I have had quite a few friends leave the game because of the lack of direction before the patch. They would either quit playing before level 10 because “it feels like a mess” or they would make it to 30 on one character and decide “there’s no reason to keep going.”
I think the changes were a success in providing direction to new players. I think they may have overdone it a little with the POIs, skillpoints and vistas, but the idea was good.
I hope Arenanet revises some of its decisions with this update, because while the game feels more directed now, it also feels much more restricted for new players. It makes no sense that you unlock all of your land abilities at level 10, but you don’t unlock all of your underwater abilities until much later. They should be unlocked at the same time, because currently it feels awkward and unrewarding to find that you have fewer skills underwater, and once they are rewarded to you it feels underwhelming and that can make players bitter.
POIs, skillpoints and vistas should be available from the start. I like that the tooltip informs players about them now, but restricting this content early on will make new players run in circles to do map completion after having already explored the area. The experience and rewards offered by this content is negligible, so I do not see a point in restricting access them. It will not be a big deal if a low level player unlocks a skill point. I think the option to do this content should be available from the start, but the tooltips and guidance systems well placed enough to push players toward them at an appropriate time if they happened to miss them.
On the other hand, unlocking skill points/POIs/vistas later forces players to turn around and revisit some areas, which gives more opportunity for events to happen on the way. More events = more exp = more leveling = more unlocks. I can see the reasoning, but the implementation feels weird. These aspects of the game are so elementary.
It’s also worth noting that these changes have made WP’s “Buddy Blitz” game need some revision, because it’s highly centered around having a low level character complete this content. It’s a shame because I really enjoyed watching that stuff.
I worry that new players will get to level 30 and feel like they are still in the tutorial. Unlocking features every level is a nice approach to direction, but the basics should be restricted to early leveling. If features are still being spoon-fed to new players after they’ve been playing for so long, I fear they will get annoyed with the system.
On the other hand, unlocking new things every level is a good way to make players feel like there’s a good progression. In other MMOs there is a lot of excitement tied to leveling, because it usually entails visiting an NPC to learn a new skill. GW2 now has something similar. I think it’s a step in the right direction, but I would have implemented it a little differently.
Some of the unlocks are underwhelming. I can see more players getting excited about unlocking their next utility slot, but I can also see players getting annoyed that the next level only offers a new underwater ability that they aren’t going to use as often. Rewards for some levels need to be revised. The big unlocks (utilities and elites) should be foreshadowed more to give players a level goal when they load up the game. The small unlocks should be added in earlier because they are not as rewarding.
Also, slightly unrelated personal opinion: I hate seeing how many things I don’t have access to when I look at my hotbar. It might be worth removing the icon entirely or making it a little more transparent until it unlocks. Another thing worth noting is that there is no text box telling players that they can click the icons on the level-up window for more information. It’s too easy to hit accept and move on without reading the tooltips.
TL;DR: New player experience requires revision. Anything that is not critical to understand about the game should be removed from the level rewards and instead learned intuitively.