Guild Wars 2

With some PvP games there is a interim period before serious play is allowed such as Ranked or Leaderboards. The main reason is to give newer players time to become accustomed to the game itself, advanced mechanics, strategy and meta (if the game has one).
After a basic tutorial (sometimes there is none and is based off of the PvE side of the game) the new player is matched up with other players at similar levels and they all progress together. By progressing through the game using time as a gate, the player gains experience and skills a brand new player would not have. Once that time is over they should have the basic skills to be matched up with other advanced players.

How does this relate to GW2 PvP, which was touted as easy to just “get in and play”? Well it doesn’t because there is no system like this in place. The matchmaking system does it’s best to get similar skilled players together but with a smaller population it can’t really do much more.

With the announcement of new Unlockable Traits, this is the first time of some sort of skill/time gating. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen but it opens up a whole host of other questions related to where the Devs want PvP to go, not just for the Higher tier players but for new players and everyone in between.

Players who have spent more time in PvP will naturally be able to just get the new traits and meld them into their builds and what metas there are. How those traits are unlocked is still the big question though and what seems to be causing such a commotion on these forums. But is it really going to be that bad?

As long as the Traits are easily unlockable from within the Mists (already stated it will be) and low tier and high tier players are separated then I do not see an issue. PvP in GW2 is not perfect, and I doubt it ever will be since it is just a portion of the game as a whole instead of the game itself, but it is still very fun and worth fighting for.

I only hope the live stream today gives us some hope.