Guild Wars 2

So I started a new elementalist yesterday post patch…

Wow.

I’m not sure how much thought went into the level gating system. It feels like someone who really didn’t understand how GW2 plays made some arbitrary decisions based on existing abilities and level structures. It doesn’t teach the game and its systems, if anything it keeps the game from feeling cohesive.

And it isn’t fun.

Running around the starter area pressing one button over and over again for a level is… not fun. You’re asking people to do this for 5-10 minutes until they unlock… another button.

People don’t want to wait 5-10 seconds for a web page to load, why would they want to press one button for 5-10 minutes? The previous experience had unlocks too, but they were much more incremental. The indicators were clear. A new user might not understand everything right away, but at least they weren’t bored.

What the old user experience lacked was an inline tutorial system, the unlocks were balanced. Knowing things like holding down ALT to split a stack would have been good tool tips. A dumb arrow over my healing skill isn’t useful.

This is really bad. I love the game, but these changes are really a step back in design. I can’t honestly tell my friends to buy this game now. That’s heartbreaking. I have things I want to spend gems on, but now I don’t feel right supporting the game. That’s terrible.

Anet, reverse these changes. This is not something that will shake itself out. This is a burden to every new player. Maintaining version parity might make sense from a development stand point, but this is too far. You’re killing the cash cow. You’re making a quality experience feel like much less. Don’t do this. Stop this.