Guild Wars 2

Now, new skill slots for weapons will be unlocked for all weapons simultaneously as you level up. This means that if you pick up a new weapon for the first time after already unlocking multiple weapon skill slots, you’ll automatically learn the skills for that weapon, rather than having to learn each weapon’s skills individually.

Can somebody please explain to me why ArenaNet is planning to destroy the best weapon leveling system I ever found in a game? You picked up a new weapon, hit something a few times with the first skill, learned what that skill did and you got your second weapon skill. You hit another thing a few times, learned the second skill and got weapon skill 3. I loved it. If anything I sometimes thought you got a new weapon skill to soon. The current system learns a new player what his new weapon can do in a reasonable time by using it. The new system gives him all the skill of his 4th or 5th weapon immediately so no slowly learning every skill. This is in my opinion not an improvement.

Now I do understand that learning all weapon skill for an elementalist took forever as you had to unlock all weapon skills for all attunements. (I don’t play an elementalist). But I think that problem could have been solved without throwing away your awesome weapon leveling system.

I have my doubts about some other changes. We’ve moved the downed state to unlock at level five so players have time to learn the basics of combat before they experience this system. I think this is silly. The downed state is such an integral part of the combat system of GW2 in my opinion that I think the downed state should have been part of the Tutorial mission. But that would have been much more work and I don’t have the feeling that ArenaNet wanted to put in that work. I am fairly positive about the announced features of the September 9 patch but this blog gave me the idea that ArenaNet just took some features from the Chinese version to “solve” some issues instead of developing really working solutions.

Well, now new players will be able to learn how to use weapon skills a lot easier…
wait…

My alts have no traits, your any development without traits really won’t affect my alt characters’ progress, FIX WHAT YOU BROKE FIRST.

I think the Personal Story changes really suck. I loved doing the story first time round, especially the early level ones. They’re a great introduction to the lore, give you something to focus on, and having them spaced out so you can do one every few levels was good. If they unlock in chunks, you get to spend 10 levels having no storyline at all and just wandering around a zone with nothing to focus on. Which is fine when you’re trying to speed-level a character but a really bad idea for first-time-through the game. The story is what ties everything together and gives you a reason to go to the different zones.

That being said, if the unlocks have to stay at every 10 levels, then whatever you do, DO NOT make the player wait until lvl 10 to start the Story. There is nothing more off-putting in an MMO than not having a story you can follow from the beginning. This would be the worst possible implementation ever.

New Player Experience.. Uh. Seriously. I’d suggest not using that phrase, it’s far far too reminiscent of ‘NGE’.. which frankly, is the level of cluster-kitten I’d say the april 15th trait changes deserved to be compared to, anyway. Take of that what you will.

A lot of the changes mentioned in today’s blog post seem a bit like change for change’s sake. I think I could comment more effectively if I understood the motivation behind them – but it’s really impossible for me to discern any motivation by reading the changes themselves. And certainly no player feedback has pointed in this direction.

I think in general people were happy enough with the leveling process before all this monkey-ing around, and would’ve been happy again if the trait hunting tasks had simply been made level appropriate and less tedious.

As for the little things we’re going to get each level.. correct me if I’m wrong, those are gear enchantments in the leveling up window? That at least is obviously trying to restore some ‘yay!’ to the leveling up experience.. but it’s feeble, compared to what we lost by having traits appear only at level 30/every six levels.

It all hinges around cash flow to the company. Face it, people with a full stable of level 80 characters are do not need to buy gems. They have their infinite harvesting tools, they have the skins they want to make their characters unique and other then an occasional new skin the amount of gems they buy from the gemstore for real dollars is going to dwindle. Veteran players have their craft disciplines to 400 or 500, they can make what they need.

With the F2P business model they have to keep new people coming into the game plus there is an added bonus in doing just that. New people will buy more gems because they will naturally want to catch up to their “veteran” friends. They will want the same skins, the same “cool” things that the vets have and if they can accelerate that process by purchasing gems they will do so. Crafting boosters, leveling boosters, scrolls, tomes, anything that will push them faster they will buy.

So with enough veterans sticking around to entice new players to spend more money and with enough new players coming into the game they can keep the cash flow going. In a subscription based business model it is more advantageous to keep those veteran players around and paying their subs, in a F2P model it isn’t.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

narwhalsbend.7059:

Do the new changes mean I can’t do WvW until I level to 18? What’s with all these restrictions?

That’s not exactly what’s happening. If you have a brand new account, you will only be able to use the PvP and WvW icons after your first character has unlocked them for your account. After that, it’ll pretty much be the same!

Again, this change will be mostly relevant to new players who will not have to think about that part of the game until they’ve been able to learn the basics. If they’re specifically interested in those part of the game, they can still travel to the relevant portal and jump into the fray!

Way to be as patronising as possible to new players.

“Come play Guild Wars 2! Amazing lore and storyline! (But only every 10 levels, and you don’t get to start it until you’re already bored of wandering around with no direction”. Amazing Player vs Player action! (But only once you’ve been playing for a while. No jumping in for the sheer hell of it on your first day! Tut tut!)"