Guild Wars 2

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

It was a decision based on practicality, even though, yes, it conveniences a portion of the player base.

But the amount of time and energy it would have cost in programming time to create something that would fix the problem is actually greater than it’s worth to the game over all.

And yet it would have taken less programming time and energy to reset characters to zero than to program a system that looks at existing choices and then assigns a random selection that may or may not have any connection to those existing choices.

After all, the reset option already existed. All that would have been needed was a pop up directing people to rebuild.

The whole, “it would have taken more programming,” argument falls apart for the simple FACT that what people have asjed for would have taken LESS programming than what was done.

Your entire argument falls apart here. First you DON’T KNOW if the trait assigned to players are random. Second you DON’T KNOW if it would take less programming to reset than assign -not random- but traits that players have selected and taken out those that have over the amount of hero points the players have. Third, you DON’T KNOW whether the reset option exist. It did exist for the old system. But the new specializations are completely being redone. Things shuffled around. Each trait and skills assigned different amount of hero points, not just simple 14 points system anymore. THEREFORE, you DON’T KNOW if it would take less programming to reset.

It actually more practical to give players as best as the engine could the skills/traits that they actually SELECTED prior to the patch and for the traits that would EXCEED the amount they would have had – according to their levels and amount of hero challenges they’ve done – those traits would be removed and the extra hero points refunded.

So these players, who are complaining here, actually have CHOSEN their current build that they are “supposedly locked”. What they should have done is reset all their traits to 0 and remove all the utilities skills they don’t want on their skill bar before the patch. But then there was no way of knowing that but they should have known. But then how does Anet supposed to know players actually want a hard reset on all their skills. If anything I would say several people at level 80 don’t want that. And currently the amount of people having characters at 80 is more than those that don’t have any 80 by an overwhelming margin.

And as several people have said leveling will dispel the problem. Unfortunately it’s so hard to gain a few more level to unlock the other choices and so easy to come to the forum and rant yet ironically they’ll eventually just quit (which is fine) or start leveling and stop ranting.

Oh, I have no doubt a lot of things were considered, including the kittening about not wanting to have to “unlock stuff I’ve already unlocked.” — though I’m not sure that most of those who said that meant they didn’t want to take 30 seconds per character to click the training interface.

ANet gambled that they would lose more people by not holding the hands of people who don’t want to think than they would lose by taking choice out of the hands of those who did want to think. They may even have been right — after all I have yet to uninstall. However, that does not mean I have to like them for choosing to enable intellectual laziness rather than respecting the intelligence of gamers.

I did have to open the training panel and retrain the rest of the skills / traits I didn’t put into my builds for 32~ characters. Then reset the appropriate traits. Thanks god anet gave me some of my skills / traits. Oh well. haha

Stars.2179:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

It was a decision based on practicality, even though, yes, it conveniences a portion of the player base.

But the amount of time and energy it would have cost in programming time to create something that would fix the problem is actually greater than it’s worth to the game over all.

And yet it would have taken less programming time and energy to reset characters to zero than to program a system that looks at existing choices and then assigns a random selection that may or may not have any connection to those existing choices.

After all, the reset option already existed. All that would have been needed was a pop up directing people to rebuild.

The whole, “it would have taken more programming,” argument falls apart for the simple FACT that what people have asjed for would have taken LESS programming than what was done.

Your entire argument falls apart here. First you DON’T KNOW if the trait assigned to players are random. Second you DON’T KNOW if it would take less programming to reset than assign -not random- but traits that players have selected and taken out those that have over the amount of hero points the players have. Third, you DON’T KNOW whether the reset option exist. It did exist for the old system. But the new specializations are completely being redone. Things shuffled around. Each trait and skills assigned different amount of hero points, not just simple 14 points system anymore. THEREFORE, you DON’T KNOW if it would take less programming to reset.

It actually more practical to give players as best as the engine could the skills/traits that they actually SELECTED prior to the patch and for the traits that would EXCEED the amount they would have had – according to their levels and amount of hero challenges they’ve done – those traits would be removed and the extra hero points refunded.

So these players, who are complaining here, actually have CHOSEN their current build that they are “supposedly locked”. What they should have done is reset all their traits to 0 and remove all the utilities skills they don’t want on their skill bar before the patch. But then there was no way of knowing that but they should have known. But then how does Anet supposed to know players actually want a hard reset on all their skills. If anything I would say several people at level 80 don’t want that. And currently the amount of people having characters at 80 is more than those that don’t have any 80 by an overwhelming margin.

And as several people have said leveling will dispel the problem. Unfortunately it’s so hard to gain a few more level to unlock the other choices and so easy to come to the forum and rant yet ironically they’ll eventually just quit (which is fine) or start leveling and stop ranting.

Actually I do know that a reset would have taken less programming because the functionality already existed before this situation arose. It has already been used by Anet in GW2. Zero additional programming is less than the programming needed to develop the build assignment software. 0 < 1 is pretty basic math.

Leveling does not dispel the problem because the problem is playing the character with a build that is not desirable or fun to play.

The system assigned choices are sometimes based on a character’s previous selections, and sometimes not. I prefer to think that it is random because the alternatives are that it is incompetence of malice.

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

Honest question here:

Is, skip playing your character, really a good solution to a situation where playing the character has been rendered unenjoyable by developer fiat?

It’s useless to argue about whether it would have taken more programming or less. The update happened. Traits were set for mid-level characters, without player input. ANet had their reasons and we can agree or disagree about whether those were sensible or not or whether they implemented their choice as well as they could have.

Regardless, today, we have some people (not everyone) who feel they deserve a chance to reset their traits. In a week, there will be fewer people (since many characters will be fully leveled) and in six months, only a tiny fraction of active players will have a specific reason to care.

Therefore, the only question is:

• Should ANet offer the option to reset the traits? (as the OP has suggested)

With the following related concerns:

• Should they still do it, if (internally) they estimate needing 2-3 months to add the one time functionality?
• Should they still do it if releasing it in a timely manner means pulling resources away from other issues (e.g. trait, skill, combat mechanics bugs, e.g. HoT content/features)?

And again, I firmly wish they would offer the functionality — I would definitely use it on all my sub L70 alts. And still again, I really hope they don’t — as much as I want this, I prefer that they focus on other issues.

tl;dr we can get over having mis-traited mid-level toons more easily than we live without the other work folks might be doing instead, such as fixing bugs or adding content/features.

It was pretty badly done and pretty arbitrary if you ask me.

On the other hand, it really isn’t a big deal. Under the previous system, you’d have only a few traits anyways in the mid-levels and you don’t really need them either. My last 4 were made under the previous garbage trait system. 2 of them were mostly leveled with tomes but the ones I did for real, thief and ele, have 22% and 9% map compleition, respectively. You can reach level 80 without touching a single 80 zone even if you stick around in the faceroll low zones and do world bosses. I only have one characater (necro) with more than 60% map done.

And this is especially true now, because you get tomes for logging in. In 2 months, you can get 20, so even if you just sat there, logged in, and did nothing, the problem would resolve itself in a few months.

This is better than reaching level 80 and being locked out anyways, having to shell out gold just to use your character when the game is balanced around you being 80 and having a full array of traits.

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

Honest question here:

Is, skip playing your character, really a good solution to a situation where playing the character has been rendered unenjoyable by developer fiat?

How is playing PvP skipping playing your character? You have 2 choices to “fix” the problem. Go out and do “hero challenges” or use ToK to level to gain the points you need to “fix” your build. I hove no problems playing the game after the change, i just wanted a quick way to get gear ready to gear up a rev, and sPvP was the quickest.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

Honest question here:

Is, skip playing your character, really a good solution to a situation where playing the character has been rendered unenjoyable by developer fiat?

How is playing PvP skipping playing your character? You have 2 choices to “fix” the problem. Go out and do “hero challenges” or use ToK to level to gain the points you need to “fix” your build. I hove no problems playing the game after the change, i just wanted a quick way to get gear ready to gear up a rev, and sPvP was the quickest.

You spoke of using tomes to level a character. That would bypass leveling through playing content would it not? I, for example, have more than enough tomes to instant level any character to 80, which would of course involve skipping the vast majority of the game. How is skipping the majority of the game a good solution to a decision on Anet’s part to remove the fun of playing a character?

The devs did respond to this issue. See the 2nd and 3rd red posts in the following thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Things-we-know/first

JonPeters.5630:

Why not. Basically there were two options, both with a large number of edge cases.

1) We wipe your stuff and let you respec as you see fit. Because so much had changed this was our initial plan. Here are problems it ran into.

• People return from a long hiatus and don’t remember what they were running
• People log in and the first thing they have to do before they can play is learn both the new unlocking system and the new build system.

2) We look at what you had equipped and unlock the necessary skills and traits to re-equip you. Here were some discussions points around that:

• We might give you stuff you don’t want
• at least this won’t matter for lvl 80s if we make all the unlocks possible by just reaching lvl 80.

There is a third option which I’m sure you will bring up.
3) let players choose
Here are some reasons we did not go with that:

• Its twice the work
• Its actually more than twice the work because it would have required temporarily saving both options until you choose which is more complex technical work.
• People who were unlikely to understand or want to explore the new system were going to be potentially more confused by the choice.

At the end of the day we wanted to ship this build so we had to decide. Based on instinct we erred on the side of helping people we thought would be more overwhelmed by the opposite choice, and I would make that choice again because it has less edge cases, impacts more expert users, and leans towards over unlocking for free to benefit most of the edge cases anyway.

Hope this info helps you understand our process a bit more.

Thanks,

Jon

And about a hero point refund:

JonPeters.5630:

It actually breaks everything. The point of a system with more points that points to spend is to allow players to both eventually unlock everything and to bank for future unlocks. If you take a system like that and allow people to refund in it you break both of these fundamental reasons for the system existing. There are two ways to go with any system that has points spent.

1) Let people continue to earn and continue to progress
2) Limit the amount people can progress or spec and make a refund system.

This new system actually contains aspects of both of these. On the side of unlocking we went with a “keep making progress” system where players would eventually get all of the things they want and more, the more they played. We felt like for unlocks this is a better system because it gives people more to unlock and it doesn’t put pressure on a refund system to make the most basic functionality of having stuff work.

On the build side of things (and this is a general principle of GW2) we went with a make choices and refund system. The choices being which skills, specs and traits you select and the respec process being basically free once everything is unlocked.

Jon

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

Honest question here:

Is, skip playing your character, really a good solution to a situation where playing the character has been rendered unenjoyable by developer fiat?

How is playing PvP skipping playing your character? You have 2 choices to “fix” the problem. Go out and do “hero challenges” or use ToK to level to gain the points you need to “fix” your build. I hove no problems playing the game after the change, i just wanted a quick way to get gear ready to gear up a rev, and sPvP was the quickest.

You spoke of using tomes to level a character. That would bypass leveling through playing content would it not? I, for example, have more than enough tomes to instant level any character to 80, which would of course involve skipping the vast majority of the game. How is skipping the majority of the game a good solution to a decision on Anet’s part to remove the fun of playing a character?

“The vast majority of the game” isn’t leveling to 80. And I am thankful for that, because this would be a pretty awful game. Even on the toons I leveled conventionally, it would represent 5-10% of total time played. You can still play non-80 zones after you reach level 80. The game allows you to go through the content as you wish, for the most part. Like I suggested before, it’s easy to reach level 80 without playing through the entire map, and that’s exactly what I found was interesting. In other words, you could bypass a lot of the content to begin with.

Leveling to 80 doesn’t end the game; a lot of people would argue that the game starts there and a lot of new content and balance will be centered around 80. And given that tomes are given out via daily rewards, people having all level 80s will be a given eventually.

ANet considered their options and made a decision with the best of intentions.

Unfortunately it was a poor decision.

Yes, it doesn’t affect you if you’re 80.
Yes, the problem will diminish the more you level.
Yes, levelling is easy in this game.
Ergo, it’s not a big problem.

But it did create a problem for some players, and really it’s more about the principle of the thing.

They spent a non-refundable in-game currency, that had been accrued by the player through time invested, without permission. Added to which, the automated decision-making process turned up some absurd and utterly unwelcome results.

And anyway, the process of deciding how to spend a currency on unlocking things is one of the fun areas of the game. In what universe did it seem like a great idea to deny players the opportunity to enjoy spending their own points in pursuit of desirable stuff?

Bizarre choice by ANet and one I hope they don’t repeat.
At best it was absurdly condescending to players. It might have been a bit easier to forgive if it had been well executed. But it wasn’t.

Shame.

I just don’t like people touching my shinies without my permission.

In game. Out of game. Same thing.

It’s not an unusual state of mind.

~TG

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

Honest question here:

Is, skip playing your character, really a good solution to a situation where playing the character has been rendered unenjoyable by developer fiat?

How is playing PvP skipping playing your character? You have 2 choices to “fix” the problem. Go out and do “hero challenges” or use ToK to level to gain the points you need to “fix” your build. I hove no problems playing the game after the change, i just wanted a quick way to get gear ready to gear up a rev, and sPvP was the quickest.

You spoke of using tomes to level a character. That would bypass leveling through playing content would it not? I, for example, have more than enough tomes to instant level any character to 80, which would of course involve skipping the vast majority of the game. How is skipping the majority of the game a good solution to a decision on Anet’s part to remove the fun of playing a character?

How is using a ToK skipping content? You can still do the content, it dose not disappear once you hit 80. I personally clear any map my characters step in to while doing there PS, thus I hit 80 quite fast, after all I have a +10% boost from account XP, then add food and XP booster, banners, guild XP boost and utility. What ANet did didn’t take any of the “fun” of leveling for me. If anything it got me out in to the world, and playing sPvP which I had hardly played. And you can always join the EoTM zurg and get your levels that way, builds are kind of irrelevant when it a DPS karma train. But some people don’t care how much work would have to go into something like this, and by the time it was done, you would have probably levelled/done the hero challenges to get your self out of it. But some people want things there way, and even thought there are other avenues to “work around” the problem they refuse to do it.

There should be a Spirit Shard to hero point conversion in game. That would make the discussion irrelevant to some extent. Also, make those of us whom have a metric kitten ton of them happy.

For those of you saying to just level or just 80, that’s not a solution. I have characters at specific levels for specific reasons. I had stacks of SP scrolls I could have used on them. And, had characters with everything unlocked on them. That was all removed during this update. At the very least, the Dev’s should have been crystal clear on what was about to happen so players could protect the investments they’ve made into their characters. Now, they should give us the ability to “fix” what they broke.

DeWolfe.2174:

There should be a Spirit Shard to hero point conversion in game. That would make the discussion irrelevant to some extent. Also, make those of us whom have a metric kitten ton of them happy.

For those of you saying to just level or just 80, that’s not a solution. I have characters at specific levels for specific reasons. I had stacks of SP scrolls I could have used on them. And, had characters with everything unlocked on them. That was all removed during this update. At the very least, the Dev’s should have been crystal clear on what was about to happen so players could protect the investments they’ve made into their characters. Now, they should give us the ability to “fix” what they broke.

I’m guessing you had toons at specific levels to farm.cloth from JP chests. If that’s why, then this change dose nothing to effect that. As for them being clear they where. They said a few weeks before it dropped what would happen to the skill point scrolls. It can be hard to keep up with all the info coming in. I’m sure there are plenty of things I don’t know that ANet said are coming, or misunderstood. It happens these forums can move fast and if you are not on daily, you’ll miss it.

Ashen.2907:

Actually I do know that a reset would have taken less programming because the functionality already existed before this situation arose. It has already been used by Anet in GW2. Zero additional programming is less than the programming needed to develop the build assignment software. 0 < 1 is pretty basic math.

Leveling does not dispel the problem because the problem is playing the character with a build that is not desirable or fun to play.

The system assigned choices are sometimes based on a character’s previous selections, and sometimes not. I prefer to think that it is random because the alternatives are that it is incompetence of malice.

No you don’t. It’s a new system. :P If you actually read, the quote you quoted noted that the reset was on the old system not the new one. Hence you don’t know if the reset feature needed to be modified and how much is needed. I suggest taking a few programming courses in college. It will help you understand more the software development cycle.

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

Honest question here:

Is, skip playing your character, really a good solution to a situation where playing the character has been rendered unenjoyable by developer fiat?

Neither ranting here is a good solution to your situation. Also at the issue at hand,
you skip the level, you don’t skip the content. Playing the content at lv 80 vs at lv 30 is similar due to scaling mechanic, AND you have the build you want. Let me point you the wiki page you can read about it more https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_level_adjustment
Unlike other MMOs, in this game, the level of your character as well as the extra stats from gears are scaled to the level of the zone/content you are playing to generate a similar feel.

Also pvping is not skipping content, you actually connect at a similar feeling with your character in pvp compare to that with pve. I suggest you give it a shot. ToK is a plus though ;D

Most pointless whine of the day award. Well played.

DeWolfe.2174:

There should be a Spirit Shard to hero point conversion in game. That would make the discussion irrelevant to some extent. Also, make those of us whom have a metric kitten ton of them happy.

For those of you saying to just level or just 80, that’s not a solution. I have characters at specific levels for specific reasons. I had stacks of SP scrolls I could have used on them. And, had characters with everything unlocked on them. That was all removed during this update. At the very least, the Dev’s should have been crystal clear on what was about to happen so players could protect the investments they’ve made into their characters. Now, they should give us the ability to “fix” what they broke.

Hm, that could be a problem. I believe they announced it back in April/May that this system would come out so players have time to prepare. I did lose about 90 sp from this too but apparently my mesmers who are at lv 20’s didn’t lose their skills. Not sure what your situation is.

I believe that in general people will leave characters in the 20’s usually 23-28 for the silver doubloons or at lv 52-57 for opening champ bags for linen. And the 20’s are usually mesmers with Portal Entre/Exeunt unlocked for the jps. Not sure if there are other reasons to leave characters under 80 for other purposes.

Baldrick.8967:

The point is, for the players who have low and mid level characters (and are keeping them at that level for whatever reason, or are slow levellers) the seemingly random way the points were put has made some characters pretty awful, with no way of changing it.

I don’t understand the problem for not-level 80s because of two things:

1. The hero points were not ‘randomly’ distributed by Anet on your character. In fact, Anet distributed the points as closely to your build you had on that character the day of the patch. If someone has such a bad build that it rendered the character unplayable … that says alot about that person’s build prior to the patch as well.

2. There is a way to change it because those points are earnable. Even if you have some out of place points … you will get more. It’s not even a choice. The game makes it so you get more than you need.

Brandu.8150:

Vayne.8563:

1. Most people don’t give a fig about or notice builds till they’re 80. They just don’t care that much. In fact, many people don’t even pay attention to builds after they’re 80.

Really? And you’re basing this broad assumption on what evidence?

During the Marionette event one of the devs was discussing about Anet trying to teach mechanic to players. One of the things that were said was that according to Anet’s data a significant number of players (yes, level 80 too) had no traits set at all.
This was some time ago, of course, but somehow i don’t think the situation has changed much.

Astralporing.1957:

Brandu.8150:

Vayne.8563:

1. Most people don’t give a fig about or notice builds till they’re 80. They just don’t care that much. In fact, many people don’t even pay attention to builds after they’re 80.

Really? And you’re basing this broad assumption on what evidence?

During the Marionette event one of the devs was discussing about Anet trying to teach mechanic to players. One of the things that were said was that according to Anet’s data a significant number of players (yes, level 80 too) had no traits set at all.
This was some time ago, of course, but somehow i don’t think the situation has changed much.

Yeah, it was really eye opening the hear that at the time, so I started talking to people in my guild about it and I realized, there are people playing this game that don’t even realize that the four down skill heals them. They just spam the skills when they’re downed and since the other skills interupt the heal they never realized it.

The people who visit the forum, we’re a small percentage of the community. A huge percentage of the playerbase plays this game like it’s Space Invaders.

Baldrick.8967:

Let me clear that up for you. At level 20+ you are locked into a trait line that you did not want, and that you cannot change or unlock another until level 31 (or is it 41?)

Untrue. You can slot only one traitline, but you can start unlocking a second one immediately, and just change over.
I’d also like to point out that before the change your level 20 had no traits whatsoever. That means that contrary to being broken, your character actually got upgraded to what it was before.

The point here is that you are supposed to eventually do what it takes to unlock everything. If you could reset, you’d only have to do as much as it takes to unlock what you currently want to use.

And that would make ArenaNet sad pandas.

Astralporing.1957:

Baldrick.8967:

Let me clear that up for you. At level 20+ you are locked into a trait line that you did not want, and that you cannot change or unlock another until level 31 (or is it 41?)

Untrue. You can slot only one traitline, but you can start unlocking a second one immediately, and just change over.

I’d also like to point out that before the change your level 20 had no traits whatsoever. That means that contrary to being broken, your character actually got upgraded to what it was before.

Irrelevant. The issue is not the comparison between the prior level and this level, it’s that ANet generated a system that involved choice and then arbitrarily removed that choice. Given the state of game in the leveling zones, “broken” has no real meaning in terms of character viability. Hence, the word is being used in the sense of being broken as far as one’s enjoyment of the character is concerned.

Make no mistake, the people who are unhappy with the system chosen are unhappy with the removal of choice and enjoyment.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Astralporing.1957:

Baldrick.8967:

Let me clear that up for you. At level 20+ you are locked into a trait line that you did not want, and that you cannot change or unlock another until level 31 (or is it 41?)

Untrue. You can slot only one traitline, but you can start unlocking a second one immediately, and just change over.

I’d also like to point out that before the change your level 20 had no traits whatsoever. That means that contrary to being broken, your character actually got upgraded to what it was before.

Irrelevant. The issue is not the comparison between the prior level and this level, it’s that ANet generated a system that involved choice and then arbitrarily removed that choice. Given the state of game in the leveling zones, “broken” has no real meaning in terms of character viability. Hence, the word is being used in the sense of being broken as far as one’s enjoyment of the character is concerned.

Make no mistake, the people who are unhappy with the system chosen are unhappy with the removal of choice and enjoyment.

I don’t know if it’s irrelevant or not, because the information offered is wrong. Saying you have to wait 10 levels to change it when it’s not true is hardly irrelevant. You have to gain enough mastery points to unlock the trait you didn’t want at that level. Which does NOT involve leveling 10 levels. It involves going and getting enough hero challenges to get that done.

So why is saying something is factually wrong irrelevant?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Make no mistake, the people who are unhappy with the system chosen are unhappy with the removal of choice and enjoyment.

I’m not going to argue that this system limits choice. This is a problem – the new trait system severely limits possible choices due to things like not allowing speccing into more than 3 traitlines, or putting lower tier traits in the higher trait slots.

Compared to this, the whole problem with grandfathering script working a bit wonky on a tiny handful of characters is a non-issue.

Astralporing.1957:

Baldrick.8967:

Let me clear that up for you. At level 20+ you are locked into a trait line that you did not want, and that you cannot change or unlock another until level 31 (or is it 41?)

Untrue. You can slot only one traitline, but you can start unlocking a second one immediately, and just change over.
I’d also like to point out that before the change your level 20 had no traits whatsoever. That means that contrary to being broken, your character actually got upgraded to what it was before.

Start unlocking it how exactly- my toon is level 26 and not going anywhere. It’s stuck with a traitline that isn’t what I would have unlocked given the choice, which is exactly what level 80 players can do.

Anet basically told us to ‘play the Anet way, tough luck’ on lower level toons.

And if you think about it for a bit, when I start unlocking a second trait line at whatever level it becomes available, i still can’t get those points back on the ruined traitline, so it’s still no where near the choice I would have taken if i started a new toon. At 41 or whatever I’d have maybe one skill on a traitline that I want instead of 4. it only becomes possible to fix when I have enough points to open 4 trait lines, at which point I would have enough to remove the unwanted one and replace it with one I do want.

Until then, the toon is kitten compared to where a fresh toon without Anet’s ‘play it this way, tough’ system would be.

GreyWraith.8394:

The devs did respond to this issue. See the 2nd and 3rd red posts in the following thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Things-we-know/first

Thanks for linking Peters’ response. I was glad that ANet explained their actions, even if I think they drew the wrong conclusion and their plan did a poor job of implementing that idea. It’s a good instinct to protect the players most likely to be the most confused and it’s a good instinct to simplify transitions, by reducing the complexity.

I have no problem understanding and agreeing with ANet’s motives. I just completely disagree with how they decided to act on those ideas. It’s too bad, too, because this distracted from what is otherwise a system that should benefit the community and the game for a long time. It made it more difficult for critics of the change to keep an open mind.

However, it’s still a moot point: they made a decision; they implemented it and there is absolutely no way that we’re going back to how things used to be.

Brandu.8150:

And again, I’ll state what was the premise behind the original post: We got handed an arbitrary set of skills/traits based on what they interpreted as our build intent with no input from us the players and no ability for us to fix what they screwed up.

As much as people whined, moaned and complained about the last major trait update at least they had the ability to zero it out and get in a semblance of how they wanted.

Frankly the only response you’re going to get at this point is a “enough already, just deal with it kitten it.” Secondly, why are they going to (or even should) spend time on some craptastic solution that’s almost guarantee to FUBAR something else just to “solve” a [b]temporary[/i] problem? Want a solution? Use the same ones given to every other person with a complaint about no reset option: go level, delete the character, or step away from the game.

Notsoperky.4291:

Start unlocking it how exactly- my toon is level 26 and not going anywhere. It’s stuck with a traitline that isn’t what I would have unlocked given the choice, which is exactly what level 80 players can do.

You’re character is not unplayable. I’m not going to pretend to know what is involved with unlocking the trait line you want at level 26, but I do know you can still play that character and unlock that trait by gaining hero points. Traits at level 26 are NOT so critical to your build that the few you have make or break your ability to function. SO how exactly do you unlock those traits? Answer: GO PLAY.

The fact you say you can’t get your points back from a trait you won’t use demonstrates you’re lack of understanding in how the game functions as you level. You get MORE than enough hero points to unlock ALL the traitlines, even if you don’t want them.

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Astralporing.1957:

Baldrick.8967:

Let me clear that up for you. At level 20+ you are locked into a trait line that you did not want, and that you cannot change or unlock another until level 31 (or is it 41?)

Untrue. You can slot only one traitline, but you can start unlocking a second one immediately, and just change over.

I’d also like to point out that before the change your level 20 had no traits whatsoever. That means that contrary to being broken, your character actually got upgraded to what it was before.

Irrelevant. The issue is not the comparison between the prior level and this level, it’s that ANet generated a system that involved choice and then arbitrarily removed that choice. Given the state of game in the leveling zones, “broken” has no real meaning in terms of character viability. Hence, the word is being used in the sense of being broken as far as one’s enjoyment of the character is concerned.

Make no mistake, the people who are unhappy with the system chosen are unhappy with the removal of choice and enjoyment.

I don’t know if it’s irrelevant or not, because the information offered is wrong. Saying you have to wait 10 levels to change it when it’s not true is hardly irrelevant. You have to gain enough mastery points to unlock the trait you didn’t want at that level. Which does NOT involve leveling 10 levels. It involves going and getting enough hero challenges to get that done.

So why is saying something is factually wrong irrelevant?

Far afield from what I was pointing to, but OK. You want factual.

Let’s consider a “normal course of play” with a player taking a character through level-appropriate zones. Start at L21. To recoup the 60 points spent, one would have to gain 60 Hero points. The ten levels between 21 and 31 offer 36 points, per GW2 wiki. A zone offering 10 levels worth of content does not offer 24 Hero Challenges, not even close. Kessex has 5. Gendarren has 7. That’s 12 short of the 60, and likely more than ten levels gained.

Sure, one could run around and collect Challenges in multiple zones while ignoring anything else. But that’s certainly not the normal course the game encourages. If that’s your “factual,” it’s an empty piece of bull-gravy designed solely to “win” an argument on the internet.

^Did you account for the hero challenges a player would have completed in the lower level zones? Or just skip those to support a one sided argument?

Before I continue … what exactly are those 60 points spent on at level 21? Is it just traits? If so, traits at level 21 have almost no impact to your build and there should be no issue with using that character. If it’s skills, then I call BS on ‘recouping’ them because the patch didn’t change skills enough to warrant people complaining about being ‘stuck’ with the ones they had prior.

I think if this affects people so much that they can’t see their way past it, they should reroll because getting level 21 is not that big a deal compared to being stuck.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Astralporing.1957:

Baldrick.8967:

Let me clear that up for you. At level 20+ you are locked into a trait line that you did not want, and that you cannot change or unlock another until level 31 (or is it 41?)

Untrue. You can slot only one traitline, but you can start unlocking a second one immediately, and just change over.

I’d also like to point out that before the change your level 20 had no traits whatsoever. That means that contrary to being broken, your character actually got upgraded to what it was before.

Irrelevant. The issue is not the comparison between the prior level and this level, it’s that ANet generated a system that involved choice and then arbitrarily removed that choice. Given the state of game in the leveling zones, “broken” has no real meaning in terms of character viability. Hence, the word is being used in the sense of being broken as far as one’s enjoyment of the character is concerned.

Make no mistake, the people who are unhappy with the system chosen are unhappy with the removal of choice and enjoyment.

I don’t know if it’s irrelevant or not, because the information offered is wrong. Saying you have to wait 10 levels to change it when it’s not true is hardly irrelevant. You have to gain enough mastery points to unlock the trait you didn’t want at that level. Which does NOT involve leveling 10 levels. It involves going and getting enough hero challenges to get that done.

So why is saying something is factually wrong irrelevant?

Far afield from what I was pointing to, but OK. You want factual.

Let’s consider a “normal course of play” with a player taking a character through level-appropriate zones. Start at L21. To recoup the 60 points spent, one would have to gain 60 Hero points. The ten levels between 21 and 31 offer 36 points, per GW2 wiki. A zone offering 10 levels worth of content does not offer 24 Hero Challenges, not even close. Kessex has 5. Gendarren has 7. That’s 12 short of the 60, and likely more than ten levels gained.

Sure, one could run around and collect Challenges in multiple zones while ignoring anything else. But that’s certainly not the normal course the game encourages. If that’s your “factual,” it’s an empty piece of bull-gravy designed solely to “win” an argument on the internet.

For low level zones and most intermediate level zones, you usually have between 6-8 hero points in those zones. So if you do all the hero points in 3 zones, you’ll have between 18 and 24 hero points.

That’s enough to unlock a significant about of traits at low levels. That’s not including the hero points you get from leveling. So you absolutely don’t have to go 10 levels to get the hero points back to unlock what you’d have unlocked by then.

That’s factual.

No one is saying this change is the best thing since sliced bread. No one is even saying it’s good, right or fair.

What’s been said is the amount of work to create a solution for what is at best a temporary problem wasn’t worth it. That was a business decision. It may have been the wrong decision and it may have been the right decision, but I’m going to go with it’s a toss up. It depends on the number of players affected by percentage, and the amount of time making that temporary solution would have taken, with bugs, and troubleshooting and testing and all.

Anet is on a schedule. Devs have deadlines. They have a huge patch out and they have an expansion coming out.

As with all projects it’s a cost vs. perceived value thing. If 5% of the playerbase are affected by this, even 10%, that might seem like a lot of people.

But of that 10%, how many care about traits pre 80? How many understand or pay attention to traits. In reality the amount of people affected by this is probably pretty small and the amount of people deeply affected by this even smaller.

Yes, we all know it’s an inconvenience. I even believe a few people will leave the game because of this.

But that happens all the time. Every time an MMO company changes anything, or does anything, someone will leave the game. It happens. It’s only the end of the world if you make it the end of the world.

No, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, ANet would be remiss to change things at this date. Some may think that’s the purpose of the thread. The real purpose (I hope) is to make ANet think twice the next time they design a system offering choice and then think about taking that choice away from players. Every time ANet does something significant to the game, it looks (to me) like the game is moving away from being an MMO and more towards being a bloody Facebook time-waster. Yes, ANet is a business, but those who like games to challenge them to think take notice every time Anet shafts them to cater to those who don’t want to think.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The real purpose (I hope) is to make ANet think twice the next time they design a system offering choice and then think about taking that choice away from players.

Then be assured because we already know Anet did that. We have a very transparent post from JP explaining their reasoning for doing this. They simply took the least bad option available to them. That’s a pretty reasonable thing to do when all your options are bad ones.

IndigoSundown.5419:

No, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, ANet would be remiss to change things at this date. Some may think that’s the purpose of the thread. The real purpose (I hope) is to make ANet think twice the next time they design a system offering choice and then think about taking that choice away from players. Every time ANet does something significant to the game, it looks (to me) like the game is moving away from being an MMO and more towards being a bloody Facebook time-waster. Yes, ANet is a business, but those who like games to challenge them to think take notice every time Anet shafts them to cater to those who don’t want to think.

Seem to be a lot of people who feel we have more viable builds now than we used to. I’m happy with the changes. There’s not been a huge backlash that I can see, and believe me this community does not shy away from criticism. There’s been more positive reaction than negative to the changes.

With regard to your other comments, Anet made a decision based on budget and time. I’m pretty sure they next time they have that decision to make they’ll make the exact same decision, because budget and time will still exist.

It’s just like when I ran a business and made a decision that would negatively influence a minority of customers. If it was a small enough pool of people being inconvenienced, and it helped keep me under budget, it was a decision I made. The customers affected might or might not understand why I did it, but that doesn’t mean I would have done anything else, regardless of their reaction.

Anet made a decision. They could have spent more time/money (same thing really) on fixing a temporary problem, or they could deal with the backlash. They opted to deal with the backlash.

Vayne.8563:

Seem to be a lot of people who feel we have more viable builds now than we used to. I’m happy with the changes. There’s not been a huge backlash that I can see, and believe me this community does not shy away from criticism. There’s been more positive reaction than negative to the changes.

With regard to your other comments, Anet made a decision based on budget and time. I’m pretty sure they next time they have that decision to make they’ll make the exact same decision, because budget and time will still exist.

It’s just like when I ran a business and made a decision that would negatively influence a minority of customers. If it was a small enough pool of people being inconvenienced, and it helped keep me under budget, it was a decision I made. The customers affected might or might not understand why I did it, but that doesn’t mean I would have done anything else, regardless of their reaction.

Anet made a decision. They could have spent more time/money (same thing really) on fixing a temporary problem, or they could deal with the backlash. They opted to deal with the backlash.

Drop the straw man argument about "spending more resources. That would only apply in the case of a “both reset and auto-select” option. The auto-select was more resource intensive than a simple reset would be, end of story.

Yeah, ANet made a business decision, But saving resources didn’t factor into it until after they chose to favor those who prefer not to think over those those who prefer to think.

Obtena.7952:

Then be assured because we already know Anet did that. We have a very transparent post from JP explaining their reasoning for doing this. They simply took the least bad option available to them. That’s a pretty reasonable thing to do when all your options are bad ones.

See above. They took the least bad option for one group over the best option for another group. It might also be the least bad option for them as far as profit goes. Afaik, that’s the real issue they’re concerned with.

I remember when I was in 7th grade, I was taken to task for giving answers to those who were having trouble “getting it.” The teacher told me that I was harming them in the long run because I was removing their need to learn how.

So, I would prefer a game developer who is more concerned about making players think and struggle over one that enables the easy way out. It’s pretty obvious to me that — despite the excellent reasoning applied in the Jon Peters post — management is guiding their thinking towards making things easier — with profit as the motive — instead of providing games that stretch anything but their bottom line.

What do I expect from all this brouhaha? Nothing. I expect ANet to continue as they have been. However, on the vanishingly small chance that someone in power over here might change their minds, I post my thoughts.

IndigoSundown.5419:

See above. They took the least bad option for one group over the best option for another group. It might also be the least bad option for them as far as profit goes. Afaik, that’s the real issue they’re concerned with.

Yes, and they did that because it was the least bad option for the game as a whole, which is the more important consideration here. Yes, profits are the main consideration … Anet is a business and the owners motivation to fund it is ROI. Hard decisions have to be made sometimes that don’t benefit everyone. That’s life.

I actually don’t get the complaint. I’m struggling to understand how having an adept trait or not takes a character from playable to absolutely useless and stuck … at level 21. Hero points are continuously gained as the game is played. How does a character become stuck at this low level if they can earn the points to regain the traitline the player desires to have and traits are rather insignificant at those levels anyways?

I think the problem here is that people are trying to take advantage of Anet by pointing out an opportunity Anet missed because they don’t like how they were traited prior to the patch. That seems rather backhanded to me.

Given that this is the only thread of its particular kind, complaining about auto trait assignment, and that most people would reason that going around collecting hero points and leveling a bit more would get them to what they desire faster than deleting characters and starting FROM SCRATCH, I’d say this aspect of the trait update had the most minimal negative impact on the playerbase of all changes to the games they’ve released so far.

Obtena.7952:

Yes, and they did that because it was the least bad option for the game as a whole, which is the more important consideration here. Yes, profits are the main consideration … Anet is a business and the owners motivation to fund it is ROI. Hard decisions have to be made sometimes that don’t benefit everyone. That’s life.

I actually don’t get the complaint. I’m struggling to understand how having an adept trait or not takes a character from playable to absolutely useless and stuck … at level 21. Hero points are continuously gained as the game is played. How does a character become stuck at this low level if they can earn the points to regain the trait line the player desires to have and traits are rather insignificant at those levels anyways?

I don’t give a rat’s kitten about whether one trait (or a whole 60 point line, in the case of my L21) was arbitrarily assigned. I don’t presume to speak for anyone other than myself, but that is not my complaint. My complaint has to do with the rationale behind their choice.

Instead of trying to produce a game that stretches gamers, ANet is opting for the easy way out by catering to the lowest common denominator. If that’s all that sells these days, as you and the other apologists seem to indicate, then that’s indicative of what’s wrong with western society as a whole. Quixotic of me? Definitely. A waste of my time? Probably, but it’s my time. Wasted on the ANet apologists? Seemingly.

Obtena.7952:

I think the problem here is that people are trying to take advantage of Anet by pointing out an opportunity Anet missed because they don’t like how they were traited prior to the patch. That seems rather backhanded to me.

No L21 was “traited” prior to the patch. It wasn’t possible. I’m certainly not trying to “take advantage” of them, not that that would even be possible. However, I’d certainly like them to demand more of me and other gamers than their current approach to development indicates they’re willing to do.

Notsoperky.4291:

Astralporing.1957:

Baldrick.8967:

Let me clear that up for you. At level 20+ you are locked into a trait line that you did not want, and that you cannot change or unlock another until level 31 (or is it 41?)

Untrue. You can slot only one traitline, but you can start unlocking a second one immediately, and just change over.
I’d also like to point out that before the change your level 20 had no traits whatsoever. That means that contrary to being broken, your character actually got upgraded to what it was before.

Start unlocking it how exactly- my toon is level 26 and not going anywhere. It’s stuck with a traitline that isn’t what I would have unlocked given the choice, which is exactly what level 80 players can do.

If you do not intend to play this character, then the whole problem is completely irrelevant, isn’kitten But to be more specific – you are not “locked out” of other traitlines. You merely currently lack hps to buy them. That’s a big difference.