Guild Wars 2

Over the lifetime of GW2 I think it’s been very clear that one of the quickest ways to gain the ill will of players is to set back their characters and make them earn something all over again. With the first rework of trait acquisition, ArenaNet wisely grandfathered our old characters so they did not have to go out and unlock traits under the new system.

Please, make the wise decision again with this new system.

Six of my characters have access to all traits and all the remotely useful skills for their profession. On some of these I earned them through leveling skillpoints, skill challenges, and buying training manuals. On others I earned this through skillpoint scrolls and being grandfathered into unlocks when the rework went live.

I’m concerned that, under the HoT system, some of my characters are suddenly going to lose access to traits and skills because they do not have enough skill challenges complete to have enough Hero Points to unlock them.

ArenaNet, please let us know that you plan to grandfather our characters under the new system. All core specializations and core skills should be unlocked for current characters.

There simply isn’t enough player good will to burn by sending us back to unlock things all over again.

Gibson.4036:

Over the lifetime of GW2 I think it’s been very clear that one of the quickest ways to gain the ill will of players is to set back their characters and make them earn something all over again. With the first rework of trait acquisition, ArenaNet wisely grandfathered our old characters so they did not have to go out and unlock traits under the new system.

Please, make the wise decision again with this new system.

Six of my characters have access to all traits and all the remotely useful skills for their profession. On some of these I earned them through leveling skillpoints, skill challenges, and buying training manuals. On others I earned this through skillpoint scrolls and being grandfathered into unlocks when the rework went live.

I’m concerned that, under the HoT system, some of my characters are suddenly going to lose access to traits and skills because they do not have enough skill challenges complete to have enough Hero Points to unlock them.

ArenaNet, please let us know that you plan to grandfather our characters under the new system. All core specializations and core skills should be unlocked for current characters.

There simply isn’t enough player good will to burn by sending us back to unlock things all over again.

since they want to have limited pool of hero points, it would be hard to grandfather

the only thing they could do, is auto complete skill challenges, and how would that work for people who havent unlocked it?

not saying they shouldnt, just saying it seems unlikely

It must be really hard to take aim at your own feet, but it looks like they’re going to do it again.

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

sorudo.9054:

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

ahhh IF this is true, that may change things a lot. interesting

I think its more of a case of some traits being completely removed, I.E. they can’t give you something that you didn’t have before.

sorudo.9054:

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

I don’t see how having account bound traits would be helpful…unless you have multiples of one profession.

Crey.5263:

sorudo.9054:

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

I don’t see how having account bound traits would be helpful…unless you have multiples of one profession.

i have……

sorudo.9054:

Crey.5263:

sorudo.9054:

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

I don’t see how having account bound traits would be helpful…unless you have multiples of one profession.

i have……

actually this is unlikely,
since hero points are limited, and based on skill challenge completion, they would have to make skill point unlocks acount bound, which is part of map completion.
so probably not.

They are definitely deleting traits from the game, I presume every character class is going to lose a whole bunch of traits. The say it here, quote:-

’ By locking traits to tiers and reducing the overall number of traits, we’ve made each choice much more compelling.’

Also, present lvl 80’s will lose some traits they have now and after unlock them again. Again this quote:-

‘A level 80 character that’s done none of the hero challenges should be able to unlock more than enough skills, specializations, and traits to make several unique full builds.’

So well you may be able to run some builds, those builds could be awful ones or ones you personally don’t like/hate.

yeah, compelling, we’re compelled to leave the game to die.
they said they have a solution for the trait problem, all they did was screwing us over all over again.
they said they are gonna set things right, all they did was making sure that we are now forced to do all the things we deliberately avoided.

i don’t have a 100% map completion ankitten ot planning in doing it any time soon, i really don’t like dungeons but AFAIK it’s something forced.
so in short, you’re forced to do stuff you don’t like, changing the game in to labor.

sorudo.9054:

Crey.5263:

sorudo.9054:

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

I don’t see how having account bound traits would be helpful…unless you have multiples of one profession.

i have……

Why…

sorudo.9054:

yeah, compelling, we’re compelled to leave the game to die.
they said they have a solution for the trait problem, all they did was screwing us over all over again.
they said they are gonna set things right, all they did was making sure that we are now forced to do all the things we deliberately avoided.

i don’t have a 100% map completion ankitten ot planning in doing it any time soon, i really don’t like dungeons but AFAIK it’s something forced.
so in short, you’re forced to do stuff you don’t like, changing the game in to labor.

You’re free to leave the game.. But you’re delusional if you think it’s going to die. Also, you can go ahead and get over yourself whenever you see fit. The game doesn’t revolve around you and what you want.

ANet knows what they’re doing. If you don’t believe that, you don’t have to use their product. Otherwise you need to just realize that kitten changes, and if you can’t deal with it, you’re better off leaving. Adapt or die, that’s the way of life.

Meglobob.8620:

They are definitely deleting traits from the game, I presume every character class is going to lose a whole bunch of traits. The say it here, quote:-

’ By locking traits to tiers and reducing the overall number of traits, we’ve made each choice much more compelling.’

Also, present lvl 80’s will lose some traits they have now and after unlock them again. Again this quote:-

‘A level 80 character that’s done none of the hero challenges should be able to unlock more than enough skills, specializations, and traits to make several unique full builds.’

So well you may be able to run some builds, those builds could be awful ones or ones you personally don’t like/hate.

Not all missing traits will just be deleted however. Some are being rolled in to base skill functionality or being merged together.

From blog post:

“As you can see, traits have been merged, moved, and culled, and new ones have been created, but it lets us introduce more skillful traits and more meaningful trait choices that are going to really change how you play. Although some traits are being removed, we’re doing our best to preserve as many of the current builds as we can.”

sorudo.9054:

yeah, compelling, we’re compelled to leave the game to die.
they said they have a solution for the trait problem, all they did was screwing us over all over again.
they said they are gonna set things right, all they did was making sure that we are now forced to do all the things we deliberately avoided.

i don’t have a 100% map completion ankitten ot planning in doing it any time soon, i really don’t like dungeons but AFAIK it’s something forced.
so in short, you’re forced to do stuff you don’t like, changing the game in to labor.

Why are people assuming they need 100% map completion to have access to all skills and traits? You don’t need it now, you will not need it after HoT. You will probably need to have done at least some of the map content, which I could see as a bit of a hassle for someone who has multiple alts and on the later ones likes avoid map content all together and just use tomes and skill point scrolls. That process will no longer be available.

Crey.5263:

sorudo.9054:

Crey.5263:

sorudo.9054:

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

I don’t see how having account bound traits would be helpful…unless you have multiples of one profession.

i have……

Why…

Why not…..

Isn’t this new trait system effectively the N(ew)P(layer)E(xperience) system being reskinned, rebranded and put into HoT so we all after swallow it?

The only real alternative is not buy HoT and walk away from GW2.

Meglobob.8620:

The only real alternative is not buy HoT and walk away from GW2.

This is the first point since it was announced that I’m unsure of whether I plan to purchase HoT.

Don’t make me go back an earn things that I’ve already earned before. That’s not acceptable game design.

Gibson.4036:

Don’t make me go back an earn things that I’ve already earned before. That’s not acceptable game design.

^this. Right now my characters have access to all the skills/traits. And it should stay that way. The only thing I should have to unlock still is the specialization.

Based on what was in the blog post, it sounds like we get Hero Points for leveling and doing skill challenges. The game keeps track of how many levels you have and how many skill challenges you’ve done. So I would guess that after the expac hits and you log in for the first time, you get access to the new trait specs and are automatically given a pile of Hero Points based on your level and the number of skill challenges you’ve done. You can spend those on the new reward tracks, giving you access to which ever traits, skills, etc. you want, up to the number of Hero Points you have available. So you may not have access to everything right off the bat, but I imagine that you will get a lot, and you will be able to decide what things you want to unlock first. So I don’t imagine it will be that bad.

Starfall.6813:

So you may not have access to everything right off the bat, but I imagine that you will get a lot, and you will be able to decide what things you want to unlock first. So I don’t imagine it will be that bad.

It depends on how you unlocked things in the first place.

If you’ve done a lot of skill challenges, it looks like you will be fine.

If you haven’t done skill challenges but you have all traits unlocked because A.) you bought training manuals, B.) your characters are old enough to have been grandfathered into full unlocks, C.) You did some of the new acquisition hurdles like defeating specific events for traits then it looks like you are going to get a nerf until you go out and do skill challenges.

If you haven’t done skill challenges but you have all skills unlocked because you earned and used skill scrolls then it looks like you are getting nerfed until you go out and do skill challenges.

Meglobob.8620:

They are definitely deleting traits from the game, I presume every character class is going to lose a whole bunch of traits. The say it here, quote:-

’ By locking traits to tiers and reducing the overall number of traits, we’ve made each choice much more compelling.’

Also, present lvl 80’s will lose some traits they have now and after unlock them again. Again this quote:-

‘A level 80 character that’s done none of the hero challenges should be able to unlock more than enough skills, specializations, and traits to make several unique full builds.’

So well you may be able to run some builds, those builds could be awful ones or ones you personally don’t like/hate.

They are merging/deleting 20 traits per profession.

We currently have (15+65)=80 traits total. With the new system we get 3 minor and 9 major per trait line, for a total of 60.

However, we get access to more active traits.

If traits are now tied to the completion of skill challenges to get your hero points, then those with map completion will not lose anything. However, it looks like level 80s with no real map completions will either have less than they do now or the points just from having leveled from 1-80 will cover most things.

Gibson.4036:

Over the lifetime of GW2 I think it’s been very clear that one of the quickest ways to gain the ill will of players is to set back their characters and make them earn something all over again. With the first rework of trait acquisition, ArenaNet wisely grandfathered our old characters so they did not have to go out and unlock traits under the new system.

Please, make the wise decision again with this new system.

Six of my characters have access to all traits and all the remotely useful skills for their profession. On some of these I earned them through leveling skillpoints, skill challenges, and buying training manuals. On others I earned this through skillpoint scrolls and being grandfathered into unlocks when the rework went live.

I’m concerned that, under the HoT system, some of my characters are suddenly going to lose access to traits and skills because they do not have enough skill challenges complete to have enough Hero Points to unlock them.

ArenaNet, please let us know that you plan to grandfather our characters under the new system. All core specializations and core skills should be unlocked for current characters.

There simply isn’t enough player good will to burn by sending us back to unlock things all over again.

Go to the Heart of The Mists and have everything unlocked.

If you’re a longtime player, even if you don’t PvP much… I’m sure you’ve managed to unlock most if not all of your traits, yes?

That’s it. You’re grandfathered in. Only thing you’ll have to work on is the new stuff and anything you haven’t unlocked yet.

Crisis averted.

sorudo.9054:

i don’t have a 100% map completion ankitten ot planning in doing it any time soon, i really don’t like dungeons but AFAIK it’s something forced.
so in short, you’re forced to do stuff you don’t like, changing the game in to labor.

If you PvP, you have and will have everything unlocked and ignore PvE content.

If you PvE, you can choose to ignore map completion, skill challenges and dungeons (not tied to the current system, btw), but you don’t get everything for free. It’s not like other games let you start with a fully-leveled, fully-geared toon, either.

CETheLucid.3964:

Go to the Heart of The Mists and have everything unlocked.

As long as you remain there.

If you’re a longtime player, even if you don’t PvP much… I’m sure you’ve managed to unlock most if not all of your traits, yes?

Yep, and I’d like it to remain that way, even on characters that haven’t done many skill challenges.

That’s it. You’re grandfathered in. Only thing you’ll have to work on is the new stuff and anything you haven’t unlocked yet.

Except we don’t know that. The way the blogs read, it looks like we’ll have only as many Hero Points as levels+skill challenges we’ve done. On some of my characters, it looks like that means losing access to my fully unlocked traits and skills until I go out and do more Hero Challenges.

That’s why I’m asking that they grandfather existing characters.

Simply unlock all core specializations and skill tracks for old characters.

Crisis averted.

Hopefully.

65 skill challenges is not a trivial matter. That is 1/3rd of all skill challenges currently in the game.

Current characters who have all skills and traits unlocked without doing skill challenges should not be nerfed until they run through 1/3rd of the zones in the game.

This is not acceptable.

RabbitUp.8294:

sorudo.9054:

i don’t have a 100% map completion ankitten ot planning in doing it any time soon, i really don’t like dungeons but AFAIK it’s something forced.
so in short, you’re forced to do stuff you don’t like, changing the game in to labor.

If you PvP, you have and will have everything unlocked and ignore PvE content.

If you PvE, you can choose to ignore map completion, skill challenges and dungeons (not tied to the current system, btw), but you don’t get everything for free. It’s not like other games let you start with a fully-leveled, fully-geared toon, either.

i currently have about 8 characters grandfathered so i have all the traits on them, what they are doing is pretty much destroying them completely.
you’re ignoring quite a huge part here, i (and many others) have characters that luckily don’t have the NPE trait crap but with this change they pretty much force everyone of them to grind all that crap just to get everything back they already had to start with.

sorudo.9054:

i currently have about 8 characters grandfathered so i have all the traits on them, what they are doing is pretty much destroying them completely.you’re ignoring quite a huge part here, i (and many others) have characters that luckily don’t have the NPE trait crap but with this change they pretty much force everyone of them to grind all that crap just to get everything back they already had to start with.

sorudo has got it spot on here, I have 8 grandfathered characters too. 7 of those I levelled to 80 via WvW because I enjoy that far more then PvE.

So under this new system I will after regrind my traits on all my 7 characters who have little to no map completion. I am not buying HoT if that’s the case. I prefer to walk away and just have the good memories of playing GW2 when it was worth playing.

The devs seem completely obsessed by recycling old content and they are always changing systems even when there is nothing wrong with them. Why waste all this dev time, just give new content and new masteries/specializations to earn, leave the old stuff as is.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

It must be really hard to take aim at your own feet, but it looks like they’re going to do it again.

I heartily agree.

I can’t agree with any statement more than this one.

Instead of fixing the myriad of issues that are in the game now, they are going to add a whole new level of problems and broken mechanics.

I had this concern also, which is why im going and doing skill challenges in advance.

400 points from 1-80 in the new system, plus the ~60 required for the remainder. No problem, just get level 80 on all your chars and do a few maps worth of skill challenges.

atheria.2837:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

It must be really hard to take aim at your own feet, but it looks like they’re going to do it again.

I heartily agree.

I can’t agree with any statement more than this one.

Instead of fixing the myriad of issues that are in the game now, they are going to add a whole new level of problems and broken mechanics.

Agreed.

There are still some pretty awful bugs left over from the March 16 update. And quite a few more that have been around much longer. Those getting fixed seems less likely if they keep implementing even more changes and bugs.

Get the programmers working on the existing problems, instead of pushing out unnecessary changes that add to the backlog of bugs.

Argon.1563:

I had this concern also, which is why im going and doing skill challenges in advance.

400 points from 1-80 in the new system, plus the ~60 required for the remainder. No problem, just get level 80 on all your chars and do a few maps worth of skill challenges.

It’s more than a few maps. According to the Wiki, there are 202 skill challenges in the game. That means 65 skill challenges make up 32%. So to get fully unlocked, we will have to run through roughly a third of the game on each character that was leveled without doing skill challenges.

Doable, but still a very significant pain to unlock things that we already have unlocked. It is not acceptable to reset progress on characters in a game that is about progressing characters.

If I understand correctly, it’s 65 to get even at level 80, but an unknown number of additional skill points to unlock the new elite sp[ecializations/subclasses.

Andred.1087:

sorudo.9054:

yeah, compelling, we’re compelled to leave the game to die.
they said they have a solution for the trait problem, all they did was screwing us over all over again.
they said they are gonna set things right, all they did was making sure that we are now forced to do all the things we deliberately avoided.

i don’t have a 100% map completion ankitten ot planning in doing it any time soon, i really don’t like dungeons but AFAIK it’s something forced.
so in short, you’re forced to do stuff you don’t like, changing the game in to labor.

You’re free to leave the game.. But you’re delusional if you think it’s going to die. Also, you can go ahead and get over yourself whenever you see fit. The game doesn’t revolve around you and what you want.

ANet knows what they’re doing. If you don’t believe that, you don’t have to use their product. Otherwise you need to just realize that kitten changes, and if you can’t deal with it, you’re better off leaving. Adapt or die, that’s the way of life.

And the way of mmo devs. Ask the Wildstar devs how well punishing their players worked out for them.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Crey.5263:

sorudo.9054:

Crey.5263:

sorudo.9054:

i hope they are gonna make trait unlocks acount bound (and i heard they are), if so i hope this means all my grandfathered character will unlock all the traits.
i am surely never gonna unlock them with this BS system, it would mean the end of this game if they even force me to unlock them on my existing characters.

I don’t see how having account bound traits would be helpful…unless you have multiples of one profession.

i have……

Why…

Why not…..

cough

I don’t really see why people are suggesting complicated solutions like auto complete skills challenges. If there’s a hard cap on hero points, the simplest solution is to simply give existing 80s the full 465 hero points, then any new skill/hero challenges they do add to it until they hit the cap, then it adds no more.

Suppose the overall cap is 550 (random number I’m pulling from nowhere), an existing level 80 that has done no skill challenges whatsoever gets the full 465. Then gets whatever they’re supposed to get whenever they do a hero/skill challenge(I assume 1 per) until they hit 550 total, then any more skill/hero challenges they do, grant them no hero points, it simply grants them the completed icon for map completion.

No need for stuff like negative hero points and WvW giving more etc.

I am confused. I see this concern on the forum a lot, but what is the issue at hand? I dont understand it. Can somebody explain clearly for somebody not up-to-date on this can understand?

Nate.3927:

I don’t really see why people are suggesting complicated solutions like auto complete skills challenges. If there’s a hard cap on hero points, the simplest solution is to simply give existing 80s the full 465 hero points, then any new skill/hero challenges they do add to it until they hit the cap, then it adds no more.

Suppose the overall cap is 550 (random number I’m pulling from nowhere), an existing level 80 that has done no skill challenges whatsoever gets the full 465. Then gets whatever they’re supposed to get whenever they do a hero/skill challenge(I assume 1 per) until they hit 550 total, then any more skill/hero challenges they do, grant them no hero points, it simply grants them the completed icon for map completion.

No need for stuff like negative hero points and WvW giving more etc.

because they didnt put a hard cap on it, they just made it limited due to only having two sources. its not like 620 cap on hero points, its more like there are only 620 sources for skill points.

also you guys assume the people have unlocked every trait and skill on their charachters, many have not, they only unlocked what they wanted, and how would the game track that, when the systems dont match.

The only people hurt by the changes are those who rushed through, leveling only through dungeons or WvW, and never once did anything on the PvE maps. You don’t even need to complete the maps, just do the skill challenges and you are set. Easy as pie.

CrimsonDX.4821:

The only people hurt by the changes are those who rushed through, leveling only through dungeons or WvW, and never once did anything on the PvE maps. You don’t even need to complete the maps, just do the skill challenges and you are set. Easy as pie.

I notice you are replying to a lot of these so i’ll reply to your ignorance.

There are 189 skill challenges in the PvE zones, 199 if you count the 10 added in the maguuma wastes, and 13 in WvW, that means there are 212 Skill Challenges total in the game.

65 is 30% of the total skill challenges available in game, yeah ok that’s not a HUGE amount, and most people will have done a majority of them, but the most skill challenges available in a map is 17, and those are the Orr maps, the ones that require people to actually work together and take temples in order to unlock (something that usually only happens during reset) other than orr the average SP per map is only about 7, that means not taking into account Orr, you’d need to clear 9-10 maps worth of skill points, and its not like they are all right on top of each other, it could take you anywhere from 3-5 hours to farm 65 skill challenges. If you have 8 level 80’s chances are that you probably have 1 main (who more than likely won’t need any more) and lets say at least one other that is close, but now lets say you have 6 fresh 80’s that you haven’t completed the story with, that you haven’t been map completing to level, that you’ve just been going zone, to zone, or using tomes of knowledge (that require their OWN grind) so 6 level 80’s that need ~60 challenges EACH means another 20-30 hours of work, not to mention the loss of gold and SP that you used to unlock their skills and traits (if made after NPE).

Its simply not a fair system and ANET has to recognize that its not!

I have 41 lvl 80 characters, 46 when the revenant will be available, and i have no issues with having to unlock traits again. I understand why people are upset but comeon… its a videogame.

Mordachai.1896:

I have 41 lvl 80 characters, 46 when the revenant will be available, and i have no issues with having to unlock traits again. I understand why people are upset but comeon… its a videogame.

That’s way too easy an argument.

In any creator/audience relationship there is a trust that needs to be maintained. For example, if the leading female in a romantic comedy is suddenly viciously slaughtered by a serial killer, audience trust is violated, and “It’s just a movie” doesn’t bring anything to the discussion. If an incredibly complicated plot is waved off with the protagonist waking up and it was all a dream, audience trust is violated, and “it’s just a novel” means nothing.

When a game revolves around progressing characters, and the progression is reset, audience trust is violated. In this case, “It’s just a video game” means exactly the opposite of your intent. Yes, it’s a video game. Most video games are built on the premise that you progress through play, and taking away that progress undermines a core part of them.

Gibson.4036:

Mordachai.1896:

I have 41 lvl 80 characters, 46 when the revenant will be available, and i have no issues with having to unlock traits again. I understand why people are upset but comeon… its a videogame.

That’s way too easy an argument.

In any creator/audience relationship there is a trust that needs to be maintained. For example, if the leading female in a romantic comedy is suddenly viciously slaughtered by a serial killer, audience trust is violated, and “It’s just a movie” doesn’t bring anything to the discussion. If an incredibly complicated plot is waved off with the protagonist waking up and it was all a dream, audience trust is violated, and “it’s just a novel” means nothing.

When a game revolves around progressing characters, and the progression is reset, audience trust is violated. In this case, “It’s just a video game” means exactly the opposite of your intent. Yes, it’s a video game. Most video games are built on the premise that you progress through play, and taking away that progress undermines a core part of them.

agreed, in a game that’s all about progression and unlocking things rolling a character back is just a slap in the kitten face!