I ended up reinstalling GW2 after hearing of the expansion pack – started up a new char to get back into the hang of things and ran smack dab into the NPE stuff. Read through the thread here and decided you know what… I’ll give it a try, I probably nead to re-learn some stuff anyway.
I think I can see what they were trying to do…. but they really just dropped the ball with it. Especially when you add in the trait changes, though I’m not going to harp on about them. Most of what I want to say has already been said, and likely ignored by Anet, so I’ll try and keep this brief.
The dodging tutorial was really good – I really think that this NPE would have been fairly good and even great if they had built it into things like that and kept it generally within the starting zones. If they had condensed down this whole NPE system and its gates if that makes sense. I’ve played games like that and haven’t had any problems with those systems, in part because it felt like I was unlocking things at fairly or relatively rapid pace.
Instead it feels like a lot of basic stuff is being given to me by an eye-dropper over far too large a span of “levels.” I’m playing through the starting zones on my new character and I find myself wondering what hooked me on this game back when I first played in the betas. Even with the faster leveling pace rushing me through the starting zones it just feels like there’s no hook in the opening part of the game. It just feels like another generic MMO with “quests” of go kill 20 of this mob using these 2 skills. This is especially true with the personal story starting at ten and other changes – such as those to the hearts.
Honestly if they were going to go this far on changes maybe they should have taken it a step further and made further changes to make it fit in better. Its rather annoying to see those lost trinkets and be unable to do anything with them, to see that skill point and know I’m going to have backtrack to get it when the game finally allows me to do things, etc. Everything used to flow fairly or at least somewhat smoothly and it just doesn’t anymore.
Frankly, I’m looking at the NPE and the changes to the trait system and wondering if I really want to spend my money on this upcoming expansion pack. I’ve heard they are looking at the traits again and I’ll probably stick around to see what they come up with but….
Honestly, the best advice I can give to Anet is to set up some form of a test server. Even if it has to be a closed test server kind of a like closed beta or something along those lines. Maybe even re-introduce those surveys that popped up all the time back in beta. Just get some good solid player feedback before dropping things like this into the live game. There’s a good amount of stuff I like or want to like but its just drowned out by the rest which feels poorly considered and/or poorly handled.