Guild Wars 2

Ok so after a couple yearkittenus I decided to return and things have certainly changed so I have a few questions (goole answered a bunch already).

I see now that skill points don’t start showing until level 13. There used to be a map completion screen showing vistas/ story incidences (hearts) skill points, vistas etc. Is there a way to access that now and at what level does it appear?

There used to be a daily achievements section that had a bunch of local challenges to do to get points but it seems to be gone now all I see is Daily challenges which has 4 challenges which seem to be PvP and WvWvW – are there no more local challenges?

Also I tried to get a PvP and WvWvW just to see and it told me that nobody was available for either – are these things not populated or only once you get to high levels – I just re-started over the weekend with a mesmer that is now Lvl 11.

I still have my old Norn Necro, Asura Elementalist and sylvari thief from years back – any advantage to keeping those. I understand that old characters have different trait rules but as my old atls are lvls 15-20 they don’t have any yet IIRC.

Any help understanding these differences would be welcomed (as well as any othe rissues you can think of that a returning player might need ) – many thanks – Gronk (jk)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/New_Player_Experience#New_Player_Experience has some information for this as well – I don’t know some of the things at lower levels as well since the changes.

The map completion window that you remember should show up again, but I don’t remember the level, and I’m missing it in the wiki.

The dailies have changed, but there are four for each mode – regular PvE, PvP, and WvW. You can see them all on your achievement tab on the hero panel, but they should show on the top right if you haven’t already achieved three of them. The PvE dailies are a bit more… strict now about where you have to go to get them, but they do exist.

PvP and WvW icons are unlocked once you have a character at a certain level, 18 and 22 by the wiki. Last I checked, you could use the portals in Lions Arch or hotkeys to get there early anyway, and I think you only needed one character at that level for it to be open on your entire account, but I could be wrong there.

Now, I would keep your characters unless you REALLY want to remake them. They’re grandfathered into the old trait system, other than 5 traits that were added more recently. It used to be that you bought manuals from your trainer to unlock different trait tiers, but you automatically had each trait. Now, the tiers unlock automatically at levels 30, 60, and 80 (as opposed to being able to open them at 11, 40, and 60), but you don’t have any of the major traits – you have to either buy them with gold and skill points, or do something to unlock them. Each trait will have a telescope icon until you unlock it that tells you what you can do to gain it. This saves a lot of work if you hold onto your old characters – the level they are doesn’t matter (other than for unlocking the tier), just that they were created before the change.

The personal story was also changed. Now you unlock it in blocks at certain levels. So, if you do your story and find that you can’t access the next part, just level up some more and it’ll open up again. I know the first block opens at level 10, and it looks like the other blocks open up every 10 levels.

Map completion appears at level 15.

And I’m confused by ‘challenges’. I’m assuming, like Jedi, that you meant achievements. Then I don’t know what you mean by ‘local’. Achievements are divided into 3 sections; PvE, WvW and PvP. In PvE, achievements are now region base, rather than global base, so you have to go into a specific region to complete them, which isn’t that hard.

And you can still PvP and WvW at any level, its just they tell you about them at level 18 and 22. I’ve gone into them with my lower leveled toons before. I don’t know why you’re having troubles entering.

Old toons are grandfathered in, but only if they’ve already unlocked the traits. If they haven’t already unlocked the traits, then they’ll be updated into the new system. The only reason to keep them would be to get your ‘birthday’ gifts. Every toon gets one after a year from when they where created. Birthday gifts/boosters are a great way to level new/old toons.

The game is now using the Megaserver system. So that might be new and interesting for a returning player.

I’m not sure that’s true on the leveling characters. I had a warrior that was below level 40, but once I had him at 80 he already had all the traits unlocked normally (with, of course, an exception on the 5 new ones). If that’s changed more recently (I finally got him leveled September 2014, I think), then I wouldn’t know.
EDIT: Or if you meant they had to get to level 11 first – I guess I could see that causing an issue, just don’t know.

Also, if no characters on the account have gotten above those levels, they won’t be able to use the hotkeys – a new player streaming the game found that out when I tried to direct him to the hotkeys. I don’t know about the portals in LA though, those might still work.

Oh yeah – with the Megaserver, you don’t need to guest to other servers. Every server (split only between the NA and EU regions) will be able to join other servers in maps without having to go through that process – so if you’re NA, you’ll find people from other NA servers in just about any map you go to.