Guild Wars 2

So with the latest discount I urged a friend to get the game as I was getting back into it myself. And what I found was….upsetting? Disturbing?

Low-levels are a mess. From a launch message of ‘you can jump right in and PvP from level 1’ to everything being locked.

Skill 2 unlocked at lvl 2
Skill 3 unlocked at lvl 4
Lvl 6 you learn how to dodge
Skill 4 unlocked at lvl 7 (along with your off hand)
Skill 5 unlocked at lvl 10 (along with vistas)

Skill buying and skill points locked until lvl 13
WvW locked until 18, PvP until 22

My friend got bored at level 7 of there being nothing but grinding on mobs, pressing the same 4 buttons. So we quit out of the senseless boring low-level grind. I bought a load of mats and helped them craft-grind to lvl 18.

Now I know why lvl 20 boosts are showered on all of my characters.

I felt so ashamed having encouraged my friend to play the game only to realise that 99% of it was locked away because they were too low level and hadn’t unlocked it yet, hadn’t joined early enough to get it. Gone was the game that I had joined where it was ‘go and do whatever you want’ in exchange I’d found a game that slowly drip-fed you content like water torture more than an actually having fun.

It’s like ANet doesn’t trust its players to be able to pick up on everything. If that’s the case make the intro event the tutorial it was. Railroad people for 5 minutes to teach them, not 10-15 levels. Where lvl 1-20 is your weakest content you don’t want to be keeping new players there.

Locked things:
Dodging (by virtue of not telling players about it for ~6 levels)
Underwater Combat (note for Asura this unlocks long after the quest that used to get you to use it)
Mail
(Guilds?)
Skills
Skill Points and Challenges
Vistas
Traits
Trading Post
Crafting
WvW
PvP

I look forward to adding more things that are locked.

agreed. as of now the New Player Experience )NPE) really messing up with the new players getting into the game. i don’t blame them if they quit after few hours. i blame Anet.

Old accounts were apparently grandfathered in, but you are still level gated on new characters to some degree, new accounts apparently are totally restricted by this New Player Experience and the majority of the feed back was an overwhelming NO, yet it hasn’t changed in the last year.

I hate it, but I admit I have seen a post in the past saying they liked it so…meh?

I don’t get all the hate. It takes like a week to get level 20 and that’s taking your time and being a completionist. A little patience would have served you and your friend well. It is a great game.

Supposedly the New Player Experience change was a result of a lot of research. I have no clue what kind of people they were researching. I realize the goal is to introduce people that have never played MMOs in a way that won’t overwhelm them, but they took the “baby with the bath water” approach and essentially crammed every new player (and worst of all, every new character) into the same tub rather than providing an OPTION (man, I really wish that was the go-to thing rather than the fallback after a failed attempt to railroad something) for players to use the tutorial hand-holding or not. All of it, not just some of it.

Not being in this bidness, I can only assume that this choice has more to do with recognizing the usual tendency of kittening and whining without first trying to figure out what’s going on. That is, if there were an option some complete n00bs would turn it off, get lost, and cry like infants that the game sucks ‘cause they have no idea what’s going on. This way they avoid that part, but incur the disdain of everyone who either a) comes in experienced enough to intuit mechanics sufficiently to manage without undue stress, or b) those that despite being totally new are patient and resourceful enough to learn as they go along despite setbacks due to initial ignorance.

Remember, though, your friend has a guide in you that many people may not have. You’re fast-forwarding him/her through much of the early part of the game so it’s hardly a surprise they’re not liking it since they’re forced by design to slog through the tutorial stuff they have no use for because of you.

All that aside, I’d be pretty annoyed (possibly enough to go elsewhere) if I were to come into a new MMO—even one with mechanics I’m entirely unfamiliar with—and have to go through this sort of process.

Unless I’m mistaken, ANet has mentioned they’re rethinking the NPE changes. What that means is anyone’s guess.

As a brand new player myself, this wasn’t my experience at all. The game is amazing, so many things to do, quite incredible. The pacing is just right I think.
Perhaps your expectations are getting in the way. I suggest letting them level on their own, they’ll love the game without your preconceptions weighing them.
By the way, if you really want to WvW, you can go gain access at level 1 from lion’s gate.

We sympathize with you. The NPE is probably the most disliked change to the game in the past year but Anet seems to have no intention of changing it.

i honestly don’t mind the NPE leveled my engineer a couple years ago well before the change and my necro this last month with it and the necro went so quick took me about a week

started a ele alt the other day the mobs take 3-4 auto attacks to go down and using a staffs range not much danger hearts and events close to the starting spawn point outside rata sum got me to lvl 7 quickly enough that i hardly noticed

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,3,11,1,1,2,1,1,11,

SO EXCITING!!!!

Lyzandia.9135:

Perhaps your expectations are getting in the way.

The NPE feels like it was slapped on at the last second. Aside from megaservers, I’ve never seen a feature this buggy in my life.

Furthermore, it’s so unintuitive that players keep posting in the Bugs subforum thinking something in the game is broken, only to find out it was actually locked by the NPE (as it says “This feature is temporarily disabled” instead of something actually useful like “This feature will be unlocked at Level 10”).

I don’t understand why ArenaNet is so bent on putting the game on sale, yet doesn’t fix any of the broken features and other bugs. All I’ve noticed as a veteran is a new wave of gold sellers and hackers each time.

HEY OP, Don’t forget!

If you die before lvl 5 you’re dead for good. No downed state at all.

The NPE should be a choice. When you start a new character it should ask you in character creation “Are you new to MMO’s like guild wars 2”? and if you say yes then you are opting into the NPE. If you say no it reverts to how it used to be, using weapons to unlock skills and being allowed to do everything you could normally do. Gating content behind level barriers makes leveling a new characterfrom 1-32 the MOST boring thing in the game. I absolutely hate it. That’s why I’m preparing to instant lvl my rev to 80 so I don’t have to deal with the same old crap again and again.

Rangelost.4857:

I don’t understand why ArenaNet is so bent on putting the game on sale, yet doesn’t fix any of the broken features and other bugs. All I’ve noticed as a veteran is a new wave of gold sellers and hackers each time.

I’ve seen some brand new players in the game lately. It’s obvious that they’re new, because they’re having to ask questions about the game. Basic stuff, that the game SHOULD cover for them. But it doesn’t, not even with the NPE.

The NPE is annoying to deal with, but it wouldn’t be so bad if it was actually good at doing what it’s supposed to do. It isn’t, though.

NPE should be scrapped, it’s doing more harm than good

Cyberspark.5820:

So with the latest discount I urged a friend to get the game as I was getting back into it myself. And what I found was….upsetting? Disturbing?

Low-levels are a mess. From a launch message of ‘you can jump right in and PvP from level 1’ to everything being locked.

Skill 2 unlocked at lvl 2
Skill 3 unlocked at lvl 4
Lvl 6 you learn how to dodge
Skill 4 unlocked at lvl 7 (along with your off hand)
Skill 5 unlocked at lvl 10 (along with vistas)

Skill buying and skill points locked until lvl 13
WvW locked until 18, PvP until 22

My friend got bored at level 7 of there being nothing but grinding on mobs, pressing the same 4 buttons. So we quit out of the senseless boring low-level grind. I bought a load of mats and helped them craft-grind to lvl 18.

Now I know why lvl 20 boosts are showered on all of my characters.

I felt so ashamed having encouraged my friend to play the game only to realise that 99% of it was locked away because they were too low level and hadn’t unlocked it yet, hadn’t joined early enough to get it. Gone was the game that I had joined where it was ‘go and do whatever you want’ in exchange I’d found a game that slowly drip-fed you content like water torture more than an actually having fun.

It’s like ANet doesn’t trust its players to be able to pick up on everything. If that’s the case make the intro event the tutorial it was. Railroad people for 5 minutes to teach them, not 10-15 levels. Where lvl 1-20 is your weakest content you don’t want to be keeping new players there.

Locked things:
Dodging (by virtue of not telling players about it for ~6 levels)
Underwater Combat (note for Asura this unlocks long after the quest that used to get you to use it)
Mail
(Guilds?)
Skills
Skill Points and Challenges
Vistas
Traits
Trading Post
Crafting
WvW
PvP

I look forward to adding more things that are locked.

1. The game is the same. If you choose to follow the arrow and be slowly drip-fed content, that’s your choice.

2. Your friend got bored because you were trying to grind xp from mobs. This was never intended to be a way to level in GW2, and was as boring on launch day as it is now.

3. You get past all the locked things in about 3 hours, if you actually play the game. Maybe 4 or 5 hours if you’re new and don’t know what you’re doing. (That’s all the things, btw – up to level 31. Most of them are unlocked in the first hour of play.)

4. Most of the things in your list of “locked things” aren’t actually locked. Like dodging, WvW, PvP. Or were locked behind requirements all along, like skills and traits.

5. Instead of whining to every new player about ‘how all these wonderful things we used to have right from the get-go are now locked,’ simply let them experience the game themselves, uncoloured by your opinion, and you’ll find they tend to enjoy it more.

Arrow can be turned off. PvP can still be entered from level 2. After your first character many of the limitations go away.

The problem with posts like this is there’s enough misinformation in it that it gives a false sense of what’s really going on.

Cazamar.7148:

I don’t get all the hate. It takes like a week to get level 20 and that’s taking your time and being a completionist. A little patience would have served you and your friend well. It is a great game.

First impressions are developed within the first few hours of playing, telling someone they have to spend a few days to a week (depending on how much time they can dedicate to gaming) before they can unlock game features doesn’t help.

And, honestly, how can anyone tell that GW2 is a great game when they spend the first 23 levels having features locked or hidden from them?

Pandaman.4758:

Cazamar.7148:

I don’t get all the hate. It takes like a week to get level 20 and that’s taking your time and being a completionist. A little patience would have served you and your friend well. It is a great game.

First impressions are developed within the first few hours of playing, telling someone they have to spend a few days to a week (depending on how much time they can dedicate to gaming) before they can unlock game features doesn’t help.

And, honestly, how can anyone tell that GW2 is a great game when they spend the first 23 levels having features locked or hidden from them?

“Game features” have always been locked behind levels. Since launch.

A-net has stated that they realize the current mechanics don’t work as well as they intended, and they are planning to changes/add some things with the HoT release.

Olvendred.3027:

Pandaman.4758:

Cazamar.7148:

I don’t get all the hate. It takes like a week to get level 20 and that’s taking your time and being a completionist. A little patience would have served you and your friend well. It is a great game.

First impressions are developed within the first few hours of playing, telling someone they have to spend a few days to a week (depending on how much time they can dedicate to gaming) before they can unlock game features doesn’t help.

And, honestly, how can anyone tell that GW2 is a great game when they spend the first 23 levels having features locked or hidden from them?

“Game features” have always been locked behind levels. Since launch.

Are you talking about content or features? I certainly don’t remember having to get up to level 17 before I could fully unlock elemental attunments in elementalists, or level 19 for F1-F4 skills for engineers and mesmers, or level 22 for the guardian’s virtue of courage. Definitely don’t remember having skill challenges and diving goggles tell me to come back some other time.

While i hate the NPE you can still get to wvw and spvp. Just go through the protals in LA.

Why were you grinding exp from mobs?

One heart gives about half a level of exp during levels 1-15. You get from the tutorial alone I think. you can get from 1 to 15 in less time than from 15-17.

No idea how you ran out of content to do as level 7…

Most of these locks are also pseudo locks (doable just not shown on map like gathering nodes) or account locks. Hyperbole and misinformation harms the credibility of any valid concern.

Not sure why this is a thing considering they announced that the NPE is going to completely change soon from what I’ve read.

I’d suggest sticking around till at least the first patch of the changes to see what’s coming when it comes to traits etc and this is coming from someone who’s extremely critical of the problems this game faces.

It’s called “New” Player Experience for a reason. If you don’t take the few hours to level up and get to know what skill does what, how do you expect to PvP or WvW? What kind of fun would you be having while being destroyed by people who played the game for thousands of hours before?

tigirius.9014:

Not sure why this is a thing considering they announced that the NPE is going to completely change soon from what I’ve read.

I’d suggest sticking around till at least the first patch of the changes to see what’s coming when it comes to traits etc and this is coming from someone who’s extremely critical of the problems this game faces.

You got a quote on that, I haven’t seen this.

Pandaman.4758:

Olvendred.3027:

Pandaman.4758:

Cazamar.7148:

I don’t get all the hate. It takes like a week to get level 20 and that’s taking your time and being a completionist. A little patience would have served you and your friend well. It is a great game.

First impressions are developed within the first few hours of playing, telling someone they have to spend a few days to a week (depending on how much time they can dedicate to gaming) before they can unlock game features doesn’t help.

And, honestly, how can anyone tell that GW2 is a great game when they spend the first 23 levels having features locked or hidden from them?

“Game features” have always been locked behind levels. Since launch.

Are you talking about content or features? I certainly don’t remember having to get up to level 17 before I could fully unlock elemental attunments in elementalists, or level 19 for F1-F4 skills for engineers and mesmers, or level 22 for the guardian’s virtue of courage. Definitely don’t remember having skill challenges and diving goggles tell me to come back some other time.

Leveling to unlock skills work just like it does on most other games, which imho is much better than having to kill x amount of mobs with one skill to be able to unlock the next, with every single weapon and attunement/etc, go forbid you made a necro at launch, the shivers from having to unlock death shroud skills above and underwater almost turned me off of the class as a whole…
The NPE has its problems sure but some ppl make it out to seem like its the worst thing to ever happen in history of mmos…

None of those things are locked early game other than traits. You can get through most of the NPE in an hour, and if new players dont have that kind of patience they shouldnt be in a mmo to begin with, while old players can skip it with level tomes. Or if you just want to pvp all you had to do was to lead him to the asura gate in cities that lead to the pvp lobby and he could be in a match in under 10 minutes. That or skip it all with crafting, which you apparently did, and yet still needed to come here and complain about this.

The NPE is a crummy system (though its not worse much then before), but misinformation like this is worse.

Welcome to the “New Player Experience”.
Where new players can’t possibly be anything but brain damaged individuals and must ALL be treated as such.

Pandaman.4758:

I certainly don’t remember having to get up to level 17 before I could fully unlock elemental attunments in elementalists

You had to get up to level 6, but back then, level 6 took around 4-6 hours, assuming normal play. A level was supposed to take about an hour on average. It’s level 17 now, but the first 10-13 levels only take about an hour. In the end, you unlock your final attunement at roughly the same time.

You know, I have to agree with the OP. This game has taken a change for the worst, and you can’t really fully “experience” the game until level 80 now.

I am fortunate though, I was one of the many players who pre ordered, and played during the Beta, and for around a year after wards. I just recently come back, and I figured, “Man, I don’t remember this game at all, I’d love to start off on a clean slate!”.

Naturally, I deleted the only lvl 80 I had (warrior), and deleted the rest of my many level 60+ chars, to start brand new. Stupid move? Yes, yes it was. Upon creating brand new, I soon realized what a horrible mistake I had made. Just as the OP stated, all those changed pretty much killed any sense of enjoyment for GW 2 I once had. Granted, I can see why ArenaNet chose to make these changes, because I’d imagine for quite a few people, gaining all the weapon skills at lvl 1, could become overly boring incredibly fast, considering there’s not much else other than spamming 5 skills, and occasionally using your utility skills. Even then, quite a few of the classes I’ve used; Warrior, Guardian, Ranger, just to name a few, I’ve only ever had on signets, and that was mainly for the passives, so I was rarely ever using my utility slots (could be a mistake now a days, back then, not so much, in my opinion). So, some of the changed could be seen as “justified”, but when I came back to a game I wanted to hop back into, and enjoy a game, man, did I ever feel “Cheated”. especially since you were able to get what was it… 30 trait points before, and now you’re only able to gain 25? (To my knowledge). Again, deleting my “Main” was a huge mistake, because now I got screwed outta 5 extra points.

Some other changes I’ve noticed were diff “Heat” placements on the maps, which makes little to no sense, because most of the places you head to with hearts, “Had” points of interest locations, thus, you weren’t running around for aimless reasons. A perfect example of this, is the “Rabbit” food gathering Heart in the Nord’s beginning area, used to be up on a mountainous area, across a bridge, and now as soon you head into the Nord Area, there it is, right in front of your face. Also some of the more entertaining Hearts have taken a change for the worst too. Such as in Queensdale helping the farmers, I remember feeding cows, watering the plants, etc. Now…. Now I’m dancing in front of a cow like an idiot! There’s no interaction anymore in some cases, it’s bland, dull, and boring. Again, I can see that these things took “Time” but my god, the extra time almost felt worth it.

GW 2 has/had so much of the fun sucked dry from it, I don’t even know why I bother sticking around really. I do in all honesty want to give these new changes a chance, because past lvl 31, seems “Alright”, and almost like how it used to be before, but not so much… And like the OP said, deciding to make PvP 22+ is ridiculous. I thought GW 2 was supposed to be all about freedom, and doing things that you “wanted” to do. Now in order to do certain things, I “have” to do things, even if I don’t want to. Of course, that i speaking for these so called “NPE’s”, I myself could hop into PvP, find points of interest, and get skills at level 1, but recently tried getting a couple buddies back into it, who HAVE accounts dating back to Beta/Launch, and for some reason they got screwed over, and were considered new, couldn’t find points, or get skills.

Another problem I have with GW 2 as of now, is it’s been out what… 4 years? (Correct me if I’m wrong, could be 3 years…), and all they have to show for it is ONE “Expansion”, that in the long run of things, is probably going to be 4-5 hours at the very least, and the content will have been cleared. Oh and they added 1 new class… 1…. Gee… could have I don’t know added more classes from GW 1 along with the 1 new class that EVERYONE is going to be running around with upon launch-week into it. Maybe not even a week, due to these stupid instant leveling scrolls. I wonder who was the “Genius” who came up with that BS.

Anet Dev 1: “We notice people aren’t going back to the beginning zones… How can we make this work out, so players don’t leave the game due to inactivity in the beginning zones?”

Anet Dev 2: “I know! How about we make dailies limited per day!”

Anet Dev 1: “That’s an awesome idea! Now people have to go back! Let’s also add in Mega-Servers so area’s feel more popular, and while we’re at it, if an area isn’t populated enough, let’s bring up a notification, that allows players to tranfer to a more populated server/channel, and give them a 10 MINUTE BUFF!”

Anet Dev 2: “You sir….. Are a Genius! But I have a better idea for people who don’t like this idea…. Let’s give them a 20 level experience scroll! That way they don’t have to so much as LOOK at a lowbie zone!”

Anet Dev 1: “Oh my god! We are so smart! Screw what the players want, customers are usually NEVER right! We need to make some moneh!”

And that’s how I pictured that conversation went.

And this is pretty much what Anet did in my mind. Of course with your own creative subtitles. (good vid nonetheless)

And no disrespect meant really, even though it comes off as it, I just really, really enjoyed GW 2 how it was in the “Early Days”. Still “attempting” to get to lvl 80 again. It’s definitely far from the most terrible game out there, and I do look forward to the expansion… But… “C’mon…”.

As a new player, I kinda like it? I mean it is not the end of the world. I am in no rush, I am enjoying the story, helping out, having my finest duck being taking out by my jerk of a friend. Having that jerk kidnapped…

I mean is it really that bad? Grinding mobs? The first few days I have…

Worked on a farm.
Chased a wild bull with some wasp attacking me.
Showed some grunts how to shoot a gun.
Went in a bandit cave to clear it out.
Found a random cave troll that had me screaming help.
Went into a swamp, where a random Kingdom hearts looking monster came out of the ground and one shotted me.
Had to fight a underwater creature, that was scary.
Had to protect some farmer tools from little creatures that sound like little girls.
Found out that bears don’t like me, and hit hard.
Saw a gaint tree monster and was rooted to death.

…How can you be bored?

I had the same experience as the OP did today. After two years I finally got my brother convinced to try the game and… lets just say he was entirely lost on what to do after clearing the level 2-5 hearts. Before at that point you could run a few PS instances to get up to 7/8 range and go on to those hearts, now we have to travel to another starter area to level up so we are equal to the next hearts. We could craft, but he hasn’t even harvested a node yet by level 5 and I could give him the mats if I bothered saving any instead of selling them since I’m a casual and that is my best way to get gold.

I was embarrassed by the disconnect he had with the NPE compared to how I felt when I first played the game (I enjoyed their novel way of unlocking skills, it taught me them since I used them). He got bored after an hour because, as he said, he was tired of interacting with things. I honestly can’t blame him. I watched him playing and it reminded me about the first time I played Daggerfall. I had no idea what was going on because I was too young to bother reading the story. The difference here is there isn’t any story until level 10 now.

We both enjoyed GW1 for the story, and he would probably enjoy GW2 for its story (even with the slower/amateurish bits). I know if he had been able to go into a Personal Story instance (only got to 7 today) he probably would have been more interested with the game because it would have had SOME feeling of progress. It felt like grinding to me, definitely not what I felt back when I started playing nearly three years ago because the story was already there when I left the recovery structure after the battle of Shaemoor.

Without the traditional quest dynamic GW2 just feels empty at low levels now and I suddenly realized how much I missed the PS missions at level 3/4/6/etc… because that gave something that drove me forward. Now there’s ‘unlocks’ which you have no idea what is coming up next unless you’ve gone through it before.

Guess I am one of the few who loves the NPE. I am not new by any means but I prefer this new systems 100 times over the old one.

How can you not get to level 10 in an hour? What are you doing?

I had the same experience as the OP did today. After two years I finally got my brother convinced to try the game and… lets just say he was entirely lost on what to do after clearing the level 2-5 hearts.

Was this the human area? Because it was pretty straight forward for me.

They told me at the start, to look for scouts, to explore. So that is what I did and was able to find all what I needed to do.

It was pretty straight forward on the human side, and also Norn? side as well..as I got one to 12.

While there are things I hate about the NPE (as well as things I love about it), I don’t believe you. I’m certain your friend is an imaginary one and you wanted to prove a point here that’s been building some hate against the game in you.

You gave your friend false and plain bad information and then blamed the game. You should feel ashamed.

The NPE is a statement,

It states: “We the programmers and devolopers expect all people playing this have the minds of 4 yr olds. We do not expect the people to be capable of figuring out movement mechanics and dodges, but will make an entire game of exploration , and wil force you to figure out recipe’s crafting and missions you need to search, track and otherwise think how to accomplish this for the entire duration of the game after we hold your hand and guide you blindfolded until everything is available and it becomes overwhelming instantly… As we figure you cannot even press “1” we have removed all usable content untill you are bored enough to quit. We only want the few so dedicated they can live through this and hope they’ll alone keep up this game, as we do not need the 10000’s that are put off by being forced to just spam 1 for a while and then being shown there is also a 2,3 then a 4 and well actually a 5… You do not like it? No? Really?! Well deal with it! We still think we are right after 1000’s of posts saying otherwise."

My 4 yr old daughter is learning the same in school atm…
The only good thing which came from the NPE was the addition of usable dros for content BUT it is completely soulbound, not sellable or salvageable. Leaving you with no real headstart. You do lag a bit behind with your personal story, not being able to start your story till lvl 10 is a waste opf time and boring… You diminished the the number of key farmers, but destoyed the experience…

Leaving level gating as bad, removal of vendors, crafting and trait sellers in low level area’s bad, the change removing trait points to lvl30+ VERY bad for the immersion for higher levels and people who want to help people to rush to 20 to avoid all this idiocy and allow them to start playing are hampered as they cannot just buy a weapons and show “how to do stuff and basic GW2 survival pt1” to people just starting…

I see people in our guild getting lvl 80, not even having unlocked traits with NO ACTUAL CLUE they can unlock traits…(Yes Really!) They mostly gave up on the story before the lvl 50 due to the fact it is level gated now and it is no longer fun, not immersive and not rewarding for the mind, also the story line continuity is broken.. putting many off, especially those who are interested in WvW Oh yes they get 3 traits when doing the towers in EotM but they tend to save up their skill points and buy traits after they unlocked utility skills, leaving them completely useless in game for the first weeks…..

We see people spamming the forum they do not know what to do after they are lvl 80 as they just haven’t figured out anything themselves. Yes you actually opened up this game for people who cannot think and removed all fun for those who do.

Still the fact we got a bit better drops is nice. It’s a shame though I’m powerlevelling my characters atm to avoid all this crap and just delet all loot instantly except for the boosters, the 2 keys and the ecto, as it is all WORTHLESS!

So I hope you are proud of the changes made, and are intelligent enough to consider the NPE a write off, and remove it!

NPE SUCKS! not a little, not abit, not a lot, not big, not worldly , but UNIVERSALLY!

I like, no love the rest of the game though…

It’s a shame people need to survive, endure, and hang on by their fingernails, make that cling on, until “basic training for the 4 yr old” is over and be allowed into the fight… where they suffer until they can unlock the content they actually need. The unlocking of traits which was removed to make the game more attractive. I sometimes run an alt in The cursed shore sometimes unlocking a XIII trait, but I buy all my traits just because it is not worth my time and effort to run around the world trying to be at the right event which i need to unlock and thus , make a time schedule and plan based upon timers, It should be fun, not like work, hopping from appointment to appointment…

I loved Ulgoth… It was cool you could up him each time you completed the event chain… But no more… once every 2 hours is enough for Ulgoth, else he’ll get tired being slaughtered all the time. Leaving the poor lionguard captain to move back to his camp and do another futile attempt a while later… I really miss seeing him cheer or something if he actually is able to bring the attack to Ulgoth.

Humor.5763:

looooong snip…

There’s so many misinformation in those two posts, dear god, lets go by parts:
trait points- you can get the same amount of traits as you did before (2 full lines and the beggining of another), all they did was make the trait point simpler by removing the excessive amount points you need to go from minor to major traits, used to be 5 now its 1.
hearts some hearts changed yea, but really aside from the little minigame in the asura area nothing to bad, the bunny feeding heart is in the same general area, used to be top of the mountain now its near the bottom of it, the farmer help in queensdale is still the same except that now you entertain cows instead of giving them food, which really changes nothing since youre still pressing f on the cow and thats it…
pvp is not locked it just doesnt show you the icon until you get to a certain level, you can still access it through lions arch, same with wvw or eotm, if your ‘buddies’ got locked out of gaining skill points then that means that they didn’t even play on their ‘beta/launch’-old accounts, and no theyre not screwed out of anything so stop saying that, they just have to go level up enough until its unlocked, you dont even have to deal with the NPE just go do pvp and gain the tomes you so despise so you can level your character on pve while not even doing pve content.
I don’t even know where u got that they added tomes of knowlege or lvl-20 scrolls to make money, you can get those things so easily by just playing the game, and no the lvl-20 scrolls wont make ppl skip lowbie zones anymore than they already could before by crafting their way up to 80, besides just because you can get an alt to a higher level it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the lowbie areas all the same, gw2 system was made with that in mind after all…. Also i don’t really get your complaints about the mega-server and giving players the option to switch to move populated shard of the map while giving them a small buff? What’s so wrong about that? Do you not want to see people in the same map as you in a MMORPG?
And Last, No, the game has not been out for 3 years; No, they couldn’t just have added gw1 classes into this game, it’s not how it works, the games don’t even work in the same way; and No it’s not just one class, its one class and 9 specializations .

Like i said in my first post, some complains about the NPE are completely valid, but sometimes it feels like ppl just want to complain for the sake of complaining…

DonQuack.9025:

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,3,11,1,1,2,1,1,11,

SO EXCITING!!!!

You forgot to press 4 at the 6th “1”…learn to play dammnit! LMAO

#jokeoff

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Leaving level gating as bad, removal of vendors, crafting and trait sellers in low level area’s bad, the change removing trait points to 30 or 40? VERY bad for the immersion for higher levels and people who want to help people to rush to 20 to avoid all this idiocy and allow them to start playing are hampered as they cannot just buy a weapons and show how to people just starting…

I see people in our guild getting lvl 80, not even having unlcoked traits with NO ACTUAL CLUE they can unlock traits… They mostly gave up on the story bnbefor the lvl 50 due to the fact it is level gated now and it is no longer fun, not immersive and not rewarding for the mind, also the story line continuity is broken..

We see people spamming the forum they do not know what to do after they are lvl 80 as they just haven’t figured out anything themselves. Yes you actually opened up this game for people who cannot think and removed all fun for those who do.

I like, no love the rest of the game though… It’s a shame people need to survive basic training to be allowed into the fight…

First off, how was the trait change bad for immersion for high level characters? The trait changes could have been handled better for sure and that’s why they’re making changes to it again, but i fail to see how immersion has to do with any of it at all.
If people you know are getting to 80 and not knowing what to do, that’s their own fault not Anet, you get pop-ups explaining almost every single game mechanic throughout your leveling up process, if they’re not reading it that’s their own fault and they would still have the same issue with or without the NPE.
The PS works just fine up until the end of the battle for claw island, the continuity errors all come after that and if they found the story before that point not fun then its just too bad, but then again fun is subjective, while one might find it boring someone else might be having a blast…and again with the ‘not immersive’ remark, i find it much more ‘immersive’ to have my character help out the PS npc’s for a while and then go off to do his own thing before being called by the PS npc’s to help them out again, instead of having them asking me to do stuff as soon as i get out of their sights and not even giving me time to breath…
Also “It’s a shame people need to survive basic training to be allowed into the fight… ", So yea let’s start throwing ppl in warzones without giving them proper training, or we can all become MMA fighters with no basic fighting training at all that sounds smart right? Right?

NPE isn’t so bad provided you can skip the first 20 levels with a scroll. Then it’s fairly similar to how it used to be. The traits are far worst then the NPE.

But for new players it’s just stupid. And if you haven’t been around a while and got a bunch of those experience scrolls that boost a new character to 20, you’re kitten out of luck.

Just wait till your friends gets to lv30 and “unlocks” traits. I say that loosely because likely he’ll have very little choice in traits, if he even unlocked any at all. And as a new player I don’t imagine he has a ton of skill points and gold lying around to just buy them all.

So even past lv80 he will still be grinding just to get essential features.

I completely agree With you OP. Its shame to see dev time wasted on redesigning a working system, only to have it redesigned again in HoT. Sloppy work and Resources that couldve been better spent elsewhere.

Terrahero.9358:

NPE isn’t so bad provided you can skip the first 20 levels with a scroll. Then it’s fairly similar to how it used to be. The traits are far worst then the NPE.

But for new players it’s just stupid. And if you haven’t been around a while and got a bunch of those experience scrolls that boost a new character to 20, you’re kitten out of luck.

Just wait till your friends gets to lv30 and “unlocks” traits. I say that loosely because likely he’ll have very little choice in traits, if he even unlocked any at all. And as a new player I don’t imagine he has a ton of skill points and gold lying around to just buy them all.

So even past lv80 he will still be grinding just to get essential features.

Good job they’re fixing that then isn’kitten

Teladis.1309:

Saw a gaint tree monster and was rooted to death.

…How can you be bored?

Exactly! This game has everything and on all sorts of levels.

That’s first 15 levels and i agree it sucks if you are new, it’s worst first 15 levels in my entire MMO history(GW1 had this so much better). What’s funny is, when you hot 80, you have another worst enemy… ACCOUNT BOUND ************* EVERYWHERE…. Who ever invented account bound, did bring the worst game content to GW2.

Firelysm.4967:

That’s first 15 levels and i agree it sucks if you are new, it’s worst first 15 levels in my entire MMO history(GW1 had this so much better). What’s funny is, when you hot 80, you have another worst enemy… ACCOUNT BOUND ************* EVERYWHERE…. Who ever invented account bound, did bring the worst game content to GW2.

Are you talking about the levelling rewards? If so I don’t dislike those. You can mystic forge them and the exotic Axe I got for my Necro is what gave me the precursor for my Frostfang so I’m not adverse to them being account bound.

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Terrahero.9358:

NPE isn’t so bad provided you can skip the first 20 levels with a scroll. Then it’s fairly similar to how it used to be. The traits are far worst then the NPE.

But for new players it’s just stupid. And if you haven’t been around a while and got a bunch of those experience scrolls that boost a new character to 20, you’re kitten out of luck.

Just wait till your friends gets to lv30 and “unlocks” traits. I say that loosely because likely he’ll have very little choice in traits, if he even unlocked any at all. And as a new player I don’t imagine he has a ton of skill points and gold lying around to just buy them all.

So even past lv80 he will still be grinding just to get essential features.

Good job they’re fixing that then isn’kitten

Fix is a bit of a grandiose term, we have no idea how they are going to change it. Remember they were “fixing it” the first time they changed it as well.

Terrahero.9358:

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Terrahero.9358:

NPE isn’t so bad provided you can skip the first 20 levels with a scroll. Then it’s fairly similar to how it used to be. The traits are far worst then the NPE.

But for new players it’s just stupid. And if you haven’t been around a while and got a bunch of those experience scrolls that boost a new character to 20, you’re kitten out of luck.

Just wait till your friends gets to lv30 and “unlocks” traits. I say that loosely because likely he’ll have very little choice in traits, if he even unlocked any at all. And as a new player I don’t imagine he has a ton of skill points and gold lying around to just buy them all.

So even past lv80 he will still be grinding just to get essential features.

Good job they’re fixing that then isn’kitten

Fix is a bit of a grandiose term, we have no idea how they are going to change it. Remember they were “fixing it” the first time they changed it as well.

Yeah but I’m gonna give them the benefit of the doubt until it turns up then make my decision on whether it’s better or not. So at the moment “they’re fixing it”.