Guild Wars 2

Farzo.8410:

You can’t get kitten from the store with your gold, it just costs far too much. That being said, you don’t need to spend real cash, but the option almost forces you to take that option before the other.

I don’t do dungeons, just PvE, EotM and PvP. I make plenty of gold.

I buy gems with gold quite often. In the last three months:

• I “bought” two Living Story Chapters I had missed.

• Three Cosmetic makeovers kits

• 10 Transmutation Charges

• a few BLC Keys

I currently have about 50 gold because I spent 17 gold on some 5 Transmutation charges yesterday (they were on sale for 105 gems.)

Dyonisian.8610:

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

First of all, this simply may not be the game for you. If so, nothing we say can change that. However, let’s try to make it a bit more fun for you by getting you out of the “tutorial” zones.

First, you’ll need to find the Black Lion Traders (the market). There’s one in each major city, and scattered throughout the world. If they don’t show on your map, just ask around in town and someone will point you towards them.

Second, buy a “Minor Sigil of Bloodlust” and a “Minor Sigil of Speed”. These are pretty cheap, so you should be able to get them. Bloodlust is the important one, though.

Third (optional, but recommended), check the market for the best weapons you can equip at your level. These will likely be ones with the name in blue. Get the one/set that looks best to you (greatswords are always a solid choice), and equip it.

Fourth, go to your equipment screen (Hero Pannel, shortcut is the “H” key), double click those sigils, and put them into your weapons. (One each for two one hand weapons, both into a two hand weapon).

You’re now equipped with a weapon that gains power as you kill (up to 25 stacks, giving a bonus of +125 Power), and makes you run faster for a bit after each kill. Go back outside, turn on the arrow (if you’ve turned it off), and let it lead you around as you lay waste to everything that crosses your path.

When you reach level 10, do the personal story that pops up for a change of pace and some rewards. If you replace your weapons, I suggest you sigil the new ones as well.

When you reach level 15, you’re ready to head on to the next group of zones. These will show you more of what the game is really like.

The most important thing to remember as a player who has played since the begining and still enjoys to level up, is don’t rush to the end game. Try a bit of everything as you go along → Everything gives exp. Do some pvp, try following the commander in wvw and most importantly, explore! The world is massive. Look for cool things and do the fun open world events. Ignore the arrow. It is just a guide.

tim.1280:

The most important thing to remember as a player who has played since the begining and still enjoys to level up, is don’t rush to the end game. Try a bit of everything as you go along -> Everything gives exp.

I would generally agree with this except now since the Trait/NPE changes, leveling a character deliberately (taking the time to smell the roses) is far less enjoyable due to the restricted Trait, Skill and Level gating limitations.

Before there was indeed a feeling of freedom, I find that now to be far less than it was…your character is truly unfinished until level 80, before there was a sense that you were actually growing stronger.

Now it makes for a rather unsatisfying experience which is why I advocate that you get to 80 as soon as possible and settle into a Trait Build and THEN explore the world.

• the loot is better at 80

• you have a full skill set and build to meet the challenges

• you have access to the best armor/weapons

• map exploration is wide open for you

• gold is easier to acquire

• The entire personal story can be completed at your leisure instead of being level gated.

• You can more readily Unlock Traits via SP’s/Gold or the Task Challenges

“Hearts are grind”.
If the hearts in GW2 are grind compared to, let’s say, “kill 75 rats” in Wow, then I don’t know what can give a stronger troll whiff than this.

Because of the changes made since the Angry Joe review, it is no longer relevant.

The hearts are a grind, though. It’s basically the same thing as “go kill 75 rats” except you don’t need to talk to the NPC to get the quest and its exp reward.

Sorry, OP, but you came to the game at the wrong time. ANet butchered the experience with two “updates” they did in 2014, which killed the game for most new players despite it being in their intentions to make it better. See This 70+ Page thread of complaints about just one of the new systems.

Leveling speeds up beyond the 50 range. Getting there, however, is absolutely dreadful.

As far as crafting goes, yea, there used to be a little tutorial-esque thing that showed up when you were near some certain low-level crafting areas. They removed these, however, because ANet stated it was “too confusing” and new players felt “overwhelmed,” so they just removed them altogether.

NPE and level gating was terrible, too, as the Personal story also makes no sense in the later levels; you used to be able to do your personal story at any level, as long as you did the previous mission; I.E., you could keep doing the quests despite being under-leveled for as long as you were able to kill the mobs and complete the missions. They also changed this, by forcing the story into 10-level blocks and removing some missions altogether and changing the order of some of them. Thus, the story no longer makes sense and is much less-accessible.

The game is great at the high levels, but the NPE and Trait reworks have made the actual experience of new players/new characters pathetically miserable.

This post is one of the best proofs that NPE sucks and shouldn’t have happened. The dancing for cows especially. Earlier it was picking up the feed and feeding them. Normal, logical and not making new players feel like jesters for livestock. Not to mention massages for dried out corn crops (earlier it was picking up bucket of water and watering them). Next time i’ll see a man dying out of thirst, i’ll give him a backrub, that will get him alive and kicking!

Horrendous New Player Evisce..erm Experience aside, the game is great and Angry Joe was not bullkittenting. You must understand you’re in a different world from normal MMO and rules you know don’t apply. Here what matters is customization. Both your build (skills, traits, gear stats) and your looks are deeply customizable and they matter. You will experience that later on, as at beginning game is very forgiving and you have but few barebones skills making it feel stupid and dumbed down. But go forth, discover places on your own, do personal story, craft stuff, complete maps, and unlock your skills and traits. As you progress you will see true greatness that is this game.

And along with most of us erect a middle finger aimed at “New Player Experience” that made you believe such great game sucks. Because in earlier days it was awesome from the start (traits at lvl 11, weapons unlocking with number of kills not levels, no dancing for cows etc.) Take notes and undo damage A-net!

DeceiverX.8361:

The hearts are a grind, though. It’s basically the same thing as “go kill 75 rats” except you don’t need to talk to the NPC to get the quest and its exp reward.

Grind is a virtually meaningless term now days…because it can literally mean anything. Having played MMO type games since the early nineties, my definition of “grind” will be somewhat different; certainly different than a player who is generally newer to MMO’s.

I personally wouldn’t label “Hearts” as grindy solely because there are various and sundry ways to complete them, often in conjunction with an ongoing event. It’s not rare that Hearts are completed before ever interacting with the Heart NPC.

But, having conceded that "anything’ can be considered a “grind” in this silly gamer world, I will leave that aside and say I mostly agree with your post.

Go into the settings and turn off that stupid pointer. It’s just there because some people cannot think for themselves. They way you’re supposed to play the game is explore the world and participate in events. As you’re exploring, you’ll run into events happening. Just jump in and participate.

Dyonisian.8610:

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

I imagine by your statement you like story. You’re in luck thats what this game is about but beware when the reviews you saw said this game does things differently they meant it. like others has said forget the arrow and instead go talk to npcs. this is not like other mmos where an npc has to have an ! on top of him to him to have something interesting to say. If you talk to an npc who says he’s having trouble with pirates well at some point in time s/he is going to do something about it and that will trigger a dynamic event. How that event plays out can fork in different directions. Like say protect the artifacts from the pirates. If you win the story will move on with making sure the artifacts are safe but if you fail the pirates would unleash unintentionally a horror from said artifacts.

The trick to enjoying gw2 is to slow down and smell the roses. following the arrow will have you start chains in the middle which will make the whole thing seems like it as no story when actually the opposite is true. In Gw2 its like having quests completely acted out in the world rather then be just a little text that explains a story you never get to see.

If you’re interested long long ago I had created a video on the subject. Feel free to check it out.

If you wish to skip the bla bla the event described above is recorded at 3:35
and thats just one possible chronological order of events. Like I said its possible that when the pirates attack at 5:30 you’d fail to repel them and if fail then there will be no subsequent transport, no attempt to destroy the summoning stone. Instead the pirate leader will trigger ignius himself, the demon will also posses the pirates and turn them into fire elementals which will change the dynamic of the story.

This is ofcourse if you value story above all else. Playing this way means waiting for events to start, tracking events that have already started to their starting points and ultimately take a couple of months to get max level rather then a couple of weeks should you simply decide to follow that arrow.

The dancing for cows as you put it is something arenanet added based on player feedback. Its meant to be something you get to do while waiting for events to spawn. In the actual design of the game hearts weren’t even there.

The NPE is a massive shame, I recently made a new char and found it really restrictive and frankly ridiculous in some areas (No Deceptive Evasion til lvl70?!!! WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS CLEVER?!). The beauty of GW2 was genuinely its BEAUTY the game is stunning and discouraging exploration with arrows and limiting access to skill (I get what they went for but putting core mechnics behind complete the game level walls isn’t great) really attacks the uniqueness of the game.

Its a shame ALTHOUGH i just tried a few free demos of other games and they are pretty crap too at low levels – I just feel something has been taken away from GW2 because of this – I have all level 80s anyway so this isn’t for my benefit I just think its a shame how restrictive and focused the leveling is now and not the open adventure I played at launch. (Minus the bugs – though perma swiftness from the free sigil REALLY helped my Mesmer xD)

I have dinged 5 × 80s since the patch.

I am having fun in spvp and eotm mostly.

If you don’t like it, find another game.

It’s not rocket science.

OP you see….the thing is that,you are “15 minutes dancing for cows”, cause this game would be rather confusing if you would…for example had to pick an item and then click on cow.

Anyandrell.6238:

“Hearts are grind”.
If the hearts in GW2 are grind compared to, let’s say, “kill 75 rats” in Wow, then I don’t know what can give a stronger troll whiff than this.

Actually hearts are much worse.

Here’s a video that I just made showcasing what a new player can experience if they decided to make a norn. So much fun

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Anyandrell.6238:

“Hearts are grind”.
If the hearts in GW2 are grind compared to, let’s say, “kill 75 rats” in Wow, then I don’t know what can give a stronger troll whiff than this.

Actually hearts are much worse.

Here’s a video that I just made showcasing what a new player can experience if they decided to make a norn. So much fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMCxjU0WHLI

I love how you take the quests where you only need to click 1.
It is fun indeed though, otherwise, you wouldn’t be playing this game.

nGumball.1283:

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Anyandrell.6238:

“Hearts are grind”.
If the hearts in GW2 are grind compared to, let’s say, “kill 75 rats” in Wow, then I don’t know what can give a stronger troll whiff than this.

Actually hearts are much worse.

Here’s a video that I just made showcasing what a new player can experience if they decided to make a norn. So much fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMCxjU0WHLI

I love how you take the quests where you only need to click 1.
It is fun indeed though, otherwise, you wouldn’t be playing this game.

No, that’s not what I find fun at all. I picked this heart because it was the first in the area, I was gonna go by the wolf shrine where all you do is kill. But hell, this was closer and it still proves the point. Yeah, I do find this game fun just not the leveling, heart or “dynamic” events.

The most fun I’ve ever had on this or most MMO’s has been roleplaying, myself.

Players making their own fun always seem to have more fun than anyone waiting for devs to figure out what ‘fun’ even is, then build it.

That might not seem like much of an answer, especially to anyone unfamiliar with/disinterested in character stories and storylines, but its where I find the fun that keeps me coming back to this or any MMO I ever play.

The last MMO with mechanics and gameplay of any sort that held my interest was City of Heroes. I had a blast making builds, powerleveling new combinations and trying different things. Kept me occupied and very entertained for yeeeeeeears, along with all the RP I got to do there too.

Champions Online kept my interest for similar reasons for a while, but it just never hit the same notes City did, and never really seemed to hit its stride before quite clearly being thrown into maintenance mode. Pretty sure Perfect World’s just waiting for it to die these days, which is a shame.

Games like this one? I find running around the world fun enough sometimes, but I wouldn’t pay for the privilege. No MMO I’ve ever seen holds a candle to costume and vanity allure like City and Champions alike did/do – they did it right in ways pretty much every MMO should copy shamelessly, I think.

But most can’t even be bothered to utilize systems that wouldn’t have seemed primitive and shoddy in 2004, let alone now. Anet’s appearance system is cute.

Its like looking at an IBM 486 with a four color ’I’m Running Crysis!’ screen cobbled together in BASIC displayed on its massive CRT.

You wish you were doing impressive things there, Anet. Keep dreaming. You were left in the dust eleven years ago though, and don’t seem aware of just how meager your vanity offerings in a vanity-driven game really are.

GW2 is pretty, no mistake about that. Their level designers and artists deserve a round of applause, I think.

Vayne.8563:

Dante.3780:

Need an example? here’s one:

Another boring Heart NPC......?

hide spoiler

In lvl 15-25 charr area you may find a lumbering camp with a Heart NPC – nothing interesting at 1st glance. There’s a fair chance that when you are completing heart 5 events will pop up; warband is organizing itself to assault flame legion base NE from that position. If you are succesful you can notice a portal from that base to….Flame Legion Tombs where you have to solve some puzzles (put statue’s head into canoon to shoot attic to crush thick ice underneath and such). At the end of your way you will find grand chest with possibbly great rewards.

And it only began with a boring Heart NPC

Dude there’s a lot of things like this, just…find them

EDIT: get your servers TS on WvW, hear commander talking in real time.
Join community organized Triple Wurm, also best on ts.
You’ll see where’s all the fun

And I’m just the opposite. I didn’t like the way the personal stories used to be, where I’d do one and it would tell me to do something else and I wasn’t high enough level to get there. There was nothing more annoying that having to stop in the middle of a story arc in order to get a couple of levels.

Which means that the flow of the stories was off. The story was created in arcs and now you play those arcs in one sitting basically.

So whether it’s better or not is a matter of opinion. To me, this is much better. And it’s how I played them anyway, but I’d have to suffer through even crappier rewards if I waited until I was high enough level to do the entire arc.

In addition to improving the pacing for me, they improved the rewards as well.

Just because you like it doesn’t mean that it is the best or even better. Your way of playing is not the way we should all play. What you like isn’t what we should all like. In fact, we all know what you like, because you tell us in every thread about the NPE. As if that is the deciding factor.

The biggest issue with the NPE is that it took away choice. Before you could choose to wait until level 10 to start the personal story, if you wanted to. So your way of playing was not being infringed. If having choice means that you can’t play the way you want, then that is a case of it being more your problem. However, taking away choice so that you can’t play the away you want is the fault of the game. No matter how much your sole personal experience feels.

Pardon me but how did NPE take away choice? Don’t say traits because that was a change implemented some 5 plus months before. What NPE is is a tutorial you can’t escape from. So we went from no tutorial to a tutorial with no escape. Yes it’s annoying you don’t get your profession skills or your off hand weapon right away or your underwater skills that’s not removing choice.

The NPE did a lot more than gating weapon skills. It gated many aspects of the game. What the tutorial should have done was offer suggestions on what to do next and explain things rather than lock out things that Anet felt people couldn’t handle yet. Thus, it catered to one specific kind of player and left everyone else out in the cold.

Behellagh.1468:

Pardon me but how did NPE take away choice? Don’t say traits because that was a change implemented some 5 plus months before. What NPE is is a tutorial you can’t escape from. So we went from no tutorial to a tutorial with no escape. Yes it’s annoying you don’t get your profession skills or your off hand weapon right away or your underwater skills that’s not removing choice.

Traits AND the rest of the NPE were both made for the China roll-out. We just got them in two parts. Don’t kid yourself, they’re both part of the same thing.

But let’s look at what you said isn’t removing choice. You CAN NOT use your off hand weapon until level 7. You can’t even equip one before then unless you go to the HotM. That’s a lost choice.

You can’t name your pet, select a new pet, or even change to a second pet if your first goes down in battle for several levels. That’s a lost choice. (A few lost choices, actually.)

You can’t fight underwater until you hit the right level. They had to make some underwater enemies non-aggro because of this, and flat-out removed others. You used to be able to fight underwater as soon as you left the intro mission, now you can’t. That’s a lost choice.

You can’t choose to change to water attunement in the intro.

You can’t choose to unleash adrenaline in the intro.

Or use a virtue. Or your toolbelt healing skill. Or steal. Or shatter. You can’t choose to do ANY of these until the game unlocks them later. How is that NOT a loss of choice for lower level players?

Palador said it perfectly. Kudos for that, mate.

Palador.2170:

Behellagh.1468:

Pardon me but how did NPE take away choice? Don’t say traits because that was a change implemented some 5 plus months before. What NPE is is a tutorial you can’t escape from. So we went from no tutorial to a tutorial with no escape. Yes it’s annoying you don’t get your profession skills or your off hand weapon right away or your underwater skills that’s not removing choice.

Traits AND the rest of the NPE were both made for the China roll-out. We just got them in two parts. Don’t kid yourself, they’re both part of the same thing.

But let’s look at what you said isn’t removing choice. You CAN NOT use your off hand weapon until level 7. You can’t even equip one before then unless you go to the HotM. That’s a lost choice.

You can’t name your pet, select a new pet, or even change to a second pet if your first goes down in battle for several levels. That’s a lost choice. (A few lost choices, actually.)

You can’t fight underwater until you hit the right level. They had to make some underwater enemies non-aggro because of this, and flat-out removed others. You used to be able to fight underwater as soon as you left the intro mission, now you can’t. That’s a lost choice.

You can’t choose to change to water attunement in the intro.

You can’t choose to unleash adrenaline in the intro.

Or use a virtue. Or your toolbelt healing skill. Or steal. Or shatter. You can’t choose to do ANY of these until the game unlocks them later. How is that NOT a loss of choice for lower level players?

I did mention professional skills, underwater and off hand skills in my post. That isn’t eliminating choice, that’s simply level gating for new characters.

Now maybe it’s because I came from an MMO where your weapon skills were level gated from the start and down leveling removed the skills for that level, so I don’t see this as a choice issue but a tutorial design issue. If it was only limited to your first character of that profession it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s a lot like switching to a low level character and realizing how tough some event is when you aren’t a down leveled, fully exotic out level 80.

My point with traits is we’ve had 5 months to “acclimate” to that overwhelmingly badly implemented change. It’s not new and it’s lazy to include that when disagreeing about the changes that came out in September.

Kuldebar.1897:

DeceiverX.8361:

The hearts are a grind, though. It’s basically the same thing as “go kill 75 rats” except you don’t need to talk to the NPC to get the quest and its exp reward.

Grind is a virtually meaningless term now days…because it can literally mean anything. Having played MMO type games since the early nineties, my definition of “grind” will be somewhat different; certainly different than a player who is generally newer to MMO’s.

I personally wouldn’t label “Hearts” as grindy solely because there are various and sundry ways to complete them, often in conjunction with an ongoing event. It’s not rare that Hearts are completed before ever interacting with the Heart NPC.

But, having conceded that "anything’ can be considered a “grind” in this silly gamer world, I will leave that aside and say I mostly agree with your post.

Oh I get that. The last game I came from, I poured over 10k hours into the thing and never reached the level cap. I was mostly using it in reference to how someone described the quests for WoW as a grind for killing 75 rats.

A grind is relative as an expression, really; the more fun one has, the less grindy it seems, but the reverse also holds. Hearts can be done in a lot of ways, but they’re short of revolutionary and are basically the same thing as every other WoW/EQ-esque game.

But if this thread proves anything, it’s that the complaints about the NPE and trait unlocks have been largely verified.

Behellagh.1468:

I did mention professional skills, underwater and off hand skills in my post. That isn’t eliminating choice, that’s simply level gating for new characters.

Now maybe it’s because I came from an MMO where your weapon skills were level gated from the start and down leveling removed the skills for that level, so I don’t see this as a choice issue but a tutorial design issue. If it was only limited to your first character of that profession it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s a lot like switching to a low level character and realizing how tough some event is when you aren’t a down leveled, fully exotic out level 80.

My point with traits is we’ve had 5 months to “acclimate” to that overwhelmingly badly implemented change. It’s not new and it’s lazy to include that when disagreeing about the changes that came out in September.

Do keep in mind that this is a thread about the NEW player experience and first impressions. Saying “it unlocks later” is pointless when they never get that far because they got a bad impression of the game.

Look at it like this: When you roll up a new character, your first choice is race, and your second is gender. What’s your third? Class.

But, that’s actually not going to have a real effect on them, save starting weapon and armor looks. A Warrior and a Guardian are pretty much the same. Elementalist, Mesmer, and Necromancer? Same. The only one that stands out is the Ranger, and that’s because there’s an NPC running around near you fighting.

Look at how long you have to play before your class becomes your class. When does a Necromancer start doing what they’re supposed to do? Guardians? How far do you have to go before your Thief can actually steal? When does the Elementalist begin to live up to that name? When does the Engineer actually do engineering?

Your sig mentions CoH. Think back to that. When did a Blaster begin to feel like a Blaster? When could a Mastermind start summoning minions? When did Scrappers feel different than Stalkers?

This is the real problem. GW2’s NPE removed the “hooks” that pull people into wanting to play that character, or explore that world. Yes, vet players know the hooks already and can play until we hit them, but new players are a different story. They don’t get the hooks right away that they used to, and it’s easy to conclude that the whole game is like that. This time, the new player came here and asked for feedback, but we all know that it’s a supposedly low percentage of players that even come to game forums, so how many are we losing without a word due to this? Those choices removed are the hooks, and saying “they’ll come later” is meaningless.

I think you can still request a refund, the game is not what it used to be anymore. Leveling became terrible, story updates are a joke and converting gold to gems is not a viable option anymore due to insane rates. Cut your loses and get refund.

Dyonisian.8610:

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”

Hate to tell you this but for me, like you, there isnt much fun in PvE in this game.

In other MMOs I’ve mostly been a PvE player, even in GW1.
But coming into this game I have found PvE very boring. In fact I spend almost all of my time 99%+ in WvW.

But it’s been 2 years and even WvW has become stale, if it wasnt for the guild I am playing with I would have stopped playing this game.

I and other players have complained about the lack of updates especially to WvW, but unfortunately anet staff “cannot talk about it” or any future or possible future update of this game until the are actually gonna release it. It’s become so tiresome using this excuse that so many players have left the game already.

So all I can say is find a good guild which is active in the modes of the game you like, and play the game until you get bored. Cos once you’ve done most of it, there is no real incentive to fun to redo it.

Or do what Lucyfer has said. I myself have played for 2 years, I’ve seen the high (yes singular), and the oh so many lows (and oh there have been so so many!) to the “development” of this game and the treatment towards players who voice their concerns about this game.
So I myself have got my money’s worth, even though I still complain about the lack of updates WvW gets and the treatment towards WvW players. You on the other-hand, you’ve joined late, I very much doubt you’ll get your money’s worth unless you like the extensive grinding required in this game that Anet promised this game wouldnt have!

Torvic.8256:

Tachenon.5270:

I find a game’s official forums to be quite relevant and uncannily accurate when it comes to determining what sort of game is actually lurking behind the hype.

It used to be that way for me, but I’ve found the complete opposite to be true the last few years, particularly in the disproportionately negative (in both amount and vitriol) posts and threads. And not just with this game, but just about every game’s forums.

Yep I don’t think any game’s forums accurately portray the game.

DeceiverX.8361:

The hearts are a grind, though. It’s basically the same thing as “go kill 75 rats” except you don’t need to talk to the NPC to get the quest and its exp reward.

Hearts are only grind if you focus on them as grind. When I level, I tend to not take hearts to seriously because when I do events around those hearts, they often fill in the hearts without me even doing anything for the heart. Most hearts I get by doing events and get the heart free.

Also unlike most WoW quests, hearts have multiple ways to finish them. I mean I run down the road and I’m I’m running I pick up a few mines. No big deal because I’m running anyway. I hit F a couple of times. Then I see an enemy and I kill it, while I’m going because I’m passing and he’s an enemy. Then an event starts and I’ve already started the heart and it’s done.

As opposed to needed 10 wolf flanks and having to kill 40 wolves to get them. I’d say that’s a grind. Because there’s nothing I can do but kill wolves.

Hearts have multiple ways to finish them and don’t even need to be done. You can’t really skip most quests in WoW, because they experience is calculated to get you to the next quest hub. I can skip any heart I don’t want to do, come back to it or never come back to it and still level through dynamic events, crafting, EoTM, or even just killing stuff if that’s what I like.

Palador.2170:

Behellagh.1468:

I did mention professional skills, underwater and off hand skills in my post. That isn’t eliminating choice, that’s simply level gating for new characters.

Now maybe it’s because I came from an MMO where your weapon skills were level gated from the start and down leveling removed the skills for that level, so I don’t see this as a choice issue but a tutorial design issue. If it was only limited to your first character of that profession it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s a lot like switching to a low level character and realizing how tough some event is when you aren’t a down leveled, fully exotic out level 80.

My point with traits is we’ve had 5 months to “acclimate” to that overwhelmingly badly implemented change. It’s not new and it’s lazy to include that when disagreeing about the changes that came out in September.

Do keep in mind that this is a thread about the NEW player experience and first impressions. Saying “it unlocks later” is pointless when they never get that far because they got a bad impression of the game.

Look at it like this: When you roll up a new character, your first choice is race, and your second is gender. What’s your third? Class.

But, that’s actually not going to have a real effect on them, save starting weapon and armor looks. A Warrior and a Guardian are pretty much the same. Elementalist, Mesmer, and Necromancer? Same. The only one that stands out is the Ranger, and that’s because there’s an NPC running around near you fighting.

Look at how long you have to play before your class becomes your class. When does a Necromancer start doing what they’re supposed to do? Guardians? How far do you have to go before your Thief can actually steal? When does the Elementalist begin to live up to that name? When does the Engineer actually do engineering?

Your sig mentions CoH. Think back to that. When did a Blaster begin to feel like a Blaster? When could a Mastermind start summoning minions? When did Scrappers feel different than Stalkers?

This is the real problem. GW2’s NPE removed the “hooks” that pull people into wanting to play that character, or explore that world. Yes, vet players know the hooks already and can play until we hit them, but new players are a different story. They don’t get the hooks right away that they used to, and it’s easy to conclude that the whole game is like that. This time, the new player came here and asked for feedback, but we all know that it’s a supposedly low percentage of players that even come to game forums, so how many are we losing without a word due to this? Those choices removed are the hooks, and saying “they’ll come later” is meaningless.

And the point of the NPE was that ANet had metrics showing new players stop playing with the old system. When asked they said they were hit with too many things too quickly to understand and play effectively. All that NPE has to do is raise that number that stay to be considered sucessful. They haven’t the means to measure how many vets stop rolling alts because of it or even leave the game as churn is expected in MMOs, especially ones with no monthly fee.

Dyonisian.8610:

Of course I did, how am I supposed to know what product to spend money on if I can’t even trust reviews?

In their defense, Angry Joe’s review was from launch, and I assume most other reviews as well. Most of the problems you’re talking about were only created a few months ago.
In all fairness Gw2 is well worth the buy in, but the game doesn’t start till level 80 (contrary to popular belief)

As many have said, Angry Joe’s review (which was good) was based on how the game was at release. The game has changed A LOT since release, and not all for the better. Probably the main thing that keeps me chugging along is the few remaining tie-ins with GW1. Get your money’s worth, reach level 80, try everything at least once, and then decide whether or not to keep playing.

First lesson learned: never trust someone’s review on Youtube, like he/she is the holder of the truth. Make your own decisions.
Second lesson learned: never trust the hype of the merchandise.
You feel like you wasted your money, but there’s no other way to understand if a product is good or not for you but trying it.
All we can do is not to get fooled twice….

Its impressive how so many people make it sound like trait / npe changes turned this into a different game.

People you still have exactly the same game. Sure it may be more guided but its still exactly the same game. At least it is for those who want to play the game which one would assume is everyone however this doesnt seem to be the case.

Yes before you could unlock all your weapon skills in like 2 minutes . Now it will take you 30-45 mins cause you need to level up to 10 which was sped up a lot. Does that change the entire game somehow? Not just that but previously utility skills were unlocked at level 5, 10, 20. now they’re unlocked at 13,17,19 but lets not forget 1-15 now takes 2hrs rather then 10hrs give or take after that its 1hr per level so now you get all utility skill slots in about 6hrs while before it would have taken you 15hrs of game time. Thats twice as fast. Essentially you’re getting all your weapon skills about 30 minutes later but your utility skills about 10 hrs before. Fair trade.

Now as for the traits.. This is obviously the biggest change but is it really such a big deal? That depends, are you playing the game to level? or are you leveling to play the game? Like its been said from day one this isnt the game were you level to then start playing the game so if thats what you’re doing you’re going against the design and thats always painful. If you play the game to level though the changes to the trait system arent really that big of a deal. If its you’re x alt they’re actually a good thing in my view.

Why you may ask? well what do you do when you play the game? Run around, Do Dynamic Events, Do Jumping puzzles, Vistas, Map completion etc.. What must you do to unlock traits? Kill specific mobs that are part of an event chain, complete event chain, do jumping puzzles, map completion etc.. Same things you’ll be doing anyway! so why is it a good thing if you’re a veteran leveling your 10th alt or something? Well cause after you level so many alts you’ve seen it all which becomes tempting to use what you’re familiar with to level up and that quickly becomes monotonous but this new system changes that. I may like to play in Lornar’s pass so thats where i spend my 25-40ish level only with trait I actually need to zone completion in gendarran fields will which likely mean I spending 1/2 my leveling time in Gendarran and 1/2 in lornar rather then repeating the same exact pattern.

You’re still playing the same exact content, I would still be doing map completion and events just the venue changes.

In short the new trait system didnt change what you do, it even didnt take away choice from you at all. Its just incentivizing you to experience more of what the game has to offer. But hey maybe you just like lornar and really hate Gendarran so what then? you can unlock using gold and skill points. You can thus skip what you dont like if thats an issue for you. And again provided you dont hate absolutely everything that’s likely going to still be cheaper then the system we had before.

Galen Grey.4709:

Its impressive how so many people make it sound like trait / npe changes turned this into a different game.

Well it isdn’;t a different game but it does take away 1 aspect of playing:

The fredom to experiment, even though all weapons and armor conmbo’s seem to pass, you cannot really experiment with it because you need to unlock every trait (which are important to the EXPERIENCE of a build) seperately, and the feeling is you are playing just an empty shell.. It’s nice to get trait points, and it’s nice you see you can unlock something in a lvl xx zone but I found most of the tings I’d appreciate are hidden well away in areas I cannot go when I have the required amount of trait points…

Also the fact the previous system was easy to unlock, as you got ALL minor traits for 10 silver, all master traits for 1 gold and the grandmaster traits for 2 golds, Just for the idea, when you did AC p1-3 at 35 you’d not only be lvl 36 but you’d also have enough gold enough to buy the adept and the master trait books… , well for that matter for the paths 2 and 3 added you’d have enough gold to buy new armor as well…. You could be lvl 40 with master traits available, new armor and major runes… in a few hours after you became lvl 35… and think about your builds…

Now you’re stuggling and you’ll get a trait for AC story.

The fact you started at lvl 20 with traits and got master traits at level 40 and grandmaster traits at lvl 60 was way more open and free, not to mention more player friendly and cheap. I want to experience the world at my pace and I do not prefer forcefed content just because the developers think it’s nice you vistit a sunken boat somewhere to get something… or do ALL story dungeons (AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, I have 15 characters 5 from past patch and I’ll be honest NONE of those will EVER have a complete trait set, If they’d revert the system I’d run to the trainer and get my adept , master and grandmaster trait books for all 5.

The other 10 have all skills, luckily they also comprise all the proffesions I like playing (I do not have an engi) so if I need to test something I often try it one of those beforehand before spending all cash for the newer alt….. And for skill points I just saw I have abouty a 100 skill scroll lying around, buying them is only bottlencked by a rediculous amount of gold. which hampers gameplay for starters, and discourages it for veterans…

As you can see I’m:
No fan of the trait system…

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Galen Grey.4709:

Its impressive how so many people make it sound like trait / npe changes turned this into a different game.

Well it isdn’;t a different game but it does take away 1 aspect of playing:

The fredom to experiment, even though all weapons and armor conmbo’s seem to pass, you cannot really experiment with it because you need to unlock every trait (which are important to the EXPERIENCE of a build) seperately

Of course you can still experiment, traits are just part of the equation not the whole equation, its like saying you cannot experiment with traits unless you own every armor type out there. You dont need to make a perfect build for it to be viable. Its nearly impossible and trait isnt the barrier here having every different ascended weapon and ascended armor set is.

Will it be the end of the world if you miss a trait for AC story? This is not a hardcore game where you need to squeeze every last point of DPS you can get. Its fine not to have the best armor, its fine not have the best weapons, why should it be such a big deal not having every single trait from the start?

You’re not being force fed anything. While exploring the world at your own pace you’ll be unlocking traits. I didnt keep count but the ratio of traits I went specifically for and those that unlocked on their own while playing is i’d say as high as 1:5. if you don’t want to go for those you can always buy them. Like you mentioned story dungeons. Some people dont like dungeons and thats fair enough. It will cost about 5g and 36 skill points to unlock all those traits without stepping in a dungeon. There is another side to the coin though thats more important. What reason to you have to run a story dungeon without this reward attached to it? This is a pretty good incentive in my opinion. In turn that helps other parts of the game. A new guild mate needs a team to do story dungeons as they level up for the first time. Some people would do that just to help out, others need a reason and having to unlock a trait on an alt might be that reason!

Now as for freedom, did the old system really offer that? because sure you had all the traits to choose from but it was a hassle and expensive to respec. Personally I never respeced with the old system because of that, not one time. I dont know stupid example. The rich iron node in blazeridge steppes. There is a bit of a jumping puzzle there and a chest. With a trait that gives you 1/2 fall damage its no problem to get to the chest. without it it takes too much effort to get the chest and you risk dieing if you just from the wrong ledge . However is it worth the 14s to respec you had to pay before? (2s to waypoint to skill trainer, 3s for the respect, 2s to go back and then the same amount to get the trait as it was before) if you walk it you can cut that down to 6s but in both cases it will take around 15-30 mins of game time to pay for that respec. With the new system you still need that 15 mins – 30 mins to unlock the trait but you need to do it once rather then every time where 1/2 fall damage would be a convenient trait to have. Same can be said for other traits too. Takes way more effort to unlock everything thats very true but you only need to do that once (per char ofcourse) and then you have all the freedom to mix and match you want anytime you want it. Its tastes of course but personally I prefer doing an effort once and than reap the reward of that forever after then having to go through a hassle each time I want to change something. So much so I never did it before (game is easy enough you dont really need specific traits) but now with this new system? why not!

Seriously do you need to buy all the traits with money and skill points?
Will not be doing dynamic events with that alt? so in reality does it matter if you’re doing a group event in blazeridge steppes instead of a group event in Harathi? just the one time ?

Will you not be doing jumping puzzles so is it such a big deal to do one instead of the other?

Most of them are like 15 – 30 minute jobs (including waiting for event spawn)
I can understand the story mission ones and zone completion can bee a big hassle, I am not too fond of them myself to be 100% honest but for the rest its just a 30 minute expedition. This is like the signet of capture in Gw2 only with more variety.

Dyonisian.8610:

I bought this game almost a month back now and I’ve barely played it. Couple hours spent on it, thats all. I was looking for an MMORPG because I’ve enjoyed them in the past. Played Runescape for years. Played SWTOR for a month and only stopped because I didn’t have much time on my hands. I enjoyed Runescape a LONG time ago, and SWTOR recently.

Did some research on MMOs, found this, saw great reviews, how its the MMO that breaks the norm of grinding, saw an awesome review by Angry Joe. In particular, he mentioned he couldn’t get into SWTOR despite the awesome concept because of the lack of interesting game play. He struck me as someone who was looking for an MMO experience that actually had a soul to it.

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Honestly this is the reason I hate spending money on games these days.

The only reason I’m still trying is because I feel guilty for spending money on this.

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

HONESTLY despite being a WoW clone I found SWTOR a lot more fun.

I’m also a new player, and i also came here because of Angry Joe, and i also played SWTOR for a month, whew, small world eh? Honestly i don’t understand what you’re saying, this game is such a breather from all other mmo’s ive played in my life (played quite a few) and none has even come close to what this one offers, i mean, Jumping mazes? vistas? random events? i had never seen that before, it was usually “Hello npc, want me to kill 10 bunnies? k” go and do it then comeback, i really apreciate the questing system, completly eliminated backtracking which was always a chore, in my time here i keep hearing how the old leveling system was better, it might just be, but this one is pretty good too….I don’t know mate, if this wasn’t different enough for you i got no idea what is.

PS-SWTOR only offered a cool story line and light sabers, besides that good luck pressing your hotkeys and standing still like a robot…that month was horrible.

KyeXema.9370:

Dyonisian.8610:

I bought this game almost a month back now and I’ve barely played it. Couple hours spent on it, thats all. I was looking for an MMORPG because I’ve enjoyed them in the past. Played Runescape for years. Played SWTOR for a month and only stopped because I didn’t have much time on my hands. I enjoyed Runescape a LONG time ago, and SWTOR recently.

Did some research on MMOs, found this, saw great reviews, how its the MMO that breaks the norm of grinding, saw an awesome review by Angry Joe. In particular, he mentioned he couldn’t get into SWTOR despite the awesome concept because of the lack of interesting game play. He struck me as someone who was looking for an MMO experience that actually had a soul to it.

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Honestly this is the reason I hate spending money on games these days.

The only reason I’m still trying is because I feel guilty for spending money on this.

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

HONESTLY despite being a WoW clone I found SWTOR a lot more fun.

I’m also a new player, and i also came here because of Angry Joe, and i also played SWTOR for a month, whew, small world eh? Honestly i don’t understand what you’re saying, this game is such a breather from all other mmo’s ive played in my life (played quite a few) and none has even come close to what this one offers, i mean, Jumping mazes? vistas? random events? i had never seen that before, it was usually “Hello npc, want me to kill 10 bunnies? k” go and do it then comeback, i really apreciate the questing system, completly eliminated backtracking which was always a chore, in my time here i keep hearing how the old leveling system was better, it might just be, but this one is pretty good too….I don’t know mate, if this wasn’t different enough for you i got no idea what is.

PS-SWTOR only offered a cool story line and light sabers, besides that good luck pressing your hotkeys and standing still like a robot…that month was horrible.

I talk about this all the time, so thanks for posting your thoughts on this.

This game is not your typical MMO and that’s the reason I like it. That’s what makes it interesting and special, even unique.

Others say all the stuff done here has been done elsewhere, and that may or may not be true. But no one else has combined the features of this game together to make the product I’m playing. If they had, I might be playing that game and not this one.

It’s not a game for everyone. But I think there are enough of us to keep this game moving forward for a long, long time.

The trait changes absolutely did/do change the game. If they didnt they would not have been implemented. The whole point of the trait revision/NPE was to change the game. I would be willing to bet that Anet did not say," hey, lets spend a ton of resources NOT changing anything."

Dyonisian.8610:

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Your information was far out of date.

As an alternative to beating your head against a game you’re not enjoying in hopes of “getting your $35 worth” out of it, consider the philosophy of “cut your losses.” Give all of the three game modes a try, but if you don’t enjoy any of them, then stop while your investment is still “$35 and a few hours of your life.” Burning a hundred hours doing something that feels like a chore to you isn’t going to make it magically become fun.

I’m not going to give you the old “Wait until $LEVEL_CAP” dodge anymore, though. While the game play opens up a lot at that point, for the past year it’s been so painful to do that I’d just feel like a kitten for saying something like that.

I think the game breaks the mold in the leveling experience…granted the New Player Experience recently released might have messed with this a bit. “If it aint broke dont fix it” certainly applies, arenanet.

Anyways…

OP: You aren’t guided by ! or ? . Wander off, kill things, happen upon events. Go exploring in a cave, you might find a jumping puzzle and find waypoints and points of interest that give you XP. Or go back to town and craft(crafting gives a lot of XP in this game). The leveling experience is definitely the one shining spot of this game. Its the endgame you have to worry about. There is none. A handful of people(it seems) run dungeons anymore because developers haven’t looked at dungeons in..1+ years? More? All focus is living story and not everyone likes living story. The only true endgame is world vs world which can get quite epic. I thoroughly enjoyed WvW when I played the game.

I stopped because even for a free game, I can’t get behind the dev direction arenanet is taking it, and feel like paying 15$ a month gets me more for my money in either WoW, ESO, or Wildstar…whichever tickles my fancy at the moment.

Dyonisian.8610:

I bought this game almost a month back now and I’ve barely played it. Couple hours spent on it, thats all. I was looking for an MMORPG because I’ve enjoyed them in the past. Played Runescape for years. Played SWTOR for a month and only stopped because I didn’t have much time on my hands. I enjoyed Runescape a LONG time ago, and SWTOR recently.

Did some research on MMOs, found this, saw great reviews, how its the MMO that breaks the norm of grinding, saw an awesome review by Angry Joe. In particular, he mentioned he couldn’t get into SWTOR despite the awesome concept because of the lack of interesting game play. He struck me as someone who was looking for an MMO experience that actually had a soul to it.

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Honestly this is the reason I hate spending money on games these days.

The only reason I’m still trying is because I feel guilty for spending money on this.

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

HONESTLY despite being a WoW clone I found SWTOR a lot more fun.

This is a completionists game. Clear all the zones, get all the achieves, do all the events, collect all the skins. That’s it. That is all there is to do in this game.
There’s no “progression”. The living story is a joke- the new zones are dreadful and boring. I stop in the forums once about every 3 months and the fanboys are still here while those of us who wised up are off playing something else.

P.S. The most they add to this game is in the Gem store. No content.

Allelya.6830:

Dyonisian.8610:

I bought this game almost a month back now and I’ve barely played it. Couple hours spent on it, thats all. I was looking for an MMORPG because I’ve enjoyed them in the past. Played Runescape for years. Played SWTOR for a month and only stopped because I didn’t have much time on my hands. I enjoyed Runescape a LONG time ago, and SWTOR recently.

Did some research on MMOs, found this, saw great reviews, how its the MMO that breaks the norm of grinding, saw an awesome review by Angry Joe. In particular, he mentioned he couldn’t get into SWTOR despite the awesome concept because of the lack of interesting game play. He struck me as someone who was looking for an MMO experience that actually had a soul to it.

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Honestly this is the reason I hate spending money on games these days.

The only reason I’m still trying is because I feel guilty for spending money on this.

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

HONESTLY despite being a WoW clone I found SWTOR a lot more fun.

This is a completionists game. Clear all the zones, get all the achieves, do all the events, collect all the skins. That’s it. That is all there is to do in this game.
There’s no “progression”. The living story is a joke- the new zones are dreadful and boring. I stop in the forums once about every 3 months and the fanboys are still here while those of us who wised up are off playing something else.

P.S. The most they add to this game is in the Gem store. No content.

You don’t like the new zones. You don’t find them interesting. They’re neither dreadful or boring to some people.

And oddly enough, I used to be a completionist and this is the game that cured me of it. There are just things I know I won’t complete, so I don’t bother anymore.

Vayne.8563:

KyeXema.9370:

Dyonisian.8610:

I bought this game almost a month back now and I’ve barely played it. Couple hours spent on it, thats all. I was looking for an MMORPG because I’ve enjoyed them in the past. Played Runescape for years. Played SWTOR for a month and only stopped because I didn’t have much time on my hands. I enjoyed Runescape a LONG time ago, and SWTOR recently.

Did some research on MMOs, found this, saw great reviews, how its the MMO that breaks the norm of grinding, saw an awesome review by Angry Joe. In particular, he mentioned he couldn’t get into SWTOR despite the awesome concept because of the lack of interesting game play. He struck me as someone who was looking for an MMO experience that actually had a soul to it.

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Honestly this is the reason I hate spending money on games these days.

The only reason I’m still trying is because I feel guilty for spending money on this.

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

HONESTLY despite being a WoW clone I found SWTOR a lot more fun.

I’m also a new player, and i also came here because of Angry Joe, and i also played SWTOR for a month, whew, small world eh? Honestly i don’t understand what you’re saying, this game is such a breather from all other mmo’s ive played in my life (played quite a few) and none has even come close to what this one offers, i mean, Jumping mazes? vistas? random events? i had never seen that before, it was usually “Hello npc, want me to kill 10 bunnies? k” go and do it then comeback, i really apreciate the questing system, completly eliminated backtracking which was always a chore, in my time here i keep hearing how the old leveling system was better, it might just be, but this one is pretty good too….I don’t know mate, if this wasn’t different enough for you i got no idea what is.

PS-SWTOR only offered a cool story line and light sabers, besides that good luck pressing your hotkeys and standing still like a robot…that month was horrible.

I talk about this all the time, so thanks for posting your thoughts on this.

This game is not your typical MMO and that’s the reason I like it. That’s what makes it interesting and special, even unique.

Others say all the stuff done here has been done elsewhere, and that may or may not be true. But no one else has combined the features of this game together to make the product I’m playing. If they had, I might be playing that game and not this one.

It’s not a game for everyone. But I think there are enough of us to keep this game moving forward for a long, long time.

Yeah i just don’t understand all the complaining i’m reading, especially from new players, perhaps it might because i’m too new (level 46 barely) but i have enjoyed every second of it, maybe it’s because i’m with friends, but who knows, some players can never be satisfied.

Galen Grey.4709:

Most of them are like 15 – 30 minute jobs (including waiting for event spawn)
I can understand the story mission ones and zone completion can bee a big hassle, I am not too fond of them myself to be 100% honest but for the rest its just a 30 minute expedition. This is like the signet of capture in Gw2 only with more variety.

This is very different from the signet of capture. Many events and bosses spawn infrequently and require large groups to defeat. I could spawn every single boss in GW at will and solo it. I didn’t even have to kill it; I just had to interrupt it mid-cast. After getting 100% map completion in this game I still had 19 traits left to unlock. After 100% map completion in GW1 I had every single skill there. Not just that, but GW1 let you unlock skills through capture OR through PvP. Here there is no choice.

cesmode.4257:

I stopped because even for a free game, I can’t get behind the dev direction arenanet is taking it

That’s pretty much where I’m at. For how I enjoyed the game — most changes have been for the worse.

Caveat: I do not know the new trait system as my 8 chars were created before the update. To me, it sounds potentially fun, but that’s just me (but then I don’t mind hearts and story and events). Edit: After looking at the trait system, it looks like a pain. But you do get a lot of skill points and gold in PvP (and WvW).
On leveling:
1. I know someone who levels up nearly purely by WvW. Since you’re leveled to 80 in there, and there are a zillion events going on, you’ll get a LOT of XP and not feel too incapable (particularly after level 13-19 when you have unlocked at least a utility to all utilities and profession skills, and definitively so after 31, where you get your elite).
2. PvP: You get 8 levels every track (one tome every tier in each track). This is my method: I don’t get bored with it. And with the new PvP system: it goes quickly!
3. Exploration (not meaning follow the arrow): Just run around the map. Don’t even do hearts. Just grab new areas, waypoints, points of interest, etc (easy stuff to get). It gets a lot of experience…. and quickly. Plus, you get a lot of map which is advantageous.
4. Early stories give a fair amount of experience and are fun (until maybe section 5 of the story?)
5. Crafting. You can get easy levels from crafting. Particularly Jeweler and Chef (a little expensive karma-wise, but not that bad in the end). Artificer after that for ease.

After 80? Do whatever you want TBH, I’d try all those and then see what you like doing. Then look for a guild focused in what you like.

You can make it fun with WVW, PVP and generally not following the arrow.

The original GW2 Experience was too difficult to understand for new players, as it did not guide them and allowed them to make their own way into the game, so Anet dumbed it down to give those individuals a sense of direction so they didnt cave under the freedom and leave without doing anything.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to please everyone. Best thing you can do is disable the quest arrow.

Bernie.8674:

Galen Grey.4709:

Most of them are like 15 – 30 minute jobs (including waiting for event spawn)
I can understand the story mission ones and zone completion can bee a big hassle, I am not too fond of them myself to be 100% honest but for the rest its just a 30 minute expedition. This is like the signet of capture in Gw2 only with more variety.

This is very different from the signet of capture. Many events and bosses spawn infrequently and require large groups to defeat. I could spawn every single boss in GW at will and solo it. I didn’t even have to kill it; I just had to interrupt it mid-cast. After getting 100% map completion in this game I still had 19 traits left to unlock. After 100% map completion in GW1 I had every single skill there. Not just that, but GW1 let you unlock skills through capture OR through PvP. Here there is no choice.

Ohh come on that may have been true pre-megaserver but requiring large groups to defeat isnt really an issue anymore. Never failed a single time myself to unlock a trait cause there were no people around. Not saying it cannot happen, maybe you get unlucky and get a sparsely populated “overflow” but its not really a common issue people are likely to face. except for world bosses all events trigger within 30 mins as far as I know… or are trigger-able. Am I missing some events where this isnt the case?

really you? you could use signet of capture without having to kill the boss first? didnt know that, the description says boss needs to be dead for the skill to work. are you sure?

now you’re cheating. you’re considering 100% completion in gw2 as just getting the achievement, while 100% completion in gw1 as doing absolutely everything. If anything Gw1 is worst in that regard since without specifically going to capture skills achieving 100% map completion will most definitely not give you a single skill. while in Gw2 doing just 100% map completion will give you a few traits from doing the actual completion. In both games together with 100% map completion you also need to do specific tasks. in Gw2 there is some variety in Gw1 it was the same task but on different bosses.

I completely agree, I too think it was a mistaken not making traits acquirable through PvP. That being said you can unlock them using money and skill points so saying there is no choice isnt strictly speaking accurate. Still more fun if it were something you could earn via pvp no doubt.