Guild Wars 2

tl;dr version:
Go see a doctor please.

Long, ranty version with stories of ‘ye olden times’:
I remember when I first logged into this game back in Beta, what instantly caught my interest was the way that character progression and customization worked. Compared to other MMOs where you have to run back to town every 1-2 levels to learn skills from a trainer, in GW2 you could just pick up a weapon, whack enemies over the head with it and learn skills that way. You’d still have to get a Trait Book at levels 11, 40 and 60 to unlock the trait lines, but 3 ports and 3 purchases all the way from 1-80 wasn’t so bad.

Leveling was very fluid and a lot of fun. I must have leveled at least 20 characters to 80. For a lack of character slots and losing interest at lvl 80 I deleted most of them by now, but leveling them was great.
I know a lot of players don’t think leveling is an important aspect of MMOs and it’s all about the endgame – and don’t get me wrong I like the “endgame” too. The three characters I actively play at 80 have ascended gear and I was lucky enough to be able to craft a Sunrise as well – but to me, leveling is very important, I loved it. I’d level characters for fun, I’m just that rad. Having a fun leveling experience is also important to entice new players.

Anyway, with the Spring 2014 feature patch and now this September feature patch you took, and I’m not trying to sound dramatic here but that’s how I feel about it, you took all the fun out of leveling.

Trait system changes

Old system:
- Get 1 Trait Point every level from level 11 to 80.
- Unlock access to Adept Traits at level 11, Master Traits at level 40 and Grandmaster Traits at level 60.

New system: (Spring 2014 feature patch)
- Get 1 (5 in old system) Trait point at level 30, 36, 42, 48, 54
- Get 2 Trait points at level 66, 72, 78, 80
- Unlock Adept Traits at level 30, Master Traits at level 60 and Grandmaster Traits at level 80
- You are required to – and yes I have leveled three characters from level 1-80 since the new system, so I know the reality of it – excuse me you are required to travel all over the world map to unlock access to your traits. You COULD buy them from your profession trainer, but especially for new players this is VERY, VERY expensive (more expensive than unlocking them via Trait Manuals in the old system), and it also requires Skill Points of which you do not have such an abundance while leveling unless you know exactly which Utility Skills you’re going to want to use and don’t even bother unlocking the rest.

Not only is the new system more confusing than the old one, it also requires that players spend more money and/or more effort to unlock their Traits. Wasn’t the new system supposed to make leveling LESS confusing for new players? (Which wasn’t necessary in the first place!)

The new system also reduces the amount of customization available to your character while leveling. Traits unlock at a much later stage, the final and most important Trait Tier unlocks at level 80 as compared to level 60 in the old system.
Not only does that leave you with fewer build options, it also eliminates more specialized builds that require Master or Grandmaster Traits to work.

For example my first Engineer I leveled in the old system. It was actually my first character I got to 80. Total noob back then. The old system allowed me to try out all kinds of builds, try out the Traits, try out all the Utility Skills and Kits because I could spend my Skill points on them. This was fun. Being able to try out different builds and skills while leveling is fun. Customizing your character is fun and is an important aspect of a good MMO.
I then found at level 60 that the most effective way to level was to roll with the Grenade Kit & Grenadier Trait. Levels 60-80 were a breeze and and very enjoyable.

Now I leveled a Charr Engineer from 1-80 under the new system.
- not enough Skill Points to get all the Utility Skills and Kits (even though I completed every zone I was in)
- less Trait Points (while leveling) to try out different builds.
- to unlock the Traits that I needed I had to travel all over the world map to do a certain event or something.
And the worst part? You walked all the way there and the event that you need to do to unlock a Trait isn’t even taking place, so you have to wait for the event to start (and how are you supposed to know when that happens?) or you have to unlock the Trait via Trait Guide which is awfully expensive.
This must be extremely off-putting and awkward to new players. It certainly was to me and I’m a very experienced player. Luckily I have enough gold in my pockets to buy the Trait Guides from the trainers – new players don’t.

In short, now we have:
- Less customization
- More expenses
- More restrictions

I can bear the expenses, but less customization? Very, very bad.
Customization is a good thing, please don’t remove or reduce it. Players want options, possibilities. With the new system, there are so many restrictions on customizing your playstyle in place that leveling a new character is no longer fun.

The old system was good. Nobody ever complained about the old system. It wasn’t confusing to new players. It was fun to experiment.
Me and all my friends were new players too back then and we loved it, that’s why we stuck with Guild Wars 2.

And with the latest patch you put even more restrictions in place.

Weapon Skills & Utility Skills changes

Old system:
- Unlock Weapon Skills by fighting with your weapon, no level requirements
- Unlock Utility Skill Slots at levels 5, 10 and 20, Elite at level 30

New system: (September 2014 feature patch)
- Unlock Weapon Skill 2 at level 2, 3 at level 4, 4 at level 7 and 5 at level 10
- Unlock Utlity Skill Slots at levels 13, 24 and 35, Elite at level 40

Again, more restrictions, less customization.
More button 1 spamming, less varied play-styles.

And did you even think about professions that are more dependent on Utility Skill slots, like the Engineer?
Are you supposed to level to 13 without any kits? That is absurd. What are you going to do? Spam Rifle 1? That is not fun.

I can’t even begin to understand why you would implement such changes.

Please, revert all changes you made to Trait & Utility Skill systems back to the ones we had before the Spring 2014 feature patch.

Regards

Agree above both. I have 13 80s, 2 of them was leveled after last patch. Some changes were good on the condition that implemented megaserver, i.e. removed champ from (somehow is good intent), scheduled world bosses event. However, that that need to learn trait skill is extremely bad idea indeed. It does not increase the new player’s experience in fun way. For old player they can enough gold for buy. For new player they wont have enough money to buy and nor have ability to reach the place which ought to do the event for learning it. Last change patch, i barely feel good before level 36. Now i don’t feel that can experience fun at least after level 40. What the hell is it.

So instead of tutorials and in game explanations, we get time gates in the hope that people will be able to learn through osmosis. If the people they are aiming at couldn’t understand the last system, they sure as hell won’t get this system.

Now it’s like being on the rails of one of those children’s trains you see in a mall during Christmas, and being forced to sit there through the whole ride. I’m especially aggravated at the weapon skill and starter zone changes. Why am I dancing for cows now? The compass leads you to the nearest heart which isn’t always the easiest heart (someone would go from dancing for cows and rubbing corn stalks to fighting level 5 bandits at level 2, by just following the compass). You can’t even see nodes on the map. Was noticing “copper vein” too confusing???? Do they think that people wouldn’t be able to figure out that maybe they’ll need a mining pick before level 15 or whenever it is to see nodes?

Charlie.1726:

tl;dr version:
Go see a doctor please.

Lol?

The whole intro is kind of silly. I just walked to the garrison and let Logan Thackery kill everything. I mean, why fight? You don’t even unlock weapon skills, get no loot, and can’t level. What’s the point?

Yeah. I’m not going to bother leveling another character. It’s not worth the effort and gold now.

This topic is really joke ? Exping with this new feature is 3000x better lol.

GW2 exploration used to be the MMO equivalent of Skyrim: lots to learn and you were just thrust into it. You learned by DOING.

Now it’s the MMO equivalent of a traffic jam: you move extremely slowly from light to light, wondering why you ever left the house.

A TUTORIAL could have been added and would have solved the issues that the dev team saw. But instead, they used TIME GATES…which makes NO sense.