Tossing my opinions on the pile.
First up, the new trait interface is good. Maybe could use some polish, but ultimately makes more sense and is easier to use than the old system.
BUT!
Re-rolled my warrior (least valuable character to me) to try the ‘new character experience’ and I’m disappointed. I was a huge fan of skill hunting, etc. in Guild Wars 1 and so I liked the idea of going out and ‘earning’ your traits. Good idea, stick with it.
But man, the low level experience is junk. I popped an exp scroll to skip to 20, glad I did. Even then, 20-30 is dull. You get nothing. At all. Maybe some skill points, but by 20 you have most of the skills you want already. Yay 30, I get my elite! And TRAITS!
But then I looked at what was needed to unlock them. By the time I could use even ONE adept trait (level 36) I had the option of one map completion (the other two go up to 40 and wouldn’t be feasible for an average player), two explore puzzles and a couple champions that are part of events I’d need to wait around for. The traits that I WANTED were all locked behind level 50+ content. Not what I was expecting.
Now, from a 1-80 perspective, I can see how you could level to 80, buy ONLY the traits you REALLY WANTED and then once you’re 80 go back and unlock the others. This, however, is not fun. This is the grind-to-80-so-you-can-play-the-game mentality that WoW and other games have. It’s not a good mindset to get into, design-wise.
The problem is how the trait acquisition is balanced: adept traits really should be more attainable at lower levels. Completing level 70+ zones for traits is something I’d expect of Master or even Grandmaster traits.
There are traits that require WvW. Worse, there is the Obsidian Sanctum one. You know what’s there thanks to that requirement? A bunch of gankers, waiting to kill hapless pve characters who just want a biscuit-loving trait. Bad design to force PvP (WvW IS a form of pvp) on people.
There are traits that require timed, large-scale group events. These require luck or the ability to play whenever, and not everyone can show up on time to get in on those events.
End result: New players to the game who don’t have the gold to spend get the short end of the stick and will undoubtedly be frustrated. Old players who already have sufficient bank will just eat the cost because they can’t or won’t invest the time in trying to get lucky with the group events, wvw system, etc.
The trait system is a GOOD change. The trait REQUIREMENTS desperately need re-evaluation. If it’s not something you can solo, then it seriously needs to be changed to something that is merely a small group, like some champion that’s always/almost-always around, not the big events.
And definitely no PVP jumping puzzles where one enemy thief can ruin everyone’s day.