Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

We cater to people for the game to exist and continue. That’s why the average/lowest common denominator has always been catered to. Games that are aimed at only the highest percentage of the population tend to be ignored by the rest of the population..but MMOs today are too competitive to not try to get everyone they can get. You end up with a niche game, which is fine, but then it gets updated less, because it’s a niche game. It becomes a vicious circle.

I guarantee you that the games I’d like the most would end up going out of business. There must be a balance between getting enough new players across the gate to play the game and stay with it and catering to those who like the game for other reasons.

And you know, the NPE has tipped the balance a bit too much in their favor. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t agree with that.

But you know, having a bunch of people running around the open world, who never do dungeons or triple threat isn’t particularly negatively affecting my game. It is, however, helping to fund my game.

That’s why.

Then the lowest common denominators can have their metaphorical pacifiers while the rest of us can level the old way.

It’s not rocket science.

HandOfKane.5409:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

There was already a starter area for every race, why not just add to that so its a better tutorial.

Exactly, like the dodge tutorial. Even many of the harshest critics state that said tutorial is the right kind of tutorial.

Agreed. Its there to be investigated and learned from without impacting the experience of those who already understand the mechanic.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

There was already a starter area for every race, why not just add to that so its a better tutorial.

Exactly, like the dodge tutorial. Even many of the harshest critics state that said tutorial is the right kind of tutorial.

Vayne.8563:

shadow.6174:

Yes, there was a patch that fixed several things. But a big part of it still feels wrong and needs some action. Even after that fixes the system still treats people as having low IQ, things are still dumb and non-sense, it still have too much hand-holding and too much restrictions where it was never needed.

The fix done feels something like when someone holds your hand to help you to cross the street, then you tell them that they are gripping your hand too much and all what they do is only lessen it a very little bit, but still holding it tight as if supposing you aren’t able enough to do it on your own.

But there are people with low IQs. You’re probably a smart guy and smart people don’t realize that most people are average. There’s this thread right now on reddit.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2vqowu/new_player_with_some_questions/

This guy is level 15 and doesn’t know what to do. He just doesn’t. Now I’m not saying he’s not intelligent. I’m saying he could be quite smart, but he’s from other games that give you very clear breadcrumb trails. This game doesn’t.

So any help you can give players that aren’t as quick as you are isn’t a bad thing. Frustrated people do leave games.

These changes weren’t meant for you and an experienced player can travel through them very quickly.

That’s why I say that our feedback, saying that we shouldn’t be treated like we’re stupid..well sure, that’s what the most intelligent people would think.

How about we try to be a little more understanding to those that haven’t picked it up so easily.

From someone who advocates a lot about not every game is for everyone please explain why we need to cater to these people. This game was already one of the easiest to pick up and play MMOs on the market. If he can’t get it then I’m pretty sure MMOs aren’t his thing. There is no reason to dumb the game down for someone who most likely won’t be hanging around anyways. There was already a starter area for every race, why not just add to that so its a better tutorial.

Cherine.3184:

I can’t help but feel that this could have all been avoided if it was all optional.

I personally think that the NPE works against the stated intentions behind its implementation, but it would certainly be less of an annoyance for me personally if it was optional.

“Broken forums are broken.”

Lol yeah

But ja, we’ll test it out ourselves to see if the fuss is indeed warranted. (Not just the NPE fuss, I also mean level-gating and, the to be ‘fixed’ trait issues, backtracking and ‘quest markers/arrows’.)

I can’t help but feel that this could have all been avoided if it was all optional.

Broken forums are broken.

Stop being a shill! And what has BB got to do with anything? It’s a POS, and yes while it was popular, it doesn’t mean that it was good at all… (And I personally disliked it a lot too, amongst other things it just showed off and rewarded negative/backstabbing behavior.)

“the overall response on reddit is more reasonable than here.”

I’ve been there and had a good look around, and is why I actually came here… The feeling seems to be much of the same as I’ve seen here. But if it’s you saying otherwise, it must be true hey?

But as I said, I’ll go try it out myself and see what it’s all about – with an open mind, I might add. If it’s all nice and playable I’ll be pleasantly surprised! But if not and I don’t have the freedom to play as I once used to, I’ll be validated for feeling righteous indignation when I see/read how things that were never broken have been ‘fixed’.

And please, you really don’t need to speak for the masses as they are speaking for themselves, if you care to look around. (RE: seen too many views from too many people that are completely contrary to my own experience.)

At the end of the day, and you can’t even deny this, where there is smoke, there is fire.

Cherine.3184:

So after stopping GW2 for maybe a year…. I bought GW2 for my wife a week ago, and I was over the moon as I thought I may be able to entice her into playing a PC game with me again (she played GW1 ages ago though, but never tried GW2 out yet), and then patched about 7gigs last night…

But that was until I came to the forum to get an idea of the state of the game…

I’ll probably be selling her, unused, copy of the game and will go back to ‘something else’, tyvm. Mainly because I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach making a new char at all… By the looks of it, I’d prefer getting kitten drilled in my head than play GW2 at the moment.

WTH ANet, wth… Are you a bunch of sadists? lol

EDIT: Found another thread where the trait system will be unlocked, which is a relief. What about the NPE system, will we be able to toggle it off (why is it mandatory anyway?)? What the hell drove you to implementing something as draconian and silly in the first place though? And why does it take so long for you to actually acknowledge it?

I am one of those who dislikes the NPE. even so I suggest that you let your wife try it out for herself. Dont do her the disservice of making decisions for her based on people on the forums.

“Anyway, I can’t imagine why anyone would judge games based on forum comments.”

Lol… Really?

So you’ve never based any decision/thing on what someone else thinks? So much for reviews hahaha. It feels like you also need to try stretch your imagination and try some lateral thinking as there are MANY reasons why “anyone would judge games based on forum comments.” My opinion btw, not a statement of fact.

But you know what, I’ll give it a go, show her the ropes on my account and maybe even go as far as I can w/o violating any ANet guidelines and getting banned, and then decide… If it’s still poop, like the majority of players are saying it is (as opposed to you, and I’ve seen a lot of your recent posts (seems like you’re an Anet employee btw but I digress)), I’ll go play something else and spend my money elsewhere.

EDIT: You also seem to always skirt around the fact that this system is/was unilaterally handed down to all, regardless of how experienced we are. Handing down a mandatory system like this is something you do if you want to alienate older players and I’ve seen it happen enough times in my experience of gaming, and also where I work.

And I’m sure that even you can’t deny, where there’s smoke, there’s a fire…

Anyway I’m out, I didn’t come here to change my mind or debate, I came here to weigh in and add my voice to the growing masses of displeased gamers. Hope this mess gets resolved in a timely fashion and the game gets restored to it’s former, ‘choose how you want to play the game’, glory.

So after stopping GW2 for maybe a year…. I bought GW2 for my wife a week ago, and I was over the moon as I thought I may be able to entice her into playing a PC game with me again (she played GW1 ages ago though, but never tried GW2 out yet), and then patched about 7gigs last night…

But that was until I came to the forum to get an idea of the state of the game…

I’ll probably be selling her, unused, copy of the game and will go back to ‘something else’, tyvm. Mainly because I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach making a new char at all… By the looks of it, I’d prefer getting kitten drilled in my head than play GW2 at the moment.

WTH ANet, wth… Are you a bunch of sadists? lol

EDIT: Found another thread where the trait system will be unlocked, which is a relief. What about the NPE system, will we be able to toggle it off (why is it mandatory anyway?)? What the hell drove you to implementing something as draconian and silly in the first place though? And why does it take so long for you to actually acknowledge it?

NPE, with its pop-up reward boxes making the game into one of “loot-happy” games that the market is filled with. (chuckles) I guess this is why some of us do not like it.

NPE was not what one would expect with the manifesto.

Just now though, it came to me that NPE is like the corrupted roots sent out by Mordremoth. I’ve been trying to evaluate the HoT expansion. Something about it just reminds me of the Mordremoth. (Can I help it when I keep seeing the videos?) It’s almost symbolic. This game, in the direction it is heading, is already showing signs of Mordremoth taking control.

lol. my analogy of the day. :P

The reason behind all this is marketing. Revenue demands. Idealism needs a strong implementation to keep up with revenue demands. NPE is not such a strong implementation. It’s a patch. It is instead detrimental in the long run to the vision.

BlueOcean.5380:

Ashendale.2165:

naiasonod.9265:

[sic]

After reading your post I had the urge to bawl while hugging you while stabbing these people in the eye with a mechanical pencil.

I feel like printing your post on a stone slab and bashing them in the head with it.

Can’t stop chuckling at this one, dude. Cute, man.

To Ashendale:

Ok I’m going to use the word “love”. I loved your statement, and that was why I kept chuckling in admiration of your courage in actually using the word “bawl”. That’s pretty brave for a guy. I had a hard time to even say “cute”. lol. You said well. You pointed out the grief I should be having, but I hadn’t even sensed it yet.

I just read all of your old posts in this thread, and remember clicking “like” on many of them. I realize now you have been wanting to play new alts, but can not stomach the NPE so you can’t do it. You had tried to get friends in to play under NPE, yet they all left after a short time. I can relate in that my old bud left this game upon NPE to play EQ2, which is probably going to shut down.

I watched the GW2 manifesto videos again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

Guess my first alarm came when devs made all world boss events on a timer. This was a deliberate choice.

NPE sent out even more warnings to us.

Whatever you do, please know I have the utmost respect for you. Take care.

As someone who just returned to the game: Why?

I’ve had this game for what, 5, 6 months now and the experience just feels horrible, especially when making alts. The sense of wonder in the world is placed with little “go here” glowing icons on the map that are gated by level, encouraging backtracking which GW2 essentially eliminated before this update. Progressing in the story is gated now, opposed to having the challenge of taking something on that was a level above you or few, and going back to take it on if it proved too much. SKILLS, instead of being progressive and fun with each weapon, are now gated by level and automatically given to you regardless if you’ve used the weapon or not before. Everything feels like an extended tutorial that’s been streamlined so the average toddler can pick up the game.

Would you like some feedback? Next time, please don’t fix what isn’t broken. The little features that made me love the game are now gone, and that saddens me to no end since it’s difficult now to view GW2 differently from the common MMO and these changes are inclined to make me leave once more.

Ashendale.2165:

naiasonod.9265:

[sic]

After reading your post I had the urge to bawl while hugging you while stabbing these people in the eye with a mechanical pencil.

I feel like printing your post on a stone slab and bashing them in the head with it.

Can’t stop chuckling at this one, dude. Cute, man.

You just made me realize something.

The whole thing that bothers me about this NPE is a sense that the game has changed direction that made me both sad and alarmed. It is a sign where the original GW2 vision statement is starting to fade, and monetization is rising.

In the last week or so I had been reading up on what happened to SoE as it was sold to an investment company that is reputed to be a shell-and-sell entity, and the looming demise to all SoE games.

I remembered the many years of EQ’s decline. A lot of it came from management’s monetization schemes. As it stands right now, I can see GW2’s monetization, and it is not nearly as bad as EQ’s, but…

It is just sad to see monetization is detrimental to the game’s original vision.

I think GW2 is under a lot of pressure to drive revenue up. It may very well succeed in its monetization. Time will tell. But I do feel there are many other ways to generate revenue as I evaluate this game today. Sadly those are not being taken. Oh well. Maybe the next game will have it.

I’m having fun in this game as a bit player, one that you see running around newbie zones. I am happy because players like me are no longer a targeted playerbase by this game.

In the past I used to feel a compulsion to donate to the game, like buying a ton of stuff that I don’t really need. Now I’m happily letting their target player base pay the bills. I’m sure NCSoft, in its many spreadsheets, already figured out their monetization to derive revenue from their targeted player base, and it is the one I am being forced to accept anyway.

Hope you have fun doing whatever that is fun for you.

After many years of EQ, in the end I found the smartest players there were the ones that belonged to a tiny RP guild that spent all their time in newbie zones. I was dumb, man! Was I dumb!

A wolf is also not my enemy in WvW, how come these invis chars have it so much easier with the broken targetting.

I posted elsewhere but will repeat here.

Ranger, Longbow. Im in Dostoev Sky Speaks. I am entering the tunnel that begins the path to the Gate for the vista up there. Pet is on Active.

In front of me are a Dredge Disaggregator (closest) then 2 Dredge Excavators.
I fire. Longbow hits furthest Excavator. Pet does a Bob’s Dog and runs UP the tunnel ROUND the corner to attack an Disaggregator that isn’t even in line of sight.

Completely agree that it was a bad call of the Dev’s to remove this. It should be put back in as it was.

AllNightPlayer.1286:

Found the old Commando class trailer and look, old idle and running animation on females. But nowadays, you cannot make these cool videos anymore, A-Net.

Commando Class
1:25 & 3:15 stretch animation | 3:32 front view run animation

Nice find! Those were the days… Honestly, i cannot grasp why it’s so difficult to just put the animations back in the game. Especially since miniatures, inappropriate armour combos (pink moustached norns, etc.) tonics (in the eternal alchemy cutscene) have ruined our immersion anyway.

We laughed those off so why is stretching and kicking dirt such a heinous act? Can we at least have all of the above removed as well so as to keep our immersion intact? Or have the animations put back.

Here’s what Gaile told us 3 months ago (I can’t use the “quote” feature… I guess the thread has been deleted or locked, but I dug it up on Google).
_________________________

Soooo sorry! I asked about this and forgot to post!

Some time ago, it was noticed and reported as a “bug” that during cinematics, the “fidget” animations continued. So you’re seeing this exciting story bit about a dragon attack and, behind the scenes, your character is yawning and toeing the sand. It just didn’t fit.

So the animations were temporarily removed to be worked on and reincorporated in a way that allowed them to perform normally in the game but to stop (or maybe change) during cinematics. But getting to a place where the animations could be configured on a more fine-grained basis took more time than anticipated.

From what I understand, the team has the tools to reconfigure and re-enable the animations, but the team lead told me that naturally they’ll need to figure out when someone (or maybe more than one person) can be assigned the task. As it turns out, each animation bit needs to be reconfigured individually.

TL;dr: This change is coming, as soon as it can be scheduled and prioritized. Naturally, some matters that are higher on the priority list but this project will be scheduled as appropriate.
_________________________

That was 3 months ago. The issue originated 5 months ago. I know “Heart of Thorns” is the current excuse. Back then it was “attention being paid to China”. There’s always something else.

Can we please get an update, Gaile? You tell us ANet knows the problem. ANet has the tools. Can we please hear that this hasn’t been swept under the rug? (I read “temporarily removed” there).

Easiest, quickest fix: Just put ’em back! A couple of seconds of “fidgeting” during a cinematic is less than .01% of our everyday play. If you really, truly think this needs fixed, then fine – fix it. But don’t remove them from the other 99.99% of the game in the meantime. It’s my bet that if restored, you’ll get tons of “thank you, ANet!” responses, and never hear a peep about “fidgeting in cinematics” again.

On a personal note, I am a GW2 “photographer”. I am working on “Screens” folder number 30 (that’s 30,000 screen captures). These animations, while seemingly trivial to some, are very important to me. I would dearly love to have them back in time to catch the beauty of Heart of Thorns.

The “official” reason for removal of the female human idle animations was that some players complained they were “immersion breaking” during some cut scenes (especially certain NPC death scenes, when the mood was supposed to be sad).

Death scenes represent only a tiny fraction of cut scenes. Cut scenes represent only a tiny fraction of our online play. So why completely remove these animations from the entire game when it only affects a minuscule portion of it? This response was entirely out of proportion to the perceived problem.

And what about my feelings of immersion? I am usually bored to tears when the cut scene soap opera is playing. My female human was perfectly expressing my feelings whenever she stretched or shuffled the dirt at her feet.

And what about the other races? The Asura crack their knuckles and scratch their heads. Norn males stretch and smack their fist into their palm. Charr flex their claws. My female Sylvari waves her arms about and gives a great big grin. Do these animations have any place in those rarely-seen death scenes?

Please restore these animations to the game! I guarantee that more people miss them than cried about seeing them in cut scenes. Fix them whenever you have the time, if you think it’s such a big issue. But please restore them to us in the meantime.

naiasonod.9265:

[sic]

After reading your post I had the urge to bawl while hugging you while stabbing these people in the eye with a mechanical pencil.

I feel like printing your post on a stone slab and bashing them in the head with it.

My guildies were talking about the expansion and the new profession, randomly asking if people were thinking of leveling one. I am not touching a new character with a 10 foot pole until the trait, leveling and personal story system are fixed. And by fixed, I mean either back as they were, or with a turn off button.

They weren’t even in a state that would warrant the amount and “quality” of these changes.

Vileste.7148:

[sic]

The popup are intrusive and uncalled for. I did not want the kitten system for my first character, and I sure as hell don’t want it for any that would come after.

As for the example you’ve given, I guess I wouldn’t mind a way to simplify those popups. Why so much grandeur? Are they supposed to make me feel like I saved the world each time I successfully escort a kitten dolyak?

The NPE is garbage as either a tutorial or a streamlining of the experience. I make systems for a living – this is trash and whomever made it should never be allowed to make anything other people will have to use ever again.

Why so salty? Because I’ve tried my best to make sense of it.

There is none to make. It’s all arbitrary changes that make sense only in the context of presuming then to have been made by somebody that either hated the game or never played it and had no intention of ever playing it.

Trying to explain to new players why they can’t do X, Y or Z or even look at UI pane 1 until level XX is painful. I feel like I’m attempting to explain Scientology with a straight face to somebody.

Its trash. The trait system is also trash.

It makes me about near want to flip a table to know that people got paid to design these systems. If I did my job as poorly as game devs seem to think they should do theirs, we’d be calling it a success when only 75% of all airplanes fell out of the sky after 3-6 months of use.

But I suppose they’re not accustomed to actually having standards or being held accountable for terminally flawed systems since nobody’s actually got their lives on the line over whether anything they make even works or doesn’t.

Fricken scrubs. I think I’m sincerely jealous of how flagrantly incompetent they get to be and it’s just business as usual.

Guess it’s also why devs are often treated like expendable garbage by studios and publishers too though. They’ve got the industry they’ve aspired to and often enough deserve, when they’re apparently happy to stick their customers with easily fixed garbage they just can’t be bothered to fix.

I’ve come to realize that I hate the pop-up windows. Not just the NPE leveling windows, but all of them by association. There are too many and why do I have to click ‘accept’ on a screen when I earn a bouncy chest if there is no choice for me to make? It seems pointless and they just become an obstacle for me.

I get it when there is a choice to be made, sure, fine. Heart rewards? OK, but they are so big and annoying, but OK. Silverwastes? yeah yeah, I got a shovel and crests. Again. It just gets annoying.

btw – is there a keyboard shortcut I don’t know about to shut down these windows without clicking?

So, since there hasn’t been any response from ArenaNet in a long time I have a question:

Does the ArenaNet staff even care about our opinions here?

I barely post anything on the english board since I’m not very good with that language (and at some point, I gave up on complaining and making suggestions). With the 75% sale I thought “Hey, what was the most enjoyable thing I’ve done since the release of GW2 in summer 2012?” Guess it was to level 8 characters up the max level. I’m one of the ppl who likes to walk the way more than to reach the goal itself.

So when the game price was drastically reduced I decided to create new characters on a new account and play all classes completely different than I did before. Well… shortly after that I was forced to “enjoy” the NPE….

What. Crap. Is. This? Do you hate new players? Do you think new players are dumb or even kittened? You’ve already made this game so freaking easy, even a 65 year old grandma could play it pre NPE. Now I can’t choose what I want to do at what time or place.

@The 10lvl Story scraps: Pre NPE I managed to do quests 8 level above my character. How do you expect NEW players to understand that there is ANY story at all, if they don’t even see it in the beginning of the game? There are enough players who don’t want to pointless level up his character if they don’t even see a reason behind his existance or any connection to the world.

My dad entered my room recently and watched me doing heart quests, he said “That game looks quite good, but why are you doing this?” I answered “I must do 4 more levels until I can play the story again”, then he: “Oh ok. Don’t you forget half of what happened when you can’t play it in one go? Sounds boring.” Both of us play most times RPGs and I’m yet to convince him to try a MMORPG.

What Guild Wars 2 is simply doing right now, is discouraging potential new players and “veteran” players alike to even start the launcher. And the fact that NOONE of the official employees even cares to answer to this thread anymore or to suggest to the others to return the previously great leveling experience to the way it was before. This game is almost dead to my old account. I don’t see any reason to log in since I’ve tried everything that is doable with lvl 80, but that aren’t many things compared to other MMOs.

Why is there no reaction at all? Why don’t you care about how the people feel who stayed with you for over two years? Thats just heartless and makes me really sad!

My two priorities in a game are 1) good gameplay, which GW2 does hit on the head with its basic combat system and is also one of the things they haven’t changed much since the original core game, and 2) immersion.

The recent changes, especially the NPE, have broken immersion terribly for me.
Even the whole “you now have skill number 4 unlocked”, while being fairly standard MMO fare, rips immersion apart for me now after having experienced unlocking weapon skills by using the weapons.
I now farm PvP to get Tomes of Knowledge to try to bypass the lack of a smooth, natural-feeling progression in GW2’s current leveling experience, but I feel like I’m missing something by doing that, too.

My Suggestions:

-Give players the option of either unlocking their skills by using the weapon or paying a trainer to unlock them (at a very low cost for beginning players without much money). These could be added to the “wares list” of the existing trainers that sell profession traits.

-Implement a “training grounds” area in each city or starting area with the aforementioned profession trainers, dodge trainers, actually hittable training dummies like we have in Heart of the Mists, and and area where players can see and test out the effects of combo fields with their own finishers, and their own fields with various finishers. This would allow players to learn about their skills and what the combat system has to offer through experience in a controlled environment (which both the NPE and tutorial fail to do thoroughly, and which I assume is part of the goal of the NPE).
One could even add an area for the player to get a feel for their downed skills and a pool for underwater combat. Players could unlock their weapon skills here as well as in the world.

- Revert the traits system to the original one, or else make trait unlocks profession-specific and have what the trait does actually somehow correspond to what you need to do to get it. For instance, one could defeat a fire elemental or Flame Legion shaman for a trait corresponding to burning. For the engineer’s “juggernaut” trait (gives stat boni while using flamethrower), they could kill x number of Flame Legion Igniters.
This would add more variety and help players explore the open world/game more (which I assume was the original goal of the traits system).
(And yes, this really belongs in the trait thread, but I wanted to “bundle” my suggestions together, as this also affects how new players experience the game.)

-Do not level-gate the downed system or underwater combat. As some people have previously pointed out, these are key features of GW2 and should not be locked for new players. The mechanics are not very different from normal combat and gameplay, so I do not see the issue.

-Do not level-gate POIs, Vistas, and Skill Points. The current level gate leads to backtracking for new players (which I believe GW2 wanted to eliminate) and denies new players sources of experience early on.

-Give players their profession skill completely. Why does my engineer have to wait until level 19 for his profession skill number 4 despite the fact that it operates on exactly the same principle as every other of his profession skills? Same goes for the mesmer, and the elementalist.

-Lower level-gates on other things, such as weapon swapping and receiving trait points. Level 7 was okay in the old system, because that was when you’d gotten a “feel” for more than just your starting weapon usually, but I might even go lower.

-I’m all for the loot you get by leveling up (helps me not feel so under-geared when I use Tomes of Knowledge). However, I really like someone else’s suggestion of having these things given by a quaggan, able to be turned back in for extra XP. I would make it some racial representative instead (Quartermaster for Charr or humans, for instance).

-Make level progression feel smoother again, with stat points being added passively as well as skill points, and a trait point every five levels or such. “Batches” feel very jerky, and it creates the artificial feel of “some benevolent deity of progression decided to hand you these”.

Essentially, I liked the old system. The new NPE has done little to correct the lack information contained in the old one. Heck, the information needed could be better more thoroughly delivered by a mandatory NPC dialogue (akin to talking to the scout like after the first PS instance) or by more mails from “Your Herald” giving information than by what the NPE does.

Sorry for the long post.

shadow.6174:

Yay, dumb NPE strikes again… Yeah, it seems some devs or someone in staff can’t see these reasons… I still can’t understand how those icons were overwhelming… contrariwise, they can be an incentive to exploring. I NEVER got overwhelmed by those at my first char and I wasn’t a MMO veteran.

Yeah, I am just sitting here… utterly astounded… at that ‘reasoning’ for level locking unnecessary things. Though the stepped progression that means you can go from a 90lb weaking to Mr Apollo just by levelling up mid-fight even more astounding.

Xillllix.3485:

Is there really such a thing? Why would you lock everything down? The fun of a MMO at first is exploring. Even the day I bought the game I had no problems at all navigating the world map even with the “icon overload”.

Nobody did, but that’s one of those things that weren’t broken but Anet fixed. I’m really tired now of telling people “is not a buuuuuuug” in the spanish forum (which looks like a dev desert because only the community manager speaks there, and only in 1 each 50 threads asking for help).

Anet, please, put it back like it used to be.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

You can still explore, and the vistas/et al are still there, but the icons don’t appear on the map for <L10 characters. Not everyone who plays is an MMO veteran, and can find a multitude of different icons in the first 30s of play kind of overwhelming.

Isn’t it rather presumptuous to think so low of players? That’s like saying we should hide some road signs from new drivers…

Why not add toggles for various map symbols? I’m a veteran of many decades, and I’d love to turn on and off various map symbols.

Pathetic! Yet daily I see names referencing drugs, slaughter, satanism, and other subjectively more offensive character names run about with abandon.

Sorry for the loss of your character name, OP.