Guild Wars 2

Hey all, I recently leveled an alt, and I have some suggestions to improve the trait-unlocking system dramatically with very simple guidelines.

What NOT to do:
1- Time-gates. Bosses on timers.
Standing around, waiting for Sharky the Destroyer to spawn, is NOT fun. Or waiting for the enemy to cap your Ogre Camp…

Traits were implemented as compared to GW1 Elite skill capping. But the difference is, in GW1, we could capture skills at any time. Instances would be captured specifically for us, and rather than waiting, we were challenged simply to reach the area.

2- 100% zone requirement
Map Completion is a tedious task. It’s nice for the level 1 – 15 zones, okay for 15 – 25, but by 25 – 35 and 45 – 55, it gets incredibly tedious. Even worse, one of the zones required is Lornar’s Pass, which is long, tedious, and almost universally hated for map completion.

What to do right:
1- Mini-Dungeons.
Things like Vexa’s Lab. They’re fun, they make you work for it, but it feels satisfying to complete.

2- Hidden Chests around the world.
This one feels most like GW1’s skill capping. Things like the Bandit Hideout with Trolls in Kessex Hills. You can do them any time, and usually there’s a Veteran to Defeat.

3- Event Chains which unlock an area.
How to do boss fights properly. You do a large event chain, then gain access to a certain area, which unlocks the trait. You unlock the trait simply by visiting the area unlocked by the event once the boss is defeated. For example, the Giant’s Cave in Kessex Hills. The difference between this and time gates, is that you do not need to wait for the event to reset to unlock the trait.

I think these simple guidelines would dramatically improve the trait unlocking system.

What do y’all think?

I’m currently leveling an alt and feeling the frustration here. Many of the trait unlock requirements aren’t really achievable when you have enough points to enable the trait skill.

I’d like to see the trait unlocks in a similar manner to Personal / Living Story quests. One quest line per skill line, where the quest steps are reasonably achievable to start around level 20 to unlock minor traits, and challenging to a lvl 80 at the grandmaster level. These would run as a parallel to the personal story, like training missions to seek out trainers, hostile creatures to learn skills from, or skill artificats, and what not.

The unlocks could be organized then so that they make sense in a story progression, rather than random events attached to skills. This would also ensure that the trait challenges are level appropriate for that tier.

I think time gates in general ruin it. Like the Taidha Covington skill point.

Personally, I would rather complete a zone than do a mini-dungeon, but everyone has their own preferences in games. /shrug

I think both traits and utility skill slots should start unlocking at lower levels. Waiting until level 30 to finally get a trait point feels too long. My brother’s not even level 20 yet and getting bored already because nothing really changes as he levels up and it feels like it’s taking forever to really reach a point where the game starts to get fun.

Traits should unlock at level 15, and you should get 1 point every 5 levels. As for things to do in order to earn traits, someone suggested in the traits megathread that they use a similar system to skill challenges- mark them on the map with a trait symbol (hex), and let us start the event when we get there and anyone who participates also gets credit. This is basically the best idea I’ve heard, and it would buy a LOT of goodwill from me.

I think adding multiple options per trait unlock would also help alot, right now you either do X event or spend gold and skillpoints. What if you can choose between 3 events or activities instead? Either do a boss event, a jumping puzzle, maybe a dungeon etc. Having more than one way to obtain it without spending gold would probably make it alot more fun.