Guild Wars 2

So I couldn’t play for a while. And I just got back today, and decided to create a new character (actually I deleted two I had barely leveled up in favor of switching some races and classes, ad I have done a billion times). Anyway, I noticed that my weapon skills now unlocked according to level, not through combat, and that the last one unlocks at level 13 or something.

The thing I liked about GW2, the thing that made it different from other RPGs, was the fact that your main battle skills weren’t earned through out the game. It was a thing I swear I remember Arenanet boasting about. And now they’ve changed it for very silly reasons. It has totally put me off the game, to be honest.

Honestly, I like the new system better. Unlocking all of the skills on every weapon was beyond tedious – especially as an Elementalist or Necromancer (death shroud and underwater death shroud).

The update had some good and some bad. Skills be locked even longer than previously is the bad and better rewards while leveling is the good. I don’t think it’s too bad overall.

well, I guess the really bad is the personal story being all out of order and missing pieces. I don’t follow it anyways, so I was unaffected by that change.

Weapon skill 5 is unlocked at level 10, not 13. Level 10 is reached faster than before the NPE changes. It took me about two hours, and I was told I was really slow, that others were taking about an hour to get to level 10. You are very easily put off.

Auto attack to victory my friend. Screw playing around with different weapon / profession systems and learning as you go. Anet has dictated that it is too hard and complicated for you to do. So stand still and auto attack to victory. Feel the arduous grind – Anet wants you to do busy work.

Its a couple hours at most to get through this. It is probably even better for most because you don’t have to worry about unlocking the skills for the other weapons you might use. If this is the thing you come to the forums to complain about, you’re in really good shape.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Weapon skill 5 is unlocked at level 10, not 13. Level 10 is reached faster than before the NPE changes. It took me about two hours, and I was told I was really slow, that others were taking about an hour to get to level 10. You are very easily put off.

It can be done in 15 minutes if you know how

I also prefer the old system, but the new one isn’t such a big issue that it would put me off levelling new characters.

One advantage is that you unlock skills on all your weapons together so on professions like elementalist or warrior with a lot of weapon skills they probably unlock faster overall, and you don’t have to buy that weapons or wait for one to drop just to get the skills.

Although the downside of that is it gives you no incentive to try other weapons, and if you’re playing a profession you’re not familiar with and switch weapons you’ve got all the skills at once instead of learning them as you go.

When I started I was sure I knew what weapons I’d want on my ranger, ele and engineer and I ended up changing my mind on all 3 after I tried other weapons to unlock the skills. If the new system had been in place that would probably never have happened.

Because it was very confusing to understand the old system for new players /sarcasm off

I’m old and resistant to change.

But if you level through these that quickly what’s the point of levels?

Just wait until you get to the trait system at level 36.

The weird thing is, the old system was better for newer players (or, at least, players new to that class). The new system is better for people who already know what they’re doing.

I prefer the old one, myself. Unlocking weapon skills was an interesting thing to do while levelling, and it got you to try out all the different weapons which you normally wouldn’t touch in PvE.

qwrnrd.7496:

I’m old and resistant to change.

But if you level through these that quickly what’s the point of levels?

The levels exist for a sense of progression to draw a bigger crowd from people in the more common MMO field. If it weren’t for appealing to a larger crowd, I’m pretty sure levels wouldn’t exist in gw2.
Also, as the with Sept 9th feature patch, the early levels (1-15) are gotten much much more quickly, not the rest of the levels.

Olvendred.3027:

I prefer the old one, myself. Unlocking weapon skills was an interesting thing to do while levelling, and it got you to try out all the different weapons which you normally wouldn’t touch in PvE.

Actually had the converse effect for me: My first character, a ranger who I mained for 3 months, had GS, LB, SB , axe/axe and torch unlocked. I never tried horn or sword. And I guess I’m not the only one. I hated having to unlock new weaponskills, although looking the bar fillig up had something, as it meant that I had to stay in a lower level area for longer. And it’s not that common that the exact weapons drop, especially when someone doesn’t know about EotM.

Jana.6831:

Actually had the converse effect for me: My first character, a ranger who I mained for 3 months, had GS, LB, SB , axe/axe and torch unlocked. I never tried horn or sword. And I guess I’m not the only one. I hated having to unlock new weaponskills, although looking the bar fillig up had something, as it meant that I had to stay in a lower level area for longer. And it’s not that common that the exact weapons drop, especially when someone doesn’t know about EotM.

Weapon skills were tied to experience gained, not number of hits, so it was possible to instantly unlock all of a given weapon’s skills by swapping to it right before finishing a high level mob (dropping summoned weapons and kits in the case of elementalists and engineers). I was able to unlock all weapon skills for every class this way in just a few minutes, though I guess that supports the argument that people weren’t experimenting with weapons at early levels more than it supports the idea that it was easy to unlock skills :p

Pandaman.4758:

Weapon skills were tied to experience gained, not number of hits, so it was possible to instantly unlock all of a given weapon’s skills by swapping to it right before finishing a high level mob (dropping summoned weapons and kits in the case of elementalists and engineers). I was able to unlock all weapon skills for every class this way in just a few minutes, though I guess that supports the argument that people weren’t experimenting with weapons at early levels more than it supports the idea that it was easy to unlock skills :p

Oh, that sounds like fun and every new player thinks of this! – And I guess it didn’t depend on the experience but the kill otherwise you would get your weaponskill faster the more experience you get for the kill which means that lower levels would have gotten their skills faster but the contrahery was the case. Or maybe you got the skills faster the less experience you got.. but I actually don’t think so.

Jana.6831:

Pandaman.4758:

Weapon skills were tied to experience gained, not number of hits, so it was possible to instantly unlock all of a given weapon’s skills by swapping to it right before finishing a high level mob (dropping summoned weapons and kits in the case of elementalists and engineers). I was able to unlock all weapon skills for every class this way in just a few minutes, though I guess that supports the argument that people weren’t experimenting with weapons at early levels more than it supports the idea that it was easy to unlock skills :p

Oh, that sounds like fun and every new player thinks of this! – And I guess it didn’t depend on the experience but the kill otherwise you would get your weaponskill faster the more experience you get for the kill which means that lower levels would have gotten their skills faster but the contrahery was the case. Or maybe you got the skills faster the less experience you got.. but I actually don’t think so.

It was based on how much experience you gained from the kill.

The reason lower level players didn’t unlock them faster is they used to get experience more slowly, and therefore level up more slowly. It used to be that going from level 2-3 would take approximately the same amount of time as going from level 79-80.

That was changed in the same update that changed the weapon skill unlocks. (The 9th September Feature Pack.)

Danikat.8537:

Jana.6831:

Pandaman.4758:

Weapon skills were tied to experience gained, not number of hits, so it was possible to instantly unlock all of a given weapon’s skills by swapping to it right before finishing a high level mob (dropping summoned weapons and kits in the case of elementalists and engineers). I was able to unlock all weapon skills for every class this way in just a few minutes, though I guess that supports the argument that people weren’t experimenting with weapons at early levels more than it supports the idea that it was easy to unlock skills :p

Oh, that sounds like fun and every new player thinks of this! – And I guess it didn’t depend on the experience but the kill otherwise you would get your weaponskill faster the more experience you get for the kill which means that lower levels would have gotten their skills faster but the contrahery was the case. Or maybe you got the skills faster the less experience you got.. but I actually don’t think so.

It was based on how much experience you gained from the kill.

The reason lower level players didn’t unlock them faster is they used to get experience more slowly, and therefore level up more slowly. It used to be that going from level 2-3 would take approximately the same amount of time as going from level 79-80.

That was changed in the same update that changed the weapon skill unlocks. (The 9th September Feature Pack.)

1-10 was twice as fast as 10-11 or 79-80. Other than that, you’re essentially right.