Gemstore boycott is always a good idea, especially until they fix the custom slider back.
But it IS a usability improvement. Sure it needs some polishing and more options but claiming that it does not make it easier to use would be rather silly.
How is it an improvement when they have removed the option that made it flexible (and the conversion data chart)? That’s going backwards in usability in my books.
I personally will not be satisfied with adding 100 gem increments. That still won’t solve the problem of buying things that are not priced such, or the fact that people have surplus gem amounts of varied odd numbers on their accounts.
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Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.
I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.
- Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
- Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.
So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.
I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!
Here’s my suggestion: revert the whole system back to how it was. Let us choose how much gems we receive. I don’t want lower increments, it’s still not gonna fix the problem.
In other words, don’t go fixing something that’s not broken. (looking at you, trait and new player experience updates.)
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Dear Gaile and ANet, the most polite possible way I can describe this change is that it’s absolute bullkitten. You say you want to make gemstore like other shopping experiences. Well, consider this. NO SHOP I KNOW OF is making me purchase 200 $ worth of store credit if I want to buy an item worth of 200 $, making me spend 400 $ total.
The notation about new players is totally moot. How many new players are going to have enough gold to buy 400 gems? You’re only purposefully hurting veteran players here but I can’t really think of any reasons, even though I’m trying.
Next logical step is to raise all gemstore items to cost 400 gems as minimum price. Problem solved! No more complaints about unused gems.
Anyway as for level 80 this is a post about new player experience specifically, not level 80 stuff. There is a great CDI going on right now about guilds in (and more coming soon) where you can help give feedback on what you’d like to see the level 80 guild experience be in particular!
Most of the feedback is from people who have at least one level 80 character and are making alts, or rather not making them anymore due to the “new player experience”. There needs to be a different leveling system for veteran players. You guys are skirting around this distinctive feedback, in which many people are asking or requesting whether this will remain just for truly new players or is this kind of gating something veterans have to deal with every time they want to make an alt.
I just want to quickly add, there are some errors on this chart of how stuff is unlocking, as well as 1st character vs. account unlocks when some of these systems were carried between regions. We’re trying to identify what happened and repair those things assigned the wrong account/character fields, as well as levels.
Thanks for the info Colin. Is there hope that the new system would work this way only for your first character and every alt after that could proceed with the game normally without such level gated unlocks?
Making the new leveling system kick in only on your first character is an option I can get behind to. Or making it entirely optional. Either way I’d like the old system to return.
It’s not because of confusing game mechanics. It’s because leveling to 80 is a huge, tedious chore and leveling as means of progress is an outdated concept. Just blow off levels altogether and work from there.
Is it true that a baby Ranger cannot name it’s pet?
Yes, because pet options are a F4 skill which is too confusing.
Start a a CDI about the leveling system instead, or better yet, about changes to the leveling system so it can include the trait updates too.
Well that burst my bubble pretty fast.
I’m-a gonna keep giving you feedback though, with many others, I try to do it in a constructive manner, I hope you guys realize that there are things not right with your updates to the leveling system.
There are definitely bugs and some external miscommunication with the system and I want to listen some more before discussing.
Chris
This is interesting.
Chris is saying there has been external miscommunication about the new system. Could it be that you guys realize you went too far with the removing of functions and level gating it too extreme, and it was not supposed to dumb down the game quite this much?
Also don’t shoot the messenger, even though Chris is answering questions, it’s not fair to blame the whole mess on him.
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Leveling to 10 was never hard even in the old system. But at least then you had access to all your class F1- abilities, first trait (okay this was 11), couple skills you could buy, all weapon skills… see my point here? Why drag these things out?
About fast leveling: does it slow down to normal rate after level 15, when you leave the starter zone? I would think you no longer get half a level by finishing one heart then. I’d be interested to know this. If it suddenly changes to a normal leveling rate, the new players might feel a pretty big slump.
I can do all that. But you said the tediousness is in the heads of those who haven’t tried the new system, and I gave you an opposite example.
Point is starting a new character felt fun a few days ago. Even if the trait system update was unpleasant, it still felt like a worthwhile pursuit. But now I just don’t feel like doing it anymore. And I don’t think I’m alone.
I think Vayne means that the rewards for leveling up are an improvement and he’s right about that. But it doesn’t remove the fact that the early game is a nightmare for veterans and newcomers alike.
Just rolled a assuri mesmer and took it to lvl 10 in an hour, broken up to do other things in game. No nightmare, smooth as it was when I did a mesmer over a year ago (personal bias, I really enjoyed mesmer from lvl 2 to 80 in game). Get nice shinny level up and a dodge chest now but otherwise the nightmare is in the heads of the people who have not tried the new system.
Yes, they made leveling faster. But it’s only for the starter zone. After that it’s the normal pace (correct me if they sped up leveling for the entire game).
And yes, I tried it. I found it extremely tedious with stripped game mechanics and limited options of gameplay, even if I level faster in the beginning. Sure, a new player won’t probably know the difference. But putting veterans through that on their Nth characters is too much. We have paid our dues, we don’t need hand-holding.
I think Vayne means that the rewards for leveling up are an improvement and he’s right about that (except the obvious bug about downscaling but it’s a different issue). But it doesn’t remove the fact that the early game is a nightmare for veterans and newcomers alike.
No matter how you feel about certain posters keep it civil and give feedback in this thread. Better chances of being acknowledged.
And you know how to write coherent sentences on a forum.
This made my day.
And to answer the earlier question, I used to play RIFT, where they did a very similar thing (ruined the starter experience/general leveling experience to attract new players), and it slowly started looking like they wanted a pay to win environment. You -could- technically get things in-game, but they made it hell to do so. It’ll be interesting to see how things progress here as well. My highest toon is still under 50 as of this post, so I don’t know what the “second half” quite has in store. That alone is probably the most optimistic thing to drive me to keep going.
I feel really odd for writing this, since I’m usually criticizing the GW2 “endgame”, but compared to this new player experience, it will get better once you are higher level. You have all your skills, abilities, traits, the world is your oyster. Too bad the leveling used to be fun too, but of course, new players don’t know what they are missing, so maybe it goes according to ANet’s plan.
The leveling is really really fast. You actually unlock the weapon skills almost as fast, because it’s automatic by level now. So if you go to a weapon you never used at 20 all your skills are unlocked automatically. And the 1-15 level experience has been greatly accelerated.
I don’t know if I like that as much, theoretically the idea is you are getting used to the weapon and learning “new tricks” to use with them. The idea of instant expertise always sort of bugged me a bit when compared to how we got weapon skills before (i.e., go to a low level event and just hit things).
That’s a fair point. The other point is, if you’re leveling alts, it shouldn’t matter nearly as much. The idea is to make it slower to get new ideas going as you level. By the time you’re 25-30, putting in a new weapon shouldn’t be a big problem.
My big thing is that I feel more rewarded for doing it. I just hit level 55 on a character and got a choice from 3 different rare items to choose, so I upgraded my coat. It felt really good.
I don’t think anyone is opposed to level rewards. I think those are great. But the issue here is gating skills and abilities that are integral to a player experience – not to mention to a class like mesmer shatters – over a needlessly long period of time.
Even if the leveling would be faster, it’s still a pain. (in fact, I feel like leveling should be faster even with the old system in place)
The new leveling system is tedious and boring not only for veteran players but for new players too. Compared to how good we had things before the infamous April 15th update and now this, the new player experience has gone really downhill.
I realize ANet thinks they need to cater to those who don’t understand basic gaming mechanics, but you cannot build your entire leveling system around their skill level. Since I would still claim that people who are overwhelmed about picking up a bucket are still the minority.
In the spirit of constructiveness: how’s this for a solution. Make the “new player experience” register just once on the first character. It’s like a tutorial. After that, you can choose to move on and level up the characters like in the old system. Veteran players can just choose to outright skip it, every new character starts with the new system. You can give both player types what they (supposedly) want.
Regarding your “leveling should feel rewarding” idea: it will never feel rewarding as long as level cap is as high as 80. Level-based gear rewards are a good thing. That I can get behind to. But the problem in itself is that there are just so many levels that it’s a chore, especially for us who are on our 4th, 5th or even more characters. So this makes it even more tedious.
Listen to the feedback, realize you’ve gone way overboard with a good intention, and fix the situation. Veteran players are mostly unhappy. I would imagine new players aren’t too pleased about it either.
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You obviously have experience from other games before, and you know how to observe your environment and adapt to your surrounding situation. And you know how to write coherent sentences on a forum.
So unfortunately you’re not the target audience to qualify as a “new player” anymore, that role has taken by people who have trouble grasping the mechanic of picking up a bucket or dying in result of combat. Remember, ANet has metric data to support this.
Feel free to become a disgruntled veteran, though, you’re not alone!
I tested it also and got similar results. There is something very wrong with the system and hopefully it won’t get buried here without devs noticing it.
It certainly seems that way for me too. The “new player experience” has made it so annoying for veterans that experience scrolls and tomes of knowledge are the way to go.
The whole concept of leveling as progress is outdated. It’s just so baffling to hear the devs saying how they want leveling to be an adventure and worthwhile when it’s 80 levels to get there. Of course it’s gonna feel boring.
Well, this combined with the trait changes means that I won’t be making an alt any time soon. Sure, the game will be more appealing to hyper-casuals now (maybe?), but no gamer is going to take it seriously now.
It is kind of puzzling. They seem to think that it’s more fun to have progress spread out over a longer period of time. Now, I can understand this if they speed up the leveling process, like, A LOT. Not just in starter zones, but all over the world. THEN I might understand it. I mean, if it takes you the same time to level to lv 7 in the old version than to level 15 now (taking weapon swap as an example) it’s justified. But if not, it’s pointless.
Also, a tangent on leveling: The fact that leveling feels like a chore is not because we don’t gain rewards when we gain a level. It’s a chore because leveling itself is a chore. I would much prefer the GW1 model where it took you a relatively short time to reach max level, but then the whole rest of the game was endgame. Now, you slodge towards 80 with everything after level 30 feeling more or less the same. 30 would’ve been a fine cap – you get an elite skill, have some trait points, all skill slots and weapon skills – and you had plenty of time to learn to use them.
But I guess the thought process that “leveling = progress” is the one MMO taboo even ANet can’t or won’t break free out of.
Your son needs a game that gives him an actual challenge. So it’s probably for the best.
Is this the feedback topic for the leveling changes? I have to vent a bit, forgive me:
But ANet, you went WAY overboard with these changes. You stripped basic mechanics from the game and the classes and made it so much more harder to get into the good stuff. I’m borrowing someone else’s bullet points from Reddit, because they echo mine:
“Weapon skills are level-gated. You get access to all your weapon skills by level 10
You don’t have steal. No idea when that opens up.
You start with signet of malice instead of hide in shadows. This is probably the least offending one, but I still don’t like it. Stealth is a core mechanic for thieves, as is Steal. No reason to gate it behind levels.
You unlock the ability to dual wield weapons on level 7, weapon swap is 15.
Utility skills unlock on levels 13, 24 and 35. Elite is 40.”
PLEASE think about this again. You effectively ruined starting a new character for veterans and in an attempt to make the game better for new players, made it equally more boring.
I’m tired of reading flamebait threads. If you can’t contribute respectfully and coherently, please keep your thoughts to yourself.
Who says you can’t critique and be happy? Why do people feel that’s mutually exclusive?
I make suggestions sometimes, but I’m still mostly happy.
Of course. I just don’t like the notion that forum-goers complain and the rest play happily and send ANet cupcakes.
Myself personally I’m in a phase where I’m left wanting something new, am a bit jaded about the games’ direction and disappointed about the wasted potential. But I still play almost every day, if not just for the social aspect. It could just be so much more.
Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.
People keep saying this, but there’s no base to it. How do you know people in-game don’t have grievances or complaints? Maybe they just can’t be bothered going to the forums to write them out. I would rather say that the forums are a representation of the playerbase, with both negative and positive feelings. Also, I feel like ANet has shown concern and willingness to communicate over forum threads, so it can’t be “just a vocal minority” in their opinion. If it was, they could just brush it aside.
Sure, there are a lot of happy people, I’m not doubting that. But with critique comes progress.
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Oh yes, and I have to add the fact that the new trait system is what scares new players away from the game way faster than tutorials and downed states will. They look at the available traits and go: “I don’t have any idea where I need to go for these traits.”
To be clear we are looking at the system as a whole but recognize that changing that will take longer than is satisfying and are looking for ways to improve the current system until a time at which we can make a better overall system from the ground up. Specific suggestions on what traits are poorly placed are helpful for #1, specific suggestions on #2 are also welcome but are going to be read but not responded too right now.
Out of my in-game friends as a segment, I’d say the majority would like for the trait system to revert to what it was before the latest patch. It’s kind of hard to give feedback regarding poor trait placement if my opinion is that the new system should be scrapped, but I’m trying to do so as politely as possible (you can keep the open world-unlockable GM traits, that’s fine with me).
TLDR;
We added this system as a direct result from the horizontal progression CDI. We are always reading your feedback, however, we don’t always have time to respond right away or action it quickly. We updated some trait unlocks in the past but we can do more. How can you help?
1) Give us a list of the most offensive trait unlock locations.
2) Keep giving feedback and be patient as this is a big ship and it takes time to steer it.
I still feel like you went and fixed something that wasn’t broken. The acquisition of new traits and points wasn’t exactly fast with the old system, even though it started at level 10. Also I don’t agree with you 100% that the new system was asked by the players on the CDI.
Here’s again my bullet points to take the best things from both systems:
- Start giving trait points at level 10. 1 point every five levels. Shouldn’t overwhelm anyone!
- Make ONLY grandmaster traits acquired with the new system. Give Adept and Master the same way as the old system, automatically. Additionally, you can make GM traits harder to acquire since they are meant to be powerful.
Again, with the new system you more or less removed fun experimentation from traits. People get what they want to use and leave others.
Serious question as the two Guild Wars are the only MMO’s I’ve ever really played: Does this much whining take place for all mmo’s or is Guild Wars a unique situation? I primarily played consoles (all of them) before really getting sucked into GW2 and I swear I didn’t hear this much flaming/negativity/whining/general craziness from any of the games I played. Complaining about free gifts. Fussing because there’s no expansion. Upset because specific game modes aren’t being catered too. Telling other people how to play their game and what is/isn’t right. Even the CoD brofest dudes were more pleasant. I’ve met a lot of really awesome people in this game, but holy moly these forums…[/rant]
These forums aren’t even close as to the worst MMO forums. Most of the complaints here are legit concerns, since there’s usually a grey area between “this is the best game ever, let’s send ANet cupcakes” and “this is the worst ever”.
Soo, I should be happy that in two years Anet has managed to add two new maps in the game, one which is a small island and one which is roughly half size of a small complete map?
Threads like this make no sense. You know you can’t persuade anyone with your sincere but misguided optimism, so why bother. Just play the game, if you are happy with it, kudos to you. But leave others the chance to constructively criticize if they are so inclined.
The whole LS Season 2 has comprised of farming events on the same map and doing a few story instances. I guess we have to be grateful we don’t have to fix signposts anymore now that the devs have learned from their past mistakes?
When they feel like adding more dungeons is too much work, do you honestly think they can work on something as huge as an expansion?
So, what do we have to look forward to?
- No new dungeons
- No new classes
- No new weapons for classes
- No new professions
- Maybe a new map which is small and convoluted
- No SAB
- Lots of adventures of Braham & Co.
I just want to know have they actually worked this last two years solely on Living world or should I still live in hope that there’s actually a larger content pack on the works.
Thanks everyone for giving us some feedback on this system we’ll meet internally and discuss this system some more as I think there are a lot of valid points being brought up here.
I’ll give you my bullet points:
- Revert the trait system so it once again starts at level 10. One trait point every five levels
- Scrap the trait acquisition system EXCEPT for Grandmaster traits. Those should be hard to get. If you can’t scrap it completely on Adept and Master traits, at least tone down the difficulty on those tiers.
The current system leads to a lack of experimentation and fun where people will only cherry-pick the traits they absolutely want to use and forget about the rest. This is probably what you were not going for.
That didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t know already.
@ Traveller the heart quests are optional. Every time you pass there and by coincidance kill a mob, the progress goes up. Quite easy. And there is no single way, that more dynamic events, would make you more happy. So far this is the best implementation i saw to ‘have a grind, that’s not a grind’. Cause all mmo’s have a grind. It’s how you present them, that makes the difference. If you want text balloon quests go TES online. If not, you won’t find much better then gw2 quest system.
I wish all of them were simple like that. Sure, many of them are. But when you do zone and world completion you’ll find lots annoying hearts meant purely for busywork.
My idea was already in my post, replace these tasks with events. Just gotta make the events more frequent and numerous.
And why is an old-fashioned quest such a curse word? In GW1 there were quests like Galrath’s villainy which spanned several zones and was a real feat back then to accomplish. Maybe it’s something that the trait system should’ve been, instead of a random “you get this trait for doing this” have a whole quest built around it with good rewards besides the trait and you’d actually see people teaming up for it.
I better stop before I fix the whole games’ problems at once.
Hearts are basically the same as delivery quests, I always found them boring.
I did however hear a rumour that ANet was planning to ship the game without any hearts and just rely on dynamic events. It would’ve been a much better game that way, lots easier to complete and would made the game more unique in that way.
Of course, they would have to made some more event chains, but it would’ve been worth it.
Bear falling off the top level in Divinity’s reach and dying.
Tybalt dying wasn’t sad, but it was a good character moment.
Mentioning Redshirt-Belinda even in the same sentence as Tybalt is blasphemy.
If another player’s experience can be ruined by PROPERLY playing the game, then it is time for that part of the game to be revised.
I think this is the main issue here.
This is interesting because (devil’s advocate) I’ve always thought that deliberately going out of your way to troll others – in this case, completing these events – has always been much worse than some name-calling. That happens in general PVE, dungeons, WvW, you name it. Are these all toxic environments that should be abolished?
The fact is that you guys at ANet still didn’t learn from your mistakes and made failing the event more worthwhile than completing it. Just fix the rewards for event completion instead of nerfing the event timer. Then we could all happily farm together without “toxic environment” or trolling event completion.
It was the exact same discussion about the Queensdale champ train, though. Someone killed a champ in the wrong spot, some people got mad, life goes on. But then others started deliberately killing them, even going as far as organizing these trollings on TS.
Now I ask you, which actually provides a toxic environment, some name-calling in an MMO or a deliberate, organized attempt to troll other players?
(disclaimer: I don’t condone nasty insults, but if you did these things deliberately, then you have deserved it.)
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Haha, I was the exact opposite. Taimi’s behaviour just proved she’s a little kid who is out of her league and why she needs adult supervision, like Phlunt said.
I think its only fair, any ascended backpiece requires you to do fractals in the first place.
I don’t have 500 huntsman either so I gave up at part 1.
You only need 400 huntsman. Granted, it takes some gold to level up, but not as radically as 500.
Yeah, I’d probably pay real money if it meant I didn’t have to go into fractals. You hear that ANet? I would pay real world money to avoid an aspect of your game.
Join a large PvE guild (lots of them advertise in cities, and you can have up to 5 guilds), ask someone to 4-man lvl 1 fractal, pay them. Repeat 4 more times next days.
I thought the Pristine fractal relic (which you need five) only drops in 10+ level runs. Am I wrong?