Guild Wars 2

I just read a thread on Reddit that reminded me that I still had to make a post here. It is about the confusion around skill challenges on low level characters. For the reddit post see http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2gb2tm/cant_obtain_a_skill_point/

This new player ask why he cannot activate the skill point and if this is a bug. Luckily someone explains to him that his level is not high enough and that he has to come back later. The problem is that this is not really clear, confusing for new and old players and seen as a bug by many.

Just after the patch went live and before I knew of this new level requirement for skill challenges a guild member posted a help message on guild chat. Having just finished a group event with a party of three we decided to portal over and see if we could help. As we were all level 80 we could start the skill challenge and help him. We were all really confused and thought it was a glitch.

I really don’t think that the current way of handling this level requirement is working. I can see why it can help the NPE to not show skill points on the map before a certain level is reached but if a new player stumbled upon a skill challenge he or she should be able to start it.

Ironically the skill point we helped with was the Effigy Core in Plains of Ashford (level 10). And that skill point killed two level 80 characters when I tried to solo it in the past. It is one of the most dangerous skill challenges outside Orr if you ask me. So for this specific skill challenge making a new player come back later is a good idea. But that does not make the new mechanism in general a good one.

/rage Can you please look into decent forum software. The piece of crap you are using here drives me bonkers every time I have to use. You can type in as many characters as you want in the topic title but it only accepts 45 characters. Just don’t allow more than 45!!!!!!!!!! And the search functionality of the forum is broken since the start. Everyone is complaining about it and you simply refuse to do something about it. There is very good forum software available. When are you finally going to use it?
/end rage

I confirm and I’m not new player.
I started a new character this morning and eventually reached a skill point.
Nothing happened when I tried to activate it and could not understand why.
Finally I understood tonight it could be because of my (low) level and someone on map chat confirmed.

This means that when we are at end of a map we must back to the beginning for early skill challenges.

Why not letting us do the challenges and pack the skill points and leave the skill menu unavailable until we reach the required level ?

Imarion

Anet answer: it is too hard for new player. Heh.

Not only is this confusing but now we have to go back through maps we started in so we can do the things we couldn’t do because the character was too low level. Very convenient.

It’s illogical to have to get a skill point from a mob that is level 3 when you are level 7. I thought the skill point challenges were supposed to be level specific in difficulty. So you could determine when you wanted to attempt them, based off if you wanted a challenge or not.

You can still earn the skill point if someone else of an appropriate level activates the challenge and you join in the fight.

I too started a couple of new characters to see the changes, but didn’t try to activate any of the skill point challenges. I did however join the one at Greysteel Armory (Charr beginning area) that was in progress and received the point when I was only level 5 give or take.

Skill Challenge is too challenging for new players. It confuses them.

Sooo… don’t new players need skill points for things like SKILLS and now traits? Let me get this straight! Now after a certain level, you have to back track a map to get all the skill challenges? How is this progression? Sure it’s not a bug??

It’s stupidity and the definition of out of touch.