Guild Wars 2

ColinJohanson.2394:

The random roll for this week already happened and we’re seeing on our internal servers that week ones missions rolled a mix of PvP and WvW missions for the first three mission slots that guilds have unlocked once you’re able to access the expansion (as you unlock deeper into your guild hall, you’ll be able to unlock more mission slots). We wanted to make sure everyone knew this information ahead of time.

So basically what you are saying for this first week of missions is kitten PvE Guilds, kitten cross server guilds, and kitten everyone who doesn’t like doing PvP. That was a great idea Colin, way to divide the player base and give even less incentive for guilds to actually care about anything to do for them going forward! You couldn’t default the missions to PvE instead since, oh idk, ITS THE TYPE OF MISSIONS GUILDS DO ALREADY?! On top of that if you can do a mix of missions and get 2-3 of the same type why even bother dong mixed missions?! Why not have one slot for a random PvE, one for PvP and one for WvW?

but you failed to answer the most important question:
Why does my skill activate and go on cooldown when it finds to valid path to target?
Honestly this is the biggest problem with the system as-is and needs to be fixed big time!

I just lost out on a daily fractal chest because someone accidentally started the transit query and 3/5 voted yes thinking it was the usual end of fractal prompt, normally this isn’t a problem but on the Jade Maw fractal, which takes a solid minute to pop up the daily chest people can easily get confused, or even tricked by trolls. I don’t understand why it only requires majority and one person saying no doesn’t stop the transit!

Things this event did right:

- fun, not zergy events: the three different invasion events were distinguished from the usual zergfest and it was a welcome change.

- bringing back LS1 rewards: this is both a good and bad thing, the non-gem store rewards were nice to see back, the gem store ones were nice too but they should have just been put back into the gem store for the duration of the event, not made available for anyone willing to grind.

Things this event did wrong:

- no rewards of any kind beyond blooms: no exp, karma, or loot is a bad idea! Even if it was just level appropriate for the zones at least it would be SOMETHING, but grinding events for 3 hours to get 90 blooms and nothing else is a joke! How are f2p accounts supposed to have fun participating if they don’t get anything for doing it!

- making gem store items available for blooms: I didn’t get a chance to buy the scarlet or toxic skins when they were available so I’m glad they are back, but they should have just been available as gem store purchases instead of the be-all end-all rewards of the event

- rewarding uncooperative behavior: the tag and abandon style of these events is toxic, I myself engaged in it just to see how many events I could tag in the 30m and I got to 26 stacks. This is a terrible design for events! It makes new players think that our community is all about being greedy and taking what you can get!

How to fix this and future events:

1. Let mobs give exp and level appropriate loot, let events give level appropriate karma, gold, and exp

2. Never understand any circumstances put gem store items into the game as obtainable without converting gold to gems!

3. Make the meta event give the majority of the event rewards instead of the individual rewards (you know like the scarlet invasion that these events are based on!)

4. Listen to the community and make sure that this fiasco never happens again!

You want constructive feedback? If there exists a SINGLE event like this with the time to reward ratio in HoT I will DEMAND my money back for the expansion and go play another game! This is not a “fun” friendly event, this is a horrible stressful grind fest that should never have existed!

This event is stupid, 0/10 Anet, you took something that should have been fun and made it a completely mindless grind, there is literally no reason to grind these events cause even with the bonus chests you could only grind a MAXIMUM of 240 blooms for 16 hours of work! That is ABYSMAL! that means of the three days we can do these evens you can get a maximum of 720 blooms for having to sleep 8-10 hours a day! are you ENCOURAGING people to not get enough sleep at night? that is dangerous thinking Anet!

Tenchu The Wolf.3418:

Am I eventually going to see an in-game purchase for the expansion? I have saved up gems to get the expansion. ;-;

Pls~

When they first announced the expansion they said no you’d have to buy it with real money!

JonPeters.5630:

A couple notes on Dragonhunter. We went with this name because we felt it was evocative of the medieval witch hunters. Guardians consider themselves protectors of the innocent. Followers of their faith be it in honor, valor, etc. The origin of the dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Guardians fight for justice and the dragonhunter faction believes justice is the eradication of dragons and their minions. I understand this is a lot more high concept than Mesmer but at the end of the day we felt like we wanted to try and push a more mature theme here. I hope this helps explain our thinking. We had other generic names in mind but felt like it was important to have a mix of spec names that are generic fantasy, more Tyrian fantasy, and more high concept. This one falls more in the third category.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon this is a great explanation, the only problem is all the references to the Dragonhunter being a “big game hunter” a term usually reserved for sport hunting. If you guys go back and change the concept lore from that of a bgh to that of a hunter of Dragon corruption (much like a witchhunter) then I think 90% of people would be happy with the name, as it stands your reasoning and the supporting lore are conflicting. That I’d what is causing the great schism in the player base between liking the name and hating it!

Tachenon.5270:

Seems to me it would take very little effort for the devs to allay — or confirm — the concerns expressed here and in similar threads. It would be a constructive and positive thing to do. Why hasn’t it been done?

because ANET has made them devs not talk about ANYTHING until it was done because of past fiascos

kimeekat.2548:

Astralporing.1957:

They said in the original statement, that the number of hero points will be capped to how many you’d be able to get through levelling and skill challenges, that the currently posessed skill points will be converted into hero points (at a rate they haven’t revealed yet) up to a cap, and those that will exceed that cap will be converted into some kind of crafting currency. Unknown what will happen to the skill points you have already spent on skill/trait unlocking though.

So no, nobody’s going to end up with more points due to doubling challenges.

This was my understanding, as well.

“Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge,” sayeth Part II of their blog posts.

Which I take to mean that if you have less skill points than leveling and skill challenges allow, they are converted into the new hero points system. Nowhere does it say these liminal skill points must have come purely from skill challenges to convert to hero points.

HOWEVER, I am rewatching the Ready Up and ~13mins in, Jon speaks specifically about completing 65 skill challenges. I took that to be a worst case scenario for, like, a recently purchased account with little access to sp scrolls. So, I can see why people are confused and I think some solid dev clarification would be nice.

Yeah thats why i’m trying to get our thread more attention, we NEED to know from the devs what the plan is, and if they are planning what we think then they need to know that we are unhappy about these “roll-backs”

Gibson.4036:

Mordachai.1896:

I have 41 lvl 80 characters, 46 when the revenant will be available, and i have no issues with having to unlock traits again. I understand why people are upset but comeon… its a videogame.

That’s way too easy an argument.

In any creator/audience relationship there is a trust that needs to be maintained. For example, if the leading female in a romantic comedy is suddenly viciously slaughtered by a serial killer, audience trust is violated, and “It’s just a movie” doesn’t bring anything to the discussion. If an incredibly complicated plot is waved off with the protagonist waking up and it was all a dream, audience trust is violated, and “it’s just a novel” means nothing.

When a game revolves around progressing characters, and the progression is reset, audience trust is violated. In this case, “It’s just a video game” means exactly the opposite of your intent. Yes, it’s a video game. Most video games are built on the premise that you progress through play, and taking away that progress undermines a core part of them.

agreed, in a game that’s all about progression and unlocking things rolling a character back is just a slap in the kitten face!

phys.7689:

commnagrom.8637:

phys.7689:

Gibson.4036:

spoj.9672:

Its only an issue if you want everything including the traits and skills you never use.

This keeps being thrown about, and it is very misguided.

The new unlock tracks are linear. That means the skill you want to use may be the very last skill to unlock of its type. To get the grandmaster traits unlocked in a specialization, you’ll be unlocking all of the adept and master traits along the way.

I will guarantee you that you will be spending points on skills and traits that you never use.

yes, but will you be spending enough that you need to get skill points?

one spec is 60 points, there are many people have never even experimented with certain lines.
skill wise, 25-30 points, i know thieves for example who never want to touch a trap.

now, i personally would want all skills eventually, but skill challenges is far from a bad way to earn skills. It was meant to be the fastest way, but they messed that up with the champ bags.

i do understand where you are coming from though. I just dont see too many simple solutions.
perhaps they will change the system.

Honestly I think if they set it up to give you any skill points in excess of the 65 you need as the currency and just decreased the drop rates of skill point scrolls across the board then that could give it a good compromise.

EXAMPLES:
1. characters with 65+ hero challenges get all 65 hero points they need for core specs, and any over 65 get you extra “skill point currency” and any skill point in their skills panel, as well as any future hero challenges in the “Core” zones, also become this “skill point currency”

2. characters with <65 hero challenges complete get as many hero points as they have challenges complete, then get more hero points from their skill point in their skills panel until they have 65 hero points, any excess skill points, in addition to any future hero challenges in the “Core” zones, get turned into “skill point currency”

3. characters with no hero challenges complete have their skill points turned into up to 65 hero points, and any excess skill points, in addition to any future hero challenges in the “Core” zones, get turned into “skill point currency”

The only problem i could foresee from this is earning Hero Points for future specs, like the elite specs, which could honestly be solved by making Hero Challenges in the expansion all award the hero points needed for the new specs.

they want to have a finite supply of hero points. and a fixed amount as max for everyone, that changes effortlessly as they add content.

also, your system assumes everyone has all skills/traits unlocked already and need it back.
many people have odd combinations of traits and skills missing.

true but it also doesn’t punish people for having unlocked everything without doing 65 hero challenges

If they let us keep all the skills we’ve unlocked i think players would be ok with needing to unlock all their traits again with the 400+ points they will be getting

phys.7689:

Gibson.4036:

spoj.9672:

Its only an issue if you want everything including the traits and skills you never use.

This keeps being thrown about, and it is very misguided.

The new unlock tracks are linear. That means the skill you want to use may be the very last skill to unlock of its type. To get the grandmaster traits unlocked in a specialization, you’ll be unlocking all of the adept and master traits along the way.

I will guarantee you that you will be spending points on skills and traits that you never use.

yes, but will you be spending enough that you need to get skill points?

one spec is 60 points, there are many people have never even experimented with certain lines.
skill wise, 25-30 points, i know thieves for example who never want to touch a trap.

now, i personally would want all skills eventually, but skill challenges is far from a bad way to earn skills. It was meant to be the fastest way, but they messed that up with the champ bags.

i do understand where you are coming from though. I just dont see too many simple solutions.
perhaps they will change the system.

Honestly I think if they set it up to give you any skill points in excess of the 65 you need as the currency and just decreased the drop rates of skill point scrolls across the board then that could give it a good compromise.

EXAMPLES:
1. characters with 65+ hero challenges get all 65 hero points they need for core specs, and any over 65 get you extra “skill point currency” and any skill point in their skills panel, as well as any future hero challenges in the “Core” zones, also become this “skill point currency”

2. characters with <65 hero challenges complete get as many hero points as they have challenges complete, then get more hero points from their skill point in their skills panel until they have 65 hero points, any excess skill points, in addition to any future hero challenges in the “Core” zones, get turned into “skill point currency”

3. characters with no hero challenges complete have their skill points turned into up to 65 hero points, and any excess skill points, in addition to any future hero challenges in the “Core” zones, get turned into “skill point currency”

The only problem i could foresee from this is earning Hero Points for future specs, like the elite specs, which could honestly be solved by making Hero Challenges in the expansion all award the hero points needed for the new specs.

phys.7689:

commnagrom.8637:

Gobble D Goop.4081:

Surely you dont use every skill and every traitline (I’m not implying this all at once-that’s impossible). There are likely some skills and even some traitlines that you just don’t use. If for example, you never use traps on your ranger, then dont invest points into traps until you get the HP that you need. If skills arent integrated into the same lines as traits, then you will be able to pick what skills you need (with some limit- it seems that skills/traits will require whatever is before it in line to get it) and the traitlines that you want to use. 400/465 (roughly 86%) will be the baseline for all level 80s. My best guess (we’re all guessing at this point) is that you can unlock 3 full traitlines and most/all of your skills with that.

The problem is that you can’t skip over skills in the new system, the skills unlock in tracks now instead of just picking and choosing which you want, jut like they are doing with traits…

the tracks are similar themed things.

so likely traps would be grouped together

also each specialization is grouped seperately, so if you never used say the vitality line, thats your 60 points right there

But it becomes harder to try out builds in the open world if you don’t have access to everything, and it tends to be one of the types of skills that aren’t that great (yeah signets are grouped together but what about that kittenty signet?)

Gibson.4036:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Wouldn’t be that hard to pull off, IMO. I say this simply because if you abuse the starter zones and go after their skill challenges, that’s exactly 36 out of the 65 you need, half of them right there. After that, it’s simply of going to the next lowest level zones. Here’s the math, starting with all the starter zones, with their total number in there, followed by the total point number you’ll have afterwards.

Queensdale (7; 7)
Caledon Forest (7; 14)
Metrica Province (8; 22)
Wayfarer Foothills (8; 30)
Plains of Ashford (6; 36)
Diessa Plateau (8; 44)
Snowden Drifts (6; 50)
Kessex Hills (5; 55)
Brisbain Wildlands (8; 63)

From there you only need 2 skill challenges from wherever, and you’re done. That’s if I’m getting the amount you need total correct, that is. It’s not really a hard undertaking, just a bit of normal PvE leveling first. It’s actually the route I take when leveling new characters (in terms of starter, then higher level zones).

It’s definitely not a legendary amount of effort, but that’s a quite a bit of running around just to get back something I’ve already earned on my characters. Especially if it’s more than one character.

It doesn’t seem so daunting when only looking at it on a single character, but when you think that you have to do 9-10 zones per character and if you have 6+ level 80s then it starts becoming busy work, and that is incredibly unfair to vets who’ve already unlocked everything!

Gobble D Goop.4081:

Surely you dont use every skill and every traitline (I’m not implying this all at once-that’s impossible). There are likely some skills and even some traitlines that you just don’t use. If for example, you never use traps on your ranger, then dont invest points into traps until you get the HP that you need. If skills arent integrated into the same lines as traits, then you will be able to pick what skills you need (with some limit- it seems that skills/traits will require whatever is before it in line to get it) and the traitlines that you want to use. 400/465 (roughly 86%) will be the baseline for all level 80s. My best guess (we’re all guessing at this point) is that you can unlock 3 full traitlines and most/all of your skills with that.

The problem is that you can’t skip over skills in the new system, the skills unlock in tracks now instead of just picking and choosing which you want, jut like they are doing with traits…

Tachenon.5270:

spoj.9672:

Plus its only 65 skill points.

Is that account wide? If not, then it’s 65 skill points per character. I have 14 level 80s, of which only 2 have world completion. So that’s 12 level 80s without world completion.

12 × 65 = aw hell no.

add this to my post and you get 12 × 65 × 9-10 = WELL kitten THAT!

MLinni.6109:

The current trait system forces people to waste 20-30 hours to get all traits or a ton of skill points and gold to buy everything.
How can anyone say the upcoming system will be worse? 95% of level 80 characters will probably have been leveled in the open world and will probably have close to enough “hero” points to unlock everything instantly.

except i have 5 80’s 1 with world completions, 1 with 60 Skill challenges (that i leveling in the open world and EotM), 1 with 30 skill challenges (also leveled in the open world) and 2 with less than 10 (one leveled in the open world the other in EotM) so thats hmmm lets see 2/5=40%? yeah 40% of MY level 80s are readyish for this change, even though i have spend MY OWN SP AND GOLD AND TIME unlocking all the traits and skills, kinds of a waste now huh?

MLinni.6109:

In the current system you have to bear with unlocking each trait on EACH character. I have totally stopped leveling characters since it was introduced. The new system will be very altist friendly.

what? this new system would STILL see you unlocking each trait AND skill on EACH character, its no different other than the fact that they have standardized the unlocking rules, so instead of doing xyz event to get xyz trait you do xyz skill challenge and get a hero point to use to unlock and skill/trait

MLinni.6109:

And if you’re one of the 5% of “Duh, I level my character in EoTM only by running in a circle for hundreds of hours.” characters, is it really that bad to spend perhaps two hours to get those hero points and never have to bother with them again?
What would interest me the most though is when you get to unlock traits/lines. The move from 10->30, 40->60, 60->80 in trait tiers was one of the worst changes of last year in my opinion.

I’m sorry that i wanted to make more characters and level them in my own way, in a game where i can level my characters however the kitten i want! If i want to level a character to 80 by mining i can do it! if i wanna craft to 80 (while its more difficult now) i can DO IT!

in a game thats all about “level how YOU want to level” its a bit backassward to make everyone HAVE to go into PvE and grab an arbitrary number of Skill Challenges just to fill out their build diversity!

spoj.9672:

Its not even map completion. Just go to low level maps and run to each skill challenge. Doesnt take anywhere near as much time and effort as fully completing each map. Plus its only 65 skill points. Thats about 5 maps where you just run from skill challenge to skill challenge and ignore everything else. Oh look theres 5 starter maps. Problem solved. Chances are you will have enough just from being 80 to complete your builds. Its only an issue if you want everything including the traits and skills you never use. But then its such a minor effort to get those remaining hero points. :P

The only issue i have with this is i spent a load of gold on buying all the traits for all my alts a few weeks ago. I dont really care that my skillpoints were wasted. The gold however amounted to quite a lot. Which i am a little peeved about.

Actually there are only about 6-8 skill points in each of the starter zones, and only 7 on average in none Orr zones, that means 9-10 zones, not 5!

khani.4786:

This gives folks a very easy way to get points that are in static locations and they cannot be contested or completed before you get there. It’s win win.

except the ones in Orr…

CrimsonDX.4821:

The only people hurt by the changes are those who rushed through, leveling only through dungeons or WvW, and never once did anything on the PvE maps. You don’t even need to complete the maps, just do the skill challenges and you are set. Easy as pie.

I notice you are replying to a lot of these so i’ll reply to your ignorance.

There are 189 skill challenges in the PvE zones, 199 if you count the 10 added in the maguuma wastes, and 13 in WvW, that means there are 212 Skill Challenges total in the game.

65 is 30% of the total skill challenges available in game, yeah ok that’s not a HUGE amount, and most people will have done a majority of them, but the most skill challenges available in a map is 17, and those are the Orr maps, the ones that require people to actually work together and take temples in order to unlock (something that usually only happens during reset) other than orr the average SP per map is only about 7, that means not taking into account Orr, you’d need to clear 9-10 maps worth of skill points, and its not like they are all right on top of each other, it could take you anywhere from 3-5 hours to farm 65 skill challenges. If you have 8 level 80’s chances are that you probably have 1 main (who more than likely won’t need any more) and lets say at least one other that is close, but now lets say you have 6 fresh 80’s that you haven’t completed the story with, that you haven’t been map completing to level, that you’ve just been going zone, to zone, or using tomes of knowledge (that require their OWN grind) so 6 level 80’s that need ~60 challenges EACH means another 20-30 hours of work, not to mention the loss of gold and SP that you used to unlock their skills and traits (if made after NPE).

Its simply not a fair system and ANET has to recognize that its not!

CrimsonDX.4821:

Disagree, suck it up and do the skill challenges.

Its not all about having to do the skill challenges, I have all these characters that i’ve spent a lot of Skill Points AND GOLD unlocking all my skills and traits, like i said i have three characters (my guardian, necro, and ele) that won’t be effected by this at all as they have more than enough skill challenges complete, but i also have a mesmer and ranger at 80 that only have about 5% world completion but are level 80, because i level them almost exclusively in wvw, its not fair to me that i’m now going to lose all the time, gold, and effort i put into unlocking their traits just because arenanet decided to change the base functionality of traits.

Why can’t my current characters be grandfathered in some how exactly like they did with the old system? If you only need 65 hero challenges to unlock all core specs why not make it so up to 65SP worth of skills/traits/w.e become Hero Points and all Hero Challenges you do in excess of 65 award the currency?

Also this is a dangerous precedent for ANet to be setting and people to just be going along with it. What if they change something even more crucial and everyone has to get set back to level 1? Would everyone just “suck it up” and relevel their character? Hell no, they’d get angry and flood the forum with posts about how its not ok! Well to many of us this is EXACTLY what arenanet is doing, setting our character back and making us do EVEN MORE work just to unlock everything. That’s why people like me are angry and taking to the forums, so Anet KNOWS that they need to do something about it or their are going to alienate their player base!

tl;dr – go read my whole post scrub

So as i understand it now, leveling a character to 80 will net you 400 Hero Points and to unlock all the Core Specializations you will need 465. Ok 65 skill challenges is not that bad, but kitten why should i have to go back on ALL my alts and make sure they all have 65 skill challenges complete?

I have one of EACH class, not all of them 80, but i have hope of getting them all to 80, and if i want to be able to experiment with builds that means each of them will eventually need to get 65 hero challenges. Mind you all but 3 of my characters were created before the new trait unlocking system, as such i never had to unlock all the traits on them, but now if anet decides to undo unlocking all the traits on ALL my characters only my Main (who has map completion) and 2 of my alts have completed even CLOSE to enough skill challenges to get every core unlock.

I even have one fresh 80 with literally 3 skill challenges, that means if i want to get everything i will need to do 62 more on them, not to mention the OTHER 4 characters.

But Anet i have a compromise for you, instead of taking away everyone’s skills and traits and giving them nothing in return, hows about you convert all of the leveling Skill points AND 65 other character bound skill points into hero points for each character.

This means that characters who DO have all their traits, skills, and all that unlocked (who may have WASTED GOLD AND SKILL POINTS TO DO IT!) will still get their unlocks without feeling like they have been cheated by this the trait system TWICE!

tl;dr – resetting everyone’s traits and not giving us credit for it sucks, instead ANET should give people up to 65 extra hero points for skills/traits they already spend tones of SP and Gold on otherwise its totally unfair for alt-holics!

How is the armor stat change going to effect celestial armor stats, at current I have a full set of ascended celestial gear so I could use the trait stats to tune my build to a specific way of performing. If traits and stats become unlinked how will that effect the viability of celestial armor builds?

nay, it is ACCOUNT BOUND ON ACQUIRE, so it can be reused (thus making light and medium much more valuable than heavy)

My thoughts on the NPE Leveling system:

Overall I really like the new leveling system. It feels more rewarding and they have re-balanced it enough (with the fix patches) that I think it make a GREAT tool to teach new players and it is smooth enough that veterans shouldn’t have TOO much trouble jumping right back in with alts (there is still the option of the veteran EXP scrolls if it doesn’t quite float your boat). This change is MAGNITUDES better than the update cough kitten cough to the trait system, and it shouldn’t be overlooked just because its for “new player retention”.

My thoughts on the Ineffable “Leveling” gear:

This gear is a blessing in disguise, while it may take a LOAD of ecto’s to craft, it is easily much better than anything else an alt would have access to. To quote a user on reddit who was filling out the into for the wiki:

>Having exotic triple-attribute gear that’s boosted by 6 levels at level 18 is a significant advantage over the usual masterwork dual-attribute gear. In normal gear, the same stat numbers aren’t reached until level 27 masterwork, so you could use the Ineffable gear for at least that long – at which point you can just upgrade to the level 26 Ineffable gear! And it’s all account bound, so it’s basically a one-time investment that you can keep using it on other alts (who can wear the armor weight or use the weapon type, of course).

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read my report and I hope to see you all ingame!

Ebonrock OUT!

Well after grinding my character out to level 40 i think i have some pretty solid statistics to show you guys. First I Present the statistics: detailed level-by-level statistics, and average level statistics. From this data I have created the following graphs for your viewing pleasure:

• Overall Chart of Statistics – This graph gives a good overview of all the statistics as I track them (though some don’t fit well in here).

• Minutes Spent to Level Chart – This graph shows the general amount of time it took me to hit each of the new levels. Note that the first huge spike, at level 19, is only there because I took a detour to LA to pick up my Ineffable gear (a practice I used my banker golem for each subsequent time). Overall the “leveling curve” isn’t all the steep (once i got the hang of doing hearts and events and moving to the next area) and the spikes in the time only occur because one a few factors, either I did something stupid and died, ran out of events to do nearby and had to WP across the map, or the difficulty spiked (due to not reaching an attribute buff milestone). All in all i would say it doesn’t take all that long at ALL to level under the new leveling system (even while 20-30 was bugged out).

• Deaths per Level Chart – As you can see i didn’t really die all that many times, the few i did is because i jumped off a cliff thinking i’d survive. The 2 deaths at level 16 happened because I finished a map and hopped into the next map WOEFULLY unprepared for what was waiting for me, but i quickly turned that around.

• Individual activities completed per Level Chart – This one is kinda weird, this graph is a mash up of each of the major activities i did to level up, however when I was doing PS missions I wasn’t doing ANY map completion (mostly because I completed the zones the story was to take place in) so i’m not sure exactly how informative this graph is.

• Overall activities completed per Level Chart – This graph speaks VOLUMES about how rewarding certain activities are at certain parts of the game. In the early levels (2-18) it only takes a few events/hearts to het the next level, but the rewarding nature of hearts and events really plummets around level 20-30 (note that this was BEFORE they “fixed” that bug) the only reason i finished 21-22 so easily is because of PS missions (which give a tone of exp).

• Approximate Percentage of Level Bar per Activity Chart – This graph i threw in for the heck of it to see if there was any correlation to the area i was in to the rewarding nature of the content in said area. Each of the large peaks (at 16 and 30) correlates with me going to a brand new zone. As it so happens, when you are just barely high enough a level to do the content, it gives you WAY more exp then if you are over leveled (represented by the low valleys at which point i went back to other races’ starting zones)

it doesn’t scale with you as you level, instead it exists at 8 different levels: 18, 26, 37, 44, 51, 60, 65, and 68

It also doesn’t give you an exp boost (like heirloom gear in WoW) however it is exotic equivalent gear for each of those levels and it has access to the basic crafting stat combos (Apothecary, Carrion, Cleric, Assassin, Zerker, Rampager, Knight and Valkyrie) regardless of what level it is

All of the new gear is discovered, just like any other crafting armor set, with the exception that the recipe is as such:
[ineffable insignia/inscription] + [armor part 1] + [armor part 2] + [Globs of Ectoplasm] = [Ineffable armor/weapon]

also i have now reach level 18 so i have equipped the new leveling gear and will be seeing how effective it really is

So I just recently finished the last 2 tiers…. as well as all 8 tiers of Axe, hopefully having all of these will be worth the investment…

UPDATE:
So yesterday I made a post about leveling my new character, a necromancer, under the new leveling system and, once I reach the appropriate level, the new “leveling” gear made with Ineffable insiginas.

I made this nifty little spreadsheet of all the statistics i’m tracking. So far I’ve only made it through the first 10 levels but I will make sure to keep everyone updated as i continue playing and get to the section where i start using the new gear .

EDIT: Also if there is anything else you guys think i should keep track of let me know!

Would someone, ANYONE at arenanet be open to elaborating on what features are experiencing “issues related to the new player experience, both bugs and things that are not working as intended, for players who have multiple characters” and what features are working as intended? As a Veteran player (of both Guild Wars AND Guild Wars 2) I think we all deserve a little transparency on this particular issue!

So for the past 2 days I’ve been working on gathering/buying enough ectos for a full set of each of the new “leveling” gear sets. Now almost 300 ectos later, I have the First 6 tiers of the new leveling armor, in light variety. I’ve given it Carrion Stats as I plan on using it to help my level a Necromancer (and it seems like carrion stats would best fit my playstyle for necro)

Now I’m not here to brag or even show it off, The reason I’m making this post is to ask if anyone would like me to take down any information over the next couple of sessions I play to help the community better understand how this new armor stacks up against typical stuff normal players would usually be using.

I am also already planning on keeping a rolling tally of deaths, as well as using /age to determine how long it is taking my character to hit specific milestones (ie. how long it takes me to hit each block of 10 levels).

If anyone has any other statistics they would like me to track please comment to this post with your suggestions.

Aside: I also made a post on reddit which details the stat distribution of the new armors

JonPeters.5630:

Unlocking traits. We talked about this a bunch in the horizontal progression CDI and it came to our attention that many players were not learning about traits, how they worked, or understanding the options. When we talked through unlocking traits via activities it led us in the direction we have currently. Unfortunately, unlocking traits in the open world generally causes one of the #1 things we never wanted in the game which is players in conflict. You want might the Balthazar trait but someone is about to complete the chain and leave you waiting. This is bad for the game, but I think right now only occurs this dramatically for a few of the traits.

Honestly I do like the concept of unlocking traits by doing stuff around the world of tyria, however i think it is poorly implemented. Some of the worst Trait unlocking is at the adept tier, i will list just a few here:

Trait line 1, Trait 1: complete story quest “A Light in the Darkness” – a trait that should be available for a level 36 character is locked behind a level 55 story step… i think you can see whats wrong with that…

Trait line 3, Trait 2: complete story quest “The Battle of Claw Island” – again, a trait that should be available to a level 36 character, this time locked behind a slightly lower level 50 story step… i think you can see where i’m going with these…

Trait line 4, Trait 1: complete the obsidian sanctum jumping puzzle – i’m sorry WHAT?! Are you out of your kitten minds over there?! the obsidian sanctum is one of the LONGEST, most tedious jumping puzzles i’ve EVER had to do, and that’s without all the other servers griefing you… Whoever decided this would be appropriate for an ADEPT trait should be fired no questions asked!

and finally

Trait line 5, Trait 3: complete story quest “Retribution” – again, another adept trait locked behind a quest way higher level than it needs to be, this time a whopping level 59!

Granted these are just ones i could think of when i decided to create an alt and finally got to level 30 and realized how much of a chore it would be to unlock traits i USED to use to help smooth the leveling process… This is completely OUTRAGEOUS! You should not be forcing new players to suffer difficult or high level content just to unlock traits they should be experimenting with by level 40…

Lucky for you though i have a solution for this too, its a solution i’m sure a lot of people have been thinking about for a long time, make generic trait unlocking guides. These generic trait unlocking guides can then drop from level appropriate content (ie adept trait guides will drop from level 30-59 world bosses, map completions, jumping puzzles, ECT. while master trait guides will drop from level 60-79 content, and grandmaster will drop from level 80 content) heck you could even just go through and replace ALL the usual occurrences of unlocking traits with dropping guides for your first time through the content (obviously you have a way of keeping track of whether its the first time through or not otherwise i’d get trait unlock messages every time i did TA story)

Now i know these ideas are by no means simple to implement but i honestly think it would be a simpler system than what you gave us with the LAST feature pack…

I will address my concerns with each point as i think a good means to solving it in two separate posts (because I apparently ramble)

JonPeters.5630:

Trait Tier level increase. We made this change because despite what the more hardcore players like myself want, most players need to be introduced to systems more slowly so that they don’t get lost. Every time we overwhelm new players that is an opportunity for them to stop playing the game. Every time that happens it becomes harder and harder for new players to develop into longtime players. Without more longtime players it becomes hard for you and your current guilds to meet and find people to replace those who inevitably will be pulled away by real life from time to time.

How does moving the acquisition of trait points from level 10 to level 30 help people not get lost? How does it keep them from getting overwhelmed? Previously they were introduced to traits along side utility skills, and i can kinda see why this would be confusing, but now they are introduced to traits alongside elite skills which while fundamentally similar to utilities are still a new level of skills that the player needs to learn how they work, why they have such longer cooldowns, and why they are SO much more powerful than regular utility skills.

My solution to this problem would be to move trait point acquisition to level 20 (much like others have already suggested) and change the Trait points to unlock ever 5 levels (this does mean that your last level will grant 2 trait points but by that time you should fully understand it and it would make more sense why 80 gives you 2 since you will also unlock grandmaster at that point). What this does is introduces a new system 10 whole levels before introducing the final tier of skills (elites) and would easily help new players understand making builds more diverse right after giving them the final utility slot

After reading the recent blog post I have some serious concerns about your wording about the changes to the personal story, below is the paragraph in question and i have bolded the section I am concerned about:

As another addition with the level-up guide, we’re updating the personal story steps using our new Story Journal so they come in story chunks that unlock all at once per chapter. When a story chapter is unlocked as a level-up reward, you’ll be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline. In this way, story chapters become another big moment to look forward to earning and unlocking as your character levels up.

Now my question to you is such, how exactly will unlocking the personal story in chunks remove all the “awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline” that apparently exist now? Will this system not just move all these starts and stops together and make them an EVEN MORE glaring problem? It seems more like this is just your excuse you are using to close up the hole that is key farming…

Modryn.7806:

Devildoc…you wear the same armor in pve that you do in wvw, so yes there is still concern for class balancing if they make it available. To accomplish what you’re saying would mean making wvw become like spvp, where when you zone in you equip a different set of gear.

total noob question (still down fully understand the stats of this game) why is it not too broken for sPvP but too OP for WvWvW, it it just about the number of opponents or is there some other underlying factor at work?

wow this is a really good poem, gave me chills, we should have had a general halloween themed contest instead of a diorama contest because there are people like you, creative writers who need some recognition too!

i personally like all of these suggestions, as it stands it takes WAY too much to craft the armor boxes and isn’t work the materials you put into the box

op this is amazing and i think this might actually be a fun but efficient way to discourage botting