Guild Wars 2

Next up is our new level-up notification, which is a shiny badge that sits down where bouncy chests go now and pops up each time you gain a level. Clicking on this notification will open a brand-new reward screen. There are three major purposes for this level-up screen: to make gaining a level feel truly rewarding, showing you what you’ll get at the next level, and teaching important game systems.

Ok…so, does it give us a piece of equipment or loot we can use at that level each time we level up? Neat, but I don’t really care (especially as nearly all of my characters are 80 at this point). A “meh” impression from this.

For experienced players, most systems are still available as they are today; we will simply introduce these systems more gradually to new players and allow them to learn our game at a reasonable pace. For example, WvW and PvP will be messaged to players via the level-up notification system at levels 18 and 22, and the buttons in the top left will be hidden until then, but experienced users can use the portals in Lion’s Arch or use hot keys to access those game modes immediately. Once the buttons are unlocked for one character on your account, they’ll be visible to all future characters as well.

…Why? One of PvP’s nicest features was that you could do it regardless of your PvE level. Same with WvW, (although there’s really no point going there until you’re an exotic geared Lv70+, otherwise you’ll be slaughtered in a fight). Why gate those behind levels now? Was this a change people demanded? I mean, it doesn’t affect me, but I don’t see why it needs to be put in at all.

Some systems have been layered further along the leveling progression and will become fully unlocked when you reach those levels to help give players more time to learn the core game systems. For example, rallying from the downed state can be overwhelming to a brand-new Guild Wars 2 player. We’ve moved the downed state to unlock at level five so players have time to learn the basics of combat before they experience this system. We also made the downed state give you additional health early on to help make it easier to learn. As we layered in systems and new rewards across the levels, some other features like weapon swapping and skill slot unlocks have been moved a bit to fill in better with the progression of mechanics we’ve established.

First off, rallying from downed state (or trying to) tends to feel overwhelming most of the time anyway, especially in dungeons where it rarely happens without revival from someone else.

Secondly…why gate it at Lv5? I don’t get how running out of health and dying straight off before that is supposed to help them understand it better later. I just don’t.

We’ve also taken some of the systems that felt needlessly complicated or obtuse and simplified them to make them consistent, so leveling is the big way you gain new abilities. Our last feature pack also changed traits to no longer require going to a merchant and buying a book at each tier to unlock them; you unlock a tier for free as soon as you reach the appropriate level. Now, new skill slots for weapons will be unlocked for all weapons simultaneously as you level up. This means that if you pick up a new weapon for the first time after already unlocking multiple weapon skill slots, you’ll automatically learn the skills for that weapon, rather than having to learn each weapon’s skills individually.

No. The tier was unlocked for free, but the traits weren’t, gated behind tasks ranging from simple but sometimes obscure (find some chest somewhere) to tedious things like beating certain world bosses, champions, and 100%ing certain maps (I still haven’t forgotten about the 100% Frostgorge for an adept requirement, before it was taken out). The levels for the tier unlocks were also bumped up needlessly as well. Being able to change trait setup outside of combat and simplifying the points were good touches, but everything else the trait change did somehow turned out worse than the original system.

As for gaining weapon skills all at leveling up….that depends on what levels they pick for this. But once again, nothing seemed wrong or tedious about the way it works now (except for elementalist…unlocking for all those attunements was annoying!), so why change it?

Note: below the above quoted text is a picture showing the new leveling screen, showing that you apparently do get choices for a piece of loot/equipment eery time you level up. That is neat, I guess. Attachment below.

Continuing…

To create a better sense of pacing in the progression of the game, we’ve spread out some of the character progression’s statistical rewards to come in chunks. When you gain a level, you’ll know you’re progressing in a way that immediately benefits your character. You’ll be able to experience a clear power difference in your character when you reach these milestones rather than having tiny, hard-to-notice increments with each level. All the stats, skill points, and trait points remain the same by the time you reach level 80; we’re simply changing up the pacing of the levels they’re rewarded at.

On one hand, it’s nice to know what I’m getting each level (or set of levels). Although messing with the pacing could go either well or badly.

As part of the addition of the level-up guide, we’ve reevaluated the item rewards you gain for leveling and made them more exciting, relevant, and useful items. We won’t be able to retroactively give these rewards to existing level 80 characters, but all characters under 80 will use this system for their remaining levels between their current level and level 80. All new characters you create after this system will have access to all of these changes from level 1.

Okay. Fair enough on this one. No point giving existing Lv80s lots of junk they wouldn’t need.

As another addition with the level-up guide, we’re updating the personal story steps using our new Story Journal so they come in story chunks that unlock all at once per chapter. When a story chapter is unlocked as a level-up reward, you’ll be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline. In this way, story chapters become another big moment to look forward to earning and unlocking as your character levels up.

….Eh, whatever. I tended to wait until Lv80 before doing the story anyway. (shrugs)

We’ve also taken this opportunity to go back and reevaluate the rewards of each of the major story chapters. We’ve done some pretty major overhauls to make the rewards for completing chapters feel much more compelling than they were in the past. Personal story chapters will absolutely be worth completing for your character as you progress. Similar to level-up rewards, we won’t be able to retroactively apply these to current level 80 characters, but all future characters you create or level up to 80 will benefit from this system.

Well…I might level up another character to see the effects of this. Maybe.

Hmm. Some neat little things, but…meh.

Discuss. Maybe. (shrugs)

The changes are about player retention. PvP isn’t gated. If you know what to do, you can go and PvP. If you know what to do, you can go WvW. If you don’t know what to do,. then you can’t do it until those levels, which is fine. On your first character, PvPing at level 18 will only get your killed really fast anyway. It’s not a bad change.

Re the equipment yes you get some loot. I know it doesn’t mean anything to you. Does having more players in the game a year from now mean anything to you. Because that’s why a lot of these things were done.

Unlike us, Anet actually researched this stuff by testing the game on people who have never played it. The results surprised them. They made changes to up the retention rates of new players, which helps everyone.

No MMO is going to survive long term without new player retention. It’s good that they’ve done this…even if it doesn’t directly affect me.

Of course, if they do come out with a new race/profession, it will affect everyone who levels one.

I keep wondering why people are so surprised with these changes, seeing as they OUTRIGHT STATED back around China release that these things would be added to the EU/NA version of the game at some time in the future.

lordkrall.7241:

I keep wondering why people are so surprised with these changes, seeing as they OUTRIGHT STATED back around China release that these things would be added to the EU/NA version of the game at some time in the future.

Anet have good ways of getting their message out to players, notably the news feed blogs that show up on the launcher when you log into the game. I don’t believe any of these changes made it into those at the time. Yes, it was no doubt outright stated somewhere, but if people have to be paying really close attention in exactly the right place to find it, then it’s not unreasonable for them to miss it and then later be surprised.

I see it as completely 100% irrelevant whether Anet said something was happening or not…at least in this case.

Because there are so many people that start this game and don’t know what to do. Maybe some people don’t spend a lot of time talking to people in starter zones, but people are lost when they come into this game. Not all people, but enough to be concerned, including people I know pretty well. Even some people who have played other MMOs. It’s a different animal.

Adding an idea progression and better rewards for leveling and personal story is a good thing, not a bad thing. There’s no real way it can be seen as a bad thing. It’s good for the game. And you know, Anet has to do what’s good for the game.

They need to provide both content and these types of updates. For the health of the game over all, which affects everyone who plays.