Guild Wars 2

Guys/Gals, ignore the troll. Don’t feed him. He is doing the same thing in another thread, trying to make himself look superior for not feeling burdened by any of the concerns expressed by other players, no matter the context of the concerns expressed. You will not make him see reason because he already made up his mind that he is better than everyone else, and wants to show it.

How about allowing us to start with 50% DS bar? It would definitely help us in PvP and PvE. Thoughts?

Thank you so much for the time you dedicated to put this together in a clean and organized format. This would be very useful for developers as well to peruse and pick up a few ideas for necromancer.

If Flesh Golem’s inconsistent AI (frequently doesn’t attack anything in combat) is fixed, I will love you forever. And I can’t wait to hear more about your plans on axe and scepter. <3

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

He was doing okay, except for a 1 on 1 fight wit ha mediguard. But, to be honest, the mediguard would be way more experienced at his speck than Blackmoa for obvious reasons, and if the necro was using dagger + warhorn it would have had a pretty good chance to win.

But the point is to show off how good GS is, not prove that dagger+warhorn is still better.

Bhawb.7408:

Minion AI threads pop up literally every week, if not more frequently.

It’s been more than two years with these bugs, after all. Which is why I found it so strange that I didn’t get any search results on it.

Rauderi.8706:

I have a fix for that too.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Searching-the-Forums/first#post4701411

site:forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum and search terms works reasonably well.

Thank you for that link. It’s a really big help. Sad that the moderators themselves have to teach us to search outside of the forums to search something inside the forums. lol

I opened another thread about this issue before I found this one so I will also give my say in here too:

Sometimes only one or two of my minions auto attack in my defense when I am being hit. The rest just stand there doing nothing, possibly picking their noses.

Flesh Golem is the minion that for me least works correctly. It often doesn’t register combat and even after activating its skill, it still won’t auto attack my target. I have even tried not doing anything and just use the golem skill over and over, to see if it ever responds, and it doesn’t work when it’s in that mood.

Sometimes they don’t follow me well. I keep running away from a mob, as I often do while I do map completion, as they stay behind trying to kill a monster even long after I got very very far away from said monster. And not all uniformly as some return but others stay behind.

And I wish I had some skill in the F bar like rangers do to call back my minions, instead of being forced to switch to a non-minion skill in my skill bar, which can only be done when out of combat, to avoid unpleasant situations in dungeons. I sincerely don’t understand why we are not given such an option. It really won’t make us too powerful to be able to call back our durpies. But it will be a boon in the sense that, we wouldn’t be so inconvenient then as we are now without such. MM necromancers are feared in dungeons for frequently messing with party strategies because our minions go do their thing and we can’t call them back.

Will ANet ever improve minion AI and allow us actual control of them? I understand that they may have wanted rangers to be the only ones to have control over their pets, but if that is the case, the least they can do for necromancers is fix the minion AI to make up for it. As it is now, minion AI is not consistently reliable. It’s not unusuable, but it is extremely frustrating to see them bug out so frequently.

style.6173:

striker.3704:

Minions in GW1 would at times have issues with responsiveness in PvP as well. I played a lot of fort aspenwood as an MM, and there were a couple of specific corners where all your minions could get stuck.

The difference in GW2 is that minions are much more valuable since this game has a much more action oriented combat system where your minions abilities and attacks can have a big impact on how well the fight goes for you. There simply is no excuse for bone minions to idle behind you when the enemy you need them next to is far in front of you, or for your elite skill (flesh golem) to idle next to you while you’re downed when his attacks would let you rally.

Minion AI simply needs to be more responsive for PvP. Reverting the AI back to it’s release version for PvP exclusively might help tremendously.

Minion needs a nerf in PvP. If you want to make the AI more responsive, then it would need even more of a nerf.

When you agree or not isn’t the point. Whenever an AI (ie minimal skill) build becomes strong in PvP, it is nerfed. Minions, turrets, and spirit rangers have all seem that happen in the past and will happen again in the future.

I wish I could downvote this post. MM has an easy learning curve, yes, but it is actually not easy to fully master. It has a high skill cap. You have to be aware what each minion is doing, what your targets are, what your targets are doing, which minion skills to use on what targets, ect. This isn’t a whack-a-mole playstyle where you either leave them auto attacking or brainlessly smash all the minion skill buttons on a target and hope for the best. Just because something seems simple, doesn’t mean it’s requires minimun skill.

Why didn’t that thread show up on the search results when I typed in any of the following keywords:
minion
MM
mm
minions
AI
ai
minion ai
?

But thank you for pointing that other thread out. Now I know I can’t trust the search engine of the forums here.

Does anyone else beside me notice serious holes in the minions’ AI since game release that still exist today?

Sometimes only one or two of my minions auto attack in my defense when I am being hit. The rest just stand there doing nothing, possibly picking their noses.

Flesh Golem is the minion that for me least works correctly. It often doesn’t register combat and even after activating its skill, it still won’t auto attack my target.

Sometimes they don’t follow me well. I keep running away from a mob, as I often do while I do map completion, as they stay behind trying to kill a monster even long after I got very very far away from said monster.

And I wish I had some skill in the F bar like rangers do to call back my minions, instead of being forced to switch to a non-minion skill in my skill bar, which can only be done when out of combat, to avoid unpleasant situations in dungeons. I sincerely don’t understand why we are not given such an option. It really won’t make us too powerful to be able to call back our durpies. But it will be a boon in the sense that, we wouldn’t be so inconvenient then as we are now without such. MM necromancers are feared in dungeons for frequently messing with party strategies because our minions go do their thing and we can’t call them back.

Will ANet ever improve minion AI and allow us actual control of them? I understand that they may have wanted rangers to be the only ones to have control over their pets, but if that is the case, the least they can do for necromancers is fix and improve the minion AI to make up for it.

Ara.4569:

Oh wait, reaper shroud 2 is still on a 1 sec cast time ? o_O
If so, I don’t know what they want us to blind at all besides ele’s overcharge or other necros…

They want us to blind ourselves. :P

So has anyone here tested it since the patch went live?

I wonder how they make soap.

Asacledhae.2650:

PotatoCable.1425:

Feedback?

Well, after this “Megaserver” thing, I’ve basically quit. Logging in and seeing a bunch of random people isn’t as fun as logging in and seeing the old familiar faces. The new update also brought with it a bunch of goldsellers, which spam constantly with seemingly endless accounts.

So until Arenanet rolls it back to how it used to be, I’ll just find something else to play.

I’d also like to point out that, if you people dislike it, then show it. Stop your gem purchasing, don’t play the game. If Anet sees a drop in one of these departments, they will more eager to listen and actually communicate.

Been there, done that…

Leveling isn’t an option anymore anyway, as zerg have taken over everything. I only log-in to RP with the last two (we used to be 29) people of my guild, who despite the now death around us, refuse to leave the game. RP isn’t an option either to be honest, as anything besides “party chat”, becomes a live and vibrant beacon for a collection of trolls, with a common goal in mind…

Oh yeah megaservers are fantabuloulsy 100% great… if you don’t care about efficient game play with guildmates, lower rewards while getting run over by zerg trains, and the mental health of RPers who once chose specific servers for the sole purpose of creating a relatively safe community for RP.

The megaserver code needs to be fixed so it can actually carry out the work the devs said it would when they first announced it.

PS: Even the people who mention the pros about megaservers admit the cons are terrible.

Pirlipat.2479:

nightwulf.1986:

Right now, it’s like players in small towns were all moved to the big cities and there is some culture shock (trolls and all). But yeah, I also believe this is an interesting step but also needs some improving, so people need to keep talking.

Well unfortunately atm it’s like players in small towns were moved to the big cities and when they come back from a trip to the countryside their house is completely different with completely neighbours.

And that for each time they step outside, the neighbors change again.

lordkrall.7241:

Oranisagu.3706:

already 29 pages and no statement from ANet.

Yes:

Although we’re excited that you have more players than ever to explore the open world of Guild Wars 2 with, our work is not yet complete. Our megaserver team will continue to monitor the performance of the technology on live and evaluate your feedback. We will continue to tweak and update the way the system works until it is providing even better megaservice!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-megaserver-rollout-is-complete-2/

That’s a PR stunt. It’s what you do to calm the restless masses. (Not that I blame them at all, we are restless.) Say a lot of pretty words that don’t say much as a show that they are listening. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. But a PR stunt does not count as an actual act of communication with the people in these forums. None of the concerns are being openly adressed except for that one shining glorious moment that they did in the German forums. I’ll still hold unto hope that one of them will do the same for us here.

PS: I am aware that they are not obligated to say anything at all… But it would still be nice, you know?

anzenketh.3759:

Asmodeus.5782:

anzenketh.3759:

For those calling for a merge instead of MegaServers that would not solve the problem. It would also not be future proofing PvE.

Mergers + fixing the unpopular zones and making them more attractive would.

How would you fix underpopulated zones. It may fix it for a little bit but it is not a permanent solution as soon as more newer areas are released as players would always go for the newest shines.

Fixing the Megaserver code to be more consistent and effective in priority sorting would be a step in the right direction to solve most of the issues people presented. Adding an interface that allows people to tell the code which conditions for sorting take precedence (Check mark boxes for RP, Server, Language, ect.) would be a great boon to the system as it gives players the power to refine their gaming experience.

anzenketh.3759:

For those calling for a merge instead of MegaServers that would not solve the problem. It would also not be future proofing PvE. This way they only have to take action once. Not years down the line when the population dies down. There are some maps that did not even have a comfortable population level on the highest populated servers. So transferring to a high population server would not
work to solve that problem. Neither would guesting.

Nynuwe.5893:

Instead they prematurely rolled it for all Tyria out in less than two weeks, barely giving themselves enough time to collect all the necesary data.

What if they needed to roll it out to all the servers to collect the necessary data to do the proper tweaking. There are a few people on Tarnished Coast saying that Devenity’s Reach is better for them now. That would not have been possible unless they rolled it out to Devenity’s Reach

I am of Tarnished Coast, and I experienced quite the opposite. There are more trolls now. Trolls that prey on RPers. TC was chosen by RPers to be a relatively safe RP hub. So these TC members most definitely do not speak for me when more of my time is imposed upon by trolls.

And I can’t think of anything that would reasonably explain that a workload they foresaw and projected would take the rest of 2014 to complete would remarkably be done in less than two weeks. Suddenly all the data they projected would take months to collect got obtained in 10 days? Okaaayyy.

I do know that they will keep fixing this (not like they can allow something this massive go unchecked). But the whole takesies-backsies is … wierd.

Star Ace.5207:

ley.8973:

You want feedback? Alright, here’s my piece of wood to feed the flame. ;-)

Whenever I log on, there’s an entirely new set of people around. I’m playing with a bunch of people, I log out, and when I come back after a few minutes, they’re all gone. My favourite faces from the past are nowhere to be seen… the zone chat is full of unknown names. It’s like some cursed invasion of the body snatchers: everybody’s been replaced overnight.

I thought people from the same servers are supposed to be merged together in the same instances? Shouldn’t that be a priority, really?

This is not my experience. I have entered all sorts of maps meeting the people I am used to. Give it time to get better, as I am sure this is not the “end product”, and surely will keep evolving as the game does.

Which begs the question: Why did ANet break their own promise of rolling this out slowly? The general gist I understood from that decision was to observe and analyze in only just a few select maps, for example, a few chosen low pop maps with specifically chosen high pop maps. That way they could have observed and collected data on how their code is handling the workload and how the results shape up to be on the two ends of the spectrum. Then tweak, fix, and improve accordingly. Then slowly dishing it out to other maps, collecting more data and tweaking the code as they go.

Instead they prematurely rolled it for all Tyria out in less than two weeks, barely giving themselves enough time to collect all the necesary data. And lo and behold, the megaserver code doesn’t even sort people out correctly by the conditional priorities they stated. We have the Tower Of Babel Syndrome. Guilds find themselves more often ferrying their members, and spending more time doing so, to start events than before. People within parties are more often separated. We have exageratted amounts of lag fests and zerg fests that are more detrimental to the players than beneficial. I really do wonder why ANet didn’t take their time like they said they would? They went so far as to say that before the end of the year is when we will be certain megaservers will be all out throughtout Tyria. They had the rest of 2014. What changed?

Summary: Yes, this is most definitely not the end product, it doesn’t even do what it was supposed to in too many occassions. And this could have been better handled had they stuck to their guns and rolled it out periodically taking their time. But they didn’t. It came prematurely all over the board of Tyria.

PS: Of course we’ll have to wait and see how they fix it. We are basically their beta-testers. Despite the upset expressed by many people here I think it is safe to assume that most of here understand that all we can do now, after giving them feedback, is wait and see.

Star Ace.5207:

Hystery.8415:

lordkrall.7241:

pallantides.2653:

Hi my dear Anet!!!! need more evidence that megaserver was bad idea???? forget the megaserver, it is quite simple: “we were wrong, sorry. We will back to the previous server method”.
Think of the players (customers) and dont destroy the game

What about those players that have been complaining about empty maps for almost two years then?
Should they not think of them? Why are you more important than those people?

What about merging servers with the lowest population together first to reach a decent ammount of people instead of merging everyone randomly?

Just saying.

Not the most selfless request, I’d say. Your big server’s needs over those of smaller groups. Have you considered that all those small servers put together may have numbers totaling many times the amount of a high population server?

They are actually thinking about the game, and not destroying it. Just ask someone that doesn’t have your own biases.

I don’t think he even implied to merge ALL low pop servers together. If done correctly it will create decently populated servers that even people who specifically chose low pop servers for the sake of low pop -either for more solitary game play or out of empathy for their trusty computer- can be satisfied with. But as it stands now, we are all being thrown in zerg-fests and lag-fests that now even rob people of potential xp, gold, and karma (events KO’d before you can put in sufficient damage to get a gold medal rating out of them).

Okay, just want to share one of my experiences concerning megaservers. I know this is a little silly, but hey, even the details matter, right?

Two days ago, I was in Gendarran Fields with my thief trying to get 100% Map completion to unlock one of the traits. At one point during my adventures I decide to use a waypoint to Nebo Terrace to cover a bit of nearby undiscovered area I had left behind.

Loading… loading… loading…

“Oh cool! I’m here! Wait, where’s everyone? Where’s the town? I can’t even see the walls! I’m on Nebo Terrace right?” This has never happened to me before, even on my previous older computer. Not even at launch day where everyone was trying to get in everywhere.

I try to move my character forward. She stops as if she is being blocked by something. I look into my mini map. “Well, what do you know, according to the mini map I am on Nebo Terrace”, and apparently ran into a wall. “Okay, let’s turn my character around.” Boop. “Okay, another direction then.” Boop. “Okay, did I just jump into a nest of wooden boxes or stairs?” Boop. “Okay, let’s try jumping out… eeehhh, not working this way. Okay made it back to where the wp should theoretically be. And why is there still nothing to be seen on screen from the settlement?”

Suddenly two NPCs pop, speaking to each other. I tilt my head, confused. “… Oh Six, it’s still loading the walls. This will take a while.”

I get up. Bio. Get water. Get a piece of bread. I check forums. I check FaceBook. Rewatch the first five minutes of TFS DBZ Abridged episode. And when I come back, just then it finished loading… and my character appears dead. Oops. It was in the middle of a Defend event, and someone was there to revive me. Once my character got to her feet, I kicked centaur kittens and got rewarded.

So in those few minutes I got my taste of some of the good and the bad of Megaservers (definitely doesn’t touch upon all the pros and cons).

Bad = “Holy, this is lagaliciously criminal.”
Good = “Hey, this ensured there would be someone to revive me.”

CC Danicia.1394:

Nynuwe.5893:

PS: I am deeply concerned no moderator has yet to appear here to intervene. That no developer has peaked in to aknowledge some of the concerns brought up here.

The thread was doing remarkedly well for a long time, which is why it had little interaction from the Moderation Team. There has been plenty of debating, only a tiny bit of off-topic, which quickly got back on track.

We saw the first reports about this thread this afternoon. Thousands up thousands of posts are made every single day and although we wish we could review them all, it’s just not physically possible, so any assistance we can get from players using the report function is greatly appreciated.

All this said, we have cleaned up the thread. Please keep it on-topic and clean. Thank you!

I thank you very much for the intervention, and I appreciate the work you have done here! <3

About Force of Will, it is not quite clear for me. The description for it says: “You have increased vitality, based on your level.” Then it says below : Vitality: 300. Does this mean that for max level (80) the total vitality gain is 300?

If so, on one hand it would be very handy for some guardians who do not have the most excellent gear around yet. See, this trait provides a consistent sustained vitality bonus regardless of gear. So it is good for those starting out with their 80s.

However, further along the way, had the trait been dependant on a percentage of stats gained from gear like for example, 30% additional vitality of your total vitality, it can surpass the 300 Vit. cap.

So for a beginning lvl 80 guardian, it is a good trait as it currently is, but as a guardian obtains better quality gear it can look up to pick up another trait that effectively bestow a better stat boost.

About Pure of Voice, that trait can still be quite effective. My guardian, which I have built to be very supportive and tanky employs “Save Yourselves” and “Contemplation of Purity” for a nice little combo where I draw in the conditions of my friends unto myself, gain boons, and then gain an another additional set of boons when I convert those conditions into boons. It is very effective in fights where we face Condi-happy opponents. This trait, however, could replace this combo for those who place points in the Honor line. Not a too bad trait for shout-happy guardians that want to give condition-control support. But I do suppose that it can still be improved upon.

I have noticed several people on this thread express disatisfaction with some of the new traits and reworked traits. Specifically, the ones for ranger. But at this point, I think I’ve read one for about every single class (Except mesmer, I don’t recall negative feedback on any new or reworked mesmer traits). I wonder what further improvements ANet will give to these traits based on this feedback.

A R W E N.6895:

instead of making new traits, make new utility skills that work with certain traits already there.

Make new weapon with new skill for every class. Open up the build diversity plz.

More skills could be nice. Not too long ago they added a 25-skill points worth Healing Skill for every class and that was a really good move. I would like to see some extra low cost skills to raise build diversity. To make such more viable for pre-80 characters, making skill points account wide, or eliminating the skill point cost from traits would be helpful.

A new weapon for every class? Now that would be a larger undertaking but potentially add a bigger impact to build diversity than the addition of skills. It would also imply the addition of new traits to make these new weapons more efficient through traits. So one addition leads to another addition to compensate for the first, thus creating a much bigger impact on build diversity.

Such would also be the best opportunity to revise and improve upon the recently released trait acquisition system. That way new content is released on a sturdier and more polished foundation that allows it to be as optimum as possible.

I read about it in the Megaserver discussion thread. It was concerning some of the issues surrounding megaservers that ANet is planning to aknowledge. It know it did little as it was just one, but even just receiving some sort of response is a bit of comfort. Of course, continuously active communication with the devs would be preferable (the thouht of it puts butterflies in my stomach out of joy). But at least it’s something. I would love to hear a similar response about traits, particularly surrounding the issue of level inappropriate gates for some of the Adept traits.

Lostyus.4250:

radioAspen.6829:

I just finished leveling an alt (created before the patch, thankfully) and it’s made me realize something else that is now nagging me about the new level distribution—it’s not even internally consistent. You get a point or points every six levels (because apparently that’s totally less confusing for new players than getting one every five levels, right?) until level 78. Then you get your 13th and 14th points at level 80. So the new progression is not only less organic and intuitive than the old one was (or a single point in the new system at every level starting from 15 would be) but it doesn’t even resolve itself smoothly.

This is a pretty minor thing, but it just continues to beg question of why fix (to use the term VERY liberally) what was not only not broken, but working excellently before.

Agreed also. It doesn’t feel like much thought went into a lot of the things in this patch. There’s quite a few things that people don’t like in this patch and as other people have said, this was mentioned before the patch even hit by concerned players.

The new system is a lot more ‘un-natural’ than the old system, it slows down leveling and gives you a lot less to fiddle with. Getting your GM traits at 60 meant you had the next 20 levels to find a good build so you had a good idea what worked and could then find the right armour/weapons/trinkets for you for lvl 80 or above (the most expensive part of the game).

Agreed.

I was one of those players who loved to tweak her build, playing with the traits, especially after unlocking the GM traits of the trait lines of my choosing. Oh, I want to run faster with my necro? Put on some daggers and put on my dagger speed trait on my Healing line. When I’m done with running I put back my life gain trait in that line. Planning to go under water? I retrait as needed. I used to have all the traits at my disposal. What stopped me from exploring and playing with them a little to my leisure. Now I’m with little thief and I want to scream. I just started and I already feel … limited. The freedom I had the privilege to enjoy with my other characters won’t be as available with my thief. Instead of leveling by doing whatever struck my fancy at the moment, now I’m feeling shoehorned into focusing my leveling experience into a gold-productive and efficent one in order to access the Adept traits that are impossible to acquire… Unless a Fairy Devmother came upon me and flicked his or her wand at me to grant my little Adept level range-thief super powers to survive Frostgorge Sound… That is if the game’s code decides to even recognize and award whatever actions my character will do then in that area despite being too low level to be there in the first place.

Now I want a Fairy Devmother. >.>

Lord Kuru.3685:

radioAspen.6829:

I just finished leveling an alt (created before the patch, thankfully) and it’s made me realize something else that is now nagging me about the new level distribution—it’s not even internally consistent. You get a point or points every six levels (because apparently that’s totally less confusing for new players than getting one every five levels, right?) until level 78. Then you get your 13th and 14th points at level 80. So the new progression is not only less organic and intuitive than the old one was (or a single point in the new system at every level starting from 15 would be) but it doesn’t even resolve itself smoothly.

This is a pretty minor thing, but it just continues to beg question of why fix (to use the term VERY liberally) what was not only not broken, but working excellently before.

Both these points.

Plus, this trait-hunting system is analogous to skill-hunting in GW1. However, in GW1, much more thought was put in. Each skill was attached to different boss. Each boss was of the relevant profession. Here, we just have a very generic system.

You want trait VI in trait line 5 as a Guardian? …Do 100% complete in Frostgorge Sound. As a Ranger? The same. As a warrior? The same. Very sloppy and lazy.

I feel sorry for the new players who will find having to do the same 100% map completion of X region for a trait for all of their characters tedious and boring. I only completed Lornar’s Pass once and at the end I swore I will never ever want to do it again… now I have to do it again with my thief. But by the time I’m halfway though completing Lornar’s Pass I would have amassed enough gold and perhaps enough skill points to just buy the trait in question.

Oh, the irony.

IndigoSundown.5419:

In my opinion, it might be better if people stop derailing the thread by attacking Nerelith, so she does not feel the need to further derail by defending herself. If you disagree with her opinions, address the factual basis for them, if there is one. As is the case with many opinions, they’re just opinions.

It’s also my opinion that comparing GW2 to other games can often lead to thread derailment. Perhaps that is why the moderators discourage such comparisons. In the interest of keeping threads on topic, it might be best to refrain from such comparisons.

• Disclaimer: No ill intent toward any poster is intended, and no animals were harmed in the making of this post.

This. Another reason why such comparisons are highly discouraged is because it too easily falls into use for false equivalences, and rather than direct any discussion into a productive direction, it derails it, and misinforms and confuses players. Basically, it’s an invitation to needless chaos as we have seen very clearly in this thread.

PS: I am deeply concerned no moderator has yet to appear here to intervene. That no developer has peaked in to aknowledge some of the concerns brought up here. Or am I being to impatient? Perhaps we should wait a week to see if one of either has come by? Oh wait… it has been a week…. Okay, how about a month? No, I’m not being sarcastic, I am seriously wondering if we have scared them away.

KratosAngel.7289:

A quick question, sorry if this has been asked or answered but I dont have enough time to read everything : is it intended that you can’t unlock the new traits in the defense part of Arah gates and of Lyssa ?
Are we supposed to just pay the price in gold or is it planned to fix it ?

I thought they already fixed that? Are you still currently experiencing the “Defense Gives Nada” situation?

Oops, sorry for the spam. Gonna give it a rest now.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Shrug. It is no secret that server mergers can be healthy for an MMO as far population, finding groups, etc. This game is at the stage of lifespan where mergers begin to happen. It’s common.

This is server merging. Unlike other server mergers I’ve experienced, where small, but intact server communities move in together… every server got essentially removed from the game with the exception of wvw.

Instead of a world with increased population consisting of two communities learning about and accepting each other, we get a situation of zones constantly in flux, populated by a random sampling of the entire game population, and no option of even getting to know who is in zone, and no need to.. knowing the next zone will be a totally different random mix anyway.

To my somewhat cynical eye, we just got hit with the biggest de-facto server merging in my MMO experience and they managed to relabel it and call it a “feature”. They merged every server without the bad press of “GW2 announces Server Merges”. Great PR stunt at the expense of server communities. Problem is.. this MegaMerge has produced negative effects far beyond conventional server merges. You dodged one bullet and then the piano landed on you.

I live in a rural MN town of 4000. That is a community. I can drive to Mall of America and be in the middle of more people.. doing the same thing I am, but it is NOT a community. It is a ton of people doing the same thing I am. It is a fun place to go, but it is not a community. Population does not instantly create community.

Merged world zones.. I see positives that require tweaking. I see how some love the idea of every zone being “readypug” able to provide warm bodies to finish events that don’t even need grouping and TBH, no need to even know or care who else is 1 1 1 1 as you 1111 at an HP bag.

Server Communities need a home to go to after the Particle Festivals. Give us our home cities back. Dont wreck server and RP communities totally.

Guilds need adequate measures taken to insure that the Guild Content Anet provided for them is doable and enjoyable in spite of MegaMerge. Give guilds the tools or sort weight to load Guilds into zones as a cohesive group. Don’t wreck Guild community.

Anet.. you encouraged the Super Guilds like TTS, GW2 Community, etc. You built the content that made them happen. Give them Schedules and a method to do what they do, please. Don’t wreck their community.

Anet, you made language preferred servers. Respect the communities that made that choice in good faith. They should be exempt from MegaMerge outside of chosen language.

And I’m done with the topic. Again, blowing away the smoke, all I am seeing is everymmo Relabeled and Reloaded. ANET spends far too much time on some weird crusade to somehow re-invent every aspect of the Genre and not enough time to insure that the Brave New MMO is actually working.

I really am hoping that by at least three months, ANet has already tweaked and improved the coding so that we can have our server’s PvE and RP communities back. I’m already starting to miss the usual faces at the Vigil Keep…

Faeyas.2816:

I discovered three significant opinions about this mega server business….one: a fair number of players liked it out were willing to go with it before all of the maps changed….two: most of those advocates hated or started to oppose it after we lost all of the maps… three: the stronger the community and the more important that community is to a player or community, the more unhappy they are with the megaservers in general.

Therefore I think that ultimately anet would benefit from studying nations and what makes a nation a nation, and how that relates to our server communities. I believe understanding this will help you see how many of these complaints about the mega servers are really all the same.

Basically what you did was create an artificial diaspora fot all of your players to muddle and suffer through. This isn’t because mega servers are flawed…no….it is because you did it wrong.

We have lost the ability to find, communicate with, and interact with general people from our servers outside of wvw. It is like you took a pool and dumped all of our coloured buckets into it. Yet somehow you expect us to maintain our colour because we were dumped in the same area.

Not that your intentions were bad, but you have left our servers with no identity, and in some cases a cultural crisis. You need to fix this or even wvw will suffer in the long term.

We build community and identity a and relationships in pve because we have time to. Wvw is solely for battle. We train in pve, we organize in pve, we recruit in pve for wvw. We create culture, events, and community in pve. We can’t do that now because we don’t know if our server is in our map, or if our enemy servers are in our map. We can’t communicate with only our server, we have no means of organizing server wide events because all it takes is a wp change and anyone can suddenly be serverless.

This does not mean abandon the idea entirely…just give us a point of reference….a Home base…maybe the cities don’t have to be mega…no events or battles happen in them outside of instances anyway…further cities have historically been where events and organization occurs for all the servers.

If cities were left server exclusive, servers could then maintain their ability to organize, communicate, and be communities with unique identities as each server defines itself, While still creating fuller maps out in the world.

Also…other note…. you should probably fix the bosses…wping should not change boss status because you randomly changed meta maps….that’s just broken.

Yes Please do leave the cities out of the megaserver system. It killed RP in many cases, and now I’m seeing a furiously increasing amount of anti-RP trolls that before patch I rarely ever had to put of with because my server was ultra-RP friendly (Tarnished Coast). >.<

munkiman.3068:

Gwenryth.9450:

Ramon isn’t Dev, he’s German Community Manager
His post in few words for non German speakers (sorry for bad english, I’m no native speaker). Maybe later there will be an official english post.

He says A-Net is reading our feedback and they work on the Megaserver.

1. Chatfilter is only a temporary solution.
2. They consider feedback from large guilds and Server organisations, they don’t want to make organisation of big events impossible, but dont have a solution at this time.
3. They are looking what can be done for RP community, some changes in algorithm were done especially in towns, but isn’t finish yet.
4. Megaserver system wasn’t made to save Server costs, it only redistributes serverloads.
5. They’ll rework schedules for world bosses, especially Karka Queen, Tequatl and Worm, for getting a better time frame for EU.
6. They are watching the max. number of people on one map and will make adjustments if necessary.
7. Devs are working active to improve the Megaserver, and watch our feedback, so keep on posting, especially EU feedback because of the different languages problems. Keep on posting, we are listening.

Thanks for this. My response isn’t to you, but those points you translated.

#The language problem has no solution under this merge. You’ll still have people that use a french client, that speak english, wanting to play with english speaking players and so on. Go back to the original system.
#You’ve literally broken all sense of a server community. You don’t have a solution since there isn’t one, apart from going back to the old system.
#I don’t remotely pretend to know how you’ve coded the game, but i can guarantee there is no magic algorithm that is going to solve the major issues with this system.
#Yet the lag is even worse than before. What’s the real reason for this change?
#Making it so world bosses don’t overlap might have been ok, but combined with this megaserver nonsense, you’ve created a mass of players pummeling these bosses.
#No need, go back to the old system.
#By making this move, you’ve just created a pile of work for yourself and arguable made the game worse for it. From a players perspective, the only thing this “solves” is a solo players experience of being able to complete events they can’t solo. That and the more people on the map. Most of your player base, i would say, were fine with the original system.

My personal take is, why not just have this megaserver fill only barren maps dynamically instead of this flat out toss everyone into a map fiasco?

Very good points.

Karuna.1357:

Morrigan.2809:

So let me tell you about my experience yesterday:

I was leveling a new character when someone said Behemoth pre’s are up.

I switched to an 80 only to find that he was halfway down because I was in another part of megaserver

After he was dead I switched back to the character I was on before- and when someone asked about Behe replied in map that he had just died.
Only to be called a troll and a liar because he was up— so in the space of 10 min I was on 3 different Megaserver shards or whatever..

Now think about this- basically all those people you see around you?
You are never likely to see them again because they are completely random.
This is not good- it makes other players nothoing more than pretty npc’s, you have no reason to engage with them because they are as fleeting as bubbles.
Megaserver completely destroys community.

oh- I forgot, for the first time since the patch I saw that one of my friends were on and at Maw- naturally I wanted to join him.
So I went to Maw- only there was no friend, 2 other people and no Maw.

That was when I just logged out.

MMO’s live and die by the cohesion of their communities- we have none atm.
It is currently more lonely playing GW2 than it is playing a single player game

This is an excellent example of how the whole megaserver thing actually works contrary to the stated goal. Thanks for the post.

Yup, this one of my pet peeves with megaservers. :/

Yenrah.8532:

Pluthero.4156:

I never intended or expected to have to ever post on these forums, but in light of the overwhelming impact the megaservers have had on my server I felt compelled to log on and give my 2 cents. I apologize in advance if this seems like a long rant, but have a seat kittenes, it’s story time…

Megaservers have had an absolutely negative effect on my gaming experience in general and imo on my server as a whole. I play on a relatively low population server which just recently became an even lower pop. one due to a few major WvW guilds transferring off to another server. While the majority of my time in game was devoted to doing meta events, it was more or less a way to fund my WvW expenses, gear up each of my toons with ascended equipment and look kitten sexy in whatever skins I purchase to use on them. Despite WvW being the primary reason I play the game, I’ve come to appreciate the small community of PvE/PvX-minded individuals and guilds devoted to spending their time doing whatever content they enjoy while appreciating the game we all love. Now while I may slightly look down on this community and these ppl that choose to spend their time on what I personally may think to be less enjoyable content that’s not as fruitful in representing our server, they do represent an important part of our server which is ultimately our recruitment pool. With megaservers out in full force, this community has been utterly fractured with these PvE/PvX players and guilds feeling lost in the clusterkitten that we now have to deal with having had this megakitten shoved down our throats.

It’s probably safe to say that a large portion of my server and its community is very well rooted in PvE…MY server and MY community that anet claims to want to see flourish is now shattered. I won’t go into detail about how much my personal gaming experience has suffered from crippling frame rates, toxic personalities, childish trolls, afk meta-event bots, inefficient players and the general skill lag that has resulted in being forced to play along side far too many people that, to be brutally honest, I really just don’t want to know, play with or even help, if they’re not from my server. NOW… with megaservers, recruiting for guilds or even asking for support in WvW from our community is laughable and almost completely pointless.

A good step in mending this problem would of course be removing megaservers from the major cities(as many people have already suggested), but I personally don’t think that’s enough. To suggest that server communities are formed and revolve around major cities or WvW(which atm is really the only place you can be with players from JUST your server and has since become my only refuge) is ridiculous…there are a kitten-ton of people that WANT to spend their free time doing PvE and WANT to see the same familiar names around doing it with them, despite being from different guilds but still being able to say that these are my ppl and this is my server/community.

So..my feedback is…megaservers suck balls dude.

Whether or not guesting(which is now pretty much redundant) will be completely removed, joining a megaserver should, imo, only be made an option at the character selection screen as guesting is now. By default all characters created are placed on their home server with always the option to log out to character select screen and hop onto a megaserver for whatever reason. I can appreciate the reasons behind megaservers and that some players(probably mostly casuals) would want to hop onto a vibrant and bustling world full of random people with which they have no ties and perhaps never will, but I think creating more incentive in different ways for people to populate near empty zones or take part in various content in a sociable manner is the better alternative to strong-arming people into simply accepting megaservers as the only solution and future of gw2. Just give us the option kitten …plz don’t kill my server.

Just wanted to save this before it is removed along with other good posts.
From me, in short: PvE is now an utter hell. I tried, I really did. I love this game. But this. Is. Hell.

Morrigan.2809:

So let me tell you about my experience yesterday:

I was leveling a new character when someone said Behemoth pre’s are up.

I switched to an 80 only to find that he was halfway down because I was in another part of megaserver

After he was dead I switched back to the character I was on before- and when someone asked about Behe replied in map that he had just died.
Only to be called a troll and a liar because he was up— so in the space of 10 min I was on 3 different Megaserver shards or whatever..

Now think about this- basically all those people you see around you?
You are never likely to see them again because they are completely random.
This is not good- it makes other players nothoing more than pretty npc’s, you have no reason to engage with them because they are as fleeting as bubbles.
Megaserver completely destroys community.

oh- I forgot, for the first time since the patch I saw that one of my friends were on and at Maw- naturally I wanted to join him.
So I went to Maw- only there was no friend, 2 other people and no Maw.

That was when I just logged out.

MMO’s live and die by the cohesion of their communities- we have none atm.
It is currently more lonely playing GW2 than it is playing a single player game

This is really sad.

DDCarvalho.2071:

rstripn.8697:

Hey, yet another post from me about trait unlocks!

Thanks to whoever posted first about using heart vendors, and thanks for listening.

P.S. I just realized that I am posting the most about traits, one of the few things in the patch which does not affect me (lv 80 in each class). Which just goes to show that I’m posting because I care about the game, not because I have any personal stake in this. Yay me!

I think I have posted something about using heart vendors (and event vendors) but I have not thought about dividing the Master traits between 2 or more vendors. That would be very nice!

Also, I think the system of using heart vendors would allow for a trait to be attainable in more than 1 place. There are at least 3 maps in the 30-40 range, they should all be viable for getting traits and I see no problem in more than one of them selling the same trait, giving players options on how to explore.

Even better would be if the heart vendor was profession-related, like, a heart vendor who is a guardian selling guardian traits. But some classes have almost no representatives among the heart vendors (mesmers for example). It could still be retconned (oh, that apple pie selling lady at Queensdale is a aspiring mesmer who can teach a mesmer trait or a mesmer skill).

That would be a awesome way to get traits or skills, and would give back relevance to heart vendors, who by my evaluation rarely have something useful.

The heart vendor idea between you do is very good, and I really love the sound of it. It makes great use of the maps, motivating players to explore them, it can be easily made level appropriate, offer little grind, and grants a reward for an aspect of the game that grants little reward by itself so it’s a great additional compliment to that aspect of the game. I also believe that this ideas ties in very well with this WvW-focused one:

Wolfy Shadowheart.6798:

I’m mostly a WvW player and I loved leveling alts in WvW but the new system really changes how I used to play.

Level 30 – 10 Kills 3 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 33 – 15 Kills 6 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 36 – 20 Kills 9 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 39 – 25 Kills 12 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 42 – 30 Kills 15 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 45 – 35 Kills 18 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 48 – 40 Kills 21 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 51 – 45 Kills 24 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 54 – 50 Kills 27 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 57 – 55 Kills 30 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 60 – 60 Kills 33 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 62 – 67 Kills 38 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 64 – 74 Kills 43 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 66 – 81 Kills 48 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 68 – 88 Kills 53 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 70 – 95 Kills 58 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 72 – 102 Kills 63 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 74 – 109 Kills 68 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 76 – 116 Kills 73 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 78 – 123 Kills 78 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 130 Kills 83 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 137 Kills 88 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 144 Kills 93 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 151 Kills 98 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 158 Kills 103 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 165 Kills 108 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 172 Kills 113 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 179 Kills 118 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 186 Kills 123 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 193 Kills 128 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock

There wouldn’t be any Overgrown grub to kill either because really the only time we’ve ever killed it was when we were bored and had the people to do it.

I think it would be a marvelous idea if instead of just two venues to acquire traits, we devide them into three. A PvE path which is centered on hearts. A WvW one which is centered on number of kills and captures. And pure currency one that uses gold. I would highly recommend ANet that they either remove the skill point cost from Adept level traits and lower the costs of Master and Grandmaster, or make skill points account bound due to skill points being scarce during the first half of the leveling experience. I had to give skill point scrolls to my thief to be able to buy the Adept traits she literally cannot access during the Adept level range, yet I have other high level characters who have skill points to spare.

Please, this thread has been overall kept civil and productive, many people have brought up great suggestions, creative and good constructive criticism of the new system with the desire to help ANet improve and remain in line with their unique and casual-friendly gaming philosophy. Let’s not turn this into a free-for-all.

People are pointing out the inherent flaw in gating Adept traits behind high level content that is inaccessible to characters at Adept level range. The problem with acquiring most of the Adept traits have absolutely no relevance nor effect on GM trait acquisition. GM traits are gated behind level appropriate content. Most Adept traits aren’t. Let’s not get these two mixed up, please. They are not valid counter arguments of the other.

IndigoSundown.5419:

blakdoxa.7520:

@those comparing Gw2 trait gathering to Gw1 skill capturing

Theses two systems are vastly different from each other. I don’t even understand how people can even compare the acquisition methods….

GW2 trait hunting is superficially similar to GW elite skills — you do something in game to get something you can use with your build. It’s also superficially similar to the 30 extra stat points available in GW via questing. The differences you allude to are the point of contention.
______________________________________________________________

@ those saying that L36 abilities obtainable via doing content much later in the leveling process is fine, please answer these questions honestly.

• If a new game came out with this mechanic, what would the general reaction from the public be? Would the design be lauded as a great one?
• If the intent is to make certain adept traits unavailable until later in the leveling process, why allow them to be bought for coin and skill points?
• Normally, higher level content is going to be perceived as more difficult than lower level content. If two traits which are at the same tier — which would presumably mean they are approximately equal in value — are available through content playable at vastly different levels, is the system balanced appropriately?

Very good questions…

HappyDale.5398:

Lheimroo.2947:

HappyDale.5398:

IE: My Mesmer has 200 + skill points, I have the gold. Let my Mesmer be able to buy Guardian tomes, so that I can unlock my trait faster with SP and Gold. As I said before the major problem I have now, is the lack of Skill Points on the new Character.

It would be super super nice if skill points were account bound, and that would alleviate the problem of rolling alts struggling with skill points to get traits in the new system.

But it wouldn’t do a thing for genuinely new players.

I completely agree.

I figured many others have suggested ways for new players and for WvW only players to unlock traits. Just adding my two cents, in what I am facing.

Besides the fact the Adept levels traits need to start to be unlock at level 11. Through low level map completion, low levels bosses (Oak, Bandit), and low level Jumping puzzles, and personal story. That by the time you are level 36 you already have a fair about of trait unlocked, to experiment with. Then by level 42 most if not all Adept level traits should be unlocked. Then again By level 48 you should have a descent amount of Master level traits unlock to start messing with.

This is a really nice suggestion.

Wolfy Shadowheart.6798:

I’m mostly a WvW player and I loved leveling alts in WvW but the new system really changes how I used to play. I already have 9 alts that have done missions and map exploration and I don’t want to go through that again. I just want to go into WvW on the alt I’m leveling and run with some friends for that short amount of time I have to play.

I was thinking of how to make the new trait system be friendly to WvW-only players and came up with this idea that at each trait point if you have a certain number of kill credits, captures credits, and meet the level requirement you would get a random trait unlock.

Here is basically what I was thinking.
The numbers would change based on the data that Anet has so this is just a visualization of it.

Level 30 – 10 Kills 3 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 33 – 15 Kills 6 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 36 – 20 Kills 9 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 39 – 25 Kills 12 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 42 – 30 Kills 15 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 45 – 35 Kills 18 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 48 – 40 Kills 21 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 51 – 45 Kills 24 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 54 – 50 Kills 27 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 57 – 55 Kills 30 Captures 1 Adept Trait Unlock
Level 60 – 60 Kills 33 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 62 – 67 Kills 38 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 64 – 74 Kills 43 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 66 – 81 Kills 48 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 68 – 88 Kills 53 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 70 – 95 Kills 58 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 72 – 102 Kills 63 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 74 – 109 Kills 68 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 76 – 116 Kills 73 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 78 – 123 Kills 78 Captures 1 Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 130 Kills 83 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 137 Kills 88 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 144 Kills 93 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 151 Kills 98 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 158 Kills 103 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 165 Kills 108 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 172 Kills 113 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 179 Kills 118 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 186 Kills 123 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock
Level 80 – 193 Kills 128 Captures 1 Grand Master Trait Unlock

There wouldn’t be any Overgrown grub to kill either because really the only time we’ve ever killed it was when we were bored and had the people to do it.

This is a great alternative for WvW players. I think a great way to implement this along with the PvE suggestions is to offer both these playstyle choices besides the pay choice. I really like the heart vendor idea, for example. So perhaps each trait will then have three choices? One is a specific goup of heart vendors, the other is a specific amount of kills/capture in WvW, and the third is a reasonable gold cost. And there you have it! Three choices for each trait that motivates map exploration for both PvE and WvW players who have the time and desire to play to acquire rather than the pay option.

felessan.9587:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So, I’ve had a chance to look through some of the trait acquisition finally (thank you Dulfy for the guide) and some of it makes me scratch my head. Map completion of Gendarren, really? Might be a bit much for a single trait acquisition. True, you might be doing this to level your character anyway from 25 to 35, but it still seems a bit extravagant. My proposition is thus:

There are currently 6 adept, 4 master, and 3 grandmaster traits. With traits starting at 30, you can effective lock a trait to an event, boss, etc per every 5 levels, per line.

Trait 1 = lvl 30 boss, event, story mission, etc.
Trait 2 = lvl 35 "
Trait 3 = lvl 40 "
etc, etc

Then people might feel a little better about acquiring these as they go, and not feel like they are insanely out of reach. I do suggest mixing them up some though, spread them out around the world and not necessarily make them the same task from profession to profession. I mean right now Line 1, Trait 1 is the lvl 55 story mission for everyone. That’s kinda boring.

Additionally, I would suggest that maybe wvw tasks be left for later level acquisition tasks. This way players have some traits under their belt when they enter wvw.

Or Lornar’s Pass. I haven’t been to Lornar’s since the Marionette, so maybe with the Megaserver in place, it will seem less boring, but it’s a huge map and a total snooze-fest.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but the WvW unlocks actually aren’t that bad. There are only eight total. Three of them are captures of the towers in EotM, which require nothing but following a zerg, which is pretty easy to find there, stand in a big circle, and don’t die. I actually did this with my most recent alt at level 3. The Overgrown Grub isn’t a difficult event either. Take a ranged weapon and stay alert. The befriend events aren’t so bad either, though they get a little tougher because you do need to be able to inflict actual damage and not just stand in a circle. The only WvW unlock that’s actually hard is the Obsidian Sanctum puzzle. I fully agree, make that a Master level unlock instead so players have a fighting chance against all the murderers who hang out there and pick off AP hunters.

These are also great suggestions. This thread is full of great ideas from players who care to see GW2 grow and improve.

rstripn.8697:

Hey, yet another post from me about trait unlocks!

I really like the idea of using heart vendors to help fix quest-based trait unlocks.

• Leverages an existing mechanic instead of having to code a new one: reduces time and expense, hopefully to a level where we can see quick changes.
• Still encourages exploration if the heart vendors used are spread across the world, and preferentially chosen in parts of zones that traditionally people don’t level in.
• Adept trait books could be available from level-appropriate heart vendors, costing only karma once the player completes the vendor’s task (like other heart vendor items). The level of these heart vendors should be spread out, so that some traits can be unlocked immediately (at 30) and others won’t be available until higher level (max vendor level should be ~55).
• Master trait guides are supposed to require more effort than Adept ones, so maybe they could be spread out over several heart vendors. For example, to get a single Master guide you may have to complete tasks for 3 different heart vendors in different zones, buy a piece from each vendor with karma, and then combine the pieces (via existing double-click mechanic) to get the actual guide. The heart vendors could be of pretty much any level (max ~75).
• Grandmaster trait guides should be the exception to this change, being far too valuable to put on heart vendors. Here we rely on the new system, but now we have more options. There are currently 15 grandmaster traits per class, and there are currently 65 trait unlock quests. Pick 15 of the best unlock quests (see next bullet) and assign those to the grandmaster trait slots.
• “The best” = Quests that require a group to complete (at least 2 people, no more than 5) and which represent a cross-section of the entirety of the desired GW2 experience. Since the character has to be level 80 to use the guide, these quests can be of any level and be anywhere: Orr, dungeons, WvW, …
• The code for the 50 removed quests should be saved for some future use, of course… perhaps someday we can have class-specific or even trait-specific trait unlocks, and some of these might come into play then.

Thanks to whoever posted first about using heart vendors, and thanks for listening.

P.S. I just realized that I am posting the most about traits, one of the few things in the patch which does not affect me (lv 80 in each class). Which just goes to show that I’m posting because I care about the game, not because I have any personal stake in this. Yay me!

I love when players offer good ideas. Makes me feel so giddy and happy on the inside. <3 The idea of heart vendors simplifies the system (which is what ANet was supposedly striving for) in a reasonable and accessible way that can still be fun for people. The idea of saving those 50 removed quests for some class specific traits and GM traits where applicabale would help spice things up. Good job thinking this through!

I actually want to unlock my traits without paying, but some are literally out of my character’s grasp because they are locked behind high level zones where she will be one shotted by a glance from the monsters. It doesn’t feel like an option when I’m basically being shoehorned into paying for those traits.

Many of the people in this thread actually LIKE the idea of hunting for traits. But what the majority of those are dissatisfied about is that too many of the Adept traits are gated behind high level content – which means that we won’t be able to access them at the traits’ appropriate levels.

We are not asking for free hand outs. We are not begrudging having to play. Actually the problem is that we do want to play and hunt for traits, but we can’t at the level we are supposed to unlock them. When my little thief gets to 36, she won’t be able to complete Frostgorge Sound. She won’t be able to complete Fireheart Rise. She won’t be able to do “A Light in the Darkness”. She won’t be able to do “Battle for Claw Island.” Ect ect. I will have to pay for these traits to obtain them at the appropriate level and lose the opportunity to PLAY to get these specific traits.

Many of us are not against the theory and the intent of what ANet was hoping to achieve. We are not against playing the game. We want to enjoy and play this content. We really do. But the requirements for some of the trait unlocks have to be LEVEL APPROPRIATE for that to happen.

Just reassigning these quests so that they are of the level zone the traits belong to would fix this.
———————————-
I also would suggest that the quests be actually related to the traits in question. Traits that are similar in effect but for different classes could share the same quest. Just a suggestion.

DavidH.7380:

I couldn’t read all 9 pages, but after reading halfway through it occurred to me that there is a really significant difference between the experience of a new player and a new character. As a new player, there is a world of stuff to figure out in the first 40 levels, as you really have no idea how the game works at all and you are busy figuring out such simple stuff as repairs, where to go in the world, karma vendors, crafting, map completion bonuses, travel, the auction house, the bank… it is all shiny and new and overwhelming. Not having to deal with traits until later may be an advantage for those truly new players.

However, when you are leveling your third or fourth alt there isn’t much new anymore other than the new class mechanics and traits to play with. I don’t think gating the experience is nearly as important for these players on new characters. I really like the idea of vendors that only sell account bound items to max level characters that allow them to move through some of this stuff more quickly. Maybe you buy and send a “tome of knowledge” to your alt that teaches them 5 trait points in advance. Or an item that grants bonuses to experience and heart quest completion so your alt levels and little faster and moves through the heart completion quests a little quicker the second time through. That way, repeat players get the streamlined experience and incentive to roll alts while the new player get the unaltered experience Anet had in mind. That could make both sides reasonably happy.

Just how careful were you to read the reviews given by new players? Already various new players came here to express their dissatisfaction. They felt nerfed. They felt confused by this change. But not a single one of them complained about the old trait system being “overwhelming”. Please do take the time to read a few more pages if you actually wish to read the reviews given by new players.

When I was new the trait system did not overwhelm me at all. Why would it? It just requires reading. I looked at the Trait window and started reading. Then some clicking. The in-game tool tips also helped because… I read them. Reading. That’s what it takes. Being new to a game should not stop you from taking your time to read tool tips and read what can be found on screen. Do you think it is unfair to expect new players to read?

At this point I am convinced that the dev’s tired old “But we just want to make it easier for the new players” excuse is nothing short of a scapegoat to appease the masses.

PS: I’m sorry if that sounded harsh, I’m just really shocked by the idea someone would be “overwhelmed” by traits. Especially given that at this point, most players have already become acquainted with the concept of “traits” in other games Not just MMOs, but some solo RPGs as well. The concept and theory behind traits as part of character progression is really not unique. So the number of new players who would disregard reading and are unacquainted with the concept of traits as part of character progression are an extreme minority. Does such a low population merit a change that negatively affects the rest? Again, as I’ve said… the whole “But we are doing it for the new players!” is really just a huge scapegoat.

Besides Rift, other games that include a Custom Chat Channel Creation aspect are World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have played in both those MMOs and during my experience as guild moderator and officer in those two games, CCCs have been a great boon for us. They are immensely helpful in unifying guilds and coordinating events between them. They are also very useful for RPers, both guild-wide and independently. They are great even if its to just have your small close-knit group of friends together even as they find themselves doing their own thing and in different guilds.

And yes, it would be very practical and useful if along with CCC we can have the ability to custom choose the colors for each channel in our user interface.

Hello, I would love to bring a suggestion which I believe could enhance the social aspect of gaming for all players in GW2. And it is Custom Chat Channel Creation.

Now, what would be a Custom Chat Channel?
A Custom Chat Channel (let’s shorten it to CCC) is a chat channel independent of region and guild that can potentially unite all and any players its creator wishes to invite into. There would be a User Interface that would allow a player to manage CCCs they create and have been invited to. The one who creates a CCC will be given a set of options to manage it. They can name it, set password (if they want), send invitations to players they wish would join the channel, kick unwelcomed players, ect.

A player wishing to join an already existing CCC can either be invited to it, or given the name, or the name and password, depending on the restriction and management the creator has chosen for said channel.

What are the possible uses for Custom Chat Channels?
Because CCCs are not restricted by region nor guild and allow any players across the server to join, the uses for CCCs can be limited only by the own players. Examples of the reasons and motivations for using CCC are as follow:

• Unifying friends who enjoy different guilds and different aspects of the game. Say, for example, a friend who spends most of their time representing a High Level PVE guild would still like to speak with friends who have joined Heavy RP guilds or just any other guild, while simultaneously being able to join instances and parties with other people.
• Coordinating Dungeon Runs, WvW, PvP with players across different guilds.
• Unifying allied guilds and forming social bonds across their members.
• Coordinating RolePlay events involving more people than is allowed within a party (6+ players), or even just to separate InCharacter and OutOfCharacter chat for those involved. Example, an RP guild can create a CCC for their IC chat, leaving guild chat for OOC.
• To allow players within a guild to have separate channels for any set of specific purposes of chat moderation. For example, a guild could place a “Only game-related and light socialing” topic restrictions on the guild chat and then create a CCC for guild members only with lighter topic restrictions where they can feel free to explore non-game related topics.

The uses for CCC are limitless, they are created for whatever purpose it’s creator chooses them. Of course, any behavior occurring within CCC that breaks the EULA can be reported just like in any other chat channel. I believe the inclusion of Custom Chat Channel creation into GW2 will expand, broaden, and unify more players together to enjoy all various aspects of the game.