Guild Wars 2

Sokia.3710:

Shademehr.1397:

anzenketh.3759:

• Adapt Tier Traits (Unlocked at level 30)
• Elite Skill (Unlocked at level 40)
• Master Traits (Unlocked at level 60)
• Grandmaster Traits (Unlocked at level 80)

This sucks for WvW. I’ve got 8 alts (including the one I just started) and despite being a lowbie, I’ve still been pretty darned useful in WvW. These changes make it a lot more difficult to NOT be rally bait.

As someone who plays mostly WvW, I absolutely hate how a lot of low-level characters are rallybait. I used to start doing WvW at level 40 on most of my alts, and the April patch pretty much ruined that by making it to where you don’t get any good traits until level 60. This new patch will make it SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE for anyone trying to WvW on anything that isn’t close to max level.

For that matter, it seems that there are some huge downscaling issues in PvE. Can anyone confirm whether or not there are any huge upscaling issues in WvW? Because, I’d really like to make a level 2 ranger with certain equipment and see if I could just LOLkill everyone with mainhand axe. If downscaled characters are arbitrarily weaker than level-appropriate characters, I figured upscaled characters might actually be stronger than level 80 characters. I’m seriously thinking about testing that out. I might do that when I get off the forums.

In regards to uplevels, so many times I’ve been in a group, and you’re about to kill an enemy but they rally off of one of your low level allies who has already been downed. You don’t want to tell them to leave because in small groups even a low level could CC people (or at least they could back when they could learn all of their weapon skills) and in a zerg numbers can often be the deciding factor especially since the low levels can attack from range and hopefully not be targeted. So, you’re basically stuck with players who you KNOW will be rallybait, but you can’t really do anything about it because you might need them. It’s not even really their fault anyway because you used to be able to WvW with some effectiveness at level 40 or even 30 back when you could actually get trait points. But now that it’s basically impossible to get any good traits at that level, much less several, uplevels are massively less effective than they were a year ago especially if they are a profession such a mesmer which relies fairly heavily on traits. I guess if you are a mesmer you could always be a portal bot for your golems. But, that would only further be cementing your role as a mule who is useless in battle.

Upscales were ALWAYS horrible and rally bots in www. It isnt/wasnt thier fault and i said countless times upscaling should be much much more effective. No 1-2 traits havent changed that.

oshilator.4681:

Also.. if the China VIP system gets implemented here, I’m out.

That would cause me to /uninstall.

What is China’s VIP system?

I loved the freedom I had at low level when I started playing. Why is there this kind of system instead of optional tutorial which would preserve the freedom and options…

Yeah, I’m really upset about seeing level gating being added where it used not to exist.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I just want to quickly add, there are some errors on this chart of how stuff is unlocking, as well as 1st character vs. account unlocks when some of these systems were carried between regions. We’re trying to identify what happened and repair those things assigned the wrong account/character fields, as well as levels.

This makes sense, thank you for letting us know

But please, I’m begging you, improve the QA. Better yet, release a PTR. Use placeholder rewards/etc so people can’t use it to play the live market…

Draknar.5748:

Paradox.1380:

Sadly, every where I have posted this I have been ignored. What do I have to do? Make a video that disproves the other one? That will probably get ignored too.

Problem is, the forums are full of people that have already decided they dislike the game, and now they want everyone else to dislike the game as well. They don’t play regularly, most have already said “so glad I quit” or “now I’m never coming back”. They aren’t players. They are angry ex-players that are bored with their old MMOs, are bored with this one, are bored with all MMOs, and want to make sure everyone else feels the same way.

They also don’t typically play the content they complain about. They read other people complaining about the new content and nod their head in agreement, followed by a regurgitated version of the posts they’ve been reading.

They do read the contradicting posts but say to themselves “pfft, fanboys… it isn’t like that at all, they will defend anything, those stupid white knights, it’s really like what these other posters are saying which happens to be exactly in line with my current view of GW2 as a whole.”

I rolled an alt so I could have an informed opinion. While I can admit that it was slightly more frustrating not having everything unlocked as early as it used to be, the fact is, in ~two hours of play time I already hit 15, and I still have some Personal Story left that I can do for more levels. They seemed to have accelerated the leveling to the point where I would suggest that your overall playtime to unlock the skills has not changed, just the number next to your name…

Heck, I would even suggest that you unlock your skills in less overall play time, even though the level req is higher, but there would be no way to prove that, so it is a baseless claim, do with it what you will.

I have the flipside experience of that. I literally just got off the phone with a friend, after apologising to him for recommending the game. I’m going to be reimbursing him the wasted money.

I started an alt, to play along with him as he started fresh. I cannot comprehend how ANY of the changes made it into the game. IMO, the only worthwhile thing from the levelling changes are the popups telling you what you gained this level, and what you will gain on the next.

Locking weapon skills out so that it’ll be lvl 24 or so before you have all the weapon skills (including underwater)? Making it so that the pet cannot be controlled with F1-F3 skills until lvl 17? The story mode locking I don’t mind so much, since the story has always been terribad – but gating it wasn’t the solution. Best I can tell, it’s going to be level 40 before my newest char gets a full bar (elite included.) Honestly, I can’t be bothered.

There’s nothing I can come up with in defense of the new levelling system. I’m trying, but the best I can think of is “even a potato could learn it now”. I don’t see anyone having the patience to slog through this kitten to get to a point where you can actually have a build, and experiment.

Only solution that comes to mind – rollback ALL the levelling changes, then get feedback from their customers about what needs changing. Not what they think will allow someone with an IQ to rival a rock to play, but what actual, current players want.

Word-of-mouth will always be the best advertising, and right now, I can’t recommend anyone start playing.

(That said, playing on my lvl 80 chars is great, and the other features of the feature patch are petty nice – other than the broken dungeons, but I’m hoping for a hotfix there).

Later, eh?

Dan

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

eisberg.2379:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I just want to quickly add, there are some errors on this chart of how stuff is unlocking, as well as 1st character vs. account unlocks when some of these systems were carried between regions. We’re trying to identify what happened and repair those things assigned the wrong account/character fields, as well as levels.

Wait, are you saying that people who have leveled to level 80, when they make a new character, they won’t have to go through those unlocks like that? So what is supposed to happen for people with level 80s leveling an alt?

OMG I want to know too!

Yeah, a lot of people seem to miss what he said there. Because it sounds like the current system is not working as intended, and people need to relax till things are fixed. Cause it certainty sounds like the gating is literally only for new players, players on their first character. Which is probably why they call it “The New Player Experience” and not the “New Leveling Experience”

anzenketh.3759:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Traveller.7496:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

There are definitely bugs and some external miscommunication with the system and I want to listen some more before discussing.
Chris

This is interesting.

Chris is saying there has been external miscommunication about the new system. Could it be that you guys realize you went too far with the removing of functions and level gating it too extreme, and it was not supposed to dumb down the game quite this much?

Hi Traveller,

No not really. I m referring to some videos etc that aren’t quite factually correct in all areas and thus there are some misconceptions being propagated by those that have not played the through NPE yet.

Chris

Don’t want to de-rail the thread this was in so I thought I would clear this comment up a bit by starting a new topic.

There is some misconception about a lot of things that are level gated videos/some comments don’t tell the entire story. A lot of things that people think is level gated actually is not. This is due to the UI shows a Unlock symbol on some of these items. But in reality just like WvW and sPvP you can still preform the actions at Level 1. You are just unlocking the hint about the items.

The following are level gated items:

• Weapon skill 2 (Unlocked at level 2)
• Weapon skill 3 (Unlocked at level 3)
• Profession skill F1 (Unlocked at level 4)
• Rally(downstate) (Unlocked at level 5)
• Off-hand weapon slot (Unlocked at level 7)
• Weapon skill 4 (Unlocked at level 7)
• Underwater Combat (Unlocked at level 8 with underwater weapon skills 1 and 2)
• Personal story (Unlocked at level 10 in chapters every 10 levels)
• Weapon skill 5 (Unlocked at level 10)
• Utility Skill 1 (Unlocked at level 13)
• Underwater skill 3 (Unlocked at level 14)
• Weapon Swap (Unlocked at level 15)
• Down Skill 3 (Unlocked at level 19)
• Profession skill F3 (Unlocked at level 22)
• Underwater skill 5 (Unlocked at level 23
• Utility Skill 2 (Unlocked at level 24)
• Profession skill F4 (Unlocked at level 24)
• Adapt Tier Traits (Unlocked at level 30)
• Elite Skill (Unlocked at level 40)
• Master Traits (Unlocked at level 60)
• Grandmaster Traits (Unlocked at level 80)

The following items are not locked but do not appear on the minimap until the specified level.

• Points of Interest (level 7)
• Gathering Nodes (Level 9) – Nodes may have been removed in areas before this level. No there is no potato famine there is plenty of potato in Metrica Province.
• Vista (level 10)

Please note I do not necessarily agree with all of the changes. Specifically the changes to unlocking of weapon skills please see my feedback at the following link.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Learning-Curve/first#post4389552

All other items that are being reported as level locked are likely not. If you have a question about a particular item feel free to discuss it.

If you think I missed some or my information is incorrect please feel free to tell me so I will research it then inform you the results. I currently have enough characters spaced out on levels enough that I can get to most of the levels in a somewhat timely manner.

The majority of my source is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Level_rewards and me playing with the system itself yesterday to level 10.

To be honest I don’t think there is much misconception. Everything you did say is what most people are aware of (and are complaining about). The only misconception I did see was that one person did think he would not be able to dodge. But that was literally one person who created a thread to ask if that was true. (so he even know it might not be true).

Btw, you did forget activating skill-points. That is also locked out.

Also like Colin said in this thread but also in multiple other. Some stuff are bugs so the list it should be is not known yet. However notes are likely still gone anyway and cows might also still feet on amusement. Beside I’m not sure if it would be fun with your first character. But we will see when all bugs are gone.

I just wonder if this was developed with people in mind or just lobotomized shrimps… I made a new ele just to chec it out and took an experience scrol at l11 because the utter staleness of playing made me so mad i felt like ragequitting several times, not only did I lose acces to skillpoints like bert and erts glob of whatever I also couldn’t acces anything anymore. It was horrendous.

But the game can now be played by any age as long as you can read english (or german/spanish/french) So why lose the explorer feel and get perma satnav ingame? Why am I regarded as a lobotomized shrimp? Pls tell me….

Don’t fix, what ain’t broke. Anet did it. Worst thing: they don’t realize it. Ignorance is a bliss? Maybe they got affected by Anna’s Bliss? Watch series V (Visitors), if you don’t know what it means, haha.

First thing I learned about computers, and handling them: Don’t fix what ain’t broke, or you gonna break even more. Every time i Ignored this rule, it backfired. It’s mind blowing that the backfire is ignored by Anet.

Vayne.8563:

Reyouka.7039:

….. Rangers can’t actually control their pets, one of the main draws of the class, until level 24. Are you freaking kittenting me?

That’s not true. I control my pet on my ranger and I’m not level 24. From where are you getting your information?

From the chart posted, I assume, according to that F3 (recall) would unlock at level 22 and F4 (swap pets) would unlock at level 24, I’m hoping that is not the case with Rangers.

The fact of the matter is the easiest solution would be to change the entire system so anyone with an existing account (veteran) player can opt out of the new format. This should be for 1st character or accounts that have only been active for a short period of time and even with that some elements are still too dumbed down.

Also I truly believe that removing the vast majority of character movements while idle was a terrible decision because frankly it’s what sets GW2 apart from most MMO’s, the first time I logged into EsO I couldn’t believe how plastic and un-alive the world felt.

What were they thinking? Why making it like the Chinese version of the game? Are they seriously holding our hand , as if we were in kindergarten?

What happens if you go underwater before you get weapon skills?

Pifil.5193:

Vayne.8563:

Reyouka.7039:

….. Rangers can’t actually control their pets, one of the main draws of the class, until level 24. Are you freaking kittenting me?

That’s not true. I control my pet on my ranger and I’m not level 24. From where are you getting your information?

From the chart posted, I assume, according to that F3 (recall) would unlock at level 22 and F4 (swap pets) would unlock at level 24, I’m hoping that is not the case with Rangers.

I’m on a newly created ranger right now. I have all function skills unlocked. I’m level 17. The F2 skill was the last one to be unlocked several levels ago. And that was unlocked alone.

I’m going to go level a new ranger and see when it unlocks. I’m thinking around level 5, which takes maybe 20 minutes?

Ken DeBoer.9268:

What happens if you go underwater before you get weapon skills?

You use underwater skill 1… #2 is unlocked level 8, then 14, 17, and 23.

I’m going to post this from elsewhere:

Honestly, I’ve been leveling a character, brand new with nothing brought over from my bank equipping with heart vendor equips. It’s not that bad if your deal is doing hearts to level up early on. Although that’s the issue. This new system means you are doing the most boring and slow method of leveling because you almost can’t do anything else while locked out of soo many skills. All of those people saying it’s faster to level an alt now? Must never have leveled alts by doing anything other than hearts. It’s slower now to level an alt, plain and simply.The Queensdale train, the EotM train, kittening exploring even. They’ve all been hindered by this and left us with the only choice being hearts. Now, that’s fine and dandy for new players (really it is since they wouldn’t likely know about the trains their first go around anyway) however this ain’t cool for veterans. Not one bit. I don’t want to have to grind through the most boring part of leveling a character by only being left with redoing the most boring part of the game (heart completions).

Ken DeBoer.9268:

What happens if you go underwater before you get weapon skills?

You fight and fight and wonder what the heck is happening and cry out to the heavens ‘Why is this so confusing!’ and the answer is New Player Experience!

It’s not an error, it’s not miscommunication. It’s a badly designed system and now trying to save your faces with such a lame excuse. And if it’s really miscommunication I have to questions Anet staff competency really.
Awful system, just awful. Even locking dyes. Seriously what ?! gg for the RPers.

Just rollback.

Your constant changes that turn the game into some kind of mausoleum of communism is the reason I will never recommend GW2 to a friend.

Mank.2183:

Ken DeBoer.9268:

What happens if you go underwater before you get weapon skills?

You use underwater skill 1… #2 is unlocked level 8, then 14, 17, and 23.

Someone told me that you have to unlock underwater skill 1, and that you have to facetank underwater mobs before that.

Did I get trolled?

I’m still waiting for someone to post a complete list of everything that is level-gated. I’m really not kidding when I say that I’m having serious trouble determining which claims are real and which are made up. Some of the actual changes are so inane that it makes it hard to tell when trolls start spouting fake changes that don’t actually exist. It’s like Poe’s Law, but for Guild Wars.

We should all just accept the fact that NA players have become the QA for the China GW2 patches. You still want a bug free version of GW2, then you might as well install the Chinese version of the game.

Sokia.3710:

Mank.2183:

Ken DeBoer.9268:

What happens if you go underwater before you get weapon skills?

You use underwater skill 1… #2 is unlocked level 8, then 14, 17, and 23.

Someone told me that you have to unlock underwater skill 1, and that you have to facetank underwater mobs before that.

Did I get trolled?

I’m still waiting for someone to post a complete list of everything that is level-gated. I’m really not kidding when I say that I’m having serious trouble determining which claims are real and which are made up. Some of the actual changes are so inane that it makes it hard to tell when trolls start spouting fake changes that don’t actually exist. It’s like Poe’s Law, but for Guild Wars.

They removed water mobs from the parts of the game that are leveled before you unlock underwater combat. So if all you’re doing is following hearts (ugh) to level your brand new alt then you shouldn’t run into any underwater mobs.

I’m seriously at a point where i just don’t care anymore… It’s completely disappointing that my thoughts about the game and anet have crumbled after almost 9 years of playing. It’s kinda like loosing your best friend because he went insane… I definitely got my 60 bucks worth, but i know i’ve dumped at least 1000 bucks in the gem store and WAY more on our server community. It’s all just very disheartening.

eisberg.2379:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

eisberg.2379:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I just want to quickly add, there are some errors on this chart of how stuff is unlocking, as well as 1st character vs. account unlocks when some of these systems were carried between regions. We’re trying to identify what happened and repair those things assigned the wrong account/character fields, as well as levels.

Wait, are you saying that people who have leveled to level 80, when they make a new character, they won’t have to go through those unlocks like that? So what is supposed to happen for people with level 80s leveling an alt?

OMG I want to know too!

Yeah, a lot of people seem to miss what he said there. Because it sounds like the current system is not working as intended, and people need to relax till things are fixed. Cause it certainty sounds like the gating is literally only for new players, players on their first character. Which is probably why they call it “The New Player Experience” and not the “New Leveling Experience”

giving the players a way to “opt-out” of the NPE is not the answer. especially when the NPE does not foster the same enjoyment from leveling as the one veterans experienced. gating anything and locking stuff away does not foster anything other than frustration especially when it goes completely counter to why many people buy the game in the first place (very bait-and-switch). the game is supposed to teach you how best to play as you naturally play and not force you to play the game in a particular way.

i always thought that Claypool would be a great model for ANet to put in all starter zones to “teach” people the mechanics of the game. it does not spam your UI with pop-ups or gate skills/traits but instead naturally teaches players about timing and watching for animations. just expand the range and scope of activities and add this to every starting area, then just direct people to them. problem solved.

but now with this new gating system you cannot even help players build their characters correctly as they need to not only unlock certain skills, utilities, but ALSO traits and this creates a very fragmented player base with wildly different experiences and freedom of exploration. no longer can you just explore the maps as you need to first reach particular levels in order to gain skills, but then also do specific content to unlock traits. so everything is on rails now. it is really sad to see ANet turn their game into the antithesis of what drew many of us here in the first place.

ANet, i don’t know who/what is prompting the changes in philosophy and the decision to make all of the recent contentious shifts in priorities (starting in May 2013 for me), but i feel as though you are killing your own game. it may stay alive financially for a while but i feel that you are doing something far worse for the sake of money gained in the short term and that is long term brand recognition and player goodwill. you are well aware of the NCSoft brand causing many to not even consider GW2 due to their experiences with past NCSoft products. you admit yourselves, and also in light of your very bizarre marketing ploys, that the people responsible for the selling and marketing your game the most are we the players. and i feel that you have forgotten that and are hell bent on acquiring customers that don’t even exist yet to the exclusion of your current player-base. and with the recent announcement that you are not going to work on permanent content that players have actually asked for, it begs the question, “what do you guys spend your time doing at work all day?”. i hope that you guys can turn this around for i have had really great experiences in this game and do not want them to end over what seems like self-destructive behavior on the development side of things.

ANet (and whiteknights), it should also be noted that most of us voicing out rage and dissatisfaction really care about the game, we just don’t agree with you that this is the best way to go about it. if you are going to change game systems based on focus groups then you might consider listening to a different focus group, your current players instead.

please ANet build on the systems that made GW2 the fastest selling MMO in history and not squander what you worked so hard to achieve before release by restricting access and freedom to basic mechanics and integral traits and utilities. remember you are the company of innovation and willing to go on the road less traveled even if it is not the safest financially to go because you are courageous and unique in the MMO space. the recent changes in 2014 turn something unique into something generic and that is so sad to see.

Lostwingman.5034:

They removed water mobs from the parts of the game that are leveled before you unlock underwater combat. So if all you’re doing is following hearts (ugh) to level your brand new alt then you shouldn’t run into any underwater mobs.

Oh, I see. So, you do actually have to facetank mobs, but only if you are in an area where you are underleveled like that level three ranger that I saw on YouTube who managed to get into Frostgorge Sound by following the new compass system.

It’s getting quite clear that this isn’t the same Anet that released the game 2 years ago. Somewhere down the line the management changed and they decided to relaunch a “mainsteam” (dumbed down) version of the game, for “new players”.

Time-gating everything totally goes against open world immersion. It’s a really really really bad idea for a MMO. Nobody want’s to be spoon feed in an open world environment.

Wait LOL downed skill traits are unlocked incrementally and you think there’s nothing wrong with that? smh never played an Engineer have you!

Odeezee.7362:

i always thought that Claypool would be a great model for ANet to put in all starter zones to “teach” people the mechanics of the game.

Claypool is way too hard. I couldn’t just press F or spam autoattack to victory. I mean, I actually had to think and use my brain. I actually had to HOLD the 1 key down on my keyboard, and then release it at a certain time. And, let’s be honest, if someone is accustomed to being spoonfed everything, do you really think they would even think to listen to the instructor say “Hold……hold…….FIRE!” They would needed a pop-up to inform them to shoot the rifle when the dude says to fire.

That is way too complicated. What we really need is a true hand-holding tutorial instance, as well as really good tooltips and popups that explain everything in detail for all of the people who just can’t figure out things for themselves, and for those in which Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO they’ve ever played. But, I don’t think there’s any need for it to fundamentally affect the game or the leveling experience as a whole. At most, maybe they would need to turn the starter zones into “tutorial zones” which seems to be what they are trying to do. I might not mind if it brought back a little of what Pre-searing was like in the first Guild Wars. But, so far, I haven’t really seen any positive changes in that regard other than a dodging quest, extremely low level monsters being very easy, and a GPS, and getting rid of champion monsters. And even then, the first Guild Wars “tutorial” instance had difficult monsters, they were just blocked behind a party-wall so a new player wouldn’t just randomly stumble in there and get killed instantly.

Xillllix.3485:

It’s getting quite clear that this isn’t the same Anet that released the game 2 years ago. Somewhere down the line the management changed and they decided to relaunch a “mainsteam” (dumbed down) version of the game, for “new players”

That seems to be what’s going on. I hope it’s not, but that’s really what it looks like from where I’m sitting.

We used to always make fun of this game by calling it Casual Wars 2. It was a joke, mostly. It was meant in jest as a bit of fun to criticize the game while still recognizing that the game had a lot going for it. But, now you could probably call the game Casual Wars 2 without using any sarcasm. Every time I get back into this game, it seems that Arenanet caters to casual players more and more. I wouldn’t mind that if they didn’t change the entire game just to do it. I bought Guild Wars 2, not Casual Wars 2. I wish they had someone who could figure out how to adapt the game for casuals without changing the entire leveling experience, getting rid of fun content, removing options and freedom, and all of the other stuff that we’ve lost over the last half a year.

I mean, seriously, level-gating the personal story? Level-gating Skill Challenge? Well, technically, level-gating the activating of skill challenges. It’s horrible. My personal story feels much less personal when I have to feed a bunch of cows….. uh, entertain a bunch of cows to gain an arbitrary number of levels just to do a story quest which I was able to complete perfectly fine before without having to do all of this other stuff.

SirJack.4760:

Also, for Elementalists:
F1 (Fire): Unlocked by default
F2 (Water): Level 4
F3 (Air): Forgot, but it was 12-13 I think
F4 (Earth): Level 20 and still locked.

…seriously? The elementalist’s entire selling point is “master of the four elements”. Just about everyone who goes into the game wanting to play an ele has in mind what element they want to focus on (we even get a forehead gem declaring our devotion to the world). So what about that poor guy who has his heart set on an earth user but has to wait a third of the way to max level to play it? That’s like saying warriors can’t use greatswords or rifles until that level.

WatchTheShow.7203:

I really think level gating the profession F1-F4 skills was a terrible idea. Rangers will not have control over their pet until level 24. So every time a mob hits the ranger and the pet begins attacking, there is no way to recall it. When the ranger begins fighting something else, the pet will disengage, drag the previous mob with it, and engage the new target. Because most pets can’t handle 2 mobs at a time as a low level, it will die. Since rangers can’t switch pets until level 24, the ranger will become the new punching bag for the mobs.

And that’s like saying a profession can’t jump until 24th level. It’s not advanced class features, it’s basic character controls.

On a sidenote: I know nobody likes underwater combat, but that doesn’t mean they should stripmine the underwater content in the newbie zones just so new players aren’t accidentally exposed to it.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I just want to quickly add, there are some errors on this chart of how stuff is unlocking, as well as 1st character vs. account unlocks when some of these systems were carried between regions. We’re trying to identify what happened and repair those things assigned the wrong account/character fields, as well as levels.

This begs the question, how is it SUPPOSED to be? Would you mind sharing that list with us?

This gated leveling sucks, here’s a solution!

New Player – gated leveling

Existing Players (already level 80) – no gated leveling for addition characters (Alts).
Your sixth character shouldn’t be more pain to level than your first!

ColinJohanson.2394:

- Over a years worth of testing with new players found we were absolutely able to keep them both more engaged, and more likely to return to keep playing Gw2 as a result of the intended system.

Who? Where?

And how is THIS (see photo) better than what was there before at engaging new players?

ColinJohanson.2394:

snip

Exactly how much of this was influenced from KongZhong? Because by the looks of it, the direction you are taking this game is being HEAVILY influenced by metrics from CHINA GW2….You want to retain players? that’s not going to help. No one is going to keep playing this game because of the early levels…every MMORPG maker knows that endgame is how you retain players, not the early stages that get completed in less than a week…. so for the 10000th time, please work on a CONTENT PATCH FOR VETERANS. thats how you get new players to commit to this game and stay commited…. not by this pointless NPE.

Also I’m just curious here, you guys have had this NPE in the works for months and yet it still being released with numerous bugs and oversight? seriously? I’m not being rude, but I gotta ask, do you have more than 2 guys working for QA?

Sokia.3710:

Xillllix.3485:

It’s getting quite clear that this isn’t the same Anet that released the game 2 years ago. Somewhere down the line the management changed and they decided to relaunch a “mainsteam” (dumbed down) version of the game, for “new players”

That seems to be what’s going on. I hope it’s not, but that’s really what it looks like from where I’m sitting.

We used to always make fun of this game by calling it Casual Wars 2. It was a joke, mostly. It was meant in jest as a bit of fun to criticize the game while still recognizing that the game had a lot going for it. But, now you could probably call the game Casual Wars 2 without using any sarcasm. Every time I get back into this game, it seems that Arenanet caters to casual players more and more. I wouldn’t mind that if they didn’t change the entire game just to do it. I bought Guild Wars 2, not Casual Wars 2. I wish they had someone who could figure out how to adapt the game for casuals without changing the entire leveling experience, getting rid of fun content, removing options and freedom, and all of the other stuff that we’ve lost over the last half a year.

I mean, seriously, level-gating the personal story? Level-gating Skill Challenge? Well, technically, level-gating the activating of skill challenges. It’s horrible. My personal story feels much less personal when I have to feed a bunch of cows….. uh, entertain a bunch of cows to gain an arbitrary number of levels just to do a story quest which I was able to complete perfectly fine before without having to do all of this other stuff.

Wait….

so the game is actually announced as a casual game, they change direction in Nov 2012 because the 1% of players complain and now that they’ve finally returned to the track you think they should go back? How is that at all relevant to the problems with the new system of incrementation? Seriously, incrementation isn’t even something casuals asked for in the first place (which btw were the largest portion of the early purchases but I guess you knew that due to your attacks on casuals).

So they spend 2 years listening to the 1% and then decide like all of the other mmo’s out there that it’s too costly to continue listening to the 1% and they make a mistake like this one to try to get casual players they lost back into the game and you think that it’s due to the game being too casual for 2 years? Really? Have you fought Teq? Have you looked at how they returned CC to Orr? Did you pay attention at all to the number of times they’ve tried to lure my community to WvW?

This system isn’t too casual it’s an overdone solution to a non-problem which has happened multiple times in this game. Kit Refinement is the perfect example. Engineers were using kits too much, so kill something that doesn’t even affect why people are using kits at all and replace it with nonsense. That’s what’s happened here. There are 1.5 years of suggestions in the suggestions archive on how to better fix the progression/lack of rewards in the game and instead of them listening to that portion of the suggestions folder they tried to fix something that really wasn’t broken. That’s what casuals are seeing.

I am excited that they actually did include two suggestions from the suggestions archive in this patch but I have to wonder where these kinds of decisions are coming from. It’s fine if it happens once (even tho they’ve yet to fix the Engineers ability to remove conditions since they took away the free EG heal we had entirely) but to have it happen multiple times means there’s a pattern and we need to find the source and stop it from happening again so that real problems are addressed in the next feature patch!

Reyouka.7039:

….. Rangers can’t actually control their pets, one of the main draws of the class, until level 24. Are you freaking kittenting me?

pet controls come up at level 22, pet swapping at 24. I would have deleted my ranger long before that if I’d had to level it that way. We barely have control as is, why make it even WORSE??!

Dear sir Colin, please try to provide more care for lvl 80 instead making unneeded and stupid camera changes. Its not broken so dont fix it

Sola.7250:

This gated leveling sucks, here’s a solution!

New Player – gated leveling

Existing Players (already level 80) – no gated leveling for addition characters (Alts).
Your sixth character shouldn’t be more pain to level than your first!

It’s not. Level 1-15 is significantly faster now a lot of players can get there in 1-2 hours. This was not the case before. It is just different with something being different comes unlearning at times.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

- There is misinformation: Numerous systems that show up in the level up guide that teaches you about things in the game when you gain levels are not locked out, the system simply tells you they exist in the game to help give you a better list of things you can do. Just because it’s included in the level up guide, doesn’t mean it’s actually locked out. You can dodge from level one, jumping puzzle from level one, etc. There also appear to be a lot of folks chiming in who haven’t actually played with any of the system, and are making claims that aren’t remotely true.

Can you tell us if the missing off the map POIs and Vistas are intended or bugs?

What about the skill point challenges? Are those meant to be locked out as well?

Colin, just clear up one thing – There is 0% chance EU/NA GW2 gets a VIP system?

Level locking like this is bad, plain and simple.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Wanted to pop by and give another update on where we stand, as well as to help provide some information on some of the more common misconceptions we’ve seen floating around as well:

- There are bugs! We’ve seen the content direction system (the little arrow) pointing people at super high level maps when it shouldn’t, some systems/features not unlocking as intended for all characters on your account once your first learns them, some systems level gated that aren’t intended to be, balance issues where certain levels appear to be very out of whack, etc. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, our team is working to figure out what happened here and fix these as quickly as possible.

- There is misinformation: Numerous systems that show up in the level up guide that teaches you about things in the game when you gain levels are not locked out, the system simply tells you they exist in the game to help give you a better list of things you can do. Just because it’s included in the level up guide, doesn’t mean it’s actually locked out. You can dodge from level one, jumping puzzle from level one, etc. There also appear to be a lot of folks chiming in who haven’t actually played with any of the system, and are making claims that aren’t remotely true.

- There are some things happening at the wrong levels. Things like utility skills and elites are intended to come at approx. the same time they used to in actual game time, we sped up leveling for levels 1-15 and had them slide back in levels a bit to offset that pacing, they are not currently where we want them to be in the level up system. This was an oversight, and will absolutely be fixed.

- Not all of these changes were made as ways to teach the game, some of them are to provide a better sense of pacing, reward and progression. Early on we want to give a sense that you’re rapidly gaining new abilities, rewards, and learning new things as you level up. We added the level up reward messages, and the actual rewards themselves, and took abilities you’d usually use around that point in total game hours and presented them as unlocks (or things we teach that are already unlocked) to help give a better sense of pacing and progression.

With the addition of the new rewards, messaging, and level up screen to make leveling more exciting: we also wanted to make sure you had that feeling of excitement more often early on in the game, and presented new learning on a more regular cadence. So we greatly sped up leveling from levels 1-15. Many of the things unlocked at later levels are earned at about the same time period you used to start using them in the old system in actual real game time, we just staggered them out across the levels since we sped up leveling to make the game feel more rewarding early on.

- In general, this system is intended to be not only better for new players, but our hope is by the time it’s all in place you’ll find via the better rewards from levels 1-80 via the level up guide, the better rewards from personal story, the faster leveling from 1-15, and the ability to toggle the content direction system to help you with map complete will make this a better for experienced players as well.

- Over a years worth of testing with new players found we were absolutely able to keep them both more engaged, and more likely to return to keep playing Gw2 as a result of the intended system. That is at the end of the day, a win for all of us since all of you need more people to play with! However: if we find in the live environment that isn’t true and we’re not retaining new users better, we’ll absolutely both share that information with you, and continue to iterate to make it better. We keep very real time metrics of player retention for new users, and we’ll know very quickly how effective the work we’ve done is. I want to make it clear: what we used to have absolutely wasn’t good enough for our standards of retaining new users. Before we do some of the other things we want to do with Gw2, we had to fix this, period.

- Finally, I want to add that a few things (hello traits!) are things that can be improved for players who make multiple alts, we’re aware of this, and though company policy prevents us from discussing what’s in development: I can say we know Gw2 can be an even better game for people who love making alts in the long run, more info: when it’s ready™.

Thanks you for this. I never doubted you for a second (ask everyone else lol).

Scutilla.3072:

And that’s like saying a profession can’t jump until 24th level. It’s not advanced class features, it’s basic character controls.

I main a ranger, and I can confirm that pet controls are basic character controls. Mobs can aggro your pet, or you could accidentally get your pet to aggro something if you aren’t careful. So, yeah, it’s like saying that you can’t jump or you can’t strafe or you can’t backpedal, except that it’s not nearly as gamebreaking as any of those would be. But, fundamentally it is the same thing. Ranger profession skills are basic character controls, at least the F1 and the F3 are. The F4 not quite as much, and not really with the F2.

I know nobody likes underwater combat, but that doesn’t mean they should stripmine the underwater content in the newbie zones just so new players aren’t accidentally exposed to it.

I like the underwater combat, because I know everyone else neglects their gear. So, I can take a swim in the pool and LOLsmash their face in WvW mode. Some players who are dangerous to fight on land are laughably easy to kill in the water because they don’t know how to use their skills and they don’t even have exotic weapons. Ranger is pretty strong underwater anyway, so I already have an advantage (hey, who knew, the pre-patch ranger was good at something!)

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Wanted to pop by and give another update on where we stand, as well as to help provide some information on some of the more common misconceptions we’ve seen floating around as well:

- There are bugs! …

- There is misinformation: …

- There are some things happening at the wrong levels….

- Not all of these changes were made as ways to teach the game, some of them are to provide a better sense of pacing, reward and progression. …

<snippage>

- In general, this system is intended to be not only better for new players, but our hope is by the time it’s all in place you’ll find via the better rewards from levels 1-80 via the level up guide, the better rewards from personal story, the faster leveling from 1-15, and the ability to toggle the content direction system to help you with map complete will make this a better for experienced players as well.

- Over a years worth of testing with new players found we were absolutely able to keep them both more engaged, and more likely to return to keep playing Gw2 as a result of the intended system. …

- Finally, I want to add that a few things (hello traits!) are things that can be improved for players who make multiple alts, we’re aware of this, and though company policy prevents us from discussing what’s in development: I can say we know Gw2 can be an even better game for people who love making alts in the long run, more info: when it’s ready™.

Colin, in all seriousness, take this post and sticky the entire thing front and center. Or create a thread with this as the first post. The information in this post needs to be seen by more than just those curious enough to read this thread.

Perhaps even post a follow up directly to this post with direct examples of things that are not working as intended or are broken.

Doing this will only help both Anet and the players.

Thank you.

Cow Entertainment.

I will -never- forget that.

munkiman.3068:

Can you tell us if the missing off the map POIs and Vistas are intended or bugs?

What about the skill point challenges? Are those meant to be locked out as well?

If it is a bug it would be something that should be a account-wide unlock. Because well obviously a level 80 already knows about them so no point on hiding it from them.

ColinJohanson.2394:

- Not all of these changes were made as ways to teach the game, some of them are to provide a better sense of pacing, reward and progression. Early on we want to give a sense that you’re rapidly gaining new abilities, rewards, and learning new things as you level up. We added the level up reward messages, and the actual rewards themselves, and took abilities you’d usually use around that point in total game hours and presented them as unlocks (or things we teach that are already unlocked) to help give a better sense of pacing and progression.

Good sir, this system makes me want to never make an alt again.
Prior Feature Patch 2, I had to grind for XP, then to grind more XP for skill points to unlock them. Do the math how many skill points you need to unlock everything. I don’t want to explore the whole map just for kitten traits. So now I’ve unlocked only what I need for the build, nothing else. Fun times! Who even wants to experiment and make new builds..nah.
It was bad, you just managed to make it even worse. Just stop it already.
You say it’s a win for all because we need more people to play it. This is true, but this system turns off players. It doesn’t help at all but regardless all the negative feedback Anet gets, you prefer again to ignore everything and only re-adjust rather than re-work it.

Would it be possible instead to get an official list of what changes were intended? the release note don’t actually give details. this would go a long way to clearing up misconceptions and misunderstanding as well as helping identify which players are experiencing bugs as opposed to intended changes.