Guild Wars 2

Yay! It always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when Gaile posts something outside of Account Support! You rock!

Just out of interest, how soon will the NPE be in a state where it’s working more as intended, so ‘appropriate’ feedback can be provided?

I’d just like to say that I really don’t like the way stat progression is handled right now… I preferred incremental increases because it just makes logical sense. I think that trying to grant stats in bulk seems like a very shallow way of introducing a feeling of progression.

Also, I think it would be advisable to introduce traits much earlier because I’m finding levelling alts really boring right now If this were my first time playing the game, I’d be wondering why the combat system was so tedious for the first 36 levels. There is obviously a lot of depth once you start unlocking traits. However, it comes so late that I’d genuinely quit due to the initial boredom. Maybe this isn’t the ideal NPE?

Just thought it might be nice to give my main concerns

Asmodeus.5782:

I find it sad that most of you focus solely on the problems with gating, completely omitting the content removal/simplification issue. I guess my priorities are kinda skewed.

No, they are just your priorities. The “gating” is something that it seems many veterans don’t see as needed and that’s their priority. We’ve all really only got our own special interests at heart.

For the record, I share your priority except for calling it a priority. Its become a pet peeve, and eventually it’ll become a “oh yeah, I remember that”.

It’ll be interesting to see where the dev team go from here.

Well, I’ll throw out my opinions on the matter, never know if it’ll push something far enough to happen:

• The “fix” to the personal story needs to be a proper one, not just quickly adjusting a few lines of dialogue to pretend the greatest fear part never happened. Hopefully that arc wasn’t fully deleted and is available to reintroduce. I’d suggest starting the story at level 1 and keeping the level 10, 20, 30, etc thereafter this will make room for the greatest fear arc.
• Gathering, bundles, skill points, etc are not advanced mechanics and do not need to be gated or moved away from the beginning. Tell new players about these things later on, sure – otherwise you are just hurting anyone who has played a video game before.
• Remove the heal skill prompt arrow thingy! Keep it until level 10, only on the first character; or make it a toggle or something, please! I’ve actually died because of this kittening thing – it covers up your buff bar and makes things like poison hard to see, thus minimising the effectiveness of your heal. Besides that, I can imagine it being quite distracting in such a situation.
• Make traits more accessible. I know the trait change wasn’t a part of this update, but they do tie together very well. I’m completely fine with unlocking things, I really am, but can we be sensible here? I’d propose giving every character the first tier of traits for free, then making the later tiers account-wide. Unlocked the fourth trait tree’s VII on your guardian? Your thief and elementalist will have it too! It was earned, but not excessively gated.
• Make use of hints. Sure, I didn’t use them when I started, but that’s because I like to dive in and play around with a game’s mechanics. When a player unlocks, for example, traits – have a nice useful hint appear explaining them in some detail. If they want to read it another time, point out the hints menu or something.
• Make new players aware of other reference sources, including the wiki, the forums, the hints menu and other players. I can’t stress this enough. We have two years of veteran experience available here, we wouldn’t need any of these new player experience changes if people used them (and their own brains, I’m sorry, but the update did dumb things down to vegetable level).
• Make stain gain per-level again. This really messes up downscaling and such, enough said there.
• Maybe put a bit more useful information into the actual tutorial, instead of making everything before level 80 one huge tutorial. I’ve seen other games go in that direction and it’s just downhill from there (if you want an example, RuneScape).

Well, I’ve got the negatives out of the way. I’ll be fair and give praise where praise is due:

• The dodge tutorial. Quick, simple, to the point and not obstructive to existing players and people who know what they’re doing.
• The new hearts (the new ones, not the revamped ones). While I didn’t like to see my escaped cows event (blasted cows!) turned into cleaning out cobwebs, we can live without that. It was easier to reach a heart sooner into the game.
• The idea of making each level feel rewarding. While I don’t think you succeeded here, the idea was great and it’s definitely something to work with. Perhaps instead of gating information, stats and large blobs of skill points; you could give players an actual reward? There are some nice ones every so often, but maybe some fun items along the way? Or crafting materials and an explanation of how to craft your new reward from them?

Sorry for the lists not being balanced, but that just shows how I felt about the new player experience. For what it’s worth, I absolutely loved the reworked crafting UI, trading post UI (most of the hate seems to be from people who play trading post simulator, something else that needs to be addressed in my opinion), the miniatures/finishers UI and (again) the idea of collections. Please don’t let people get a stranglehold of the economy before the update’s even live. More non-tradeable, non-RNG-based ones would be great!

Anyway, I hope this wall of text helps.

Rogue.7856:

Yes I truly don’t see the problem in expressing how much we dislike something. I don’t want to sugar coat it… I absolutely hate all the gated content added, and it was already noted how much we hated the trait system and they clearly didn’t get the message. I want them to know that I feel its unacceptable to keep any of the gated changes and level locking story content. It’s unnecessary and limiting what we can do in the game.

But all of these changes aren’t about us. It’s about the new customer, one that may have never played an MMO before. I personally don’t have that much of a problem with the level gating IF play time it takes to get to 40 is the same as it was to get to 30 before. I’m all for removing info blocks for vets. Things like the map not having mat nodes or vistas.

But we as vets already know where to go to get find an actual TP NPC or buy gathering tools and salvage kits assuming we didn’t transfer the permanent ones over to the new character.

But stamping your feet every hour of every day isn’t going to get the bugs they’ve said they have found fixed and tweaks done any faster.

/cheer
/roar
/cartwheel
/somersault

I was worried about those.

Now that personal story rewards are at least half decent, I was planning on getting all characters through all available story.

But I don’t want to miss out things or get nonsensical stuff. I usually play with music or series in another computer, but for story I watch the whole thing.

Thank you for making this thread. I am loving the recent increase in communication.

Would just like to echo the sentiment that the Personal Story should go back to how it was before. I don’t really consider releasing it in chunks or gating it to be egregious problems. Those are just design decisions I might personally disagree with but I can see how they are reasonable. That’s not the issue.

Removing and re-ordering parts of the Personal Story is the problem. As many users have posted across numerous threads including this one, this creates serious plot holes. In particular, I have been involved in a discussion about how the Greatest Fear storyline was an important part of character development and added some depth to the story by making the character overcome and move past tragedy – an important element for a story like this.

The lack of the Greatest Fear plotline also means that many new things that never get explained just suddenly appear in Fort Trinity, like the Krait Orb that protects it. This would be very confusing for a player who was not able to see the story that explained that but who gets thrown right into Fort Trinity.

In the interests of preventing confusion, it seems like the players are on the same page: present the story in the same order in which it has always been told prior to this Feature Patch, with all of the steps, including Greatest Fear. It is the only way the plot will make sense.

Bellizare.5816:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

On the “New Players” that was used for making this NPE, did ANet even once think about whether or not those “New Players” may have been fanboys for another MMO and saw GW2 as a threat so they purposely gave ANet bogus feedback hoping ANet would make the changes and then alienate their WHOLE player base?

That seems pretty far fetched.

Being a security professional, network security professional, and a customer service professional; I have to think outside the box and view ALL possibilities.

I also know that if I can think of it, someone else can also think of it.

And it is not far fetched, it is actually “old skool” in marketing.

Behellagh.1468:

Rogue.7856:

Yes I truly don’t see the problem in expressing how much we dislike something. I don’t want to sugar coat it… I absolutely hate all the gated content added, and it was already noted how much we hated the trait system and they clearly didn’t get the message. I want them to know that I feel its unacceptable to keep any of the gated changes and level locking story content. It’s unnecessary and limiting what we can do in the game.

But all of these changes aren’t about us. It’s about the new customer, one that may have never played an MMO before. I personally don’t have that much of a problem with the level gating IF play time it takes to get to 40 is the same as it was to get to 30 before. I’m all for removing info blocks for vets. Things like the map not having mat nodes or vistas.

But we as vets already know where to go to get find an actual TP NPC or buy gathering tools and salvage kits assuming we didn’t transfer the permanent ones over to the new character.

But stamping your feet every hour of every day isn’t going to get the bugs they’ve said they have found fixed and tweaks done any faster.

I thought all veterans should have lvl20 scrolls(or at least most of them should have enough). That is why I’m complaining and many others too, because we dont’ actually get benefit from lvl1-15 being faster.

That being said, if the developer intent to juts ignore us, and continue with it, posting more about it may be nonconstructive.

I obviously understand the developer have lots of pressure to retain new players, and keep china customer and publisher happy. I think some of this changed happen, because the chinese publisher may some how suggest some system may come to us too.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality.

Chris

Hi, Chris. I come bearing messages from the cows in Queensdale.

Dam, those poor cows. I wonder why they couldn’t eat by themselves in the first place though, they were litteraly walking on their food from what I remember. Although I’m no farmer or anything, so what do I know, perhaps dancing is a new way of nutrition…

I remember the cows from the demos. Those little hearts when you feed them were one of the great joys of the early game.

Also, being unable to find a water bucket when the farmer is screaming “MY CROPS ARE BURNING!” or words to the effect, is heart breaking.

Nokaru.7831:

I’m going to just re-post this here: This is not an opinion piece. Here is perhaps the biggest and most subtle problem with the NPE that’s technically “working as intended” – The “stat burst” and the “stat slump" effect.

• Stat Burst: With the original leveling system, players would receive a small amount of stats each time they leveled, which made their character slowly get stronger each level. With the NPE changes, after level 4 the player will received a large chunk (or “burst”) of stats every 6 levels. This was likely to make certain thresholds feel more rewarding and fun. (“Stat burst” levels: 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40, 46, 52, 58, 64, 70, 76, 80)

• Stat Slump: The problem is that the “stat burst” power did not come out of no where. The power is redistributed from prior levels. The result is that players feel weaker than they did before during certain windows of leveling. This is being remarked as the “stat slump”, which is typically 2 to 4 levels prior to each threshold.

• The problem? If a player tries to fight a creature 1 or 2 levels higher than themselves, the “stat slump” complicates things. A level 9 creature is more powerful than a level 8; but a level 9 player is not inherently more powerful than a level 8. This is because the stats come in bursts for players, but gradually for monsters. This is not intuitive at all, and it makes it difficult for a player to judge how difficult a fight will be.
  
  Prior to the NPE, a level 8 player would size up a level 9 monster and conclude that it is only slightly stronger than themselves. With the new change however, this creature is actually 5 levels higher than him since the player is effectively level 4 stat wise. This problem continues all the throughout leveling during every “stat slump”
  
  It comes as no surprise to me that players are noticing that certain Personal Story missions are feeling much harder than they used to, even with all of their skills unlocked. This is a result of the “stat slump”, which is making players feel lower level than they actually are. (Because they effectively are a lower level)

More information is on this subject on these reddit threads:

• Stat Slump Stuff
• Downscaling & Stat Slump

In Conclusion (TLDR):

• Since you gain stats every 6 levels instead of every level, if you could not kill a creature at level 40, you will not be able to kill it at 44. A level 44 player is exactly as strong as a level 40, sans any gear changes. This phenomena happens frequently, and it has greatly changed the pacing and feel of leveling in GW2. Most offensively about this system is how subtle and non-intuitive for players to not stronger every level, yet creatures do. This change, more than any other, is the most dysfunctional one in the NPE, in their effort to create a “rewarding feeling” but instead it difficult to size up challenges now for players leveling.
  
  The ideal fix would be to un-do this redistribution and give the stats to the players gradually as it did in the past.

Absolutely this is something that should be looked into and adjusted.

laokoko.7403:

Behellagh.1468:

Rogue.7856:

Yes I truly don’t see the problem in expressing how much we dislike something. I don’t want to sugar coat it… I absolutely hate all the gated content added, and it was already noted how much we hated the trait system and they clearly didn’t get the message. I want them to know that I feel its unacceptable to keep any of the gated changes and level locking story content. It’s unnecessary and limiting what we can do in the game.

But all of these changes aren’t about us. It’s about the new customer, one that may have never played an MMO before. I personally don’t have that much of a problem with the level gating IF play time it takes to get to 40 is the same as it was to get to 30 before. I’m all for removing info blocks for vets. Things like the map not having mat nodes or vistas.

But we as vets already know where to go to get find an actual TP NPC or buy gathering tools and salvage kits assuming we didn’t transfer the permanent ones over to the new character.

But stamping your feet every hour of every day isn’t going to get the bugs they’ve said they have found fixed and tweaks done any faster.

I thought all veterans should have lvl20 scrolls(or at least most of them should have enough). That is why I’m complaining and many others too, because we dont’ actually get benefit from lvl1-15 being faster.

That being said, if the developer intent to juts ignore us, and continue with it, posting more about it may be nonconstructive.

I obviously understand the developer have lots of pressure to retain new players, and keep china customer and publisher happy. I think some of this changed happen, because the chinese publisher may some how suggest some system may come to us too.

Honestly I would have as a software designer made the various restrictions and level locks to be read from a file added to the build back when I was doing the China version. This way the build between China and NA/EU could have been customized with greater ease.

I would have also added phasing tech, which they sort of use with nodes, to make NPC vendors like the TP NPC to be visible to some players but not to others (read newbies) or have the NPC simply say to a new player to come back once they’ve gotten a bit more experience rather than eliminating them. Filter out the gathering tools and salvage kits from vendors instead of simply removing them.

Maybe it was done to encourage players to go into their race’s main city. My first character was a Norn and I didn’t take them to Hoelbrak until they was in their teens. I didn’t know what was on the other side of that swirly thing. The map was a blur. Not like we could see a big city from there like in Queensdale.

A suggestion that I’ve made before, that continues to be relevant with the NPE level gating. With things like utility skills (engineer) and downed skills being level gated to slowly introduce them to players, why not add these skills to the weapon skills and/or utility page on the Hero window so people can read the descriptions at their leisure? The underwater skills are already there, which is nice, but it has boggled my mind since launch that the downed skills aren’t there to read outside of frantic combat where you might not have time to hover over each skill and read them.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

eyestrain.3056:

From my experience playing a new character:

1. Unlocking skills all at once per weapon was more confusing for me, and more boring. Previously fights didnt feel like grind because I was unlocking skills along the way, and I had more time with one skill to feel what it did. Now I get a bunch at once and am slowed down by having to read every tool tip over and over and I don’t remember what each skill does as well.

2. Not gaining skill points each level… even with the big message saying i’m being rewarded and that i’ve “unlocked” things (many things arent locked to begin with) I dont feel each level is giving me progress toward new abilities.

3. The level up menu gives vague, incomplete information and if I want it off the screen quickly there’s no way for me to figure out later what it was telling me. It takes up the whole screen so if you impulse click on it in combat there’s no time to hover your mouse or click the things it wants you to. In my opinion a true tutorial in controlled instances would be better than these obtrusive, only half-informative, and easily missed pop ups.

4. Some world-building dialogue/heart quest options have been removed (the inquest no longer try to recruit you, no golem chess, you can’t feed bear cubs or play as a sylvan hound). What drew me to gw2 was its world, characters, visuals. These charming details help it stand out from the “kill 45 crawfish to proceed” competitors. Their absence is missed.

5. I am seriously not looking forward to buying/unlocking all of my traits.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/first

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!

Thanks for your feedback Eye.

Chris

Re point 1, the old way of unlocking weapons was grindy and boring to me and I greatly prefer this new way. For slot 4 and 5, it felt like it could take a long time to get those unlocked and with certain weapons, it certainly was slow. Unlocking all attunements/weapons on elementalist was horribly grindy and not fun, especially water and earth. And for other professions, if I wanted to unlock all weapon skills just to see what they were, I was forced to suffer through weapons I didn’t particularly find at all fun.

Weapons skills unlocking upon level is one of the better changes in my opinion and I wanted to offer this counter feedback.

eyestrain.3056:

From my experience playing a new character:

4. Some world-building dialogue/heart quest options have been removed (the inquest no longer try to recruit you, no golem chess, you can’t feed bear cubs or play as a sylvan hound). What drew me to gw2 was its world, characters, visuals. These charming details help it stand out from the “kill 45 crawfish to proceed” competitors. Their absence is missed.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!

I hope the heart quest weren’t change that much! For the record, I dislike most heart quest but being able to play as a Sylvari hound was fun. Having the inquest try to recruit me was lore inspiring. Also, being able to feed the cows in queensdale was also appeasing as a new player. But in regards to the inquest and sylvari hound, if those two were removed please bring them back. Two years later, I still remember those experiences I had as a new player.

Saucermote.9140:

A suggestion that I’ve made before, that continues to be relevant with the NPE level gating. With things like utility skills (engineer) and downed skills being level gated to slowly introduce them to players, why not add these skills to the weapon skills and/or utility page on the Hero window so people can read the descriptions at their leisure? The underwater skills are already there, which is nice, but it has boggled my mind since launch that the downed skills aren’t there to read outside of frantic combat where you might not have time to hover over each skill and read them.

Good, no, great suggestion.

Okay, two questions.

One: skill challenges. Can they be accessed before level 13 again, even if they don’t show up on the map?

And two: I understand the intent behind simplifying some of the early level quests. But things like golem chess were utterly charming! As well as tossing cannon balls via bundles at enemies, things like that. Is there any way we could golem chess somewhere in rata sum?

3rd question, speaking of bundles. I feel it’d be helpful to have a dodge-style always-popup tooltip on an early bundle in a safe area rather than to risk a newbie coming on to something taking his weapon skills away unexpectedly. Some fun bundle should be re-added to the newbie starting zone, early on.

They just need to activate the chess boards for vets and maybe if when you reached some level. There’s at least one board still there. You just couldn’t do anything.

Lothirieth.3408:

Re point 1, the old way of unlocking weapons was grindy and boring to me and I greatly prefer this new way. For slot 4 and 5, it felt like it could take a long time to get those unlocked and with certain weapons, it certainly was slow.

Was it eight levels of slow? I still think it’s insane having to wait until level 10 just to get my fifth weapon ability. Once you got past level three or four (I don’t know the exact point, maybe it was a little closer to ten), then every single kill would unlock the next weapon skill. It was weighted in such a way so that if you picked up a new weapon later in the game, it would unlock much quicker for you.

I understand grabbing all weapons for your profession at level 1 and unlocking them all would feel like it’s taking a long time, but really, there’s no reason to do that. If you have one or two preferred weapons, yeah, stick to those, but you really don’t need every single one for your class unlocked ASAP.

I bought gw2 a while back but only started playing a week ago. My highest level character is 40-something and I just started leveling a new character. The first was made a bit before the changes and the second after the changes.

My feedback:

I’d prefer that the navigation compass (when set to only show map completion stuff) would point to the nearest completion POI, Vista, Waypoint instead of -heavily- favoring hearts.

I agree with some of the other people here that the interactive objects like feeding the cow food, pouring water on the fires, turning into a sylvari hound really gives gw2 a higher-quality feel from the start. If anything you could keep the simple click-to-win mechanic, yet give people the option to do it the fun way if they so choose.

As for the weapon skills changes I like the fact everything is unlocked right away, once you hit a certain level. However changing to a new weapon and having all the skills unlocked instantly could be a bit overwhelming for some players.

I don’t personally enjoy the new story mode unlock system. With the old system I could continue the story as I was adventuring in those areas, or follow the story into new areas. With the new system I have to backtrack into areas that feel outdated and irrelevant to my character.

As for the leveling rewards, I like the new system of getting something nice every-time you level.

Thank you very much for the updates. <3

Personally, I feel like the personal story could be unlocked earlier. I like how I could gain experience by doing it as an alternative to heart quests.

Quite simply, the code needs to verify that you already have a L80. IF Account(L80) = TRUE, THEN RUN [Old], ELSE RUN [New].

Gonna start by explaining my experience; I’ve been in since beta and have five level 80 characters, a couple mid-levels and a couple still-20 characters (birthday bonus). After the furor erupted, I created a new guardian and worked through Plains of Ashford for about an hour to experience the NPE for myself and see if it was really that bad.

Much of what I noticed has been posted in this thread, and I’m going to expand on those things a little:

Nokaru.7831:

Here is perhaps the biggest and most subtle problem with the NPE that’s technically “working as intended” – The “stat burst” and the “stat slump" effect.

I am actually having a hard time understanding why this was considered good in the first place. The only idea I could come up with was that on those burst levels, you suddenly feel super strong – but if the tradeoff is feeling super wimpy in the meantime, it’s not worth it. Why not gain a little bit of stats every level? It would also serve to fill up the level-up menu, so it’s better in that way, as well.

eyestrain.3056:

1. Unlocking skills all at once per weapon was … more boring. Previously fights didnt feel like grind because I was unlocking skills along the way

I had the advantage of creating a new character in a class I already play, so I couldn’t speak to whether chunks of new skills are confusing. However, running around with only one skill, or maybe two after the opening instance, was boring as all get-out, and since killing bad guys barely made a dent in my XP bar, it did make the fights feel more grindy. I knew I would be doing this for a long time.

eyestrain.3056:

4. Some world-building dialogue/heart quest options have been removed… *What drew me to gw2 was its world, characters, visuals. These charming details help it stand out…

My guildies and regular play-mates can tell you how determined I have always been to complete hearts by non-combat methods as much as possible. Having to kill stuff is just not what thrills me.

I mean, there’s a special feeling for hauling out a big AoE and thrashing 6 guys at once, or finally taking down a champ by yourself for the first time – I’m not opposed to combat per se, but in general, killing is what I do on my way between other bits of content, or to grind out particular things I need (achievements, drops, etc).

Having the majority of those non-combat options taken away was a huge disappointment to me. Probably my biggest annoyance about the entire NPE. Especially with fewer fighting skills available, I’d so much rather be able to do some of those clicky, immersion-providing tasks. Exactly as stated here:

Eh, some rage and hyperbole is justified, I think… When I found out that the Metrica Inquest/shark event chain has been removed, I was dumbfounded. ….

What is left instead? Instead of feeding cows, running around with water, turning into a repair golem? Some generic combat without most conditions and pressing F for 10-15 levels. I mean… How does that even compare?

Exactly.

eyestrain.3056:

3. The level up menu gives vague, incomplete information…

The fact that devs had to come and explain that many of those things were not being UNLOCKED but just EXPLAINED in the level up menu should illustrate how unclear the menu is. Even putting the words “Learn about…” in front of the tutorial options would help out with that. (e.g. instead of just “Waypoints” make it say “Learn about Waypoints”). Luckily, I read the disclaimers about misinformation prior to rolling that character, and armed with that info, I was able to discern the difference between items that were just named, and items that had the words “You have unlocked” in front – because I was looking for it. Otherwise, in the midst of running around the world, I probably would not have noticed the “Unlocked” was present on some things and not on others.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

praise where praise is due:

• The dodge tutorial.
• The new hearts
• The idea of making each level feel rewarding.

This was spot on.

As far as things that I haven’t seen mentioned:

1. Not being able to acquire skill points, even when you were standing right at a skill point person/location, was INFURIATING. I do not see why new players cannot collect skill points from the get-go. Sure, they can’t USE any of the skill points until they unlock skill number seven, but to be standing right there at the skill guy and have him say " I’m busy right now…" that really rubbed me the wrong way.

2. The arrow when your hit points are low is probably useful for lowbies, but man, you only need it for a couple levels. Ideally once it has been flashed 3-5 times, regardless of level, don’t flash it again. It comes across rather insulting!

Thanks for listening!

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Repost from the “Communicating with you” thread:

What I don’t like about the NPE:

Personal Story
One thing I always hated about the Living Story was that it feels like timewarping every two weeks. The Personal Story on the other hand was able to win me over because I could decide when I want to drive my story forward. Now that is gone, now the story comes streamlined and packaged in small bits every time I level 10 levels.
The biggest gripe I have with the new system was that the old system was almost perfectly fine and could’ve been made perfect with just small changes. There is no need to “protect” the player from the story.
And if the rumors are correct, then they’ve cutted out part of the story and rearanged other parts, so they don’t even make sense anymore…

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I want to be able to access my story at any time. The PS was a great break from the grinding and gave a lot of experience, so it was both fun and rewarding.

However, I completed my Chapter 5 PS with my Thief recently. She got to level 51, and now I’ve been grinding her to level 60 as much as possible. She’s 56. And I don’t appreciate having to spend 9 levels of grinding events, hearts, etc. just to unlock Chapter 6!

I would like to see a rollback on this particular change. I think it would be more helpful than not to have the personal story be a break again.

Please change a lot back…for eg. and your sake You find me one gamer that finds it now fun that the Asura’n mini lake is devoid of anything. No offense but who came up with that?

Maybe you guys at Anet should chip in and buy them an account

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note we want to make the fixes and then have a focused discussion about the system (Probably here)

We really want to hear what you think once the system/content is functioning as designed.

Chris

What do I think?

I think it was a great idea and concept, which was mucked up in execution. Even after it gets functioning as designed, this period where it’s been FUBAR? That’s kind of done some lasting damage to your image and the brand.

Your devs have a lot of work ahead of them . . .

And btw, I think I might be sounding like a jerk, and I’m really not trying to be, I appreciate that the devs are trying right now, I’m just frustrated that so much of the time and effort they wasted on implementing the NPE could have been saved if they’d just discussed these changes before developing them. It’s like they spent hours working in the kitchen, promising a great surprise dinner and really putting forth a lot of genuine effort, and then “surprise, it’s shrimp pasta!” “I’m allergic to shellfish, which you would have known if only you’d asked first.”

And while they keep repeating that “it is their policy not to discuss things in development,” it’s their policy and they can and should change it because it’s unhelpful and destructive to the community. It’s like someone gets pulled over for swerving all over the road and says to the cop “I’m sorry my driving was so bad, but I put this blindfold on so. . . well what else can I do? Take the blindfold _off?”_

And on the flipside the community needs to recognise that there is a limit, or a boundary if you want, to how far they can go with expecting answers from questions. People may not be happy with it but it’s there.

But it’s self-imposed. It’s not like it’s the law that they cannot discuss things that are in development, they choose to have this rule. Chris may not have the power to throw of that rule on his own say-so, but ever dev that reads these boards should be fighting tooth and nail to have that rule overturned.

We really want to hear what you think once the system

laokoko.7403:

I think it is very constructive to tell the developer that we really hate it, and hope they just stop with have all this gated level unlock.

The thing is some people just think it is a hate thread and nonconstructive.

Hyperbole and rage isn’t constructive. Take a look at the guy posts from where I quoted from. And he is right. He gave a constructive and logical argument. With solutions. Most are just demanding that they get it their way. Some have actually tried the new system. They’ve invested their time in to it – to give an insightful opinion, to refute all the hyperbole and misconception. What everyone else wants…is the old system back. So hypothetically the game reverts back to the old system. Good, back to the other rage…releasing new, permanent content.

Paul, your post made no sense.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Lothirieth.3408:

Re point 1, the old way of unlocking weapons was grindy and boring to me and I greatly prefer this new way. For slot 4 and 5, it felt like it could take a long time to get those unlocked and with certain weapons, it certainly was slow.

Was it eight levels of slow? I still think it’s insane having to wait until level 10 just to get my fifth weapon ability. Once you got past level three or four (I don’t know the exact point, maybe it was a little closer to ten), then every single kill would unlock the next weapon skill. It was weighted in such a way so that if you picked up a new weapon later in the game, it would unlock much quicker for you.

I understand grabbing all weapons for your profession at level 1 and unlocking them all would feel like it’s taking a long time, but really, there’s no reason to do that. If you have one or two preferred weapons, yeah, stick to those, but you really don’t need every single one for your class unlocked ASAP.

I pretty much do that: unlock all weapons skills, less work to do later on. And I have a plethora of skills at my finger tips – equip weapon, off I go. No need to go around killing mobs to get weapon skills later on. It’s kind of ironic that you mention pick one or two, because thats what the new system does. Makes you pick a weapon and stick with it.

SRoode.7318:

Paul, your post made no sense.

You have to scroll up, I’ll do it for you if you need me to

Sigh, I shouldn’t have bothered, I see where you guys are coming from, I’ve instead moved m interest to zombie games. Just spent £650 on a card and psu for Dead Island 2, Dead Rising 3. You bobbleheads have fun!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

eyestrain.3056:

From my experience playing a new character:

1. Unlocking skills all at once per weapon was more confusing for me, and more boring. Previously fights didnt feel like grind because I was unlocking skills along the way, and I had more time with one skill to feel what it did. Now I get a bunch at once and am slowed down by having to read every tool tip over and over and I don’t remember what each skill does as well.

2. Not gaining skill points each level… even with the big message saying i’m being rewarded and that i’ve “unlocked” things (many things arent locked to begin with) I dont feel each level is giving me progress toward new abilities.

3. The level up menu gives vague, incomplete information and if I want it off the screen quickly there’s no way for me to figure out later what it was telling me. It takes up the whole screen so if you impulse click on it in combat there’s no time to hover your mouse or click the things it wants you to. In my opinion a true tutorial in controlled instances would be better than these obtrusive, only half-informative, and easily missed pop ups.

4. Some world-building dialogue/heart quest options have been removed (the inquest no longer try to recruit you, no golem chess, you can’t feed bear cubs or play as a sylvan hound). What drew me to gw2 was its world, characters, visuals. These charming details help it stand out from the “kill 45 crawfish to proceed” competitors. Their absence is missed.

5. I am seriously not looking forward to buying/unlocking all of my traits.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/first

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!

Thanks for your feedback Eye.

Chris

1, 2 and 4 are exactly how I feel

I think the level up menus are actually helpful and its kinda cool to get loot every level.

Unlocking the traits I’m 50/50 on. The first time I unlocked a trait was amazing! It was so much fun and felt really good. The problem though is that the trait was useless for my play style and unlocking each one is not equal. If you got unlock points based on which one you did e.g. Do one of the challenges that would reward you an adept trait, instead gives you a point to unlock which ever adept trait you would like.

I am happy to know that you guys are looking into this. Thanks so much.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note we want to make the fixes and then have a focused discussion about the system (Probably here)

We really want to hear what you think once the system/content is functioning as designed.

Chris

As a veteran, leveling with multiple characters is tiring and not engaging when your offhand weapon isn’t available until at least 7.
Combine that with not getting the most out of your weapons until 10 really kills the fun of creating alts for some experienced players.

I understand that the NPE is a way to help newbies take it slow, but can there be a work around for the more experienced?

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Plot holes and story inconsistencies that may have been introduced with story

Plot holes? What plot holes???

I’m doing my PS as soon as I’m able and I don’t want to find plot holes so if anyone can tell me which chapter(s) have plot holes, I will be most grateful.

CalamityO.2890:

laokoko.7403:

I think it is very constructive to tell the developer that we really hate it, and hope they just stop with have all this gated level unlock.

The thing is some people just think it is a hate thread and nonconstructive.

Hyperbole and rage isn’t constructive. Take a look at the guy posts from where I quoted from. And he is right. He gave a constructive and logical argument. With solutions. Most are just demanding that they get it their way. Some have actually tried the new system. They’ve invested their time in to it – to give an insightful opinion, to refute all the hyperbole and misconception. What everyone else wants…is the old system back. So hypothetically the game reverts back to the old system. Good, back to the other rage…releasing new, permanent content.

Right, and you are using hyperbole even more than other people does. Linking people who complain as hyperbole and rage.

If people don’t like the way game is design, they are free to express their opinion. You dont’ have to agree with them, because that is their personal opinion.

You act like people agreeing with anet are the one refute all the hyperbole and misconception. And anyone complaining is just raging and hyperbole.

I’ve leveled 2 characters with the NPE to 30 and here is my feedback:

Things I loved:

• Skill Unlocking – I love that its level based and I don’t have to hunt down every weapon every character and then proceed to kill monsters over and over to unlock the skills I want. It’s all done by level 10 and as someone from an Alt perspective I like this.
• Level Pacing – Now that you fixed the slump there in the 20s (especially level 29; thanks BTW), I love the new pacing. Being able to complete one zone and actually be able to hit the next zone is lovely.
• New Reward Structure – Love everything about this. It is exciting to level up.

Things that were weird that I didn’t like:

• Bundles Disabled – Not a big deal and I understand it, but Diving goggles? Please allow us to at least use those.
  *No Skill Points on Level Up – Not even after 30. I have to wait until certain levels for a cluster of Skill Points to play around with once I’ve unlocked the utilities. This is strange and counter intuitive for me.

daimasei.4091:

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Plot holes and story inconsistencies that may have been introduced with story

Plot holes? What plot holes???

I’m doing my PS as soon as I’m able and I don’t want to find plot holes so if anyone can tell me which chapter(s) have plot holes, I will be most grateful.

They re-ordered how the Personal Story plays out in Orr. Generally, toward the end, some of the things that used to happen last now happen first, and then the lead-up to them happens. People talk about things as if they have already happened, but before they occur. They happen later, but it’s not meant to be a Tarantino-like device and it’s really confusing.

Of personal interest to me, they also removed the Greatest Fear stories entirely, which makes certain things at Fort Trinity make less sense. The Greatest Fear stories were also a major part of the plot where your character has to deal with and accept a personal failure and move beyond it. It gives (gave) motivation to later scenes and was, in my opinion at least, a really important character growth moment that is absent throughout much of the story. The story just seems more shallow without the Greatest Fear storylines.

I think these are the major Personal Story plot holes they are likely talking about.

Thanks for the posts, Gaile (hi Gaile! Nice to see you outside of the Account Issues forum ) and Chris. My thoughts on what I’ve seen of the NPE are below:

Good stuff:

• I REALLY like the new Dodging tutorial. It teaches players how to dodge, and is setup in a way that they can familiarise themselves with the distance and nuances of the maneuver. The little chest with a small reward is a nice touch too (although it seems that the latest patch made it so you can’t open it if you’re too high level. I’d like to see that reverted).
• The new level up reward structure. I’ve gained a few levels on my mule since this went in, and generally it’s pretty nice. You do tend to get some useful stuff as part of leveling, although I would suggest that the rewards might be buffed just a tad across all levels. A message telling me “you can now do Cauduceus’ Manor Explorable!” doesn’t exactly feel rewarding (particularly if I’m a player who doesn’t like dungeons). Each level should give an item of gear, some crafting materials etc. Nothing too gamebreaking, but enough to let players feel like each level is a small windfall.
• These are probably not part of the NPE, but I loved the new changes to the crafting windows, the Collections, and the new crafting backpieces.

Stuff that needs improvement:

• PLEASE revert the changes to the Personal Story. Or alternatively, push back the final battle against Zhaitan to a new Chapter 9 so that we can keep the existing story steps. A lot of players have complained that the removal of various steps in the Personal Story means there’s a lot of new plot holes, or where lore isn’t properly introduced to explain how our character knows things. (Remember the whole “How does my character know the name Mordremoth??” debacle? Let’s not go through that again.)
• Allow players to learn game mechanics at their own pace. Gathering, and skill points should not be gated or hidden. There were loads of players in Plains of Ashford the other day going, “Why can’t I talk to Titus Gear-something? Is he bugged? What does the symbol over his head mean?” By all means, if players are still unfamiliar with the mechanics by a certain level, tell them about it. But allow players the freedom to explore and learn at their own pace. There’s no reason to hold back the gifted kid just because the kid next to him is having trouble mastering the previous lesson.
• On a related note to the above, bring back the ability to use bundle items in early zones. Part of the appeal of GW2 when I first started was going up to the first Heart in Queensdale and going, “Wait… So instead of just killing 10 rats/worms, I can opt to just water crops or feed cows instead? That’s SO COOL!” It felt like I had choice in how I wanted to do the “quest”, and it was a breath of fresh air in the tired old system of how MMO’s did early levelling.
• The removal of bundle items also seems to have caused a whole bunch of other bugs across the game related to bundles, so that’s further impetus to keep things the way they were before.
• On a personal request, can you please have someone look at that hideous bug that causes Necromancer minions to die whenever your scaled level changes if you have Flesh of the Master traited? It’s really, really, REALLY annoying.

Other ideas:

• While I do like the ability to unlock traits by doing game content, I feel that it’s a bit too restrictive (and often held hostage by bugged events rendering players unable to complete the content in question to get the trait). What I’d like to see is a more open way of unlocking traits, by making various game accomplishments give Trait Manuals. These Manuals come in Adept/Master/Grandmaster tiers, and each one allows you to learn one trait of the appropriate level. These Manuals are earned in similar fashion to how traits are unlocked now, so a player could earn a Master manual by:

- Map completion of a level 30 – 40 map
- Capturing a specific Tower in WvW
- Killing the Shatterer
- Doing a Jumping Puzzle in a level 30 – 40 map
- Just paying 50 silver + 5 skill points to a Trainer.

This gives players a lot more freedom to tweak their characters by doing content they enjoy.

CalamityO.2890:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Lothirieth.3408:

Re point 1, the old way of unlocking weapons was grindy and boring to me and I greatly prefer this new way. For slot 4 and 5, it felt like it could take a long time to get those unlocked and with certain weapons, it certainly was slow.

Was it eight levels of slow? I still think it’s insane having to wait until level 10 just to get my fifth weapon ability. Once you got past level three or four (I don’t know the exact point, maybe it was a little closer to ten), then every single kill would unlock the next weapon skill. It was weighted in such a way so that if you picked up a new weapon later in the game, it would unlock much quicker for you.

I understand grabbing all weapons for your profession at level 1 and unlocking them all would feel like it’s taking a long time, but really, there’s no reason to do that. If you have one or two preferred weapons, yeah, stick to those, but you really don’t need every single one for your class unlocked ASAP.

I pretty much do that: unlock all weapons skills, less work to do later on.

Actually, as I explained in the post above, it’s more work to do it upfront than to leave it sit for later… sooooo… :-|

And how is the current implementation forcing you to pick one or two weapons? It’s not doing that at all. With the new system, unlocking slot 3 by level-up unlocks it for ALL weapons, not just the one you’re currently using.

Use only a greatsword until level 10, and then switch to whatever weapon you want (or jump around and switch weapons every five minutes), and you’ll have all five abilities unlocked for all weapons immediately.

I think a lot of people disliked the old system because they didn’t understand it. Heck, most of the posts about the weapon system here seems to confirm that. If you waited until, say, level 5 or 6 to start unlocking skills for new weapons, then you would unlock each new ability after a single enemy kill. If you started doing it at level 1 or 2, you would take more and more kills to unlock each subsequent ability.

Awesome changes just went live I see

What about underwater skills unlocking faster?
Level 23 to unlock all underwater skills is still a bit far away.

And any word on account based trait unlocks (mostly in regards to PvP traits)

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Plot holes and story inconsistencies that may have been introduced with story realignment

The best way to fix these plot holes is to put all the personal story chapters back into the game in the correct order. Most players think the that quality of the story is more important than the way it is packaged into bits. Hacking parts out of the story may be convenient for someone but it is not convenient for the players who are trying to follow it. We hope the design team will realize this too.

New Patch is out.

For you gate haters.

• Utility slot skills 2 and 3 now unlock at levels 17 and 19, respectively.
• The elite slot skill now unlocks at level 31.
• Elementalist F4 commands, mesmer F3 commands, and guardian F3 commands now unlock at level 17.
• Mesmer F4 commands and engineer F4 commands now unlock at level 19.
• Skill Challenges are now visible at level 13 instead of level 15.

Also a number of bugs including the diving goggles fixed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-9-2014/4420127

Dalris Thane.6314:

Why do I suspect that, though it’s nearly word for word, it’s “unacceptable” coming from a player…

because anyone with a brain can read the different intent/context between his post and yours.

why you’d be an smart-kitten to the most open/engaging dev is beyond me…

eekzie.5640:

Awesome changes just went live I see

What about underwater skills unlocking faster?
Level 23 to unlock all underwater skills is still a bit far away.

And any word on account based trait unlocks (mostly in regards to PvP traits)

Don’t go near the water>

Behellagh.1468:

New Patch is out.

For you gate haters.

• Utility slot skills 2 and 3 now unlock at levels 17 and 19, respectively.
• The elite slot skill now unlocks at level 31.
• Elementalist F4 commands, mesmer F3 commands, and guardian F3 commands now unlock at level 17.
• Mesmer F4 commands and engineer F4 commands now unlock at level 19.
• Skill Challenges are now visible at level 13 instead of level 15.

Also a number of bugs including the diving goggles fixed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-9-2014/4420127

these changes/fixes don’t alter or answer the argument against the NPE….it just makes a bland/ overly simplistic experience go slightly quicker.