Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

WvW is pvp with the central premise being you take the charachter and everything you have earned with it, and pit against other players and everything they have earned.

this is why in WvW level gives you an advantage
gear earned gives you an advantage
player skill gives you an advantage
gold earned gives you advantage
how many players like you gives you an advantage.
having a guild with unlocks gives you an advantage.

they created this mode essentially to be PVP with your main charachters/friends/server. Its essentially progression focused open world mass pvp. Sure you can level your low level charachter in WvW, but you will likely be repeatedly murderered fairly easily by fully progressed charachters, and you will likely have to try to blend into zergs and take pot shots in order to achieve anything.
The vast majority of WvW players play pve also.

Yes they can seperate it and give out unlocks pretty easily, i wont mind, but is that actually what players want? im not so sure. Many WvW players seem to like the core systems being linked.

I know all that..

and effectively what it comes down to in the end is that people who only play WvW just have to accept that WvW is what it is.. and if they don’t want to play the PvE game then too bad for them.. and they just have to deal with it..

Perhaps Anet should look back at Gw1’s pvp only character mechanic and think about replicating that in Gw2 with WvW..

you can make a WvW only character.. starts at lvl 80 with all its skills unlocked and a free set of account bound choose stat rare gear but has all of its access to PvE utterly blocked off

maybe that will please them

IndigoSundown.5419:

On consideration of this argument, I have to confess I can see two sides to the issue. On one hand, I have to wonder if it was a mistake for ANet to make it too easy to level up and max out a character’s non-gear capabilities in GW2. On the other hand, I also have to wonder if it’s a mistake for ANet to continue to try to eke more mileage out of three-year-old content.

There’s also the issue of new players or new characters. Obviously, there needs to be some system for core spec and skill progression. For that purpose, the incoming system does not seem half bad. It’s certainly more likely that I will level a new character under it than under the current system.

That leaves the issue of existing maxed characters who avoided getting ~1/3rd of the existing skill challenges in PvP (less, if you include the 13 in WvW). If it was not a mistake for ANet to allow these characters to level up so “easily” (Tomes) or get maxed skill/trait progression without touching much of the game, why is it now necessary to make them do some of that “leveling” stuff — no matter how much or little relative effort is involved?

Once I pose that question, I wonder about the conversion system. Obviously there will have to be a routine to determine a character’s current level — otherwise 80’s would not get their 400 points. Also obviously, there needs to be a routine to detect how many challenges have been completed to correctly allocate points for those. How difficult would it be to add a routine to: (a) detect total skill points earned; and (b) assign Hero Points for 65 of them as if they were challenges completed. That does not even seem complicated.

Where the (possible) complication arises is if there is a cap on Hero Points of 202. If there is, the assignment of Hero Points in some sort of grandfathering — whether it be based on skill points or some other factor — would also have to somehow count those “grandfathered” points towards the cap. This might mean tagging 65 of the challenges as having been completed, even if they weren’t. How does that affect map completion, should the player ever decide to pursue it? Does that mean they get credit for not doing a challenge? Or does it mean that character cannot ever do map completion?

I don’t claim to know what’s going on in ANet meetings, but I’d not be surprised if the issues in the prior paragraph came up, and are at least in part responsible for the lack of an announcement about possible grandfathering.

problem conceptually is a hero point is more valuable than a skill point was, for example, in the new planned system
1 hero challenge is 1/5th of a skill and 1/60 of a traitline
in the current system
1 skill point is like 5/27th of skill OR 1/72 of a traitline. New specializations would be like 1/25th of a skill or 1/100th of traitline.

I will say that the old systems were in fact a mistake, however, even if it was mistake, i dont think anet can be to much in the habit of ex post facto changes.

they should grandfather players, as long as doing so does not mess up the system they are working with, or create these edge case errors. Providing it does not take an insane amount of time/development to do so.

Teratus.2859:

phys.7689:

WvW is pvp with the central premise being you take the charachter and everything you have earned with it, and pit against other players and everything they have earned.

this is why in WvW level gives you an advantage
gear earned gives you an advantage
player skill gives you an advantage
gold earned gives you advantage
how many players like you gives you an advantage.
having a guild with unlocks gives you an advantage.

they created this mode essentially to be PVP with your main charachters/friends/server. Its essentially progression focused open world mass pvp. Sure you can level your low level charachter in WvW, but you will likely be repeatedly murderered fairly easily by fully progressed charachters, and you will likely have to try to blend into zergs and take pot shots in order to achieve anything.
The vast majority of WvW players play pve also.

Yes they can seperate it and give out unlocks pretty easily, i wont mind, but is that actually what players want? im not so sure. Many WvW players seem to like the core systems being linked.

I know all that..

and effectively what it comes down to in the end is that people who only play WvW just have to accept that WvW is what it is.. and if they don’t want to play the PvE game then too bad for them.. and they just have to deal with it..

Perhaps Anet should look back at Gw1’s pvp only character mechanic and think about replicating that in Gw2 with WvW..

you can make a WvW only character.. starts at lvl 80 with all its skills unlocked and a free set of account bound choose stat rare gear but has all of its access to PvE utterly blocked off

maybe that will please them

they could do that, but in GW1 they didnt start with all skills unlocked.
it gave you a starter pack of skills, and for the others it used whatever you unlocked in pve on a charachter, or you had to buy the unlocks with points you got for winning in pvp.
Or you could buy an unlock pack from the ingame store.

not disagreeing with you overall, just pointing out the still made players work/pay for skill unlocks even on pvp only charachters. It wouldnt be a horrible idea i think.

phys.7689:

thrag.9740:

Who cares if you use to need 25 skill points for heal skills? You could earn them playing how you want. If your enjoying yourself, its not much of a grind.

3 hours of gold farming? come on, the most expensive trait is only 3 g. I consistently pug cof1 in 8 mins. ac p123 in 45 mins total. Hell, ever arah runs are commonly 20-30 minutes.

Oh i know what the problem is. I’m clearly doing that content incorrectly because I never “learned to play” my profession by doing skill challenges.

no, you could play them by playing how YOU wanted without much of a grind(subjectively, not objective time spent). getting it via leveling is 25 levels, which is 12.5-25 hours in the open world 25-36 dungeon runs, which has a large variation of time required, from 4 hours to 400 hours, 6 hours+ in farming train depending on your luck. the minimum amount of effort wa sin the familly of 5 hours, for one skill. You just didnt realize this because you were always ahead in skill points, but an actual new player? it was horrible, and the future was it getting worse.
i notice you totally ignored that it took 360 skill points to unlock all your traits under the current system.
under the current system they would have started charging insane fees for endgame skills, further making the game have illogical prices in time for getting anything.

That is the flaw of a non scalable system, for old players it was fairly easy, for new players it was a huge hurdle.

the new system it will take you at the most 5 skill points per skill. You can expect something in that family for future skills, if they give hero points properly.
that takes 5 skill challenges.

lets see, under the old systems, even if they kept the same amounts

you would have needed 25×5 for the regular skills, and probably 50 at least for the elite. or 150 skill points just for the 5 new skills, and if specializations used the same amount as current skill trait lines, 72 skill points for the line. though since it is meant to be an endgame 80+ line it would probably have been more expensive.

so 222-300 skill points versus what will probably be anywhere from 60-100 under the new system. There isnt even enough skill points on the game map to account for that.

as an aside, the 3 hours of gold farming was based on the first few months when earning gold was a lot harder, when they corrected the system(based on inflation) the gold cost was 42 gold for all the traits. Which is probably why they removed gold from the equation, its value is ever shifting. back then one dungeon gave like 15 silver, or was it 28, and even the better teams took around 10 minutes (usually much more for most dungeon paths)per run. So you were looking a 2 hours-8 hours of dungeon paths to get the approx 2.5 gold you needed.

No, everyone could play how they wanted. If you want to run around in open world pve leveling up through events and doing skill challenges you could. IF you wanted to do more challenging content like dungeons/fractals/wvw/pvp you also could.

Look, open world pve is much easier than those other things. It should be slower, because its a low skill activity. It requires almost no mastery of the combat system, nor any synergy between classes/skills. Also, don’t forget, skill scrolls are a drop from lots of monsters, so you don’t need to get each one via leveling/skill challenges even in open world pve.

I am NOT an old player. My account is 13 months old. There has been no major changes to the system since i’ve joined. I have a plethora of skill points because I just play how I want, level up my alts when I am ready, and never worry about it.

As for the gold farming. Well it sounds to me like your using 1+ year old data. In which case, why do you think it still applies?

Instead of screwing over all the players who enjoy choice, here is something that seems like it would work. Keep the current system, make all skill challenges give a number of skill points equal to the level of their zone divided by ten. I.e challenges in a lv 76 zone give 8 skill points rather than 1.

Now, YOU can play how you want in open world pve without everyone who enjoys a different playstyle losing their options.

thrag.9740:

No, everyone could play how they wanted. If you want to run around in open world pve leveling up through events and doing skill challenges you could. IF you wanted to do more challenging content like dungeons/fractals/wvw/pvp you also could.

Look, open world pve is much easier than those other things. It should be slower, because its a low skill activity. It requires almost no mastery of the combat system, nor any synergy between classes/skills. Also, don’t forget, skill scrolls are a drop from lots of monsters, so you don’t need to get each one via leveling/skill challenges even in open world pve.

I am NOT an old player. My account is 13 months old. There has been no major changes to the system since i’ve joined. I have a plethora of skill points because I just play how I want, level up my alts when I am ready, and never worry about it.

As for the gold farming. Well it sounds to me like your using 1+ year old data. In which case, why do you think it still applies?

Instead of screwing over all the players who enjoy choice, here is something that seems like it would work. Keep the current system, make all skill challenges give a number of skill points equal to the level of their zone divided by ten. I.e challenges in a lv 76 zone give 8 skill points rather than 1.

Now, YOU can play how you want in open world pve without everyone who enjoys a different playstyle losing their options.

so wait a second, you are comparing the current system to the new system, and saying the current one is better?

i was comparing the initial one because it was substantially less grindy.

right now in order to get all your traits you need to spend
43 gold and 360 skill points, or do a specific task for each trait, each of these tasks is generally more time consuming than getting 1 trait point by far.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait_guide

that doesnt account for the 150-160 skill points you need to unlock your skills.
you currently get about 76 from leveling.
this means you need 43 gold and 435 extra skill points after you hit level 80 to max your charchter

43 gold 435 extra skill points compared to 0 gold and 65 extra skill points.

thats not even a competition.

as for your solution, it solves none of the problems with the current system, it infact magnifies the problem.

you dont solve inflation by giving people more money, you just increase the inflation. Your system would have new players having to grind insane amounts of time just to get new skills/traits as they are released.

what is your ideal world method for unlocking skills on different proffessions?

Teratus.2859:

Coulter.2315:

WvW and PvE are the same thing, you cannot have 1 getting full unlock without affecting the other. PvP will have the option to buy the traits just as before no doubt.

WvW is just PvP in a PvE style environment… a hybrid of the game modes
it would not be difficult to seperate them entirely Anet simply have choosen not to

people can argue WvW is PvE but it isnt.. it just shares elements
and since the core focus of WvW is to fight other players that defaults it as PvP content

PvE shares every element with WvW, and character skill unlocks is one of them, you cannot separate them. You can argue that WvW should use the PvP system but that isn’t what this thread is about.

1) WvW retains the PvE character and does not have the option to unlock traits.
2) WvW changes to PvP system and gets the option to unlock PvP versions of traits.

Choose 1) or 2).

phys.7689:

I have said repeatedly they should grandfather people who earned full unlocks as long as it doesnt create inconsistencies and problems within the system.

While i believe the old systems and the grandfathering were a mistake, i dont think anet can make players responsible for their design errors all the time.

The point is that in considering how they should go about grandfathering, you must consider what the new system is trying to achieve, and how said grandfathering effects players in the long run. Just creating any method of grandfathering that doesnt fit the design intent, or the system they created just creates more problems down the road.

You almost saw the light there. Appart from our basic design philosophy which is different obviously.

The point is.. i most certainly MUST NOT consider anything. You know why? Cause i’m the client, i don’t work for arena net. They don’t pay me. I’m a consumer that consumes their product and spends money on it. If they can’t make it so that we don’t lose already gained progression by playing their game by their rules with this system. Then it’s their job to change the system into something that can achieve said goal. Losing progression is -not- acceptable. Is not a good practice. It breaks the trust all mmo players have about the permanency of their progression. It’s pretty much the same as if them downlvling us all 10 lvls when the expansion came out and told us that we’ll have to ding 80 again. “but don’t worry cause the new system is awesome for the future and new players”. They created this mess were they can’t decide if they want the game to be alt friendly or not, they solve it. Preferably in a way that won’t force me to stick with one character which i’ll get bored of 3 months down the line cause i only play that one and quit for something else. If that’s a risk they’re willing to take, they should come out and say it now and so i can save myself the expansion money and move on.

I can’t put it any simpler than this…

phys.7689:

so wait a second, you are comparing the current system to the new system, and saying the current one is better?

i was comparing the initial one because it was substantially less grindy.

right now in order to get all your traits you need to spend
43 gold and 360 skill points, or do a specific task for each trait, each of these tasks is generally more time consuming than getting 1 trait point by far.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait_guide

that doesnt account for the 150-160 skill points you need to unlock your skills.
you currently get about 76 from leveling.
this means you need 43 gold and 435 extra skill points after you hit level 80 to max your charchter

43 gold 435 extra skill points compared to 0 gold and 65 extra skill points.

thats not even a competition.

as for your solution, it solves none of the problems with the current system, it infact magnifies the problem.

you dont solve inflation by giving people more money, you just increase the inflation. Your system would have new players having to grind insane amounts of time just to get new skills/traits as they are released.

what is your ideal world method for unlocking skills on different proffessions?

Yeah I am only comparing what we have, to what we shall get. I (and clearly a lot of other players on this thread) prefer the old system because we could play in a multitude of ways to progress.

How does making it easier to get skill points make it more grindy? It not like you buy skills on the trading post, their price is fixed. Keep the price fixed, make open world pve skill challenges give more skill points. Then there would be less grind.

Me and clearly a lot of other players in this thread would rather earn 5x more skill points playing how we enjoy playing, rather than be forced into playing 1 specific playstyle (doing skill challenges).

Currently every profession unlocks the same numbered trait through the same activity. Doing the same activity 9 times is boring. So my ideal method would be trait unlocks are account wide if you do the event thing, and character wide if you buy them.

After all this time has passed, and looking back on the updates, tweaks, buffs, nerfs, and reworking of existing systems from day one of this game being released. I will never understand why they felt the need to rework traits in the game. What was so wrong about it? What was so difficult about buying three different books that unlocked all your traits in different tiers? Why fix something that isn’t broken, or hard to understand? I just don’t know.

After all this time has passed, and looking back on the updates, tweaks, buffs, nerfs, and reworking of existing systems from day one of this game being released. I will never understand why they felt the need to rework traits in the game. What was so wrong about it? What was so difficult about buying three different books that unlocked all your traits in different tiers? Why fix something that isn’t broken, or hard to understand? I just don’t know.

Internal metrics showed that many people weren’t even using the trait/build system at all. That’s a huge problem when a great deal of the fun of your game is supposed be having a Diablo III style ‘load out’ for your character that you pick to make your character more useful..

could you please link to those internal metrics?

A couple things:

1. Anything you’ve unlocked on your characters will STAY Unlocked. They aren’t going to take it away from you and make you “re-earn” it. I’m almsot positive everythign will be retroactive and grandfathered in like the first couple of changes.
2. Outside of the Old Trait Hunting thing (that wasn’t part of the NPE anyway) the NPE is actually easy and almost entirely unnoticeable to Veteran accounts. I have made over 10 characters since the NPE, a few of them I leveled up to “experience” it, and once they fixed all teh bugs (within less than a week mind you), I almost didn’t notice ANY difference at all. In fact with leveling accelerated from 2-15, I can get it in less than 30 minutes. In less than and hour I can be level 20 and the NPE no longer affects me at all other than a few of the “lock” outs like your last utility and Elite.

What the NPE actually did was streamline some things, add WAY more fun stuff for leveling up. You get better gear, you get little loot bags, it partitions off the story so that you experience each section in one big chunk which I like better anyway. It puts your points in chunks instead of one or two each level, and makes it noticeable change, thus more meaningful. These changes are aimed at people NEW to the game and for what its worth, I think its worked quite well for them.

The system is FAR better than the one we have now, and this is coming form someone who didn’t even mind the trait hunting thing.

65 points is only 13 unlocks. Simply skip one of the trait lines.

Paradox.1380:

A couple things:

1. Anything you’ve unlocked on your characters will STAY Unlocked. They aren’t going to take it away from you and make you “re-earn” it. I’m almsot positive everythign will be retroactive and grandfathered in like the first couple of changes.
2. Outside of the Old Trait Hunting thing (that wasn’t part of the NPE anyway) the NPE is actually easy and almost entirely unnoticeable to Veteran accounts. I have made over 10 characters since the NPE, a few of them I leveled up to “experience” it, and once they fixed all teh bugs (within less than a week mind you), I almost didn’t notice ANY difference at all. In fact with leveling accelerated from 2-15, I can get it in less than 30 minutes. In less than and hour I can be level 20 and the NPE no longer affects me at all other than a few of the “lock” outs like your last utility and Elite.

The system is FAR better than the one we have now, and this is coming form someone who didn’t even mind the trait hunting thing.

1. According to video leveling 80 only gives you 400 hero points. Which means you have to do map completion for rest of hero points regardless of you did the skill challenge or not. There is a possibility that all skill challenge will reset since they did mention they will change skill challenge into hero challenge.
2. Just because you liked to do map completion 10 times in a row doesn’t mean everyone liked it. I doubt you killed the huge Grub in EB 10 times for each of your alts. Fix bugs less than a week? Map completion for 1 trait was in there for so long until NPE thread reached over 3000 responses. Then they changed it, but it is still a mindless time/gold/skill sink. There is absolutely no reason why I have to do the same thing for each of my characters. Also NPE still affects you beyond 22 because you can’t even have full trait lines until you are level 80. You clearly did not “experience” NPE

TheFamster.7806:

Paradox.1380:

A couple things:

1. Anything you’ve unlocked on your characters will STAY Unlocked. They aren’t going to take it away from you and make you “re-earn” it. I’m almsot positive everythign will be retroactive and grandfathered in like the first couple of changes.
2. Outside of the Old Trait Hunting thing (that wasn’t part of the NPE anyway) the NPE is actually easy and almost entirely unnoticeable to Veteran accounts. I have made over 10 characters since the NPE, a few of them I leveled up to “experience” it, and once they fixed all teh bugs (within less than a week mind you), I almost didn’t notice ANY difference at all. In fact with leveling accelerated from 2-15, I can get it in less than 30 minutes. In less than and hour I can be level 20 and the NPE no longer affects me at all other than a few of the “lock” outs like your last utility and Elite.

The system is FAR better than the one we have now, and this is coming form someone who didn’t even mind the trait hunting thing.

1. According to video leveling 80 only gives you 400 hero points. Which means you have to do map completion for rest of hero points regardless of you did the skill challenge or not. There is a possibility that all skill challenge will reset since they did mention they will change skill challenge into hero challenge.
2. Just because you liked to do map completion 10 times in a row doesn’t mean everyone liked it. I doubt you killed the huge Grub in EB 10 times for each of your alts. Fix bugs less than a week? Map completion for 1 trait was in there for so long until NPE thread reached over 3000 responses. Then they changed it, but it is still a mindless time/gold/skill sink. There is absolutely no reason why I have to do the same thing for each of my characters. Also NPE still affects you beyond 22 because you can’t even have full trait lines until you are level 80. You clearly did not “experience” NPE

1. But they aren’t going to take away you skills/traits that you’ve already unlocked. They never have i the past, ever. They’ve always let whatever you already had unlocked say there. The only thing the rolls to the new system is what you haven’t unlocked, and any new character you make will also have to unlock with the new system.
2. The NPE only touches you about levels 1-30. After that its essentially and completely the same as it always was. I have never done full map completion on all my alts. In fact I only have 100% on about 3 of them. The other 16 have 50% or less, and let me tell you, its not that hard to press F to Commune with a Place of Power while I’m out doing dungeons or something on said new alt.

You’re blowing this out of proportion drastically.

EDIT: Also The NPE has NOTHING at all to do with Traits. The Trait Hunting Changes happened in September 2013 and were aimed at VETERAN players who wanted to “hunt skills” like GW1. They admitted they didn’t do the system justice, that’s why they are changing it again. the NPE happened in April 2014, and it is largely fine and there was nothing wrong with it after a week of its inception when they fixed the bugs for veteran players not seeing nodes and skill challenges on their alts. That is all fixed now and has been.

Bobby.3721:

After all this time has passed, and looking back on the updates, tweaks, buffs, nerfs, and reworking of existing systems from day one of this game being released. I will never understand why they felt the need to rework traits in the game. What was so wrong about it? What was so difficult about buying three different books that unlocked all your traits in different tiers? Why fix something that isn’t broken, or hard to understand? I just don’t know.

Both anet and the playerbase wanted a scavenger hunt system tied to progression, kind of like GW1’s elite skill capturing, so anet added that into their trait system. The idea was good, but it was not well executed, and the game got worse for it. Now, they are changing traits to make them simpler to get again (in fact, simpler than the first system), while also making them easier to understand and that would make sense with the new specialization system.

Paradox.1380:

TheFamster.7806:

Paradox.1380:

A couple things:

1. Anything you’ve unlocked on your characters will STAY Unlocked. They aren’t going to take it away from you and make you “re-earn” it. I’m almsot positive everythign will be retroactive and grandfathered in like the first couple of changes.
2. Outside of the Old Trait Hunting thing (that wasn’t part of the NPE anyway) the NPE is actually easy and almost entirely unnoticeable to Veteran accounts. I have made over 10 characters since the NPE, a few of them I leveled up to “experience” it, and once they fixed all teh bugs (within less than a week mind you), I almost didn’t notice ANY difference at all. In fact with leveling accelerated from 2-15, I can get it in less than 30 minutes. In less than and hour I can be level 20 and the NPE no longer affects me at all other than a few of the “lock” outs like your last utility and Elite.

The system is FAR better than the one we have now, and this is coming form someone who didn’t even mind the trait hunting thing.

1. According to video leveling 80 only gives you 400 hero points. Which means you have to do map completion for rest of hero points regardless of you did the skill challenge or not. There is a possibility that all skill challenge will reset since they did mention they will change skill challenge into hero challenge.
2. Just because you liked to do map completion 10 times in a row doesn’t mean everyone liked it. I doubt you killed the huge Grub in EB 10 times for each of your alts. Fix bugs less than a week? Map completion for 1 trait was in there for so long until NPE thread reached over 3000 responses. Then they changed it, but it is still a mindless time/gold/skill sink. There is absolutely no reason why I have to do the same thing for each of my characters. Also NPE still affects you beyond 22 because you can’t even have full trait lines until you are level 80. You clearly did not “experience” NPE

1. But they aren’t going to take away you skills/traits that you’ve already unlocked. They never have i the past, ever. They’ve always let whatever you already had unlocked say there. The only thing the rolls to the new system is what you haven’t unlocked, and any new character you make will also have to unlock with the new system.
2. The NPE only touches you about levels 1-30. After that its essentially and completely the same as it always was. I have never done full map completion on all my alts. In fact I only have 100% on about 3 of them. The other 16 have 50% or less, and let me tell you, its not that hard to press F to Commune with a Place of Power while I’m out doing dungeons or something on said new alt.

You’re blowing this out of proportion drastically.

EDIT: Also The NPE has NOTHING at all to do with Traits. The Trait Hunting Changes happened in September 2013 and were aimed at VETERAN players who wanted to “hunt skills” like GW1. They admitted they didn’t do the system justice, that’s why they are changing it again. the NPE happened in April 2014, and it is largely fine and there was nothing wrong with it after a week of its inception when they fixed the bugs for veteran players not seeing nodes and skill challenges on their alts. That is all fixed now and has been.

1. Yes, they are going to take away the skills you’ve unlocked. You will have a number of new hero points according to your level/number of skill point completed. Thoses points will let you unlock skills again, but if you had unlocked all skills with scrolls, you will now have to do the hero challenges.

2. NPE is a mess because most skills are level gated, skills unlock from weapon is terrible, and many ohter poorly implemented things

3. Trait hunting is a mess because of bugs, megaserver, and again, poorly designed.

Message to Anet : Letting players buying characters slots and make 15-20 alt because they are fast to max (You included Tomes and Scrolls of knowledge for a reason ?), and then tell them they have to do map completion with every of them is just a bad idea. How many players will accept such a grind ?

They also said that simply leveling to 80 will be enough to unlock all the skills and traits.

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

So what is the problem?

Pandeh.5248:

They also said that simply leveling to 80 will be enough to unlock all the skills and traits.

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

So what is the problem?

They never said that, they said it was enough to make good builds, but not all of them. (core only of course)

60*20=1200.
1200 scrolls of knowledge is not a problem, but 1200 skills challenge is a grind.

Pandeh.5248:

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

(leveling to 80 is worth 400 points. 465 points are required to unlock everything currently available. Each trait/skill/unlock costs 5 points. ~100 points will be required for the elite specialization)

Paradox.1380:

TheFamster.7806:

Paradox.1380:

A couple things:

1. Anything you’ve unlocked on your characters will STAY Unlocked. They aren’t going to take it away from you and make you “re-earn” it. I’m almsot positive everythign will be retroactive and grandfathered in like the first couple of changes.
2. Outside of the Old Trait Hunting thing (that wasn’t part of the NPE anyway) the NPE is actually easy and almost entirely unnoticeable to Veteran accounts. I have made over 10 characters since the NPE, a few of them I leveled up to “experience” it, and once they fixed all teh bugs (within less than a week mind you), I almost didn’t notice ANY difference at all. In fact with leveling accelerated from 2-15, I can get it in less than 30 minutes. In less than and hour I can be level 20 and the NPE no longer affects me at all other than a few of the “lock” outs like your last utility and Elite.

The system is FAR better than the one we have now, and this is coming form someone who didn’t even mind the trait hunting thing.

1. According to video leveling 80 only gives you 400 hero points. Which means you have to do map completion for rest of hero points regardless of you did the skill challenge or not. There is a possibility that all skill challenge will reset since they did mention they will change skill challenge into hero challenge.
2. Just because you liked to do map completion 10 times in a row doesn’t mean everyone liked it. I doubt you killed the huge Grub in EB 10 times for each of your alts. Fix bugs less than a week? Map completion for 1 trait was in there for so long until NPE thread reached over 3000 responses. Then they changed it, but it is still a mindless time/gold/skill sink. There is absolutely no reason why I have to do the same thing for each of my characters. Also NPE still affects you beyond 22 because you can’t even have full trait lines until you are level 80. You clearly did not “experience” NPE

1. But they aren’t going to take away you skills/traits that you’ve already unlocked. They never have i the past, ever. They’ve always let whatever you already had unlocked say there. The only thing the rolls to the new system is what you haven’t unlocked, and any new character you make will also have to unlock with the new system.
2. The NPE only touches you about levels 1-30. After that its essentially and completely the same as it always was. I have never done full map completion on all my alts. In fact I only have 100% on about 3 of them. The other 16 have 50% or less, and let me tell you, its not that hard to press F to Commune with a Place of Power while I’m out doing dungeons or something on said new alt.

You’re blowing this out of proportion drastically.

EDIT: Also The NPE has NOTHING at all to do with Traits. The Trait Hunting Changes happened in September 2013 and were aimed at VETERAN players who wanted to “hunt skills” like GW1. They admitted they didn’t do the system justice, that’s why they are changing it again. the NPE happened in April 2014, and it is largely fine and there was nothing wrong with it after a week of its inception when they fixed the bugs for veteran players not seeing nodes and skill challenges on their alts. That is all fixed now and has been.

If we need more than 400 hero points to unlock skills we want while having 3 fully unlocked trait lines, then yes they are taking away our choices of unlocking skills. Also grandfathered in doesn’t make everything right.

NPE is still a disgusting system that level gates old contents and force new and veteran players alike. I don’t need to open 80 chests when I level my characters to 80 using tomes of knowledge, and I don’t need them to tell me to level my characters to 22 before using wvw/pvp. Now i know that I can go straight to Lion’s arch portal, but that is such a useless hassle forcing me to map to places that I don’t need or want to go. The removal of bundles and interaction key was the proof that anet doesn’t really fix what is broken, but rather they repackage old contents and deliver as if it was new

Pandeh.5248:

They also said that simply leveling to 80 will be enough to unlock all the skills and traits.

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

So what is the problem?

You need 465 points to unlock all core specialisations and utilities. The elite specialisation will cost another lot of points. I guess around 100.

The exact transition from the old to the new system is still unclear. Will already unlocked traits grant 5 points? Will these traits be lost? We have to see.

I guess they didn’t learn from the original trait redesign. It was and always will be a disaster for alts. Which dev actually thinks this would be fun?

Belenwyn.8674:

Pandeh.5248:

They also said that simply leveling to 80 will be enough to unlock all the skills and traits.

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

So what is the problem?

You need 465 points to unlock all core specialisations and utilities. The elite specialisation will cost another lot of points. I guess around 100.

The exact transition from the old to the new system is still unclear. Will already unlocked traits grant 5 points? Will these traits be lost? We have to see.

Wait a minute… If there are 465 hero points in total, how are you going to get 100 more to unlock anything?

could you please link to those internal metrics?

Going to have ask a GM – this was the rationale they gave for changing it. It seems reasonable enough. I think the new system is an improvement. I’d like to see some quality of life changes for swapping weapons out of combat.. That would make the load out concept more fun for me at least.

Xenon.4537:

Belenwyn.8674:

Pandeh.5248:

They also said that simply leveling to 80 will be enough to unlock all the skills and traits.

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

So what is the problem?

You need 465 points to unlock all core specialisations and utilities. The elite specialisation will cost another lot of points. I guess around 100.

The exact transition from the old to the new system is still unclear. Will already unlocked traits grant 5 points? Will these traits be lost? We have to see.

Wait a minute… If there are 465 hero points in total, how are you going to get 100 more to unlock anything?

Buy hoT to access new maps and new skills challenges…

Xenon.4537:

Belenwyn.8674:

Pandeh.5248:

They also said that simply leveling to 80 will be enough to unlock all the skills and traits.

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

So what is the problem?

You need 465 points to unlock all core specialisations and utilities. The elite specialisation will cost another lot of points. I guess around 100.

The exact transition from the old to the new system is still unclear. Will already unlocked traits grant 5 points? Will these traits be lost? We have to see.

Wait a minute… If there are 465 hero points in total, how are you going to get 100 more to unlock anything?

There are around 190 challenges in the open world and around 15 in WvW. HoT will introduce even more of them.

I am pretty sure completing Hero Challenges does not require Map Completion. I can take any character and do all 36 Skill Challenges (Hero Challenges) in the starter zones without ever visiting a PoI, Vista, Renown Heart or anything else that might be required for Map Completion. I can pick up another 27 Hero Points by doing the Skill Challenges (Hero Challenges), and only the Skill Challenges in the L15-25 maps. Again, nothing else from those maps required. (That offers 63 of the 65 Hero Points necessary to unlock every single skill and trait commented on in the Blog/Video.)

Let’s try to comment on what’s actually required, rather than using hyperbole. =)

I have 18 chars, and already 13 now have 65+ .. the system is at least 100 times better
than the current where my last characters really only had the traits for my standarf
farming build and nothing more.

And of course i expect that everything will be reset. On the one hand sometraits
are quote different, and also it gives you the chance to not take skill you never
have used, if you have not the full 465 points already.

Belenwyn.8674:

Xenon.4537:

Belenwyn.8674:

Pandeh.5248:

They also said that simply leveling to 80 will be enough to unlock all the skills and traits.

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

So what is the problem?

You need 465 points to unlock all core specialisations and utilities. The elite specialisation will cost another lot of points. I guess around 100.

The exact transition from the old to the new system is still unclear. Will already unlocked traits grant 5 points? Will these traits be lost? We have to see.

Wait a minute… If there are 465 hero points in total, how are you going to get 100 more to unlock anything?

There are around 190 challenges in the open world and around 15 in WvW. HoT will introduce even more of them.

Sorry, I guess I was just unclear how hero points worked. I thought there were a finite amount of them and that the number was 400-something.

Hume.2876:

Internal metrics showed that many people weren’t even using the trait/build system at all.

Of course they haven’t. After all, in the NPE trait system they likely had no traits to choose from.

NPE disaster all over again.

Anet doesn’t test out these designs.. They are very badly designed.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Bobby.3721:

After all this time has passed, and looking back on the updates, tweaks, buffs, nerfs, and reworking of existing systems from day one of this game being released. I will never understand why they felt the need to rework traits in the game. What was so wrong about it? What was so difficult about buying three different books that unlocked all your traits in different tiers? Why fix something that isn’t broken, or hard to understand? I just don’t know.

Both anet and the playerbase wanted a scavenger hunt system tied to progression, kind of like GW1’s elite skill capturing, so anet added that into their trait system. The idea was good, but it was not well executed, and the game got worse for it. Now, they are changing traits to make them simpler to get again (in fact, simpler than the first system), while also making them easier to understand and that would make sense with the new specialization system.

I guess I can understand that then. I remember enjoying capturing elite skills in Guild Wars, but i mostly just used tomes for them. Maybe a few skills could have been locked in each tier instead of all of them? Regardless of that I agree with the poor exicution. It’s the main reason i stopped making alts. I just hope this new system isn’t too bad. Still uncertain how this progressive system for traits works, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Bobby.3721:

After all this time has passed, and looking back on the updates, tweaks, buffs, nerfs, and reworking of existing systems from day one of this game being released. I will never understand why they felt the need to rework traits in the game. What was so wrong about it? What was so difficult about buying three different books that unlocked all your traits in different tiers? Why fix something that isn’t broken, or hard to understand? I just don’t know.

Both anet and the playerbase wanted a scavenger hunt system tied to progression, kind of like GW1’s elite skill capturing, so anet added that into their trait system. The idea was good, but it was not well executed, and the game got worse for it. Now, they are changing traits to make them simpler to get again (in fact, simpler than the first system), while also making them easier to understand and that would make sense with the new specialization system.

Players expected new elite skills to be earned, but Anet decided to lock all the traits. One of the worst decisions of this game.

TheFamster.7806:

edited for space

TLDR; New skill/trait unlock will force everyone and their alts to map completion and limit our choice of unlocking skills by creating time and hero point sink, forcing us to unlock skills/traits that we don’t use to unlock those we want.

ok a lot of slightly off information here.

• you wont have to unlock every other skill, yes you will have to unlock some skills before others
  THIS ALREADY EXISTS RIGHT NOW. you have to unlock two teirs of regular utilities before you can unlock the third teir, you have to unlock two elites before the last elite. right now, some traits require you to spend 50 points before you can get them, some 26, etc.
• each skill type is separately packaged, this means if you dont use traps, you dont have to buy any traps, if you dont use manipulations, you dont have to buy any manipulations. Racial skills werent even one of the options, so i dont know whats going to happen to them. Specializations were separately packaged, so if you dont use healing/vitality line, dont get it.
• 400 hero points for leveling actually gives more skills/traits than you ever got just for leveling before (465 for max skills/traits). before you got 76 points, which is generally less than half of the points you need to unlock all skills.

• based on what i said before, and how people tend to build now, leveling to 80, most people will be able to recreate all the builds they actually use without getting a single skill point. Have a theif? never use traps or venoms? congrats you can unlock every other skill and trait available just from leveling. Have a mesmer? never use the healing traitline? you can access every almost every other skill and trait in the game.

• there is no skill or trait that you cant get with the base 400 points. There is no one build you cannot make with the base 400 points. In the past, there actually were a number of builds you could not make with 76 points, but not so now.

• you can have more than 465 hero points, you just currently only have use for 465 of them.

• doing skill challenges is still the fastest and most effecient way of obtaining skill points even now.
  Any new charachter will spend less time unlocking skills than is currently spent in order to unlock skills. The difference is that some of that time will actually be spent on that charachter.
  3 ORR maps alone gives 44 skill challenges, you can unlock all the traits you need, only doing the skill challenges on 6 maps.

• you dont have to do the same challenges 8 times. you only need 65, there are 220 in the world. you dont have to do the same ones.

The crazy part is, people are complaining that they might have to play a charachter for a few hours before they fully unlock all of its potential. Think about that.

you may have to play a charachter for a few hours, in order to get every skill/trait available to it.

a few hours

Thanks Phys for writing that post and saving me the trouble. For those who don’t feel like reading I’ll sum it up.

Stop judging new systems based entirely wrong information.

Bobby.3721:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Bobby.3721:

After all this time has passed, and looking back on the updates, tweaks, buffs, nerfs, and reworking of existing systems from day one of this game being released. I will never understand why they felt the need to rework traits in the game. What was so wrong about it? What was so difficult about buying three different books that unlocked all your traits in different tiers? Why fix something that isn’t broken, or hard to understand? I just don’t know.

Both anet and the playerbase wanted a scavenger hunt system tied to progression, kind of like GW1’s elite skill capturing, so anet added that into their trait system. The idea was good, but it was not well executed, and the game got worse for it. Now, they are changing traits to make them simpler to get again (in fact, simpler than the first system), while also making them easier to understand and that would make sense with the new specialization system.

I guess I can understand that then. I remember enjoying capturing elite skills in Guild Wars, but i mostly just used tomes for them. Maybe a few skills could have been locked in each tier instead of all of them? Regardless of that I agree with the poor exicution. It’s the main reason i stopped making alts. I just hope this new system isn’t too bad. Still uncertain how this progressive system for traits works, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

the new system is better for a new charachter that you actually want to play than any other system before it.
leveling to 80 alone gives you enough points to create any build, in fact you can create the majority of builds available with just leveling to 80.
If you were leveling how people normally level you would have enough skill challenges to unlock every skill by the time you were about 35
If you autoleveled to 80, it would take you about 1.5-3 hours.

the main problems

how will they grandfather older charachters, having to spend any time at all to get back what you lost is a very negative feeling for many players.

the next big issue is versatility of aquisition.

i think the best solution would be a soul bound method of unlocking skill challenges that were previously unlocked on your account for doing various things. (for versatility)
this method would require you to play or do things on that charachter

and then giving completely unlocked charachters access to 65 uses of that mechanic.

phys.7689:

a few hours

A few hours per character doing something you don’t like.
I have 8 chars, let’s say it takes me 3 hours per char, I don’t want to spend 24 hours grinding skill points to try out different builds.
Anet’s “play how you want” philosophy is what got a LOT of people playing, they’re taking a crap on it by forcing everyone to do one specific activity to unlock everything a character has to offer.

Stop ignoring the core problem, Anet promised progress by different means -level & skill points by WvW, PvE or sPvP – they won’t be keeping their word in the expansion if they don’t provide another way to obtain hero points.

“Play how you want” has got to be the most abused argument by the fanbase. More often than not, “play how you want” is used to defend and justify mediocre or bland game design with no satisfying sense of progression.

But the reality is that GW2 is a RPG, and it is expected to be played like a RPG. One of the core pillars of the entire RPG genre is personal progression. You create a character and then make him grow as you play. In fact, one of the reasons for playing alts or replaying any RPG is exactly that: to take a lv1 new fighter and make him grow into a legendary fighter by going through adventures, challenges and exploration. It’s the reason why the story progression is character-bound, why crafting is character-bound, why world exploration is character-bound and why personal progression is, well, personal.

Raziel.4216:

phys.7689:

a few hours

A few hours per character doing something you don’t like.
I have 8 chars, let’s say it takes me 3 hours per char, I don’t want to spend 24 hours grinding skill points to try out different builds.
Anet’s “play how you want” philosophy is what got a LOT of people playing, they’re taking a crap on it by forcing everyone to do one specific activity to unlock everything a character has to offer.

Stop ignoring the core problem, Anet promised progress by different means -level & skill points by WvW, PvE or sPvP – they’re not keeping their word in the expansion.

they never promised skill points in spvp, in fact spvp wasnt connected to anything at all for most of this games life.
they never promised you could get everything in the game in WvW either, (because you cant) they just promised you could go from 1-80 there.

its not a few hours to get a functional charachter, or your favorite build, or you favorite 2-3 builds, its a few hours to get everything that currently exists that you may never even use.

if something isnt worth a few hours of effort to you, it really has almost no value at all.

In the context of GW2 “play how you want” means you can reach your goal thru different means, that’s something that Anet did well by providing progression thru WvW and SPVP. I don’t see how that justifies a mediocre design choice.

nexxe.7081:

Players expected new elite skills to be earned, but Anet decided to lock all the traits. One of the worst decisions of this game.

I think that wouldn’t be a problem if the system was any fun. But it wasn’t. Trait locations were very arbitrary, tasks varied radically, and none of them were profession-bound. There was no flavor behind it. There was little UI support, and no clarity on how to obtain them. Trait distribution was also poorly balanced, requiring too much work for too little gain.

The only way to fix that system would be with a much higher budget. Anet would need to design bosses just for the sake of trait unlocking, mark those bosses in the map, perhaps make them count for world exploration too (or not), etc. But then it would create new problems. For example, if a boss was flavored around a specific trait, and then the balance team were to decide to revamp that trait completely to something else, would they also change the boss’s themed flavor every time they did that? No way, that would be massive work.

GW1 was designed from the ground up with elite capturing. It was simple, elegant, and players always knew the boss would have something based on their boss aura.

phys.7689:

Raziel.4216:

phys.7689:

a few hours

A few hours per character doing something you don’t like.
I have 8 chars, let’s say it takes me 3 hours per char, I don’t want to spend 24 hours grinding skill points to try out different builds.
Anet’s “play how you want” philosophy is what got a LOT of people playing, they’re taking a crap on it by forcing everyone to do one specific activity to unlock everything a character has to offer.

Stop ignoring the core problem, Anet promised progress by different means -level & skill points by WvW, PvE or sPvP – they’re not keeping their word in the expansion.

they never promised skill points in spvp, in fact spvp wasnt connected to anything at all for most of this games life.
they never promised you could get everything in the game in WvW either, (because you cant) they just promised you could go from 1-80 there.

its not a few hours to get a functional charachter, or your favorite build, or you favorite 2-3 builds, its a few hours to get everything that currently exists that you may never even use.

if something isnt worth a few hours of effort to you, it really has almost no value at all.

24 hours seems like more than a “few” hours to me.
They promised you’d be free to progress in your own way, that’s the whole point of the “play how you want” philosophy. It didn’t include levels or skill points in sPVP originally, but they added’em with reward tracks.
Levels and skill points have always been obtainable thru WvW, in fact, they even said you could level a character there without ever setting a foot in PvE back in the closed beta days.
My characters are worth the 2k+ hours I put into’em, I want to continue playing the way I want.
If 2k+ hours ain’t crap to you then we got different standards.

Btw another Anet promise
“We have a lot of fans who feel abused by the process of other MMOs. MMOs have the assumption that you’re supposed to dedicate your life to it. Each expansion pack is going to invalidate all the work you did before. It’s going to be a constantly moving goal post. Because we have a lot of people coming to Guild Wars 2 who have done that kind of thing before, they don’t want to be doing it again.”
How is forcing WvW players or any non-PvE explorer to grind out hero challenges (my case would be 65*8 = 520, sounds fun!) to reobtain what they already have not invalidating their progress?
By your logic my characters ain’t worth crap ‘coz I’m not willing to grind almost 3 times the total amount of skill points available in the game today.

Raziel.4216:

In the context of GW2 “play how you want” means you can reach your goal thru different means, that’s something that Anet did well by providing progression thru WvW and SPVP. I don’t see how that justifies a mediocre design choice.

The “play how you want” philosophy is interesting, it just does not always works well in practice, especially when it comes to estabilishing a good reward structure. Generic you-can-get-everything-anywhere rewards have not been very successful, while unique rewards for dungeons, unique rewards for specific maps, unique rewards for pvp, etc, are a lot more satisfying to obtain. Also, if you can get all your skill points by spamming consumables, then hunting for skill challenges in the world map will feel unrewarding – why would you bother to do them when you already have all the skill points you need?

The new change is following a more traditional RPG model: you explore the world, battle, unlock skills, and while you experiment with those new skills you have just obtained, you keep unlocking more of them.

DiogoSilva.7089:

The new change is following a more traditional RPG model: you explore the world, battle, unlock skills, and while you experiment with those new skills you have just obtained, you keep unlocking more of them.

You can also add….
You earn a WvW rank, you progress.
You reached the next SPVP rank, you progress.
And existing characters that already unlocked everything get grandfathered into the new system, after all, anet clearly said they don’t want to invalidate player progress.

65 skill point places, let’s say it takes me ten minutes to map, locate them, do them as I have no clue where they are and will need a map program on my other comp to compare to find them on the map. That’s 650 minutes, or a little shy of 11 hours of game time, or maybe 4-5 days of playing per toon. let’s say I just do 20 of my toons before I die of boredom at running around pve maps, that’s around 80-100 days or around THREE MONTHS of doing something that doesn’t interest me just to have skills available should I wish (or my team want) to use them.

So glad there is no grind in this game- and that’s before having to grind out funds for new armors, weapons, find laurels for the revised trinkets to make the builds work, etc etc .

So the argument for removing applied fortitude in wvw is that it created an unlevel playing field between newer players and veterans..but what exactly does not having access to entire trait lines do? Take a break, come back and suddenly you’re faced with weeks in pve before you can access all the skills you want for your build…

Not everyone plays at breakneck pace of a few hours to do 65 skill points- more likely on average that ten minutes per is optimistic for most of us who will get distracted or more likely log off after 5 or ten in a couple hours or more as it’s boring, tedious and not at all what we want to be doing.

Will Anet change the system? Not a chance.

Raziel.4216:

phys.7689:

Raziel.4216:

phys.7689:

a few hours

A few hours per character doing something you don’t like.
I have 8 chars, let’s say it takes me 3 hours per char, I don’t want to spend 24 hours grinding skill points to try out different builds.
Anet’s “play how you want” philosophy is what got a LOT of people playing, they’re taking a crap on it by forcing everyone to do one specific activity to unlock everything a character has to offer.

Stop ignoring the core problem, Anet promised progress by different means -level & skill points by WvW, PvE or sPvP – they’re not keeping their word in the expansion.

they never promised skill points in spvp, in fact spvp wasnt connected to anything at all for most of this games life.
they never promised you could get everything in the game in WvW either, (because you cant) they just promised you could go from 1-80 there.

its not a few hours to get a functional charachter, or your favorite build, or you favorite 2-3 builds, its a few hours to get everything that currently exists that you may never even use.

if something isnt worth a few hours of effort to you, it really has almost no value at all.

24 hours seems like more than a “few” hours to me.
They promised you’d be free to progress in your own way, that’s the whole point of the “play how you want” philosophy. It didn’t include levels or skill points in sPVP originally, but they added’em with reward tracks.
Levels and skill points have always been obtainable thru WvW, in fact, they even said you could level a character there without ever setting a foot in PvE back in the closed beta days.
My characters are worth the 2k+ hours I put into’em, I want to continue playing the way I want.
If 2k+ hours ain’t crap to you then we got different standards.

Btw another Anet promise
“We have a lot of fans who feel abused by the process of other MMOs. MMOs have the assumption that you’re supposed to dedicate your life to it. Each expansion pack is going to invalidate all the work you did before. It’s going to be a constantly moving goal post. Because we have a lot of people coming to Guild Wars 2 who have done that kind of thing before, they don’t want to be doing it again.”
How is forcing WvW players or any non-PvE explorer to grind out hero challenges (my case would be 65*8 = 520, sounds fun!) to reobtain what they already have not invalidating their progress?
By your logic my characters ain’t worth crap ‘coz I’m not willing to grind almost 3 times the total amount of skill points available in the game today.

first of all so far people in this thread arent talking about grandfathering or progress lost, they are talking about the design itself, so no, im not saying you should lose progress.

second of all, its 1.5-2 hours per CHARACHTER. thinking about things on the basis of how many charachters you have is incorrect thinking. Its like someone says spending an hour in transportation to go to a movie is too much, because i will see 1000 movies in my life, and that is 1000 hours driving to and from the movies.

now i think they could offer some other ways of obtaining skills that fit within the system, but no matter what its not going to fit do whatever you want. Right now in fact it doesnt fit do whatever you want. If you dont like mass killing champions, there really isnt much options for getting skills in PVE and WvW.

Baldrick.8967:

65 skill point places, let’s say it takes me ten minutes to map, locate them, do them as I have no clue where they are and will need a map program on my other comp to compare to find them on the map. That’s 650 minutes, or a little shy of 11 hours of game time, or maybe 4-5 days of playing per toon. let’s say I just do 20 of my toons before I die of boredom at running around pve maps, that’s around 80-100 days or around THREE MONTHS of doing something that doesn’t interest me just to have skills available should I wish (or my team want) to use them.

So glad there is no grind in this game- and that’s before having to grind out funds for new armors, weapons, find laurels for the revised trinkets to make the builds work, etc etc .

So the argument for removing applied fortitude in wvw is that it created an unlevel playing field between newer players and veterans..but what exactly does not having access to entire trait lines do? Take a break, come back and suddenly you’re faced with weeks in pve before you can access all the skills you want for your build…

Not everyone plays at breakneck pace of a few hours to do 65 skill points- more likely on average that ten minutes per is optimistic for most of us who will get distracted or more likely log off after 5 or ten in a couple hours or more as it’s boring, tedious and not at all what we want to be doing.

Will Anet change the system? Not a chance.

a slow player will take about 5 hours to get 65 skill challenges, i know this, i have tried it out. A fast player can probably do it in 1.5 hours.

by the way are you saying you currently have 20 charachters fully unlocked?

btw even 5 hours to get access to max level skills is not alot for an RPG at all. In fact i cant even think of one RPG, online or offline that allows you to do that.

heck even most adventure games dont let you do that.

wow… you guys couldn’t be any more melodramatic. 400 hero points is going to be more than enough for anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex to unlock everything they need on their alts. Don’t want to do the hero challenges? well… dont. It really is that simple. I highly doubt you use every single trait/skill on every single alt; get what you use and move on.

We don’t even know all the details about the change yet either… who said each hero challenge is only worth 1 point? I watched all the videos, nowhere in any of them did they quantify the value of the ‘hero challenges’. There are about 205~ hero challenges in the world atm. If each trait line is going to be worth about 65 points that means we only have enough for 2 elite specs per profession atm. That seems kind of restrictive to me, especially when the primary reason anet is making this change is to open up future horizontal progression opportunities. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were worth more than 1, maybe even scaled in value by the level of the zone they inhabit.

Save the QQs for when we are given more details, we simply do not have enough information yet.

you can play it you’re own way, if it is done just how ANET say…..