Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to add my thoughts – for reference I am a casual player – I’ve played since launch and only have one lvl80 char – I have a bunch of others spread from 20 to 66.

In all that time I have had great fun, but haven’t really amassed a great deal of gold, gear, or skill points. I rarely get to play for more than about an hour at a time, so a lot of big world events, and even amost WvWvW is usually beyond the scope of my gameplay.

Generally it’s a good update – but there are definitely some issues with the changes to traits.

The trait unlock system – although i think it could be a good system – is currently so badly designed (or, more likely, not designed at all) that it’s offputting to say the least.
Any unlock system has to have level appropriate unlocks, and they have to be within fairly easy reach of most players regardless of how they are able, or how they choose, to play.

Trait point distribution and level progression – I can accept the new version, but it does seem worse, in that the sense of ongoing progression will be less, and the top heavy distribution of trait points seems odd and much too biased towards the top end – at least consider evening out the aquisition of points, maybe 1 every 4 lvls starting from 28 – but i also think it shoudl start at a lower level – however then you have a problem, since you can’t reduce the “gap” between gaining a point, and start at a lower level – tricky.

p.s.
Thanks to rstripn.8697 whose comments are all good, and i agree with (apart from maybe putting up the costs for buying traits – since i am poor

About World Boss Events and PVE in General

To me, the Megaservers + Boss synchronization takes away any feeling of personal achievement, initiative and self-organization.

It’s just hitting a boss as part of a massive zerg until we get the loot. And doing boss events seems to be a lot less profitable right now, which is a huge problem for casual players who want to get some ascended gear; or do not have the time to play several hours a day.

To me, PVE Gameplay is close to non-existent in the moment.

Since I love this game, I’d like to make some suggestions what could be done, not only about bosses and megaservers, but PVE in general.

1) create events which encourage self-organisation. The big wooden tower in the Kessex Hills was a good example for that.

2) Give Players more choices, start at least 2 boss events any quarter hour.

3) My guess is that at least 80% of all existing “normal” events are nearly never played – what a waste of design and ideas. Give “normal” events a “reward level clock” (should be visible on the map), and give them much higher rewards if they weren’t played for a while – let them scale accordingly, with Champ enemies, etc. This would make “Questing” fun (and profitable, which is a Prerequisite given economical goals like ascended gear or legendaries). Give Players a chance to self-organize and communicate / cooperate, see Events like the Nagling Giant, or the Wolf Master Champ. Doing “normal” Quests could and should be much more challenging and at least as rewarding as doing boss events.

4) To populate lesser played maps, reward levels should be pushed on that maps. For example: Queen Jennah could announce that the people in the Gendarran Fields need some help, and that reward levels will be higher for a day (and enemies tougher). The announcement could even be done by a lonely herald in the cities, so the news could be spread player to player.

5) Big Events like Tequatl might be interesting for huge guilds (which is perfectly ok, imho), but for casual players, they offer a hard choice: should I really spend an hour or more on that map waiting for the event, hoping it will be organized , missing other opportunities, and in the end, the event might even fail? Imho, events should be more rewarding right from the start.

6) Give Players a (visible!) Incentive to form groups, play with guild members, and doing events from the start; sort of a personal reward level: +10% for playing in a group, +10% for playing on the same map on the same events, +10% for playing with guild members, +10% for any part of the event that was played, etc.

8) To promote playing with a Guild, You could create a guild event that gives higher rewards for some hours on a map for a certain guild, for all activities on that map.

9) Dungeons / Fractals are mostly boring. Either somebody did a dungeon path a gazillion times before, or he / she is more or less dragged through that dungeon by a group who has done that dungeon … a gazillion times before. Use Your existing designs, and open dungeon paths and fractals in a way the wooden tower in the Kessex Hills worked.

10) Open World Chest. Assume an open world chest like the one close to svanir shaman starting point would suddenly be guarded by a bunch of really though svanir champions… could be something nice in that chest…

To reiterate, the world boss synchronization, although maybe necessary, has killed a lot of what I would call “Meta-Game”. For a much better PVE Experience (this is what a lot of Players look for, imho), the Game Design should promote communication, ad-hoc self organisation, cooperation, grouping and possibly guild activity – and this could be visible as a “Reward Level” on the GUI.

Events should be designed in a way that makes them rewarding right from the start – not more “binary” events like Tequatl or the three headed Wurm.

The reward level should be high enough to be encouraging. It should be as high as the more or less profitable, but boring PVE activities like World Event Hopping or Dungeons. After all, economical goals like creating a legendary weapon is a huge incentive to keep playing Guild Wars 2.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I can’t believe what I’m reading,… people requested a system like this since release of GW2 – something that has been in GW1 from the get go. Now we got it and people cry how they need to do open world stuff / quests in order to unlock it. Seriously?

Personally I think this is wonderful. I have tons of new traits I can work towards to, and if I’m tired of a build I have to go adventuring to become better. It feels much more like GW1 to me, in a good way.

No, I do not want everything unlocked from the start.
Yes, I want more stuff to do in the open world.

Honestly: thank you, Anet! These changes made the game so much more fun to me.

I agree with you. It is more fun being able to earn your traits, and see your character grow as a direct result of your hard work. I see nothing wrong with introducing that into the game. Actually, I welcome it with open arms.

However, you (and several others) seem to be missing the point that a lot of other people are expressing their grievances about. The method to earning traits is unbalanced, unpleasant, and practically impossible for lower level characters. Sure, you can easily unlock all the traits once you reach level 70+, but that entirely misses the point of building a character in the lower levels. It takes away something valuable in the journey to level 80. Some adept traits are unlocked by doing ridiculously difficult tasks, that virtually make unlocking those traits at level 36 impossible. Now that doesn’t sound very fun, now does it?

For the most part, that is what people are complaining about…

In all seriousness, I dare anyone who thinks that this new unlock system is “wonderful” to make a brand new character. Once you reach level 36 and you have unlocked the ability to apply an Adept trait, achieve 100% map complete on Fireheart Rise, Iron Marches, Mount Maelstrom, or Frostgorge Sound. Mind you, completing each of those maps only unlocks a single Adept trait. Not a Master trait. Not a Grandmaster trait. An Adept trait. Tell us how much fun that was at level 36.

(Reference) http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait_guide

I’ll aim to keep it short, but brevity is not my long suit. After giving it a week, here’s what I’ve got:

The short:

There really was something psychological to gaining a point every level; it made each time an event. Now it’s meaningless. I accept that simplifying traits to 14 points works, though I reject that there was anyone so witless as to be confused by the old system. I deeply detest the backloading of power gains. It turns the journey into a slog and makes this a game intent on max-level content at the expense of the rest, which is what every other MMO is and which I sought to escape in coming here.

The long:

sPvP was arguably least impacted by the trait change, since sPvP’ers still have access to all the I-XII traits anyway (I tested this with a new character), outside of the new interface, which is annoying. Previously, I could click on any Major Trait hexagon and get a flyout menu listing all the options available at that point, which I could mouseover for details. The scrolling menu &c. is too clicky (this is a thing). There are 5 lines with 13 traits for each of 8 professions; I have several alts, am casual, and am old: Unless it’s called Good Sword Stabbin’ or Focus on the Focus I am not going to recall a trait’s function by its name; the listing is wasted space.

We can divide PvE into Leveling and Group Play. The latter, by which I especially suggest dungeons, has not to my experience benefited from the changes. Since the Feature Pack I have run several dungeons, both around suggested range (no more than 5 levels above minimum entry) and at max level scaled down. Whereas previously the contribution difference between the 80s and the “lowbies” was certainly noticeable, it was not always glaring. It is now of such an extreme that the lower level characters simply represent warm bodies being carried through the content, often in a mostly-dead state.

Have enemies in dungeons been re-tuned for a lack of traits at lower levels? I couldn’t say. On the one hand, the 80s tore through them as 80s do. On the other, the low level characters seemed to offer little outside of opportunities to rez. My sample size was not large, but I can say that in prior dungeon-running experience, there was still a sense that everyone was a member of the team.

WvW suffers similarly from the power gap. Before, I could take a non-80 into WvW and still contribute. Now I largely cannot. One has the equivalent of half the trait points one previously had and no access to higher tiers. One gets the sense that s/he is a liability, rather than a scrappy utility player. It’s not a good feeling.

Others have commented eloquently on the new leveling hazards. Recall that the announcements and notes made reference to only “Trait Guides.” I took this mean that there would be a series of items, such as “Adept Trait Guide,” that would appear as loot or reward or somesuch, which the player could then consume to unlock a trait of the player’s choice. I recognize the theory behind the reality of the implementation — earning a given trait would be specific to a given task — but can only echo others’ concerns that it was not enacted with a particular attention to fitting reward to deed.

Sadly, I can glean some rationale behind the placement of middling abilities behind walls only surmountable by more powerful means: You are meant to grind mindlessly to max level, and then begin to play the game. In the normal course of progression, a PC will simply not have the in-game currency, spare skill points, or in some cases phyisical capacity to obtain the points.

On a personal level, I spent some time recently trying to convince an old buddy — the guy who got me into MMO’s — to join me on GW2. If he takes me up on it, I will have inadvertently subjected him to a leveling experience that is of a sudden unkind and bland. Now what do I tell him? “Sorry, I guess the company and I tricked you. It used to be good, though!”

What I expected:
-Get to said level
-Unlock trait choices
-Get list of tasks appropriate for that level as, for example, some not horribly complicated JP, exploration (this is present) and my personal preference, obscure veterans mobs that have something thematically common with a trait you unlock. -Again, everything appropriate for level you unlock slot.
-And, if you don’t want to do it, pay few silver to trainer.

What I got:
-Completely inappropriate zone levels
-Grind
-Rely on presence of zerg
-PS out of slot unlock level range
-Sending lowbies into WvW maps (I can’t even being to describe idiocy in this one, with possible exception of EotM since it’s a leveling train anyway)
-And if you don’t want to do it, more grind for gold and skill points.

Having lvl 80s I can pay gold but the skill points? Leveling you need them for utility skills and even if you wouldn’t unlock any and did all skill challenges I’m pretty sure by 80 you would still be short of total points needed.

Pushing traits to 30 makes early game that is already dull, due to not having all the class toys to play, even duller. Early levels are extremely important for a new player to get hooked on the game. People are likely to get only traits that meta builds dictate thus killing the point of free respec.

Not to mention how this system destroys ‘hop right into it’ part of sPvP experience. I play all modes of this game but for people that don’t like PvE this is a huge punishment.

If devs want to make people do the content they listed as tasks, they should make it award some fashion coins that you can trade for unique skins. This way PvEers and some PvPers would do it for collections or ‘prettiest princess’ syndrome. That of course would require new non-gem skins so it is not happening.

I have 9 character so, despite the fact that I’ve have planned at least 2 more, I can live without new alts. However, I finally managed to talk a friend into joining me in GW2 baiting mostly with aesthetics and ‘play how you want’ part. Yes, I could give them gold but skill points? ‘Play to grind’ is not an attractive slogan for a new player.

How to fix this? Roll traits back to be unlocked by default and use task system for something optional. But, since companies don’t like admitting their mistakes, this is unlikely. Thus, remove skill point cost, cut gold cost to at most 1/2 of current, make all tasks level and solo appropriate. For sPvP make all traits unlocked by default. For WvWvW, make them cost badges. For people with multiple copies of the same class, make traits to be account unlocked.

Now, for the people that enjoy this system, I honestly don’t understand. If you find them fun why didn’t you do all those things required before the change? Are you the type that needs to be forced into something or will not bother otherwise? As for ‘similar system worked in GW1’ argument, don’t even start with this nostalgia. I am GW1 veteran, it is a completely different game with absolutely different progression. If people want get their GW1 nostalgia catered, anet could make an option to unlock elite skills in similar fashion.

There’s completely no need to defend anet. It’s is a business company and, since this is B2P game, we are already the paying customers.

Well, I just got a new Ranger to 30, after using a free level 20 scroll, because I disliked my original choice in race and aesthetic choices and longed for the Ranger I had back in beta, and it felt like there was a huge gap between learning all of my weapon skills and getting that first trait point. It was only 10 levels for me because of the scroll but it would’ve been more like 20 or even 25 had I not used the scroll.

Then I actually looked at the traits, so I could plan ahead which I wanted unlocked by the time I had the second tier opened up, only to find absurd restrictions on them all! My level 30 Ranger is blocked from getting the two lowly Adept tier traits I want because they require completion of level 55-75 zones. One trait says it requires you to capture a certain place in WvW, which may be a problem even for people who play WvW regularly if their realm just doesn’t go for that objective.

These aren’t just difficult or uncomfortable, they’re outright impossible in some cases, and prohibitively expensive in time and effort invested for the reward. For spending hours 100%ing a high level map I expect a lot more in a trait than a piddly movement speed increase or a bit more Swiftness. The loot and other rewards for 100%ing the map are irrelevant in light of the fact that I’d get those anyhow if I actually went and did something I personally wanted to do, rather than feeling forced to grind out a map, like a chore, just to build my character the way I’d like.

I feel forced into buying individual traits from trainers in many cases. This is far, far, FAR worse than buying skill books and spending points on piddly stat increases each level.

I’d say the spacing in trait points need to be more steady and not take 30 levels to start, and that the trait acquisition itself needs to be both level-relevant, and not prohibitively difficult, tedious, time-consuming, or complex. A jumping puzzle, depending on the puzzle, seems like a good middle ground. Capturing a tower or grinding out an entire map is as far away from a good example as I can possibly imagine.

And by level-relevant, I mean it’d be nice if I could knock out traits along with hearts and vistas and pets in a zone as I level. Just another destination on my journey rather than an abrasive and abrupt disruption in how I’d like to play. Maybe incorporate them into the personal story or tie them to specific lengthy in-game event chains like the Shadow Behemoth or the Icebrood Marauder.

The old traits weren’t perfect but I liked them much more than this. +10 stats every level or two is strongly desirable to what we have now. This is live in the game right now: You get your first trait nearly halfway to max level. That’s shocking and dismaying to any player.

You play the first third of your leveling experience without any way of customizing your character beyond gear and weapon choice. These choices happen to be at their weakest in the first third of the game! +5 precision vs +5 might is not an entertaining decision to make.

Something has to be in place to keep players engaged in their character progression for the first third or first half of the leveling experience. Maybe utilities need to be more available. Maybe Elite skills need to be opened up sooner and made more affordable. The problem here is enemies die really easily at low levels, often making utilities and elites semi-useless. You see a lot of people running signets in low level content because there’s no need for real effort.

Altogether, this change feels like it heavily punishes new or solo players. Forcing them to pay for traits others got for free. People without guilds or without helpful guilds that can’t pull a group together to run Twilight Arbor or capture a tower in WvW.

Most game devs seem to make this mistake: They live and breath their game so they lose sight of the fact that not everyone does. So they neglect solo content because they can call on a dozen different hardcore friends for advice or help running something or a loan or a team for pvp despite the fact that most players have no such luxury, and many prefer it that way.

Not everyone plays the game to hop on Vent and get personal with people living across the continent. Many people use MMOs to unwind in a persistent multiplayer world. They don’t play to maintain a second social life. If you can’t or won’t accommodate this swath of people, they’re so carefree about it they’ll just play something that does. Because the critical retention feature represented by the rest of the playerbase has minimal effect on their playing habits.

Sorry for the wall of text. It’s a complex issue with complex factors and results. And I was just that dismayed after experiencing these trait changes firsthand. I’m debating going back to my less preferred Ranger, from pre-patch, hoping he has the traits all unlocked, if this doesn’t kill my enthusiasm to play entirely, that is.

This trait change is a mixed bag for me.

On the positive side:
1) The reorganization is more intuitive. I like having 1 trait point opening up a trait benefit I can choose instead of having one open up every 5 points.

2) The design is well thought out. It is easy to find the traits, to add and subtract and change them.

3) It was brilliant having the acquisition information built in. I love how handy that is.

On the negative side:
1) It was hard losing trait skills I already had learned with my level 30-48 characters. I had paid for manuals and opened up trait skills that now I will have to reaquire and at a much higher cost. For example, my 2nd highest character, a level 48 necro, used to have her death trait maxed through the master level (equivilant to 4 of the new trait points.) Now she is allowed only 1 point in Death trait and has to unlock the ability to assign more.

2) Trait quests are too difficult. I was pretty excited when I heard we would get a chance to acquire trait training through quest rewards, but the choice of quests seems a bit odd. In the above example, my level 48 necro needs to go do a lev 55 storyline quest to acquire the ability to put a 2nd point in the Death trait line. I would have expected the trait quests to be more in line with the character level at which the trait points are earned.

3) Trait guide prices are too high. Generally lower level characters can’t earn as much gold as quickly as higher level characters and there are a lot of things to spend on — such as armor and weapons as one levels up. A high price for an item needed to level up a character is a harsh penalty on new characters. Higher level characters not only earn more gold faster, but they also have less need for the gold as they don’t have to constantly upgrade their weapons and armor.

3) The new trait system enourages a fixed trait point allocation rather than experimentation or customization. Just when people need to be experimenting the most — with a new character — trying new builds and seeing what works best for them, they are limited to what they can open up easily or buy. Since gold is harder to earn at lower levels and the quests are for higher levels than when the character can allocate the trait points, then it seems as though we are being led to placing our trait points in the order easiest to open rather than by what playing style we prefer. And yet, the pre-release notes implied the trait changes were designed to encourage customization. Perhaps it encourages customization at higher levels of play, but it sure discourages it at low levels (unless it is an alternate character on an account with an 80 level character that can act as a gold feeder.)

4) Trait progression is too slow. Half the fun of a new character is leveling up and getting more powerful. There is a huge disadvantage to being a non-max level character. The closer one gets to level 80, the less a disadvantage. To counter-act that, a new character has to progress faster through the lower levels. A linear progression just doesn’t feel as satisfying as one skewed to progress faster at lower levels. I really like that GW2 requires the same xp for each level, but I liked the earlier trait system where characters progressed quickly through early levels. It meant a character felt powerful fast enough to be satisfying. I think this trait change slows the progression down too far.

5) This trait change encourages the creation of a single character and makes it less likely a person will go through the effort of leveling up and aquiring traits for very many alternates. The traits open per character, not per account. For anything that is character-based, the cost/time expenditure has to be smaller. The previous system required the aquisition of only 3 manuals per character at a total cost of 3g 10silver now it costs 43g 360skill points per character (or a whole lot of time invested in quests one might not have done otherwise.) What is ironic is that this change comes at the same time as the change to make dye account-based. Kind of like making the same mistake as the one being fixed.

6) This trait change again penalizes the solo player and player that belongs to a small guild. If one has a group of people one plays with who can help take a new character through the necessary quests, then these trait quests won’t be too much of a problem. However, they provide a serious disadvantage to the solo player and one more strike against small guilds.

I love the dye and armor/weapon skin changes. I like the concept behind the trait changes, but I hope there will be some tweaking to make this better for the beginning player and those of us who like to have more than one character. I would really like to enjoy the myriad storylines — without having to find other people to play with.

I think the unlocking trait idea is a decent idea, but was executed fairly poorly.

There are two ways to unlock traits: skill points + gold, and doing activities.
It seems to me that skill points + gold is very cost prohibitive. By the time a character has leveled up to 36, what is the expected amount of gold a new player has stockpiled? It’s probably about 1-3 gold. So this tier actually works okay from the gold standpoint. I mean, you’re taking a new player’s limited resource and draining it, but they’ll surely regain their wealth in enough time. However, the skill point cost makes absolutely no sense.

Currently, you can spend skill points on skills, traits, and items. Items are definitely the lowest priority, so disregard that for now. To unlock every non-elite skill for a character, you need about 100 skill points. In my experience, I usually unlocked every non-elite skill and an elite or two right around the time I was 70 or so. Having to use skill points to unlock traits basically means that until a character is 80 they’re going to have to make a choice between filling their trait lines to capitalize on all of their tools, or unlocking skills to increase their build diversity.

This makes the trait purchasing system unfeasible, in my opinion.

So this leaves with the adventuring option for unlocking traits. Aside from the issues many people have with the various methods (locking an adept trait behind clearing a level 70 zone, etc) there is one HUGE problem with this method; it pretty much counters the mission statement of Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars 2 was billed as a game that breaks the traditional MMO mold and allows people to play any way they want. If someone wants to only play WvW, they can. If someone wants to only play sPvP, they can. If someone wants to only play PvE, they can. But the trait unlock system has basically ignored all of these people, and is forcing people to acknowledge parts of the game they find uninteresting or boring. It’s really counterintuitive to lock something so fundamental to a player’s power and creativity behind such rote, unimaginative, time consuming tasks. Many can be completed when you reach the appropriate level, but getting to the appropriate level has become severely tedious without the ability to use traits to boost your character’s abilities.

It’s pretty much a terrible system.

Well, I made a new character with my wife recently, and I hit 30, what a smack in the face. I don’t see how any of this system is good for new players, and everything you claimed prior to the patch seems to be the opposite in-game.

“One fundamental change to the way traits function is that you won’t be required to visit a profession trainer and purchase a training manual to access the adept, master, and grandmaster trait tiers! Once you reach the appropriate level, we want you to be able to dive right into the system and start playing around with it, so you’ll unlock each tier for free!”

Yes, the tier is unlocked, but the Traits aren’t. So, I got the tier, and three traits I unlocked by chance while doing some map completion. But the traits are not related to the build I’m trying to make, so there’s no “diving in”, I have nothing to play around with! I can refund my traits anytime, but what’s the use, I only have three traits ! For a lvl 30, I can’t unlock the other ones either, since I can’t map complete a lvl 70 zone or other ridiculous things. So, I have to buy the books at the trainer if I want to have some traits, so this also contradicts the fact that I don’t have to visit the trainer!

“As part of this approach to making traits more approachable, we’ve pushed back the level at which the different trait tiers unlock for new characters in order to better pace the early game "
So, for 30 lvls I have nothing to do, and then I have, behold, ONE point! Then nothing for 6 levels. I feel useless.

I loved the system the way it was, you had progression and a small boost every level, at every five you have a trait, it was awesome, it helped you understand the trait system, and if you add the free refunds that are currently implemented, then you could really “dive right in” you could try a bunch of builds while leveling, it would be great.

I think the map completion requirements should be perhaps only for one skill per tier.

It feels like nobody tested this trait system, how could no one see that a lvl 30 trait being unlocked by a 70+ zone completion go through ? It’s insane!

BAWW.8104:

- the tasks should be tied to content of appropriate level, as many have suggested.
- the tasks are entirely irrelevant to their associated traits. What has killing this boss or capping that tower anything to do with the trait I just learned? Nothing at all.
- the tasks should be tailored and different for every profession, such that a player levelling different professions get directed to experience different content, instead of the exact same content everytime.
- the tasks should teach or demonstrate some things about their associated traits. For example, a dredge boss converts conditions on him and his allies into boons every time he hits his gong and pep-talks his comrades, and upon his defeat my Guardian learns Pure of Voice. I just want some relevance.

How much of this? So much of this. This is exactly what players were asking for when we were initially discussing and brainstorming on horizontal/vertical progression. I have absolutely no idea how ANet interpreted what we were saying into what made it into the game.

Skills/traits absolutely should be something that a player can earn instead of just buy (whether it be from a trainer for Gold or off a menu for some sort of spendable point) but, as above, there are certain tenets that must be followed.

- The skill/trait needs to be acquirable in a way/location/etc that is appropriate for the character wanting the skill/trait (if it’s a level 35 skill it should be, barring certain design possibilities* , be in at most a level 40 zone)

- The task required for the skill/trait needs to have some relation to what you’re going to be earning, otherwise it just feels like checking items off a completely random shopping list. For the most simple and obvious example, a skill/trait that is obviously group play focused should be earned in group play. A skill/trait that is obviously group play focused should not be earned in a solo personal story instance.

• I am not against the idea of there being treks into higher level areas for certain skill/traits if it’s thematically appropriate. A thief trait that improves stealth, for instance, would be perfectly well suited to be earned by having a lower level player “sneak” into a higher level enemy area and interact with an object. This should, however, be the exception and not the norm, and should only be used when it makes sense to the class and the skill/trait earned.

I’ll join the crowd saying this is overall a bad change – being able to freely change trait allocation is wonderful, and I have no problem with going from 70 points to 14, but having trait access pushed back 20 levels across the board is really discouraging me from playing my two low-30’s alts, and there’s no way in hell I’m making any new ones after reading the list of trait unlocks under the new system.

Consider what you have to do to unlock just the 30 adept traits:
– 13 map completions; only three maps are between level 25 and 40, while another three are level 60-70, and one is 70-80.
– 5 open world group events/activities; two are sub-40, two are low 40’s, and one is level 58.
– 3 soloable things in the open world; two sub-40, one low 40’s
– 3 personal story steps; all level 50+
– 3 tower captures in EotM (if you’ve never done WvW, towers require groups)
– 2 story mode dungeons; one level 40, one level 50
– 1 WvW jumping puzzle

So out of the 30 adept traits, 10 require groups to complete, though I’ll admit the 3 EotM towers should be easy enough if you log in when your color has a good zerg going. But the bigger problem is that only 7 (11 if you count WvW) of the 30 are reasonably attainable by a player that hasn’t hit 40 yet, and only 5 (6 counting WvW) of those are soloable. Under the old system, a level 36 player could have 3 minors and 2 majors, with the full lineup of major adept traits to choose from – now, a new level 36 can have 1 minor and 1 major, with potentially 0 majors unlocked, and more than a third of their major adept traits locked behind content that you have to be 50+ in order to do. Didn’t anyone at ArenaNet notice how discouraging that looks to a newbie?

tl;dr – As long as the new list of unlock tasks remains in place, I cannot in good conscience recommend GW2 to any new player.

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.

First of all, I love this game. I’ve played since a couple months after launch and on average I play 4-5 hours a day. I love the many ways you can play; whether I feel like running around gathering and crafting (love the many cooking recipes), tackling dungeons, solo exploring, fighting in groups, squaring off against a fellow player, or spending hours trying to figure out investment strategies for the trading post.

I love the communities I’ve become a part of. I’ve been part of small guilds and big ones; run solo and in 150 person groups that fill up maps to the brim. I’ve run WvW for 2 different servers. I seen friends come and go (and hopefully come back for some of the new content).

In short, I love the vibrant and nuanced world Anet has provided for us and the wonderful people who have joined together to become the beating heart of Tyria.

And since the megaserver patch, I have considered walking away. And that is all due to megaserver. The balance patches and new traits have given us new builds to play with; the account bound legendary weapons are something I’ve begged for since spending many, many hours building mine; the wardrobe system is fun as heck to play with. Even the new gated traits, which at first seem tedious, really brings exploration back to the game.

This is not to say I don’t understand the purpose of utilizing megaserver architecture, I do. The 2 key items I see are
-Anet saves $ because Server resources are allocated more efficiently- not utilized to maintain empty or near empty shards
- New players are less likely to quit due to player isolation. Any zone that players enter are as populated as possible. For major world events, being on a small pop server or playing in off hours does not reduce chance of success.

In short, this is merging servers without the negative PR of merging servers. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Retaining player base and reducing bottom line expenditures makes it a better for all of us in long term. It may even allow Anet to move forward on the long awaited expansion; with megaserver’s combined maps, old GW2 maps wont feel like ghost towns when expansion maps open up.

However, and this is the big however, the current implementation of the megaserver is suboptimal and is rather discouraging. As follows:

The mega server system is geared towards solo adventures and small groups that stay in a single map and penalizes other play styles.

-Trying to meet up on a different map with someone outside of your group is a crapshoot. Several times in the last week, I was running solo and a friend (on friend’s list, from same server, but non-guildee) whispered me that a couple people were meeting up in a different map. I waypointed to join them, but almost every time I was put on a different shard unless I was actually in their group.

-Trying to organize large groups is disastrous. Preceding user posts have detailed how attempting guild missions with large guilds split the guild into multiple shards.

-With non-persistent shards, the feeling being in a living world (a feature heavily trumpeted by Anet as differentiator vs other MMOs) through dynamic events is gone. It now feels random. If I way point to another map (or disconnect), I may end up in another map where the dynamic event progress is completely different. Often times, I have ended up on a newer shard where every dynamic event is failed or at its starting point.

-Trying to organize major events is disastrous. I love that anet gave us challenging events like tequatl and the 3 headed wurm, but by LIMITING THE SPAWNS everyone piles in together and trying to get an organized group to take over a shard (like TTS did with the old overflow shards) is very difficult. Since organized groups cant take the shard, the groups on each shard do not have the necessary coordination to do the challenging content.

-Server identity is starting to die. The only affect that I can see of your home server is WvW. As I adventure, I used to get to know a lot of the people around me from other guilds because I kept running into them. When I left my old guild, one of the reasons I joined my new one is because of people I met on the map. Now, I recognize fewer and fewer people (and its only been a week).

-Gathering/crafting. with constantly changing shards, resource locations are constantly randomized, making attempting to gather inefficient.

- Waypointing is a pain- by contesting every contestable waypoint, I have to waypoint twice. I don’t have the best computer, and this adds much loading time. Additionally, this makes the world feel less alive; as I saw waypoints around the world open and close (or opened them myself as launching point for my friends and members of my guild to join me) I felt part of an alive community.

I am a member of Ethereal Guardians which is a major presence on Sanctum of Rall server. We maintain 500 members regularly. We are highly active. During peak hours we will have 200+ members online at one time. We greatly enjoy participating is large guild events to include daily Tequatl kills, guild missions and daily world event trains.

We do not like the Mega-Server update as it has caused problems with our ability to keep guild members together during these large scale events. I do not have an idea of how to fix this problem but I will say that this particular update has reduced the level of enjoyment our guild experiences.

Please consider removing the mega-server update if favor of the previous method of server administration.

Thank you.

A personal reaction to levelling under the new system, now I’ve had a little time to try it.

I’ve made several comments in this thread so far about the mess that the pre-level 80 trait system now looks to be. But there’s nothing beats experience, and I’m well aware that my expectations and guesses as to how something will work out are not always correct. And I like to be fair. So, over the last few days (having a lot of spare time on my hands), I’ve been PvE levelling a level 27 elementalist that I had at the time of the patch. Note that, because she already existed, she has all but the new character traits already unlocked, so I’ve had none of the issues that a wholly-new character will face. She’s now level 40, so I reckon I’ve given the system at least the beginnings of a fair trial.

And I’d say that, in my opinion – and compared to what it felt like before – the feel of levelling can now be summed up in one word:

Soulless. (Sorry, ANet, but it is.)

Before, from quite early on, each new level had a reward. Granted, mostly it was a small reward – just one more tick toward the next major or minor trait, plus a slight improvement in your character stats. But it was still there. You got to open your trait panel and push the button to allocate it. Every level felt like progress. And every now and again, that progress would add up, and you’d get a bigger reward.

Now? Until level 30: nothing. A new level is just a number on the screen. At 30, you finally get that first trait – and the feeling is more of an exhausted, frustrated “Jeez, at last…” than a delighted “YES!”. And then, for another 6 levels, it’s a continuing search for the next places to go to get experience, and it’s back to the same old, dragging, unrewarded grind. And levelling up now isn’t so much something that gives you a sense of achievement, as an annoying reminder of just how far you’ve still got to go before you get anything back for the effort.

Basically, the new design has turned its back on something the industry has laboriously learned over decades, and that every game designer ought to understand without even thinking: Players thrive on regular, positive feedback and reward, even if it’s only small. The new trait system has gratuitously stripped out a core reward for the effort of levelling, and it’s the worse for it.

**One thing you still get at each level, of course, are Skill Points. Now – it’s possible that the new system could have been tuned to make me eagerly welcome the new point that each level brought, to let me get that new slot skill I wanted. And I can see how a player new to the game might still find that to be the case (at first, at least). In my case, knowing the build I was working towards, it simply didn’t come into the equation. By the time each new slot became available, I always had the points I needed to buy the skill I wanted to put into it – up to and including the Elite slot. And even if I’d been obliged to buy my first major trait (by virtue of being totally incapable of getting to the content to release it), I’d still have had the points I needed – even ignoring the option of buying it via another character. My Skill Point total simply didn’t matter.

(Edit: Corrected “minor trait” to “major trait” above)

Edit 2:
Oh. And, at level 40 – half way through the (numerical) levelling process – I have precisely ONE (Count it! One!) major trait allocated, to make her substantially different to every other elementalist out there. And she won’t get another for 8 levels yet. I cannot honestly express just how disheartening that feels.

Huck.1405:

I transmuted a headgear item on my char, un-equipted it to do the same to another, and when I tried to re-equipt the first item I was prompted to use a transmute charge! For a item that had already been transmuted! WTF is this?

If we have to transmute everytime we change gear this wardrobe system is already a epic FAIL!!!

There is no charge to re-equip. What happened was you thought you were equipping the item, instead you were transmuting.

There are three tabs… dye is self-explanatory. Wardrobe,a dn Equopment are different and operate differently.

WARDROBE is the skin. If you try to use the wardrobe tab, to re-equip a helm, it will try to re-skin the helm you are currently wearing,. not change that helm, for another.

If you were transmuting, it sounds as though you did not change to the equipment tab, before you tried to re-equip. THAT is why it tried to charge you a charge.

lordkrall.7241:

It is quite funny that people complain about this fix, seeing as people have been suggesting this very fix for a very long time (even before MegaServers), but now all of a sudden it is the worst fix ever.

What fix do you mean?

Here are my thoughts on how to improve world bosses:

• Keep the spawn timers as they currently are.
• Keep the world boss pres as they currently are.
• Spawn a portal after the pres are finished.
• Distribute people in instances using “poker dealer style” (like with the Marionette), but keep parties together. This can be done using the same dialog as when someone in your party enters a personal story mission.
• The number of instances depends on the number of people on the map and the world boss. For the Fire Elemental, you could aim for 20 people per instance.
• Add a respawn timer for dead people. The duration of the timer as well as the placement of the checkpoint depends on the world boss.
• Change the guild world boss unlock so that all member get a popup message (regardless of where they are) if they want to participate in the event. Instead of distributing them automatically, let them choose the instance where they want to go (until one instance is full).
• Add a short timer till the final event starts (after an instance was created). People can use this period to do some organization.

By the way, to be clear about it: If the language issues and the world bosses are fixed, the megaservers are really nice. In an MMO you should not be the only person on a map and this system accomplishes exactly this. So keep working on it.

So, I’ve been playing for two weeks now. I was loving the game, and was smack dab in the middle of the honeymoon phase. I was so wrapped up in it that I hadn’t even bothered posting on the forums yet. However, I’ve been playing these games since 1999, and this is the first time since 2003 that a single patch has killed an entire MMO for me; it has -never- happened to me during my initial rush of love like it did this time.

Full disclosure, I am very probably not the target demographic for this game. I realized that going in, because I’m not fond of dungeons and I’m not fond of pvp. Dynamic events can be fun, but mostly I like leveling, I like character progression. Much to my surprise, I loved the GW2 system of last week. I looked forward to logging in every day and making the tiniest bit of progress, having the player agency of adding a point here and a point there at the end of every day. Those were heady days!

They’re gone. My endgame has always been the journey of leveling alts (by playing the game, not grinding through it), and it was literally the only endgame that mattered to me in GW2. The new changes make it feel like progression doesn’t begin until 30, and from that point on it only happens once every six levels. The whole system feels back-loaded now, making the first half of the game feel like “something you just have to get through until the good part begins.”

Contrary to what the intended design goal was, the new system — if it made me want to log in at all — would make me want to just zerg-grind my way to the cap so I’d have traits to play with, not play through it incrementally the way I did before.

I’m sad, because I was really enjoying myself for awhile there. I don’t consider my money wasted, but the honeymoon’s definitely over now and the bell-hop’s taking my bags to the car.

Normally I wouldn’t write a post like this. I’m not really invested in the community yet, no one has any reason to care whether I stay or go, and “I quit!” messages after patches always seem ugly and self-serving. My main reason for posting today is that these changes were ostensibly put into place to make the game more enjoyable for newcomers. I’m a newcomer (so new I didn’t even realize these changes were incoming), and they chased me right out the door. It seemed worthy of note, especially since I’m exactly the sort of player who would’ve bought three or four character slots somewhere down the line.

Nage.1520:

Yes you can hide the gloves and head of a costume, just like you used to. Uncheck the costume slot, turn off gloves and helm, recheck the costume slot and you’ll have no gloves and no helm.

I didn’t know you could hide the GLOVES too. I’ve only seen mention that the HAT is removable. Good to know! Thanks!

What PoorTramp wants, is to be able to hide the OUTFIT hat and gloves, but still see the ARMOR SKIN underneath.

Nage.1520:

The reason town clothes were discontinued in the first place is because they aren’t compatible, seam-wise, with everything else. The meshes don’t mesh for lack of a simpler explanation. The time involved in remaking those clothes to make them work on five different races would be prohibitive.

Town Clothes “seams” weren’t compatible with current ARMOR SKINS. We know from the Flame-Kissed skin debacle that a full six-piece set of armor takes about a month to make. SIX SKIN PIECES for ONE weight class per month. So couldn’t they then make two individual pieces per month for each of the three weight classes? (Roughly).

This time frame is fine with me. Heck, ONE per month is awesome if we can dispense with this “Tonics” foolishness. I will be happy to wait.

Nage.1520:

The upside is now, when new stuff is released, it will be wearable whenever you want. Yes, it sucks…but in the future, it’ll open more possibilities. Sometimes you have to take the long view.

They will be releasing OUTFITS more than SKINS, since one size fits all. But they will have to be some mighty nice looking ones to entice me into buying something that won’t even retain your dye settings.

As far as SKINS, they don’t like to do TORSO and LEGGINGS much, due to those particular pieces clipping with other armor skins more than the ones clear out on your toon’s extremities. That’s why you see them releasing mostly “easy” skins as individual pieces, like Hats, Shoulders, Gloves, and Boots. But they also recognize that people often don’t want to see Hats or Gloves, hence the ability to toggle them off. Most of our individual Town Clothing pieces were those difficult Shirts and Pants, so they took a shortcut and instituted the tonics to save themselves time and effort. They need to take the time and do it right. We will wait.

At first time, I was worried about the megaserver thing. But I tried to see how it will work and how I will find all the people I meet everyday. And, guess what, I was unable to find them. Even if they are in my friend list or in one of my guild, I didn’t find them. I’m really sad about this days …

I’m a french roleplayer on the non-official RP server : Jade Sea.
When GW2 launched, I was roleplaying on another game.
My friends told me to come. And I came a couple of months after release.
And since this time, it was great. I had tons of RP. I met some new people. On lots of map (not just DR so), I met people, just random people, who I got to RP to and who was not in my friend list or in a guild we share.

But, since Tuesday release, it’s impossible to me to meet new random people. Even the guild up thing is not working. On Thursday, we got a cultural norn event on Hoelbrak (yeah, event to drink beer :p). We have to group with other people we knew they was coming to bring them in the same map. I hope this is kind of broke and will be repair soon. At least, we will be on the same map as our friends or ours guildies. But for all the random RP people who were on Hoelbrak to see this event, I guess they were lost. How can you put this people who want to RP with if they are not in your friend list or guild ? I guess the only way to do that is to put people that from your home server (and with guesting). RP people who knew that when they choose Jade Sea, it was to roleplay.

As I read this thread (yes, I read all this dozen of pages), I saw some people don’t understand how RP works and say we need to group/guild. But, RP is not like that. RP is something that can connect you with people you don’t even know. It’s like in real life. For example, you can ask a random guy for your way. And this one can tell you the right direction or the bad. He can follow you, try to buglar you, etc. It’s the surprise thing that is important in RP (with other RP people !). If we stay on group/guild, we will not create enough game content to amuse us. We need to interact to a large of people. So, it was good to know that on our home server, we will find this people. Actually, we don’t know where we are. We don’t recognize people we are used to meet. And, on EU servers, there is more people who is not talking your native language. And there is a lot more trolls …

So, at least, please, bring us a RP tag and mix us with people from our native language.

I guess I don’t recognize this game anymore. I’m glad I will be away from the game for some weeks, so I will see on my return if changes were made in the good way.

anet designed a lot of content to funnel people together, i understand why they did this, but its too heavy handed. They also forgot that many of these events optimal player numbers are like 12-25. Most of them either get really boring or really annoying with a high amount of players.

Josh foreman got it right with marionette, you need to funnel players into smaller groups to get a good experience, with like 50-100 players.

basically a lot of these changes are highlighting flaws that were there since release, but mitigated through less population doing events.

The current WB system seems pretty hasty, and jury rigged into the system. Old chains need a way to make it clear whats going on, or probably going to go on, and need a better/climactic finish.
Honestly as far as adventure/fun the old system was a lot better, where you could often do different events fast, and was unsure what you would see or do, until that moment. It gave some unpredictability, but at the same time it had patterns and could be encouraged/forced. It was also a lot more natural when it happened in the zone

I don’t think that the change to Shadow Behemoth’s portals was the right choice for making the fight more difficult. It hasn’t made the fight more challenging, just more tedious.

It’s incredibly frustrating to run around the boss desperately killing portals (and portals which, might I add, are identical to the ones strewn around by the local heart quest), only to finally get back to his head, hit him twice, and have him resummon the portals.

It feels like trying to shave but having the hair grow back right where your razor just left. It’s not fun. It’s also quite difficult in small groups due to the amount of space the portals cover. Not every class is very mobile (cough mesmers cough), and sometimes if you’re not fast enough, you can’t get even back to his front in time to hit him before the portals respawn.

I have no issue with him being more difficult, but I’d like it if the team could find a better way to make it harder, that was challenging and fun. I don’t have any suggestions for you, but I have faith that you guys can come up with something.

Or, at least, if you could make it so that he summoned portals/went invulnerable less often, that’d be nice? Maybe if you killed all the portals during one phase quickly enough, you could keep hitting him for a bit longer?

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

I sat down and thought about what is bothering me about this update. It’s the smoke and mirrors aspect of it all. Instead of a new segment of the living story or a new expansion, we were given a new slant on the trait system, skills etc and then told “we’re listening, please let us know..” which is double talk since we’ve been asking for new content and have been ignored. We asked for broken quests, events, etc to be fixed, and have been ignored. We asked for an open dialogue, and we.. you get the picture. The recent update was designed (in my opinion) to distract the players and give Anet something to fiddle with. Meanwhile we are being ignored yet again. Players I hung with that always had good things to say about GW2, said their goodbyes and went back to other games. They said Anet had all the chances it’s going to get. I guess I’m gone to, the really crazy thing is some of my group went back to a pay to play game, they wouldn’t stay and play for free.

I’m not sure you’re following what’s going on with the game as closely as you think you are.

This patch was always supposed to be a non-content patch. It’s always been advertised as a non-content patch. Anet specifically stated they were holding the features away from the living story patches (which were pure content patches), so that the changes didn’t distract from the living world. You’re seeing months of changes that would have gone into the game starting January if they kept to the old system.

The new living story will be starting soon enough. Right now we have the WvW meta achievement (and again, last time people complained about having that during a living story).

The last content patch was like what, six weeks ago?

That’s not bad for almost any game…and then you get this huge feature pack. That’s not smoke and mirrors. This is precisely what Anet said they were going to do.

I’m pretty sure the launch in China is what’s holding up Living Story season 2 since they’re supposed to get it the same time we are. They’ll be more or less in sync with us.

The launch is on May 15. The speculation is before that we’ll get bizarre of the four winds, super adventure box or both.

I was on a server that was quite successful with running World events during the weeknights. There were a few individuals that would lead the group calling out where the next boss event would be, making it easy to travel with the usual group of people and have fun doing events. Since the update I don’t see any of the people I used to do the events with, it’s either a group of 100 or more people doing the event and the event taking forever due to it scaling up and 25 people just standing around, or I’m at event with 2 other people and the event “hangs” with no boss at the end (ie; Ulgoth ).
Logging in it’s hard to know what stage and rotation the bosses are at, the web sites that I used to monitor to show that don’t seem to work anymore. Warping around looking for events is not fun, having a place in game that shows where the action is at would be nice instead of alt tabbing out all the time. The whole community “feel” is gone for me since the update, I understand people leveling through the game will enjoy the added company, but for us who already had a great group of guys to follow and that are now spread out who knows where, it stinks.
Maybe add in a Server chat option so that we can keep in contact with what’s going on.

Removing the re-trait fee – Great.

Being able to re-trait anywhere – Great. More than I hoped for, in fact.

Simplifying down to 14 points instead of 70 – I’m fine with that. Makes it easier to re-trait.

Distribution of points in relation to character level – It seems like it’s weighted too heavily towards the higher levels.

The new trait unlock scheme – Seriously? I’m glad I had 8 level 80s already because this really reduces my desire to ever go through the leveling process again.

Having only one very specific gameplay-based unlock method per trait wouldn’t be too bad if they were all relatively easy to accomplish for an individual not-yet-highly-leveled-or-equipped character. But instead there are:
- Numerous map completions, which many people will find quite time-consuming and tedious.
- Several personal-story steps, which again can be tedious to get to.
- Several dungeon story modes, which obviously can’t be done solo. If a person doesn’t have friends or helpful guildmates who will take a non-level-80 through, then a player may be roadblocked quite a while from getting those traits.
- Various other group content and hard-to-solo content (especially for lower-level and un-traited characters).
- WvW content like the Overgrown Grub, Obsidian Sanctum, and Inferno’s Needle. Does this even need an explanation why it’s problematic? Forcing people into WvW who either don’t want to be there or aren’t high-leveled and properly equipped is not really good for anyone. Every time living story content was put in the Obsidian Sanctum, a significant portion of players didn’t like it. I can’t imagine why putting a trait unlock there seemed like a good idea or beneficial to anyone (except the players who like to camp it and grief others).

Of course a player can always choose to pay for the traits instead. Except that now costs a considerable amount of gold and skill points. 10g 100sp for all Master traits when it used to be 1g? Another 15g 100sp for the traditional Grandmasters when it used to be 2g? Wow. For a new player, those costs are ridiculous. And even with a new character of an existing player, for a large portion of the player base those are non-trivial amounts.

So leveling players are being pushed to either:
- Do lots of dungeons, story quests, map completions, events, bosses, etc to get their traits. But I thought do-everything-in-the-world type of requirements were supposed to be for high-end things like Ascended and Legendaries.
- Or grind out gold and skill points. But I thought this game was about keeping grind out of the core systems. I find it hard to imagine many players have been thinking “Gee, I wish the leveling process had more grind to it”.

I really don’t understand what this is supposed to accomplish, other than make it take considerably longer to get a properly powered-up level 80 character. And from my point of view, that’s not beneficial at all.

Okay so I started an experiment: I created a new character (Ele) as I only had characters which were adapted into the system.
TL&DR is: This new trait system is horrible for new players.

First off, I appreciate you trying to push players a bit into exploring the world, getting used to the characters and so on. The new trait system certainly does that – BUT there are some really obvious flaws.

To start off, you (the player) lost traitpoints up until lvl30 – Which means you are slightly weaker from lvl11 to 30 nowadays. Given that some classes, like the thief, are horrible to level in PvE due to them being really frail, lacking those traits really hurts.

From there on you get another trait point at lvl36 – So at lvl36 you could get your first adept trait. BUT somebody thought it’d be funny to link an adept trait, which you could get at lvl36, with a lvl70-80 map completion. Just think about that for a second please…

Also the new trait system encourages you to play WvW to get traits unlocked. However, due to not having a standard set of traits or even no traits at all you are even weaker as a upleveled player nowadays. You get rap** so much, it’s not even funny.

You introduced a system which is as flexible as possible (resetting traits everywhere) to encourage people to try out stuff BUT you restricted trait unlocking so much it’s hard to actually reach a point where you CAN be that flexible.

The solution? Buy all traits with gold and skillpoints… But skillpoints should be used for SKILLS. This is a really glaring problem right now. You are literally forced to pay for your traits since you simply can’t get to them otherwise (As seen with the complete a lvl70-80 map for an adept trait).

Things that you should really concider:

Link traits to appropriate challenges – If adept traits are unlocked by completing a lvl15-40 map it would be okay. Same goes for jumping puzzles or events within those level boundaries. Higher traits would require higher level areas.

Strike the skillpoint cost from traits (Even if just for adept traits) or lower them by a bit – As it stands you only end up strangulating yourself over getting traits or skills.

Give a possibility to unlock standard traits – Example: If you reach lvl36 you have a choice to unlock 1 adept trait of your choice and so on for higher levels.

I seriously urge you to reconsider your trait system. It hurts your game in so many ways it’s nothing to joke about.

Edit: I agree with the previous poster above me wholeheartedly.

Personally, I am very confused as to how this new trait system was thought up and organized. Like many of the previous comments, I am not too pleased with the new trait system.

First off, I’ll start on a positive note by saying: the free trait reset / reset anywhere ability are both great ideas which allow people to better experiment with their builds even while out in the wilderness. I have already put this to use many times, and I really appreciate being able to do this. Also, condensing the points from 70 to 14 makes sense to me, and simplifies the way players can setup their characters.

However, in regards to the new point distribution formula, I don’t understand why they would move the starting point from 10 to 30. Not only are newer characters subjected to losing out on the benefits of those points between 10 and 29, it really dampers the enjoyment of leveling a character. It feels like I am going nowhere, until I reach level 30. I have a couple below 30 characters from before the patch, and when I play them it really doesn’t feel like they are progressing, mainly because I cannot tweak their stats and traits. For example, I would like to add some toughness to my thief, so that he is a little harder to kill, but alas I cannot until he is much higher in level. Furthermore, these characters are slightly weaker than before and are more difficult to play. Although this problem is survivable, this adjustment is something that I have to disagree with. Personally, I would prefer something similar to what we had before; trait points starting at a lower level, and a more uniform distribution (as opposed to getting most of the points in the tail end of the leveling ladder).

As all of my lower level characters were created just before the patch, I cannot comment much on the issues regarding the unlocking of traits. Although this “unlock” system has the potential to be a good way to develop a character… it seems that it is too muddled in forcing players into situations that would be otherwise unpleasant or impossible until much further in the game. It also has a bit of a tedious feel to it; in the sense that unlocking every single trait will require a lot of time and running around. Or farming money, for those whom take the alternative of purchasing their traits. (Of course, there is always the option of gems to gold, but again, not everyone wants to do that.)

In general, I welcome any attempt to improve the trait system; there is nothing wrong with trying to keep the game fresh. However, I am having trouble accepting this particular update. If done correctly, an update should enhance the player’s experience and their impression of the game. Unfortunately, I think that this updated trait system requires much reconsideration. If the game seems to be progressing too slowly in the early stages of the game, it will affect the first impressions of those whom have just started playing. Also, it deters veteran players from considering extra character slots to make alts, because this format is too monotonous and troublesome to deal with.

I sincerely hope that the comments within this thread are taken into account, and that the appropriate adjustments are made to the trait system so that it is more uniform and enjoyable for everyone.

Cheers.

That won’t completely solve the problems, but it could be a start. I totally agree to the max player cap drop, it’s very frustrating as it is.

And add Preferred Language option maybe? I’m sick of the multilingual nightmare the game has become.

I have mixed feelings on the scheduled bosses. Some of them don’t happen often enough, and some – temples, fire shaman – aren’t even in the rotation, so there’s no way to know when or if they’ll be up. Temples are often not spawning because the pre-events are being done with so many people on the maps, and that’s a big problem. A lot of people farmed Balthazar/Melandru/Grenth multiple times a day before this patch – now they’re screwed. Either the Temple events don’t start, or they’re zerged down in a matter of seconds. Some of the bosses were trivial before, but this is just pathetic.

A big problem is the world boss buffs. A few of them – such as Jormag – were actually buffed nicely. Even with a zerg of 100+ people, he doesn’t go down quick. I like this change, though with the addition of so many champ spawns, half the zerg now just farms champs and the rest of us are left to slowly wittle down the HP of the ice barriers – but it’s okay, those champ farmers still get credit when we get the wall down.

Despite the champ annoyance with Jormag, I do like the ramped up difficulty. It’s more fun, even if it results in a lot more death. Other world bosses, however, were “buffed” and go down faster than before, or are just total snoozefests.

Shadow Behemoth was “buffed” to have more HP and…be harder? Great, nice, whatever, but he’s still easy as all kitten and all people need to do is spam 1 on portals every 20 seconds, then spam 1 on him again. It’s the same as we had before – not hard at all – just takes longer. That’s supposed to be an improvement?

Great Jungle Wurm, I like the extra difficulty to him, except his HP is way too low for such a large increase in players. He goes down in a minute or less. Sure, he’s harder now, more people end up dying, but his tiny HP pool means that this fight is pretty anticlimactic. The patch notes said that he gets more health from the veterans that spawn now when he eats them….except he never GETS to eat them, because he goes down before they even get to him, with no one killing them.

Fire Elemental, I didn’t notice anything tbh. The pre-event takes just as long as ever, but is even more trivial now, because there’s 2-3x the amount of players there used to be. Sure, some champs or elites spawn, but they go down in like half a second. Not exactly difficult. And as for Fire Elemental itself? The one time I’ve done it since this patch, he went down in literally 30-40 seconds. He was harder before. Now with the “buff” he’s easymode on easymode with Hello Kitty difficulty piled on top.

Golem, all you’ve done is basically added AoE indicators to make him even more easymode. If you knew what you were doing, you could dodge his knockbacks easily before. Again, feels like you lowered him to Hello Kitty difficulty. At least his HP scaling is still steep enough that he doesn’t go down in a whopping minute or so.

Shatterer…this is still laughably easy. He goes down in 5 minutes or less now; before Megaserver was implemented, he’d usually take at least 8, sometimes close to the full 15 on some servers. Great, he heals more now, but that health he heals disappears in about 10 seconds when he becomes attackable again.

Really, most bosses didn’t get buffed enough. No, I wasn’t expecting Tequatl-level difficulty, nor should they be that hard, but a world boss going down in a minute, or just being one boring, long fight where you don’t even have to move because you take no damage whatsoever just isn’t fun. I was hoping Shadow Behemoth, in particular, would get more challenging, but he’s not. He takes longer, but he’s just as harmless as he was before.

Furthermore, on all the bosses, you still have pre-events going for them very often. Really, why leave these pre-events in, just to confuse players that think they’re going to spawn a world boss? People keep doing Maw pre-events and getting angry when he doesn’t spawn. Same with Karka Queen. Some of these event chains don’t even make sense to be doing if they’re not going to result in a boss spawn.

Overall, I’m pretty disappointed. I do world bosses daily, and have for months now. I used to enjoy temples the most, but now I miss them the few times they are up, mainly because they go down so kitten quick, and there’s no way to tell that they’re even active unless a guildmate tells you – who, of course, have to actually run to the area that the event chain starts in to see if any temples are active. I hate this change the most because of temples – I never get to do them now. With the exception of Jormag, world bosses have become even more of a joke than they previously were.

I really hope you guys look at how much you buffed certain bosses’ hp, and the mechanics of others (looking at you, SB). Really not enjoying the Megaserver’s changes to world bosses and temples right now.

I may be wrong, but many of the decisions made in implementing the MegaServer patch appear to be based on hardware consolidation. Removing a guaranteed spawn for each zone on each defined world implies fewer computing resources are needed. Letting only one world boss spawn per time slot removes the need to support multiple highly populated zones simultaneously.

If this is the main reason for the patch, it could be that some of the Guild Wars 2 hardware is being redirected to another project or consolidation is being performed to reduce operating costs. Perhaps the current number of simultaneous users does not justify the original hardware configuration.

I too agree that the inflexible world boss schedule is not ideal for those who have a limited but consistent time slot to play each day. Multiple world boss spawns does not appear to be a solution (would require more computing resources) but rotating the schedule on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis would help.