

Vayne, Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, clearly I have misdirected my efforts. I also feel if I have a grievance I should be able to express them.
I will also venture a little further and say most of the people who have replied saying get over it and move on all have a number of max level characters and are not really effected by this, and as a result do not understand the frustration it caused, also for your information I have done more HP challengers and now have 19 points to play with (after patch I had zero left), but not the 30 odd I would have had if this had not happened and now having to work my way through levels 30 to 45 using a specialisation that does not fit my play style or the weapons I like making this less fun than it should/could be…..

To those still complaining about this. I literally already deleted a character, started over, leveled my character to 68 and just wanted it over and used a few spare ToK to hit 80. With a few hours in EotM I could have spared them, but I didn’t feel like it. I know some people don’t have as much play time as me, but it would have been much simpler to realize that Anet flubbed and wasn’t about to fix it. So either power through and start over. It sucks and Arenanet REALLY should avoid doing things like this in the future, but you can be 80 fairly quickly if you try.

Rex.6954:

Vayne, Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, clearly I have misdirected my efforts. I also feel if I have a grievance I should be able to express them.
I will also venture a little further and say most of the people who have replied saying get over it and move on all have a number of max level characters and are not really effected by this, and as a result do not understand the frustration it caused, also for your information I have done more HP challengers and now have 19 points to play with (after patch I had zero left), but not the 30 odd I would have had if this had not happened and now having to work my way through levels 30 to 45 using a specialisation that does not fit my play style or the weapons I like making this less fun than it should/could be…..

You can absolutely express your grievance, but since this is a transitional problem, I doubt it will be fixed as aggrieved as you are. It might take you a couple of hours of playing to change the situation from what it is to something else.

It would take Anet a lot longer to program in what you want programmed in. Remember, this won’t affect any new characters after this point, it doesn’t affect 80s, who are most of the population at this point, and it doesn’t even affect very low level characters.

Yes, I can see why you’d think it was annoying. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to change. It doesn’t even mean that some people aren’t over-reacting. Sure it’s inconvenient.

The old trait system was far more inconvenient, and we had it for more than a year. I’m happy this has finally changed.

The fact that this inconvenience is purely temporary makes a big big difference.

Vayne, I agree with you, this is a much better system, so now I have had my “rant” I will just keep playing, I find the trait system much easier to get the best out of your toon, all said and done it works well, I was just blowing off some steam is all

Well checked on my low level alts and they are screwed up as well. From seeing my Ele and with what others have posted, it sounds like all low level Ele’s got specced into earth no matter where you had points spent prior to the change.

It feels like I’m being told how to play my characters, that I have no choice in the matter. That’s about as much fun as scratching your sensative areas with a running chainsaw.

Now I have no desire to play any of my under 80 toons, since the only way to play like I want is to delete them and re-make them. Which will be the complete opposite of fun.

I was thinking of pre-ordering HoT… now I probably won’t order it at all. I’d rather put the money into a game that I have fun playing.

ZaZap.8357:

Well checked on my low level alts and they are screwed up as well. From seeing my Ele and with what others have posted, it sounds like all low level Ele’s got specced into earth no matter where you had points spent prior to the change.

It feels like I’m being told how to play my characters, that I have no choice in the matter. That’s about as much fun as scratching your sensative areas with a running chainsaw.

Now I have no desire to play any of my under 80 toons, since the only way to play like I want is to delete them and re-make them. Which will be the complete opposite of fun.

I was thinking of pre-ordering HoT… now I probably won’t order it at all. I’d rather put the money into a game that I have fun playing.

I believe your decison is unreasonable, but if that’s your choice, that’s your choice. I think you’ll be in a very very small percentage of people who don’t buy HoT because of this. But if you’re that sensitive to temporary change, I doubt you’ll stay with any MMO anyway.

Vayne.8563:

ZaZap.8357:

I was thinking of pre-ordering HoT… now I probably won’t order it at all. I’d rather put the money into a game that I have fun playing.

I believe your decison is unreasonable, but if that’s your choice, that’s your choice. I think you’ll be in a very very small percentage of people who don’t buy HoT because of this. But if you’re that sensitive to temporary change, I doubt you’ll stay with any MMO anyway.

If you want to believe I’m being un reasonable that’s fine.

I have spent a bit of money already on this game. I did it because I had fun playing the game, wanted what was offered, and wanted to support it. Right now i have 36 characters (yeah I’m an Alt-oholic), 9 of them are level 80. So I have 27 low level characters whose specs I did not get to choose. 27 Characters that (so far) I really am not having fun with anymore. 27 times where a choice was not given to me.

Do I think HoT will be a “bad” expansion? Nope. I am very interested in playing it. But now a significant number of my toons, I really don’t like playing. I wish I had the money to just throw at any game that caught my eye, but I don’t. So I can choose to put money into a game where I am not having as much fun as I used to, or I can put it in another game where I do (or could) have more fun. More than likely I will wait until HoT goes on sale at some point to purchase it.

Let’s face it, in any game where you take a choice away from the players, it’s a bad idea.

ZaZap.8357:

Vayne.8563:

ZaZap.8357:

I was thinking of pre-ordering HoT… now I probably won’t order it at all. I’d rather put the money into a game that I have fun playing.

I believe your decison is unreasonable, but if that’s your choice, that’s your choice. I think you’ll be in a very very small percentage of people who don’t buy HoT because of this. But if you’re that sensitive to temporary change, I doubt you’ll stay with any MMO anyway.

If you want to believe I’m being un reasonable that’s fine.

I have spent a bit of money already on this game. I did it because I had fun playing the game, wanted what was offered, and wanted to support it. Right now i have 36 characters (yeah I’m an Alt-oholic), 9 of them are level 80. So I have 27 low level characters whose specs I did not get to choose. 27 Characters that (so far) I really am not having fun with anymore. 27 times where a choice was not given to me.

Do I think HoT will be a “bad” expansion? Nope. I am very interested in playing it. But now a significant number of my toons, I really don’t like playing. I wish I had the money to just throw at any game that caught my eye, but I don’t. So I can choose to put money into a game where I am not having as much fun as I used to, or I can put it in another game where I do (or could) have more fun. More than likely I will wait until HoT goes on sale at some point to purchase it.

Let’s face it, in any game where you take a choice away from the players, it’s a bad idea.

If you’re that familiar with the game, it seems to me that it’ll take very little time before you can start switching those stats around. I’m an altoholic too. To me, the last trait change was the worst thing ever done to this game, and that this fixed those problems means that I can deal with some inconvenience…and that’s all it is, inconvenience.

I just signed onto my level 23 elementalist. I had his traits all set for fire… somehow they put all my points into earth. He has 0 points available to spend. From what I am reading there is no way I can reset him correctly? I think it would be best just to delete him and start over – at least I would get another key ha ha. what f’ed up “upgrade”…..

I have a buttload of characters between the lvls of 20 and 45. Some are ok others are totally BFudged. I would really like to meet the person who did this in a dark alley and have a nice talk with them to show them the error of their ways. It would be very civil and polite…….. honest.