Guild Wars 2

What I don’t understand and I think this is part of the frustration with this patch is there are sooooooo many other more important areas they could be fixing in the game that are well documented that people have asked for changes in for years that we’ve been told would be fixed, but this was the choice of the thing that was priority 1. So I can understand especially when it comes to the lack of rewards from normal gameplay kills, why this is viewed as the last problem we should be looking at. Because even tho there are some good rewards periodically during the leveling process and from personal story, there are essentially no rewards from the rest of the world of consequence until you get to Dry Top for many a player due to drop percentages, DR, what items players carry with them and their quality, etc, and I think people are going to continue to complain until those things are addressed, not because every game has their whiners in the forums but because it’s a real problem and has been since just after launch when they nerfed alot of what we were able to get as drops to sell for gold in the open world.

I think since there are clearly objectives people especially new players would like to achieve without buying gold like buying certain sigils/runes, and the feature from the previous feature patch that requires gold + skill points for traits that they need to look at that as well during the process of rolling back the NPE. Don’t we have Karma for progression for a reason? Shouldn’t players be spending Karma + skill points for traits instead of gold?

It’s a real shame the dev’s and mods have consistently censored this topic, or many of my posts in this topic. As well as modifying the title name a dozen times even when it wasn’t offensive. I would hope they have at least read some of the complaints here.

I’m sorry…. are you guys not playing the same game that I am playing?

I get hundreds of tomes of knowledge every month.

How are any of you guys complaining about the speed at which you level up/stat gating?

My new toons are level 80 the first day they are created.

Play on your lvl 80’s to level ur alts…. otherwise ur doin’ it wrong.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m sorry…. are you guys not playing the same game that I am playing?

I get hundreds of tomes of knowledge every month.

How are any of you guys complaining about the speed at which you level up/stat gating?

My new toons are level 80 the first day they are created.

Play on your lvl 80’s to level ur alts…. otherwise ur doin’ it wrong.

Then you must be a PvPer because for PvEers, we don’t get those. Scrolls of Knowledge I’ve got tons of but that’s just skill points.

Behellagh.1468:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m sorry…. are you guys not playing the same game that I am playing?

I get hundreds of tomes of knowledge every month.

How are any of you guys complaining about the speed at which you level up/stat gating?

My new toons are level 80 the first day they are created.

Play on your lvl 80’s to level ur alts…. otherwise ur doin’ it wrong.

Then you must be a PvPer because for PvEers, we don’t get those. Scrolls of Knowledge I’ve got tons of but that’s just skill points.

Oh, I have around 80 of the skill point scrolls sitting in my bank right now. I get those out the wazoo playing PvE.

The actually level-up tomes? I have like four or five, and I’m saving those for when I REALLY need them.

That is to say, I have a handful of level-up tomes despite two level 80’s, six other characters anywhere from level 16 to level 50, and one extra character that I occasionally do keyruns on.

I love how PvP players expect people to just be rolling in levelup tomes because they don’t play PvE enough to realize that, no, we don’t get those.

Also… “play on your level 80 to level your alts, or you’re doing it wrong”? I’m… I’m sorry that playing my character because I ENJOY LEVELING THEM UP is wrong. I didn’t realize there was a “right” way to play this game. Allow me to repent for my sins of ENJOYING THE MID-GAME LEVELING, I am a hethen for even THINKING such a thing!!

Jesus Christ, I hate people that say stupid kitten like “you’re doing it wrong”. It’s about what’s fun, not about what’s most efficient. If everyone lived only by efficiency, video games wouldn’t exist, because by definition they’re all nothing but a waste of time. -__-;

Yeah… when you say hundreds, I assume you mean 200-500 tomes a month… I am almost level 50 pvp rank, after 5 months of playing an average of 3 matches a day… I have collected maybe 105 tomes in that time… so you would have to be playing dozens of matches daily to be obtaining 200+ tomes a month…

Honestly the point here isn’t to find a way of avoiding this horrible implementation. The point is to get it back to its former glory. This change was unnecessary. Using tomes of knowledge isn’t a fix to this issue.

Rogue.7856:

Yeah… when you say hundreds, I assume you mean 200-500 tomes a month… I am almost level 50 pvp rank, after 5 months of playing an average of 3 matches a day… I have collected maybe 105 tomes in that time… so you would have to be playing dozens of matches daily to be obtaining 200+ tomes a month…

Honestly the point here isn’t to find a way of avoiding this horrible implementation. The point is to get it back to its former glory. This change was unnecessary. Using tomes of knowledge isn’t a fix to this issue.

Holy hell! That’s insane that you even have that many tomes!!! (Err, insane to me, as a mostly PvE player.)

Thank you for the information about tomes of knowledge – I may try PvP.

I like WvW. I really, really dislike quests, world events, bosses, and the usual tropes of a theme park. Others differ, and that’s fine, but I’m a bit frustrated that my WvW ability has to be curtailed by PvE.

I really wish they’d just level everyone to 80 in WvW, let them where PvP armor, etc. Players who enjoy PvE could still participate in all their ascended, dungeon-armor glory, so nothing would be lost, other than some easy victories over lower level opponents.

phys.7689:

Rogue.7856:

Behellagh.1468:

Rogue.7856:

They worded this as a positive change and if you enjoy gated content then this is the build for you. However I bought the game on what they sold it as.
“Most games [have a] boring grind to get to the fun stuff. We just don’t want players to grind in GW2. Noone enjoys that, noone finds it fun, we want to change the way people view combat.”
To go back on those statements 2 years later and switch it up to what is more appeasing to their Chinese market is beyond me how people will support this practice.

Why gate the content, what is their to gain from gating content other than to create the very thing they are against.

It depends on how you define grind. Leveling isn’t a grind unless it takes 30 hours and 3000 critters to smite between levels. The one to two hours per level here is no where a grind.

Skill slot and weapon slot locking was always part of the game. If it takes the same amount of play time to unlock them now as before, then there is no change in the experience, just a number as to when that happens.

The weapon skill unlocks is a trade off between unlocking all weapons skills at the same time Vs unlocking the skills on the weapon you use. Before if you get a weapon drop of a different type that you would rather use, you had to unlock those skills, now if you have skill slots 2 and 3 unlocked on your original weapon, they are unlocked on this new one automatically. Can’t say which is a better solution to the weapons/skills problem.

In another thread I said that you always felt significantly weaker leveling a new alt simply because you aren’t fully equipped with exotics and your preferred selection of traits. But like the trait change we again have a “fall guy” to point at for that reason instead of our own cloudy memories of what it was like as a true level 8 than a down-leveled 80. We are newbs in swathing clothes rather than Gods who descended from Olympus.

And the combat comment wasn’t about grind but the non-rooting attacks and dodge defense as oppose to the stand your ground and wale on a critter hoping for someone to heal you during combat.

Its a grind compared to what the game once was… its level gated content that has no need to be gated. They claim its to help players ease into new abilities, but at the end of the day its gated content that leaves early game experience for all players old a new limited and a push for the fun stuff later. This is exactly what they said they would not do, and after 2 years its very clear why now they decided to do this… with a blind eye to NA/EU players, and their mission… its very clear why they did this… and why they tried to paint a pretty picture and slide in this bad system…

its not really about china, china was one market, they also think this is a better answer to the NA market, and will pick up players they couldnt appeal to who were more used to other MMOs systems. In a lot of ways its more worrysome than them trying to appeal to a large asian market. They are trying to appeal standard mmo level grind gamers.

It really does feel like this was intended to make the game appealing to WoW players.

Its like they want to trick WoW lovers into playing then hope the WoW lovers will realize after leveling a bit that they actually really like GW2 style better.

What really worries me is the type of player who needs constant power progression and leveling rewards is going to hate 80. They are going to want gear treadmills and I ca see modern Anet caving.

Vayne.8563:

Sokia.3710:

Vayne.8563:

Because it’s a main hand weapon with slightly higher stats than the weapon you have.

I’m sure that helps Guardians a lot since, correct me if I’m wrong, they get the choice between a SHIELD or a FOCUS for completing the intro.

See, this is my problem. People comment about the new patch without actually having tried the new patch. Here’s the reward for finishing the tutorial in the new patch, with the new guardian I just made to test it out.

It’s a mace, slightly better than the one you have when you start, to teach you to change weapons, just like I said.

This is a great example of why people are complaining that the new patch dumbs down the new player experience.

Before patch: You make a new character, you have a main-hand weapon, you notice as you play through the intro that you have an auto-attack and you can unlock 2 special attacks, then you’re given an off-hand weapon and notice that it gives you 2 more special attacks to unlock for a total of 4 plus your auto. This teaches you the concept of off-hand weapons, and if you’re really clever you’ll realize you can mix and match main- and off-hands for different sets of combat skills.

After patch: You make a new character, you have a main-hand weapon, you notice as you play through the intro that you have an auto-attack and that’s all, then you’re given a slightly better version of the exact same weapon you started with and 1 special attack unlocks itself. This teaches you to change weapons when you find a new one with better stats.

In other words, the intro to a concept that’s kind of unique and interesting about this game – dual-wielding for different skillsets – is declared overwhelming and scary and pushed back so that an average newbie won’t encounter it until they’ve already been playing for 20-30 minutes. In its stead is an intro to the concept of trading up when you find something with better stats – something so incredibly common in both MMO and single-player RPGs that only someone brand-new to gaming would need to be taught about it. The new version is just less interesting, especially when you add in the decreased access to attack skills 2-5 at low levels.

I’m still looking forward to the patch that makes the entire NPE optional for veteran players.

seabhac.5346:

I’m still looking forward to the patch that makes the entire NPE optional for veteran players.

yea someone made a very good solution, NPE for the account’s first character only

I have never posted on the GW forums, but have been a fan of GW1 and GW2 for years. I am so upset by the recent changes to the game that I felt compelled to post.

I would to go on record by adding to the thread my frustration and extreme dislike of the new NPE system. I hate having to level grind 10 levels to continue my personal story. The old system was a nice reward to get to continue the Personal Story every couple of levels and took away the whole “Level Grinding” experience that most other MMO’s have.

Prior to the Update, ANet communicated that you can turn off / disable the new NPE system. That is not the case, you can only turn off the window that guides you to the nearest gameplay event – not disable the system in preference of the old. I feel like this was deliberately miscommunicated to avoid major backlash by the established gaming community.

I haven’t played on the new NPE system enough to realize the stat differences and Level Slump that others have reported, but I don’t doubt that it exists. I do not like all the limitations that are currently imposed on new toons! It is extremely limiting, frustrating and unenjoyable to have so many abilities locked by character level.

The game was very intuitive and natural feeling prior to the NPE changes; the new changes just brought it closer in line to other MMO’s in the market. I feel that this was a very bad design decision. There should be a true toggle (as advertised before NPE went live) that will fully enable / disable the NPE system (not just enabling / disabling the window that guides you to the next event).

I have a number of alts and dont want to even continue the Personal Story on them due to the leveling grind that has now been imposed. It was much more fun to explore the map and fit the personal story stages in as your character developed.

Please let me know if there is anyone else I can contact or anyplace else I can post to make my voice heard.

Zackie.8923:

seabhac.5346:

I’m still looking forward to the patch that makes the entire NPE optional for veteran players.

yea someone made a very good solution, NPE for the account’s first character only

That’s been suggested dozens of times by now.

I hope they heard it.

Ha! Lvlup to 37, cool lets see what I get.

Argh a green lvl 33 chest, wtf, I just bough my lvl 35 cultural armor

Probably sponsored by Logitech: several clicks needed to accept and destroy it
Neither sellable to NPC, nor salvage. Stop throwing such garbage at players. The only thing that can still be made worser: “Enter the name of the item to really destroy it”.

Every single mob I slayed during the last 4 levels was more rewarding than this level up reward!

Dayra.7405:

Ha! Lvlup to 37, cool lets see what I get.

Argh a green lvl 33 chest, wtf, I just bough my lvl 35 cultural armor

Probably sponsored by Logitech: several clicks needed to accept and destroy it
Neither sellable to NPC, nor salvage. Stop throwing such garbage at players. The only thing that can still be made worser: “Enter the name of the item to really destroy it”.

Every single mob I slayed during the last 4 levels was more rewarding than this level up reward!

i think that the non sellable, salvageable aspect of these items its pretty bad, i had forgotten about that. I think the game should be moving towards not having any items all that fit into this category

Well, you can Forge them but . . . hmm.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well, you can Forge them but . . . hmm.

the big problem is when people waste a lot of resources on these items, then realize they cant get the items back, like when they put upgrades in them.

Imagine you get buy some cool OP rune, or find one, and you put it in your gear you got as a level 64 reward, that looks virtually exactly the same as other items.

now that rune/sigil is lost forever.

Rogue.7856:

Yeah… when you say hundreds, I assume you mean 200-500 tomes a month… I am almost level 50 pvp rank, after 5 months of playing an average of 3 matches a day…

only 3 matches a day?

I have collected maybe 105 tomes in that time… so you would have to be playing dozens of matches daily to be obtaining 200+ tomes a month…

Definitely more like dozens than 3/day… I don’t even feel like that is a lot tho….

Nokaru.7831:

Opinions aside, there are some bold-faced objective problems that have surfaced from their questionable implementations of the NPE. For example: The “stat burst” and the “stat slump.”

• Stat Burst: With the original leveling system, players would receive a small amount of stats each time they leveled, which made their character slowly get stronger each level. With the NPE changes, after level 4 the player will received a large chunk (or “burst”) of stats every 6 levels. This was likely to make certain thresholds feel more rewarding and fun.

• Stat Slump: The problem is that the “stat burst” power did not come out of no where. The power is redistributed from prior levels. The result is that players feel weaker than they did before during certain windows of leveling. This is being remarked as the “stat slump”, which is typically 2 or 3 levels prior to each threshold.

• The problem: If a player tries to fight a creature 1 or 2 levels higher than themselves, the “stat slump” complicates things. A level 9 creature is more powerful than a level 8; but a level 9 player is not necessarily more powerful than a level 8 one. This is because the stats come in bursts for players, but gradually for monsters. As a result, players are reporting that certain Personal Story missions are feeling much harder than they used to. This is a result of the “stat slump”, which is effectively making players feel lower level than they actually are.
  
  Furthermore, when a player levels up in an area they are downscaled in, there is a high chance they will actually become weaker. This is because downscaling will reduce their stats, and leveling up doesn’t necessarily increase them to offset it. While this has always been a possibility due to gear, it is now magnified due to base stats not increasing with each level.

This change to leveling is so fundamentally dysfunctional with how the rest of the game works that it really starts to raise questions in the confidence of ArenaNet’s actual understandings of their systems. It’s likely it isn’t the entire company’s fault though, only a few powerful (and ignorant) people.

Excellent point. Anet’s next move will probably be to direct the player experience even more by forcing characters to only encounter content that they are the perfect level to overcome. That will certainly fix what you’re talking about. The other way to fix what you’re talking about is to get rid of the silly burst leveling which we know won’t happen because it would make too much sense.

Sokia.3710:

Traits were never free. It used to cost a little over three gold to unlock all of your traits.

However, traits are significantly more expensive than they used to be. It takes much longer now to unlock all of your traits, regardless of what method you use to get them. If you buy traits from the profession trainers, they are significantly more expensive than before. If you try to unlock the traits by doing the tasks, it takes significantly longer than just farming a few gold pre-April and buying traitbooks.

Perception-wise it is very different to “purchase training” so that you can access higher level traits vs. purchasing specific traits. The first makes sense roleplay-wise, the second doesn’t.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m sorry…. are you guys not playing the same game that I am playing?

I get hundreds of tomes of knowledge every month.

How are any of you guys complaining about the speed at which you level up/stat gating?

My new toons are level 80 the first day they are created.

Play on your lvl 80’s to level ur alts…. otherwise ur doin’ it wrong.

Wow, that’s great. I don’t. Maybe not everyone plays the way you do…

I really wish they had focused on a major revisions than just minor tweaking in the last patch.

Dayra.7405:

Ha! Lvlup to 37, cool lets see what I get.

Argh a green lvl 33 chest, wtf, I just bough my lvl 35 cultural armor

Probably sponsored by Logitech: several clicks needed to accept and destroy it
Neither sellable to NPC, nor salvage. Stop throwing such garbage at players. The only thing that can still be made worser: “Enter the name of the item to really destroy it”.

Every single mob I slayed during the last 4 levels was more rewarding than this level up reward!

I highly doubt completely new players know what cultural armor is, let alone have the money to buy it at level 35…

I mean, I’ve leveled a lot of alts, and at 35 I outfit all of them in Rare gear head to toe until level 60 when I get them new gear, then a final set at 80. It costs several gold at 35 to get full Rare, an amount new players simply will not have.

It’s kind of silly to make fun of the item rewards for leveling when you are a Veteran player since you already know how to get the best gear for that level, where to get the best gear for your level, etc.

The level up rewards are designed to be upgrades for new players who are pretty much just equipping whatever drops if the stats are better. It was not uncommon, pre-patch, for brand new players at level 50, for example, to be outfitted in level 15-20 white/blue/green gear.

Basically if you are a Veteran leveling an alt, disregard the level-up rewards…

I’m sure the level 37 new guy wearing a 25 blue chestpiece will be thrilled with a level 33 green one…

True that… I’ve seen some pretty weird drops since this patch dropped.

I’ve been playing a fresh character since the feature pack launched, and I’m doing it without xp scrolls/tomes. Honestly, it hasn’t been as bad as one would think reading these forums, though a few things are rather awkward and/or annoying.

The sheer amount of unsalvageable rewards I get from leveling up and doing the Personal Story makes me feel very unrewarded. I’m continually having to buy the same runes and sigils because only rarely can I attempt to retrieve them from old equipment. Also, right-click → destroy is a very unsatisfactory thing to have to do to equipment I grow out of. (Maybe some of those things are allowed into the Mystic Forge, I haven’t tried.) Why aren’t we allowed to just merch/salvage all those things? Surely it won’t break the economy, there’s no exploit or farming issue to consider here.)

Another thing: when I work my way through zones in pursuit of my personal story, a lot of the time I find myself in areas that are intended for a much lower level than my character’s current level. This means that there’s hardly ever an interesting purchase to be made at a heart karma merchant. This was never a problem before the feature pack, and is obviously a consequence of the personal story level gating. I don’t know what could be done about this, but it needs be said, it feels very off.

Alright so I created a new character to level up due to reading about the new system, and the many many many complaints about it. I just hit level 50 with this character and from what I can tell, you all are making this WAY worse than it really is, sure there are some limiters that slow you down some, but everyone makes it out to be like, " ANet changed these things and completely broke the game, I quit!!! "

Out of it all, the only thing that I an uncomfortable with is the Personal Story and the level gaps in between chapters, beyond that nothing is as bad as you all seem to be making it out to be.

Maybe ANet wanted us to you know, enjoy the effort they put into the game, instead of rushing through everything, getting to level 80, getting geared, then asking ourselves what to do now?!

I also understand the changes to Traits and acquiring them, so many people have gotten to level 80 with less than 20% map completion, they changed it so people have to work for these traits, and not magically learn them from some manual, also helps people be a little bit more informed about the game they play, and not ask so many redundant questions…

Odokuro.5049:

Maybe ANet wanted us to you know, enjoy the effort they put into the game, instead of rushing through everything, getting to level 80, getting geared, then asking ourselves what to do now?!

Well.

I have one of each profession at level 80, with a second ranger, guardian, and mesmer at level 80, a second necromancer at 30, a second elementalist at 39, and a second warrior at 48 or thereabouts. The thief and one of the mesmers have world completion.

I don’t want to rush through everything getting to 80.

I want vast quantities of new stuff so that my new guys won’t be repeating (again and again) the old stuff my old guys did. Slowing the old stuff down and removing bits and pieces of it doesn’t make it new stuff. The tidbits of ‘new’ stuff living story delivers (when it isn’t recycling old stuff) isn’t even close to being enough.

I want new stuff, I want lots of it, and I want it 6 months or a year ago.

Where is it and why are they revamping old stuff (that in my opinion doesn’t need revamping) instead of working on new stuff?

All the people saying “It’s not that bad”… well it should be “bad” at all! From what it used to be it was so much better. This new system is worse in multiple different instances. I’m not going to settle for this completely unnecessary system that is a dumb down version. Plain and simple.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I’ve been playing a fresh character since the feature pack launched, and I’m doing it without xp scrolls/tomes. Honestly, it hasn’t been as bad as one would think reading these forums, though a few things are rather awkward and/or annoying.

The sheer amount of unsalvageable rewards I get from leveling up and doing the Personal Story makes me feel very unrewarded. I’m continually having to buy the same runes and sigils because only rarely can I attempt to retrieve them from old equipment. Also, right-click -> destroy is a very unsatisfactory thing to have to do to equipment I grow out of. (Maybe some of those things are allowed into the Mystic Forge, I haven’t tried.) Why aren’t we allowed to just merch/salvage all those things? Surely it won’t break the economy, there’s no exploit or farming issue to consider here.)

Another thing: when I work my way through zones in pursuit of my personal story, a lot of the time I find myself in areas that are intended for a much lower level than my character’s current level. This means that there’s hardly ever an interesting purchase to be made at a heart karma merchant. This was never a problem before the feature pack, and is obviously a consequence of the personal story level gating. I don’t know what could be done about this, but it needs be said, it feels very off.

Agree with this!

Tachenon.5270:

Odokuro.5049:

Maybe ANet wanted us to you know, enjoy the effort they put into the game, instead of rushing through everything, getting to level 80, getting geared, then asking ourselves what to do now?!

Well.

I have one of each profession at level 80, with a second ranger, guardian, and mesmer at level 80, a second necromancer at 30, a second elementalist at 39, and a second warrior at 48 or thereabouts. The thief and one of the mesmers have world completion.

I don’t want to rush through everything getting to 80.

I want vast quantities of new stuff so that my new guys won’t be repeating (again and again) the old stuff my old guys did. Slowing the old stuff down and removing bits and pieces of it doesn’t make it new stuff. The tidbits of ‘new’ stuff living story delivers (when it isn’t recycling old stuff) isn’t even close to being enough.

I want new stuff, I want lots of it, and I want it 6 months or a year ago.

Where is it and why are they revamping old stuff (that in my opinion doesn’t need revamping) instead of working on new stuff?

I agree on having actual REAL new content and new stuff to do, it just seems most people view any change they don’t like as, “Bad/Broken or #Rekt”, and when ANet puts in something new or changes something to the same players liking, their like, “OMG why didn’t they do this sooner, this is great.” in my many years of gaming, one thing holds true, people are never happy unless they have something to complain about…

Odokuro.5049:

…in my many years of gaming, one thing holds true, people are never happy unless they have something to complain about…

I never complained about the old version of GW2, in fact I used to praise it here and in other forums. But after the April trait change and now this NPE thing I am not happy with the state of the game.

Tachenon.5270:

Well.

I have one of each profession at level 80, with a second ranger, guardian, and mesmer at level 80, a second necromancer at 30, a second elementalist at 39, and a second warrior at 48 or thereabouts. The thief and one of the mesmers have world completion.

I don’t want to rush through everything getting to 80.

I want vast quantities of new stuff so that my new guys won’t be repeating (again and again) the old stuff my old guys did. Slowing the old stuff down and removing bits and pieces of it doesn’t make it new stuff. The tidbits of ‘new’ stuff living story delivers (when it isn’t recycling old stuff) isn’t even close to being enough.

I want new stuff, I want lots of it, and I want it 6 months or a year ago.

Where is it and why are they revamping old stuff (that in my opinion doesn’t need revamping) instead of working on new stuff?

You are honestly saying that you want a game that will allow you to make as many characters as you want (in your case 16…), yet not have any of those characters have to repeat content that previous characters have done?

No such game exists or will ever exist.

Draknar.5748:

Tachenon.5270:

Well.

I have one of each profession at level 80, with a second ranger, guardian, and mesmer at level 80, a second necromancer at 30, a second elementalist at 39, and a second warrior at 48 or thereabouts. The thief and one of the mesmers have world completion.

I don’t want to rush through everything getting to 80.

I want vast quantities of new stuff so that my new guys won’t be repeating (again and again) the old stuff my old guys did. Slowing the old stuff down and removing bits and pieces of it doesn’t make it new stuff. The tidbits of ‘new’ stuff living story delivers (when it isn’t recycling old stuff) isn’t even close to being enough.

I want new stuff, I want lots of it, and I want it 6 months or a year ago.

Where is it and why are they revamping old stuff (that in my opinion doesn’t need revamping) instead of working on new stuff?

You are honestly saying that you want a game that will allow you to make as many characters as you want (in your case 16…), yet not have any of those characters have to repeat content that previous characters have done?

No such game exists or will ever exist.

14 characters.

Do I want that? Yes.
Do I ever expect to get it? No.

I do, however, expect game developers to offer more than one route to the top, especially after two years have gone by. And I don’t mean via crafting, or pvp, or scrolls, or whatever eotm may be.

There once was a game that came close. Close enough for me, anyway. It was called City of Heroes. Sure, all heroes started in Outbreak, but then you could choose to go to Galaxy City or Atlas Park, and there were enough contacts scattered through the level ranges that my heroes could mix and match the missions they undertook so that my energy/energy blaster’s path to max level and my electric/ice tanker’s path to max level felt quite different. Throw in City of Villains and the Going Rogue expansion (which introduced alignment change/side switching and Praetoria, where characters started off as neutrals and eventually chose to become heroes or villains) and whop pow, lots and lots of options. Of course, right before the end, there were a lot of off-putting tweaks, like the destruction of Galaxy City and the replacement of Outbreak with a new ‘mostly for show’ tutorial zone, and every new hero went to Atlas Park, and the early contacts were changed. That is to say, they created a New Player Experience…

Another game comes to mind, one that added new material very quickly and efficiently: Guild Wars. At first it was the same for everyone, but soon there was Guild Wars: Factions, offering a whole new region with new professions, new skills, and a new story. And then there was Guild Wars: Nightfall – which added another new region, with more new stuff. And then there was an expansion called Eye of the North, opening up new areas in old regions and adding lots more new stuff. And then the developers decided to focus their efforts on an expansion which would allegedly allow them to do stuff they couldn’t do in the existing game.

Rogue.7856:

All the people saying “It’s not that bad”… well it should be “bad” at all! From what it used to be it was so much better. This new system is worse in multiple different instances. I’m not going to settle for this completely unnecessary system that is a dumb down version. Plain and simple.

You’re putting the emphasis on the wrong word there, chief. “It’s not that bad” is what some people seem to be saying. It’s certainly what I am.

The first hour of leveling is different. That’s the reality of it, yes the trait system could use some rework but there are alot of misconceptions posted in this thread. You can dodge, gather, craft, etc. Right from the start. The tips are there for NEW players so they know it exists. Why this bothers “veteran” players is beyond me.

Dont knock it till you try it. I’ve played since launch and now am releveling a guardian to experience the NPE and its pretty cool. After the first hour or so of playing you have all the skills. Its not such a bad thing and I can see how this would help new players. If you have played the game before, spoiler alert, ignore the tips and proceed as normal.

Tron.3471:

The first hour of leveling is different. That’s the reality of it, yes the trait system could use some rework but there are alot of misconceptions posted in this thread. You can dodge, gather, craft, etc. Right from the start. The tips are there for NEW players so they know it exists. Why this bothers “veteran” players is beyond me.

Dont knock it till you try it. I’ve played since launch and now am releveling a guardian to experience the NPE and its pretty cool. After the first hour or so of playing you have all the skills. Its not such a bad thing and I can see how this would help new players. If you have played the game before, spoiler alert, ignore the tips and proceed as normal.

A lot of the misconceptions are due to terrible wording of the tips/levelup rewards themselves. Many imply that you‘re actually unlocking things when you really aren’t. Veterans who rush through the levelups by means of scrolls and tomes never experience how it really works but they do read the rewards and repeat that information to other people, on chat and forum. If anyone is to blame for misinformation that gets spread this way, it certainly aren’t the people who just repeat what the game tells them.

Either way I find the gating unnecessary and a hassle at least, and more troublesome than actually helpful to all players.

I find myself in complete agreement with the comment made about non-salvageable rewards. Really, ANet, you’re worried about is getting a few scraps of metal, leather or cloth? Is it an issue where instead you don’t want people selling the items (for a few copper or silver) and if you make it non-salable it’s also can’t be salvaged? Either way, come on! You’ve got full groups of staff guardians zerging events non-stop all over the place getting crazy drops. It’s not like 1-3 scraps of anything, or a few copper, will make any difference.

Here is another example of what I mean by “rewards” being a joke. They gated content, and then they give out fake reward! https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/168240/gw416.jpg
Credit to PrinceWarhero.4256 for SS

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m sorry…. are you guys not playing the same game that I am playing?

I get hundreds of tomes of knowledge every month.

How are any of you guys complaining about the speed at which you level up/stat gating?

My new toons are level 80 the first day they are created.

Play on your lvl 80’s to level ur alts…. otherwise ur doin’ it wrong.

Try to see things as a whole, rather then your own personal point of view.

I dont play Spvp as its boring as kitten and those tomes arent available from WvW, the game mode i play only.

Rogue.7856:

Here is another example of what I mean by “rewards” being a joke. They gated content, and then they give out fake reward! https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/168240/gw416.jpg
Credit to PrinceWarhero.4256 for SS

Define “fake reward” because it looks like there’s a real item or two there . . .

Rogue.7856:

Here is another example of what I mean by “rewards” being a joke. They gated content, and then they give out fake reward! https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/168240/gw416.jpg
Credit to PrinceWarhero.4256 for SS

Looks pretty decent to me. A nice booster (karma, speed boost or magic find) and a salvage kit. If I was a new player, one with no level 80s, I would be glad to get these items. Just because you, as a not new player, doesn’t value these items doesn’t mean they are fake.

Astral Projections.7320:

Rogue.7856:

Here is another example of what I mean by “rewards” being a joke. They gated content, and then they give out fake reward! https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/168240/gw416.jpg
Credit to PrinceWarhero.4256 for SS

Looks pretty decent to me. A nice booster (karma, speed boost or magic find) and a salvage kit. If I was a new player, one with no level 80s, I would be glad to get these items. Just because you, as a not new player, doesn’t value these items doesn’t mean they are fake.

I use Salvage Kits all the time, primarily to break down Fine (blue) or lower items. So, a free one? Score!

Lol, yeah its a hell of a reward.

Rogue.7856:

Lol, yeah its a hell of a reward.

Honestly, it’s the booster I would get more interested in. Especially if I, well, never bought Keys. There’s only so many avenues for you to get your hands on them.

Like I said, though, I’m weird in my salvage habits but I blow through kits quickly when actively playing. Can’t use it? Is it green? Is it worth more than 1s75c? If not, salvage it for materials. Especially medium or light armor – never seem to have enough leather.

Your absolutely right. Your going to need those boosters to speed to the fun stuff…

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Behellagh.1468:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m sorry…. are you guys not playing the same game that I am playing?

I get hundreds of tomes of knowledge every month.

How are any of you guys complaining about the speed at which you level up/stat gating?

My new toons are level 80 the first day they are created.

Play on your lvl 80’s to level ur alts…. otherwise ur doin’ it wrong.

Then you must be a PvPer because for PvEers, we don’t get those. Scrolls of Knowledge I’ve got tons of but that’s just skill points.

Oh, I have around 80 of the skill point scrolls sitting in my bank right now. I get those out the wazoo playing PvE.

The actually level-up tomes? I have like four or five, and I’m saving those for when I REALLY need them.

That is to say, I have a handful of level-up tomes despite two level 80’s, six other characters anywhere from level 16 to level 50, and one extra character that I occasionally do keyruns on.

I love how PvP players expect people to just be rolling in levelup tomes because they don’t play PvE enough to realize that, no, we don’t get those.

Also… “play on your level 80 to level your alts, or you’re doing it wrong”? I’m… I’m sorry that playing my character because I ENJOY LEVELING THEM UP is wrong. I didn’t realize there was a “right” way to play this game. Allow me to repent for my sins of ENJOYING THE MID-GAME LEVELING, I am a hethen for even THINKING such a thing!!

Jesus Christ, I hate people that say stupid kitten like “you’re doing it wrong”. It’s about what’s fun, not about what’s most efficient. If everyone lived only by efficiency, video games wouldn’t exist, because by definition they’re all nothing but a waste of time. -__-;

Collected skill scrolls do not help the new player at all.

Rogue.7856:

Your absolutely right. Your going to need those boosters to speed to the fun stuff…

Well we’re making progress – you’re admitting there’s fun stuff.

Rogue.7856:

Your absolutely right. Your going to need those boosters to speed to the fun stuff…

Magic find and karma booster don’t actually speed up the game…they just increase your reward for doing content you were doing anyway.