Guild Wars 2

I will be testing this out tonight. i will really want to see how fast the 1-15 leveling is now, but I also want to honestly ask these questions of Anet and I want straight forward answers to each bullet point. Not rhetoric or some company line.

1- How does slowing down skill progression thus teach new players about fields and combos?

2- Will there also be tutorials for Necro shroud skills, underwater combat, ranger pets, Engie Toolbelts, Ele conjured weapons, Engie kits? If not, why?

3- Once a new player reaches level 10 (and say only has their first weapons) and they get a new one (with all the skills now unlocked) how does that teach the new player how to suddenly use 5 new skills they never practiced with? Specifically how does this not fly in the face of the very reasons you’ve stated in these forums for that slowed skill progression.

4- How does slowing Utility acquisition until almost half way through the leveling experience benefit a player in areas that less utilities means higher chance of death? Were those higher areas also made easier to accommodate this change?

I honestly would like to know the answers to these questions.

OK, so I’m putting a response in here as a bump and also to outline my first test of this new system.

Caveat: I have many level 80s so some of the things that would have been locked out for me weren’t while other things were.

Starter Area Tutorial:
I first tested a norn ranger last night and I was not too happy to see that I was now starting with a long bow. In part because that isn’t usually my weapon of choice, and in part because i always loved the axe for the low level stuff. Fighting Issomir was a joke. I just stood well out of its range, clicked on it and walked away from my keyboard. Literally. My toon plinked away unharmed while i got a drink and used the bathroom. Great tutorial.

Starting Area:
Two skills now on a weapon I dislike, but i decided to turn around and map open Hoelbrek. Thank god i could see Vistas since i was upset i couldn’t get the super easy communing skill point yet. After opening the Norn home area I went back out into the world. Intentionally fell from a great enough height to hurt myself and sure enough…big arrow to tell me to use my heal skill. O.o Really? OK. (Side note: If i were a new player and ran into Hoelbrek and saw the message telling me to go into Dredgehaunt for further adventure and then went in there and died, I might be a bit miffed. Might want to fix that helpful little compass.)

Leveling in this first part of the map flew by since they now give us 1000000000000 xp for opening a poi and twice that for doing a heart. Not sure why the dredge heart was removed, but whatever. its going to make map opening a nightmare for brand new players since as i pointed out above the direction/suggestions are goofy.

Not bothering to go into the water until all my water skill are open and not going to both trying to do the downed state stuff until THOSE are unlocked. Still didn’t see them in skills panel.

WHY could i get to level 9 and 10, stand at Twinspur, look at crafting tables, but not use them? If you’re going to gate crafting at least gate it at the level for the area on the map (level. Seriously. I wanted to make a kitten BAG.

Level 10:
Got to level 10, all my skills slots open and i had almost all my possible weapons sitting in my inventory. And ALL of my weapon skills now unlocked with no time to really practice with them. Sure good i know how they already work. Would be horrible for a first time player though since they will have no idea. Good job. Its broken IMO.

Dodging Training:
This made me laugh so hard. Yes, i get it. Dodge through the ring to get to the chest EXCEPT all you are teaching new players is to dodge INTO a red circle and stand there. you know. Red circles. Stand IN them. Yup. That’s what we need to teach them.

I’ll be doing more class tests tonight, but something tells me they are going to be just as laughable. Anet, please have someone answer my questions if possible.

Oh, i also forgot to add the level up window pop up thing:

It actually took me a few times of it coming up to realize that the things that popped up were clickable to get more details about each of those things. New players will also probably miss a lot of info if that isn’t cleaned up and made more obvious.

So many things keep coming up that i forgot about from last night.

Scouts:
When I first played through this game with my wife, we were directed to that first scout who showed us hearts and places to go to on the map. From that point on we excitedly (no joke, and not waxing poetic, we really were excited) ran to new scouts we found on maps to help us find other hearts we might have missed. It map map exploration both neat and kind of organic.

Now, the alert to see that first scout is barely visible on the map and every time I get near a scout I have that that annoy compass nag me to go see the scout. I don’t need a reminder as a new player to see the scout for the first time i go through the map. I learned that pretty easily from the first direction to the scout.

Why do you insist on sucking out the joy from the organic learning experience? That is honestly what it feels like.

More to come tonight hopefully when i make one more newbie in the one slot i used to use for key farming because…yeah. Thats no longer a thing either.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

I will be testing this out tonight. i will really want to see how fast the 1-15 leveling is now, but I also want to honestly ask these questions of Anet and I want straight forward answers to each bullet point. Not rhetoric or some company line.

1- How does slowing down skill progression thus teach new players about fields and combos?

2- Will there also be tutorials for Necro shroud skills, underwater combat, ranger pets, Engie Toolbelts, Ele conjured weapons, Engie kits? If not, why?

3- Once a new player reaches level 10 (and say only has their first weapons) and they get a new one (with all the skills now unlocked) how does that teach the new player how to suddenly use 5 new skills they never practiced with? Specifically how does this not fly in the face of the very reasons you’ve stated in these forums for that slowed skill progression.

4- How does slowing Utility acquisition until almost half way through the leveling experience benefit a player in areas that less utilities means higher chance of death? Were those higher areas also made easier to accommodate this change?

I honestly would like to know the answers to these questions.

1- Slower progression keeps players longer playing. That’s the plan.
2- Don’t expect something ANet implements to work fluently from the beginning.
3- See 2.
4- See 1.

Well yes, i know the REAL answers, but i wanted to see if anyone from Anet would actually give the real answers or at least TRY to come up with an answer that might make sense from their design perspective that wasn’t “We has focus groops of 10,000 saying MOAR ICONS and slow skills plz”.

Somewhat sarcastic answers to follow.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

1- How does slowing down skill progression thus teach new players about fields and combos?

It doesn’t. It also doesn’t teach them about Defiance or the condition cap.

2- Will there also be tutorials for Necro shroud skills, underwater combat, ranger pets, Engie Toolbelts, Ele conjured weapons, Engie kits? If not, why?

No. giving players only 1 new button to push at a time gives them the opportunity to push said button a whole bunch before the next button becomes available providing the player with time to learn on their own.

3- Once a new player reaches level 10 (and say only has their first weapons) and they get a new one (with all the skills now unlocked) how does that teach the new player how to suddenly use 5 new skills they never practiced with? Specifically how does this not fly in the face of the very reasons you’ve stated in these forums for that slowed skill progression.

They player has been practicing pressing 1-5 on their keyboard. These buttons haven’t moved so 1-5 on new weapons has technically already been practiced.

4- How does slowing Utility acquisition until almost half way through the leveling experience benefit a player in areas that less utilities means higher chance of death? Were those higher areas also made easier to accommodate this change?

See the answer to number 2. One button at a time is what it takes to learn.

Yeah. After i get through starter toon test number 2 tonight I might just jump into WvW and start testing the skill changes on my level 80s.

Many if not most of the GW2 weapons contain 1-2 skills that “just” do damage with the rest being a situational skill that does damage and something else (chill, interrupt, PBAoE buff or mitigation, etc.). One observation I’ve made about GW2 is that some players just seem to use their skills whenever they’re off CD, with no thought to whether using the skill right then makes any sense. So, sarcastic or not, Xar is correct that the NPE has taught these people to mash buttons when available with no thought, regardless of weapons slotted.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Many if not most of the GW2 weapons contain 1-2 skills that “just” do damage with the rest being a situational skill that does damage and something else (chill, interrupt, PBAoE buff or mitigation, etc.). One observation I’ve made about GW2 is that some players just seem to use their skills whenever they’re off CD, with no thought to whether using the skill right then makes any sense. So, sarcastic or not, Xar is correct that the NPE has taught these people to mash buttons when available with no thought, regardless of weapons slotted.

But that is not the way the game was designed to be played. The old skill unlock system was much better. If the speed that the skills were unlocked at was too fast for new players to learn. Adjusting the speed would work better then the level gated system though skills. It also does not teach you about the skills for the additional weapons you get. You just have those skills unlocked.

anzenketh.3759:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Many if not most of the GW2 weapons contain 1-2 skills that “just” do damage with the rest being a situational skill that does damage and something else (chill, interrupt, PBAoE buff or mitigation, etc.). One observation I’ve made about GW2 is that some players just seem to use their skills whenever they’re off CD, with no thought to whether using the skill right then makes any sense. So, sarcastic or not, Xar is correct that the NPE has taught these people to mash buttons when available with no thought, regardless of weapons slotted.

But that is not the way the game was designed to be played. The old skill unlock system was much better. If the speed that the skills were unlocked at was too fast for new players to learn. Adjusting the speed would work better then the level gated system though skills. It also does not teach you about the skills for the additional weapons you get. You just have those skills unlocked.

And that would be my point there. Take thieves for example. They have one of the more convoluted skill breakouts given how the number 3 skill changes on weapon sets, but now new players will have no chance to learn what is going on. Just, here’s your skills. Good luck.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Many if not most of the GW2 weapons contain 1-2 skills that “just” do damage with the rest being a situational skill that does damage and something else (chill, interrupt, PBAoE buff or mitigation, etc.). One observation I’ve made about GW2 is that some players just seem to use their skills whenever they’re off CD, with no thought to whether using the skill right then makes any sense. So, sarcastic or not, Xar is correct that the NPE has taught these people to mash buttons when available with no thought, regardless of weapons slotted.

Snarky tone aside, this is actually a problem. Soooo many players just use a weapon skill the moment it is off cooldown no matter the situation. Because it simply must be better to use a skill than to not, right?

This skill spam leads right into a misunderstanding of combo fields / finishers and Defiance. They don’t connect the finisher to the field as they aren’t sure what they did because of ‘Press all the buttons!’ and if it happens to be used on a champ they think they have to spam the skill because it only works sometimes, again not connecting the action to the cause of Defiance.

Sadly nothing in the feature pack discourages this at all.

I get it, new players, struggling players etc., need help to learn the game. Do I think the new leveling experience addresses the actual issues these players were having. No.

I decided to start a new character and go through the leveling process. There seems to be a lot of people giving emotional and heated feedback regarding the changes. I am glad that this thread is level headed so that we can talk about the issues instead of just saying. HATE SYSTEM CHANGE BACK. I am going to give my 2 cents of feedback and try not to be emotional or heated as that will not help matters. I will also try to look at things from two perspectives the veteran and the new player.

Revamped Hints:
The revamped hints really teach you a lot about the game that was never covered before. That is mostly due to the fact there are more hints. However the hints only appear if you click for details on the level up screen from what I can tell. It is possible that a new account(No level up characters at all) will show them regardless. If it does not it should. Also it would be nice to have the hints history UI button in the upper left like before so players can review previously unlocked hints.

I think the best thing to do is have the hints display like they did in the old hints system with no text to the level up UI at specified level intervals and remove the unlock messages.

The Compass:
The compass is a great idea I am really enjoying it. It allows me to have a nice guide if I want it. It is good that it can be disabled. However it should keep your level into account and not direct you to areas that you are clearly under-level for.

Gating of Weapon skills.
I do not think that this is the best way to teach a new profession. Adding the skills behind a gate will not obtain the objective of teaching the skills to the new players. It will only teach them that the skill slots exist. It does not teach the skill itself. The old system worked much better for this perhaps some tweaks were needed so that it did not unlock all the skills so fast but it has better potential to teach you the skills.

Gating Utility skills:
I honestly don’t have a strong opinion on this. Nor do I understand the reason for them to be so far out from unlocking other skills.

Veteran players:
Veteran players really hate tutorials as they have already learned the systems. They don’t want to be bombarded with hand holding again. The gating of so many systems behind levels will just annoy them as they want to access all the features they had before.

And for the most part you can. You can craft before level 12 if you wish. You can access Vistas even though they unlock at level 10. You can access the bank and gather before level 9 (Did not test but assuming you can). The level hint rewards are not actively in your face and veteran players can just ignore them.

But yet if I want to go access a skill challenge I can not. I also have to wait until I am the appropriate level to unlock all of my weapon skills. The skill challenges I find no reason besides balance to lock them behind a level gate. Weapon skills I do but I think putting them behind a level gate is the wrong approach anyways. For reasons described above. Utility skills and underwater combat I can see why that was put behind a level gate. Underwater weapon skills please see Gating of Weapon skills.

Also on the note of Veteran players. Veteran gamer like an organic feel to their learning of a new game. But then again Veteran gamers did not need this new learning system in the first place.

Balance of encounters:
This is a age old problem for Guild Wars 2. Again I was found that I was underleveled for encounters. This needs to be fixed by increasing the events in areas that people are constantly under-leveled. Hopefully ArenaNet has data on this matter.

Pacing:
The pacing of the first 10 levels now is extremly slow. A lot of players play for the story. Doing heart after heart after heart can get boring especially when there are not many events going on or you have to wait a long time for them.

Missing Explanation
While a lot more things are explained there are still some things that are not. The one report I have heard that combo fields are not explained. I don’t know of a good way to explain them however.

Yeah, and the one thing i was kind of hopeful for (the dodging training they talked about) turned out to be the biggest fail in my book.

I literally stood in the red circle and laughed for a good minute at how horribly bad of a lesson it was. Imagine training your dog to use the bathroom in the middle of a highway with no cars coming by and then send him out into the world to do his business in the middle of the day. its the same thing.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Yeah, and the one thing i was kind of hopeful for (the dodging training they talked about) turned out to be the biggest fail in my book.

I literally stood in the red circle and laughed for a good minute at how horribly bad of a lesson it was. Imagine training your dog to use the bathroom in the middle of a highway with no cars coming by and then send him out into the world to do his business in the middle of the day. its the same thing.

I do agree the dodge training could have been better. For example teaching players to look for telegraphs. There were red circles however.

A part of me felt obligated to scream at obvious low level non guild having players to get out of the circles before they died.

anzenketh:

Honest question: Are you sure you could craft before level 12? My test toon last night got to the crafting tables (Level 8 area) and was level 10. I asked to become a leatherworker and then went straight to the table to make a few bags and…I couldn’t see my materials. Nothing was there.

I also was wondering what you thought of certain hearts not being there anymore while others were moved. (For the Norn area for instance the heart with the dredge in the lower part of wayfarers is gone and the rabbit one was moved down to the path leading to Twinspur.)

PookieDaWombat.6209:

anzenketh:

Honest question: Are you sure you could craft before level 12? My test toon last night got to the crafting tables (Level 8 area) and was level 10. I asked to become a leatherworker and then went straight to the table to make a few bags and…I couldn’t see my materials. Nothing was there.

I also was wondering what you thought of certain hearts not being there anymore while others were moved. (For the Norn area for instance the heart with the dredge in the lower part of wayfarers is gone and the rabbit one was moved down to the path leading to Twinspur.)

Yes positive. I talked to the tailor trainer in Metrica Province as I was under leveled for the next heart and wanted to get some levels without waiting for a event to start. When I went to the table I saw a list of recipes. In addition to that the new key-farming trend is to cook to level 10 then do the story.

I think the moving of the hearts was necessary as it was not as well distributed before in a logical path. I find the fact that we can’t feed a cow silly. I also found that some of the hearts (Plant one in Metrica Province) more annoying as you need to go get “Keys” now. But perhaps the system is trying to teach me something there that I am just ignoring as I am not a new player.

See, the thing is, when i opened Wayfarers before, I’d start at Issomir then go clockwise around that lower area. It made opening that part real easy and got me to a good level for the personal story. Now there is no reason for a new player to explore into that cave and possibly miss that Vista in there. The bunny one was also ina great spot before because it was out of the way and married nicely with the Jackalope event. Don’t even get me started on the cow feeding and corn groping thing.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

See, the thing is, when i opened Wayfarers before, I’d start at Issomir then go clockwise around that lower area. It made opening that part real easy and got me to a good level for the personal story. Now there is no reason for a new player to explore into that cave and possibly miss that Vista in there. The bunny one was also ina great spot before because it was out of the way and married nicely with the Jackalope event. Don’t even get me started on the cow feeding and corn groping thing.

They will miss the Vista if the system was working properly Vistas should be hidden until level 10. Oddly they were not for me. Vista is more end game though so…

Vistas should never be considered endgame. One, they slowly taught people about jumping puzzle mechanics with harder and harder vistas to get to as you went along and two, they helped show off areas and areas of interest on certain maps. gating them behind level 10 is horrible and doesn’t promote exploration, which was another thing Anet said their game was supposed to be about.

Xar.6185:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Many if not most of the GW2 weapons contain 1-2 skills that “just” do damage with the rest being a situational skill that does damage and something else (chill, interrupt, PBAoE buff or mitigation, etc.). One observation I’ve made about GW2 is that some players just seem to use their skills whenever they’re off CD, with no thought to whether using the skill right then makes any sense. So, sarcastic or not, Xar is correct that the NPE has taught these people to mash buttons when available with no thought, regardless of weapons slotted.

Snarky tone aside, this is actually a problem. Soooo many players just use a weapon skill the moment it is off cooldown no matter the situation. Because it simply must be better to use a skill than to not, right?

This skill spam leads right into a misunderstanding of combo fields / finishers and Defiance. They don’t connect the finisher to the field as they aren’t sure what they did because of ‘Press all the buttons!’ and if it happens to be used on a champ they think they have to spam the skill because it only works sometimes, again not connecting the action to the cause of Defiance.

Sadly nothing in the feature pack discourages this at all.

I get it, new players, struggling players etc., need help to learn the game. Do I think the new leveling experience addresses the actual issues these players were having. No.

Yeah, that’s my conclusion as well. As a former teacher I’m well aware that throwing something new at someone who hasn’t gotten the previous material can be very confusing. However, just delaying the new material doesn’t cut it.

As to skill spam… the one that gets me most is longbow rangers using Point Blank shot to knock a mob away, who then move into melee with it. A simple tip when PBS becomes available that says, “Hey! Your #1 skill, Long Range Shot, does more damage the further you are from a mob. You can use Point Blank Shot to knock them away from you, or to interrupt a big attack!” Getting PBS at level 8 does nothing for comprehension.

I’m glad that I already have an 80 in every class. After getting my GF to start a new toon so we could check out the changes, I can say that it is much more boring than it ever was before.

I found part of the excitement and fun before this was discovering how everything worked on my own. It just does not feel anything like it did before.

Atleast I don’t have to worry now, I’ve got 8 toons maxed and I couldn’t see myself doing it again with Anet’s new way of doing things. Infact I just wouldn’t bother playing it all.

Edit: Also a thought… How the heck am I supposed to help explain things to a new player when it’s all been changed for the worse?
It’s actualy more confusing than it was before and ALOT of us will never go through that content again so we’ll not know how to even help a new player.

I just noticed something. When something is level-gated it uses the unlock icon and states XYZ is unlocked. When it is not level-gated but the system is just trying to give you hints it still uses the unlock icon.

I don’t know if it is worth it but perhaps the icon should be something different like a ! if the item you are “unlocking” is just a hint.

So, for my second test tonight, any suggestions on which class/area i should test in? i just did norn ranger. Test will run from level 1-15ish, no scroll help, etc.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

So, for my second test tonight, any suggestions on which class/area i should test in? i just did norn ranger. Test will run from level 1-15ish, no scroll help, etc.

Sylvari Mesmer

Selene.9415:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

So, for my second test tonight, any suggestions on which class/area i should test in? i just did norn ranger. Test will run from level 1-15ish, no scroll help, etc.

Sylvari Mesmer

I’d ask if you hated me, but this is a good suggestion. I’ll give it a whirl and report back.

anzenketh.3759:

I decided to start a new character and go through the leveling process. There seems to be a lot of people giving emotional and heated feedback regarding the changes. I am glad that this thread is level headed so that we can talk about the issues instead of just saying. HATE SYSTEM CHANGE BACK. I am going to give my 2 cents of feedback and try not to be emotional or heated as that will not help matters. I will also try to look at things from two perspectives the veteran and the new player.

Revamped Hints:
The revamped hints really teach you a lot about the game that was never covered before. That is mostly due to the fact there are more hints. However the hints only appear if you click for details on the level up screen from what I can tell. It is possible that a new account(No level up characters at all) will show them regardless. If it does not it should. Also it would be nice to have the hints history UI button in the upper left like before so players can review previously unlocked hints.

I think the best thing to do is have the hints display like they did in the old hints system with no text to the level up UI at specified level intervals and remove the unlock messages.

The Compass:
The compass is a great idea I am really enjoying it. It allows me to have a nice guide if I want it. It is good that it can be disabled. However it should keep your level into account and not direct you to areas that you are clearly under-level for.

Gating of Weapon skills.
I do not think that this is the best way to teach a new profession. Adding the skills behind a gate will not obtain the objective of teaching the skills to the new players. It will only teach them that the skill slots exist. It does not teach the skill itself. The old system worked much better for this perhaps some tweaks were needed so that it did not unlock all the skills so fast but it has better potential to teach you the skills.

Gating Utility skills:
I honestly don’t have a strong opinion on this. Nor do I understand the reason for them to be so far out from unlocking other skills.

Veteran players:
Veteran players really hate tutorials as they have already learned the systems. They don’t want to be bombarded with hand holding again. The gating of so many systems behind levels will just annoy them as they want to access all the features they had before.

And for the most part you can. You can craft before level 12 if you wish. You can access Vistas even though they unlock at level 10. You can access the bank and gather before level 9 (Did not test but assuming you can). The level hint rewards are not actively in your face and veteran players can just ignore them.

But yet if I want to go access a skill challenge I can not. I also have to wait until I am the appropriate level to unlock all of my weapon skills. The skill challenges I find no reason besides balance to lock them behind a level gate. Weapon skills I do but I think putting them behind a level gate is the wrong approach anyways. For reasons described above. Utility skills and underwater combat I can see why that was put behind a level gate. Underwater weapon skills please see Gating of Weapon skills.

Also on the note of Veteran players. Veteran gamer like an organic feel to their learning of a new game. But then again Veteran gamers did not need this new learning system in the first place.

Balance of encounters:
This is a age old problem for Guild Wars 2. Again I was found that I was underleveled for encounters. This needs to be fixed by increasing the events in areas that people are constantly under-leveled. Hopefully ArenaNet has data on this matter.

Pacing:
The pacing of the first 10 levels now is extremly slow. A lot of players play for the story. Doing heart after heart after heart can get boring especially when there are not many events going on or you have to wait a long time for them.

Missing Explanation
While a lot more things are explained there are still some things that are not. The one report I have heard that combo fields are not explained. I don’t know of a good way to explain them however.

Well said in my opinion.

OK, just did the sylvari mesmer and oy was it ever painful. I explicitly followed the tips on where to go and what to do and not only was it fairly boring because it wasn;t ME who was exploring, but the game itself, but at one point it literally had me bouncing around to and fro for events and poi’s and yeah. It got me stuck in a weird loop, so that was probably not supposed to happen. Also it just felt like it took WAY longer than the norn ranger to do anything/get anywhere. its safe to say that any alts that are made will most likely need scrolls just to make the process far less painful for vets but I also really worry that new players will just walk out of frustration.

New players WILL walk away out of frustration, there’s already posts by some new players that just started a bit before the feature pack came out and they’re now quitting because of these asinine changes that didn’t need to be made (and were only made due to metrics and focus groups and not actual feedback). Focus groups and metrics don’t do jack for game development if anything they make it worse.

Imagine if all of the innovative games that came out relied on metrics and focus groups to base their development on (they wouldn’t have been innovative) this is because focus groups tend to point developers towards the status quo (in this case to be more like WoW) and the same can be said for metrics.

OK, so I just did my 3 test last night.

Parameters of the test: Shut off the feature by going under the options and rolled up an engie in human form. This was done for a few reasons. First I am hyper familiar with Engie as it is one of my 2 mains and secondly because I am also hyper familiar with Queensdale map.

The purpose of this test was to “vet” it on the map and go about leveling as close to how I used to do it and see how the various fights and gating felt as I pushed my toon through non-level appropriate content like I tend to do.

Overall Outcome: Although the skill gating was still annoying to level 10 (personal gripe) I was able to roll with it fairly easily and I think that brand new players might be split 50/50 on this system being so new to the game. All in all my experience wasn’t really diminished except when it came to the skill points (and there was something interesting that happened there which I’ll get to.) My knowledge of the area carried me through the zones easily and when I got to level 13 I went and snagged those 5 easy skill points in Queensdale/home instance.

Quick Points: Having known at one time that new players weren’t treated with kid gloves and could do things like pick up a pail and water some corn meant that I felt insulted doing that particular heart. Now I know its been mentioned a lot here, but hear me out. If it insults a large number of your existing players, they will talk about it, even in front of your new players. New players will then feel insulted that the system was dumbed down for them. More importantly these early hearts ACTUALLY TAUGHT PLAYERS about how to use bundles through actual gameplay. In essence you’ve actually removed in game tutorials that might have helped them.

Dodging training: Just poorly implemented for the reason I’ve stated time and time again. It teaches new players how to dodge INTO the middle of red rings and stand there. For loot.

Skill Points: So after I went and got my 5 initial skill points I went and bought myself my healing turret (far superior to the other heals on engie hehe), rifle turret and grenade kit. I then went out into the world and for the next 10 minutes never actually equipped my healing turret or rifle turret! Why? Because at this point I was so used to not changing those default skills that even though I bought them I ignored the new skills I just bought! And I KNEW they were there. If someone that has as many level 80 alts as me who has put in THAT much time into playing different builds with different skills on those alts can be that easily conditioned to suddenly forget to equip the new skills they just bought, just think how many brand new players might just forget to even SPEND the skill points they get early on. Now maybe its because I’m still sporting a cold/fever but still, this might be something to get feedback on to see what the rate of new skill adoption is by new players going through this new system.

Suggestions:
Allow the gating to either go faster or not at all for vets. This is not going to be fixed by giving us level XX jump scrolls. Just take it out for anyone with at least 3 level 80s on their account. This is especially true for the skill point gating. It needs to stop for vets.

Fix the dodge tutorial and turn it into a heart if need be. IDEA: Urk the Ettin needs help training. Help him train by dodging his big telegraphed attack. Dodge 5 times successfully for a small chest. A lesson like this is far more rewarding and far more applicable to the game new players will be playing.

Introduce the reward of gathering tools at level 7. This will at least marry up more to where those nodes begin to appear on the map. It just makes sense. The way it is now doesn’t.

Make it obvious for new players that they have to click on the items in the info window to get more info on the things that have just unlocked. If not they might still miss it when their profession skills unlock, which then doesn’t serve anyone.