Guild Wars 2

Hello.

I saw many topics about how leveling became bad, how veterans dont approve this changes, ppl wont make new alts etc etc.

I am playing this game from release and system is not bad. I dont have 8 alts, because leveling at this game is journey and not race to 80 like i was playing WoW.
In WoW, my mission was to climb asap to 80 so i can play bgs, arena, dungeons, get awesome gear, play more all of this etc etc. So, new system is nice for me.

Maybe it looks like its for 3yo kids, but at least you have “carrot on stick” for every next lvl.
Ohh, ill unlock new weapon skill, that must be nice. Ding!! Nice, i got item, unlocked poi, vista, traits etc etc. I should check all that stuff.

Dont watch that from station as veteran player, look as new. You dont know nothing about game, you will log in for first time and start playing. That system would keep you to level more and more to see what game offer, which skills, traits, utilites, and to get some rewards in process.

Change is nice, my opinion. Most of you will disagree, but point is “new players” not veteran and their alts.

Just imagine yourself as first time GW2 player and would you play or not, be objective and give some constructive opinions. I know I would. Cheers and sorry for bad english.

I was actually warm with the new leveling experience last night—I wasn’t aware that it was majorly hated by the playerbase the day after. I’m trying to understand why it’s generally hated. The leveling experience is more rewarding in my opinion. Yes, the skills are gated by levels now, but in between, we are getting some free stuff as well. Last night, I bought some gathering tools from a merchant, and then two levels later, I get gathering tools for free. That was surprising and welcomed.

Like the trait system overhaul before, there is a trade off with the leveling system. Before, we did not get any meaningful rewards when leveling up. Now, each level gives you free stuff that you can use.

Yes, I love it too. There were just too many keys and buttons and stuff to push before. Also it helps that I don’t have to think too hard when I play.

I also love it when i leanr soething early on, then not have to sue it for the the next 13 levels, and probably forget it asoon i enter the next zone, where i definatly need it.

I look at this from the “Play how you want” perspective, which is why I don’t like the new leveling system. The new system feels like your riding on rails, showing you the sights. But the whole time, I want to get off and do my own thing.

Take the Personal Story. Before the new system, you could do the personal story at any level. Basically, you can do it whenever you wanted. The only restriction being whether you wanted it to be very hard (below recommended level), average difficulty (at recommended level), or very easy (above recommended level). Now that first option has been taken away. I understand that having to take leveling breaks between the story could be jarring. My suggestion would be to keep the story chapters under the new system, but let you start them whenever you want. So the first chapter would still be recommended for level 10. However, you could try it at level 5, but receive a warning that you are below the recommended level.

I mostly dislike the unlocking of abilities. Being under 80 was already a huge liability for many types of group activities (dungeons, world events, guild events, etc.). Now it is greatly worse because you will be missing key skills and traits.

The worst part of it is that you can’t do the experimenting at earlier levels that you could under the old system. I relied on leveling to learn my classes, but not through a forced tutorial. I liked trying out new weapons and traits. The more time (earlier levels) I had them, the better I understood them. In fact, the only drawback with the old system, imo, was that you used to have to pay for trait changes, which reduced experimentation and learning. Dropping those fees was a fantastic move by Anet.

My suggestion would be to return weapons, skills, and traits gained at level up to the old system. Any new traits and skills added to the game can be acquired through activities or by purchase like the new Grandmaster traits. This gives level 80s something to do to gain them (though they should all be available in sPvP for free).

All the other unlocks with level seem a little arbitrary and cruel to me. I’m not high enough level to use the trading post? Why? Underwater combat at level 7. What if I go underwater before that? I must be punished. I hear I have to wait until a certain level to do jumping puzzles. I love jumping puzzles.

All of this creates a long, boring ride to level 80. Before, when you started GW2, it opened up a world of possibilities. Now everything is handed/told to you during your ride. When you do get to 80, you feel as if you’ve already seen and done all there is to do. If there was more, they would have told you and held your hand through it, right?

Others have asked whether they would recommend GW2 after this update. My primary reason for recommending this game was the freedom it offered. There was so much you could do and explore, and running around the world felt great. Now, I would be embarrassed to make that claim to new players, because they won’t experience that wonder and freedom.

“Take the Personal Story. Before the new system, you could do the personal story at any level. Basically, you can do it whenever you wanted. The only restriction being whether you wanted it to be very hard (below recommended level), average difficulty (at recommended level), or very easy (above recommended level).”

Nope, you are scaled to the level of the personal story if you are above recommend level (this coming from someone who completed personal story recently).
_________________________
As for weapon skills. Whilst the system has its glaring faults. To say it’s dumbing down isn’t accurate. I would say it’s more convenient. Having 4 low lvl toons below 10. I can categorically say that weapon skills is less time consuming to do. Reach lvl 10: all 5 weapons skills are unlocked – just by equipping the weapons. Having to equip each weapon separately & levelling was timing consuming to do. A grind in it’s own right. The main issue is from 10 onwards – utility skills and traits in other words. And various other issues like having no access to underwater combat till lvl 8?. No weapon swapping till 7. No access to POI, vistas, skill points, and tp. Whilst the new system has its faults and problems. If implemented correctly, it can be a better system. For now, a very flawed & problematic system.

CalamityO.2890:

" No weapon swapping till 7. No access to POI, vistas, skill points, and tp. Whilst the new system has its faults and problems. If implemented correctly, it can be a better system. For now, a very flawed & problematic system.

I agree that some stuff they did for the new leveling system was good, while others are quite the opposite. However I recently checked on my level 2 character and found I was able to get POIs and vistas at least. I didn’t try any skill points at that level but I would agree that you should be able to try it if you’d like. It’s supposed to be a challenge after all.

I’m disappointed … I was hoping for more features that played the game for me since Anet thinks so little of mine and other players’ capabilities. I guess I will have to wait for the next feature pack.

I have had quite a few friends leave the game because of the lack of direction before the patch. They would either quit playing before level 10 because “it feels like a mess” or they would make it to 30 on one character and decide “there’s no reason to keep going.”

I think the changes were a success in providing direction to new players. I think they may have overdone it a little with the POIs, skillpoints and vistas, but the idea was good.

I hope Arenanet revises some of its decisions with this update, because while the game feels more directed now, it also feels much more restricted for new players. It makes no sense that you unlock all of your land abilities at level 10, but you don’t unlock all of your underwater abilities until much later. They should be unlocked at the same time, because currently it feels awkward and unrewarding to find that you have fewer skills underwater, and once they are rewarded to you it feels underwhelming and that can make players bitter.

POIs, skillpoints and vistas should be available from the start. I like that the tooltip informs players about them now, but restricting this content early on will make new players run in circles to do map completion after having already explored the area. The experience and rewards offered by this content is negligible, so I do not see a point in restricting access them. It will not be a big deal if a low level player unlocks a skill point. I think the option to do this content should be available from the start, but the tooltips and guidance systems well placed enough to push players toward them at an appropriate time if they happened to miss them.

On the other hand, unlocking skill points/POIs/vistas later forces players to turn around and revisit some areas, which gives more opportunity for events to happen on the way. More events = more exp = more leveling = more unlocks. I can see the reasoning, but the implementation feels weird. These aspects of the game are so elementary.

It’s also worth noting that these changes have made WP’s “Buddy Blitz” game need some revision, because it’s highly centered around having a low level character complete this content. It’s a shame because I really enjoyed watching that stuff.

I worry that new players will get to level 30 and feel like they are still in the tutorial. Unlocking features every level is a nice approach to direction, but the basics should be restricted to early leveling. If features are still being spoon-fed to new players after they’ve been playing for so long, I fear they will get annoyed with the system.

On the other hand, unlocking new things every level is a good way to make players feel like there’s a good progression. In other MMOs there is a lot of excitement tied to leveling, because it usually entails visiting an NPC to learn a new skill. GW2 now has something similar. I think it’s a step in the right direction, but I would have implemented it a little differently.

Some of the unlocks are underwhelming. I can see more players getting excited about unlocking their next utility slot, but I can also see players getting annoyed that the next level only offers a new underwater ability that they aren’t going to use as often. Rewards for some levels need to be revised. The big unlocks (utilities and elites) should be foreshadowed more to give players a level goal when they load up the game. The small unlocks should be added in earlier because they are not as rewarding.

Also, slightly unrelated personal opinion: I hate seeing how many things I don’t have access to when I look at my hotbar. It might be worth removing the icon entirely or making it a little more transparent until it unlocks. Another thing worth noting is that there is no text box telling players that they can click the icons on the level-up window for more information. It’s too easy to hit accept and move on without reading the tooltips.

TL;DR: New player experience requires revision. Anything that is not critical to understand about the game should be removed from the level rewards and instead learned intuitively.

The worst “feature” we never asked for. The Chinese got it shoved down their throats and hated it as well. So much for keeping the Western version & Chinese version of the games separate.

Final nail in the coffin for me. Just when I thought they were doing so much better. Oh well, got a huge backlog of Steam games to play.

I’m more annoyed with what it did to existing, lower-level characters. Last time it was traits, this time it’s skills and personal story — stuff I’d unlocked keeps getting locked away again.

In effect, it’s like these characters have lost levels. Their abilities have regressed.

I was new once, 2 years ago. I liked the leveling then, that´s why I stayed.
But the new system… no. I don´t think I would have kept playing.

and playing alts is now very boring.

ugluk.9653:

I was new once, 2 years ago. I liked the leveling then, that´s why I stayed.
But the new system… no. I don´t think I would have kept playing.

and playing alts is now very boring.

I agree that the new system has its glaring faults. But you’d have to admit, unlocking all weapons skills all in one shot just by reaching level 10. Saves time from grinding each one individually. The rest is just done in a bizarre or poor way.

As the saying goes: “familiarity breeds contempt”