Guild Wars 2

jweez.7214:

At the risk of getting ate alive by saying this…I kinda like this change. : |

I’ve always felt that gw2 front loads you with everything a class has to offer and there’s no anticipation for that next great skill/trait. And no real chance for you to really learn all the pros and cons of the ones you currently have.

That being said this does suck for those of you who level a lot and are adept at getting into a new class. Maybe anet will come out with a middle ground to help ease the burden on your guys side of the things.

Me I think this whole problem could be solved by reverting to a level 20 cap like Guild Wars 1. Maybe level 30.

Guild Wars 1, the leveling to cap was just kind of a tutorial, you leveled very quickly, got your max AR armor and weapons, and started capping elite skills and doing elite areas, and in factions and nightfall at least, most of the missions were based at level cap. Level 20 (cap) was just the beginning.

Guild Wars 2 it seems like they inflated the cap without really thinking it through, the complaints of “after level 30 what’s the point in leveling, I have all my skills unlocked already”. That is part of the decision making regarding this feature pack. To make leveling seem more rewarding on your slog up to level 80.

It used to be, leveling up to about 30 felt great, sense of progress up until then, and then you felt like you plateaued all the way to 80. I understand and agree with those complaints. However the solution IMO is not to STRETCH OUT unlocking skill slots and utilities and elites, and traits, bur rather to compress the leveling system to a lower cap. Level 40 is as high as you should need in this game, absolute maximum.

Yet the cap is 80. That was a mistake.

I find it unbelievable that people want the cap RAISED as it is. Level cap raising brings with it more problems than it pretends to solve.

I am the type of person that doesn’t mind getting all such features available quite early, however.. look at it a different way. Maybe they are setting up things to reduce the level cap? It already looks quite alot like ‘why do I need levels 31-34 if I get the meaty stuff at 30 and 35?’. Now I’m personally a type of person that could play games without levels as I have done so before, but consolidating the levels to a ‘more effort for 1 level, but a reward at each level’ would be a good thing in my book. I can be completely wrong ofcourse since it would be a massive change, but one can always hope.

I don’t think they are going to reduce the level cap. I think they reworked the traits, realized that there were a lot of dead zones, and spread everything else out so it felt like progress.

Now I just wish they would give us level 60 – 80 scrolls.

Orpheal.8263:

(…)

• World Map UI gets reduced by not showing you instantly anymore how much % you already explored of the game from begin on. POI’s won’t be shown to you directly as like also the Vistas won’t be shown to you directly, stuff that will get unlocked later so that players shouldn’t get “overwhelmed” cough too early with too many information that they maybe may not understand directly.
  howver, you can still directly interact with them, you just don’t see them directly as a Newbie on the World Map (whatever a sense this should make at all)

• Material Nodes also won’t be shown anymore directly on the Map. All Low Level Areas have no Material Nodes anymore directly!! He believes, from Level 9 on that your character “learns” then to gather materials first…

(…)

Wait a second… I know this stuff is in the vastly hated Chinese client, but is it a sure thing we are getting it too…? o.o

(I can’t open the video right now)

I love how condescending people are about the game, “you don’t understand, the newbies aren’t like you and me, they don’t know any better and they’ll love whatever they’re given”. It’s like, just because we all loved this game when we played it doesn’t mean we’d have loved this new game.

And it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean that all the veteran players should love having to deal with this nonsense if we want to make a new character. No, this is not just a feature for new players, it is a hindrance for old players.

Stooperdale.3560:

I don’t really care how insulting this is. Doesn’t this just really break weapon sets until the all the skills are unlocked? It might be alright for warriors to bash things with auto-attack but thieves need skills 4 and 5 to make their weapon sets work!

One of the better design features of the game was that the weapon sets worked from level 1, without utilities , without traits. Now they don’t work.

I couldn’t imagine leveling a new thief now without black powder until level 10. That was my main defense. Learning to conserve dodges took longer to learn.

the game is already easy enough for new players, they dont need this and its a huge disservice to existing players who want to level alts.

At this rate, Anet will be forcing everyone to level a warrior first before unlocking other classes, just so casuals arent overburdened by accidentally picking a class that requires a functioning nervous system.

I never played an MMORPG before GW2 and I never, ever felt frustrated by anything that happened, except that I levelled my first character before I realised I could select traits at 10/20/30 trait point levels.

This is absolutely unnecessary.

I don’t give a monkey’s uncle what Anet says, this is designed to pander to Chinese players who are used to progression grind.

Orpheal.8263:

So I’ll translate step by step:

• Weapon Skills won’t get unlocked anymore through using your Weapon, but now instead through Character Level Ups.
  Means you must be now Level X to become able to use Skill Y
  Skills unlock at Level 4, 7 and 10
  Utility’s will get unlocked from now on on Level 13, 24 and 35!!
  Elite will get unlocked now first at Level 40!

The Video Maker says after that, that it will become much more likely now, that Newbies won’t find anymore Groups for Dungeon Parties, like Ascalon due to having the massive disadvantage now of having 1 Utitility lesser and no Elite Skill anymore

• Next point that gets explained is the new Compass Needle, that guides you to spots that you still have to explore or in general to do, like Renowm Hearts, Personal Story Spots, Living Story Spots and so on…
  That needle functionizes also with Events

He shows then in the Options Menu, that you can customize that Compass Needle, what kind of information it should show you, or not.

• After that he talks about the new Level Up Rewards. These rewards should give you the feeling, that getting a Level Up should be more rewarding and feel more like a progress with your Character

• Next he shows the changes on the Hero panel, where the new sections have been added, nothign special, except the mention, that this “feature” will get unlocked first from Lvl 6 lol (the wardrobe)

• He mentions then that you unlock first with Lvl 5 the Downed State.

• The Ranger Pet Skill Bar also get unlocked first later from now on, but you start naturally directly with your Pet. He believes, this unlocks with Level 7.
  But he’s unsure, because he has these infos from the Chinese Client, if he remembers on them right.

• World Map UI gets reduced by not showing you instantly anymore how much % you already explored of the game from begin on. POI’s won’t be shown to you directly as like also the Vistas won’t be shown to you directly, stuff that will get unlocked later so that players shouldn’t get “overwhelmed” cough too early with too many information that they maybe may not understand directly.
  howver, you can still directly interact with them, you just don’t see them directly as a Newbie on the World Map (whatever a sense this should make at all)

• Material Nodes also won’t be shown anymore directly on the Map. All Low Level Areas have no Material Nodes anymore directly!! He believes, from Level 9 on that your character “learns” then to gather materials first…

• Traps get now telegraphed better in the Low Level Areas for Newbies to let then learn how to dodge to get onto the Treasure Chest

• Then he talks about the Personal Story and how it also unlocks now step by step through Level Ups in the Menu, however, the Personal Story starts now first with Lvl 10!
  So everythign what we would have doen so far with earlier levels under the old system, got now merged together as 1 story part.
  Black Lion Key Farm Lvl 10 over, now you have to Level your Character to 20 to get a Key!!!

• Traits stay at Lvl 30 getting unlocked

• PvP/ WvW Buttons unlock now just also after you reach a certain Level, but still enterable from Lions Arch normally
  ——-

All in all, brief said:

ANet turns all the Low level Areas now into basically “Tutorial Zones” that are dumbed down versions now of being “idiot sure maps”, which slowly let you use now all of the things now first, once you reach a certain Level with your Character first, because, you know, otherwise it could be too much for us players to understand … lol

Oh come on ArenaNet! We are not idiots okay?
With these changes they treat us like our intellect can be put to shame by a kitten glass of water…

What ever happened to a game being challenging anymore?
Part of the fun of GW2 is the flexibility the low level characters used to have. You have so many weapons to choose from, so may skills, build styles. By lvl 20 you even had some traits which improved quality of life for a lot of classes (warrior’s sprint, engineer weapon swap swiftness, etc).

The challenge and flexibility are what keep a game fun. It’s why Angry Birds is so successful on mobile devices. It’s challenging.

At least a few dungeons in GW2 are challenging enough.

I really can’t see how anyone could get confused by the game’s basic features like skills unless this is literally the first ever MMO (scratch that, first ever pc rpg) they have ever played. The advanced features like traits, crafting, dungeons, wvw and the like? sure, but considering it takes an undirected newbie quite a while to reach level 10, ArenaNet sure are hinging a lot on people sticking around to play because they already bought the game.

I know many gamers who would just drop the game if progression isn’t fast and obvious enough, having bought the game or not, and it seems that from now on, noticeable progression in the game will be very, very thinly spread.

I will reserve final personal judgement until I experience the change for myself, but as it stands (from the perspective of an actual new player, not a veteran like most here) these changes are incredibly unappealing.

Half seem to be saying it is removing challenge while at the same time saying it will be impossible to level. Can’t have it both ways.

I will see how things are when the patch arrives, but if half of what is said here is actually true (pertaining to what unlocks when) it will be unsettling to say the least. Glad I already have 80’s and birthday scrolls.

Exactly, anyone defending those changes based on “there are more people who can’t than those who can, hence simplification”, can’t possibly be serious. I mean, honestly, have our society become so kittened since the times of Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 that we have to introduce such changes? I mean, honestly, the highest grossing product of NCSoft ( Lineage ) is 10 x more difficult than this and has more people playing it. So it can’t possibly be a reason “to cater the masses”.
Meh… No time to waste on it anymore… GW3, please, come ASAP and be more like GW1.

PS Good I’ve got some scrolls, too.

Devildoc.6721:

jweez.7214:

At the risk of getting ate alive by saying this…I kinda like this change. : |

I’ve always felt that gw2 front loads you with everything a class has to offer and there’s no anticipation for that next great skill/trait. And no real chance for you to really learn all the pros and cons of the ones you currently have.

That being said this does suck for those of you who level a lot and are adept at getting into a new class. Maybe anet will come out with a middle ground to help ease the burden on your guys side of the things.

Me I think this whole problem could be solved by reverting to a level 20 cap like Guild Wars 1. Maybe level 30.

Guild Wars 1, the leveling to cap was just kind of a tutorial, you leveled very quickly, got your max AR armor and weapons, and started capping elite skills and doing elite areas, and in factions and nightfall at least, most of the missions were based at level cap. Level 20 (cap) was just the beginning.

Guild Wars 2 it seems like they inflated the cap without really thinking it through, the complaints of “after level 30 what’s the point in leveling, I have all my skills unlocked already”. That is part of the decision making regarding this feature pack. To make leveling seem more rewarding on your slog up to level 80.

It used to be, leveling up to about 30 felt great, sense of progress up until then, and then you felt like you plateaued all the way to 80. I understand and agree with those complaints. However the solution IMO is not to STRETCH OUT unlocking skill slots and utilities and elites, and traits, bur rather to compress the leveling system to a lower cap. Level 40 is as high as you should need in this game, absolute maximum.

Yet the cap is 80. That was a mistake.

I find it unbelievable that people want the cap RAISED as it is. Level cap raising brings with it more problems than it pretends to solve.

I’ve to disagree with you here.
only because Anet implements now way too late a basic real tutorial system, whats something which should have been in the game from begin on , is no reason to dumb down the whole game now to GW1 niveau by its game design.

If this tutorial system would have been in the game from begin on and we would have experienced all, when we were still newbies, we would surely think completely different about the game, than now …

PS:

@Maxwell:

People asked for a German to confirm/translate, I did it as I’m a German and if you juts need this to believe it, I will officially confirm you here and now again:

Yes, these thigns that I listed up there, which are already in the Chinese Client, will find their way also into our Clients as thats exactly what the Video Maker basically said.
I just translated everything what the Video Maker said and converted it over, what this will mean for the changed features.
Ah that point where he’s looking at the World Map in the Low Level Zone with with a new Character, all those symbols that we know from the World Map UI won’t be shown to you anymore, until you reach first with your character the fitting level to unlock those “features” and to learn about them, that you can use them now and how you use them ect.

As said, anet basically turns now the Low Level Zones into Tutorial Zones, where new players get within like the first 10 Levels teached the most important thigns about the game slowly step by step so more you progress with your Character Level, where we were able to see just everything pre-FP2.

(Shrug) they mentioned this in the blog post: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-fresh-start-the-new-player-experience-in-guild-wars-2/

“As we layered in systems and new rewards across the levels, some other features like weapon swapping and skill slot unlocks have been moved a bit to fill in better with the progression of mechanics we’ve established.”

The Chinese system has skills and utilities removed to higher levels. While ANet didn’t spell it out in the blog, knowing what other Chinese stuff they are bringing in implied they were doing this also.

wwwes.1398:

I love how condescending people are about the game, “you don’t understand, the newbies aren’t like you and me, they don’t know any better and they’ll love whatever they’re given”. It’s like, just because we all loved this game when we played it doesn’t mean we’d have loved this new game.

And it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean that all the veteran players should love having to deal with this nonsense if we want to make a new character. No, this is not just a feature for new players, it is a hindrance for old players.

That’s what I mean by this change being insulting to people’s intelligence.

I mean me? I think that a new player can figure this stuff out, I have faith in you, you’re intelligent reasonable people who can troubleshoot and problem solve, you’ll mouseover some icons, read some tooltips, maybe read a guide, but you got this, and you’ll practice until you get better and better.

Anet seems to think you’re incapable of doing this and thinks they need to not only spoonfeed you, but make airplane noises at you while maneuvering the spoon.

I’d be insulted as a new player.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

The Spiral King.2483:

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

- when you’ve had guardians who have played this game for two years full on “hardcore” and have yet to unlock the skills on their sword, only to discover that zealot’s defense has a block projectile mechanic
- when you’ve had people with multiple legendaries, 12k cheevos, who still don’t know how to effectively stack might or use light projectile finishers to clear condis quickly, or blast anything else other than might
- when you’ve had people who think dealing with any sort of mechanics or bosses who have mechanics are too hard and annoying
- when you’ve had a full group of “elite” full ascended zerkers take more than 40 minutes in a single path in CM that have been playing this game since beta who are self proclaimed “speed runners”

It makes it extremely hard to not sympathize with their decision, albeit probably not the best way to go about things.

The problem is that this is not the way to do things period. Even if players only got their first utility at lvl 60, some people would auto-attack their way through the game. The problem is that there’s a huge difference between the open world content and “elite” content, using the word “elite” very loosely to describe anything that requires more skill that pressing one button repeatedly. People don’t learn because they have no reason to when their suboptimal tactics work just fine. Making the game even easier and/or dumber won’t solve anything.

GW2 needs to explain its concepts well and in-game. It needs a combo field tutorial. It needs an in-game list of combo fields. It needs an in-game list of downed skills. It needs to teach people instead of hoping they’ll learn something they don’t need.

TooBz.3065:

I don’t think they are going to reduce the level cap. I think they reworked the traits, realized that there were a lot of dead zones, and spread everything else out so it felt like progress.

Now I just wish they would give us level 60 – 80 scrolls.

Feels like progress lol…
Learning to use skills better, try various stuffs during the old lv30-80 is the most fun thing ever, and you want to push those way back because some irrational people want to feel a sense of progress while being useless until then?

LV80 is just a start, and if those newbies think that getting to lv80 means they’re at their max potential, they’re sorely mistaken. They’ll still be noob in both PVE, PVP and WvW despite getting to lv80, so why lock everything away at such a high level cap and make people feel useless?

LOL… I stopped playing a month ago, but I go to the forum from time to time to see how it is going. And it is really interesting to just sit back and smile at all those furious reactions to this slowly sinking ship. There are more games and other real life stuff out there it is not worth to get annoyed because of a few pixels. …I mean, I would really like to go back, but there need to be something valuable added to this game, not just FIXES that should have been there from the beginning, or useless and often annoying changes like the ones that are noted above

Well truth be told. I am kind of starting to understand why dungeons are so hard with random people. Maybe I joined groups which are Arenanet’s target audience. Perhaps skill nr 9 and 10 were too much to handle in Ascalonian Catacombs and that’s why Senior Kohler is wrecking face so hard :P

Let’s see how the collection stuff turns out though, it’s already upsetting the market pretty hard, especially for miniatures.

…Wow. And here I thought leveling my first character after the trait update was such a boring bloody slog that I didn’t even want to play them by the time I got them to being able to use traits. I was making a character with the intent to actually check out this ‘new player experience,’ and…well, I’m already disheartened. I was glad I had a main to 80 before the trait patch, I’m glad they’re to 80 before the ‘glacial unlock’ patch.

Do these new players they’re trying to get just have really good attention spans, and an inability to learn at any rate besides glacial?
I know that, if I were coming into a game and discovered that everything was locked so far in, I’d quit. I might quit this one, due to the unpleasant experience making alts is becoming – after all, my main’s been through most of what the game has to offer already. Alts are pretty much why I’ve kept playing, and this patch, as I’ve mentioned over and over, is making that experience bloody awful.

Undeadkemea.4865:

Well truth be told. I am kind of starting to understand why dungeons are so hard with random people. Maybe I joined groups which are Arenanet’s target audience. Perhaps skill nr 9 and 10 were too much to handle in Ascalonian Catacombs and that’s why Senior Kohler is wrecking face so hard :P

Let’s see how the collection stuff turns out though, it’s already upsetting the market pretty hard, especially for miniatures.

Some of the items for the home instance treasure chest leaked, the prices skyrocketed to the hundreds of gold.

The Spiral King.2483:

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

Yes i can confirm this………..
German is my native language.

You start with 2 skills, everything else is locked until lvl 10.
At least this is what he said.
In general this game gets a massive dumb down.
You can’t farm materials as low levels because you cant see them directly.

I have no idea why they are doing this to to us.
the game is already for brain dead.

I guess this shows the direction we are going and it is an indicator to where the
priority’s shifted.
They gave up on the vest since there are almost not existing anymore
and totally focus on new players.
If that continues we end up with 5 fixed skills and 1 traid bar
and will be sold to Facebook.

I am highly concerned

What I do know is that whoever is making these plans has no freaking clue how games work, I’m almost certain it’s the “dreamers” at the company and not the actual developers. When Tequatl came out, it failed every time. But they didn’t nerf it, players learned and taught each other, and now he is beaten every single time he comes out, it’s just a matter of whether people can get organized fast enough.

Lesson is: gamers ALWAYS whine that stuff is too hard, and then they adapt. That’s every freaking game since the beginning of time. You don’t listen to the whining, you respect them enough to tell them they’ll be fine if they just keep trying. I feel so bad for the new players in this system, they will be so far behind everyone else that they’ll quit.

The Spiral King.2483:

- when you’ve had guardians who have played this game for two years full on “hardcore” and have yet to unlock the skills on their sword, only to discover that zealot’s defense has a block projectile mechanic
- when you’ve had people with multiple legendaries, 12k cheevos, who still don’t know how to effectively stack might or use light projectile finishers to clear condis quickly, or blast anything else other than might
- when you’ve had people who think dealing with any sort of mechanics or bosses who have mechanics are too hard and annoying
- when you’ve had a full group of “elite” full ascended zerkers take more than 40 minutes in a single path in CM that have been playing this game since beta who are self proclaimed “speed runners”

This is a failure in the tutorial system which will not be fixed by slowing down progression. Slowing down progression will not magically teach people to stack might. Nor will it make people read tool tips. Nor will it make them experiment.

Today you complain that the guardian doesn’t know everything about sword 3. In six months you’ll complain that all people do is auto attack. They spent so much time with the 1 skill and it’s always worked well enough.

Mortifer.2946:

LOL… I stopped playing a month ago, but I go to the forum from time to time to see how it is going. And it is really interesting to just sit back and smile at all those furious reactions to this slowly sinking ship. There are more games and other real life stuff out there it is not worth to get annoyed because of a few pixels. …I mean, I would really like to go back, but there need to be something valuable added to this game, not just FIXES that should have been there from the beginning, or useless and often annoying changes like the ones that are noted above

The ship is slowly sinking, but its more like a minor annoyance, a leak that can be fixed anytime the captain wishes go back to land and make port. The only problem is, the captain doesn’t think that the catch is good enough, so they stay out at sea. The problem is that this creates more problems than the leak. The previous catch is slowly starting to rot, so the Captain orders them be thrown overboard in favor of the fresher fish. This Captain will eventually learn that staying out at sea for too long brings in the exact same size catch as if they back to land faster.

…I think there’s enough allegories in there to take up the rest of someone’s day, so I’ll just say this. The Captain’s Buddy’s ship over at Carbine is actually sinking compared to his ship, so he has no reason to worry until it actually becomes a problem.

Seems like anet wants older players to use tomes of knowledge to speed level alts since leveling is dull when you make your 4th char.
Thees changes are so awkward and unnecessary, i mean was anyone complaining that the game threw to many mechanics at you to quickly or that open world pve was hard? Hell no from what i see they just made it slow and more boring for new players to go through levels 2-40ish.

Looks like a bad, bad joke.
I am far from being a hater, but does all of this mean we are getting our VIP accounts for real money in the next feature patch?
Come on Arena Net, what are you doing…? -_-

sigh

I am hoping that this will feel ok for new players. I really do. I hope they get from this all that they want and need because if not, Anet will be killing their own game. A game i looked forward to for years. A game I enjoyed playing and defending since beta, but which has recently soured me in the worse way.

I hope their new players like it. I hope their new players will get access to the drytop content without having to pay for episodes they missed simply because they started after they were first released. I hope Anet listens.

wwwes.1398:

What I do know is that whoever is making these plans has no freaking clue how games work, I’m almost certain it’s the “dreamers” at the company and not the actual developers. When Tequatl came out, it failed every time. But they didn’t nerf it, players learned and taught each other, and now he is beaten every single time he comes out, it’s just a matter of whether people can get organized fast enough.

Lesson is: gamers ALWAYS whine that stuff is too hard, and then they adapt. That’s every freaking game since the beginning of time. You don’t listen to the whining, you respect them enough to tell them they’ll be fine if they just keep trying. I feel so bad for the new players in this system, they will be so far behind everyone else that they’ll quit.

The only bad part about Tequatl’s roll out is that you have a 150 person PuG.

The problem was not the fight mechanics at all, the fight mechanics were great, it’s the fact that it was on an open landscape zone rather than an instanced dungeon.

Expecting 100+ people who just randomly join the map to be on voice communication and work together in teams is a bit of a stretch.

lol i remember back when we are playing Hroes of Might and Magic.
I was around 7 or 8.
There was a skillbar full of useful skillsand could handle it even without a manual
or something.
Not to mention GW1 where you have 10 changeable skills and thought this is way to less.
Why exactly do we have to match the pace to the “special cookies” ????
This is kinda insulting

Raven.9603:

the game is already easy enough for new players, they dont need this and its a huge disservice to existing players who want to level alts.

At this rate, Anet will be forcing everyone to level a warrior first before unlocking other classes, just so casuals arent overburdened by accidentally picking a class that requires a functioning nervous system.

That warrior hate is deeply ingrained.

I can almost feel the resentment oozing from this post.

IMO all these changes will promote and increase the value of “trained” accounts for sale on ebay… leveling in this game is getting more and more tedious each patch

IllegalChocolate.6938:

The Spiral King.2483:

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

- when you’ve had guardians who have played this game for two years full on “hardcore” and have yet to unlock the skills on their sword, only to discover that zealot’s defense has a block projectile mechanic
- when you’ve had people with multiple legendaries, 12k cheevos, who still don’t know how to effectively stack might or use light projectile finishers to clear condis quickly, or blast anything else other than might
- when you’ve had people who think dealing with any sort of mechanics or bosses who have mechanics are too hard and annoying
- when you’ve had a full group of “elite” full ascended zerkers take more than 40 minutes in a single path in CM that have been playing this game since beta who are self proclaimed “speed runners”

It makes it extremely hard to not sympathize with their decision, albeit probably not the best way to go about things.

Pushing the unlocks further will not make those things go away. Nothing in these changes help people learn anything. Yes, there are people that still, after 2 years, didn’t learn to dodge. Does that mean that dodging should be available only after level 10 (for example)?

It’s not “pushing players into deep waters” (by having available everything from the start) that is a problem. It’s telling them to swim, without bothering to teach them how to do it.

What happened to Anet saying months ago, perhaps 1 year ago that they wanted to make GW2 more alt friendly? Seems all they are doing since then is the opposite of that statement.

The content is overwhelming for new players? Yes, for a first MMO it can be, but it is not raising the cap level that will fix this.

The game needs a proper tutorial, an instance like any other RPG game have it, need to make concise explanation of things, this game lacks of it, the UI is bad. The instance can very well explain weapon skills, combos, utilities, combat, dodge and everything else.

It is not putting such hindrance and stress over players that will ensure they will learn, quite the contrary. Most of the times what is stopping players of learning is themselves, they don’t need to read, don’t need to learn, the way they play and auto attack are more than sufficient to level up and kill champs on the maps with the trains.

Anet shows how much they are are worried about new players, but honestly, the people they are trying to aim and please, plays this game for a few months and quit, it has been since the release the game. The ones that are buying things on TP, supporting the game, aren’t new players, are the veteran players that Anet have been ignoring so far.

Anet thinks 5 weapon skills, healing skill, 3 utility skills and 1 elite skill is too much for people here to cope with.

Meanwhile in other games:

You can still use those level-up scrolls or craft your way up.

Last character I made I used 1 scroll, levelled up from 20 to 40, then crafted 6 professions.
Took 2 days for the levelling, 3 hours for the crafting.

I agree however that is seems like they are dumbing the game down.

I think I’m pretty much done with this game – just waiting on something else to come out.

I signed up for the Archeage open beta, hopefully that will come soon.

WHY, as a family who has raised 5 characters to level 8o under the old system, would we make an alt now?

1) Now if I go down early on I am dead. Less likely that other players will help me. Go back to the nearest waypoint and run all the way back and try again. Actually, how much will new players enjoy this process?
2) I can’t quick-swap weapons until a much higher level now. So to switch from melee to ranged now requires me to go into the hero screen every time. How is this better, and how was it too hard before?
3) Utility skills. My last slot comes at level 35 now? I thought you were trying to make the game EASIER for new players, not harder. The fewer slots we have, the harder the game content is. Same thing with Elites being pushed to 40.
4) You have Dungeons starting at level 30, but characters can’t get a full skill bar till 40. I thought you wanted Veterans to help out newer players? Why would we enter a Dungeon with a bunch of players who don’teven have full skill bars?
5) Reviewing what they already did earlier this year with Traits, again lower level characters are weaker, which seriously slows the leveling process. You also have less diversity at lower levels, since every Warrior pre-60 looks pretty much the same.
6) Weapon skills unlocking at higher levels. Frankly, certain classes NEED those highr level weapon skills unlocked in order to survive at lower level content.

So with all of this said, here is my second set of questions:

1) Is this all because of the new Chinese market? If I as an American need my game play experience “dumbed down” because of new Chinese players, then it shows how much you appreciate those of us who have played for over a year now.
2) Are Chinese players unable to understand the things that the rest of us did when we learned the game? I thought they were some of the smartest people on the planet?
3) There’s little chnace this is any player’s FIRST MMO experience. Why? Because they had to pay $30-$40 to play this game! Isn’t it most likely that these people have already tried several free to play MMOs out there, and thus they understand more than you are giving them credit for?
4) What’s the real fear of “losing” new players? They BOUGHT the game. Because of this investment, they are MORE likely to learn the game as originally written, not less. There are all sorts of FTP games out there that I dropped after one hour, because I had nothing invested in it. That is not the case here.
5) Why could you not make the Chinese servers function differently, or have “Veteran” alt leveling options, etc? Have a tutorial version and a “normal” version? Was there any talk about this?
6) Will you make something available to veteran players to allow us to jump immediately to level 40?

Right now, I have a 30 Elementalist and 20 Necro that I frankly have no interest in leveling anymore. Thanks.

Astralporing.1957:

Pushing the unlocks further will not make those things go away. Nothing in these changes help people learn anything. Yes, there are people that still, after 2 years, didn’t learn to dodge. Does that mean that dodging should be available only after level 10 (for example)?

It’s not “pushing players into deep waters” (by having available everything from the start) that is a problem. It’s telling them to swim, without bothering to teach them how to do it.

A lot of players don’t realize they can go to other maps. Best lock them into the starter zone until level 50.

Mesket.5728:

IMO all these changes will promote and increase the value of “trained” accounts for sale on ebay… leveling in this game is getting more and more tedious each patch

Haha, so true.:D

Seriously, though. All the recent changes, dumbing down process and so on make me feel like ANet realised they wouldn’t bother satisfying veteran players but rather invite newcomers so they could earn something and sustain the life of the game.

I have been wondering about making a topic on this myself…..Why does Anet steadily make this game dumber??

The beauty of an MMO is its complexity. I don’t understand the target audience here!Skill bars and builds are supposed to be complicated!! This need to please the “casual gamers” is irritating…….

If I may dare to do so, I would like to blame the dumbing down of games, to gaming on phones and tablets.

Xillllix.3485:

You can still use those level-up scrolls or craft your way up.

Last character I made I used 1 scroll, levelled up from 20 to 40, then crafted 6 professions.
Took 2 days for the levelling, 3 hours for the crafting.

Yes, using birthday scrolls and spending lots of gold is definitely new player friendly. I’m so glad Anet decided to make these exciting™ changes to to skill unlocks to complement their exciting™ changes to trait unlocks. Oh, what’s that? Crafting prices through the roof? Need a little more gold? I think I have just the solution for your little problem…

fourhim.3584:

3) Utility skills. My last slot comes at level 35 now? I thought you were trying to make the game EASIER for new players, not harder. The fewer slots we have, the harder the game content is. Same thing with Elites being pushed to 40.

It is absolutely laughable this is supposed to make the game easier.

“This boss fight is way too hard for players. Lets tie their hands on their back, put on a blindfold and hamstring them. That should make it a lot easier for new players to complete our content” -Some guy at their office apparantly

Xillllix.3485:

You can still use those level-up scrolls or craft your way up.

Last character I made I used 1 scroll, levelled up from 20 to 40, then crafted 6 professions.
Took 2 days for the levelling, 3 hours for the crafting.

I agree however that is seems like they are dumbing the game down.

I don’t exactly have a ton of scrolls. And here’s the thing, you NEED to level through those zones, that’s how you get most of your low level mats! Low characters are the only ones that get equipment drops that salvage as iron ore.

Devildoc.6721:

The only bad part about Tequatl’s roll out is that you have a 150 person PuG.

The problem was not the fight mechanics at all, the fight mechanics were great, it’s the fact that it was on an open landscape zone rather than an instanced dungeon.

Expecting 100+ people who just randomly join the map to be on voice communication and work together in teams is a bit of a stretch.

Except Tequatl was never meant to be a zerg fest world boss where everyone shows up at the last minute and hopes to win.

It was supposed to be a pre-planned event, much like a raid, where you prepare ahead of time, establish roles for groups, get on voice chat, etc.

When it was released everyone kept trying to treat it like it was Svanir Shaman or something and complained it was too hard and needed too much communication.

Ask anyone now that actually does Teq and you will know that it is extremely easy to do withOUT voice chat communication. You just need to get in a properly organized map. Look in LFG for taxis to Teq some time. You will be pleasantly surprised how easy the encounter is.

The Complexity of Gw2 is already on a level comparable to Console games with less buttons than a keyboard, and GW2 is nothing compared to GW1, which itself is nowhere near as complex as an MMO like WoW or Everquest.

wwwes.1398:

Xillllix.3485:

You can still use those level-up scrolls or craft your way up.

Last character I made I used 1 scroll, levelled up from 20 to 40, then crafted 6 professions.
Took 2 days for the levelling, 3 hours for the crafting.

I agree however that is seems like they are dumbing the game down.

I don’t exactly have a ton of scrolls. And here’s the thing, you NEED to level through those zones, that’s how you get most of your low level mats! Low characters are the only ones that get equipment drops that salvage as iron ore.

I wouldn’t know I’ve only played WvW and PvP since I finished world completion (like 18 months ago). I was just mentioning the alternative to this levelling. Even before these new restrictions I found the task too boring.

I’m not a very vocal lurker here but I often visit to read. But having said that this upcoming batch of ‘improvements’ (sarcasm) seems the polar opposite of making things more player friendly. I, like MANY others here have been playing since the Beta’s and at no point was I confronted with a problem so difficult I thought they needed to rework all traits/levelling systems. This really doesn’t make any sense to me and I know I am far from alone on this. Bluntly, to me it looks like these changes have all been decided by someone who hasn’t ever actually played the game.