Guild Wars 2

…no weapon swapping?

Obviously we’re still seeing an incomplete version of the class and nothing is really set in stone at this point, but based on the class as presented in this test, for the purpose of this test, we can still reasonably give feedback on our experiences.

I have my own feelings on the matter, but I’m curious to see what other people think, and what arguments you’ll come up with.

Also, is it too soon for us to have an actual Revenant board at this point?

I’d be fine if they just adjusted it so that clicking yes/no didn’t make me need to reactivate my salvage kit to resume salvaging.

Even though the skin is shared between both bows it definitely LOOKS more like a longbow. If the point of this art is to show us what the new spec uses, I really, really doubt that they would pick the one shortbow skin in the game that could be mistaken for a longbow.

Admittedly I forgot about racial skills. But given this and the way that we currently understand Revenants to work, I’m honestly expecting them to just remove them :<

phys.7689:

but every hero point needs to be accounted for, for the system to work.

I do know what you’re saying, I’m just not sure that this part is actually true. There are already way more potential hero points in the world than any one character needs, and unless their longterm plan is for them to be considerably more limited with future elite specs, I don’t really see what the problem of having some imbalances is, aside from it just being sloppy.

phys.7689:

radioAspen.6829:

I get that they can’t really grandfather characters into the new spec system (short of just unlocking everything for all existing characters) since traits don’t really exist in the same way, but I wonder if it would be possible for them to fix the problem via skills?

Just have all pre-existing characters keep whatever unlocked skills they have when the system rolls over, so that it frees up all of those leveling hero points just for use with specializations.

I’m not sure if this would be possible for them to code with the new skill wheel, or if characters having those excess hero points would be an issue for their design goals for some reason, but it’s the most organic solution I’ve been able to come up with so far.

the thing you arent really getting is, they are basically using skill points as the new horizontal progression system.
They cant give away any points without you earning them, because then when you go back and earn them, you would have too many points.

the reason they want to put a lock on it, is so that when new skills/specializations come out, you have to go and get points.

basically asking for them to give you skill points without doing skill challenges, would be like….
letting people with old charachters gain enough experience to automatically hit lv 100 till the cap catches up, when the cap is like lv 50 in another game. But only people who were 50 before the change would have the option.

I’m not sure that’s really the issue that you’re making it out to be? We know they want hero points to be “finite” in that there are no repeatable sources of them, but they don’t seem to want them to be limited such that you’re ever locked out of potential stuff by a point cap. Characters with a lot of skill challenges completed already have early access to elite specs and so forth. I’m not sure there’s really such a thing as “too many points” (at least I’m not seeing what kind of design issue it could possibly cause, but I spoke to that in my original post), but if they do want to avoid creating the huge point imbalance that would result from unlocking everything on pre-existing characters while also avoiding reversing character progress, then I feel something like my suggestion would create a minimal amount of fuss. But again, they may be fine with one of the two extreme circumstances, we don’t really know their design goals.

I’m also not sure it’s fair to look at this system, at least holistically, as the equivalent to a new level cap in other games. Outside of elite specs, it’s built out of things that characters already have, and setting that back is taking things away from established characters. Furthermore it doesn’t affect all characters evenly, it’s very dependent on arbitrary things like where and how you level, or whether or not you primarily play pve or wvw.

I mean it’s just a bit weird to think that we could have a situation where, say, a three year old WvW character will have to go invest hours and hours in pve content just to be back to where they were before the shift, while a two month old pve character with world completion but considerably less playtime can be fully skilled, traited, and have an elite spec on day one.

I mean if that’s what they want to do, then that’s what they want to do. But it just seems odd and unnecessary.

I get that they can’t really grandfather characters into the new spec system (short of just unlocking everything for all existing characters) since traits don’t really exist in the same way, but I wonder if it would be possible for them to fix the problem via skills?

Just have all pre-existing characters keep whatever unlocked skills they have when the system rolls over, so that it frees up all of those leveling hero points just for use with specializations.

I’m not sure if this would be possible for them to code with the new skill wheel, or if characters having those excess hero points would be an issue for their design goals for some reason, but it’s the most organic solution I’ve been able to come up with so far.

Ohoni.6057:

And this is the problem with the current CDI system in a nutshell. You ask us questions, you take in feedback, and then you shoot off in a completely random direction like a dog after a squirrel, and don’t tell us where you’re headed until you get there. If you’d have told us "well, we’re thinking of forcing you to do all sorts of events to unlock traits, we all would have said “NOOOOOOOOOO!” and then you wouldn’t have wasted all that time on a system that nobody wants.

Solving this is not a matter of picking out a few bad apples and making a few tiny tweaks, the whole kittened bundle is rotten.

You identified a good problem, some players had a hard time adjusting to the trait system early in the game. You came to the wrong solution, push it waaaaay back in the progression so that the early levels are super boring. The better solution? Give players more explicit training in them, lead them through the process of selecting traits, explain why some are traits are better than others, what each is good for.

Don’t lock traits behind events, preventing players from even trying them out without going all over the place to unlock them, just teach people HOW to use them. Scrap the spring Trait changes entirely return traits entirely to how they used to be, and just add in better tutorial elements so that players are taught how to use the system.

On second thought, you can leave in the “re-trait anywhere” portion, and also the “five old points to one new point” change, that made things more convenient, but you should get your first five-point trait point at level 15, not at level 30, unlock the master and GM tiers at levels 40 and 60, and when a tier is unlocked, let me use the traits I want, rather than just the traits I’ve managed to unlock.

But in a broader sense, keep in mind that communication is a two way street. You have to not only listen, but also tell us what you’re planning to do, so we can comment on that as well before you implement it. Otherwise you’re just going to keep wasting thousands of manhours on systems nobody ever wanted.

Really I just want to see this post at the top of every page in this thread.

Players: “And anyway, that’s why we feel the current trait system does not work and negatively impacts the game”

Anet: “So what you’re saying is that the early to midgame leveling experience is dull. . .”

Players: “Well yes, that’s one—”

Anet: “—And you want us to redistribute some things to fill in that content. . . 8D”

Players: “Anet, no. Stop”

Anet: “It’s too late”

Players: “No!”

Anet: “It’s already happening”

Fixing what isn’t broken by dramatically overcompensating and/or missing the mark of what is actually needed or wanted? Yeah this is pretty classic anet tbh.

While I’m here, I may as well add my 2 cents (again).

I think that one of the biggest problems with this system, outside of the unfriendly tiers and point allocations and lack of appropriate balancing, is how very inorganic it is. Basically you’re saying that if I want to get all of my traits on any character, I need to follow the exact same leveling path on every one of them (some people are calling this “promoting exploration” when really it more promotes repetition and linearity). Or otherwise grind up an inordinate amount of skill scrolls (brief tangent: if a skill is available to be bought and used at level 36 but can’t be obtained in the world until 59, what is actually the point of it being obtainable the latter way in the first place? In what case is the former option not superior?).

Compare it to how skill points work. I never intentionally seek out skill challenges when I’m leveling. They’re scattered all over the world and I run into them over the course of normal gameplay. I don’t have to drag myself to a particular map to make sure I’m getting the point to unlock the skill I want. I certainly don’t have to worry that I’ll be level 80 without all of or at least a significant portion of my utilities unlocked. It’s a system that supports map exploration without limiting it to a pre-determined path, and it means that I can level a bunch of different characters and they’ll all have a different experience. They also come along at a pretty steady clip, so again I never really feel like I have to intentionally seek challenges out (except possibly when I hit level 30 and want those elites).

If open world trait acquisition were more like that, I suspect it would have a lot less opposition.

DivineRequiem.2710:

Lets face it, every class has max of 3 rly good trait specs. That’s 21 traits all together, less than a half. So whoever complains about price, is down right lazy.

I agree that it’s not a perfect design, but some of arguments here are childish.

I get the impression that you haven’t actually read the content of the posts in this thread.

But in any case, the “but you can just take what you want for a specific preplanned build and ignore the rest” argument has never made any sense to me, because it’s suggesting that a system that promotes not getting all of your traits isn’t bad design. At the very least it indicates that the whole thing isn’t working as intended, since they said these changes were meant to inspire build diversity.

Vayne.8563:

This is why I used the word most. Most being the majority of.

But now you have a different situation. You have a few traits that rule the others. How hard are those specific traits to get.

I’m not defending the system, because I don’t like it. But I have leveled a character after the April first patch to check it out.

The way I play it made little difference. Obviously the more into builds you are, the more difference it will make.

I don’t know what classes/builds you use, but traits can have a huge impact on how a class plays and there most certainly are builds built around and/or demanding specific ones.

And I’ve said it before but I’ll say it here again. Any argument to the effect of “but you can just get the traits you need and ignore all the rest” does not actually say anything good for this system. And it certainly means it’s not working as intended. Promoting build diversity and all that.

shadowraid.7365:

What is this grandfather clause anyways with the traits. I have a level 30 necromancer that had like 5-7 points in adept trait prior to the change and he still got changed to the new system.

It refers to trait unlocks. Characters made before the feature pack have all of their traits except the new grandmasters unlocked by default, rather than having to deal with the new method of grinding them out. The tier/level changes and point compression affect all characters, not just new ones.

Kohlteth.3715:

Lheimroo.2947:

It is incomprehensible how Anet has said nothing – flat out zilch, nothing, about this yet. The dev post tracker is full of tech tickets resolutions, but .. lack of commentary on a seriously pressing issue, for literal months, over and above and past the time they once kidded to us that they were listening?

I am tired of this. Seriously freaking tired.

Do they ever look in this forum ?

Well, this is the official feedback thread that was provided.

Bawi.9541:

Madderdin.3082:

This was one of the worst ideas Arena net has recently had. I am a WvW player, after reaching level 80 on a new char I had unlocked a total of 3 traits. To complete even 1 build I would either have to do PvE (which I really don’t like) or spend gold (that I don’t really have, because I don’t do PvE) not to mention the skill points that I just wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for the scrolls. The new char got benched, I will probably never level anything else and I am stuck with only 1 char that I actually play. I can’t try anything new. Because of that I cannot in clear conscience recommend this game to any of my friends, I just can’t promise that they would have any fun, if they have to spend hours after hours after reaching level 80 to even complete one talent build.

I’m picking on this one sentence here, because it shows how little sense is in some of the comments against the new system: It would be a problem if I didn’t have the skill points but I do!!111
So… where’s the problem again?

Honestly, it takes a lot of good will to not just laugh in the faces of everyone arguing against the system as a whole.

Oh, and 10gold say it’s the EotM traits that were unlocked here ^-^v

If you’ll reread the parts of their post that you didn’t bold, you’ll note that they’re describing the amount of skill points they need to unlock the traits for a single build, not all of the traits on their character. As in, you don’t get enough points to unlock everything you need via leveling up, and even with scrolls you only have enough to unlock a handful of traits. And any argument to the effect of “but you can just get the traits you need for a preplanned build and ignore the rest!!111” doesn’t really say a lot for the new system.

I shared some GW2 fanart earlier, and someone I know who was looking for a new MMO to get into was intrigued by it. This would normally be the point where I tell them that this is by far my favorite MMORPG that I’ve ever played, how it gets so much right that other games in the genre get wrong, how it’s the only one that’s ever been able to hold my attention for this long, and how I love that I can lay off of it for a few weeks/days if I need to without feeling guilty, and when I come back I always have fun.

What I had to tell them instead was that, due to recent changes that make the leveling process an absolute chore (in the best possible terms) that has to be done before you can get to the “real game,” I can’t recommend anyone start playing now unless they already have an account with characters grandfathered into the old system.

This is broken. You need to fix it.

And the ways to fix it have been stated over and over in this thread, but here we go:

1. Revert trait acquisition to the way it was before, with the exception of XIII traits.

2. Remove individual unlocks for adept tier traits and tie them all to a skill book from a trainer again (or just unlock them by default).

3. Rebalance the prices of individual traits, removing the skill point cost entirely. Seriously this is an absurd amount of skill points and there are enough things in the game that they’re used for already.

4. Add A LOT more unlock conditions, and change the system so that you choose which traits you unlock rather than each individual trait being tied to a specific condition.

or some combination of the above. And regardless of what you do, you should:

5. Award trait points every five levels starting at level 15 and revert the tiers to where they used to be. The six level thing is nonsense, the double point thing is nonsense, and 30 is way too late in the game to start accessing traits. Traits are the thing that kept me interested in my character—and consequently, the game—after the relatively dull first few levels. Yes a lot of players considered 60-80 to be a bit of a dead zone in the leveling process, but you haven’t eliminated the dead zone, you’ve just relocated it to the beginning of the game, the part that should be HOOKING players, not boring them.

I have eleven characters, and only two of them weren’t made prior to the Feature Patch. I’ve tried working on both of these (they’re my two favorite classes) and I just can’t bring myself to level them. It’s horrible. Needless to say, like many other people I won’t be buying any more character slots until something changes here.

Here’s hoping for some word on this next week.

Bawi.9541:

I love it. It’s how it should have been all along.

Beginners are guided around the world (and the wiki and dulfy) and can unlock all the traits one by one.
People that have been around for a while will prolly be bored of all the same tasks (jk everyone’s doing farming runs all day anyway) and just dish out some coin for the traits they know they will need/like.

I don’t agree with when the different tiers are unlocked, but that’s really minor.

tl/dr A huge leap in the right direction. Smooth out the timing of unlocking trait-tiers and it’s A+

Implying that there’s one particular way to be “guided” through the world. Or that there weren’t already systems in place to do that (ie Personal Storyline).

Anyway, having to unlock traits isn’t necessarily a problem, it’s just implemented really poorly here. Unlocks are really unbalanced and don’t take the value of the trait to an individual class into consideration, it’s just a flat X event is X trait in X line across all classes. A tier-locked point that can be spent on whatever traits you like would be a potential fix here.

Also it’s not as easy as just “dishing out coin.” Especially for alts, as you would be required to grind up an exorbitant amount of skill points to unlock all traits. The character that I did WORLD COMPLETION with didn’t have nearly enough for this by the time I was done, and there are other things that require them.

No matter how you slice it, this system—in its present state of execution—is a tremendous inconvenience to new and old players that limits build diversity and needlessly backloads the leveling process.

Enzo Kensei.9850:

I don’t know who has this ideias, it may seem good on paper but in the game are horrible.
Now i’m not playing how i want, i’m playing how they want…wich seems contradictory with the manifesto…yes the manifesto…that chapter is buried and long gone, i guess.

No, they sound pretty bad on paper too. That’s what has been so baffling about this whole thing.

Aiglos.2907:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Can we also get some kind of ping from the people at Anet that they are even listening to the things said in this thread? It honestly feels like there is a whole lot of “hope it gets buried on the forums” which is really upsetting.

I won’t let that happen!

There has been some very constructive feedback in this thread. I do hope that some of it forms the basis of sensible tweaks/alterations to this very messy system.

My hope is that they were focused on rolling out the megaservers, and now that that’s done they can get on top of things like this.

I really hope that’s not being too optimistic…

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

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

Nerelith.7360:

I think One of the problems is, that some recent games have gotten us accustomed to thinking that " The game begins at 80" and all the levels in between Character creation, and level 80, are just " something to slog through On the way to “The Game” "

The game begins at level 1. What you see as “grinding on the way to level 80” is " Playing the Game."

Well you’re right about that. The problem is that “the game begins at 80” is exactly what this new design encourages, not what it discourages. The trait distribution is now completely end-loaded, you don’t even unlock GM traits until level 80, and even lower tier traits require content that’s closer to endgame.

The old distribution is much better for the kind of gameplay that you’re advocating.

Nerelith.7360:

Seras.5702:

Literally everyone on here thinks the push back of traits to 30 is a bad idea. No matter what everyone thinks of the new traits, their acquisition, the challenges, the costs, the balance, the bugs….everyone hate the push back to 30. I’d really love a dev response because simply saying “we want to make progression for new players easier and simpler” is not holding water for me. Or any of us apparently. Heck, even new players are more confused now since they’re logging on and have a mere fraction of what they did before.

I don’t hate the Pushback, in fact I think it’s an awesome idea Myself. I just wish they had launched it Like this from the get go. Trust me if they had , No one would be caring because it would Just be " the way the game is." Not." a nerf!!!"

Why, though? What is it that you think that the pushback accomplishes?

I’m not sure that anyone at anet cares how we feel about how boring they just made the first thirty-something levels of their game, but surely they can at least see how much of a balance issue this is for WvW.

There is no reason for the new trait distribution to be so back-loaded. There was no reason for it to change at all, really. How could anyone actually have thought this to be an improvement?

I like condensing five points into one, that’s a streamlining change that makes sense. I like the IDEA of traits as rewards for game content. But pushing the tiers back like this is not improving the game. And it’s most certainly not making it less confusing for newcomers, or whatever they said their justification was.