Guild Wars 2

I tried it. Thank God I had an experience scroll…the last one I will ever use. Even level 20 is boring without traits and the locked skill slots make it all that more frustrating. I gave it a chance. It’s terrible.

Wow. This new release did one thing positive (for Anet). It buried this thread down to page #3. No one is complaining about Traits now! Nosiree!

zenleto.6179:

misterman.1530:

zenleto.6179:

Things you can do at level 2: use the bank; use the Black Lion vendor; start on trades; purchase harvesting and salvaging equipment, and use them; use the gates to get to Lions Arch.

Of course this doesn’t make up for the elite skill coming at 40 and underwater skills coming late but we aren’t crippled. The game still works.

Are you talking about underwater weapon skills. I went to the TP at level 4, bought a harpoon gun and could use it underwater. What you DON’T get is a free underwater weapon at all.

You still get a free weapon, my level 2 warrior has his cracked harpoon. The skills are unlocked fairly late though. Except for, obviously, skill 1.

Well, I didn’t have an underwater weapon (leveling a ranger Norn). Had to buy one. Bug maybe?

Paradox.1380:

Its… faster to level all teh way to 15, its a little more fun almost all the functionality is the same you can do things before it tells you you can. There are very few new restrictions designed to help NEW players. Not people with 80s. Just relax and give it a chance.

Faster? But is it fun? Frankly spamming 1 and 2 for several levels isn’t that much fun. Having no 7-0 skills unlocked isn’t fun.

zenleto.6179:

Things you can do at level 2: use the bank; use the Black Lion vendor; start on trades; purchase harvesting and salvaging equipment, and use them; use the gates to get to Lions Arch.

Of course this doesn’t make up for the elite skill coming at 40 and underwater skills coming late but we aren’t crippled. The game still works.

Are you talking about underwater weapon skills. I went to the TP at level 4, bought a harpoon gun and could use it underwater. What you DON’T get is a free underwater weapon at all.

Selendra Shaldreth.8104:

Why even hide the vista markers until level ten? What’s the point? Isn’t the fun part of being a new player seeing all the markers on the map and going to check them out? I thought it was the coolest thing when I started out; right at level 2 as I wandered out into my starting area as a norn, I was like “whoa, what’s that red thing on the map? Where is it? I should find it!” and then I looked around and did this short little detour to get to it and suddenly I had the most amazing view of the area I was going to be exploring that night.

Why take that out?

They haven’t been taken out at all! I just created an alt to see what was up, and Vista markers were all over Wayfarer Hills. The spread of misinformation is getting out of hand.

So…I watched this video from Magicalmike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On3Ya0_4Y&list=UUB5NQwWzEkr46VF6LMOeFJw

Brilliant, so I thought I would try it out. So, I go on my first quest with a new character – a ranger, don’t judge – and dance in front of a veteran boar until my pet kills it. Got all the way down to 1 HP

Then, I explore some and head off to Hoelbrek – I really thought I had Tomes of Knowledge in my bank. No such luck. Sigh. I used them to get my recently created thief past the disgusting Trait mess released in April.

Anyways, on the way there, the tooltip tells me that “Further adventures await” in DREDGEHAUNT CLIFFS. At this point, I’m level 3.

This HAS to be a bug. If you seriously want to help new players, this will be really confusing.

Wow.

But the “dancing in the face of danger” skill is AWESOME. Better than spamming 1.

I dodged WAY before that tutorial. It’s just a tutorial, nothing more. You can dodge at level 1 if you want

Bigsexy.8302:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On3Ya0_4Y

this is gold…

Thank you! That was great! LOL.

Nihilus.3015:

All their testers were over the age 40

Whoa. I’m 52, junior. I could just as easily say that the testers were teenagers and 20-somethings who have been coddled all of their lives, and have the attention spans of gnats…oooo….squirrel!

FireproofHeretic.3860:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

You’re too stupid to know how to play.

/Anet Dev

How very witty. Would you care to actually address anything I said, or are you content to just say nothing and feel superior for it?

I think he was “quoting” an Anet Dev. He was giving you a reason for these changes, in the mindset of an Anet Dev.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Sure a lot of people want everythig for free, I call them lazy. Personally I enjoy having to do some gameplay to unlock new traits. Gives me tons of incentives to go out in the world.

We are not saying that unlocking new traits via gameplay is bad. It’s bad in the way it’s been implemented. By the time you have 2 trait points (level 36) there are still Adept level traits you really have no way of unlocking since they are almost 2 dozen points above your level. It doesn’t matter how much “incentive” you have, that’s just ridiculous. I mean, as a developer, I would think any feature change like that would at least have had a few people asking “What are you thinking?”.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

DiogoSilva.7089:

All those changes are important because they fix the several flaws that GW2 has early game: the lack of a sense of progression, poor tutorials, directionless, forgottable rewards and jumpy story instances that forced you to level up midway, interrupting the flow of the story.

So far, this feature patch is great for new players, but, what about the veteran players? It doesn’t seems to offer much to make us stick to the game.

More information will be released next week about features that are more suited to veteran players.

Wait. One person thinks the feature pack was/is a good idea, out of this whole chain, and THAT is the one you respond to? Really?

What I am getting from this upcoming feature pack is “Stop leveling your alts until this comes out.” Which I have done. Actually, I did that before I read about the changes, because it was excruciating – the Trait system is horrible. If ANet thinks some bland trinkets or new clothing styles (“Oooo, I have a pretty new hat!”) is going to change things, I think they might be mistaken.

Trixie.7614:

At least you got a T6 material

Who got a T6 material. Not me. That screenshot was from someone else. Best I got was a yellow.

I know the last post in this thread was 9 days ago, but I had another Hero’s chest, and had to laugh when it was filled with goo. It has gone beyond absurd. It’s like getting a huge account for your employers, netting them millions in profit, and they give you a beautifully wrapped present as a reward. You open it only to find it is filled with steaming dog crap. Yet, the whole time they are smiling like it’s the greatest gift they could have given. You can’t be mad, it’s like they don’t know any better.

DivineRequiem.2710:

Gaws you ppl are sooo overreacting over this just because you’re lazy! While I’d rather see traits being only pve event based, not 100% map completion and wvw mix, I’d never change it back to what it was. At least some incentive was made to explore a bit more, and I like it. And for those complicated ones, just buy it! It’s not that kitten expensive.
Saying stuff like worst decision in the game etc is a bit harsh

Really? Overreacting? So, when you get 2 pts to apply to your Traits (level 36) you think we are overreacting when we are upset that we can’t unlock some of the adept traits until around level 59? How is that overreacting? That is a perfectly sound reaction to incredibly bad design.

All these Trait unlocks mean is that people will cherry pick the exact Traits they want and will not experiment at all. Why bother experimenting when there is a proven trait build that works? Everyone will have cookie-cutter builds.

I very rarely run dungeons. The ones I have were either to do the Story (and, I guess now with the new trait system, to unlock traits), or to speed run with a guild group/pug.

Other than specific dungeon tokens, what is the point of running dungeons – again, other than the trait unlocks?

This is a serious question. I am not trying to troll comments – I really saw no actual benefit from running any dungeon. I mean, I’ve completed Zhaitan (Arah) twice, and as a reward, didn’t even get a t-shirt to show for it. So, why run it at all?

Have I missed something with regards to running dungeons – or do people run them because they are fun? The speed runs were…ok…but I wouldn’t necessarily say they were fun.

I hope they take this discussion, and your points, to heart. I hope they don’t delete this thread. I hope the sun will rise tomorrow. Only one of these things is a surety.

But a POI would be obvious. You hover over the name of every map area and it tells you if you got all the POIs etc. I had an issue where, if you check the achievement itself, I had 174 out of 175 areas for Shiverpeaks. But I had completed every area. It was the Forsaken Halls.

Oh, here’s something I found, from an older forum thread:

Did you get Forsaken Halls in Dredgehaunt Cliffs? Or DeMolish Post? Those were the two I needed to finish Shiverpeaks.

Vavume.8065:

PlagueParade.7942:

Nope, had that done ages ago even went back in there before posting here and it showed as being done

@misterman

Do you recall the area that you had missed and found?

Then I suggest you waypoint to every single map until u see the map that you are missing a POI on, and go from there.

He isn’t missing a POI. He mentioned that. He’s probably missing a non-POI area in a map.

There were a couple…a cave in Dredgehaunt (I think) that had to be done as part of an optional quest. Check: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Bluestone/Explorer

There are areas in some maps that are not POIs, etc. but count toward map completion. Caves and such. You might want to google map completion. That’s where I found out I had missed something.

I have to buy Gems. My loot table drops are absolute crud. I have never had anything better than a crappy shaman exotic drop and I am approaching 7000 APs (not great, but nothing to sneeze at). I mean, a precursor? What’s that? Finish the LS part 2 – what do I get for saving the Summit leaders: 18 goops, and I think a few Unidentified objects…maybe a yellow item. Yay. I feel engaged. I have learned if I need/want something I have to shell out real world $$ – or farm like a robot. Neither is appealing.

You are looking for a rational reason where, I am guessing, none exists. It appears to me, sometimes, that Anet devs just pull random bits of paper with ideas for changes written on them out of a bowl and apply them without much thought. It would certainly explain getting globs of goop as major event rewards, and the new Trait system.

Yeah. The Trait thread. Seriously, it’s ok to admit you made a horrible miscalculation. It doesn’t make you less of a man or a woman or a whatever. Just bite the bullet, and fix it.

No. According to some other post, they are. Let’s face it, do developers ever express remorse that what they did was wrong? I have never heard of a case. I can see no rational reason for this Trait change. I can see unlocking them with an event that doesn’t require a squad or isn’t 23 levels above when it becomes accessible. I never really appreciated the Trait-rage post-April patch, but now completely understand. My Thief will, sadly, remain level 36. Why bother playing it?

Fortunately, all but one of my characters were created before the April “feature” release. I made the mistake, however, of creating a Thief. It’s my own fault for not reading through the release notes about Trait unlocking, but still…is Anet serious? For instance, the Uncatchable trait under Trickery is something you could grab at level 36 (2 Trait points required) but the event to unlock it is part of the Personal Story (Retribution) which is level 59! How does that make any sense? I bought it, but won’t do that for every trait – that would cost WAY too much.

This is insane. Am a level 35 thief. To unlock the UnCatchable, which is in the first group of traits under Trickery, I have to either pay silver and 2 skill points OR complete a level 59 Personal Story chapter (Retribution). Why roll new characters if it’s that much a pain in the butt? This is ridiculous. Is Anet even listening?

I would love to see Anet’s response to this. A final reward for saving Summit attendees and we get a bunch of crap. What were they thinking? Oh…wait…gem store. ’nuff said

Yeah, I agree. These Chaos skins are bland. Very lackluster.

What is up with the Chaos skins? Glowing white…pretty bland. Am I missing something?

Excursion.9752:

Some guaranteed rewards would be nice. I didn’t know Anet was going to be that guy that gives you a scratch off ticket and calls it a gift. When at the end of the day you would of just rather had the Dollar.

Crafting an expensive back piece does not count either. I just thought I would throw that out there.

So totally agree with you on all your points!

I agree, but such is Anet and rng

I would like an Anet response on whether or not I should keep these items. Will there be a use for them in the future, other than for this backpiece? Will they be tradeable to a vendor?

khani.4786:

RedStar.4218:

You didn’t get an exotic ?

Hahahaaahahaa! Tell me another joke!

Gloop gloop everywhere!

Lol. Exotic drops? What are they? Precursors…it is to laugh.

Yeah, I enjoyed it. Once I respecced my warrior slightly for that last battle, went a bit smoother than the first time.

Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. Can’t sell them to a vendor. Can’t, ‘natch, sell them in the TP. Can’t convert them into something less a pain in the butt (would be nice to be able to chuck them into the forge to get something else).

Nope. Goo and some blues. Maybe a yellow…so many goos listed on the left, I have no idea if I got the yellow in that box or not.

Ya. Mostly got “goo” as well. Awesome.

Since I have absolutely no interest in making the Mysterious Vine back piece, do I need any of these?

Mysterious Seed
Ley Line Infused Stone
Vial of Sacred Glacial Water
Pile of Phantasmal Residue
Chaos Orb
Pile of Ley Line Dust
Enormous Foxfire Cluster?

Is there something else, other than trashing them, that I can do with these?

Flytrap.8075:

I’m surprised that they think this will stop the flood of players leaving for ESO.

Or that we needed to wait five+ months for these changes.

Flood? I beta-tested it. No way there will be a flood. The game, when I played it, sucked.

Of course, if I went to the correct “version” of Laranthir – the one in LA instead of the one at vigil keep – I would have seen the cut-scene.

From the latest patch notes:

Bug Fixes:
Added an option to Laranthir’s conversation to replay the Battle for Lion’s Arch:
Aftermath cinematic.
Fixed an issue in which the cinematic was not playing for all players.

Not so much. Still can’t see the cinematic.

Wanze.8410:

misterman.1530:

Don’t think that was the OP’s question. I believe he is asking if they will be useful outside of Ascended crafting. Many of us, myself included, can’t be bothered farming and spending the G to get a toon up to 500 to craft ascended items – and then farm and spend G for each of the ascended items we might want.

I did read in another topic, a post from an Anet poster that said that Blade Shards would be consumable(?) or salvageable(?) later on and not to destroy them. Perhaps they will do the same with Bloodstone dust.

Its an ascended material, why should you be able to craft it at lvl 400?

Exactly. So why can’t I sell it to those who want to craft with it? Why are things like Bloodstone Dust account bound? I actually have way too many stacks for me to use, so am just going to end up destroying them. For no reason. Hell, if they don’t want us able to sell them, at least allow us to give it away.

kokiman.2364:

No these “quest”, they are actually called events, are not a DPS check, they are events that encourage people to play together. The biggest problem right now is, that there are way to many “unique snowflakes” around that keep shouting “I PLAY HOW I WANT AND YOU PLAY HOW YOU WANT” which is something that just doesn’t work in a genre that is all about playing together.

Really? So I should load up on 3 or 4 exotic gear sets with various stat combinations – with trinkets, runes, and sigils – just so I can play how a certain event needs everyone to play? Then keep changing up my Traits per event? Are you saying that’s the way to do it?

I, too, got tired of the various issues with scaling. I’m on Northern Shiverpeaks, but I guested on Blackgate and completed the Knights and the Holograms (sounds like a ‘70s pop band) in overflow. Unbelievable. Couldn’t do it on my home server in regular but an overflow on BG did the events. I wonder if there are any stats on the number of times certain events were completed successfully per server? That would certainly be eye-opening.

I agree with the OP. For me, the Living Story should be presented much like the Personal Story, in which I can run most of them solo. Have some dungeons for group play, and even throw in a meta-event where a massive number (zerg) of players is required, would be fine too But the lack of really any solo-able quests is a mistake, IMHO.

Ok. So this story has a simple “kill scarlet” quest that really was too easy. More cut-scene than any interaction, however.

Don’t think that was the OP’s question. I believe he is asking if they will be useful outside of Ascended crafting. Many of us, myself included, can’t be bothered farming and spending the G to get a toon up to 500 to craft ascended items – and then farm and spend G for each of the ascended items we might want.

I did read in another topic, a post from an Anet poster that said that Blade Shards would be consumable(?) or salvageable(?) later on and not to destroy them. Perhaps they will do the same with Bloodstone dust.

It’s strange. The people who are defending the mechanics of this event are the same people upset that some players don’t take the time to learn about all these mechanics….which, until I logged on here and read these forums posts, I had no idea that these were issues. How many other players have no clue, because either the server has no decent commanders who direct the groups, or no one mentions mechanics at all? To the people who run exacting statistics and understand the mathematical formula required to properly trait and equip a toon for each and every event that has ever happened and does happen in the game – do YOU take the time to point this out in a non-condescending fashion? Hell, even a condescending fashion would be welcome on my server (Northern Shiverpeaks). Nobody seems to understand the mechanics of even the Assault Knights, let alone the holograms. In fact, I don’t think our server has made it past the Knights since the 50-man patch.