Guild Wars 2

Shadow Blade.1324:

coming soon: ascended gear grind for spvp

This would be great, should implement this along with the bunker ammy suggested in the other thread.

LOL this is funny cause it reminded me of some old GW2 review on pvp:
“Except for one thing. You can start playing immediately. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t just give you a full levelled character, it gives you a full set of class-appropriate PvP equipment. Aside from letting you feel awesome immediately, it means you don’t have to kill a single post-tutorial mob if you don’t want to, and you’ll still be competitive. That’s pretty darn neat if you ask me.”

Fella should add that you need to grind 25 skill points for your heal and then some more for traits

I dont really care, but tbh i dont get it the 25 skillpoints isnt big deal and probobly unlocking traits wont be either so why would you want to dismiss such a big selling point of a game just to make PVPer life slightly harder? Its nothing big but for sure i cant say anymore that GW2 PVP doesnt require you to do some grinding before you start it.

Elegant Avenger.8042:

I actually don’t mind having to unlock new traits USING A CURRENCY THAT IS OBTAINABLE THROUGH PvP.

This is not the same as when they added the healing skills that required skill points. I definitely disagreed with that. But you won’t even have to play PvE to unlock these new traits because PvP will reward gold. This honestly won’t even be a big inconvenience to anyone who takes PvP seriously after the first day.

When I first began playing GW1, it was exciting to unlock new skills using Balthazar Faction. So in this aspect I completely agree with Arenanet. I know it may seem like a pain to older players, but trust me when I say it is way better for newer players. In the end, this actually benefits everyone, because newer players won’t have as much stuff thrown at them. And I repeat this is nothing like the healing skills that cost SKILL POINTS.

Are we really crying over a few gold when this type of system improves the progression for players who are new? Seems like people are complaining about not getting instant gratification at the sacrifice of forming a better community long term.

TL;DR

This really won’t have much effect on veteran players because they should easily afford them. But it will allow better progression for new players which will improve the transition and also grow the community.

You forget that characters created after the patch will have to obtain those traits. Meaning that a “vet” player making a new character (which so many of us do since we have limited slots) will have to grind for those traits since they are character bound. So your argument that having limited number of traits helping the new player doesn’t apply in this situation. I’m not even sure it even really applies to the new player either since they would still be clueless but with even more of a limited selection.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say this would make ANET more money because we’d have to buy more character slots since we can’t create and recreate characters in a single slot anymore. The more sensible side of me thinks they didn’t create this new system just to sell slots but rather that it was a nice side effect.

If ANET really felt that progression was needed in PVP, there are far better ways of doing it. And they wouldn’t have wanted to delete ranks in the first place. Sure, I can live with having to unlock traits for now, but when I decide to take a break later on and then come back and find that I have to unlock other stuff (which you know they WILL add because what’s the point of progression if there isn’t more of it later) then I’ll just get discouraged at how behind I am and probably just won’t bother.

So these are unlocked per character or per account? Huge difference. (Pretty bad either way.)

isolatedchimp.2510:

Dahkeus.8243:

It’s actually a quite elegant fix if you think about it:

GW2 solved the issue of PvP players being at a disadvantage to PvE players by separating PvP and PvE gear. However, the problem it created was a lack of rewards to strive for.

By attaching new talents as rewards, it allows players to still PvP without being at a gear disadvantage while still giving them something to work towards.

Yes, newer players will have less traits to compete with, but newer players are also learning the game/their profession, so a limit of options isn’t that problematic.

A similar system existed in GW1 and it was one of the reasons that GW1 PvP has such a strong legacy.

No, this is not the type of “reward” PVP players want. No one wants to have to unlock new traits and skills as a “reward”. That is no reward that is making you work for something that you should have in the first place. This is going backwards, NOT an “elegant fix” at all.

Now if they want to make it so that we can unlock these traits for PVE in PVP, that’s fine by me, but access to skills/gear/traits/etc etc in PVP should not be restricted by unlocks. That’s not the type of progression PVP players want.

Talk for yourself

isolatedchimp.2510:

Elegant Avenger.8042:

I actually don’t mind having to unlock new traits USING A CURRENCY THAT IS OBTAINABLE THROUGH PvP.

This is not the same as when they added the healing skills that required skill points. I definitely disagreed with that. But you won’t even have to play PvE to unlock these new traits because PvP will reward gold. This honestly won’t even be a big inconvenience to anyone who takes PvP seriously after the first day.

When I first began playing GW1, it was exciting to unlock new skills using Balthazar Faction. So in this aspect I completely agree with Arenanet. I know it may seem like a pain to older players, but trust me when I say it is way better for newer players. In the end, this actually benefits everyone, because newer players won’t have as much stuff thrown at them. And I repeat this is nothing like the healing skills that cost SKILL POINTS.

Are we really crying over a few gold when this type of system improves the progression for players who are new? Seems like people are complaining about not getting instant gratification at the sacrifice of forming a better community long term.

TL;DR

This really won’t have much effect on veteran players because they should easily afford them. But it will allow better progression for new players which will improve the transition and also grow the community.

You forget that characters created after the patch will have to obtain those traits. Meaning that a “vet” player making a new character (which so many of us do since we have limited slots) will have to grind for those traits since they are character bound. So your argument that having limited number of traits helping the new player doesn’t apply in this situation. I’m not even sure it even really applies to the new player either since they would still be clueless but with even more of a limited selection.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say this would make ANET more money because we’d have to buy more character slots since we can’t create and recreate characters in a single slot anymore. The more sensible side of me thinks they didn’t create this new system just to sell slots but rather that it was a nice side effect.

If ANET really felt that progression was needed in PVP, there are far better ways of doing it. And they wouldn’t have wanted to delete ranks in the first place. Sure, I can live with having to unlock traits for now, but when I decide to take a break later on and then come back and find that I have to unlock other stuff (which you know they WILL add because what’s the point of progression if there isn’t more of it later) then I’ll just get discouraged at how behind I am and probably just won’t bother.

They just said that all of the current traits will be immediately unlocked by all PvP players and new characters. You will only have to buy the second grandmaster traits if you make a new PvP character after the new patch.

But do you REALLY re-roll that much? I’m a very experienced player, and I only re-roll an account every few weeks. I keep 3-4 characters the same professions. If you actually play all 8 professions with regularity, then thats great.

Having said that, the ideal situation would be that you only have to unlock them once per account, which would allow for new player progression, but also make it easier on veterans who want to re-roll.

hooma.9642:

isolatedchimp.2510:

Dahkeus.8243:

It’s actually a quite elegant fix if you think about it:

GW2 solved the issue of PvP players being at a disadvantage to PvE players by separating PvP and PvE gear. However, the problem it created was a lack of rewards to strive for.

By attaching new talents as rewards, it allows players to still PvP without being at a gear disadvantage while still giving them something to work towards.

Yes, newer players will have less traits to compete with, but newer players are also learning the game/their profession, so a limit of options isn’t that problematic.

A similar system existed in GW1 and it was one of the reasons that GW1 PvP has such a strong legacy.

No, this is not the type of “reward” PVP players want. No one wants to have to unlock new traits and skills as a “reward”. That is no reward that is making you work for something that you should have in the first place. This is going backwards, NOT an “elegant fix” at all.

Now if they want to make it so that we can unlock these traits for PVE in PVP, that’s fine by me, but access to skills/gear/traits/etc etc in PVP should not be restricted by unlocks. That’s not the type of progression PVP players want.

its the same like in gw1.. my only problem with this:

all the unlocks are characterbound! at least make them accountbound.

Account bound makes sense with dual classes. But with single classes it only works if you want to create a new character with the same class as an old one. For me that’s just a waste of space.

hooma.9642:

isolatedchimp.2510:

Dahkeus.8243:

It’s actually a quite elegant fix if you think about it:

GW2 solved the issue of PvP players being at a disadvantage to PvE players by separating PvP and PvE gear. However, the problem it created was a lack of rewards to strive for.

By attaching new talents as rewards, it allows players to still PvP without being at a gear disadvantage while still giving them something to work towards.

Yes, newer players will have less traits to compete with, but newer players are also learning the game/their profession, so a limit of options isn’t that problematic.

A similar system existed in GW1 and it was one of the reasons that GW1 PvP has such a strong legacy.

No, this is not the type of “reward” PVP players want. No one wants to have to unlock new traits and skills as a “reward”. That is no reward that is making you work for something that you should have in the first place. This is going backwards, NOT an “elegant fix” at all.

Now if they want to make it so that we can unlock these traits for PVE in PVP, that’s fine by me, but access to skills/gear/traits/etc etc in PVP should not be restricted by unlocks. That’s not the type of progression PVP players want.

its the same like in gw1.. my only problem with this:

all the unlocks are characterbound! at least make them accountbound.

Maybe, but it wouldn’t make a huge difference unless you have a bunch of characters of the same profession. =P

WOAH

hang on now

That means we’ll need to drop 25 SP(more/less) or unlock it in PvE for PvP use?

Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of PvP(ie: you can enter on a lvl 1 and be able to play it without having to have an 80 in PvE)?

If that’s the future of PvP in this game…you can consider it dead. 40 new traits, that will require some form of unlock will kill whatever is left of PvP.

somsom.5201:

WOAH

hang on now

That means we’ll need to drop 25 SP(more/less) or unlock it in PvE for PvP use?

Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of PvP(ie: you can enter on a lvl 1 and be able to play it without having to have an 80 in PvE)?

If that’s the future of PvP in this game…you can consider it dead. 40 new traits, that will require some form of unlock will kill whatever is left of PvP.

Spending skill points to unlock PvP content was done before with a healing skill. It can happen again with traits.
In such case, the GW2 PvP game becomes clearly not what it was, and still is announced: a game where you can go straight into PvP, gaining content access equal with other players, making difference only in skill ( official link: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/pvp/ ).
If I even feel not equal with others, or being forced to PvE, then most likely I will quit the game too, like many players did before.

totally understandable, flooding new players with tons of skills/traits at once is a bad idea. With those small speedbumps you’d get the traits in a couple of hours anyway… I can not see any downside here. If you play sPvP and love it, you’ll be there in no time.

25SP (more/less)… that’s just pure speculation.

So let me get this straight.

Players who have been playing the game and winning gold from PvP should have the resources to be able to purchase any new traits and the intellect and experience to know whether or not any build they would want to play will even need the trait.

New players will log in, see that there is some sort of progression to be able to use everything, and psychologically be encouraged to play a few hotjoins to earn the resources to unlock the traits and experiment with them so that instead of logging in, seeing everything unlocked and ready to go, and then immediately queuing into Solo Que or even Team Que, they are encouraged to and feel as though they need to play a few games to unlock everything they are going to want to use, while gaining more experience in the process, and therefore aren’t queuing into a game and potentially hindering a more competitive game mode.

It seems like this should be everything that the competitive community has been asking for, discouraging new players from “ruining” more competitive game modes through some sort of need to make it through an introductory phase of PvP, while players who currently have experience should have all the resources they need to continue to play the game completely unhindered.

It’s the same model that many video games that are successful have implemented and the outrage against it seems completely unjustified. Yes, sometimes companies have to change their business models, and if that’s what’s bugging you, then tough, but it’s something that needs to happen sometimes in order for a company to be more successful.

So no more deleting characters on a whim, or to try out new ones (assuming new traits are characterbound)? Sounds like a ploy to get PvP players to buy more character slots.

jcbroe.4329:

So let me get this straight.

Players who have been playing the game and winning gold from PvP should have the resources to be able to purchase any new traits and the intellect and experience to know whether or not any build they would want to play will even need the trait.

New players will log in, see that there is some sort of progression to be able to use everything, and psychologically be encouraged to play a few hotjoins to earn the resources to unlock the traits and experiment with them so that instead of logging in, seeing everything unlocked and ready to go, and then immediately queuing into Solo Que or even Team Que, they are encouraged to and feel as though they need to play a few games to unlock everything they are going to want to use, while gaining more experience in the process, and therefore aren’t queuing into a game and potentially hindering a more competitive game mode.

It seems like this should be everything that the competitive community has been asking for, discouraging new players from “ruining” more competitive game modes through some sort of need to make it through an introductory phase of PvP, while players who currently have experience should have all the resources they need to continue to play the game completely unhindered.

It’s the same model that many video games that are successful have implemented and the outrage against it seems completely unjustified. Yes, sometimes companies have to change their business models, and if that’s what’s bugging you, then tough, but it’s something that needs to happen sometimes in order for a company to be more successful.

+1 Perfect post, couldn’t say it any better.

Also to clear up all of the misconceptions. ArenaNet already said you can buy these new traits with GOLD which you should have plenty of with the new reward system.

Elegant Avenger.8042:

jcbroe.4329:

So let me get this straight.

Players who have been playing the game and winning gold from PvP should have the resources to be able to purchase any new traits and the intellect and experience to know whether or not any build they would want to play will even need the trait.

New players will log in, see that there is some sort of progression to be able to use everything, and psychologically be encouraged to play a few hotjoins to earn the resources to unlock the traits and experiment with them so that instead of logging in, seeing everything unlocked and ready to go, and then immediately queuing into Solo Que or even Team Que, they are encouraged to and feel as though they need to play a few games to unlock everything they are going to want to use, while gaining more experience in the process, and therefore aren’t queuing into a game and potentially hindering a more competitive game mode.

It seems like this should be everything that the competitive community has been asking for, discouraging new players from “ruining” more competitive game modes through some sort of need to make it through an introductory phase of PvP, while players who currently have experience should have all the resources they need to continue to play the game completely unhindered.

It’s the same model that many video games that are successful have implemented and the outrage against it seems completely unjustified. Yes, sometimes companies have to change their business models, and if that’s what’s bugging you, then tough, but it’s something that needs to happen sometimes in order for a company to be more successful.

+1 Perfect post, couldn’t say it any better.

Also to clear up all of the misconceptions. ArenaNet already said you can buy these new traits with GOLD which you should have plenty of with the new reward system.

Which we don’t have yet, remember?

While PvErs currently get WAY WAY more gold/hr

jcbroe.4329:

So let me get this straight.

Players who have been playing the game and winning gold from PvP should have the resources to be able to purchase any new traits and the intellect and experience to know whether or not any build they would want to play will even need the trait.

New players will log in, see that there is some sort of progression to be able to use everything, and psychologically be encouraged to play a few hotjoins to earn the resources to unlock the traits and experiment with them so that instead of logging in, seeing everything unlocked and ready to go, and then immediately queuing into Solo Que or even Team Que, they are encouraged to and feel as though they need to play a few games to unlock everything they are going to want to use, while gaining more experience in the process, and therefore aren’t queuing into a game and potentially hindering a more competitive game mode.

It seems like this should be everything that the competitive community has been asking for, discouraging new players from “ruining” more competitive game modes through some sort of need to make it through an introductory phase of PvP, while players who currently have experience should have all the resources they need to continue to play the game completely unhindered.

It’s the same model that many video games that are successful have implemented and the outrage against it seems completely unjustified. Yes, sometimes companies have to change their business models, and if that’s what’s bugging you, then tough, but it’s something that needs to happen sometimes in order for a company to be more successful.

If anything, this will make it WORSE, as new players won’t have access to those traits, which further puts them into a position of lower standing/obvious “new player”-ness. You’d think ANet would want to DECREASE the hateorade around here, but nope, they go and make it even worse.

Rofl you really think these changes are focused to pvp?

somsom.5201:

jcbroe.4329:

So let me get this straight.

Players who have been playing the game and winning gold from PvP should have the resources to be able to purchase any new traits and the intellect and experience to know whether or not any build they would want to play will even need the trait.

New players will log in, see that there is some sort of progression to be able to use everything, and psychologically be encouraged to play a few hotjoins to earn the resources to unlock the traits and experiment with them so that instead of logging in, seeing everything unlocked and ready to go, and then immediately queuing into Solo Que or even Team Que, they are encouraged to and feel as though they need to play a few games to unlock everything they are going to want to use, while gaining more experience in the process, and therefore aren’t queuing into a game and potentially hindering a more competitive game mode.

It seems like this should be everything that the competitive community has been asking for, discouraging new players from “ruining” more competitive game modes through some sort of need to make it through an introductory phase of PvP, while players who currently have experience should have all the resources they need to continue to play the game completely unhindered.

It’s the same model that many video games that are successful have implemented and the outrage against it seems completely unjustified. Yes, sometimes companies have to change their business models, and if that’s what’s bugging you, then tough, but it’s something that needs to happen sometimes in order for a company to be more successful.

If anything, this will make it WORSE, as new players won’t have access to those traits, which further puts them into a position of lower standing/obvious “new player”-ness. You’d think ANet would want to DECREASE the hateorade around here, but nope, they go and make it even worse.

I’m not sure you understand. I can think of several games that use this model and it works perfectly. If you are a new player and expect everything to be handed to you, then you are atypical. Part of the fun of being new is unlocking things and testing out builds. It gives a sense of accomplishment when you unlock things and learn trait combinations when you first start playing.

somsom.5201:

jcbroe.4329:

So let me get this straight.

Players who have been playing the game and winning gold from PvP should have the resources to be able to purchase any new traits and the intellect and experience to know whether or not any build they would want to play will even need the trait.

New players will log in, see that there is some sort of progression to be able to use everything, and psychologically be encouraged to play a few hotjoins to earn the resources to unlock the traits and experiment with them so that instead of logging in, seeing everything unlocked and ready to go, and then immediately queuing into Solo Que or even Team Que, they are encouraged to and feel as though they need to play a few games to unlock everything they are going to want to use, while gaining more experience in the process, and therefore aren’t queuing into a game and potentially hindering a more competitive game mode.

It seems like this should be everything that the competitive community has been asking for, discouraging new players from “ruining” more competitive game modes through some sort of need to make it through an introductory phase of PvP, while players who currently have experience should have all the resources they need to continue to play the game completely unhindered.

It’s the same model that many video games that are successful have implemented and the outrage against it seems completely unjustified. Yes, sometimes companies have to change their business models, and if that’s what’s bugging you, then tough, but it’s something that needs to happen sometimes in order for a company to be more successful.

If anything, this will make it WORSE, as new players won’t have access to those traits, which further puts them into a position of lower standing/obvious “new player”-ness. You’d think ANet would want to DECREASE the hateorade around here, but nope, they go and make it even worse.

So go hotjoin and level up?

Yes, experienced players don’t want to Solo Que with or Team Que with players they feel have less experience than them. It’s a competitive atmosphere and people queuing expect everybody to carry their weight, it shouldn’t be considered an atmosphere for entirely new players.

So then it comes down to hotjoins, and hotjoins are just a mishmash of experience levels and attitudes which would ultimately get described as a pub (public match, pubstomping, etc, you know), and that is the place for new players to gain some experience and have a place to gain the resources to unlock new things.

There shouldn’t be any hate, but there does need to be barriers of entry that distinguish the different tiers of competition within the game.

jcbroe.4329:

So let me get this straight.

Players who have been playing the game and winning gold from PvP should have the resources to be able to purchase any new traits and the intellect and experience to know whether or not any build they would want to play will even need the trait.

New players will log in, see that there is some sort of progression to be able to use everything, and psychologically be encouraged to play a few hotjoins to earn the resources to unlock the traits and experiment with them so that instead of logging in, seeing everything unlocked and ready to go, and then immediately queuing into Solo Que or even Team Que, they are encouraged to and feel as though they need to play a few games to unlock everything they are going to want to use, while gaining more experience in the process, and therefore aren’t queuing into a game and potentially hindering a more competitive game mode.

It seems like this should be everything that the competitive community has been asking for, discouraging new players from “ruining” more competitive game modes through some sort of need to make it through an introductory phase of PvP, while players who currently have experience should have all the resources they need to continue to play the game completely unhindered.

It’s the same model that many video games that are successful have implemented and the outrage against it seems completely unjustified. Yes, sometimes companies have to change their business models, and if that’s what’s bugging you, then tough, but it’s something that needs to happen sometimes in order for a company to be more successful.

First of all, yes, it bothers me that a company says they’re going to do something and then does the exact opposite without offering any reasonable explanation. I don’t care that other companies have successfully pulled it off – they never claimed the things ArenaNet has claimed. If ArenaNet really feel this is necessary to the future of GW2 PvP, they should be able to explain why.

On that note, I do not agree with your explanation of why this is a beneficial change for PvPers. If the problem with tPvP is that there are too many inexperienced players hurting more experienced players, the solution is better matchmaking rules. Not some weird artificial progression. I have no data to back this up, but I believe the biggest influx of PvPers are PvEers, not new purchasers of GW2. Having to unlock the same traits all over again will discourage them from ever trying out tournament queues. Truly new players who jump straight into tournament queues will not be swayed but their lack of traits. They will expect, reasonably so, to be limited in builds, but still on even footing.

What happens if some of these new traits become cornerstones of meta builds? At that point, you will need be forced to PvE – that alone will cause many people interested in PvP to not even buy the game – or, even worse, be forced to lose to the meta builds X amount of times before you’ve acquired enough resources in PvP to unlock the skill yourself.

Hopefully I’ve convinced at least one person reading this that this change negatively impacts PvP. Now, this requirement may very well benefit the game as a whole, although I have yet to see a good reason why. If that is ArenaNet’s goal – to benefit the PvE base at the expense of the PvP – then that’s that. The PvEers very likely pay the bills, and at the end of the day I won’t fault any company for catering to its largest consumer base. But that base will probably not include me for much longer. Me being someone who has bought more than $100 in gems but cares deeply about PvP.

jcbroe.4329:

So go hotjoin and level up?

Yes, experienced players don’t want to Solo Que with or Team Que with players they feel have less experience than them. It’s a competitive atmosphere and people queuing expect everybody to carry their weight, it shouldn’t be considered an atmosphere for entirely new players.

So then it comes down to hotjoins, and hotjoins are just a mishmash of experience levels and attitudes which would ultimately get described as a pub (public match, pubstomping, etc, you know), and that is the place for new players to gain some experience and have a place to gain the resources to unlock new things.

There shouldn’t be any hate, but there does need to be barriers of entry that distinguish the different tiers of competition within the game.

This can, and should, be handled by the matchmaking system for arena queues. The game should recognize that new players are of lower skill, their base ELO/MMR should reflect that, and they should not be getting put in matches with high skill players. As they improve, so should their ELO/MRR, and they should be placed in a higher skill tier naturally.

Artificially limiting skills and traits available to players in unnecessary and detrimental to what PvP should be. New players should be encouraged to queue. New players should be encouraged to read guides about their profession, its skills, and its role in the game. New players should be given everything upfront, told to experiment, and matchmaking should sort them appropriately.

Progression should be about skill. In low level matches, they can learn their skills. In mid-level matches, they can refine their game senses and teamplay. They should not reach high-level matches unless their skill reflects that that is the level at which they should be playing. But at no point should the game say “no, you can not play this. You are not allowed to use this. You need to do this number of things just to obtain full functionality for your chosen profession”.

Optimally, we would get ranked solo, ranked team, and unranked queues, with a rank requirement before you can join either of the ranked queues. This is a clean solution: a new player is not limited from playing whatever they want. They can participate in arena matchmaking. Completely new players will be separated from those competing for leaderboard positions until they have a decent amount of experience.

This is how real, competitive, successful pvp games such as Dota 2 handle it. They don’t prohibit access to gameplay, just to ranked queues. No skills or traits locked away. No treating PvP as if it requires PvE progression. You learn the game, you gain skill, you move up based on skill. Purely based on skill.

As it should be.

First off I just want to clear the air on the hyperbole being passed around that pvp rewards players with gold.

PvP does not reward you with gold. It rewards you with silver. Approximately 12 or 25 silver per soloQ match that takes either 10-15 minutes playtime plus queue time.

Secondly, let’s assume for a moment that a new grandmaster trait costs 5 gold, although 10 gold sounds more realistic considering how the healing skills were introduced, it would take a player 20-40 soloQ matches to win enough “gold” to cover the cost of one new trait. That could take up to 10-13 hours just to unlock one trait at 40 matches with 12.5 silver a lose on 15-20 minute matches and that is on the current system’s worst case scenario (5-6 hours best case scenario) costing only 5 gold for a new trait.

Now this is considering if the “gold” rewards are not increased for the feature patch. Nevertheless this is nothing like the system that was in gw1 where pvp had its own currency and you could unlock a new skill in pvp for pvp from only a few hours of gameplay (if memory serves me right).

Granted we don’t have all the information yet, but unless the unlock pacing is similar to the gw1 system than this will only promote players needing to pve in order to pvp.

Elegant Avenger.8042:

They just said that all of the current traits will be immediately unlocked by all PvP players and new characters. You will only have to buy the second grandmaster traits if you make a new PvP character after the new patch.

But do you REALLY re-roll that much? I’m a very experienced player, and I only re-roll an account every few weeks. I keep 3-4 characters the same professions. If you actually play all 8 professions with regularity, then thats great.

Having said that, the ideal situation would be that you only have to unlock them once per account, which would allow for new player progression, but also make it easier on veterans who want to re-roll.

Yes I already understood that the unlocks will be for the new traits, it doesn’t change the problem. And yes I try to play all professions since I like to be competitive and want to learn everything about the game.

As you said, the ideal situation would be for the unlocks to be account wide. That would go a looooong way to improving the whole system. But I don’t have faith in ANET anymore to make good decisions.

I just want to leave this here in case people are unaware of how exactly the system to work. Not an accusation or anything, just an information post:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Donari.5237:

I feel quite positive about the changes, albeit with some reservations about the delay in getting to the traits. I’m at 12 80’s now, and nearly 40 on my 3rd Mesmer, because I always want to have someone I’m leveling in order to get that feeling of progress. So far I’ve managed different weapon/trait builds for each one … anyway! Question: You didn’t say pre-existing 80’s get all traits unlocked, you said pre-existing characters. So my new Mesmer, assuming he doesn’t hit 80 by Apr 15, does he get all traits, or just some? How does this work for characters created before Apr 15 but not yet 80 as of the patch?

Any character that was created before the feature pack build will be grandfathered into the system; meaning that they will have traits 1 through 12 of each line unlocked. The new 13 traits will need to be unlocked by everyone. Any character created after the build will be required to unlock all of their traits via content or purchasing trait guides.

Everyone in PvP will have access to traits 1 through 12, even on new characters. New traits will be initially locked in PvP and require an unlock similar to when we added the new healing skills. Once a trait is unlocked it is unlocked for all game modes. Hope that clears it up a bit.

Nineaxis.1826:

jcbroe.4329:

So go hotjoin and level up?

Yes, experienced players don’t want to Solo Que with or Team Que with players they feel have less experience than them. It’s a competitive atmosphere and people queuing expect everybody to carry their weight, it shouldn’t be considered an atmosphere for entirely new players.

So then it comes down to hotjoins, and hotjoins are just a mishmash of experience levels and attitudes which would ultimately get described as a pub (public match, pubstomping, etc, you know), and that is the place for new players to gain some experience and have a place to gain the resources to unlock new things.

There shouldn’t be any hate, but there does need to be barriers of entry that distinguish the different tiers of competition within the game.

This can, and should, be handled by the matchmaking system for arena queues. The game should recognize that new players are of lower skill, their base ELO/MMR should reflect that, and they should not be getting put in matches with high skill players. As they improve, so should their ELO/MRR, and they should be placed in a higher skill tier naturally.

Artificially limiting skills and traits available to players in unnecessary and detrimental to what PvP should be. New players should be encouraged to queue. New players should be encouraged to read guides about their profession, its skills, and its role in the game. New players should be given everything upfront, told to experiment, and matchmaking should sort them appropriately.

Progression should be about skill. In low level matches, they can learn their skills. In mid-level matches, they can refine their game senses and teamplay. They should not reach high-level matches unless their skill reflects that that is the level at which they should be playing. But at no point should the game say “no, you can not play this. You are not allowed to use this. You need to do this number of things just to obtain full functionality for your chosen profession”.

Optimally, we would get ranked solo, ranked team, and unranked queues, with a rank requirement before you can join either of the ranked queues. This is a clean solution: a new player is not limited from playing whatever they want. They can participate in arena matchmaking. Completely new players will be separated from those competing for leaderboard positions until they have a decent amount of experience.

This is how real, competitive, successful pvp games such as Dota 2 handle it. They don’t prohibit access to gameplay, just to ranked queues. No skills or traits locked away. No treating PvP as if it requires PvE progression. You learn the game, you gain skill, you move up based on skill. Purely based on skill.

As it should be.

I completely agree with you, but it isn’t as though we can change the decision they are going to implement. I’m not arguing that ANets way of doing it (essentially using a Call of Duty model, or something similar) is the best way, but I am saying that it is an attempt and that I understand the drive to do so.

Ultimately, it will only truly effect players entirely new to the game, and I do not envy them, but making them experience the game a little before they have access to everything is definitely one way to handle the situation, and could just be serving as framework to build upon in the future.

So yes, I agree that there are better ways to handle creating a competitive community. I just don’t think people understand how truly little this is going to effect players who have already played the game for a decent amount of time.

Mixed feelings about it, but this seems like, at least, a logical step if PvP/PvE are going to get merged more and more with gold being the common currency and with PvPers clamoring for progression.

Not sure why we can’t just have them all unlocked but I am viewing this from a veteran’s point of view (though I’ll have no trouble unlocking everything in a couple of seconds at most). I suppose I understand the concept of “overwhelming” new players with too much information. GW1 ran the core skills as free and available, but anything else needed to be unlocked and newer players had to think, pick, and choose what to unlock when, giving them some sense of thinking about their builds.

Well we’ll see how this pans out. I will reserve judgment until I see how much these traits cost.

Dahkeus.8243:

hooma.9642:

isolatedchimp.2510:

Dahkeus.8243:

It’s actually a quite elegant fix if you think about it:

GW2 solved the issue of PvP players being at a disadvantage to PvE players by separating PvP and PvE gear. However, the problem it created was a lack of rewards to strive for.

By attaching new talents as rewards, it allows players to still PvP without being at a gear disadvantage while still giving them something to work towards.

Yes, newer players will have less traits to compete with, but newer players are also learning the game/their profession, so a limit of options isn’t that problematic.

A similar system existed in GW1 and it was one of the reasons that GW1 PvP has such a strong legacy.

No, this is not the type of “reward” PVP players want. No one wants to have to unlock new traits and skills as a “reward”. That is no reward that is making you work for something that you should have in the first place. This is going backwards, NOT an “elegant fix” at all.

Now if they want to make it so that we can unlock these traits for PVE in PVP, that’s fine by me, but access to skills/gear/traits/etc etc in PVP should not be restricted by unlocks. That’s not the type of progression PVP players want.

its the same like in gw1.. my only problem with this:

all the unlocks are characterbound! at least make them accountbound.

Maybe, but it wouldn’t make a huge difference unless you have a bunch of characters of the same profession. =P

not really. the advantage of pvp is to delete old and create new one with other looks or races.. in gw1 you could always delete your char and had still all the account-unlocks. i done it regularly to get new looks on my pvp-chars. always the same is boring. but with this we are stuck

jcbroe.4329 has a slight point and i understand how he thinks, however that way is a flawed way of thinking since you can unlock the traits with gold(apperently) it would be a ok way of thinking if it was unlocked by glory and we still had glory.

Right now a complete new player to spvp but who have done a lot of wvwvw and pve will be able to unlock the traits faster than a person who focused on spvp since the pve/wvwvw person will most likely have more gold.

Make the traits unlocked by glory rank(say one every 1-2 ranks) and have solo/team/ranked queue restricted to say glory rank 20-30, while also adding a casual/unranked queue instead of zerg join.
This would be better than having it unlocked by gold.

Would be more in line with what lol/smite has with you needing to level up in order to access ranked queues

Nineaxis.1826:

This is how real, competitive, successful pvp games such as Dota 2 handle it. They don’t prohibit access to gameplay, just to ranked queues. No skills or traits locked away. No treating PvP as if it requires PvE progression. You learn the game, you gain skill, you move up based on skill. Purely based on skill.

As it should be.

This reminds of the discussions between LoL’s vs. DotA2’s form of content delivery with champions. The idea in LoL to save up and get that new hero is an incentive for many to play through failure, orient themselves, and learn something along the way because they can’t just jump from hero to hero, fail at everything and give up. Conversely DotA2 offers up everything at once, and is great to jump into and the game is much more heavily designed around counter-play between heroes (so its a bit of a necessity by design).

Most FPSs have taken the LoL model because it IS a successful guiding method for new players. The fact that it gives them a goal, even if its an artificial one the game put in place, is a big thing for the psyche. The number of games that use the DotA model are few and far in between these days.

Of course, I still think that these things should unlock for the account if they are unlocked through PvP. Then any other character in PvP will have them available.

Vuh.1328:

Right now a complete new player to spvp but who have done a lot of wvwvw and pve will be able to unlock the traits faster than a person who focused on spvp since the pve/wvwvw person will most likely have more gold

They would have had to level to 80, presumably learning the class along the way. You cannot forget that key aspect.

hooma.9642:

Dahkeus.8243:

hooma.9642:

isolatedchimp.2510:

Dahkeus.8243:

It’s actually a quite elegant fix if you think about it:

GW2 solved the issue of PvP players being at a disadvantage to PvE players by separating PvP and PvE gear. However, the problem it created was a lack of rewards to strive for.

By attaching new talents as rewards, it allows players to still PvP without being at a gear disadvantage while still giving them something to work towards.

Yes, newer players will have less traits to compete with, but newer players are also learning the game/their profession, so a limit of options isn’t that problematic.

A similar system existed in GW1 and it was one of the reasons that GW1 PvP has such a strong legacy.

No, this is not the type of “reward” PVP players want. No one wants to have to unlock new traits and skills as a “reward”. That is no reward that is making you work for something that you should have in the first place. This is going backwards, NOT an “elegant fix” at all.

Now if they want to make it so that we can unlock these traits for PVE in PVP, that’s fine by me, but access to skills/gear/traits/etc etc in PVP should not be restricted by unlocks. That’s not the type of progression PVP players want.

its the same like in gw1.. my only problem with this:

all the unlocks are characterbound! at least make them accountbound.

Maybe, but it wouldn’t make a huge difference unless you have a bunch of characters of the same profession. =P

not really. the advantage of pvp is to delete old and create new one with other looks or races.. in gw1 you could always delete your char and had still all the account-unlocks. i done it regularly to get new looks on my pvp-chars. always the same is boring. but with this we are stuck

This is a great point that I didn’t think about. Maybe once it is unlocked for an account then it is unlocked for good? This kinda goes with how I want profession based ranks for accounts. That way my Warrior’s rank doesn’t mess with my Ele’s rank on the leaderboard and if I delete a character, all those characters have the same rank. The one advantage I see with adding this though is it will be a pain for people to buy alternate accounts during ladder tourneys if they ever make them. I think that is a good thing to make it a pain for players who are really good to try and go in a lower division and win that bracket.

Vena.8436:

Nineaxis.1826:

This is how real, competitive, successful pvp games such as Dota 2 handle it. They don’t prohibit access to gameplay, just to ranked queues. No skills or traits locked away. No treating PvP as if it requires PvE progression. You learn the game, you gain skill, you move up based on skill. Purely based on skill.

As it should be.

This reminds of the discussions between LoL’s vs. DotA2’s form of content delivery with champions. The idea in LoL to save up and get that new hero is an incentive for many to play through failure, orient themselves, and learn something along the way because they can’t just jump from hero to hero, fail at everything and give up. Conversely DotA2 offers up everything at once, and is great to jump into and the game is much more heavily designed around counter-play between heroes (so its a bit of a necessity by design).

Most FPSs have taken the LoL model because it IS a successful guiding method for new players. The fact that it gives them a goal, even if its an artificial one the game put in place, is a big thing for the psyche. The number of games that use the DotA model are few and far in between these days.

Of course, I still think that these things should unlock for the account if they are unlocked through PvP. Then any other character in PvP will have them available.

Vuh.1328:

Right now a complete new player to spvp but who have done a lot of wvwvw and pve will be able to unlock the traits faster than a person who focused on spvp since the pve/wvwvw person will most likely have more gold

They would have had to level to 80, presumably learning the class along the way. You cannot forget that key aspect.

You have way to much faith in people if you actually believe that.
You can level up to 80 without touching the dodge button and face tank everything and still farm pretty darn well.
You are not going to progress very far in pvp if you do the same thing there.

A player who is new to mmos/pvp who spent say 50hrs level up to 80 is most likely going to far worse mechanically and worse understanding of his class/role in pvp than if he started in pvp and spent 30hrs there instead since the difference on how to be effective in pve and pvp is pretty darn big. But he will however have far more money if he went the pve route.

Heck the average wvwvw player from my experience is far far worse than the average spvp player

Vuh.1328:

You have way to much faith in people if you actually believe that.
You can level up to 80 without touching the dodge button and face tank everything and still farm pretty darn well.
You are not going to progress very far in pvp if you do the same thing there.

A player who is new to mmos/pvp who spent say 50hrs level up to 80 is most likely going to far worse mechanically and worse understanding of his class/role in pvp than if he started in pvp and spent 30hrs there instead since the difference on how to be effective in pve and pvp is pretty darn big. But he will however have far more money if he went the pve route.

Heck the average wvwvw player from my experience is far far worse than the average spvp player

I probably do, but by design a PvE-er is forced to gradually work through his traits/skills, and level to 80 in X hour. PvP has no such limitation and gets everything up front (or did), they get to jump in, pre-leveled and geared, with a core set of traits to learn from and then later sets to work towards (the LoL and many FPS, style of delivery to orient players in some way). This will take the PvP Y hours to accomplish, which will also be unlocked for them in PvE.

The only part I don’t personally like is if (but do not yet know) these unlocks will still be character related on the PvP side of things. Probably will, I imagine, since they are trying to merge PvP/PvE on the reward spectrum such that a PvPer can take his accomplishments with him and vise-versa.

Maybe if we cry enough, they’ll make it a PvP account unlock + character unlock, and then future characters will have it available in PvP but will have to re-unlock it if they need it in PvE. (Or maybe they already unlock for the whole account, who knows!)

Roy Cronacher.1576:

[…]

All current traits will be usable on a new character in PvP. New traits that are added to the game will need to be unlocked though, similar to how new skills work.

Can’t you at least make them unlocked account-wide in PvP for characters of the same profession? I don’t mind having to unlock new stuff, but unlocking the same healing skill twice in mutiple characters of the same profession got quite tedius. 30 skill points wasn’t that much, but 450 gets annoying for someone who doesn’t enjoy zerg trains like Queensdale’s or WvW’s. Just 240 skill points for all healing skills of all professions would have been better.

I’d rather have a reduced cost in PvE for the same skill or trait line of the same profession after unlocking it the first time, and get it right away after the first time in PvP, much like all PvP characters shared unlocked skills in GW1.

Vena.8436:

Nineaxis.1826:

This is how real, competitive, successful pvp games such as Dota 2 handle it. They don’t prohibit access to gameplay, just to ranked queues. No skills or traits locked away. No treating PvP as if it requires PvE progression. You learn the game, you gain skill, you move up based on skill. Purely based on skill.

As it should be.

This reminds of the discussions between LoL’s vs. DotA2’s form of content delivery with champions. The idea in LoL to save up and get that new hero is an incentive for many to play through failure, orient themselves, and learn something along the way because they can’t just jump from hero to hero, fail at everything and give up. Conversely DotA2 offers up everything at once, and is great to jump into and the game is much more heavily designed around counter-play between heroes (so its a bit of a necessity by design).

Most FPSs have taken the LoL model because it IS a successful guiding method for new players. The fact that it gives them a goal, even if its an artificial one the game put in place, is a big thing for the psyche. The number of games that use the DotA model are few and far in between these days.

Of course, I still think that these things should unlock for the account if they are unlocked through PvP. Then any other character in PvP will have them available.

While I’d agree that the “LoL model” does have at least some effect in terms of guiding players, I think what Riot is really trying to guide players to is their wallet to buy champions. :P

More seriously though, I think there are important differences when you start picking it apart. MOBA heroes and GW2 profession skills & traits are not particularly good analogues, as in MOBAs there are fairly well defined “beginner” heroes and very clear cut “experienced” heroes. Dota 2 provides a limited hero pool game mode that restricts players to choosing “beginner” heroes to aid in people familiarizing themselves with the game, so even it has that initial guide for new players. Plus it has a fairly extensive tutorial that it suggests new players play through before they even queue. GW2’s PvP tutorial is rather lackluster, and I’m sure 95% of people skip it because they’re trying to get to Lion’s Arch through the Mists, not learn about PvP.

That’s a different topic entirely though. Back to skills and traits – skills aren’t heroes. Traits aren’t heroes. I’d rather equate skill and trait builds to MOBA skill and item builds. They are core to your success as a player, core to your place on a team, and the wrong build or skills going up against enemy players can lead to defeat. There are “meta” builds (more so in GW2 than a MOBA) that guide how players set up their characters, but the important thing is the lack of limitations. A MOBA doesn’t tell you that you can’t purchase certain items because you are new, and it doesn’t force you into a certain build with a certain hero because you are new.

I’ve recently been on a break from GW2 and playing Dota 2. I was, and still am, a new player. The first thing I did though was look up guides for heroes I thought were interesting or would match my play style. I think this is the best solution to any perceived issues that new players might face – encourage the community to write guides, provide resources, contribute towards the new player experience both inside and outside of the game. Give the new players access to everything, but allow the community to build a guiding environment. Unfortunately, Arenanet’s continual chain of poor decisions has effectively killed the PvP community, so there isn’t any real incentive to write guides or make videos. However, continuing to make these decisions isn’t going to help things improve.

In my mind, reliance on the community is far better than potentially locking new players out of meta builds because they need to play to unlock skills or traits. It’s better than telling players they cannot do things. It’s better than trying to put “horizontal” progression in where it is not welcome and not necessary.

Nineaxis.1826:

In my mind, reliance on the community is far better than potentially locking new players out of meta builds because they need to play to unlock skills or traits. It’s better than telling players they cannot do things. It’s better than trying to put “horizontal” progression in where it is not welcome and not necessary.

Reliance on the community is a weird one, because the community doesn’t agree on anything as a whole. They just orient players and, many times, go unnoticed by players until they get involved in said community. A new player is rarely going to glue themselves to youtube to learn the intricacies right off the bat. They will, more likely than not, throw together some build and then go off to play. The more they have to sort through to put together their build, the higher the barrier to “moderately composed” entry becomes.

If I took my account in GW1, fully unlocked as it was, and gave it to a new player and told him to put together a build for an ele that heals, what would I have gotten other than an illegible mess of “these skills sounded good, so I went with them!”. I’d probably find myself with an ele running Healing Hands + Orison. They’d have no idea what in the actual heck they are putting together without extended trial and error of just swapping in and out one of the 600+ skills available from all the cross profession options. Often times, even, RA would be adverse to their ability to learn the game. In fact in GW1 I’d say you didn’t start to actually learn how to PvP until you either did the defunct TA or GvG. You’d probably do fine with Healing Hands and Orison in RA and think you were doing good with a good build…

If, conversely, I took a new GW1 account and handed it said same player. They’d probably end up with a similar pile of kitten off the bat unless the core skills were restricted enough to really make it hard to put together a total pile of kitten, but as they accrued Balth points they’d have to spend them more wisely and think about what they are buying and understand why it didn’t work rather than just iterate through every skill haphazardly. A progression system, preferably less painful but quick, forces a new player to at least put some thought into his actions as they become available because a stupid decision will sit with them for a few matches at least. Also new players that see things to unlock will tend to not try to do ranked matches right off the bat, so it gates that way as well.

Ultimately, the issue is: are the core traits good enough for a basic build that is competitive? If yes, then there is no real issue, you have perfectly fair ground to start and stand on from the get-go and can join a team accordingly. If no, then there is an issue as you are literally unable to compete evenly until X hours have been expended.

There are good and bad sides to every design orientation. My distaste is the character bound unlock nature of a PvP unlock.

Vena.8436:

Vuh.1328:

You have way to much faith in people if you actually believe that.
You can level up to 80 without touching the dodge button and face tank everything and still farm pretty darn well.
You are not going to progress very far in pvp if you do the same thing there.

A player who is new to mmos/pvp who spent say 50hrs level up to 80 is most likely going to far worse mechanically and worse understanding of his class/role in pvp than if he started in pvp and spent 30hrs there instead since the difference on how to be effective in pve and pvp is pretty darn big. But he will however have far more money if he went the pve route.

Heck the average wvwvw player from my experience is far far worse than the average spvp player

I probably do, but by design a PvE-er is forced to gradually work through his traits/skills, and level to 80 in X hour. PvP has no such limitation and gets everything up front (or did), they get to jump in, pre-leveled and geared, with a core set of traits to learn from and then later sets to work towards (the LoL and many FPS, style of delivery to orient players in some way). This will take the PvP Y hours to accomplish, which will also be unlocked for them in PvE.

However in pve you can make ANYthing work while leveling since it’s not very challenging at all, heck you can even follow a train of people and learn absolutely nothing beside zerging from one point to another.

Also why it works for other games and especially mobas is a complete different reason. You are still playing the same game modes and against players while leveling up.

Jumping into a FPS for the first time ever and play multiplayer is a lot more similar to jumping into sPvP for the first time though. However even playing against bots in a FPS will give you more practice and understanding of the multiplayer aspect than what pve gives you for pvp..

Also the real problem is the fact that pvers currently get way more of the currency(gold) that will be used for pvp after the reward revamp than pvpers currently get.
heck pvpers make even less money now than before removal of glory.

Vuh.1328:

Jumping into a FPS for the first time ever and play multiplayer is a lot more similar to jumping into sPvP for the first time though. However even playing against bots in a FPS will give you more practice and understanding of the multiplayer aspect than what pve gives you for pvp.

Just about every FPS does tiered locking, so…?

Vuh.1328:

Also the real problem is the fact that pvers currently get way more of the currency(gold) that will be used for pvp after the reward revamp than pvpers currently get. heck pvpers make even less money now than before removal of glory.

Glory used to be worthless, then they added a vendor to drain it, and now its gone. Glory wasn’t making anyone bank.

I’d imagine the PvP rewards will actually be rank locked. Rank, that thing you’re gaining in high order during the interim to the new rewards patch.

somsom.5201:

If anything, this will make it WORSE, as new players won’t have access to those traits, which further puts them into a position of lower standing/obvious “new player”-ness. You’d think ANet would want to DECREASE the hateorade around here, but nope, they go and make it even worse.

^
This. It will further the rift between new sPvPers and vets., especially as more skills and traits get added.
Just lol. Character-bound skills/traits is strictly an anti-PvP decision. I vividly remember when the PvP scene from GW1 was looking ahead for GW2 to do away with any silly PvP (accbound) unlocks, which was so often held up by the devs as one of the brilliant improvements — just to see it a year in return in an even more ridiculous fashion.

Protip: If we want to experience such power-progression, we play PvE.

I don’t know who’s in charge of directing the PvP parts of this game nowadays but it sure isn’t a PvPer.

Vena.8436:

Reliance on the community is a weird one, because the community doesn’t agree on anything as a whole. They just orient players and, many times, go unnoticed by players until they get involved in said community. A new player is rarely going to glue themselves to youtube to learn the intricacies right off the bat. They will, more likely than not, throw together some build and then go off to play. The more they have to sort through to put together their build, the higher the barrier to “moderately composed” entry becomes.

…

Ultimately, the issue is: are the core traits good enough for a basic build that is competitive? If yes, then there is no real issue, you have perfectly fair ground to start and stand on from the get-go and can join a team accordingly. If no, then there is an issue as you are literally unable to compete evenly until X hours have been expended.

There are good and bad sides to every design orientation. My distaste is the character bound unlock nature of a PvP unlock.

You make a good point, but I have to ask: what prevents a player from turning the “core” skills and traits into a mess of a build? And how does locking off new skills and traits change this? I would argue it doesn’t: starting with one more trait in each line from the beginning is essentially the same as having them locked if you hand a new player the game and tell them to make a build. However, if that player looks up builds and does research about their profession, those locked away traits are just placed behind an unnecessary barrier. Traits are not learned in any direct sense, they are modifiers to gameplay. You don’t need a number of hours with a class to understand how a trait works, the tooltip tells you. Traits are effectively passive, you don’t need to understand how to time them or how they synergize in the heat of combat, like you do with skills. Yes, experience will tell you why you are taking a trait, or how to make your own builds based on the available traits, but ultimately there is no recognizable progression related to traits. You take them or you don’t. No one is locking beginning mesmers from equipping a sword because they won’t be able to time Blurred Frenzy, or effectively immobilize using Illusionary Leap. And there’s more to be learned about that than there ever will be about a +interrupted skill recharge time trait.

So again, it’s an issue of Arenanet implementing an artificial barrier to new players that serves little purpose. They’re playing gatekeeper with core gameplay and there is no good reason for it. There’s better solutions to be found in terms of the new player experience and PvP progression.

Nineaxis.1826:

You make a good point, but I have to ask: what prevents a player from turning the “core” skills and traits into a mess of a build?

Like I said, it doesn’t prevent it unless the core skills are so limited as to make it effectively impossible. It just makes the margin smaller because instead of looking at a thousand skill possibilities, you’re looking at a hundred. Like it or not, players can and will be overwhelmed and bored of theorycrafting; huge pools of skills and abilities will kill their enthusiasm if they have to take a small correspondence class in management before they can even jump in and play.

People want to play, putting a small list of selectable options out front for them to sample and build off of, assuming that said options are PERFECTLY viable in the meta, is a good approach.

Nineaxis.1826:

So again, it’s an issue of Arenanet implementing an artificial barrier to new players that serves little purpose. They’re playing gatekeeper with core gameplay and there is no good reason for it. There’s better solutions to be found in terms of the new player experience and PvP progression.

But this is a common, tested and oft used method of progression orienting PvP. You’re given a passable (or other times very good) weapon but other things are out there for you to earn. You can still compete with the weapon of choice, your opponents simply have more variety to choose from.

The problem is if you start off with a water pistol against rocket launchers.

Of course this is all pointless happenstance until there literally are hundreds of traits per profession. Heh. Right now, with five to unlock to a profession, even a totally new player will unlock them all in a day or two.

Vena.8436:

Vuh.1328:

Jumping into a FPS for the first time ever and play multiplayer is a lot more similar to jumping into sPvP for the first time though. However even playing against bots in a FPS will give you more practice and understanding of the multiplayer aspect than what pve gives you for pvp.

Vuh.1328:

Also the real problem is the fact that pvers currently get way more of the currency(gold) that will be used for pvp after the reward revamp than pvpers currently get. heck pvpers make even less money now than before removal of glory.

Glory used to be worthless, then they added a vendor to drain it, and now its gone. Glory wasn’t making anyone bank.

I’d imagine the PvP rewards will actually be rank locked. Rank, that thing you’re gaining in high order during the interim to the new rewards patch.

Sorry but you are going full stupid right now.

Vena.8436:

Just about every FPS does tiered locking, so…?

Maybe i should have said experiance in my sentence
But it’s still the same gameplay all the way, learning to play a shooter with unlocks or no unlocks is still the same.
Having attachement/weapon progression is not going to make you better at shooters, it’s all about playtime and actual personal skill.
Playing PvE(more gold) to be able to unlock traits faster in PvP is not even close to similar

Vena.8436:

Glory used to be worthless, then they added a vendor to drain it, and now its gone. Glory wasn’t making anyone bank.

Indeed it didn’t make anyone bank(unless they hoarded glory/farmed skyhammer and sold winterday gifts), however doing pve does and guess what the currency that is going to be used for pvp is.. gold from what they have said. Which will make them unlock the traits faster/easier than PvPers.

Vena.8436:

I’d imagine the PvP rewards will actually be rank locked. Rank, that thing you’re gaining in high order during the interim to the new rewards patch.

This would be nice as long as the pvp rewards are actually UNIQUE to PvP, especially if their plan is to be able to use pve/pvp skins across the different areas of the game.
Else it’s pointless since pvers will have an easier time to get the gear sets they want.

This is kinda bonkers.

Hunting traits in PvE is a great idea and contributes to the feel of heroic progression. PvP is a different species altogether and many PvPers won’t do PvE/WvW at all. I really hope there has been some kind of mistake because this does not bode well for ANet.

As long as we can unlock them with Faction/Glory… Oh wait…

This must be a joke.

Wasn’t the entire philosophy behind your pvp design that you could just jump in and be on even footing with other players? The entire cosmetic/title grind being the reward? Unlocking skills is not a reward nor does it promote an even playing field.

Stop with the pvp unlocks. We don’t want them nor should you. We want different game modes, we want diverse builds, and we want a decently balanced playing field.

We don’t want to grind to unlock runes/necklaces/traits/skills. We don’t want to have to unlock a ton of things every time we try a new class. We don’t want new players to be at a disadvantage when coming into pvp.

New players should have ‘even footing’ in PvP. Unlocking traits and stuff is not equal and leads to imbalance which makes it even worse to be on a team with new players than it already is.

Unlocking PvP exclusive rewards/skins should be what horizontal progression is not unlocking traits.

I did not think it was possible for ANet to screw up any further than they already have but they’ve done it again.

fishball.7204:

New players should have ‘even footing’ in PvP. Unlocking traits and stuff is not equal and leads to imbalance which makes it even worse to be on a team with new players than it already is.

Unlocking PvP exclusive rewards/skins should be what horizontal progression is not unlocking traits.

I did not think it was possible for ANet to screw up any further than they already have but they’ve done it again.

Agreed, I would far prefer if they kept that sort of stuff in PvE/WvW and left PvP out of it. The fact that you could hop into PvP without doing any PvE and be on par with everyone else gear/trait/stat wise has been a selling point for several of my friends.

This sums up how I feel nicely…

Wow, I actually can’t believe this.

I know it’s not a MAJOR deal, but it’s just rediculous how much Arenanet goes against what they’ve previously said…

What happened to all the “a new character can jump right into PvP and not be at a disadvantage/be on par with everyone else”.

Well now that’s down the water, what next? Wanna introduce gear rarity and stat differences as well when we merge PvP and PvE armor as one?

Come on Arenanet, seriously reconsider this change, I get that you want people to experience all parts of the game, but don’t try and merge PvP and PvE like this, it’s just wrong and goes against everything “different” about our PvP compared to other MMO’s.

Mr. Roy, I have a few questions regarding unlockable traits.

• How will you gain them? Grinding rank points, achievements, chests with currency or something else?
• Will the traits be similarly easy to obtain in hotjoin, soloQ and TPvP?
• Do you unlock traits for each of your characters, or accountwise?

On a sidenote, I don’t dislike the idea, but it does sound like grinding. In PvE, fine. Instant PvP? Bad idea, as you won’t start off evenly with everyone else, which was proudly announced by Anet members in the past.
I am slightly concerned that they will force you to play tpvp for chests with currency for the traits. Thinking of grinding grinds my gears. ^^

Sithaco.4673:

Wow, I actually can’t believe this.

I know it’s not a MAJOR deal, but it’s just rediculous how much Arenanet goes against what they’ve previously said…

What happened to all the “a new character can jump right into PvP and not be at a disadvantage/be on par with everyone else”.

Well now that’s down the water, what next? Wanna introduce gear rarity and stat differences as well when we merge PvP and PvE armor as one?

Come on Arenanet, seriously reconsider this change, I get that you want people to experience all parts of the game, but don’t try and merge PvP and PvE like this, it’s just wrong and goes against everything “different” about our PvP compared to other MMO’s.

Introducing a means to get ascended armor from pvp wouldn’t be all bad tho, asuming ofcourse you could use it in pve.

Granted if it turns out I’ll need to join the blobs in pve to be able to competitively pvp within a reasonable timeframe, I’ll probably just leave.

I believe the system is already in place; it will be a hard pill so swallow for pvp only players, only if the prices for the new traits are reasonable (2g-6g). What the devs have not planned on is creating the next new broken spec through these new traits. I won’t quote from a long blogpost, but wasn’t the point of keeping skills to a minimum (heal-util-elite) create a better balance. Instead they introduce new traits rather than fixing the trait trees they started out with? (If all skill trees are so garbage, might as well introduce new trait lines to push the meta into another direction [“we made wars too strong, but nobody realized it”])