Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

This is a sweeping statement that is difficult to analyze. Which feature pack. What specific element is broken? How is it broken? Are you certain that whatever was broken remains broken? (IOW, are you tracking bug fixes, etc?)

April 2014 Feature pack

• Trait system redesign
  Feels like we moved onto the right track but still not near the final destination.
  It fels fundamentally broken since launch, and I made posts regarding it during beta.
  Reducing trait points from 70 to 14 nice visual improvement and more user friendly.
  Refunding traits at no cost out of combat something that’s been asked for a long time.
  New traits, mixed opinions but nicer diversity.
  Higher level to unlock trait tiers, severely mixed opinions generally received poorly.
  The way trait unlocks are now has received major criticism since it’s release and we’re still in the dark about anything regarding this. Some minor fixes, but overall still in a bad place.

• Balance and build diversity
  Ferocity is a nice unification of how stats work. Slight nerf to it to bring it back in line a little. Nicely done.
  Celestial slightly boosted. There’s deeper underlying problems to stats that don’t boost your offence much so it’s hard to judge.
  Every rune set rebalanced, yet we’re still stuck with only a handful of useful runes.
  So many are still in an absolutely terrible place. Same with sigils.
  Some nice QoL changes on how they work fundamentaly, but still broken in some aspects (underwater comes to mind).
  Much needed pet and turret AI improvements but they’re still not where many people want them to be.
  Skill balance updates are too far in between and too few.
  Still many skills are not even close to any usability this day. Same with traits.

• Account-wide wardrobe and dyes
  Finally a nice way to store skins. Pretty much an idea that was already spinned up ever since gw1. Really wish we had this upon release, probably the saddest seeing this wasn’t there.
  Done nicely, except that there’s several screw ups around it. For instance several towns clothing becoming armor skins. But these things were removed prior to the implementation of it with absolutely no indication that they would become armor skins. Or the severe displeasement with purchased gemstore skins not becoming free to apply that didn’t get addressed.
  Transmutation charges are now, in my opinion, too easy to obtain. But this balances out that there’s hardly any free skins. Funny how two bads become a good.
  Account bound dyes is another thing I wish I’d seen upon release. Pretty messy solution to make it work, but I don’t think at that point there was a clean solution.
  Harder to get dyes to compensate less need for dyes. People really miss finding dyes themselves now and pretty much you just buy them off the TP.
  Might as well have a merchant selling the non gem-store dyes at this point…

• Social Play
  Last login of member login, finally. Essential feature of a guild missing since release.
  Some minor improvements that not many people probably cared about.

• Account bound
  World experience going account bound, finally. Again, something that should’ve been there since release.
  Legendary and ascended gear becoming accound bound is very nice, especially for more casual players.

• Structured PvP
  PvP equiment finally gone. Bad system since launch where a game is about skins and yet it’s so hard for PvE players to show off in PvP and vice versa.
  Yet this brought in a lot of unfair issues, where for instance the Dwayna’s Longbow was super easy to obtain in PvP and now people can use it in PvE as well.
  Several other overlooks that I’ll spare you. I’m surprised there wasn’t much more of an outrage.
  Reward Tracks are nicely done, some more quirky loot for PvP players that set a nice base for new skins/rewards to be added to PvP. Mixed opinions on how you can get dungeon specific rewards from it though…
  PvP Build UI is nicely done. Still missing builds there… something we’ve been asking for since launch. Still not in the game.
  PvP rank points rebalanced. Major screw up. Many people who just afk farmed got to rank 80 now. Any prestige in rank has been gone since. Or to put it more precisely, the issue derrived from farming rank points has been greatly increased by this.
  Daily Achievemeny unification is good, not feeling too strong about it either way.

Jeff.4680:

If they’re working on an expansion, why not just say it? They don’t need to give the details. By just announcing “An expansion is in the works” they would satisfy a massive amount of players.

Or expansion type content is in the works…

All they said so far is either it will come via LS or Expansion…
But this whole season is almost over and we’ve seen almost none of it sadly.

Perfect example of communication failing on behalf of arenanet.

Why mention something that players asked for for so long…
Then you don’t even put it in game.
Then we don’t hear anything about it since forever.

McBrightside.6471:

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

• These ‘substantial updates’ have very little actual content involved. It may be an LS update where a new zone comes out, but that’s hardly what a lot of people here are looking forward to. When you see quite a lot of complaints about LS being pushed too hard over actual player-retaining content releases (ie. stuff people actually want in the game and have been crying out for for over 2 years), then ‘what’ is substantial to ‘whom’ would have to be brought into question….

Now, I may be missing the point, but I think you are, too. Hands down, the thing people have been lamenting the absolute very most over the last two years is lack of end game content and options; something which Anet have been knocking out of the park with Season 2 of the LS. Players complained (maybe rightfully so) about lack of permanent end-game content, then as soon as that is remedied they start having issues with everything else, completely forgetting their previous focus.

The hardcore community is never going to be happy, but that’s no reason to forget how much Anet HAS been listening in regards to permanent content and meaningful updates.

A significantly improved Personal Story 2.0 is not ‘end-game content’. Which is what the LS:S2 pretty much is.
That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but don’t take it as something else.

People have been asking for repeatable end-game content.
Now we see a little of that in both dry top and silverwastes, but you can’t deny that if that’s all they delivered in a full year than people obviously want more.

Aside from that kind of content, after 2 years there’s still very lacking ‘expansion type content’.

We’ve got ascended tier (personally I like how they handled that).
A handful of useful healing skills.
A handful of new traits.

So when Anet says they don’t want to string us along, when there’s no clear sight of anything substantial to add to the game… People get to their own conclusions.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I won’t mind if we get it back next patch, as long as we resolve whatever’s going on with Caithe in the process. As bad as it might be to rush essentially an entire storyline in one patch, it’s much preferable to having yet another Six-kitten ed “step forward” that leaves more things hanging than resolved. The patch after that, which I guess is supposedly the last patch of the season, can deal with finding out what to do with the egg- and then doing it. The bottom line, though, is that these lines need to actually be meaningfully progressed. No more baby steps along.

Yeah, the last episode really took up steps back even in story progression rather than continued it…

Seeing as there’s not much left, my hope for any decent ending has kind of vanished.
Or maybe I’m just still too annoyed that we let Caithe take the egg when it was so obvious… Kind of puts a dent in the ‘’your choices have effect in the world’’ when we can’t even choose not to bring her.

Not just these glasses, all the glasses that are no longer available should be brought back (temporarily).

It’s especially annoying cause they have never been available as non-townsclothing.
So anyone who didn’t want townsclothing but still wanted them had tough luck.

When you use the regular “Trading Post Express” you can still use the ‘’Merchant Express’’.

When you use the ‘’Permanent Trader Express’’ you can not summon another ‘’Permanent Merchant Express’.
However, you can still summon another “Trading Post Express” and ‘’Merchant Express’’ on top of it at the same time, regardless of the text you get that you can only summon one NPC.

Then what will happen?

Sit and wait for it to hatch?

We haven’t really progressed our fight against mordremoth at all, we’ve just been chasing the egg. And then ofcourse it get’s stolen by the most obviously telegraphed plotline in history, followed by a cliffhanger worthy being in a soap tv show.

They dropped during the second one as well.
I have no reason to assume they won’t drop again.

I started noticing they did this a while ago for other armors as well.

Really happy to see that they did

Mortal.1590:

Wow – What great advice, thanks so much.

Makes sense to eventually build two types or more of weapon sets depending on the event.

Very helpful.

Just depends on how far you want to min-max.

If you don’t plan on more weapons, I would prefer force/accuracy on GS and force/bloodlust on the LB. That works good enough everywhere

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Ogden confirms that it was an egg when you get back from the lair. That’s where the journal knowledge comes from.

Ogden seemed to know not only the Master of Peace personally, but possibly the mysterious voice too.

Thanks, I missed that part.

Couldn’t remember anywhere confirming it was offspring related

Gaile Gray.6029:

Do you think it would go over well now or better in the spring?

I’m happy to ask the team, but I imagine they’d want to schedule it properly.

Can you also ask them to schedule to re-release the removed sunglasses?

A nice day for this would be national sunglasses day, 27th of June
Or maybe some day during the Black Friday sales if that’s still possible

Wanted to add a little bit of meat to the topic.

After completing Echoes of the Past the following text shows up in the journal:
‘’The Master of Peace had visited the lair before us, and he found what appeared to be Glint’s remaining egg.’’

After that, it seems to be refered to as Glin’t egg.

‘’(…) it is crucial that we find the Master of Peace and help him protect Glint’s egg before Mordremoth seeks to destroy it.’’

So it’s very clearly being hinted as an egg while just before that we weren’t sure.
Are we being set up for a plot twist, or is it just story telling?

The stupidest thing is how I got my first precursor.

After 1.5 years of playing the most difficult content available I’ve yet to see a precursor drop. Happens, bad luck to a certain extent. I don’t expect a precursor to drop on me, ever. Not even from the forge (even though that happened later).

Anyhow, I do high level fractals and what are considered the hardest dungeons frequent enough. Several thousand hours in the game.

So… on to how I got my first precursor.
I was checking out what happened to the newly designed area in wvw, the middle area where you capture the ruins. There was a sentry lurking at me, and I figured I’d get it along the way.
So I accidently also lured a neutral spider there. And that thing dropped me Dusk.
Do I feel happy about it dropping? Absolutely. Do I feel like I earned one? Sure. Do I feel that I got it the right way? No, absolutely not. I find it disgusting that that thing dropped it for me. Hilarious.

Simple question to get my point across.
Do we have any idea what will happen after the living story season 2?

We can have guesses and speculations, but we have no idea of direction.
And I don’t mean to say that in terms of story.

Do we get a feature pack?
Are ‘’out of living story releases’’ still on the table?
WvW tournament?
Break?
Pvp/WvW content?
Is crafting jewelry/cooking to 500 still on the table?

I can go on, but my point is I have no idea what to expect. What so ever.
If I had known that the majority of the emphasis of LS2 was going to be on story telling instances, than I would’ve had different expectations and I wouldn’t have been let down. I had different expectations for way too long.
I’m still not sure if I should be expecting elite achievements or not?

In simpler terms
I want to know if I’ll get a cookie or a chocolate.
Maybe some hint at what the flavor it would be, sure.
I don’t have to know the ingredients.
Currently I don’t even know if there will be food on the table ‘tomorrow’ .
And that is what makes me sad.

If I had known replayable content was done this way, then personally I would’ve prefered the way S1 handled it.
Point is, it’s too late to give feedback on things that are already set in stone.
I’m not trying to say my opinion should be the game direction, but take for instance some cases where you actually did get imput before release (wvw tag costs) the community was happier with the outcome.
I’m thinking that in a lot more cases you could get awesome feedback just if you ask.
Biggest example of failing communication is how traits work now.
Majority agreed that the former system could use improvements. We had a big CDI about brainstorming ideas. And what happened next? You left us in the dark, brewed something up that you expected us to like without including us in the proces.
The ideology was discussed, and what the community wants is clearly represented.
Now I feel stuck with a system that completely missed the point and we’re still completely in the dark with the situation. Even though it was done with good will.
We had some little improvements since then, but it’s a long way off being good.

You could ask people how they wanted the trait system done, even in it’s current format.
I can take a couple hours and go over every single trait acquisition and give you a different perspective on how I would think it would be a really nice way to go and get yourself enthousiastic about getting traits rather than them feeling like a chore, with some being absurdly harder than others.

So there’s pretty much two topics regarding Glint that I would like to know more about.
These are topics that seem to not tie in with the current lore, while they could be really important to the current events.

The first one is the Baby Dragon that we defended in GW:EotN.
During Glint’s Challenge we protected her baby against the destroyers.
Why is an egg more important than a 250+ year old dragon?
Also, is it for sure it’s an egg and not the energy harvested from Glint herself?

The second has less of a tie in, but considering Glint is now in the picture it seems like this mysterie could finally be resolved. In the Crystal Desert there are numerous Statues of Glint. These have been said to have a purpose in the future by Ree Soesbee. They were supposedly going to be revealed in the book Edge of Destiny, but they were not.

tonny.7580:

i have no proplem with looting system ifen if it gives me grap for full week but only ting i dont like is the chance of mystic toild becous thos people who play all month tp can but price of 1.3k g and to only 2h work on tp not ifen dungon get all the gold and make econemy more up thad why i was hopying the precuser crafting coming soner soo it can set price range of 500-700g max what is 3month work for newer players

You can’t expect trading not to be the most beneficial way of earning gold in any market where there’s an economy… There’s already fair mechanisms in the works to prevent too big margins but people know how to make money like that.

I don’t think it’s in an unhealthy state in game.

Behellagh.1468:

The TP is driven buy sellers since they have the power whom to sell their loot to. Buyers have to fight among themselves in an attempt to have the highest bid to attract a seller. You want that frenzy for bids because the sellers have the power, which is why you charge the sellers and not the buyers.

Problem works both ways.

List an item for 1000 gold. Someone lists it for 1 copper cheaper.

Pretty much we have a system where it’s normal to cut it line, instead of making a new offer/bid that is notably different.

% difference in offer would work, say 5%, with a maximum of 10 gold and a minimum of 1 copper.

Biggest issue on the market right now, in my opinion, is that the listing fee has to be paid each time you list the same item. If I want to lower my price, I have to relist it. And that’s costly.

John Smith.4610:

munkiman.3068:

phys.7689:

Brother Grimm.5176:

…
I’m pretty sure that nobody think there is special code about that.

But we’re a lot to rather think that RNG is bugged in some way, and that’s why, in addition to a “gauss distribution” as described in the previous post, some players are always lucky and some are always unlucky. As the RNG mechanism is all in all quite complex (modified by magic find ; depends on damage done by the player / by his group compared to damage done by other players ; special items with a different table loot ; …), there could be several bugs introduced in the system. Remember that the % of magic find displayed in the hero panel is wrong since months (but the real number is supposed to be correctly applyed), so it wouldn’t be surprising that there are some bugs in the loot mechanism itself.

There are CERTAINLY very vocal players that are convinced of the “secret LUCK stat”.

its not really relevant weather there is a secret luck stat or not. If a random works properly, there will be people who will, will seem lucky, or those who seem unlucky, when compared to the data. This is the normal expectation of the bell curve.

So whether it is a bug or not doesnt matter. The point is these people are bound to exist.

My take on RNG, isn’t that it exist or it’s broken, it’s just that it’s practically everywhere. Neither of those solutions would work anyway, since the game would have to predict what you’re after in the first place, then reward you for failure of what exactly? Do we put a merchant in the game that carries everything a player might want in exchange for a loser token?

This was the first problem I thought of as well. It’s simple to say failure and success, but that’s not an easily definable concept in real life.

Two specific cases pop to my mind that really baffles me, ever since the implementation.
Fractal weapon drops, as well as Armor(both types)/ Weapon boxes.
Even if you get lucky, there’s a giant chance you get the shaft. And you’re left unhappy with an ascended item that you didn’t want. Or with a ‘rare’ drop that is absolutely useless to you (either you have it already, or you don’t want it).

It gets even worse with fractal skins. Seriously, I don’t want the same skin 5 times.
Same goes for account bound recipes, but they’re less of a priority I feel like.

Also, off topic, it feels more like GW2 is using RNG as a religion.
Every time a new desirable thing comes out we have to have faith in the all mighty RNGesus and hope we get it. We can’t progress or work for it. We have to sit and pray that one day it could drop.

• Lottery
  So I feel the biggest ‘RNG’ issues comes when you feel like playing the lottery.
  A lot of people have strong feelings against this, whether they would be considered lucky or not is irrelevant in that situation and already creats a negative loot experience.
  You can see a lot of hatred regarding pre-cursors and black lion tickets stemming from this exact issue.

• Distribution
  Obviously with any type of rng you will not give everyone the same size of pie.
  The biggest issue right now is that there’s no real sense of reward for doing accomplishments. Whether that’s dungeons, fractals or world bosses. It’s either you get a tiny slice, or a giant slice. And because of how that works, you are more often disappointed. And a giant slice in itself is a bad reward. If you were to cut it up in 3 pieces you would make 3 people happy. Debatably just as happy.
  Right now I feel it’s either you’re getting crumbles or the whole pie at once.

• Risk vs reward
  This is pretty much non existant right now it feels like. I can’t come up with anything decent that’s not locked away a super small % drop rate to make it rare. When you would show off your ‘prestige’ item, you don’t show that this person has completed Arah a lot. Or is a master of speedclearing dungeons. Or did lots of high level Fractals. Or is the most useful person during Tequatl. You look at this person with a fractal tonic and you consider him lucky. You look at this person with the wurm’s helmet and consider him lucky.
  Why? Because a lot of people have repeated the hardest content with no rewards. Only crumbles.
  There’s nothing in this game that’s prestegious.

Alright, cool

The level 50 personal story ‘Rat Tastrophe’ is blocking progression if you try to do it with 2 people.
We attempted this Story twice and both times it did not work properly.
Doing it alone does not create any issue, so my friend and I can still progress.

Pretty much you are lead into the cave and you find the destroyer eggs.
Then they ‘open’ and spawn a bunch of destroyer crabs.
Once the last batch of eggs has been killed off a cutscene should trigger.
When I did this with 2 people, the cutscene did not trigger.

There were no hidden destroyers, we made absolutely sure all enemies were dead.
NPC’s were ressed up as well.

Recreating the exact same situation alone did trigger the cutscene.

Ashen.2907:

Three and a half million threads (approximately) with upwards of twelve billion posts about the recent update, mass hysteria, big foot sightings, cats and dogs living together….and the gem store is the only thing being updated ?

Did you not see the game update notes?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

eekzie.5640:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Pennry.9215:

Pets don’t get down state.

. . . I miss pet ressing.

Yes, there actually was a time shortly after launch where ranger pets would drop to the ground and had to be picked up like a player. (Or switched out.) I miss being able to get my pet back up or get someone else’s pet up. More the second.

Yeah, I miss having to res 50 pets at the shadow behemoth.

. . . I don’t miss that part, no.

It definitely got stupid when an incredibly large amount of rangers showed up with pets to world bosses only for the pets to be dropped dead from AoEs they would never avoid.

As well as 75% of the rangers running around with dead pets…

-Early levels are incredibly dull. Early hearts/quests are too simplistic and bland.

True, but apparently this was an issue for not experienced gamers. What, like 12 hearts got adjusted?

-Traits take far too long to open up

Level 60 was already the case since launch. No change there.
I do agree that the trait system needs fine tuning.

-Utility slots take far too long to unlock.

They are at level 13 / 17 / 19 now. With exception of the first utility this is at about the same pace as before (time wise).

-“Tutorial” process
You can easily just click it away with 1 button… and more often than not you get loot.
It’s not a tutorial, it’s simply pointing out game specifics. You’d be amazed how many people miss out on them.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Pennry.9215:

Pets don’t get down state.

. . . I miss pet ressing.

Yes, there actually was a time shortly after launch where ranger pets would drop to the ground and had to be picked up like a player. (Or switched out.) I miss being able to get my pet back up or get someone else’s pet up. More the second.

Yeah, I miss having to res 50 pets at the shadow behemoth.

phys.7689:

elaborate here on what wasnt fun.

I’m not judging you, im just interested in what you felt made that system, or even this system not engaging or fun.

i do agree that overall the process could be more entertaining, in and of itself, but im curious what would do it for you.

Personally, I would love more loot reward.
Seeing more damage every time you level up (via better gear mostly) is something I personally really like.
They’ve added some via PS and level up rewards, but it could’ve been more / better.
I still get so much stuff I can’t use via the PS…
Kind of sad as I expected them to have seriously addressed this issue with the blog post…

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Your pet was dead when the screen was taken. If the pet would be alive, its HP would be lower. Everyone has more HP while in downstate.

I think it’s still a reminiscent of when you could ressurect pets in beta

You unlock the ability to do them account wide. You don’t have them completed already.

Kuldebar.1897:

Of course, I liked the leveling rate before, that ANet felt they had to alter it for the first 15 levels seems like a rather inelegant solution to a problem they created for no good reason.

I felt like this was actually a long lasting issue they finally addressed.
There’s been so many times I’ve seen people complain that after they explored the first zone they couldn’t progress to the next one because they were underleveled.

Bri.8354:

Thank you for removing the level restriction for pet and clone commands. It was ridiculous for those basic mechanics to be locked away until later levels.

And as some feedback about the overall changes, did you ever take into account the effect this has on the leveling experience of more experienced players? A new player might not mind their skills being locked away the first time around, but the second or third character you level up in the new system is nothing but frustrating to someone who is experienced with the game and used to playing with an entire set of skills.

I only hate that it takes so long for the second skill to unlock.
Attacking the first ‘boss’ with auto attacks is very boring.
And that it takes ages to unlock underwater skills.

Aside from that, leveling up is a lot faster now and you actually unlock all weapon skills simultaneously. So I’m really happy with that.

In total unlocking all weapon skills is probably faster for majority of the classes.
(Engineer probably excluded as they don’t have that many weapons)

Anmida.4058:

You are positively locked into grinding skill scrolls and challenges to even be able to afford your traits and skills at the same pace old players did, and that feels like the most crippling factor for incoming players. They will simply not experiment or care about any of these things, because honestly, they don’t need to, the game doesn’t reward you for it, and so you may as well simply not.

The game rewards you with traits that you want. I don’t see your point…
And again, for new people you shouldn’t be able to just afford everything.

Anmida.4058:

An addendum to the subject of the starting areas is that they have always been the most polished ones from the game. It’s a plain truth; They were. Not because of anything else but the fact they are there to trick you into thinking everything will be as detailed and lively elsewhere, instead of an icebrood/risen/centaur copypaste shenanigan (dramatization, obviously.) which hey, was fine.
Now instead it feels like the game believes you to be mentally challenged and unable to understand basic gameplay concepts because you may break a neurone and you just can’t afford those. Not saying they are ruined forever, it’s just, well. The game feels more like your average korean mmo by the day. Hand holding, challenge free, item store led, update lacking. If we added skimpily dressed children, we’d have Tera!

I think this is just a bigger issue I’ve had since launch that pretty much majority of the level 15+ zones are too bland. And that’s why it’s saddening to see diversity go away, I agree. But I don’t think the issue of diversity in lower level areas being removed is the core issue.
The mentally challenged… sigh… Do I really have to explain this again?
Low levels should be hand holding and relatively challenge free to certain extents. I don’t think removing the diversity from the first ~3 hearts in every started zone is that big of a deal.

Store led / update lacking… I think everyone agrees we want to see more intrusive and rewarding content. It currently feels very store led because the other aspect isn’t keeping up.

Anmida.4058:

I will apply the new Trait system and the Wardrobe(in a lesser scale, of course.) as part of the NPE as it is clear both were intended for the purpose itself.
Take in mind new players are joining a community where people have had access to their skills, traits and pretty much everything customizable from an agreeable start with the furthermost reach being grandmaster traits and Elite skills.

The new trait system feels like a poorly implemented way to make it more interesting, I agree. But while you’re new and leveling having to think about your build too much already is not something positive for new players. If they made the system where you unlock traits account wide by doing challenges I’d be very pleased.
I do think level 30 is too far away to start with traits.
Elite skills are on an even level with new / old players now that it’s level 31 to unlock.

Anmida.4058:

With the new pacing of not only the butchered storyline pieces that allow for absolutely no challenge whatsoever as you will at all times be overleveled, but the locked traits that are simply impossible to afford for a new incoming character (and likely also impossible to attain, as it is simply an effort you are unlikely to bother with.),

I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to afford them if you’re new to the game. Just like you’re not supposed to be able to afford ascended gear when you hit level 80.
Having them s something ‘you are unlikely to bother with’ is the only issue I see.
It should be fun and enticing to unlock traits. I hate how bland most of the challenges are to unlock traits.

Anmida.4058:

coupled with the fact acquiring enough gems to customize your character’s looks through the new Wardrobe charge system… And you are essentially your basic skills, with your basic green gear, until level 80. This is what all the people I know in game have been going through. This is what the basic gist to the new players I see given in mapchat is. This is what new players learn. “Eh don’t put effort, you will not get anything worthwhile until you reach max level.”

Simply not true. You get more loot from personal story and level ups than before.
If anything the NPE is a step in the right direction. Especially for new people.
From your reaction it seems you haven’t even gone through the experience, as you get a much larger variety of skins now. (T1 cultural armor piece / order weapon as example).
For old players yes, removing the old level 79 transmutation stones for low level gear was dumbing down variety. But I can’t honestly say that I noticed many low level people using them. And the transmutation ‘crystals’ are far easier to acquire.
Even to the point where the transmutation charges are so abundant for me that I’m wasting them left and right.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Elites are moving back down, from what I read.

To level 31, probably done so it doesn’t clutter your screen too much with the level 30 PS unlock.

Simonoly.4352:

Well the reason I brought it up is because I had to explain to a new player earlier why they couldn’t do the Mysterious Patch of Ground skill challenge in Caledon Forest, even though they were at the same level as the mobs and other events in that area. They were displeased that they could not complete the zone sequentially whilst levelling and would have to instead come back and do the skill challenge when they were overlevelled for that challenge. For this new player it was just an inconvenience.

Obviously it’s not a deal breaker, but it would be wise to make the minimum level of every skill point level 13, so when a new player tries to interact with a skill point they at least know why they can’t do it yet.

Simply a negative side effect of reiterating an old system, I agree.
But it’s better than simply removing all skill points in low level zones.

Considering the level is set to 13 (which you should get while leveling in your first starter zone) you’re still in the area.

Personally would’ve liked a lower level to unlock them, but it’s not too bad now honestly.

Nebilim.5127:

I don’t mind any of these changes to new players, but what about the veteran Chris? Is it not possible for people that already unlocked all of this to not have to repeat it again on alts?

Check the update notes, several things have been made account wide unlocks.
You can always give feedback on which things you want to see account wide

Anmida.4058:

I am skeptic at the idea of removing 50% of the content that actually makes the game playable, such as variety of availble skills and (mildly) challenging content from the beginning actually enforcing player retention. Surely Arenanet has more numbers, but the moment you are being essentially punished for joining the community later on, not being able to grasp your class properly at all until much later than everyone else and lacking any sort of challenge whatsoever, doesn’t this start to be the same as every other MMO availble, and thus blending with an unimpressing environment?
The lack of variety in armors, skills, traits; literally everything that makes your character unique is now gone, and that really was one of Guild Wars 2’s few outstanding selling points.

Like I said, I don’t know if that will solve the player retention.
I’ve seen plenty of posts on the forum and reddit and social media where people stopped before level 20 for so many reasons that this NPE addressed and fixed.
(Underleveling issues, no tips on dodging, no idea where to go or what to do, underwater being too hard, stuck on personal story, confused by many skills, confused by F1/2/3/4… and so forth)

As far as it being a true ‘selling point’ that the level 1-15 areas have some flavor events… I think people are valueing their nostalgia too much. The areas are still very impressive and many games have also succesfully used similar explorable areas.

I’m not sure what you’re saying with the lack of variety, how is that related to the NPE?

Simonoly.4352:

Okay, the most recent account-bound unlock changes are very much a step in the right direction, but there’s still so many pacing issues to address.

It still seems odd to have things like skill points unlock at level 13 when there are skill points available at lower levels. Why can’t a new level 8 player challenge themselves against a level 8 skill challenge? Aren’t these supposed to be challenges?

Come back at level 13 to do a level 8 skill challenge! That’s some funky pacing right there.

It’s mostly so that new players don’t have 50 things to do once they walk outside of a city. As silly as it may sound, for a lot of inexperienced gamers things can get very confusing fast. I’m not trying to belittle anyone, but even movement in the game can be a big challenge for new people. There’s just so many aspects to the game that people need to get used to. Slowly pacing this out for them is a better way of handling it.

Considering it is unlocked account wide after hitting level 13 with one character, I don’t think this is an issue.

Relshdan.6854:

these changes/fixes don’t alter or answer the argument against the NPE….it just makes a bland/ overly simplistic experience go slightly quicker.

You simply don’t liking the NPE does not mean it’s a bad thing.
Apparently player retention in lower levels is an issue and if this solves that, then it’s a good thing.
The negative effects such as dumbing down low level hearts to be extremely simplistic sadly is the way to achieve that goal, aside with other things.

And yes, these changes do fix a lot of the arguments people had (such as not having to redo the NPE every time in regards to skill points / vista unlocks / etc).

Healix.5819:

The problem with tutorials is that the people who actually need them tend to ignore them. Only forced and hands-on tutorials will get the job done, but then people will complain about being forced to do them.

Many of the tutorials you mention could simply be added to the game in the form of loading screen tips. Since the player may be staring at the loading screen for a few seconds anyways, they might as well put a rotating tip on it.

As for a combat tutorial, it should be worked into the personal story itself. A downed/rally tutorial was originally a part of intro boss fights, but it was never actually explained to the player and was removed early on.

Hence why I think the compass could direct people towards this area nicely.
Maybe a little reward incentive could also help out a lot with getting new people to do them.

During beta I could hardly read any of the flavor text during loading screens because I barely have any loading time. I’m very against it.

Like I said, I don’t think this is the means to all answers. It should be a supplement to the current system.

rapthorne.7345:

The few tickets I have sent thus far have all been personalised responses dealing directly with my issue. I’ve not yet encountered the dreaded copypaste response, and the GW1 tickets I’ve sent in the past (of which there are a large number) have all been very swiftly dealt with. I’ve never yet had a ticket issue with ArenaNet where I wasn’t happy with the outcome.

Sorry for your experience though.

My personal experience is that it really depends on the issue in how it’s dealt with.

For instance:
Had to re-apply 18 armor skins because they chose to add ascended armor when we were promised exotic was going to be best in slot. Was met with copy-paste responses multiple times from several people. Absolutely no attempt to have customer satisfaction.
Account issue:
Personal approach to discover why authentication was wonky.

It seems that whenever customer service can’t (or is not allowed) to help you, they seem to resort to copy-paste answers a lot. Which can be very infuriating.
A lot of people got super upset because of the Infinite Continue Coin and asked for refunds. They got met with a lot of copy pasta, while I think a more personal approach would’ve been better. (This is hearsay keep that in mind)

Awesome changes just went live I see

What about underwater skills unlocking faster?
Level 23 to unlock all underwater skills is still a bit far away.

And any word on account based trait unlocks (mostly in regards to PvP traits)

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

eekzie.5640:

Get a skin and sell the item for 1 gold.

What? You can’t sell Ascended, they’re Account Bound. :-|

To answer the OP question though, I’d say save it for an alt, or, if you have literally no interest in ever make an alt that might use the weapon, you can always Salvage it. (At least, I’m pretty sure you can salvage Ascendeds…)

You can sell the item to a merchant for 1 gold.
(Only applies to ascended weapons, ascended armor is worth 2 silver 40 copper for whatever reason)

You can not salvage them.

Underwater weapon.
Get a skin and sell the item for 1 gold.
Safe it for a different character.

Not much else you can do.

So with the new changes to the game I feel that we’re still missing an actual tutorial.
It could be via Personal Story at appropriate levels ( 5 / 13 / 30 come to my mind with the current levels to unlock certain content).
Optionally, the new compas guide could point you in it’s direction.
The tutorial area has to fit certain criteria for it to be useful.

Do note that I think tutorials are supplementary to the already existing information you get while leveling. They are not a replacement.
They simply add on to the system and also give some reminders and permanent accessibility to more information.

I tried to order them in order of leveling. Starting with the information needed at the lowest levels.

Functionality

• Optional. You can choose not to do it without being penalized.
• Open world. Being taken to a place where there’s only NPC interaction so early on in the game breaks immersion.
• Player friendly. Have waypoints in the proximity.
• Bank available.
• Possibly have 3 tutorial zones next to eachother with level restrictions to enter the others. This makes people come back to the older tutorial zones and they might see something they forgot.

Low level tutorial content

• Combat / movement
  Have something moving to swing at. With the same information about attribute stats as the leveling up information gives now.
• Dodging
  Similar dodging tutorial as we have now.
• Gathering.
  Have a merchant next to some gathering nodes selling tools.
  This to show where you could normally acquire the tools .
  Possibly let you run out of gathering tools to give more incentive for people to always carry enough.
• Deposit materials
  After gathering show how to deposit what you’ve gathered.
• Bank / wallet
  Explain that it’s account wide.
  Explain that your currencies are shared between characters and that you can view them in your account wallet.
• Material storage
  Show players where their gathered and deposited materials went to.
• Wardrobe
  Explain the details of unlocking skins.
• Asura Gates
  Demonstrate how they work.

Mid level tutorial content

• Achievement points
  Give basic information of how you acquire achievement points through dailies / monthlies / permanent achievements. And
• Crafting
  Give you some materials to craft a simple item. The biggest issue I had when I was new was that I had no clue what profession to choose. This can still be addressed, but I’m not sure if the tutorial is the right place to do so.
• Exploration
  Explain how ‘uncovering’ parts of the map work.
  How Waypoints function. What points of interest are.
  Ideology behind vista’s. And a new skill challenge.
• Downed state / rally / death
  Have a player walk into a trap of sorts to let him down.
  Give him a target to rally off.
  Have another trap without anything to rally off. (Close to a waypoint)

Higher level tutorial content

• Red circles
  Even though it’s pretty straight forward that a red circle means ‘get out’, a little more telling could go into what actually happens. Sometimes it’s a single AoE, sometimes it’s a lasting attack, or it could even be a single swing of a sword.
• Laurels
  Acquisition and possible rewards.
• Permanent combo fields / bundle items
  Have all fields available.
  Because classes don’t have acces to all combinations (projectile / whirl / leap / blast) add a bundle item to give acces to them. Have a proper in game explanation of how they work. It took me the longest time to figure out how projectile finishers on light fields worked. I would’ve loved a proper tutorial on that when I started the game.
• Trait Acquisition
  Explain when you get trait points and how you can unlock traits.
  Perhaps the tutorial area can be close to a reasonably easy to acquire trait.
• Dungeons
  Explain how story mode / explorable mode differ from eachother and that you have to unlock explorable mode on each character individually.
  Brief the players of some tips and tricks, such as being able to respawn after you wipe. Point out that there will be a repair anvil available at the start of each dungeon.
• Wardrobe
  This time go into how transmutating items work.
• World bosses
  Tell a story of how meta events work and that some lead into world boss events that give an additional daily reward.

CrAzZyKiLLa.7483:

Easy fix

1) Remove all Level gating.

2) Restore PS the way it was

3) Restore Traits to original design

This would please nearly everyone, I’m very unhappy with the latest patch and the general direction of the game at present. Some major work is needed fast if I am to stay invested and recommend this game.

A well done to the devs who put alot of time and effort into this game and the content they have been putting out, I personaly feel that the senior designers and managers need to understand what their playerbase wants and the design decisions as of late have been extreamly poor and a major change of course is required.

No, it wouldn’t please everyone. Using your opinion as canon is never a good idea.
A lot of the underlaying ideology for the changes are very well thought of. The implementation is under discussion and there will always be people who don’t like them. But right now some of the things simply feel out of place.

If you’re unhappy with something at least try to give some constructive criticism instead of ‘’no, i don’t like it put it back’’.

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

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

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Roybe.5896:

The overall point ….is what retail has known for years, making things that make it fun to part with your money means more will come and do just that.

And apparently, ANet has done well in that regard, since they continue to make money from the gem shop.

I’m not against ANet doing even better with the offerings, in terms of pricing and selection and how they influence how much fun we have. But for now, they seem to have done quite well in terms of profit.

There are a number of likely reasons that some players (even a sizable number) might be unhappy with the gem shop, but that’s very different from saying “monetization is done wrong” for this game.

Only unhappy that there’s been such a lack of ingame rewarding items since launch compared to the gemstore. I’m not saying these two things are related, but it does make you feel like more of the new fun stuff is hidden behind gems.

I think the second skill unlock and third skill unlock should not take so long.
Yes they’re short, but pretty much auto attacking through the first ‘boss fight’ isn’t very fun.

Still holding off on utility skills and other things until we get clarification on what they didn’t intend to happen like it does now.

Aside from that I believe the trait system needs a rework. The base is better but I feel the actual implementation ended up poorly. I believe every trait unlock should be a fun exploration kind of thing that has absolutely no possible limitations (waiting for event to happen / overgrown grub pop to my mind).

The biggest improvement I think they made is explaining what power / precision / vitality / toughness do. It’s a really small addition when you’re leveling up. I’m a bit bias’d on this subject since I played the game at gamescom 2010 and 2011 where there were still different implementations of the characters attributes so switching over to them during beta was very confusing to me. I had no idea what armor to get, that toughness was the same as defence, that power was the same as weapon damage, that (precision – 822) / 21 = crit chance. It’s not too elaborate of an explanation but it’s still better than what we had before.

It’s still very unclear what is ‘good’ for a class, but I feel that’s an issue for new players around level 50. I do hope they adress it.

Have you tried going around the castle?

The way this event works is that when there’s other people further in the ‘quest’ that you get barred out until they complete it. If they are failing for a long time it might be stuck is my guess.