Guild Wars 2

I posted this in the Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Sub-Forum, but thought I’d ask the question in GW2 Discussion, too:

As you’re probably aware, ArenaNet will have a booth on the show floor at both PAX East in Boston and EGX Rezzed in London in early March. We’ll be offering hands-on demos of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns and engaging in all sorts of Guild Wars 2 fun. (I’ll be hosting trivia. <3 trivia! ) We hope you’ll stop by our booth so we can meet you!

In fact, I thought it might be fun to see who’s going to the shows from amongst our forum members. So if you’d like to share, post which show you’re attending, and feel free to say a bit about your guild, too, like the guild name, how long you’ve been together, how many members you have, etc.

We are really looking forward to meeting Guild Wars 2 fans and showing you our first hands-on demo of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns!

Essence Snow.3194:

Oddly enough I’ll be in Boston during Pax East and then be in London….(well flying into and staying just north of) during EGX. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make either, but what a big coincidence. Wait…“There are no big or little coincidences, just coincidences!”

I don’t know. Gibbs’ Rules state there is no such thing as a coincidence.

sargent light.2031:

ill be going to pax east like i do every year. looking forward to the demo and with talking to the devs

currently im in the guild fire and ice, i joined about a year and a half ago and i think the guild has been around for about 2 years.

Hey cool! We’ll see you there.

Argon.1563:

I never knew any of this was going on in London. Tickets are really cheap as well, I might see if I can grab a few people and run down for that Heart of Thorns demo.

Currently guildless, because every time I join a guild, they break up soon after, so I stopped seeing the point in joining guilds after about 2 years of this consistently happening.

Sounds like fun, Argon. Hope to see you there.

Dante.1763:

Id love to go…but i have no money for a ticket T.T Oh well, cant wait to see videos of gameplay from Pax East~

As for my guild, Formerly Krak House, Now Pack House. been together for 3 years now(formed during pre release), and at current count 494 members!

Dante, I sure understand that going to one of these shows is a stretch for most people. I’m thinking that mostly those attending will be pretty local (and sure, tickets can impact the ol’ budget, too). We’ll look forward to meeting you another time.

In the meantime, I love knowing about your guild — that’s just awesome to have been with us so long and have such an active membership. Give them all a “hi” from the team, will you?

As you’re probably aware, ArenaNet will have a booth on the show floor at both PAX East in Boston and EGX Rezzed in London in early March. We’ll be offering hands-on demos of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns and engaging in all sorts of Guild Wars 2 fun. (I’ll be hosting trivia. <3 trivia! ) We hope you’ll stop by our booth so we can meet you!

In fact, I thought it might be fun to see who’s going to the shows from amongst our forum members. So if you’d like to share, post which show you’re attending, and feel free to say a bit about your guild, too, like the guild name, how long you’ve been together, how many members you have, etc.

We are really looking forward to meeting Guild Wars 2 fans and showing you our first hands-on demo of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns!

I think it’s worth asking about this. The Mystic Forge is a mystery to me, but I’ll pass along the concern.

Thanks for posting.

What a fine achievement. Congrats!!

I have to give you a lot of credit, Manu, in finding and linking all those posts. Very helpful indeed, and a lot of work. I really appreciate having that information!

As you may recall, several weeks ago we announced the creation of our Guild Wars 2 Forum Specialist Program. We received a lot of applications from highly qualified Guild Wars 2 players, and today we’re happy to introduce you to the first specialists to join the program:

• Rising Dusk.2408: Dungeons and Fractals
• Marmatt.8590: WvW
• Riku.4821: PvE
• The Gates Assassin.9827: PvP
• Wolfey.3407: PvP

As you can see, we have two specialists covering PvP, and we’re doing this because PvP is a broad topic that can change through even subtle skill balances or game changes. The same could be said of other elements of the game, of course, so we’re open to additional specialists in other areas, as well.

Our primary focus now is to identify profession-specific specialists and bring them on board to participate in the profession sub-forums.

If you’d like to make a contribution as a forum specialist, please let us hear from you! You can learn about applying on the forum thread linked above.

As you may recall, several weeks ago we announced the creation of our Guild Wars 2 Forum Specialist Program. We received a lot of applications from highly qualified Guild Wars 2 players, and today we’re happy to introduce you to the first specialists to join the program:

• Rising Dusk.2408: Dungeons and Fractals
• Riku.4821: PvE
• The Gates Assassin.9827: PvP
• Wolfey.3407: PvP

As you can see, we have two specialists covering PvP, and we’re doing this because PvP is a broad topic that can change through even subtle skill balances or game changes. The same could be said of other elements of the game, of course, so we’re open to additional specialists in other areas, as well.

Our primary focus now is to identify profession-specific specialists and bring them on board to participate in the profession sub-forums.

If you’d like to make a contribution as a forum specialist, please let us hear from you! You can learn about applying on the forum thread linked above.

I did some research on this back in the early days of Guild Wars, and I was surprised to learn that about 11% of the male population is colour blind, so I can understand how this request is not one that would serve only a small number of players.

I have seen it discussed, but I believe there are quite a few elements that would need to be addressed in order to implement this. I’ll see if there’s any info to share on this. (And I’m super happy to hear the variety of Commander tags colours are helpful!)

And back to report that this is on the radar and will be fixed as soon as we can do so.

Thank you for reporting this! And thanks to the player who messaged me in the game.

It really helps to know this, and I’m escalating immediately.

Hey there. There is a thread about art issues over in the Bugs Forum. Link here.

If you could kindly post your concerns there, our art team will be able to view them most efficiently.

Thanks a lot.

Klausvenus.1872:

Discovered that Nvidia has an option for resolution scaling called DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) that is what I was looking for. It’s available on Geforce GTX 400, 500, 600, 700, and 900 graphics cards.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/dsr/technology

Nice! Thanks for sharing that.

As explained, I did not mean to suggest that the two topics are intertwined, only to point you to two discussion about character progression that have been released in recent days.

Character progression is a broad subject and not all things are connected.

I’m sorry for any confusion that sharing the two resources may have caused.

Shaaba.5672:

Bellizare.5816:

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

And just how will traits and skill points work for those that do not own Heart of Thorns?

No where was it said that the new trait system is tied into the mastery system. Colin mentioned that with the introduction of masteries, they are also re-evaluating other systems, like traits.

I’ve seen this misunderstood in several places. By mentioning them in the same post, and then not giving further clarification, these two get tied together in people’s minds and causes confusion and fear. This is one reason we need further information sooner rather than later.

Hell, maybe I’m the one misinterpreting the statement.

This is unclear?

Colin recently shared some information related to the Traits system. In addition our article on Masteries provided other early info that could be part of any conversation about traits or character progression. (Edit: I don’t mean to suggest that the two topics are intertwined, only to point you to two discussion about character progression that have been released in recent days.)

From what I remember hearing years ago, few faces are modeled directly from a single individual, but an artist may admire a certain nose, an unusual pair of eyes, that sort of thing, and then incorporate their interpretation of those elements into a face that they’re designing.

I’ll see if there’s an artist who could speak to this on a more informed basis.

Ayrilana.1396:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/bltc/Trading-Post-6-Stack-Sell-Cap/first#post795158

Thanks for posting this. The answer that I found in the thread, from John Smith, is that the limits were put in place for technical reasons.

I hope that’s helpful information.

We’re rolling out information in large bunches, with blog posts, images, major press interviews, PoI, Ready Up, and so forth on a very regular schedule now.

The forums are intended to be used to talk about the game, not company policies. While we appreciate and completely understand that players would like more information, we will not be able to provide information upon demand. And any experienced forum member knows that no matter what is revealed, someone, somewhere will feel the level of detail is insufficient, that the information requires rebuttal, that we should be talking about this thing and not that other thing and so forth.

Let’s talk about the game.

Palador.2170:

Dear (possibly organic) entity known as Gaile Gray,

Could you get a date for when we’ll have more solid information about the trait system revamp, so we can properly discuss it? And then post said date here?

Thank you.

I certainly intend to ask about that.

I sense that certain elements are still being weighed and considered. That, of course, means that players’ feedback like the threads I’ve been linking above is very valuable. But that means it possible it may be premature to discuss “plans” as opposed to simply saying, as Colin did, that changes are coming.

But again, I’ll see if we have anything more definitive to share as far as when an info release may come.

And this:

IndigoSundown.5419:

More feedback about the trait system. In that other thread, I made periodic posts about my experiments with the 4/15/2014 system. I had created 2 characters and leveled them when I had time to do so. The experiments are over. I have deleted those characters. In this post I am going to offer the conclusions I came to in hopes that there is some value in what I found bad about the system, and in hopes that those aspects will be avoided going forward.

1. Back-Loading: While the at-launch GW2 leveling rewards were sparse after getting the elite skill at level 30, the back-loading of traits simply moved the experience of “no tangible benefits for leveling” to earlier in the process. While NPE introduced new rewards, these did not replace the enjoyment of getting traits and seeing the changes it made to how characters played that was available much earlier in the leveling process.
2. Tasks Spread Across Level-Ranges of Content: I’ve said a lot about this in the past, but I’ll add that when I got to L36 and had zero options to slot a trait, this was not fun.
3. Experimentation: The 4/15 changes were announced as an intent to foster experimentation with traits. This was obviously a reference to free change of traits anywhere OoC, and was apparently meant for L80’s or other characters who already had the traits unlocked. The 4/15 system removed experimentation with traits from the leveling process to a greater or lesser degree depending on what content one did.
4. Stat Progression: This is a comment about the interaction of the 4/15 trait system and the NPE. At launch, stat gains came every level. Once traits were unlocked at L11, one got two small infusions of stats every level gained. This was a smooth, gradual progression. Now, both leveling and traits provide the stats every six levels, and acquisition is staggered so that characters gain 3 levels with no stat gain, then get a large infusion from leveling, go 1 level without, then get stat points via traits, then repeat. Each system creates somewhat of a feast or famine experience in terms of the growth curve, and the combination exacerbates the issue. Fwiw, I did not find this to be as problematic and off-putting as the other issues already mentioned, but it was noticeable.
5. Organic versus Directed Play: The characters, L67 and L51, had 4-6 traits unlocked in total. Those traits were unlocked via the natural progression of leveling in the world, by doing hearts, exploration and events. Well, all but 1, which I unlocked via cash/SP’s — which meant that out of frustration I broke my own resolve to not resort to that option. The game at launch was a lot more about a journey of exploration through the world, with progression occurring as an organic outgrowth of that journey. The game since has by-and-large shifted to one where reward and progression systems now direct players to play in certain areas only. This is especially true of rewards, but the trait unlocks are also less organic. I may be the only one for whom this matters, or I may be speaking for many players, or somewhere in between, but I put this out there to note that it does have an effect.
6. Fun: So, why did I delete the characters? I already have L80’s of all 8 professions. I was not enjoying the process of leveling once I got past L30 or so. This was no doubt influenced by the fact that I’ve already explored the zones multiple times and by the inevitable comparison to the prior leveling experience. However, I believe that a player leveling for the first time now might have several WTK (What the kitten) experiences when allowed to slot a trait but not having one available. Fwiw, I have long believed that the leveling process was the best part of GW2, and I am no longer sure this is the case for me.

It is my hope that with Masteries serving as endgame progression, traits will be returned to the leveling progression they used to be.

Thanks, IS — very good stuff.

Another post of value:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Not sure about a full rework.. again. While last time I just bought the trait books before the change this time i dunno. There are some hings that are good in the current system and some that are bad. I really can just hope that you take the good things and design the bad things out. Rather than saying: lets start from scratch, and make something completely different.

Good things:

• Specific tasks or challenges that give you traits.
• Being able to bypass it by buying them.

Bad things:

• The bypass price is too steep.
• The challenges unlock one specific trait
• The challenges are not spread throughout the game in a way that promotes natural progression. (Plus mixed between game modes.)

Suggestions:

• Make a system that unlocks traits through points that are obtained through tasks that are similar to the challenges in the previous system. (Maybe even 3 types of points for each tier) ofcourse having a certain max amount of points.

I would be opposed to an account bound system like masteries though. Because I prefer progressing each character in their own way with their own story. But it’s not a huge deal if it was.

Thanks.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The current trait system has a number of problems:

• It makes it distractingly difficult for new players, since the game does not guide you to specific traits. You just get trait points and learn that you can unlock major traits.
• It discourages experimentation: one can’t just swap between e.g. banner traits and stance traits to see how it affects your build, until you unlock each relevant trait.
• It’s repetitive: each new character is given identical unlock tasks.
• It’s paternalistic: it requires completing content that doesn’t appeal to everyone e.g. finishing most of the personal story or doing map completion. Some unlocks are challenges that few people do more than once, except for traits, e.g. defeating EB’s Overgrown Grub or Obsidian Sanctum.
• It’s laborious and tedious: full unlock requires ~30+ hours of investment or spending 360 skill points. That’s a lot of effort for people who don’t play every day.
• Worst of all, it’s not actually fun, at least not after the first time (if ever).

People have offered a lot of great specific advice about what a new trait system might look like, but here are my generic requests:

• Encourage new players to experiment with traits. They are critical to good builds and folks should be able to compare or contrast before having to grind out the unlocks.
• It should be easier to unlock traits for alts, especially if someone has multiples for the same profession.
• Unlocks should be relevant, i.e. necromancers could defeat minionmasters to learn about minions and mesmers might shatter illusions to unlock shatter skills.
• It should be fun.

Specifically, I’d prefer to see one challenge to unlock all adept traits, another to unlock all master traits, and one challenge to unlock all of the original grandmaster traits for a single line. Thus, only the most-recently added grandmaster traits would have an individual challenge. That would reduce the number of tasks from the current 65 challenges to only 12 per character.

Thanks for a detailed analysis and some solid suggestions.

Leo G.4501:

Brtiva.9721:

This gets more ominous all the time, for one who is not pleased with how things have been going. I feel that acquiring traits, unlocking masteries, unlocking specializations, unlocking skills, will be associated with a “to do” list.

It simply feels that most things are going to be very directed , with required content to be played.

When the game launched, I was blown away by the fact I could actually choose to play anything I wanted, and that which I did not care for could be ignored. Only cosmetic items associated with things I did not do, would be out of my reach.

I could do exactly as I pleased, and my character would not be penalized for it. Everything thing I did in GW2 was fun, 100%. Lacking this, my interest is basically gone. This was the central feature and attraction for me. If something is not fun for me, why do it? I am here for fun and enjoyment.

I loved GW2 the way it was, but sadly feel that GW2 is going to loose what I loved about it. I have a love for the trinity system and healing, but the freedom in GW2 was so appealing that I did not care very much about the lack of trinity.

I am sure there are people who would like “to do” lists, having things that must be done. It’s just that for me, I loved having a game with unparalleled freedom.

Just another perspective:
I won’t say that I “love” the current system but it has its highpoints. Having a game with a lot of things in it to do and giving you something for doing those things isn’t a bad thing. Doing what you want to do isn’t always a good thing either. Getting players to step outside their comfort zones when it comes to content of a game is likely the goals of the various rewards of the game, so exploring a zone you might not have been interested in may “feel” wrong and hey, you might even come out of the experience knowing you absolutely didn’t enjoy it one bit…but you could also come out of the experience with more knowledge, more experience and you might have even enjoyed parts of it.

Same with the real world. I don’t always like the things I end up doing with friends but there have been experiences I would have none the less never been a part of if I chose not to participate just because it was something I felt I didn’t want to do.

Relating back to GW2’s reward systems, I’ve never been a fan of PvP in MMOs but playing some hotjoins in GW2 I’ve found to be somewhat enriching of an experience. And while I thought I was going to have fun in WvW, it turns out I didn’t enjoy the experience BUT I did get some rewards for it in the short-term at least. And I feel that’s sort of where they were going with this system for traits, to make PvE feel worthwhile and rewarding you for exploring places you might otherwise not even know about.

That all said, I still feel there are so many flaws with the system. For one, if an even is already done you’re pretty much forced to wait for it to be restarted to get the credit for the trait and without outside resources, that can be a huge roadblock. For two, SOOOOOO many times have I discovered that an even to unlock a trait I wanted was bugged and would not proceed. Bad. And finally, this is coming from a perspective of a player who’s only done the various trait quests for 1 character (all my others were lvl 80 before the change) and this could feel pretty grindy/repetitive for players who are alt-a-holics.

Anyway, Leo’s perspective complete.

Another valuable set of insights. Thanks, Leo.

azizul.8469:

easy fix :

GW2 already have soooo many group events. make them events that grant certain trait.

I like that you’re thinking outside the box and offering constructive suggestions. Thanks!

Ashen.2907:

So you consider it to be words of wisdom that feedback from customers is, “non-constructive,” and, “ultimately irrelevant ?”

I find that to be a bit surprising considering how much effort on the part of players went into suggestions and the like in the other thread. I dont deny that some posts went too far or were offensive, but to disregard everyone who tried to participate in providing solutions to a perceived problem by describing their dismissal by others as words of wisdom seems a bit off in my opinion.

I think what we have here is failure to communicate, and if my words were not clear, I’ll state them again. We have no intention of closing discussion. No intention of disregarding the input of our players, which we value greatly. My comment referred to redundant and repeated and unconstructive comments only, not the overall input of perceptions and opinions. Closing the thread was timely in light of the fact that all valid feedback had been gathered, and more information will be forthcoming in the future.

Any forum member knows that not all comments are “words of wisdom.” Many are. Our position is not to close and ignore, but to close and move to a second round of discussion. We’d rather not see 14 posts by the same person saying the exact same thing. It’s really that simple, and that is what was becoming the norm in the former thread. Yes, even the most ardent supporter of the previous thread can see that this is what happened.

Even when the input is valid, repetition is unnecessary and it can dilute the value of a thread. Hence a new thread that hopefully offers a fresh slate on which to collect new feedback as new information is released.

If it’s too early for you to comment, that’s fine. But if it’s too early for you to comment, then what purpose does the other thread serve, except to contain posts that say the same thing that has been said before?

Old thread: Closed. It will remain closed.
New thread: Join if you wish. Hold off if you’d prefer.

Your feedback, whether given now or in the future when you have more information upon which to base it, will be valued, as always. But please, everyone, keep the feedback on the topic of traits. We’re not going to discuss the old thread, the decision to open a new thread, or forum decisions in general, for that is of little to no importance in the overall scope of things.

Khisanth.2948:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Page numbers are tied to the user. Mine works for me, where the one offered leads only to a page on which Colin’s post does not reside, because I have a different post number per page than other users.

I’m sorry for the confusion on the link. Maybe it’s best to do this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/ColinJohanson-2394/showposts

Please note: You may find Colin’s other posts of interest as well.

Linking posts work better if you use the link from the chain icon next to the post(the one next to the reply and flag icons). So for example the link to your post that I am replying to should be https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Traits-Part-2/4776937 rather than https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Traits-Part-2/first#post4776937 (the tooltip on that icon actually recommend doing it this way!)

Just to be clear, that is precisely what I do each time I link a post. I use the “link” icon, but as I said, thanks to the quirkiness of our software the URL that results is not always usable by others.

I appreciate the note, but since that’s what I’m doing, you can see that this isn’t a case of “user error.”

StinVec.3621:

Remove the “page number” from the equation entirely and just use the built-in post linking icon to copy-paste the link so it’ll actually work.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/4733414

Once that link is fixed in the OP then half of the first page of posts can be removed since all they are doing is talking about the broken link – including our posts now :P

Tried that, too. When I used the “page-number-removed” link in a new browser (to avoid caching issues with my existing browser window) it still declined to go to the proper post.

I appreciate the tip, but usually the link I get (from the “link” icon to the right of the thread, next to alert and quote) is valid, so I can’t explain why it did not function properly in this case.

insanemaniac.2456:

Corax.7381:

Pifil.5193:

Having this new thread without any actual information on what the new system will bring just invites the recreation of the last one, with the same posts and conversations and complaints as the last one.

Here’s the situation, as Gaile pointed out above.

The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant, because Colin posted saying that ANet is working on a new Trait system and that some player feedback had been taken into account when developing that system. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing of value that could be added to that thread, which is why Gaile said she should’ve closed it right when Colin posted.

However, imagine the rage at the travesty of closing that thread WITHOUT opening another thread focused on Traits feedback. Why, the forums would explode! Players would launch their own personal vendettas against ANet, or further embellish the ones they’ve already begun.

So, Gaile opened this new thread. Yes, there aren’t any new facts or concrete details we can discuss – right now. Which is why she suggested to step away from the entire topic for a while, instead of going through the same cycle as the first thread. But people can’t do that, I predict, so it’s a lose-lose situation for everyone.

finally, someone who gets it!

Praise Dwayna, yes! Thanks insanemaniac and Corax for the words of wisdom.

You’re right, Ominous. The people living in the Amazon basin aren’t exactly sporting Nikes or Birkenstocks — good point!

Barefoot?
In the jungle?
With spiders and toe-nipping dinos?

Indigo Sundown — I know that the dev team understands how critical this subject is, and I also know this has been an often-discussed system. With that, I think we can look forward to substantial positive changes.

Wolfheart — we’re good, and thank you for being so thoughtful, I really appreciate it!

Traced — Yeah, I heard that “Braveheart voice” there.

It’s the weekend so I can’t pad down the hallway and ask about this, but I do wonder if the restrictions are related to RMT and/or botting.

I am sorry that you’re experiencing an inconvenience in posting trades. I will see if I can find out a bit about this, but I feel very sure that the team would not add random time-based restrictions without a really strong reason to do so.

No snark intended. All I said was factual. You can see that if you analyze the thread, where even after Colin’s post, people were returning to the same comments without recognizing that changes are coming. Saying “Change it!” when the game director has said “We’re going to change it!” doesn’t seem the best of discussions.

Sure, players would like more information. But that’s not available right now. So the choices are to continue on the treadmill of wash/rinse/repeat in the old thread, determine there’s sufficient info to post a new comment in this thread, or hold off until there is more information. It sounds as if you fall into the latter category, and that’s perfectly fine! Feel free to post in the future when you feel you have enough on which to base your input.

This is a policy, explained in the links that JT provided, and in the quote that AP added to this thread.

This is not a matter to take to support, because unless you meet the very narrow requirements (read the threads for those details) your display name will not be changed. By creating tickets to ask for services not offered, or to protest policy, you slow service for others.

I will take the suggestion to offer display name changes to the team, but at this time and for the foreseeable future, that is not a service that will be offered. If it is offered, we will make you aware of it.

Thanks for understanding.

Maxwell.7843:

Gaile, are you able at this time to confirm or deny whether Masteries will substitute Traits? Please?

Before this new discussion was born I was pretty sure the answer to the question would have been “no, Traits !=Masteries”, but as I said I’m a bit confused now…

I was pointing to all the recent revelations about Guild Wars 2 and Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns that were related to character progression. I’d consider traits and masteries to be two elements of character progression, but I did not mean to say they were allied or intermingled.

I edited my original post to make that a bit clearer. It is intended simply as, “Here are some new resources about GW2 and character progression that you might like to read.”

Thank you (and the others who commented) for pointing out any confusion with the post. I think it’s clearer now.

Schneider.8615:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

[snip]

I find his post pretty clear.

Hey folks,
“Now that the HOT is out of the bag, we’re able to update this thread with more details. With the introduction of the new account based mastery system for end-game progression and growth in PvE, we’ll also be re-evaluating our other systems of character progression to ensure they match our over-all pillars and goals for Gw2.
In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.
Thank you for all your passionate feedback on this topic – it not only helped our dev team lead to this decision, but has played a large role in helping us define how to build our exciting new account based mastery system for end-game progression in PvE as well.”

It tells us that the new system will be simplified and following the trend of their account wide mastery system.

It tells us that specialisations need a system revamp to work traits and skill, since the new sub-classes will use new traits and skills.

It tells us that details on exactly how it will work are coming later closer to the release.

To me that says more than enough.

Yes, and as a basis for conversation, it seemed a valid amount of content to inspire thoughtful commentary.

I take on board that many feel the first thread was fine and dandy, even with ridiculous load times, redundant posts, valueless bumps, and the obvious fact that many people were posting without reading input by other forums members or our Game Director. Circular discussions and the same person posting the same opinion 11 different times don’t make for a valuable thread.

Perhaps it’s premature to discuss traits at all. If you feel that’s the case, please simply step away from the subject until you have enough on which to base a meaningful post. However, if you’d like to discuss the topic, this is the place to do so. Ideally, with the info now out and with more to come, we will see interesting commentary or speculation about changes yet to come.

Lastly, I apologize that the lock came so long after Colin’s post. That was entirely my fault. I should have locked immediately, since he made it clear that the previous thread’s feedback had been reviewed and because he also stated that info would be coming in the future. That was the time to start a new thread, and I am sorry that I did not do so.

At this point, if you would care to discuss the topic of traits, please feel free to post.

Here is Colin’s post in its entirety:

Hey folks,
Now that the HOT is out of the bag, we’re able to update this thread with more details. With the introduction of the new account based mastery system for end-game progression and growth in PvE, we’ll also be re-evaluating our other systems of character progression to ensure they match our over-all pillars and goals for Gw2.

In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.

Thank you for all your passionate feedback on this topic – it not only helped our dev team lead to this decision, but has played a large role in helping us define how to build our exciting new account based mastery system for end-game progression in PvE as well.

Hey all. We’re delighted to continue to discussion! That was the intention, but you guys beat me to it in creating a fresh thread.

We have no intention of “brushing the topic under the rug” but instead we closed the first thread to allow a more relevant discussion based on the newest information.

Please feel free to add you thoughts to the Traits Part 2 thread any time!

Colin recently shared some information related to the Traits system. In addition our article on Masteries provided other early info that could be part of any conversation about traits or character progression. (Edit: I don’t mean to suggest that the two topics are intertwined, only to point you to two discussion about character progression that have been released in recent days.)

Here’s a sparkly new thread to discuss the subject. Please read the post and article linked above. We’d also encourage you to keep up on future information releases so that this thread can be of the greatest value and relevance to other forum members and, of course, to the dev team as well.

Thank you.

This post shows some of the future direction for Guild Wars 2. The blog post on Masteries provides other info. I encourage you to become informed about the future of Guild Wars 2 so that you can make the best decision for you. There will be more information in the future, as well.

We don’t need to “start taking feedback.” We’ve never stopped.

Colin provided an update on this topic here — and of course we’ve published some future-looking info about Masteries in this article that you might find of interest.

We’ll be happy to see a discussion about upcoming changes based on the new information that has been given or will continue to be provided in the future. Given the coming changes and the age of this conversation, we’ll close this thread.

Thank you for this info. I’m confused, too!

Let me see if I can find out more about this on Monday. Oh heck, I’ll send an email now… but probably wont’t be able to post until Monday.

We will have more information on this in the “deep dives.” Oh wait, someone just said that.

We’re also expanding the FAQ, but I am not exactly sure when that will be updated or whether it will address this particular question. If you can please look for the details about a particular element of the expansion in the blog post and other resources available when that topics is covered, I feel sure you’ll have most of your questions answered.

If I recall correctly, this was a hot topic a few months ago, but the consensus was that 2 of 5 was too few, 4 of 5 was considered too many, and 3 of 5 would be just right. (Why does “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” come to mind here? )

Are you guys remembering the player input differently? Or do you feel that what was stated would be happening did not get implemented? I’m happy to follow up, but I believe the current number represents the figure that both devs and players felt would be appropriate.

Whoa, Xiahou Mao. That’s an amazing write-up there. Thank you for catching Koviko and other people up on the full story of Season 1!

Seka.5647:

What about selling access to ones home instance for gathering resources? Namely I just spotted this new type of selling in lfg just about an hour ago : " Sell access crafting nodes (17) for 20 silver…..->" . Does it belong to the dungeon sort of selling section or is it abusing the lfg due to selling access to “items”?

• Advertising an access portal is not allowed.
• Guild Recruitment is not allowed.

Both are unrelated to forming a group and therefore are not part of the intended purpose of the Looking for Group Tool.

Majic.4801:

I think this thread is a good candidate for being stickied.

Agree, at least temporarily. Done! (Thanks. )

A couple of posts have arisen in recent days about ways to accommodate players who are color blind. This is a merged thread so that everyone can keep up on the discussion without having to track different threads.

Rauderi.8706:

Gaile, thanks so much for forwarding those details.

Secondary question, though.
Since group-selling (taxis/paths/dungeons) are confirmed as legit, are there policies in place about how to handle scams/griefing? Or is that still very much “buyer beware” for those willing to buy/sell LFG spots?

Unfortunately, CS is seldom able to get a clear view on scams of this type. Tracking who agreed to what, and who promised to provide this service or that service is difficult to verify, especially when some of the arrangements are made or finalized outside the game (on Vent, TeamSpeak, Skype, etc.)

So every transaction of this nature is simply, by necessary, considered “Buyer and/or seller beware.” If the team is able to verify that a scam took place, they may be able to act upon the account of the scammer, but that would not involve returning lost items or currency or the fulfillment of the player-to-player “contract.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: TP fees are my insurance, as a player. They’re my protection as both a buyer and seller. Dodging fees might sounds attractive, in theory, but I’ve seen too many nasty outcomes to even consider doing trades or sales without using the game system that was built specifically to support those transactions.

Policy posted here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Policy-on-the-LFG-Tool/first#post4768699

I think this should make it very clear where we stand on abuse of the LFG Tool.

Thanks for raising this issue and for aiding us in clarifying our policy.