Guild Wars 2

Not sure about a full rework.. again. While last time I just bought the trait books before the change this time i dunno. There are some hings that are good in the current system and some that are bad. I really can just hope that you take the good things and design the bad things out. Rather than saying: lets start from scratch, and make something completely different.

Good things:

• Specific tasks or challenges that give you traits.
• Being able to bypass it by buying them.

Bad things:

• The bypass price is too steep.
• The challenges unlock one specific trait
• The challenges are not spread throughout the game in a way that promotes natural progression. (Plus mixed between game modes.)

Suggestions:

• Make a system that unlocks traits through points that are obtained through tasks that are similar to the challenges in the previous system. (Maybe even 3 types of points for each tier) ofcourse having a certain max amount of points.

I would be opposed to an account bound system like masteries though. Because I prefer progressing each character in their own way with their own story. But it’s not a huge deal if it was.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne . . . I’m sorry. I have no intent of going forward with leveling my alts which got started after the Trait revamp because of this. Sure, I play my ranger almost exclusively.

. . . almost . . .

But at least one of my characters is saddled with no Trait Masteries to speak of. I will have to do events for another character to try to grab the last ones. I don’t plan on seriously starting another alt until I know what the new system is going to be and it’s in place.

This change we’re talking of did affect me. Negatively.

That’s one reason I’m interested in seeing what’s coming out instead, rather than being merely academically interested as I am concerning grind.

And I’m not saying you’re not affected. Show me where I said this.

I’m saying MOST people don’t really care or know or think about it. The bulk of the people. Not the 15% of the people who come to forums. The 50% of the people who haven’t looked twice at their trait screen since launch. I remember one of the devs saying something about how many people NEVER looked at a trait screen. It was an amazing number.

Surely you realize that people like us a vast minority. Not some great majority. And yes, many of us in that vast minority are affected.

But most people aren’t…even if we are.

I AM affected. That doesn’t change a word I’ve said.

No, I’m not saying you said that. I know you know I am careful about that particular gripe here on the forum.

I’m just adding my point to this. Again. Since the old thread has been locked (but not forgotten) I felt the distillation of it needed to be put here in the midst of this. The change affects me, even as much as I might realistically say otherwise? It did. It changed how I played the game in a negative way.

Yep, it changed how I play in a negative way, quite drastically. I just acknowledge I’m not a typical player.

Ashen.2907:

She is an employee that publicly repeated and supported a statement that feedback from the company’s customers was irrelevant.

. . . did she? I read it as her saying a lot of the posts wound up irrelevant. And you can’t deny the infighting between particular ideals in that thread wasn’t irrelevant in regards to feedback. It was groups lining up to take shots at each other and trying to score points like there was someone keeping score.

Then there were the people who, understandably, did not read the topic before going to post. That’s one reason it wasn’t serving a legitimate purpose – it was too huge for people to review so you got a lot of “I’m not sure if anyone said this before but…” I feel for them rather than deride them because that topic was a Herculean labor to actually read without glazing over mentally or wanting to stick a gun barrel in your mouth and gently squeeze a trigger.

And as Gaile unwittingly pointed out it was breaking, and there was a serious problem actually getting it shown there was something of a revamp in mind coming up.

The thread needed a fresh start, and it needs some forward motion instead of sitting around here complaining about it being locked.

It should be tucked into the CDI forum even when locked so it can be referenced and so it’s not lost in the sea of old posts. It’s relevant. It’s important. There was a lot of valuable material in there as much as there was a lot of irrelevant and useless junk going on.

Ashen.2907:

She is an employee that publicly repeated and supported a statement that feedback from the company’s customers was irrelevant.

I have defended her in the past and am sure that I will again in the future because she gets flack for things that are not her fault, or are not things with which fault should be taken, but that statement was a bit off.

It seems you need to re-read the post she quoted, and understand the context. Here’s said post.

Corax.7381:

Here’s the situation, as Gaile pointed out above.

The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant, because Colin posted saying that ANet is working on a new Trait system and that some player feedback had been taken into account when developing that system. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing of value that could be added to that thread, which is why Gaile said she should’ve closed it right when Colin posted.

However, imagine the rage at the travesty of closing that thread WITHOUT opening another thread focused on Traits feedback. Why, the forums would explode! Players would launch their own personal vendettas against ANet, or further embellish the ones they’ve already begun.

So, Gaile opened this new thread. Yes, there aren’t any new facts or concrete details we can discuss – right now. Which is why she suggested to step away from the entire topic for a while, instead of going through the same cycle as the first thread. But people can’t do that, I predict, so it’s a lose-lose situation for everyone.

The relevant paragraph:

The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant, because Colin posted saying that ANet is working on a new Trait system and that some player feedback had been taken into account when developing that system. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing of value that could be added to that thread, which is why Gaile said she should’ve closed it right when Colin posted.

Now, here’s the part being taken out of context as a reason to argue: “The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant,[…]” However, if you continue reading, thus having the remainder of the context, you find out that definitive information was given, thus rendering the continuation of the thread pointless because the entire premise the thread was based on is no longer the same.

Also, tangential discussions should be cleaned out of the thread so this thread doesnt get cluttered up by irrelevant back and forth between posters

Aidan Savage.2078:

Ashen.2907:

She is an employee that publicly repeated and supported a statement that feedback from the company’s customers was irrelevant.

I have defended her in the past and am sure that I will again in the future because she gets flack for things that are not her fault, or are not things with which fault should be taken, but that statement was a bit off.

It seems you need to re-read the post she quoted, and understand the context. Here’s said post.

Corax.7381:

Here’s the situation, as Gaile pointed out above.

The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant, because Colin posted saying that ANet is working on a new Trait system and that some player feedback had been taken into account when developing that system. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing of value that could be added to that thread, which is why Gaile said she should’ve closed it right when Colin posted.

However, imagine the rage at the travesty of closing that thread WITHOUT opening another thread focused on Traits feedback. Why, the forums would explode! Players would launch their own personal vendettas against ANet, or further embellish the ones they’ve already begun.

So, Gaile opened this new thread. Yes, there aren’t any new facts or concrete details we can discuss – right now. Which is why she suggested to step away from the entire topic for a while, instead of going through the same cycle as the first thread. But people can’t do that, I predict, so it’s a lose-lose situation for everyone.

The relevant paragraph:

The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant, because Colin posted saying that ANet is working on a new Trait system and that some player feedback had been taken into account when developing that system. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing of value that could be added to that thread, which is why Gaile said she should’ve closed it right when Colin posted.

Now, here’s the part being taken out of context as a reason to argue: “The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant,[…]” However, if you continue reading, thus having the remainder of the context, you find out that definitive information was given, thus rendering the continuation of the thread pointless because the entire premise the thread was based on is no longer the same.

Also, tangential discussions should be cleaned out of the thread so this thread doesnt get cluttered up by irrelevant back and forth between posters

actually there was a relevant response,
its basically
what type of changes are you making
are we going to get to give feedback, or is it set in stone

I read the post in its entirety and understood the context. Said context supports my point.

The old thread contained feedback from customers. The new system is supposedly influenced by customer feedback, perhaps even feedback from that thread. By definition feedback that is influencing further development of the trait system is not irrelevant to discussion of development of the trait system.

Furthermore the thread included a great deal of very constructive feedback from very engaged posters, but it is apparently words of wisdom to dismiss those efforts as non-constructive.

Just to weigh in on the “how many people did it affect” thing.

While I don’t think it affected all, or perhaps even most players, I don’t think it is accurate to limit the damage purely to people who know they were affected for numerous reasons:

1) Most simply, the trait change did stop some sales, and some recommendations. I know that I haven’t bought character slots due to the trait changes, nor have I recommended the game to people in real life. Many others have done this, and also simply stopped playing altogether. That’s money lost, which affects everyone, even in a minor way.

2) The assumption that players “won’t notice” the absence of traits if they never had them I don’t think is quite true. The trait system is pretty much the biggest part of character customisation in GW2 from a gameplay perspective. While many players won’t know that we used to have such a system, they will notice that such a system is absent. Or, more likely, simply be underwhelmed by the lack of character customisation in a genre where a main draw is character customisation. I have no clue what the numbers are, but I don’t think it unreasonable to think that at least some people bought the game, then stopped playing out of boredom, because of this change.

3) Ten months worth of new players have been raised to think of traits as “optional”. I don’t know what effect that has had on the community as a whole, but I don’t think it fair to assume “zero”. The previous “zerk only” idea was toxic enough, but nearly a years worth of players have been raised in a system that actively discourages learning how to play the game. It isn’t their fault, but the levelling process is effectively “school” for new players, and ANet essentially cancelled the maths curriculum and then sent them into the workplace.

4) This, along with a few other issues, has had a big impact on the forum and other area’s view of ANet. Sure we can all talk about the toxicity that came before it, but the whole point is that a lot of previous complaints were unjustified, but this isn’t. Saying “people will always complain” isn’t a licence to do what you like, nor does it mean that more people won’t complain in the event that you do a bad job than in the event that you do a good one.

5) This debacle has basically demonstrated that the whole “we’re going to communicate more” after last years SAB riots was smoke. We’re six months on and all we know about SAB, traits, and (I think) the personal story, is that something will happen “soon”. Lack of faith, and bad feeling towards ANet is not something that new players, or old players, will be oblivious to. Some will dismiss this out of hand as “entitled whiners”, some won’t.

(Admittedly 4 and 5 are fairly subjective and kind of the same point, but I wanted to make them anyway.)

I’m just gonna pass over your posts in the future in favor of current and up to date information and feedback regarding the upcoming changes. Neither of which are adjectives applicable to the previous thread after colin’s post in it.

Can you guys stop discussing whatever Gaile meant, and instead focus on the topic that’s at the top of the post? This is about traits, not forum ethics.

It’s as simple as: New trait system coming, old thread closed so we can start a fresh discussion about the trait system rather than whether the change is late or whether the post is understood right or wrong. Why make is super complicated while it’s all very simple. The old thread is still there, just reiterate your previous points and post them here. Copy and paste, voila, done. The end.

The problem with the trait system is:

You have to unlock it, step by step and you have to also unlock the traits too.

So a new players feels like:

“Wow, I have unlocked a trait slot. Let’s see what I can do!”

He checks the UI and he get’s told:

“Well you have unlocked the trait slot, but you can’t use the stuff because you have to unlock it first!”

Whoever thought that was a good system? Gating the gated stuff?
In the end, instead of the player feeling more flexible with traits, he feels more limited.

So in the end, I only see two options to make the trait system work and both options involve getting rid of one gating:

A: Step-by-step unlocking trait-slots, offer all traits available for the slots for free.

B: Open up the whole trait system from the beginning, if a trait has been earned and there are enough trait-points available, let the player use the trait in the fitting tier. This might allow to use higher tier traits earlier on in theory, but in the end the traits are gated by their placement in the game anyway.

Double-gating has to go. It is just too disappointing.

Vayne.8563:

The 50% of the people who haven’t looked twice at their trait screen since launch. I remember one of the devs saying something about how many people NEVER looked at a trait screen. It was an amazing number.

You surely are with me when I am saying that a solution to this problem cannot be to make acquiring these traits even more of an effort.

Having said that I think the direction of this discussion is somewhat misleading. It is not important whether an absolute majority of players do or don’t like this system. Those who don’t even care for traits at all, are they the target audience?

What about those who care of the traits? Do you think there is a tendency how they think of the current trait system?

Halvorn.9831:

Vayne.8563:

The 50% of the people who haven’t looked twice at their trait screen since launch. I remember one of the devs saying something about how many people NEVER looked at a trait screen. It was an amazing number.

You surely are with me when I am saying that a solution to this problem cannot be to make acquiring these traits even more of an effort.

Having said that I think the direction of this discussion is somewhat misleading. It is not important whether an absolute majority of players do or don’t like this system. Those who don’t even care for traits at all, are they the target audience?

What about those who care of the traits? Do you think there is a tendency how they think of the current trait system?

Actually, you haven’t been following the conversation if you think I’m for the new trait system, because I’m not. I’ve never been. I’ve been vocally against it.

But then someone comes along and starts saying how 10 months is a long time and Anet doesn’t care about the game, or whatever today’s attack is and I think…10 months really isn’t that long in programming, particularly for something that doesn’t have a major affect on most players.

I’m not saying it doesn’t need to be changed. I’m saying that it’s unreasonable to expect the to have run right out and changed it.

Can we just get all the traits without having to work for them? I honestly dont care that much about the traits except that the last 3 characters i leveled after gearing them and buying them some sweet t3 i didn’t have enough gold to buy traits forgetting the changes that had been made. So i had to go do some dungeons wiht old classes (boring) before i could trait them.

Its fine gating the trait classes (master, etc.) by level but when you unlock it just let people access all of them. Its more of an annoyance like repairs than it is a real gold drain, and for new players it really stops them from experimenting with classes and getting the most out of their class right when they get to 80.

The only solution to this however that would be really bad is if you got rid of the gold method and made people do certain things for certain traits. That is definitely not the fix needed.

Knighthonor.4061:

So for the future, will Anet make huge bad patches like that NPE/Trait change without first going through us to see our opinion first?

Nope, because this guy gets it right the first time.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I fail to see why people are still trying to give suggestions on fixing the trait system. It’s over people. They’ve made their decisions and do not really want your input whatsoever. If you still think they do, I have a bridge to sell you.

These people will not wake up to their poor decisions until it hits them in wallet. There actually was a post about exactly that from Devon Carver sometime last year.

Every day I log in and see that experimental Mesmer I leveled to 80 just to see what this new trait system was really about, this pestilent system affects me negatively.

Every time I think it might be fun to make the elementalist and engineer I always wanted to eventually make, I am reminded that there’s pretty much no point in bothering, as this trait hijack will simply destroy any fun I would’ve elsewise had with the process.

Every single day that I play, I see this problem staring me in the face. Over and over and over.

It never changes. It never goes away. I read words on the forum, but months slither by and many things change…but not this.

Every time I log in, I am reminded that there’s no point for me in bothering to even try with an alt; I’ll only be utterly disgusted again.

I somehow doubt I’m the only one that is actively chagrined by this. I’m sorely, seriously tempted to go back to playing Champions until HoT comes out, because at least in that sad tragedy of a game thrown into maintenance mode, I can pay $15 a month in order to build the character I want to play.

I used to be able to do that here with no muss, fuss, farming or tedium about it. No more.

Ever again?

I doubt it. But we’ll see.

We always do.

PvP reward track offering trait books?

I feel and hear what Ceta said, but it’s more than that even. They may not even “fix” it in a positive way. Let’s remember that the current system was, in ANet’s minds, an “improvement” over the original system. My trust is gone. Completely. Utterly. Gone. They can make all the promises they want and hype it into oblivion. It makes no difference to me anymore.

they can make a new threat all they like, as long as we know nothing about specialization it changes nothing and we have nothing to discuss.

sorudo.9054:

they can make a new threat all they like, as long as we know nothing about specialization it changes nothing and we have nothing to discuss.

I find my cynicism reaching this point as well. :\

I want to be excited for the Mastery system and how it will finally repair my faith in both Traits and the development team, but there have been a lot (a lot) of thoughtless mistakes, and they’re still not fixed. (STILL looking at you, too, gem→gold shortchanger. Still looking at you.)

And no actual details, we can’t participate as players in identifying what may or may not feel good to us. We know very little, so the most we can do is speculate:

Traits are changing in a way that meshes with Masteries.
Masteries are account bound.
So, is it possible trait unlocks via Masteries are account bound? Will veterans mostly bypass the process via their previous acquired map completions, story progress, and achievements?
Saying Yes to that would give many of us a huge comfort, but ANet’s usual no-talk policy won’t let devs and community managers confirm it. :\

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I feel and hear what Ceta said, but it’s more than that even. They may not even “fix” it in a positive way. Let’s remember that the current system was, in ANet’s minds, an “improvement” over the original system. My trust is gone. Completely. Utterly. Gone. They can make all the promises they want and hype it into oblivion. It makes no difference to me anymore.

Been looking at another game; as it is ( hope I am wrong) gw2 is going to loose what I loved most about it. Basically it has. I am not at all convinced that the “fix” will be any better for me, personally. As mentioned above, the system we now have was hailed as a great new improvement.

I loved being able to do anything I want, and not be penalized for it. Not be penalized for not doing what I find to be no fun. A “must do” list was pretty much absent from the game save for cosmetic items.

I understand that there are people who want/like/need a list of things of things to do. Maybe most enjoy that and gw2 is going for that audience. I really do not know.

But I get no satisfaction out of a “to do” list. I disagree with the notion of " moving out of your comfort zone". “Comfort” has nothing to do with it. I do not derive some sense satisfaction via a pose of martyrdom by doing things I dislike in a game. It is not some spiritual, character building enterprise for me. It is simply a game.

I burned out on gaming long ago, for this reason. Everything had to be a challenge for me. If it was not a miserable and tedious struggle, it was not worth doing.

And that’s fine, if one likes it. I did for a long time.

But, eventually, I came feel “what is the point anymore”. It was a weird ego thing, always needing to prove to myself that could do everything. At first, it was great. It was fun.

But not anymore. I don’t have the need for that anymore. GW2 let me just do whatever I enjoyed, and my character progression was not hurt for it. So, I dislike the trait change and it’s sort of Hobson’s choice of “do as you’re told or hemorrhage skill points and gold”.

So I took the third, unlisted choice which exists no matter what the game requires. Don’t play. The five friends I took here from another game (they came here shortly before the trait change) made the same choice. One of them comes back with me from time to time to check out what is happening.

I have simply played very little since April, returning periodically to have a peek.

I may be wrong, but I expect things to go like this: Traits/skills/masteries/specializations will have hefty to do lists. Perhaps one will earn points toward these things while playing, but to unlock these things to use the points one must do required content.

This is not so much a complaint as a lament. It simply removes what I loved most about the game. Everything I did GW2 was fun for me. 100%. So, I miss what GW2 was for me.

Maybe, it will evolve into something I will like. But in the past year, almost everything has diminished my enjoyment. Every time I take a peek back, it is status quo or a degradation for me.

Rauderi.8706:

Traits are changing in a way that meshes with Masteries.
Masteries are account bound.
So, is it possible trait unlocks via Masteries are account bound? Will veterans mostly bypass the process via their previous acquired map completions, story progress, and achievements?
Saying Yes to that would give many of us a huge comfort, but ANet’s usual no-talk policy won’t let devs and community managers confirm it. :\

That is pretty much my feeling at this point.

I want the time and effort I’ve already put in to have meaning in the new systems. I’ve got map completion on one character; she has hundreds of unused skill points that should not be wasted; her unlocks of all traits should translate to all my characters.

But the last revision to traits does not fill me with hope.

At this point, I see no reason to play, as I expect my past accomplishments are likely to be wiped out by their “new” systems.

Here’s my ideal scenario:

For established characters, in the original zones, we gain traits and masteries based on what we’ve already accomplished. My main has world completion and tons of skill points and everything unlocked and lots of achievement points. Giver me credit for that in the overall game.

For the expansion zones, I have no problem earning new points SPECIFIC to the new areas.

Seems logical and fair and better than invalidating my hard play.

easy fix :

GW2 already have soooo many group events. make them events that grant certain trait.

Its nice that we will be getting a change to the traits but can’t we get it before the release of HoT. A lot of my friends who just started refuse to make alts cause they don’t wanna redo map completion for traits or farm traits all over again. Making it unlocked across characters would be great :P.

The current trait system has a number of problems:

• It makes it distractingly difficult for new players, since the game does not guide you to specific traits. You just get trait points and learn that you can unlock major traits.
• It discourages experimentation: one can’t just swap between e.g. banner traits and stance traits to see how it affects your build, until you unlock each relevant trait.
• It’s repetitive: each new character is given identical unlock tasks.
• It’s paternalistic: it requires completing content that doesn’t appeal to everyone e.g. finishing most of the personal story or doing map completion. Some unlocks are challenges that few people do more than once, except for traits, e.g. defeating EB’s Overgrown Grub or Obsidian Sanctum.
• It’s laborious and tedious: full unlock requires ~30+ hours of investment or spending 360 skill points. That’s a lot of effort for people who don’t play every day.
• Worst of all, it’s not actually fun, at least not after the first time (if ever).

People have offered a lot of great specific advice about what a new trait system might look like, but here are my generic requests:

• Encourage new players to experiment with traits. They are critical to good builds and folks should be able to compare or contrast before having to grind out the unlocks.
• It should be easier to unlock traits for alts, especially if someone has multiples for the same profession.
• Unlocks should be relevant, i.e. necromancers could defeat minionmasters to learn about minions and mesmers might shatter illusions to unlock shatter skills.
• It should be fun.

Specifically, I’d prefer to see one challenge to unlock all adept traits, another to unlock all master traits, and one challenge to unlock all of the original grandmaster traits for a single line. Thus, only the most-recently added grandmaster traits would have an individual challenge. That would reduce the number of tasks from the current 65 challenges to only 12 per character.

More feedback about the trait system. In that other thread, I made periodic posts about my experiments with the 4/15/2014 system. I had created 2 characters and leveled them when I had time to do so. The experiments are over. I have deleted those characters. In this post I am going to offer the conclusions I came to in hopes that there is some value in what I found bad about the system, and in hopes that those aspects will be avoided going forward.

1. Back-Loading: While the at-launch GW2 leveling rewards were sparse after getting the elite skill at level 30, the back-loading of traits simply moved the experience of “no tangible benefits for leveling” to earlier in the process. While NPE introduced new rewards, these did not replace the enjoyment of getting traits and seeing the changes it made to how characters played that was available much earlier in the leveling process.
2. Tasks Spread Across Level-Ranges of Content: I’ve said a lot about this in the past, but I’ll add that when I got to L36 and had zero options to slot a trait, this was not fun.
3. Experimentation: The 4/15 changes were announced as an intent to foster experimentation with traits. This was obviously a reference to free change of traits anywhere OoC, and was apparently meant for L80’s or other characters who already had the traits unlocked. The 4/15 system removed experimentation with traits from the leveling process to a greater or lesser degree depending on what content one did.
4. Stat Progression: This is a comment about the interaction of the 4/15 trait system and the NPE. At launch, stat gains came every level. Once traits were unlocked at L11, one got two small infusions of stats every level gained. This was a smooth, gradual progression. Now, both leveling and traits provide the stats every six levels, and acquisition is staggered so that characters gain 3 levels with no stat gain, then get a large infusion from leveling, go 1 level without, then get stat points via traits, then repeat. Each system creates somewhat of a feast or famine experience in terms of the growth curve, and the combination exacerbates the issue. Fwiw, I did not find this to be as problematic and off-putting as the other issues already mentioned, but it was noticeable.
5. Organic versus Directed Play: The characters, L67 and L51, had 4-6 traits unlocked in total. Those traits were unlocked via the natural progression of leveling in the world, by doing hearts, exploration and events. Well, all but 1, which I unlocked via cash/SP’s — which meant that out of frustration I broke my own resolve to not resort to that option. The game at launch was a lot more about a journey of exploration through the world, with progression occurring as an organic outgrowth of that journey. The game since has by-and-large shifted to one where reward and progression systems now direct players to play in certain areas only. This is especially true of rewards, but the trait unlocks are also less organic. I may be the only one for whom this matters, or I may be speaking for many players, or somewhere in between, but I put this out there to note that it does have an effect.
6. Fun: So, why did I delete the characters? I already have L80’s of all 8 professions. I was not enjoying the process of leveling once I got past L30 or so. This was no doubt influenced by the fact that I’ve already explored the zones multiple times and by the inevitable comparison to the prior leveling experience. However, I believe that a player leveling for the first time now might have several WTK (What the kitten) experiences when allowed to slot a trait but not having one available. Fwiw, I have long believed that the leveling process was the best part of GW2, and I am no longer sure this is the case for me.

It is my hope that with Masteries serving as endgame progression, traits will be returned to the leveling progression they used to be.

Thank you IndigoSundown ! I’m glad you are helping to turn this post to a more constructive creative thought process over what you want to see and why.

This post was getting boring with complaints over the last thread. Ideas to help the system is what I was hoping to read in here. Imagine if all the posts in every thread looked more like the CDI (just with out the direct responses so much).

As Collen noted only after reading the forums did they put great thought into the current system and how it works due to everyone’s input. This is the BEST time in my opinion to help with creative ideas and what we want to see. Not what we don’t want to see along with complaints about old threads that needed to be closed up.

I’d love to hear everyone’s constructive ideas on what they are hoping for.

Dear (possibly organic) entity known as Gaile Gray,

Could you get a date for when we’ll have more solid information about the trait system revamp, so we can properly discuss it? And then post said date here?

Thank you.

Reading this thread feels like reading about some completely different game from the one I bought since I’m a returnee and all my characters are +1 year old (even the low level ones). I can tell you one thing, tho. Leveling and progression is boring as hell.

Anet stripped character progression off of any player involvement from fear that we may not be able to handle such complex mechanics I guess… Levelups are highly anti climactic and traits are very far apart to keep me interested. After every ding I need to take a few deep breaths and force myself forward because I know that the checklist of things has just been unchecked and I need to do all this all over again.

I want to fell that I achieved something when I fill that bar. I want a trait point every level so that I may start messing around with my build right away. Yeah the old system that lot more traits is basically the same as this one, but it felt very very different, because I was interacting with it more often.

In my opinion the new system should be completely scrapped and old one improved.

• I’d like to start getting trait points earlier
• bigger and less restrictive trait trees
• more build defining traits lower on the trait tree to make progression path clearer
• redesigning minor traits (ex. pick one of three) I die inside every time my character reaches minor trait because I just finished a mountain of braindead and unrewarding tasks to reach it and have a bigger mountain to scale till I reach the fun parts where I get to pick something.

I guess not everyone sees it this way because I’m the “mechanics” gamer that likes his brain constantly buzzing with potential new builds and combinations. That’s why I made 6 lvl80s and 3 more under way. When a game fails to deliver that, I lose interest, which happened to me year ago with GW2. And now I return only to find out that situation in that department is even worse.

I still enjoy playing my leveled characters because of all the options at my disposal, but getting there is a 25 stacks of Torment.

I wrote a rather long piece about the NPE in that thread, but the short of it is that I’ve introduced GW2 to several of my friends and co-workers who have never played before, and their experience is extremely (frustratingly) different from mine when I was leveling from 1-80 for the first time two years ago. While most of this stems from our dissatisfaction with the NPE, Traits are definitely an issue. Here are my notes and suggestions:

The Bad:

- 14 points / unlocking Trait Tiers: As a veteran player, having only 14 trait points instead of 70 is actually more helpful than bad, because it means switching builds around is very easy. But for newer players, it leads to a sense that your character is not progressing at a steady rate. Instead of making a decision about where to spend 1 trait point every level past level 10, players must first reach level 30, and then only get to spend a new trait point every 6 levels. When they spend that point it is more impactful, but it’s a real bummer to have to wait that long to even start. Waiting until level 30 to begin really customizing your character to suit your play style is frankly awful. I really can’t say this loud enough. Level 30 is far too long to begin unlocking traits. And what’s worse, you have to wait until 60 to get the next tier. That’s 5 trait points that you are forced to spread out between only 10 spots. I understand the desire to give levels 30-80 an interesting progression. But forcing players to wait all the way to level 60 before they really feel like they can customize their character is not good at all.

- Unlocking traits: Okay, so as a new player, I’ve just gotten to level 36. I’ve unlocked my first major trait. But wait, I can’t apply it; it’s greyed out on my screen. It says I have to unlock it by performing (X) event / task. I have no idea what that is or how to complete it. I’ve already leveled a character all the way up to level 36. Shouldn’t this Trait be my reward for leveling? For new players, this is a really feel-bad moment. They can’t experiment with new builds because they have no traits. For veteran players, this is even worse – traits aren’t unlocked account-wide and have the same tasks for each character, so it means either spending a ton of money to bypass the tasks, or spending a ton of time doing the same tasks on each new character.

The Good:

- The concept of unlocking “new” traits: I like the idea that when new traits are added to the game, veteran players have something new to experience and something they look forward to unlocking as a result. Unfortunately, only 1 new trait for each trait line has been released since the game began, so this isn’t necessarily relevant right now, but if new traits were ever released, I wouldn’t mind them being added in this way.

- Allowing players to respec instantly: This promotes experimentation, which is something I think Traits do very well.

- No books: These just didn’t seem necessary. Glad they’re gone.

Suggestions:

- “Unlocked” traits are unlocked account-wide. This should be a given. If I’ve done something once for one character and gotten a reward, give that reward to all my characters so I don’t have to run through that event again for every single one of my alts. This isn’t just good for veteran players. New players often make new characters repeatedly, too – if they feel rewarded for their past accomplishments, that’s a good thing.

- “Core” traits are always unlocked; use an “unlock” system for new traits introduced in expansions. By core traits, I mean all or most of the ones in the original GW2 game. If new traits are added via living story, feature pack or expansion updates, I have no particular problem with those needing to be unlocked. In fact, I think it would be a great way to give veteran players something to do, and new players something to look forward to unlocking later. However, I really feel that the core traits should be unlocked from the beginning. New players need something to actually APPLY when they level up. That’s their reward! Alternatively, if you really feel the need to keep some core traits locked, make the Grandmaster traits the ones that are locked. New players don’t unlock those until level 80 anyway – that gives them something to do once they’ve reached max level (trait hunting). (Although I still don’t like those unlocking all the way at level 80.)

TL;DR:
- Core traits should be unlocked to encourage more experimentation and customization at early levels. Unlocking should be reserved for new or rare traits.
- Players should unlock traits and tiers earlier and more frequently. Unlocking at level 10 and gaining 1 point per level was perfect for the game, and just made sense (it’s almost like the game was designed that way). Waiting until level 30 and then only getting a trait point every 6 levels feels awful for new players. (Source: I have new players telling me this exact phrase.)

Thanks for your time.

This stuff makes my head explode.

Since the intention seems to be to rework the entire traits structure sometime (to be determined), it would appear to be a waste of time to level a character at this time. Probably a waste of money as well.

Can someone explain to me why my logic is faulty?

My major problem is the removal of SP post 80. I would earn around 5 SP a week with the my level 80 which I used to earn some addition gold through the MF. Now unless the new SP sources from HoT are repeatable, I see this change as yet one more means to earn a bit more gold being removed from play forcing me toward mindless trains and speedruns as the only way to supplement my “income”.

On top of that, the lack of earning additional SP beyond what’s available from leveling 1-80 and doing SP challenges means I’m going to be forced, when leveling my next character, choosing between skills and buying traits. Now it’s been mentioned that traits are changing again, without knowing how they are being changed, I can’t say that my fears of running out of SPs for skills are assuaged.

Behellagh.1468:

My major problem is the removal of SP post 80. I would earn around 5 SP a week with the my level 80 which I used to earn some addition gold through the MF. Now unless the new SP sources from HoT are repeatable, I see this change as yet one more means to earn a bit more gold being removed from play forcing me toward mindless trains and speedruns as the only way to supplement my “income”.

On top of that, the lack of earning additional SP beyond what’s available from leveling 1-80 and doing SP challenges means I’m going to be forced, when leveling my next character, choosing between skills and buying traits. Now it’s been mentioned that traits are changing again, without knowing how they are being changed, I can’t say that my fears of running out of SPs for skills are assuaged.

Lets not forget about the siege upgrades using skill points (unless that has changed in the last 3 months) :-)

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

And just how will traits and skill points work for those that do not own Heart of Thorns?

The current trait system (how its pronounced and delivered, as well as unlocked) needs to be reworked.

The unlocks, feels clunky and out of place 99% of the time. Some unlocks are done in WvW or PvE, and requires some mapping to get to the areas where the unlocks occur. This is not exactly conductive to the NPE IMHO. I feel that traits should unlock at a player levels, or as they master their skills, once traits are available to be used.

Take traits that have synergy with weapons. Using X weapons should unlock those traits (tie it back to the AP system), like the Mesmers scepter trait. Using the scepter should be what unlocks that trait, not some PvE exploration thing.

Same goes for the falling trait, maybe survive a fall of 20,000 damage should unlock the trait for example.

Make it more intuitive and more fun and less what it is today.

Traits lack a serious synergy in the tool tips. There are so many new players (and players that just don’t care enough to visit forums) that have no idea how to properly build their character with traits. Now sure this is purely cosmetic, but what I am going to suggest below ties into this quite well.

Have traits carry set bonus’s when you are running traits that have synergy with other traits. An example would be a Mesmer stun/lock down build. Take Halting strike, Bountiful Interruption, Chaotic Interruption, and maybe harmonious Mantras (if Mantra of distraction is on your Skill Bar) and have all of those skills have some hidden unlock (maybe 5%+ to stun/boon bonuses or something like that), and reflect that in the tool tips so that its quite obvious to players what works and what doesn’t.

Sure this does promote cookie cutter builds and play styles, but I can see this doing more good then harm with the average player. And the set bonus’s would be so small that it wouldn’t really hurt players that wanted to play outside of the ‘synergy scope’.

Sounds awful.

Does not look like they are actually fixing the trait system (ie reverting the changes they made in their entirety), in fact it looks like they are making it worse with mastery adding a second level of crap at level 80.

Ah well, I enjoyed GW2 for a while, guess good things cant last. Shame, I really was excited by that manifesto video, and they did look to be delivering….then post launch it all went away, step by step the vision was eroded, and what we are left with is a grindy boring makework game. So much potential lost due to lack of ambition and lack of courage to follow through with their early convictions.

Cameirus.8407:

Sounds awful.

Does not look like they are actually fixing the trait system (ie reverting the changes they made in their entirety), in fact it looks like they are making it worse with mastery adding a second level of crap at level 80.

Ah well, I enjoyed GW2 for a while, guess good things cant last. Shame, I really was excited by that manifesto video, and they did look to be delivering….then post launch it all went away, step by step the vision was eroded, and what we are left with is a grindy boring makework game. So much potential lost due to lack of ambition and lack of courage to follow through with their early convictions.

Fixing does not have to mean reverting. Since we don’t know what is being done, we can’t know if it’s going to be fixed or not fixed.

Many people can see why it was changed in the first place though, even though it was implemented badly.

Unlocking stuff by playing the game isn’t necessarily going to be a bad thing. However, some people would rather prejudge things than wait to see what they are. Shrugs.

I’m just going to throw my hat in and say that only the most powerful traits should have to be unlocked.

The rest should be unlocked by leveling up.

If your intent is to go for something like the capture signet, make it like the capture signets used to be: only the most powerful, build-changing abilities should require specific actions to unlock.

Knowing a new trait system is on it’s way I’m hopeful it will be wonderful. I have a lot of alts that I’ve made post trait-change who haven’t got a lot of traits. I was going to try and get them all to level 80 before HoT but getting them all full traits on top of that… I’ve got 15 alts…and counting. :P

I’m just wondering if it will be worthwhile at all to try and unlock traits for my lesser played characters before the new trait system comes out.

Bellizare.5816:

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

And just how will traits and skill points work for those that do not own Heart of Thorns?

No where was it said that the new trait system is tied into the mastery system. Colin mentioned that with the introduction of masteries, they are also re-evaluating other systems, like traits.

I’ve seen this misunderstood in several places. By mentioning them in the same post, and then not giving further clarification, these two get tied together in people’s minds and causes confusion and fear. This is one reason we need further information sooner rather than later.

Hell, maybe I’m the one misinterpreting the statement.

Shaaba.5672:

Bellizare.5816:

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

And just how will traits and skill points work for those that do not own Heart of Thorns?

No where was it said that the new trait system is tied into the mastery system. Colin mentioned that with the introduction of masteries, they are also re-evaluating other systems, like traits.

I’ve seen this misunderstood in several places. By mentioning them in the same post, and then not giving further clarification, these two get tied together in people’s minds and causes confusion and fear. This is one reason we need further information sooner rather than later.

Hell, maybe I’m the one misinterpreting the statement.

Indeed. We know that there is some link, else the masteries article wouldn’t have been linked in OP. But the exact nature, whether it is just going along the same direction, or there is a more tangible link is unknown. Apparently the information given is sufficient at the moment to give some sort of reading on how traits will be. If that is the case, I’m not as clever as I thought I was, as I only see the very broadest of brushstrokes.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Shaaba.5672:

Bellizare.5816:

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

And just how will traits and skill points work for those that do not own Heart of Thorns?

No where was it said that the new trait system is tied into the mastery system. Colin mentioned that with the introduction of masteries, they are also re-evaluating other systems, like traits.

I’ve seen this misunderstood in several places. By mentioning them in the same post, and then not giving further clarification, these two get tied together in people’s minds and causes confusion and fear. This is one reason we need further information sooner rather than later.

Hell, maybe I’m the one misinterpreting the statement.

This is unclear?

Colin recently shared some information related to the Traits system. In addition our article on Masteries provided other early info that could be part of any conversation about traits or character progression. (Edit: I don’t mean to suggest that the two topics are intertwined, only to point you to two discussion about character progression that have been released in recent days.)

With respect, the information Colin shared was effectively “A change is coming”. My own reading was it was only confirmation from your own announcement some days before that. Other than a new system i coming, we know nothing. The article is masteries-specific, and while there are aspects we could take to a more general view, we aren’t necessarily sure what or to what extent. It may be a little clearer to you Gaile, as you almost certainly have at least a little more knowledge of the connections than we do.

I think a lot of us are still working on rather nebulous information and assumptions, so until there is even a smidgeon of hard info on the traits overhaul, things will continue to be quite unclear.

Edit to take in above post: I think there is an understanding of that. But the article is the biggest reference we have, and its link here strongly suggests some sort of link. if only direction of travel. But the those relveances aren’t necessarily that clear, and precisely because progression is such a broad subject and not limited to the two systems.

I think there are definitely a lot of signs that they’re moving more and more to account-based unlocks so we could easily expect something account-based when it comes to the new trait system.

And Gaile you should give up on these negative tangent posters and delete any posts that aren’t strictly on-topic, at least on the first page of this post.

When you or another moderator makes a thread, especially one to try and recycle the tainted conversation into a productive discussion, I don’t think you should have to let people to mess it up right away with off-topic complaints.

Since most people only read the first page the first page needs to be ontopic for a constructive discussion to persist. I think it’d be okay if you put some of these initial comments and replies to the initial comments into the recycle bin.