Guild Wars 2

Perhaps the developers should consider why people were exploiting bundles to prematurely unlock utility and elite skills. Maybe, just maybe, the rate at which utilities unlock needs to be revised. I doubt players would be as desperate for a workaround if this change was entirely a good thing.

Also, it has already been covered in this thread, but the stat slump is a very frustrating issue for leveling. Please try to come up with a substantial fix for this.

One of my biggest issues though is that as a “veteran” player, any alts I make are still being treated as newbies with unnecessary locked content (vistas, gathering nodes, and skill points especially). The “too confusing for new players” reasoning for locking these is completely voided in the case of alts.

A lot of MMO’s and other online games have open Public Test Servers, or a variant thereof. That’s how the player base sees a lot of these changes beforehand, and can comment on what they like or what they don’t.

I know it’s been talked to death by this point, but I think there’s a lot of merit to it. I know I used to play both League Of Legends and World of Warcraft a lot, both of which had public test realms.

(LoL’s is gated so that only certain players have access, but it’s at least enough that news sites can gain access and let the community know what’s being changed ahead of time.)

Just a little sneak-peak like that for GW2 would be wonderful. I know that the public test servers have helped immensely for WoW and LoL. I see a lot of things posted up on the PTRs that end up getting tweaked/reverted, because they’re actually able to get the player base to see what’s going on, and they can bring up points that the devs might have missed, or show that “X” change isn’t actually working as well as they would have expected.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality

To be honest at least in my mind and to most everyone I’ve spoken to herein lies the problem. Trust is earned, you (Anet and or NCSoft not you personally )don’t trust your player base enough to tell them what’s coming down the line, why should they trust the direction you’re taking? I feel bad for everyone who wants to talk about their work and everyone dieing to hear about it and to me this policy is what is hampering all real honest and meaningful communication,and propagating the angry responses you see from many players.

Eh, some rage and hyperbole is justified, I think… When I found out that the Metrica Inquest/shark event chain has been removed, I was dumbfounded. This was THE hook for new players in this place. A sudden shark in their faces. Not even that dangerous, to be honest, but flashy, something taken straight out of James Bond movies. The evil scientists and their pet monster…

What is left instead? Instead of feeding cows, running around with water, turning into a repair golem? Some generic combat without most conditions and pressing F for 10-15 levels. I mean… How does that even compare?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ohoni.6057:

Note we want to make the fixes and then have a focused discussion about the system (Probably here)

We really want to hear what you think once the system/content is functioning as designed.

Chris

Again, waiting until it’s “functioning as designed” before having the discussion about it just pushes back the point where solutions can be reached. If you’d have discussed these changes with us months ago we could have hashed them out before the patch, and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Let’s say it takes another week to get things “functioning as designed,” and then we spend another couple weeks debating the changes, that’s weeks wasted when you could be working on fixing them now.

You guys already know which elements of the current game are bugs and which are features, so instead of waiting until the bugs have been removed, why not just TELL use which elements are not intended and which are, and we can discuss the issue from there?

This is the core about what we mean when we say we want communication. We don’t want to wait until things are implemented and then discuss them, we want in on the design process BEFORE you waste the time and effort implementing systems that we never wanted in the first place. Think of how many manhours you guys wasted working on these NGE systems that are dead on arrival with the players! How many other great systems could those developers have been working on instead in that time?

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality.

Chris

P.S: If you want to discuss potential future features and systems then you are welcome to partake in the CDI.

I get the impression you guys aren’t exactly talking about the same thing, I doubt he was asking about what the devs do in the sense you take it but more in what “intents” you guys have such as “we plan on changing how wep skills unlock to make the experience easier for new players” where we could then give you the immediate feedback that it would actually make things more confusing or harder on new players.

And instead of guessing what would make the new player experience “better”, asking players, just like the current CDI about Guild QoL. I think a lot of what is currently happening could’ve been avoided with a simple CDI that would’ve shown the clear disconnect.

I understand that you guys also want to surprise us and make us go “cool!”, butI think I can safely assume that there is a lack of experience in some areas with all the dev posts that say “we’re learning”, “its been a good learning experience”, etc. Also, from the videos, it seems like quite young talented people are at the head of major features (like the wvw wxp trait lines) but seem to lack the experience to understand what their userbase’s (an important stakeholder) priorities are. And I’m saying this not to throw rocks at them but to emphasize that good communication is even more so important.

The degree of required communication is directly proportional to the experience of the devs, for instance, map designers need to poke the forums a lot less, their experience on top of their talent allowed them to create this incredibly beautiful world and interesting new map (dry top) and only came to the forums for event balancing and other small tweaks.

I know I’ve been going long now, but for instance, dry top has the perfect example of a tutorial at the beginning of the zone. Much better than the existing changes for the NPE.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality.

Chris

Chris, I feel the need to point out one thing here. The person you replied to, he wasn’t saying we want to dig in when things are still in design phase.

A major point of the post was, “If you had let us in on the extent of the changes just a week before they were implemented, you could have gotten a lot of the feedback you have now, but two weeks earlier”.

I think that’s a major point there. By that point in time, nothing would (or at least should) have been a “work in progress”. It would have been “ready to deploy”. Just giving us that small look into something that “we’re preparing to push out in just a few days” would have helped substantially for both your side, and for ours.

Ah ok well I didn’t get that sorry Ohoni and thanks Shadow. Let me have a think and I will give you both my opinion. As i am sure you are aware this idea comes with a similar set of issues to.

Chris

I understand that there are a bit of risks, such as we not experiencing the content live per see, and actually give a solid feedback.

But even still, if we can have a sneak peek, an insight to what’s to come, we can voice out our concern sooner, and even if fixes won’t be made or can’t be made. You guys will be aware of our worries, and when the content hits, maybe we all might even reached to the same consensus, and fixes and improvements can be rolled out earlier. It is literally a win win situation.

We aren’t asking you to share information and details when it is in design machine, but give us a pre patch list of all the core things that will change, that are ready and will be deployed, like the PvP balance previews. An example of the NPE would be a week earlier something like this would be posted:

“We will makes skills be unlocked at levels XX and XX, make sure that veterans won’t have to experience this with their alts. Improve the flow of the personal story and divide them by chapters of 10 levels, etc etc”

This way, it finally hits, we will know what’s design, what’s working as intended and what was misconception. And we will have plenty of time to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly

What is your stance now that everything takes so much longer to unlock for people that already went through the NPE?
I’m tieing this in with traits.

I feel no character progression until level 30, and even then it’s nominal if I don’t get a trait point.
I’m not making any choises what so ever. It doesn’t matter what weapon you use, you’ll unlock all skills regardless.
Utilities are super spread out and it feels more like a pain than a gain over the old system. It’s not so much looking forward to unlocking them but it feels more like wishing we already had them. You don’t get enough skill points to try out that many different utilities anyway.
It doesn’t feel like every level is giving me something until I get traits. It’s giving me tips and tricks, which I’m already familiar with. Personal story fills this gap a little bit with giving gear, but I’ve personally never enjoyed the PS and without doing that the game feels a lot less rewarding in terms of progression.
The other exception is that at some points it gives you stats… but again, it feels like before those levels you’re missing out on stats rather than feeling more powerful overall. Let’s say before from level 10 to 14, you would gain 25 stats. Instead, you now get 35 stats at 15 and before that point you feel weak. Instead of shifting them forward, you now feel weaker.
It’s never fun feeling weak in the early levels when you’re new.
New people aren’t going to buy level appropriate masterwork gear for appropriate level gaps. Especially before level 50 I think this should be taken into consideration.
I remember I had no clue what my silver was worth and wether it’d be a waste to get items every 5-10 levels.
Trait unlocking has been discussed many times, but personally the biggest issue I still have is that if you make multiple characters you have to unlock them on them individually. The worst part is that you even have to do that for PvP. I feel that’s a major oversight as it goes against what I PvP should be.
Getting traits shouldn’t feel like a chore but as it stands now it’s just limiting new players from experimenting with builds and causing aggrevation that you have to do so many tasks to try something that you might not even like . Even furthering the issue that people copy paste stuff from others.

[ suggestion for personal story ]

A) please restore chapter 7 of the personal story to how it was before the patch. ie, the personal “greatest fear” plot line.

B) please restore the “cleansing of orr” plotline to the END of chapter 8, the way is was pre 9/9

C) pleaase split chapter 8 into three chapters:

~Chapter 8: Crippling the Beast, (basically, story steps “Temple of the Forgotten God” through " A Grisly Shipment" / “Ossuary of Unquiet Dead” )
~Chapter 9: Further Into Orr (story steps “Further into Orr” through “Blast from the Past” / “Ships of the Line” / “The Steel Tide” )
~Chapter 10: Victory or Death (story steps “Against the Corruption” through “Victory or Death” )

[Benefits of suggested structure]

~ retains the consistency of the story
~ cleansing of orr storyline is in a level 80 zone, and therefore should retain it’s level status
~ the extra chapters break up the story into more manageable bits for the player, retaining chapter length consistency (each chapter is roughly 3-5 story steps, except "The Battle of Claw Island, which is 7 steps)

If we’re actually going to have a thread discussing the NPE, can it actually be full of constructive criticism and suggestions instead of just rage and hyperbole? This thread looks like it’s already going south, so I hope this won’t be the place to talk about it.

MuteTM.6428:

Gaile, Chris,

Please allow us to continue with the personal story if we chose to instead of level locking it.

I play the game with friends, and the personal story, to put it bluntly, is what keeps us occupied. When we’re a lower level than is recommended, it simply becomes a fun challenge, and we like that! To force us to be a specific level, while I can see the point of for cohesion, ruins the do what you want feel of the game, and also turns it into a grind for us, as the personal story is what we play the game for!

Thanks for the time.

I agree, those that want to grind and wait it out for cohesion has were able to do so by themselves by leveling then doing a bunch of story instances. And it’s also ok to keep the “chapters” UI for cohesion, but let us do the story just like before.

If you really wanted to teach the mechanics to a player, do what most games do, a tutorial single player instance where you can demonstrate game mechanics.

Ex: put the player in an arena, have an npc cast an aoe on the player and tell him how to dodge, make him repeat the action a few times and done, you did what you should do to teach them. (same for other things you want to show them)

Want the player to understand skill points, don’t lock them behind levels but as part of the tutorial, make the player commune with a skill challenge and make them buy a specific skill that they can slot right away and use. This would also familiarize them with the icons you find on the map when exploring.

Stuff like level-gating the weapon skills is horrible. Players actually get new skills out of the blue and get “overwhelmed”. The old system showed you progress as you killed stuff, gave you the time to learn the skills as you worked to unlock them.

Unlock skills old way = 1 new skill at the time for the new player
Unlock skill slot at a certain level = 1 new skill per weapon per slot unlocked (a nightmare for new player experience)

And that’s just to list a few.

The new leveling system is a joke, all that needed to happen was to add a little more tutorial to tell people what was going on….that was it.

“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again….Heyyyy I swung it again”

This is now the weapon skills unlock system for the NPE.

“In most games…you go out and have really fun tasks occasionally”

This is now the entire early leveling experience, Press F on everything, whack mobs, with an occasional interesting event.

“and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff”

This is now the entire level 1-80 experience. 1-40 you will never have your entire skill set unlocked, 40-80 you can never actually use a Grandmaster trait until you have finished the leveling curve…

I don’t know about you, but the NPE and trait changes seem like a giant slap in the face, not allowing players to play how they want and artificially extend the leveling experience to feel different.

I would go as far to say that the game is being converted into something designed for people who have never played a game before. I understand that some people don’t have a ton of time, or just aren’t that good at some games, but this is not how you teach people things. You cannot try and teach a person to draw, by never giving them a pencil. Just as much as players will not learn to play, if they aren’t given the tools and skills.

Like playing monopoly, and having dice rolling unlocked 30 minutes in, then unlocked the ability to collect 200 by passing Go! at 1 hour, having the ability to buy/trade unlocked 2 hours in.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality.

Chris

Chris, I feel the need to point out one thing here. The person you replied to, he wasn’t saying we want to dig in when things are still in design phase.

A major point of the post was, “If you had let us in on the extent of the changes just a week before they were implemented (when the patch went live), you could have gotten a lot of the feedback you have now, but two weeks earlier”.

I think that’s a major point there. By that point in time, nothing would (or at least should) have been a “work in progress”. It would have been “ready to deploy”. Just giving us that small look into something that “we’re preparing to push out in just a few days” would have helped substantially for both your side, and for ours.

Now about how I would fix the problems I’ve listed earlier:

Add

• An optional tutorial, accessible from the character select screen, which treats:
  • Weapon skills, healing skill, utility skills, elite skills
  • Dodge mechanic
  • Downed mechanic and downed skills
  • Class mechanics
  • Objectives on maps (Renown Hearts, Events, Vistas, Skillpoint challenges, Diving Goggles, POIs and stuff)
  • Gathering and traiding
• Lots and lots of tooltips for all things listed above

Keep

• Rewards for leveling
• New renown hearts
• Faster leveling process (I personally don’t like that but many do)

Remove

• Bundled story steps
• Everything that was accessible before and got locked with the NPE changes

“Investigating issues that prevent players from retaining some skills (heal, utility, and elite) that they had previously unlocked”

Well that’s incredibly disappointing. That was the only way to get me to level a new character.

I really hope you guys rethink the leveling experience. Level 40 for all skills is a bit much. I mean honestly, I leveled an elementalist and I didn’t get Earth Attunement until .. level 24 I think?

I don’t know what else to say.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Acinonyx came up with a fantastic idea: Just apply the changes to the first character created.

Of course, even better would be some sort of setting we can toggle on and off, since honestly, until we can get some sort of HM option, playing with new characters has become quite painful.

Could we at least retain the option to do higher level personal story, at our own risk? Since when I hit the next x0 level, the story content is already quite trivial to stroll through. Tbh, I probably could do level 40 story at level 30 no problem. But that would be whole lot more interesting than doing level 40 story at level 40, when I’m guaranteed success. (Is it really success if it is just handed to me? Winning gold medal doesn’t really feel like winning gold medal if they’re handed out at the entrance to the arena.)

I would like this as well. I was forced to start grinding out a crafting skill so that I could begin the process of coming closer to level 80 because every time i went into a higher level zone and killed mobs there it would give me miniscule XP like 3-5 per kill with boosts on. Whatever they did they removed a big advantage of being a veteran that knows where to go to complete that final run on your alt to complete the leveling process. Part of the fun was the challenge and XP rewards of getting to those high level places and not just surviving but also flourishing by gaining extra xp.

Gaile, Chris,

Please allow us to continue with the personal story if we chose to instead of level locking it.

I play the game with friends, and the personal story, to put it bluntly, is what keeps us occupied. When we’re a lower level than is recommended, it simply becomes a fun challenge, and we like that! To force us to be a specific level, while I can see the point of for cohesion, ruins the do what you want feel of the game, and also turns it into a grind for us, as the personal story is what we play the game for!

Thanks for the time.

Note we want to make the fixes and then have a focused discussion about the system (Probably here)

We really want to hear what you think once the system/content is functioning as designed.

Chris

Again, waiting until it’s “functioning as designed” before having the discussion about it just pushes back the point where solutions can be reached. If you’d have discussed these changes with us months ago we could have hashed them out before the patch, and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Let’s say it takes another week to get things “functioning as designed,” and then we spend another couple weeks debating the changes, that’s weeks wasted when you could be working on fixing them now.

You guys already know which elements of the current game are bugs and which are features, so instead of waiting until the bugs have been removed, why not just TELL use which elements are not intended and which are, and we can discuss the issue from there?

This is the core about what we mean when we say we want communication. We don’t want to wait until things are implemented and then discuss them, we want in on the design process BEFORE you waste the time and effort implementing systems that we never wanted in the first place. Think of how many manhours you guys wasted working on these NGE systems that are dead on arrival with the players! How many other great systems could those developers have been working on instead in that time?

Repost from the “Communicating with you” thread:

What I don’t like about the NPE:

Personal Story
One thing I always hated about the Living Story was that it feels like timewarping every two weeks. The Personal Story on the other hand was able to win me over because I could decide when I want to drive my story forward. Now that is gone, now the story comes streamlined and packaged in small bits every time I level 10 levels.
The biggest gripe I have with the new system was that the old system was almost perfectly fine and could’ve been made perfect with just small changes. There is no need to “protect” the player from the story.
And if the rumors are correct, then they’ve cutted out part of the story and rearanged other parts, so they don’t even make sense anymore…

Weapon skills
Same as the Personal Story, I think that the old system was perfectly fine. You unlocked the skills by using the weapon, not by leveling your character.
The old system made more sense, was intuitive and gave us the possibility to use more skills quicker.

Level-up bounty
I really dislike the way they are going with this. They’re locking things we had previously to give them us back later as “reward”. They cut the maps in order to do so and the loot they give for leveling up gives the player a false pretence of how the game is meant to be played. They think that the game centers around getting your character as fast as possible to level 80, when in fact the game should encourage you to explore. Again the old system did this just fine.

Simplified maps
Some key parts about every map gets locked away until you reach a certain level. Skill point challenges, vistas, gathering nodes and goods the heart vendors have to offer.
This again gives the player a false pretence about how the game is meant to be played.

Learning curve
All this changes where introduced to flatten out the learning curve. Someone obviously thinks that a new player is most likely overwhelmed by the game if he first starts. There would be a sight better way to introduce new players to the game:
Tooltips. Lots of them. As example, the downstate shouldn’t be locked until level 5 but should be explained before the player can be downed the first time. There should be a tooltip what the downstate is and what the 4 skills do. The evade mechanic should be explained with tooltips, the map completion should be explained with tooltips, the gathering should be explained with tooltips, everything should be explained with tooltips. And the best part about tooltips: They would be optional.

The reason for all these changes?
In my opinion, ANet aims for getting this game eC or E rated to attract new players.
This would also explain why new Sylvari aren’t naked anymore when they leave the Dream. Young children could obviously get the wrong message…

From my experience playing a new character:

1. Unlocking skills all at once per weapon was more confusing for me, and more boring. Previously fights didnt feel like grind because I was unlocking skills along the way, and I had more time with one skill to feel what it did. Now I get a bunch at once and am slowed down by having to read every tool tip over and over and I don’t remember what each skill does as well.

2. Not gaining skill points each level… even with the big message saying i’m being rewarded and that i’ve “unlocked” things (many things arent locked to begin with) I dont feel each level is giving me progress toward new abilities.

3. The level up menu gives vague, incomplete information and if I want it off the screen quickly there’s no way for me to figure out later what it was telling me. It takes up the whole screen so if you impulse click on it in combat there’s no time to hover your mouse or click the things it wants you to. In my opinion a true tutorial in controlled instances would be better than these obtrusive, only half-informative, and easily missed pop ups.

4. Some world-building dialogue/heart quest options have been removed (the inquest no longer try to recruit you, no golem chess, you can’t feed bear cubs or play as a sylvan hound). What drew me to gw2 was its world, characters, visuals. These charming details help it stand out from the “kill 45 crawfish to proceed” competitors. Their absence is missed.

5. I am seriously not looking forward to buying/unlocking all of my traits.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/first

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!

I’m going to just re-post this here: This is not an opinion piece. Here is perhaps the biggest and most subtle problem with the NPE that’s technically “working as intended” – The “stat burst” and the “stat slump" effect.

• Stat Burst: With the original leveling system, players would receive a small amount of stats each time they leveled, which made their character slowly get stronger each level. With the NPE changes, after level 4 the player will received a large chunk (or “burst”) of stats every 6 levels. This was likely to make certain thresholds feel more rewarding and fun. (“Stat burst” levels: 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40, 46, 52, 58, 64, 70, 76, 80)

• Stat Slump: The problem is that the “stat burst” power did not come out of no where. The power is redistributed from prior levels. The result is that players feel weaker than they did before during certain windows of leveling. This is being remarked as the “stat slump”, which is typically 2 to 4 levels prior to each threshold.

• The problem? If a player tries to fight a creature 1 or 2 levels higher than themselves, the “stat slump” complicates things. A level 9 creature is more powerful than a level 8; but a level 9 player is not inherently more powerful than a level 8. This is because the stats come in bursts for players, but gradually for monsters. This is not intuitive at all, and it makes it difficult for a player to judge how difficult a fight will be.
  
  Prior to the NPE, a level 8 player would size up a level 9 monster and conclude that it is only slightly stronger than themselves. With the new change however, this creature is actually 5 levels higher than him since the player is effectively level 4 stat wise. This problem continues all the throughout leveling during every “stat slump”
  
  It comes as no surprise to me that players are noticing that certain Personal Story missions are feeling much harder than they used to, even with all of their skills unlocked. This is a result of the “stat slump”, which is making players feel lower level than they actually are. (Because they effectively are a lower level)

More information is on this subject on these reddit threads:

• Stat Slump Stuff
• Downscaling & Stat Slump

In Conclusion (TLDR):

• Since you gain stats every 6 levels instead of every level, if you could not kill a creature at level 40, you will not be able to kill it at 44. A level 44 player is exactly as strong as a level 40, sans any gear changes. This phenomena happens frequently, and it has greatly changed the pacing and feel of leveling in GW2. Most offensively about this system is how subtle and non-intuitive for players to not stronger every level, yet creatures do. This change, more than any other, is the most dysfunctional one in the NPE, in their effort to create a “rewarding feeling” but instead it difficult to size up challenges now for players leveling.
  
  The ideal fix would be to un-do this redistribution and give the stats to the players gradually as it did in the past.

Please, and I’m saying this for real.

Bring back the Personal Story progression back to what it was like before. With the Greatest Fear arc as the 7th chapter, and the cleansing of orr as part of the 8th chapter.

I don’t know why you did that change, but it’s a kick in the lore, which isn’t in a very good state to begin with anyway.

Please, just respect the original canon by putting the original missions back where they always belonged to.

Yeah, simplification of so many early hearts and events made the starter zones really bland…

Could you let Elementalists keep element unlocks that they had before the patch? It’s a small thing, but I shouldn’t lose what I’ve already gained.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Acinonyx came up with a fantastic idea: Just apply the changes to the first character created.

Aincronyx didn’t “come up” with the idea, it’s been splattered everywhere since the 9/9 patch. It’s the most common suggestion I’ve seen to make everything “better”. It’s not like it’s some amazing idea, either, it’s perfectly common sense…

Acinonyx came up with a fantastic idea: Just apply the changes to the first character created.

Of course, even better would be some sort of setting we can toggle on and off, since honestly, until we can get some sort of HM option, playing with new characters has become quite painful.

Could we at least retain the option to do higher level personal story, at our own risk? Since when I hit the next x0 level, the story content is already quite trivial to stroll through. Tbh, I probably could do level 40 story at level 30 no problem. But that would be whole lot more interesting than doing level 40 story at level 40, when I’m guaranteed success. (Is it really success if it is just handed to me? Winning gold medal doesn’t really feel like winning gold medal if they’re handed out at the entrance to the arena.)

I’d like to see some of the better features of the lower level maps return (golem chess, karma items such as wolf potions, etc etc) In “simplifying” the lowbie maps, you’ve removed a lot of the fun and unique aspects of them

Ok, some other stuff missing from that list:

• Replacing the missing profession mechanics UI for the Elementalist, Engineer, and Guardian professions

• Offhand weapon not unlocking until level 7

• Weapon Swapping not unlocking until level 15

• Utilities 7, 8, 9, and 0 not unlocking until levels 13, 24, 35, and 40 respectively

• Underwater combat not unlocking until level 8, underwater skill 5 not unlocking until level 23

• Most juvenile pets missing from starting zones

• Mechanics of many early heart quests reduced to make them more boring.

• Apples missing from apple orchard

I may still be missing a few, but fixing those need to be a priority as well.

Thank you very much, good to hear that !!

My feedback : Right now, it’s not a New Player Experience, but rather a New Character Experience.
To make it a NPE, you should make theses changes only apply for the first character created.
An easiest learn of curve could be a New Profession Experience, theses changes only apply when you make a character with a new profession (one you don’t have already).
How could this be implemented ?
Of course, you can’t rework everything, but maybe you could give access to all traits/skills sooner when you’ve unlocked the title “Profession_Name Master” (Guardian Master, Warrior Master and so on…).
How do you unlock this title ?
A/ Option 1:You have to level a character from this profession to level 80. (EDIT : at second thought, it would be too easy, should not be considered)
B/ Option2: You have to level a character from this profession to level 80 and unlock all skills/traits.
C/ Option 3:You have to level a character from this profession to level 80, unlock all skills and traits and get 100% map completion.
When you’ve mastered a profession, if you create a character with this profession, he gets access to all utility skills at lvl 20, even if level 1-15 is faster, and unlock all traits from tier 1 at level 20, all traits from tier 2 at level 40 and tier 3 at lvl 60.
That way you don’t have to farm traits over and over, and you can level alts without having to grind.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Addressing an issue with bundles that prematurely unlocked utility and elite skills

Personally, I’m glad this bug was found. I don’t want this fixed, at least not without alleviating some of the level-gating on veteran players. Having to wait until SO FAR into my character’s career to have access to a full ability rotation just feels awful.

Having to wait until level 40 just to start getting used to my rotation that I’m going to be using for literally the entire rest of my GW2 career is… painful. I think vets should be able to unlock these abilities by MAYBE 25. That way, we can get used to using all of our abilities, and feel like a “complete” character, that much sooner.

See? That’s the kind of feed back we want from you.

You’re restoring our faith <3