Guild Wars 2

Given the amount of time between play>feedback>talk>changes/dev test>second “open” test with non-Anet staff I just can’t see them getting this out the door before a year’s time. If they do, then color me both impressed and very worried.

Sadly that still means 6 weeks for PAX East, some more talking about feedback from a small pool of players/testers. Tweaking for next test with a slightly larger but incestuous group of players that maybe leads to an early access alpha/beta thing which leads to the official release. With all the dev time in there I’ll wager we don’t actually see the expansion itself for another year.

I just hope for their sake that they don’t try to price the expansion as a full game since it won’t be.

Right, so at the end of the day we are not seeing an actual expansion for about another year.

Nyquest.1583:

Could you imagine seeing a zerg of hang gliders flying into your Keep in WvW. I would be in awe. Lets hope they are active in borderland.

Only if they introduce new anti-aircraft siege.

rapthorne.7345:

updated with date of showcase, Mike stated on stream that “the first playable version will be available at pax east”

Playable for the masses or playable for a few select people on their payroll?

It would only have to be in the new maps. Doing it in current maps or game modes would completely break the game.

Yep, well, I know how you feel. I will also refrain from being amped about these things until the problems are fixed.

Guhracie.3419:

Infernia.9847:

No mention in the livestream about traits… but like I said some pages back, With a new profession and the majority of players being exposed to the trait changes there will be a lot more comments in this thread. I do believe we’ll see changes before the expansion goes live.

I can’t imagine they’ll leave the trait system untouched, knowing that everyone’s going to be rolling the new profession. Then again, they’ll already have the money from the xpac sales, so…

Actually, there is one thing here that is pertinent:

Their mention of the mastery stuff. Basically they described something that could be very trait like BUT they explicitly said it would be account bound and not toon bound so it seems like they listened to some things we said in here, but applied it to something completely new in the game.

I just hope they come back and apply that same thinking to the traits as well since they are obviously able to do it.

Knighthonor.4061:

Hey people mind quoting this post and explaining why you like the change to the trait system for low levels?

Don’t feel like going through thousands of post against the change. I just want to know he other side of the situation.

As others have just mentioned above me, there are very few and very flawed reasons for liking this Trait update. Fact is, if it was well liked by the community this thread wouldn’t even be here.

IMO this trait change has only ONE good thing for new players, and that is if you have NO toons and are your first one, it might** Make game play your first time through more fun. MIGHT. Since we’ve already had a few new players also chime in to the contrary however, its more obvious that the system as it stands is broken and needs fixing.

Galphar.3901:

I’m hoping that at tomorrow’s panel they say SOMETHING about the Traits system and not just use it to talk about HoT and their “vision” for GW2.

I’m not even that hopeful.

Not anymore at least.

I just want them to say and DO something (hopefully with our input before going live with it) and well enough before anything HoT related goes live.

Paffus Piffus.9430:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

A year ago I would have been super excited and willing to give Anet more of my money.

Now…not so much. They need the new blood it seems.

You’re still on the forum though, so you must have some interest in the game

Don’t get me wrong. I have been with GW since way back when it first ever came out and waited excitedly for GW2. I jump on that train during BETA and have been a huge fan or the lore/world/etc.

That being said, in the last year Anet has severely soured me to the game. Thre have been too many things that they have both done and not done that have made me come close to doing a full uninstall and its only been a waning hope that has kept me coming to the forums looking for updates and pleading for certain fixes. My play has severely dropped off to almost nothing and it wasn’t until this week that I’ve been forcing myself to play the game again for any length of time to try to rediscover something about the game to make me love it again, but that’s been difficult as well.

All i know is that if some of these other issues that have been game breakers for me aren’t addressed before whatever HoT is, goes live, then I will most likely walk away from the game completely.

That genuinely makes me sad, but I’d have to do it. I want to enjoy it. I just don’t. not like i used to.

Ayrilana.1396:

Why should the daily reward for completing the three avhievements be rewarded to players who passively go for them by playing in whatever manner they prefer?

Because that’s how it was before?

Because we kept saying that more choices should be given to people that play WvW or PvP exclusively so they didn’t have to also do PvE if they didn’t want to?

Because after all of that has been said over and over in the community that Anet decided to give fewer choices per mode that were easily attainable to make people play more modes that they don’t want to and its frustrating?

Another thing to point out from my perspective:

When i used to log in before and map open and do events, etc on a given map, I’d get my dailies done at the same time.

For the last few days I’ve been forcing myself to play the game some more (in the hopes of finding the things i loved about it again) and in the process of running the toon i wanted to play on the map i wanted to play on I either didn’t complete a single task for the daily or maybe one of them if it had something to do with the zone (Ascalon lumberer).

The key thing i want to point out here are these words: " in the process of running the toon i wanted to play on the map i wanted to play on".

Notice I didn’t say, “play a toon with access to the modes and maps Anet wanted me to go to”. I really don’t know what is so hard for some (and Anet) to understand about this simple fact. Even if i WANTED those AP, the fact still remains that I want to get them by playing the game in the manner I most enjoy, which is what i used to be able to do and cannot do more often than not after this change.

Uhm…i think you think that telling others not to point out how you’re wrong is a thing that makes sense, but in this case to have any proper discourse you have to realize that such a request (and it IS a request) cannot be adhered to.

In essence, you’re wrong about dodge not working. Aside from the MANY videos out there on the web of people solo running dungeons and champions, etc and using dodge to great effect already disproving your stance, there are probably and equal number of posters on these forums that could also attest to the contrary. I usually hate the L2P arguments, but in this instance, that is exactly what this is.

Sure lag and an occasionally buggy mechanic can come into play, but I can say with personal certainty that dodge not only works against big bosses, but it has saved my life numerous times in PvE on all of my toons.

So yeah, at the end of the day, practice learning the big hits and their timing on these bosses.

A year ago I would have been super excited and willing to give Anet more of my money.

Now…not so much. They need the new blood it seems.

SpyderBite.6274:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Now, the change could be a good one. It could be great even if they have seriously taken what we’ve said in here to heart, unfortunately their track record thus far doesn’t instill much hope in that regard.

I didn’t realize we were members of the Anet Board of Directors. If that’s the case; you’re right. All changes or lack of changes should indeed be approved by us first!

No, we’re just the consumers that keep the game afloat and have time and time again shown that we are a valuable part of the development process. If we weren’t there would never have been BETA weekend anythings, or even a forum for us to give feedback on the issues in game. If they really wanted to operate entirely in a vacuum and completely ignore the things their player base find in error with their game, they are free to do so to their detriment.

A restaurant that serves bad food and doesn’t take critic and diner reviews to heart will go out of business, as will any business that caters to a consuming public. About the only industries safe from such things are those that provide an inherent need, like long range travel (airlines, etc).

So, while your attempt at snark does not go unnoticed, it also goes wide of hitting the mark. If Anet moves ahead on another trait update without at least letting us weigh in ahead of time on it and possibly get a feel for what they have in mind to roll out and giving themselves enough time to take any suggestions into consideration, they might be faced with a bigger quagmire than the original trait update which is NOT what you want to happen right before a potential major release of content.

I’m going to watch the event if i can from home, but I can honestly say i am not enthused. This actually saddens me a bit that I cannot even be excited about this “unveiling” because I’ve been so soured against the game.

Is this an Eye for Profit?

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

If they do a trait update in March, then I’d hope that they would actually talk about their plans with us in here sometime in February. We need to be able to weigh in on it in some way before it goes live. If that doesn’t happen then I will fully endorse any and all grievances with the update be spread out in as many threads as possible on the boards.

I’m not even kidding.

We played by the rules on this thread when the trait update first happened and we were essentially ignored, and not just by Anet, but by many players that hadn’t been affected by the change until recently when they started a new toon. If the next update occurs in a vacuum and there are problems that we see with it after launch I say we show exactly how squeaky of a wheel we can be by making it summarily impossible for it to be ignored.

Now, the change could be a good one. It could be great even if they have seriously taken what we’ve said in here to heart, unfortunately their track record thus far doesn’t instill much hope in that regard.

After some time:

i am one of those “Don’t hate it and don’t love it” kinda people here. On the one hand, on a good day I can knock out the daily super fast with minimal effort.

On other days I honestly feel like I’m being forced to do things I’d rather not do just to get the daily.

Case and point: The other night I had just gotten my girls down to sleep and had a limited amount of time I could play. More importantly I was exhausted and just wanted to generally run around and “do some things” in the game and hopefully get my daily.

Problem was there was only ONE PvE daily (I think it was a gathering one) that I could do in that fashion. The others were something like do Shadow Behemoth (which I was about 2 hours out of the window for), fractals (which I don’t enjoy even when I have enough energy to play for a while) and events on a map that the toon i wanted to play on didn’t even have open. This meant that I had to go into WvW and/or PvP to possibly complete the daily. Problem was that although I used to WvW a lot on my server, I’ve not had the energy or inclination to go in there this last week and i was frankly in no mood to have to dodge/fight people just to cap a ruin or kill a yak/guard(s). I am also not that big on PvP either. i just don’t enjoy it most of the time.

Now before anyone starts going off on the whole “everyone who just wants to do their little mode” thing, please stop. I enjoy PvE over the other 2 game modes most days and that is how i like to play. period. I think Anet would have been better served giving those that like to play those other modes exclusively more options for dailies in their respective modes rather than try to force everyone out of their preferred play-styles into the other game modes. But I digress.

On this day, since I wanted to get my AP, I forced myself to go into WvW. It was predictably kill a yak and take a ruin. OK, fine, found a yak with no guards and ganked it then went to the nearby ruin. Thankfully I was seconds away from capping it when I had someone run up on me and start plinking away at my up-level and was able to cap it right before the got there to kill me. Yay.

Seriously, what is so hard about giving each game mode enough options that anyone can get the daily on any toon they WANT to run instead of a toon they HAVE to run because they are the only ones with access to that map/area/level/etc or simply if they just like playing PvE, WvW, or PvP exclusively?

I can promise you that if Anet did link any fix to the trait system to the new content and made that content paid while leaving those that don’t pay for it in limbo that I would not only walk away from the game, but i’d walk away from Anet. Such an idea would be so ill conceived and ill received that it would sink them, so I cannot fathom them actually doing that.

I’d also hope that they would float a fix BEFORE they try going live with HoT in any way shape or form simply because if it IS a new paid for expansion, I will not buy it unless this trait problem is fixed in a way that is well received by most.

Once 80 you will also then need to figure out how you want to go about unlocking your traits to make viable builds. Enjoy.

Spooksie.4930:

Novuake.2691:

The medium and light armor types actually have better access to blast finisher that can give a lot of things, from more dps to vigor.

Which professions have more blast finishers? Elementalists? I think Thieves have one? Mesmers one? Not sure about Engineers because I haven’t really taken a look at those or Rangers for that matter. Too many doohickies and I hate pets. I’ve never played in a game where AI pathing wasn’t an issue with pets.

Novuake.2691:

So at the end of the day, all classes are equally viable for PvE content.

What about other types of content? The reason I ask is because one of the commanders in WvW on my home server “strongly” encouraged me to main one of those three classes if I wanted to continue to participate. When I say strongly, I mean he discouraged me completely from participating further.

That commander is an idiot. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I tend to main an engie in WvW and i have 2 different builds for that. My zerg runner that is super tanky and can punch into a group of atackers and slow them down/make them chase me or my roamer that flips camps and takes down other roamers. Both ways of playing the same toon that are both useful in WvW in their own way. One helps the group in large group battles and the other helps throw the enemy off balance by being a pain while stealing valuable PPT right before the tick. There are many strategies for WvW in particular and if that commander wants everyone to play a specific meta then they are not seeing the forest for the trees.

Frankly i just stay at the hunting lodge or bed over at the monastery when in QD.

While I agree that “soon” could mean that, Anet is notorious for saying “soon” and then going silent for months.

My bigger point here is that if it is soon enough that something is “in the chamber” so to speak, then it should also be soon enough to give us either:

a- More concrete timeline with respect to HoT
b- More concrete info regarding the possible trait changes so we could hopefully weigh in on some of it before it goes live.

This first Trait change occurred in a vacuum and lead to this wondrous post. All i’m asking for is for Anet to actually follow through with their mantra of “they will let us know more info once they actually have it.” It seems like they have more info. i just want them to actually share it instead of springing it on us and hoping for the best.

i love going into a map (on which I am outnumbered) and ganking a few yaks or ruins for myself (yay new dailies) only to be assaulted by 5 people roaming together and them dancing as if somehow jumping a lone player who was literally ignoring them was some great accomplishment.

What’s better is coming across the same group moments later and sitting beside one of them when they went AFK and then fighting/beating them when they came back to their computer. Oops.

Had fun fighting a pewpew ranger the other day. I was on my power engie build that i normally use rifle for, but the moment i saw the ranger i swapped to PS and put toolkit in my bar.

i jumped down, waited for the number 2 and hit my number 4 on my shield and ran at him. After he ate his arrows I pulled him to me, thwacked and started popping bombs all around. he tried pulling another round of pewpew and i pulled up my other block and repeated while tagging with random condi until my bombs finished him off. Good times.

Not to be a total stick in the mud, because i do think this latest convo has been very enlightening (not being sarcastic, i really do), but lets try to actually keep this post on topic. It has frankly gone on too long for it to be closed due to derailing now.

Bigger question from me to Anet:

IF all of this HoT talk is leading to a proper expansion, are you going to be addressing the Trait problem before the release of HoT so it doesn’t mire the new content or are you going to attempt to fix it along with the release of HoT , and are hoping that whatever fix you’ve cooked up will work/appease many of us that have been discussing this Trait problem now since last April?

Pointedly, Gaile, are we going to see the Traits issue addressed before PAX or at least before HoT (whatever it might be) goes live?

Yeah, at the end of the day i was a long time (read pretty much from the beginning) GW1 player. I have loved the world of Tyria ever since i first played in it and had to be there for this newest chapter right when it started.

Godric.5649:

Spears, Shields, Team Player at best.

Paragon.

I definitely had Paragons in mind with the idea that they wouldn’t have the same healing support as Guardians or the raw damage output of warriors. Hence why I also put in the caveat of greater buffs with more phalanx in an area and deciding if they’d trait to buff themselves or others around them.

Obviously other traits would either augment their own damage with weapons or increase condition duration, etc.

Not really suggestion for any kind of pending upcoming content (in whatever form it takes). Believe me, if there is anyone here who understands both how the development process works (and how Anet’s dev process seems to work) its me. This was more of a thought exercise and general idea/brain storming thing that if nothing else could maybe drop a bug in someone’s ear.

Yeah, the CC stuff in PvE wouldn’t fly so well, but i figure if they spec/trait for damage and damage buffing for PvE that would work better in those areas.

Well, the idea is to differentiate this one from the other heavy classes through its traits instead of trying to jam new/different traits into the existing heavies.

*caveat – This was literally just thrown together as a stream of though and I know there are tons of details not worked out. This was more a brainstorm to get some ideas on paper (so to speak).

Class Suggestion:

Armor Type: Heavy
Class name: Phalanx

As the name suggests, there will be a mechanic for this class that makes it more ideal for group play than solo play (although solo play is still possible). They are not meant to be a high damage class with most of their damage falling more mid-ranged. Their primary focus is on CC in that group play.

Weapons:
Pistol (main hand-short ranged)
Spear (main hand-ranged)
Sword (main hand)
Shield (off hand)
Warhorn (off hand)
Polearm (two handed)

Pistol Skills (meant for close range support combat)

• Doubleshot – fires two quick shots from the hip
• Blastshot – Powerful shot with small knock back (2 sec recharge)
• Befuddle – Ammo bursts at close range for 3 stacks of confusion and bleeding (3 sec recharge)

Spear Skills

• Barbed Head – Attack that adds 1 stack of bleeding on the second & third throw
• Crippling Throw – Cripples target for 2 seconds (3 second recharge)
• Screaming Throw – AOE (up to 3 targets in circle) Does ongoing fire damage and strips 2 boons

Sword Skills

• Triple Strike – Three fast swipes increasing damage for each
• Pouncing Thrust – Leaping strike that does small damage, but can interrupt a block
• Upward Thrust – A heavy strike that does 20% more damage if target is at 50% health

Shield Skills

• Rushing wall – Charge forward while reflecting incoming projectiles. Protective bubble explodes at end of charge for moderate damage.
• Iron Wall – For 3 seconds create a wall that stops enemy movement

Warhorn Skills

• Call to Arms – Buff allies with 2 seconds of Might, Speed and Stability
• Call of Terror – Damage enemies in a cone in front of you and apply 3 seconds of fear if they are struck

Polearm Skills:

• Thrust – Three medium speed thrusts
• Sweeping strike – Swing in a area in front of you to hit up to three targets
• Clothesline – Charge and strike up to 5 enemies in front of you causing damage and knockdown, gain swiftness for 2 seconds after charge
• Earth Shatterer – AOE around self that does heavy damage and dazes up to 5 targets in the area for 1 second if not blocking or stablized.
• Phalanx Rage – Spinning attack that ends in a knockdown for 3 seconds in an area around the user if not interrupted.

Basically i see utilities and traits for this class as having a focus on bolstering damage either for themselves or for others around them or bolster defense for themselves or others around them depending on how many others are within a particular range of them. For instance, it can be 10% increase per other character within shout range or 20% per additional phalanx (max of 5 buffs). This means you can have a mix of damage or defensive buffs or go full on in one direction over another to maximize defense or power for yourself or a group. Being grouped with people isn’t a requirement so open world PvE solo players can still get bonuses just by being around them and a team of Phalanx players can be a great defensive wall on the front lines or a detructive force to push through another’s defenses.

Mind you i just threw this together in about an hour between running Window’s updates on a new laptop, but i think something like this could work well.

I will add however that the stealth off of walls and doors thing is just cheap exploitation of something that was briefly fixed before an update re-broke it and Anet has yet to address it again.

Sinbold.8723:

I’m surprised it took so many posts before someone mentioned how broken thief stealth really is. Combine that with backstab? Good times. That end really fast. Not to hijack the post, but imho, thief stealth should be in line with mesmer’s invis.

But as others have said, when in WvW, ask in map chat for people to come with you, and mention you are having problems with a thief. If there’s a condi mez on the map, I’ll wager they’ll come help you just so they can kill the thief.

Nah, I’d rather go head to head with a thief than a PU mesmer when running around on my guardian.

OP just needs to learn what to do and what not to do in WvW then understand that people will gank you if they feel they can, because, well its WvW.

I’m one of a group of people that actually liked the marionette (and its now my favorite Vista to visit because i could say “i was there to see it/play it”) and moreso i liked it even if we failed because the successes against it were even more awesome. Sure it took some coordination and teaching people how to do it, but man it felt great and alive and yeah…i miss it. Unfortunately its a logistical nightmare for Anet to please most people (even those that liked the event), so i don’t see them doing something like that again, or if they do it will have to be for something super major, like say, a new dragon. WINKWINKandabigNUDGENUDGE. I’d get on board for something like that for sure. It would definitely make up for pewpew at big Z nonsense.

Galphar.3901:

Astral Projections.7320:

Galphar.3901:

sorudo.9054:

IndigoSundown.5419:

sorudo.9054:

Galphar.3901:

blakdoxa.7520:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Worblehat.8697:

So inconsistent…

That’s part of my complaint. The other is: “So how exactly does doing this relate to the Trait Mastery getting unlocked?”

At least with Elite Skills your target would use it. (This was a considerable problem with some of them.) After they changed the capture system, it was not too bad but the initial one was even more BS than Traits are now.

How?

You had to have the Signet of Capture ready, and you needed to hit it while targeting the user, while they were using it. For some of the Elites I just can’t see how that worked at all.

I’m not sure when you stopped playing GW1… But all you had to do was have the Signet of Capture, kill the boss and use the signet on their corpse. A menu would pop up that would allow you to select the skill you want to take, which would usually be an elite skill. It’s way easier to capture skills in GW1 than it is to obtain traits in GW2.

Originally Signets of Capture worked like Tobias explained, prior to the June 8th, 2005 update, this skill had to be activated at the same time the targeted boss activated the desired skill. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20050608

that’s almost 10 years ago, it’s time you keep up with the times.

Galphar was explaining something that Tobias posted. It’s time you kept up with the thread.

it still happened 10 years ago, it’s time you get the point.

No the point is that before the April Trait patch people were asking for something like the Signet of Capture for Elite Skills in GW. What we got was the Trait revamp. Now IF they had gone the capture signet route then, IMHO, we wouldn’t have this 70+ page thread complaining about the changes to how we get traits.

That might have been interesting. A boss with the trait you need that’s is strong enough to be a challenge but soloable. Defeating him gives you the trait. No need to depend on bugged events and if they respawn at a normal rate, then waiting time is minimal.

I would have rather they kept traits how they were and made the World Bosses have Elite Skills for us to capture. I still remember creating a new Necromancer in GW and getting a Droks run so I could go capture Spiteful Spirit.

**Small Derail: I remember my first time running my SS build through the Underworld. Good times. hehe

I remember in GW1 that I could level my ranger and go to NPC #1243-B and do a quest for them that also got me some random ranger skill, but my monk buddy would just get normal xp, etc for doing that quest, yet we go over to NPC #6534-X and they award my monk buddy a skill and i just get the xp, etc from that NPC.
If Anet had implemented something like that for (and this is the important part) brand new Traits that they introduced to the game, and made them meaningful to the classes getting them i think both long time GW players and new players alike could have applauded such a change.
If Anet REALLY was jonesing to make people travel all of Tyria doing things to unlock all the Traits as they have it now, they STILL could have made them far more attainable at appropriate levels with appropriate content for those levels, but they didn’t. In stead we got the system that makes you have to do the SAME thing, regardless of class, on the same maps, in events that are either too high level for the trait, take too many people to complete successfully, or are simply broken. Then they tacked on a ridiculous price for them as an alternative “option”.

Obviously, something is close to the surface according to Gaile’s recent post. Can we just get some concrete info about the possible update long enough BEFORE Anet goes live with it so we can at least weigh in on it? After this much time i think we are at least owed that much. And yes, i honestly feel we are owed that much.

IndigoSundown.5419:

sorudo.9054:

Galphar.3901:

blakdoxa.7520:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Worblehat.8697:

So inconsistent…

That’s part of my complaint. The other is: “So how exactly does doing this relate to the Trait Mastery getting unlocked?”

At least with Elite Skills your target would use it. (This was a considerable problem with some of them.) After they changed the capture system, it was not too bad but the initial one was even more BS than Traits are now.

How?

You had to have the Signet of Capture ready, and you needed to hit it while targeting the user, while they were using it. For some of the Elites I just can’t see how that worked at all.

I’m not sure when you stopped playing GW1… But all you had to do was have the Signet of Capture, kill the boss and use the signet on their corpse. A menu would pop up that would allow you to select the skill you want to take, which would usually be an elite skill. It’s way easier to capture skills in GW1 than it is to obtain traits in GW2.

Originally Signets of Capture worked like Tobias explained, prior to the June 8th, 2005 update, this skill had to be activated at the same time the targeted boss activated the desired skill. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20050608

that’s almost 10 years ago, it’s time you keep up with the times.

Galphar was explaining something that Tobias posted. It’s time you kept up with the thread.

Derailing.

At the end of the day, this was still a method that gave the player far more control over getting the skill or not as compared to what we have today, which is the problem with the traits we have at the moment. There is no real agency here. We are at the mercy of events and whether we’ve farmed enough gold, SP, tomes, etc instead of getting to do level appropriate content and/or having a nominal fee to purchase said traits if hunting them isn’t our cup of tea.

At the end of the day it is simply broken, needs fixing and hopefully will be fix before any of this HoT mess comes down on us. (Pun greatly intended.)

Do we really need to use another memory seed and play as caithe again?

Worblehat.8697:

Come back once you understand the conversation you’re jumping into.

For some reason you seem to believe I’m defending the trait system somehow. I defy you to find the slightest shred of evidence for that. Go ahead and look in this very thread, I’m on record a few pages back agreeing with everyone else that it’s a terrible system.

All I did was ask a very simple question about why everyone else felt the SP part of the unlock costs was the worst part, while I consider the gold cost to be worse. Astral Projections and naiasonod understood that perfectly well and gave clear and helpful answers. I’m upset at the prospect of losing an arm, the rest of you are more upset at the prospect of losing a leg, either way it’s ridiculous.

For the record, my alts retire at 30 since I have no interest in doing the trait scavenger hunt a second (or fifth) time. Couldn’t care less about WvW, so whatever.

Actually I’ve been here since the beginning and I was specifically responding to that post you made regarding having those SP in excess. My point being once you started to make more alts that are fully leveled and want to play them across many aspects of the game (and therefore need build diversity at your disposal), you will find you are going to be in short supply of both SP and Gold. This goes moreso if you want to have that ascended armor for fractals, or even just that small edge in WvW and dungeons. I get that you are not doing many of the things that would amount to SP being spent down, but for others that have, there won’t be a glut of SP to obtain all the traits for that build diversity. The only time that would even come into play as a good thing (an abundance of SP on a level 80) is if you are creating a second alt of the same class and can buy the trait books for them with those SP. At the end of the day it is VASTLY easier to farm gold or TP flip to get gold than it is to get SP, and for most players who play casually to semi casually, both gold and SP will not be something they are flush with. I’m really sorry the system is keeping your alts at level 30. Honestly I am, because it used to be an alt friendly game/set up.

All I was ever addressing however was the fact that while you might have an abundance of SP on one toon, doesn’t mean you will end up with the same abundance on alts especially after trying to gear up and trait up to max more than once under this new system. The post i responded to appeared to represent that SP was just too easy to horde, which isn’t really the case most of the time.

BentoDetective.6491:

After making a new character, I’ve finally started to experience all the NPE changes. I must say that a majority of them are not as good as ArenaNet wants them to be. A positive change would have to be the ability to re-trait anytime, anywhere for free. The other changes are, in my opinion, bad. Having to complete a task to unlock a trait is tedious to no end and we’re talking about all the major traits. Otherwise, they would be locked making you unable to use them.

But, say you choose the option of buying them. The cost is ridiculously more compared to the old system. 43g + 360sp for all 65 traits. Back then, the 3 manuals together cost: 3g10s. I felt the pacing wasn’t bad with the 3 manuals. One was at lv 11, 40, then 60. Inbetween the lvls, players should/would have accumulated enough gold to buy them.

The new system has you running all over the map to complete tedious tasks on just one character. This definitely has players think twice before wanting to make new characters nowadays. It has officially become a grindfest, even though the game initially was casual.

Just want to be clear that the Trait change happened LONG before the NPE and has nothing to do with the changes made in the NPE. It IS however something very noticeable when looked at in the light of the NPE and what Anet was trying to go for with it. The trait change is actually at odds with it.

Worblehat.8697:

Astral Projections.7320:

Experienced players may have an excess, but new players need them to buy skills as well as traits. I remember when starting out, having to accumulate skill points before I could get an utility skill. It would have been doubly painful to have to save up for traits as well.

For experienced players, a legendary requires 200 skill points. People may be saving up for that. Many use skill points to make gold by promoting items in the mystic forge and no longer have excess skill points for that reason or don’t want to give up that income. If you make ascended gear, it takes 20 skill points per piece. A number of mystic forged weapons (with unique skins) take 50 sps.

I am a new player myself, and had no trouble unlocking all my actual skills, plus saving up a huge excess in case I needed to buy traits. There are still tons of traits I don’t have (after nearly a week at 80, I think I’m at 16/30 blue, 8/20 green, and 5/15 yellow) but nothing that looks so critical to have that I’d spend the gold on it. So I ended up making the Mystic Claymore as my level 80 weapon since it saved me about 3g over buying a crafted sword (not to mention that those pearl greatswords look terrible). And I still have a ton of SP left over, though at least it’s back down under 100 again.

But crafting ascended gear is not even on my horizon, and the only thing I’ll ever do with a legendary precursor is sell it, so I think that explains the difference in opinion on which cost is more egregious. I like the arm and a leg phrasing. Thanks for the explanation!

And now:
Come back after you’ve made your 3rd toon and leveled them and gotten their traits. Come back after you’ve tried to have a toon with the ability and flexibility to change builds on the fly with fully complimenting armor sets and weapon sets.
Come back after running all those toons in something like WvW were changing builds for a given situation is almost necessary at times.

Let us know how well you’re doing on skill points, gold, and build choices then and realize that many of us have way more alts than that, with many being made after the trait update. These are things you don’t realize at the moment.

I really do hope we hear something more specific soon, but unfortunately the latest update to other aspects of the game having basically driven my wife from even loading it up anymore coupled with the now far too long to address the traits issue has more or less lost anet 2 players. :/ Been testing out some other MMOs. Simply put, I just don’t enjoy this game anymore. The updates and forced play/money grab stuff has left too bad of a taste in my mouth. I will keep an eye out for this mythical unicorn of a traits update, but I don’t know if it will be enough for me to honestly want to spend the hours i used to spend playing the game.

Mounts:

Personal Opinion – No.
Why:

• Already have movement boosts per class
• Already have WP system in place for fast travel
• Individual maps not big enough to warrant them
• Map design not geared toward mounts
• Already have “mounts” like broom, etc which are not widely used as is
• Strictly vanity items that would take up valuable dev time to make

Seriously, there are WAY more important things in this game that need to be addressed since they actually affect the game and its player base adversely. Mounts would be nothing more than another money grab/vanity item that a small fraction of the player base would actually partake in, all while leaving potentially game killing problems to fester longer if they are developed instead. Plenty of other games out there with mounts. GW has never had them and frankly never should.

Vayne.8563:

The real issue with the trait system is that people asked for horizontal progression, but when they did, I seriously doubt anyone meant taking away functionality we already had and making us obtain it more slowly.

I think that people expected new traits or skills for which there was horizontal progression.

What we got instead was the same food we’ve been eating all along, priced at a much higher price.

Most people wouldn’t mind something new and different in the supermarket that cost more. It’s a treat. It’s special.

But if you raised all the prices on every day commodities, that would kitten people off.

I like this Vayne. More of this Vayne. I kid. Sorta. But yeah, the trait system as it stands now is complete garbage and there are mountains of suggestions for improving it. We just need to know Anet is actually working on some fix for it.

Some potential WvW advice: Capturing a single ruin is usually fairly easy and most enemies tend to let it go as long as their bloodlust doesn’t get taken away. Also, finding a solo yak going from a supply camp should be an easy kill on the days that is an option.

Chaialyna.1023:

I leveled a new charr ele to 80 post-NPE using a level 20 scroll, some minimal map exploration, personal story and EoTM. I can live with the NPE by itself but the new trait system is aggravating. I ended up buying trait books for him with my skillpoint stockpiling asura ele but just enough for one build. If he gets any extra traits during gameplay, well and good, but there’s not much build flexibility available for him at the moment.

Right now I’ll level the rest of the alts I have, but I don’t anticipate starting any new ones.

i have to ask how’d you manage that since I was fairly certain that since you paid skill points for the guides that they would be soul bound (as everything else bought with SP is in the game) and therefore couldn’t buy them for another toon on your account even if they were the same class.

Countess Aire.9410:

I have created four new players since the change. I have enjoyed leveling them. I send them to the events to earn their attributes. They actually level fast enough just doing map completion. That is just my impression.

Leveling a toon isn’t a problem. in fact it happens WAY faster now than it once did if consistantly playing/crafting/playing PS when it comes up and doing the odd event on the maps you’re on while opening the map you are in.

The problem is you end up with a toon with horrible traits or barely any traits at all and nothing that looks like a concise build and if you want a build you are more or less forced to find one on a website and buy up the necessary traits and live with it.

No experimentation, no playing with builds as you leveled as you once could do, and less idea what builds are really out there through gameplay. Just a bunch of meta nonsense or people running around with incomplete toons.