Guild Wars 2

Any other vets find the NPE and trait changes so off-putting that they just can’t make new characters anymore and struggle to keep interest in any character made after April 15th in general?

I have 2 characters in that position that I’ve been working at getting the traits for just to see how bad it is and still having to end up forking over gold for about half of them, and the other, I haven’t even bothered with. I deleted an old character because I decided I don’t like Charr for that class and now I just have an empty slot (on top of my already empty keyfarming slot) and every time I think it might be nice to make a new race/class combo for fun.. I remember the NPE and trait changes.. and change my mind and log out instead.

So they’re just 2 barren slots. Can’t get refunds on them, and I just can’t see myself making a new character and slogging through the new trait system much less all the level gates of the NPE again.

I’m very much as frustrated with the trait system as you seem to be, and if you haven’t yet, or haven’t for a while, I’d recommend posting in the dedicated Traits thread. Certainly for me the traits system as it stands is a huge deterrent for me playing other characters aside from my grandfathered ones. I’ll level them up, but I won’t use them after 80. While some will undoubtedly argue you can also buy traits, the cost there, in terms of gold and skill points, is off-putting to the altoholic. I calculated for the traits thread that if I were to just buy the traits for my non-grandfathered characters, it would set me back 1591g and 13320 skill points. At least that was how I calculated it given the information presented. if that information is right and my sums are correct, that is a heck of a wedge.

The NPE, for the most part I have less of an issue with. At first I was annoyed with it, but after their retuning a few days after release, to put some acquisitions closer to where they were before, I was a lot happier. The boring bits at the very start don’t last long for me, even shorter given I usually just pop a insta-20 scroll just to avoid that bit.

In terms of a wider view, I wonder about the system being a drag for players starting after those updates and on multiple characters. Would they also feel it hard to make multiple characters because of this system, and instead stick to one or two classes, and eventually get a bit bored of sticking to them.

Ultimately I do feel there are issues that prevent veterans, or at least a certain group (levellers and altoholics) from always being able to fully enjoy the game.

The traits are extremely frustrating, yes.

The NPE is annoying and, given the option, I would choose pre-NPE levelling. But it isn’t all that annoying, and you do get a lot of useful gear and rewards as you level up. I can live with it well enough, especially given the proliferation of lvl 20 scrolls and Tomes of Knowledge.

Yeah I’ve posted on that thread specific tasks that I found particularly a chore (100%‘ing zones (I’ve already got two 100% exploration characters, it gets old after awhile), story mode dungeons, event chains that are frequently bugged like ogre wars and commissar)

Thankfully I have more level 20 scrolls than I will ever use making new characters and more to come apparently indefinitely so at least the WORST aspects of the NPE are bypassed.

But I just don’t know what to do with the barren character slot.. cause it certainly isn’t going to be home to a new character for any time in the forseeable future.

I have created four new players since the change. I have enjoyed leveling them. I send them to the events to earn their attributes. They actually level fast enough just doing map completion. That is just my impression.

Devildoc.6721:

Yeah I’ve posted on that thread specific tasks that I found particularly a chore (100%‘ing zones (I’ve already got two 100% exploration characters, it gets old after awhile), story mode dungeons, event chains that are frequently bugged like ogre wars and commissar)

Thankfully I have more level 20 scrolls than I will ever use making new characters and more to come apparently indefinitely so at least the WORST aspects of the NPE are bypassed.

But I just don’t know what to do with the barren character slot.. cause it certainly isn’t going to be home to a new character for any time in the forseeable future.

Doubt there is much that can be done except eat the gem cost and hope Anet do turn things around in those areas. I imagine some of the more pressing aspects of these changes will be addressed eventually. For me that would already be too late in terms of trusting Anet and feeling valued as a player and as a customer.

Yeah, I’ve pretty much given up on leveling new characters, lol. If I find a build that interests me, I just try it out in PVP and use the tomes of knowledge I get from that to level, but I haven’t been bothering with the NPE or exploration. I’m just glad I finished 100% exploration and personal story on 2 of my characters before the NPE came out.

Playing the game exploration style, as in wandering, doing everything, 100%ing and moving on, the NPE changed nothing. All it really did was make level 1-15ish take ~90 minutes instead of the 6-12 hours it used to. In the end, when you look at all the level gated changes, they’re roughly the same as they were in terms of time played.

I’ve never had to deal with the trait hunting changes though because all my characters were made as placeholders a long time ago. How traits are acquired should be changed however. The basic traits should basically be given to you through normal play, for example, putting them as a reward in the personal story or having generic challenges, such as do X amount of events or dodge X amount of times. Only grandmaster traits should have specific challenges and even then, there should be multiple options for different play styles (WvW, PvP, groups, solo).

The only part of leveling new characters I don’t like is the trait system. I prefer the NPE however. I feel like characters level much faster.

And now, with the tomes I get in both PvP and even PvE, it’s less of a chore, assuming I want to use tomes to level. I hardly PvP at all as a percentage of time played, and I have over 40 level up scrolls.

But the trait system is admittedly frustrating. It means I’ll unlock or buy only what I need and not experiment with anything else.

I have so many level 1-20 boosters and tomes of knowledge that I can instantly go to level 80 whenever I want to make a new character.

Rage.9723:

I have so many level 1-20 boosters and tomes of knowledge that I can instantly go to level 80 whenever I want to make a new character.

It’s sorta nice that there are some ways now of getting tomes of knowledge outside of sPVP but still sPVP seems to be the fastest way to get them. Unfortunately I can’t stand sPVP. Instead of focusing on making new modes and new maps anet is diverting all their efforts into trying to coax people into what they have already which gets old after about oh, 2 matches.

Doesn’t help that generally in “competitive play” video games you get a bunch of children with no concept of sportsmanship into a competitive mode and it’s inherently the most toxic community you can imagine.

Since the NPE, I’ve leveled 2 new characters from 1-80. Granted, they were number 13 and 14 on the list, so I already knew what I was getting into, what I was planning to use them for and what Traits are worth my time and not. To be honest, there was no major change from when I was leveling my other characters, and I adore the new leveling bonuses I got through the grind. If anything, this NPE shouldn’t change much for “Vets” of the game since you should have plenty of Skill Point Scrolls wasting about in your bank anyway (I can never seem to have less than 150 or so myself). Any traits I needed was easily procured.

While I agree that the Implementation of the new Trait Gathering needs work, the very Idea of it is something I actually support. What they need to change is how most of the traits will either take forever to unlock (100% Completion of Harathi Hinterlands? No.), or requires a Team because you have to fight a Champion (For an Adept Trait? Come on). Overall, Traits should be more Challenging than Skill Challenges but less Challenging than Group Events, and you shouldn’t have to waste more than 10-15 minutes unlocking them if they catch your interest.

After first character done there should be option to turn it off in character creation. Unlocking traits is fun at first time but then its just frustrating.

NPE doesn’t really bother me .. but the trait changes are really really bad.

However i also simply powerlevel my new chars now to 80 with lvl 20 scroll, then
do some regular stuff until 29, craft to 50 and grind yellow mobs in Dredghaunt
with 100% exp from Birthdayboost + killstreak boost.

The traits i need i just buy ..

If they ever release new professions then I’m going to get only the traits I need. If it’s doable to solo then I’ll solo to get it. Otherwise I’ll buy it. It will mean though that char will not have a full set of traits, just the minimum needed for one build and whatever random traits I happen to get.

I’m not really seeing how the new system encourages build experimentation and flexibility.

I’ve got one character created after the trait redesign. This character, which I often refer to as my ‘NPE ele’, was level 4 when NPE was implemented. I played this character almost exclusively until she hit 80, at which point she had 11 traits unlocked, and a whopping 23 skill points at hand. Then I went on a ‘shopping spree’ to get traits for her, so that I could at last experiment with and learn new builds. I did manage to get a few out in the wild, so to speak, but encountered many a bug and many a ‘yeah, right’ along the way. I posted about it in the Traits thread.

A day or two ago, I got one of my remaining two pre-redesign characters to 80, which leaves me with a sylvari necro in the upper 30s. I’ll eventually get him to 80, at which point, I will have 14 level 80 characters.

While I have nothing positive or constructive to say about the NPE, I can live with it. The trait system redesign, on the other hand, is intolerable. So long as it remains in effect, I won’t create any new characters, or purchase any more gems.

I totally agree with the OP. I have deleted 2 post April characters, and was trying to level another. I lost heart at being level 52 with 2 traits (both from EOTM) and deleted it.

Its impossible for me to make new characters now.

For me, it isn’t so much the system as the fact that getting traits forces upon us tasks that are much higher than the tier they are meant for, and so much forced grouping in dungeons and the likes. You are at the mercy of other players (and their abilities) to succeed.

I’m having no problems. Created a character over the holidays. Using no scrolls, and only the dailies XP and rewards XP, lv 45 in two days.

As someone who like to play alts (and I mean really play them through the game instead of levelling them as fast as I can with scrolls and tomes), I have to say there’s hardly any fun left in that part of the game. Not so much because of the NPE (although that does have some drawbacks for me), but very much because of the trait revamp. Characters are now boring until very far into their levelling career. I levelled a new alt right after the trait revamp. Didn’t like it. Levelled another one to experience the NPE. Liked it even less. So, no more alts for me.

It’s telling that so many people point to scrolls and tomes as the solution to the boring pre-80s. The pre-80s shouldn’t be boring.

Well I leveled 5 characters now since the introduction of the NPE, I noticed a couple of things:

1) the levelling has increased in speed,
2) the experience is not as challenging as it used to be (which was just a little)
3) drops have improved, you do not have to buy stuff, and it no longer allws for personal thinking.
4) even though a lot of things are explained, the world became less interesting with:
-the removal of POI’s, Vistas, Skill challenges BLTP in 1-15 area’s. If you know what they are why not leave them the way they used to be before…. I found skill challenges the most enervating thing the first 2 or 3 characters when levelling up..
-the levelboundness of the personal story
-the changes in the personal story and the deterioration of the storyline
-the fact you do not have acces to usefull traits even though you have enough trait points, either due to lack of funds, or due to the fact some are hidden behind things which require ‘achievements’ unfit for your characters level
-the fact the traits are buyable (but no longer for 3 gold 10) for 100+ gold
-the fact the things mentioned above will lead to people just unlocking traits for 1 build, and 1 build only. dissalowing the freedom to experiment…

I notice these things because I’m interested in a new build I’ll just buy neccesary traits, which really annoys me each time I do so, or do not bother and think of a general build and have the feeling the game is not allowing me to improve on it by simple experimentation…

This also means I make a build and if it’s not interesting I park it, This isn’t a problem when having 5 or 15 characters, but it IS when you have only 1 or a few.

In the end I think the NPE was a bloodletting for the game, in versatility and in entertainment value, hampering 100% of the player base.

I made an ele about a week ago, and use tomes to power level it, the new trait system is horrible, I don’t know how they ever thought this was a NPE as its a terrible experience, alas sadly its been so long since it came into place, I cannot see Anet ever changing it,

ALL of the minor traits should be able to be unlocked in 1-15 zones, be it world events, map completion etc, its crazy that some low level traits require you to complete higher level zones/world events.

The only thing that works with the NPE is the rewards from personal story.

Ok I Did It.2854:

I made an ele about a week ago, and use tomes to power level it, the new trait system is horrible, I don’t know how they ever thought this was a NPE as its a terrible experience, alas sadly its been so long since it came into place, I cannot see Anet ever changing it,

ALL of the minor traits should be able to be unlocked in 1-15 zones, be it world events, map completion etc, its crazy that some low level traits require you to complete higher level zones/world events.

The only thing that works with the NPE is the rewards from personal story.

Th trait change came in six months before the NPE.

I feel bad for the people that like to roll alts. I am saving up all my leveling tomes and skill point scrolls for new races/classes if they ever come out and don’t change the NPE. I don’t want to have to be stuck leveling under this current system.

There have been a few times I have wanted to re-roll classes to different races and I have stopped myself from doing so because it’s more trouble than it’s worth to me. That shouldn’t be the case. Heck, if anything they would sell more character slots if they reverted the changes. Why would I buy a new character slot when the process to make a new character is so off putting to people like me?

Yargesh.4965:

Ok I Did It.2854:

I made an ele about a week ago, and use tomes to power level it, the new trait system is horrible, I don’t know how they ever thought this was a NPE as its a terrible experience, alas sadly its been so long since it came into place, I cannot see Anet ever changing it,

ALL of the minor traits should be able to be unlocked in 1-15 zones, be it world events, map completion etc, its crazy that some low level traits require you to complete higher level zones/world events.

The only thing that works with the NPE is the rewards from personal story.

Th trait change came in six months before the NPE.

I’m starting to believe no one rolled alts between that patch and the npe patch

Serophous.9085:

Yargesh.4965:

Ok I Did It.2854:

I made an ele about a week ago, and use tomes to power level it, the new trait system is horrible, I don’t know how they ever thought this was a NPE as its a terrible experience, alas sadly its been so long since it came into place, I cannot see Anet ever changing it,

ALL of the minor traits should be able to be unlocked in 1-15 zones, be it world events, map completion etc, its crazy that some low level traits require you to complete higher level zones/world events.

The only thing that works with the NPE is the rewards from personal story.

Th trait change came in six months before the NPE.

I’m starting to believe no one rolled alts between that patch and the npe patch

Seems to be so.

I love the concept of leveling up, so much so that in GW I had 26 toons.
And keeping in that tradition, I now have 17 now.
In the past 6 months, I have rolled 5 new toons.
The first three were to try out the new system. The last two were for diversity and storage.
There are points I like and there are points I don’t like about the NPE.
But for me, the most limiting factor, is the new trait system.
Traits that I had access to are gone, have to buy them now.
I dislike it so much that I won’t be rolling a new toon anytime soon.
(Yes I know the trait change came before the NPE change, did not like the trait change then, either)
I do like the most of the other aspects of the NPE though.

TheSwede.9512:

What they need to change is how most of the traits will either take forever to unlock (100% Completion of Harathi Hinterlands? No.), or requires a Team because you have to fight a Champion (For an Adept Trait? Come on). Overall, Traits should be more Challenging than Skill Challenges but less Challenging than Group Events, and you shouldn’t have to waste more than 10-15 minutes unlocking them if they catch your interest.

I am tired of these changes that direct you to play in this specific zone, etc. If they want us to “earn” traits through play, give us generic tasks that we can do in whatever zone we want to play in. Each completed task can give us a Trait Point in the appropriate tier which we can spend on whatever Trait in that tier we choose. Like if Jumping Puzzles are a task you can do to get an Adept Trait, you can do any Jumping Puzzle you choose. Or they could even time gate it if they want you to not do the same task over and over. You can get a Trait Point for each different Jumping Puzzle you finish or wait a week to do the same JP and get a Trait. Something like that.

OK! I think I found the thread where things got messed up. It was an old cdi thread from 2013 about horizontal progression. I believe its this because not only is the capturing skill suggested, but also a ‘wardrobe’ for skins and account bound dyes.

So a hit and miss cdi (please don’t hate me Chris).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first

I’ve never really been an alt-oholic in any game but have strongly considered creating my first alt in this game for a different Personal Story experience (my only GW2 character thus far is a male human ranger with whom I’ve only recently completed the Personal Story with).

Would it still be worth it to try an alt or has the NPE pretty much ruined the experience?

if you think that’s bad try being a new player. There are limitations that make no sense. Like being unable to see vistas and points of interest on the map until you hit level 18.

Torvic.8256:

I’ve never really been an alt-oholic in any game but have strongly considered creating my first alt in this game for a different Personal Story experience (my only GW2 character thus far is a male human ranger with whom I’ve only recently completed the Personal Story with).

Would it still be worth it to try an alt or has the NPE pretty much ruined the experience?

A few days ago, I finished leveling a warrior to test out the NPE. My take on it is that’s it’s pretty hit and miss. You get crafting bags on some level ups, some gear to save a bit of coin. You can turn off the “nag arrow” if you like. The miss, for me, would be things such as vistas not appearing on the map until later. Skill point challenges not being accessible until a later level (seriously, at level 4 I couldn’t start a skill challenge). You get an offhand weapon at level 2 but can’t use it till a later level. These are just a few of my “nit picks”.

My opinion is only about the NPE. The trait revamp came before the NPE. I despise the trait revamp..so much.

I don’t. Honestly that new trait system is ok to me, up to you to set up parties for whichever thing you have to do to get your traits. Plus as a vet you should be able to select the traits you want/need.
I feel it rly ok to play like that, that was a nice thing to do.

The leveling is fine for me and I don’t mind the changes all that much. One whole skill for the entirety of the tutorial is stupid and boring, but whatever I can get past that.

Traits? I hate the new trait system so much. I like the idea of unlocking some of the traits, but to not have anything at all free to start with sucks. The trait thread has some great ideas…it’s too bad they’re ignoring us now. They’ve made some changes, but not nearly enough.

Still making a few new characters because I wanted a Sylvari of every class. (have one more to go)

Level 20 scroll + tomes from PvP + friends who will let you take a low level on dungeons = extremely easy leveling. As a veteran player you should know what type of build you want, so you don’t have to buy every trait. It’s really not bad and some of the level rewards are nice.

Rage.9723:

I have so many level 1-20 boosters and tomes of knowledge that I can instantly go to level 80 whenever I want to make a new character.

I’m in the process of collecting enough tomes of knowledge so I can bypass the NPE if I choose to make another toon (which I won’t if I have to go through the NPE).

I made a Mesmer just to try out the NPE and see if my first impressions of the trait locking system were overblown.

They weren’t overblown at all. It was exactly as junked as it seemed. The NPE seems ill advised but not terrible to me (except the staggered bursts of stats instead of incremental stat growth at every level. That, I can’t imagine reasons for that don’t involve hangovers, mental illness or myopic hatred for sense and reason), but its the trait locking system that just murders everything as far as I’m concerned.

It’d probably be fine if it had been that way from the start, but they moved that goalpost right off the playing field and smashed it right into the windows of all of our cars in the parking lot.

They seem to think we wanted them to do that.

They seem to think this was a good idea.

I can’t agree. I can’t imagine the terms under which I could possibly agree.

I can’t imagine any explanation they could give that would move me one inch from my current conclusion that the trait locking change was just plain bad. It has zero chance of improving the quality of any pre-lock players’ experience, and we haven’t all just magically evaporated.

New players are going to hear about how it used to be. They’re going to hear all about how this is kitten. Some will agree, some won’t care, some will disagree, but it isn’t just going to go away like history never happened.

I made a Mesmer to try it out. I hate everything about the new trait system not even necessarily for what it is, but for what such a hamfisted change rammed up all our nostrils implies.

They really don’t care about what we think. Their words contrary are illusion and distraction – the evidence of all points relevant is in the actions taken.

Well, there it is. Plug your ears and look at what they do.

Seems to me that they work very hard to minimize the amount of work they have to do while maximizing the amount of time and money we’ll be funneled toward expending. While every business in any industry does this to many extents, most of them have to maintain a quality standard.

The quality standard of the design decisions ‘round here seems to be being eagerly tossed out the airlock, and I have no flippin’ clue why.

Gift basket updates from Anet to Anet, with lovely self-addressed cards and ribbons and bows. They sing a nice song about how its all for us, but if I plug my ears and look at what they do and who that actually benefits?

Yeah. ‘Kay. I’m not whitewashing your fence, Tom Sawyer. You have failed your bluff check.

I made one character after the NPE update. Partly to try it and because I always had that one slot left and no idea what to do with it.

I’m not fond of playing a lot of characters to begin with. But originally GW2 offered it as a very big ease of access to start a new class or character. I actually enjoyed alts for once in my life.

I like the level-up rewards and stuff and the locking off seems pointless. Well it is literally pointless to a Veteran since release.

But the traits unlocking still rubs me the wrong way every time. Sure I have the option to buy them with gold but I don’t want to buy every single trait because I don’t want to go play Eternal Battlegrounds or something else that is pretty obscure or an event that is broken, etc.

Needless to say that alt is almost 80 due to being the only character that wasn’t 80 that I use the level up scrolls on and she is now just a storage character. :/

Nope.

The changes made no difference whatsoever.

A storm in a teacup really.

4 Characters created post April 15. 1 deleted, 1 L12, 1 L34, 1 L48.

NPE

Hardly a ringing endorsement, but it’s not terrible for me.

• The tutorial was over so fast I hardly noticed I had one skill.
• I used to run around “leveling” my weapon skills. Now, I just level my character. It seems about the same amount of time to me.
• About the time I start noticing that on-level mobs are harder to kill, I level and get a stat boost.
• The rewards are mostly no different than other rewards in this game. They’re usually something I don’t care to use, but I do use one once in a while.
• The change I mostly notice is with skill points and utility skills. I find the rationing of skill points to be annoying. As a result I tend to forgo zone completion in favor of visiting several zones to mine skill points.

TRAIT REVAMP

I still find this to be a bad system for me. I am leveling these characters to test the systems, and am trying not to purchase traits as a result.

• I’d argue that unlocking traits supposedly available at L36 via content labelled L60, and various other levels much in excess of L36, is objectively bad. It’s an attempt to insert some depth into the trait system that does not exist otherwise. The problem with that is that there is no attempt to rank the traits within each tier except by the level of the content that unlocks them. In other games, “better” traits come later in the trait system. This is just not the case in GW2’s. It might be argued that even the later trait tiers do not in all cases offer better options. This makes the entire trait system seem haphazard, especially with regard to when one gets access to traits within the adept and master tiers.
• I also dislike the fact that trait acquisition has been pushed back in the leveling process. I’ll acceed to the possibility that this is because I got used to the old system. However, this also seems to me like an attempt to provide depth to the leveling process when there are 80 levels and only enough leveling benefits for, maybe, 40 levels. It also seems to me that traits play a large part in one’s build. The trait back loading means that for the majority of the leveling process, I don’t have access to my build. Since I find leveling to be the greatest strength of GW2, back loading traits is a major setback to my enjoyment of the game.

I have a warrior I started explicitly to test the new trait system/NPE. As of now, the only source of experience he gets are the exp scrolls you get from the various reward chests and whatever tomes of knowledge I get.

It’s actually demoralizing to play him. Not so much because of the NPE, but more the trait redesign, which means I won’t have a complete build on that character until I hit lvl 80.

I’m forced to assume that whoever thought up the new trait system doesn’t actually play the game.

TheSwede.9512:

Since the NPE, I’ve leveled 2 new characters from 1-80. Granted, they were number 13 and 14 on the list, so I already knew what I was getting into, what I was planning to use them for and what Traits are worth my time and not. To be honest, there was no major change from when I was leveling my other characters, and I adore the new leveling bonuses I got through the grind. If anything, this NPE shouldn’t change much for “Vets” of the game since you should have plenty of Skill Point Scrolls wasting about in your bank anyway (I can never seem to have less than 150 or so myself). Any traits I needed was easily procured.

While I agree that the Implementation of the new Trait Gathering needs work, the very Idea of it is something I actually support. What they need to change is how most of the traits will either take forever to unlock (100% Completion of Harathi Hinterlands? No.), or requires a Team because you have to fight a Champion (For an Adept Trait? Come on). Overall, Traits should be more Challenging than Skill Challenges but less Challenging than Group Events, and you shouldn’t have to waste more than 10-15 minutes unlocking them if they catch your interest.

You don’t convert skill points to gold?

I leveled my 2nd necro using an exp scroll and 40 tomes, so I just had to level 60-80 and it was unreal how weak I felt. I overall dont think the system is as bad as people make it out to be, but again, I started at level 60. Im making a 2nd guardian soon and I plan on using tomes to hit 80 because find and seek traits is ridiculous to me. I honestly like the new leveling system for NEW players, it is a good way for them to not get bored with having all their abilities from start to finish at leveling; its a complaint a lot of people had at launch that didnt stick around I remember. However I feel people with older accounts, 6+ months, year, whatever should not have to go through this system. The event hopping + gold spending and waste of skill points is just ridiculous for traits imo.

I’m on my 4th new character since April, and still enjoying myself.

The first one, my 2nd guardian, got to level 80 well before the NPE, with a bit over 20 traits at the time, and got the remaining traits for the two main builds I had in mind for her (one for dungeons and one for WvW) fairly quickly afterwards. By now, she’s got most of her traits unlocked, and I occasionally go out to seek one of the remaining ones whenever I feel like it.

The second one (my second ranger) was in the late 30s by the time the NPE hit, and got to enjoy the NPE changes for the remaining leveling. I only had a dungeon build I wanted to have her right away, and was lucky to get all but one of the traits unlocked organically during leveling, so she was ready to roll quickly. She still has a good amount of traits to unlock, but that’ll happen over time.

The third character (my 3rd ele) was started after the September patch to check out the NPE. I purposely leveled her without any scrolls (tomes I just stack in my bank anyway, I may just use them some day if I ever need more skill points ) to see how leveling feels with the changes. She’s been 80 for a while now, and I really enjoy playing her to the point where I play her (Norn) more than my other eles (Sylvari and Asura), despite the fact that she’s still missing a few traits that I’d like her to have. Still, even with the missing traits she plays just fine in both dungeons and WvW.

My latest character, a necromancer (the only class I haven’t gotten to 80 yet), was just started over the christmas holidays, and is in her 30s now. So far she’s only got a handfull of traits, but since she can’t slot any yet it’s not much of a loss . Overall, I still enjoy leveling new characters (and playing my 9 “old” 80s that were started before the trait changes).

Xander.9024:

Torvic.8256:

I’ve never really been an alt-oholic in any game but have strongly considered creating my first alt in this game for a different Personal Story experience (my only GW2 character thus far is a male human ranger with whom I’ve only recently completed the Personal Story with).

Would it still be worth it to try an alt or has the NPE pretty much ruined the experience?

A few days ago, I finished leveling a warrior to test out the NPE. My take on it is that’s it’s pretty hit and miss. You get crafting bags on some level ups, some gear to save a bit of coin. You can turn off the “nag arrow” if you like. The miss, for me, would be things such as vistas not appearing on the map until later. Skill point challenges not being accessible until a later level (seriously, at level 4 I couldn’t start a skill challenge). You get an offhand weapon at level 2 but can’t use it till a later level. These are just a few of my “nit picks”.

My opinion is only about the NPE. The trait revamp came before the NPE. I despise the trait revamp..so much.

The crafting mat bags are usually behind the tier that you’re on, like you’ll get a crafting bag sometime in the 40’s that’s for tier II crafting thats at level 25-35, and most the time that you get gear it doesn’t fit your build, like you get honed stat distribution when you use strong, and it all can’t be sold or salvaged.

My biggest gripe about the NPE for leveling though is the staggering of attibute points and skill points. Leveling is just no longer a reliable source of skill points until you’re level 80, and that’s something that doesn’t just stop at level 20-30 like all the other level gated garbage.

2 words. MERGE THREAD…

Anyway. Yes NPE is a balls-up, lets hope it gets fixed. Although most Vets can avoid most issues associated with it.

Novuake.2691:

2 words. MERGE THREAD…

Anyway. Yes NPE is a balls-up, lets hope it gets fixed. Although most Vets can avoid most issues associated with it.

Only if you like sPVP, which is not for everyone.

Devildoc.6721:

Only if you like sPVP, which is not for everyone.

Thus, most.

Although the new daily rewards and login rewards are pretty nice for alt leveling, not near as good as PvP though.

Devildoc.6721:

Any other vets find the NPE and trait changes so off-putting that they just can’t make new characters anymore and struggle to keep interest in any character made after April 15th in general?

I have 2 characters in that position that I’ve been working at getting the traits for just to see how bad it is and still having to end up forking over gold for about half of them, and the other, I haven’t even bothered with. I deleted an old character because I decided I don’t like Charr for that class and now I just have an empty slot (on top of my already empty keyfarming slot) and every time I think it might be nice to make a new race/class combo for fun.. I remember the NPE and trait changes.. and change my mind and log out instead.

So they’re just 2 barren slots. Can’t get refunds on them, and I just can’t see myself making a new character and slogging through the new trait system much less all the level gates of the NPE again.

I created an elementalist hottie. Used a 20lvl up scroll on her, and now im just roaming the maps from wp to wp and skill challenge to skill challenge. I just run from point a to b only talking to the npcs and completing events, which is nice to kow the land and its people. Ill eventually use the 30 tomes i have and the ones ill eventually get from spvp and, after hitting 80, ill decide what to do with the missing traits, depending on what i end up using the ele for (spvp or speed clear pve)

So far, im having fun (but i skipped the first 20 levels of no skills, of course)

A level 20 scroll, a few tomes, a birthday booster and 15 hours in eotm, as a vet it’s pretty easy to hit max level without much effort or time invested.

The trait thing sucks, but as a vet you probably have some idea of what you’re going to use the character for. The few characters I’ve leveled since the NPE just use meta builds, so I don’t have to unlock every trait. Both the gold cost and the skill point cost of unlocking a few traits is negligible, given that most of what you do at 80 gives scrolls and gold.

I am lucky I already have all 8 professions on 80 and don’t see a reason to create another of the same profession (did the same in GW1). But be cause I was very curious about the new trait system I tried and leveld another Engineer. Just took the scrool to 20 ofc. And then the catastrophe began: hours of waiting until MAYBE without timer and idea when, the event starts. Sometimes staying in the area for several hours without starting or I couldn’t get the information (never in the game itself, nor the internet) where the NPC would spawn to start an event to unlock a kittening adept trait. What the hell were they thinking? This is an absolute catastrophe and they should revert it immediately!