Guild Wars 2

I can report the following:

The game can still be fun, and you can still get around a number of the restrictions if you already know how to play. Some of the features that are hidden I didn’t mind being gone. Other things like gathering I did miss, but I was able to purchase and use tools long before the level up notification. There are some issues with the changes, they are not game-ending but I think they need more work.

First, regarding story:
Level gating the story means that when you interact with npcs there is lack of continuity, as they will refer to you as “prize winner” (if asuran), etc. When you have not even been informed of a contest until level 10.

Also in metrica province, finding enemies of the appropriate level progression is completely unclear without the story guiding you first south, then north east, etc. The story used to give you a reassuring path- yes, this is a comfortable place for you to play. Without that I found myself quickly against high level enemies and without the help of my friend I would have become very discouraged, felt trapped, or forced to backtrack in a seemingly open game.

Second, regarding level up notification:
-Purely aesthetically, the animation and graphics are jarring, and sort of spook me and my friend when they ZAP out at you. (WHAPPOW YOU’RE 9)
Can also get cluttery when you’re getting additional chests/notifications.

-The information provided on the notification itself is simplified/vague to the point of saying nothing. Some menus just provide a link you click to take you somewhere else to learn. I thought I earned an unidentified dye, but apparently I had “unlocked” the dye menu, and I misunderstood this graphic entirely because I didn’t think to click on it for more info. I can see how this shows people around the interface but the notification itself is intrusive for how little it actually teaches. I think it was an attempt to be a text tutorial but they’re so fast/small/vague and easy to miss entirely that they are poor replacements for an actual tutorial.

-It’s easy to skip the notification to quickly get back to the game/clear your screen to see incoming action, resulting in- “what did I unlock..??”, feeling you missed something important without being able to check what it was.

Third, regarding story reward:
I received four staves within five minutes, two of which are essentially identical and both from story reward (so not random), image included. This is a lot of clutter and confusing, especially if you’re assuming a new player isn’t salvaging.

Fourth, weapon skill unlocks:
I found it more confusing to have my new skills unlocked without having ever used them. Rather than getting one skill at a time, suddenly I had 4 new skills without ever touching the weapon. Lot more information to deal with all at once. I think this change is a step away from user friendliness. I was also very, very bored with the high-hp starting boss when i could do nothing but click it and wait.

Last, about bundles- the fear of bundles has led to some convoluted work-arounds, and bundles will quickly appear later on, or in the case of some quests, you will be transformed and have a completely different skillset. My guess is that the goal is to avoid players having to read their tool tips. Whether it’s worth this tango to remove all bundles from early quests and then have them appear out of nowhere anyway… idk. It has just made some things less immersive and more tedious for the earliest levels.

tl;dr I found some of the changes fine, others work-around-able, and others seemingly incomplete or ineffective for the goals the dev team seems to have. The cries of “the game is over forever” are a bit too dramatic but I would like anet to work harder on true tutorials if they are worried about new player experience, rather than this somewhat sloppy and confusing notification system.

Good review of the new system. I think this is fair. I think some of it needs to be reworked.

This is the type of posts that I wish there were more of. Actual hands on and clear descriptions. The company can actually use this to further develop the game.

Of course it is not as cool as screaming, stamping feet and spreading rumours.

Also for those that don’t really know yet; almsot everything is accessible if you know how to do it. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/You-Can-Do-ALL-almost-the-Things-Still/first#post4393071 I made a post myself about what you CAN do from a new character stand point.

Also, I agree that they need to work on the RNG of the gear the Story and level up rewards give. I got the same Bow from the story completion as I did upon leveling up from said completing of the story. I wouldn’t say the system is perfect, but I think its still very fun and I had No trouble with finding appropriate leveling mobs in Caledon. But Metrica was always confusing to me, lol. It has a wonky lay out they might want to work on direction in that map.

Personally I went the opposite direction that the guide told me to just to see how I would fare going against where it wanted me to go and it didn’t stop me from doing anything, it instead just redirected me to the nearest heart, or if an even was in the area it flashed on it. Once you actually give it a chance its okay. I really think that that ONE Youtube video someone posted that was full of bugs, etc caused so many people to jump the gun.

After playing a while more I notice that even though all 5 of my weapon skills are unlocked, I still only have 3 underwater skills. This is the kind of inconsistency that is confusing.

eyestrain.3056:

After playing a while more I notice that even though all 5 of my weapon skills are unlocked, I still only have 3 underwater skills. This is the kind of inconsistency that is confusing.

Yeah, the inconsistency was extremely jarring. My necromancer had very few underwater weapon skills unlocked, but I had underwater Death Shroud 1,2,3, and 5 unlocked (but not skill 4). The level-up texts didn’t help very much in some cases, and the constant text and pop-ups at level-up were as distracting as they were helpful. I completely failed to notice that I could equip a secondary underwater weapon, as I don’t remember seeing it in a level-up thing and I was too busy trying to fix bugged skills to notice. I only noticed that I could equip a secondary underwater weapon when I went to my hero panel to equip a stronger dagger and I noticed in the UI that I had the option to equip a secondary underwater weapon.

So, basically, I had underwater skills that unlocked at a different rate than regular weapon skills which unlocked at a different rate than Death Shroud skills which unlocked faster than underwater Death Shroud skills, and somewhere along the line I could equip two underwater weapons but I have no idea when that happened. I tried reading the new level-up text, but all it really told me was what was unlocked now that had been locked. It didn’t really explain very much. The only really helpful thing was that it gave me some loot. I got a salvage kit, and a back piece, I think. So, I got some cool toys from a couple of levels, but other than that I didn’t notice any huge improvements over the previous system. Some of the level-up texts were useful, but some of them weren’t very useful and some of them were a bit confusing. When I’m in the middle of a mob and I randomly level up, I can’t be bothered to spend an entire minute poring over text. They need to tweak the new leveling UI to be more user-friendly. Maybe they could have an option to where you become invincible when you level up but you also can’t damage mobs. This way you could actually spend time reading all of the text properly without having to run way out of aggro range of any mobs.

See, these are the things they should be working on fixing. If people stop and took the time to go through it. We could FIND these issues and bring them up. But instead we got a couple crappy YouTube Videos and the Forum Community loses their minds over things that AREN’T a problem and we’re missing out on the things that could be tweaked/fixed to make it a smoother experience for newer players.

very good review

I have been critical of the changes but mostly with what I feel to be the unnecessary gating of basic skills/abilities like weapon swapping, off-hand weapon, and Profession Skill Buttons…these things unevenly impact certain Professions more than others but are also just freaking irritating to many players.

I’m playing three new alts I rolled yesterday: mesmer, guardian and engineer. The leveling experience has been enjoyable with the exception of the comment I made above.

The whole Trait System still remains a big concern because I find it has completely skewed the leveling enjoyment to a large degree because acquisition has been delayed for 30 levels. The unlocking of traits is both expensive and generally ill-suited for players who don’t like to be led around by the nose or forced to do “required” tasks which often lie outside their usual play-style.