In 2014 there was a NPE released that changed the feel and freedom of Gw2

[Charall.4710]

Should we get the Classic Servers?

[Donari.5237]

I'm not against the existence of such servers -- ok, I am against it, I'm just not against people wanting it and in a post-scarcity gaming world getting it.  But in RL I think they'd be far too resource intensive for far too little benefit.  It would basically mean running more servers in parallel (and that hardware is expensive), troubleshooting two entirely separate software sets, and maintaining a separate economy that might not have enough players to keep it rolling.  It would also pull apart the player base, assuming anyone preferred playing cut off from the robust global economy and community that's built up over the past decade.

There are some things I miss about the original experience.  The trait lines aren't one of them.  What I do miss is the richness of things to do in the starter areas.  Carrying hay to cows, playing golem chess, that sort of thing.  And those can be added back in to the game a lot more easily than essentially spinning up a whole second game for the same set of devs to work on.

[Diovid.9506]

18 minutes ago, Donari.5237 said:

I'm not against the existence of such servers -- ok, I am against it, I'm just not against people wanting it and in a post-scarcity gaming world getting it.  But in RL I think they'd be far too resource intensive for far too little benefit.  It would basically mean running more servers in parallel (and that hardware is expensive), troubleshooting two entirely separate software sets, and maintaining a separate economy that might not have enough players to keep it rolling.  It would also pull apart the player base, assuming anyone preferred playing cut off from the robust global economy and community that's built up over the past decade.

There are some things I miss about the original experience.  The trait lines aren't one of them.  What I do miss is the richness of things to do in the starter areas.  Carrying hay to cows, playing golem chess, that sort of thing.  And those can be added back in to the game a lot more easily than essentially spinning up a whole second game for the same set of devs to work on.

Basically this. I think Anet should look at what can be reversed when it comes to the earlie game and when it comes to leveling and make those changes in the current game, instead of making classic servers. And it actually sounds like Anet is looking to do exactly that before the Steam release. But that doesn't and shouldn't include the way trait lines work. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Diovid.9506

[Khisanth.2948]

NPE wasn't great but neither was what came before. It is ridiculous trying to place what is mediocre at best on pedestal.

[Tukaram.8256]

I was playing before, during, and after... and I cannot remember what changed at what time.  Was that when they added masteries and e-specs? 

So - what changed? 

[mythical.6315]

People that want classic servers almost never understand what that would mean. You lose every QoL feature added to the game as an example. 

[Khisanth.2948]

51 minutes ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

I was playing before, during, and after... and I cannot remember what changed at what time.  Was that when they added masteries and e-specs? 

So - what changed? 

NPE was around a year before. Elite specs and masteries came with HoT in October 2015 while NPE was September 2014.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2014-09-09#New_Player_Experience and https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/September_2014_Feature_Pack#New_Player_Experience if you want to see the actual changes

- profession skills(mesmer shatter, ele attunement, etc.) got moved to a later level, not sure what the original was

- weapon swap got moved from 7 to 10

- that makes it seem like players got delayed access to these but that is not actually true because of "Reduced the amount of time it takes to reach level 15.". It reduced it by half so lv10 is more like the time it would have take to get to the previous lv5 which means players were getting access to it sooner

- "Reduce Low-Level Complexity: " didn't even extend all the way to the end of the starter maps

- "Chapter focus" change was reverted so no longer relevant

 

[Orthonen.9470]

The talent tree was actually the same thing we have now, just a different UI by the way.

[vares.8457]

3 hours ago, Dravvi.3146 said:

Should we get the Classic Servers?

No. 

[Cronospere.8143]

Full inventory every second. Salvaging one for one. Building legendary for each character instead of 1. Slow movement throughout the entire game. 

Oh yeah. Classic sounds fantastic.. 

So no.. 

[Westenev.5289]

Unless you massively muck up your game (looking at you, Runescape), a classic mode is only going to attract a hardcore playerbase akin to what pre-searing ascalon is today. Is it worth the effort?

 

Plus, you run into problems like "when was the golden era of nostalgia in this game" - which will probably be closer to 2015, since, if I remember correctly, it's when a lot of players signed up.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Westenev.5289

[Luci.7018]

The idea of minor traits costing 15  silver > medium 50 >highest 1.5gold , or scour the land to unlock by killing specific Elites -quest is still pretty nice (except going in Orr , which is pretty depressing) . They could do the same for  every Core area allows you to unlock 3 traits (or lvl-up trait point) , as a generic "goal".

And a random higher tier trait for  map completion (or automatically unlocks when you lvlup)

 

Shouldn't we make combo from field , have 100% execution rate ,but reduce their effectiveness ?. Or atleast the auto attacks to create lesser damage/vulnerability  effects ?

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Luci.7018

[Tukaram.8256]

3 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

People that want classic servers almost never understand what that would mean. You lose every QoL feature added to the game as an example. 

Yeah. On other games I have seen people asking for a classic server - totally classic.... well... they can keep this, and that, and oh yeah especially the other thing... but classic. Everyone makes their own definition of classic.  ha ha 😎

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, vares.8457 said:

No. 

Agreed.  No.

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, Aridon.8362 said:

The talent tree was actually the same thing we have now, just a different UI by the way.

The talent tree changed shortly before the NPE but most people considered that change part of the NPE.

In the old days you could have more trait lines active and simply not complete them. The trait lines were simplified when this change went into effect. You're right, it didn't come at the same time as the NPE, but it was different not long before that.

[Danikat.8537]

There's been several changes to the trait/specialisation system over time. Depending on how you count it there's been something like 4 or 5 different versions.

I don't think going back to what we had originally would be a good idea. For a start you had to buy a trait manual from an NPC to unlock different tiers, in addition to putting points into them. That always put me off unlocking traits until I was certain I was going to keep that character. But it also used to have stats tied to traits (balanced out by lower stats on equipment), which often meant a trade-off between choosing a trait line with useful traits or choosing one with appropriate stats. I'm also not sure how that would work with elite specs, which I think is part of the reason they removed the stat boosts.

The one thing I did like was the option to have traits from earlier tiers in later 'slots', so if there were two you had a hard time choosing between you could swap out a less interesting one from later in the trait line and use both the earlier ones, but I think that caused some issues with balancing.

Also if any changes to the game do need to be reverted or changed again I'd prefer them to do it in the actual game rather than setting up a separate server. I know WoW did it but from what I've heard that game had much more drastic changes over time, with entire maps being removed or re-done so the original content in those areas was gone. That hasn't happened in GW1 (the nearest we had was season 1 being temporary, and that's being fixed, even Kessex Hills still has all the events, story steps etc. just with new scenery) so the only difference on a classic server would be the details of how things like traits work, and stuff like having town clothes instead of outfits. It might be moderately interesting to see the changes 'side by side' but I doubt anyone would want to keep playing both versions so at best it would split the population, more likely the classic server would be abandoned fairly quickly once the novelty wore off.

[Omega.6801]

No.

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

A GW2 classic? 

Hell no.

 

A revamp of the leveling experience so people have freedom but also know what to do and get taught some basic skills?

 

Hell yes.

[Khisanth.2948]

3 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The talent tree changed shortly before the NPE but most people considered that change part of the NPE.

In the old days you could have more trait lines active and simply not complete them. The trait lines were simplified when this change went into effect. You're right, it didn't come at the same time as the NPE, but it was different not long before that.

NPE was September 2014

Trait change was June 2015

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/June_2015#Update_-_June_23,_2015

The trait change was after NPE not before. Also not shortly, it was 9 months. Enough time to make a whole new human! Probably not enough time to make a GW2 expansion though so the devs probably knew it was going to change before the NPE was released.

[Ashantara.8731]

I wouldn't want the game to be reduced to what it was in 2014.

However, I wouldn't mind if they removed the current skill and trait system and went back to using the old one. 😄 I liked the "simple" skill and profession system from GW1 better -- it allowed for more variety, especially with the ability to dual-class.
 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[Khisanth.2948]

11 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

I wouldn't want the game to be reduced to what it was in 2014.

However, I wouldn't mind if they removed the current skill and trait system and went back to using the old one. 😄 I liked the "simple" skill and profession system from GW1 better -- it allowed for more variety, especially with the ability to dual-class.
 

On the other hand that old system was filled with a lot of crappy traits. Grandmaster traits so bad that people would rather take an adept trait instead. There are still a couple iffy grandmaster traits around today but there were a lot more back then.

Some of those were combined to make one of the current ones and some of made baseline.

All those things are part of the "great system we had bad in the old days".

[Redfeather.6401]

I want old lion's arch servers please.

[Danikat.8537]

34 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

NPE was September 2014

Trait change was June 2015

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/June_2015#Update_-_June_23,_2015

The trait change was after NPE not before. Also not shortly, it was 9 months. Enough time to make a whole new human! Probably not enough time to make a GW2 expansion though so the devs probably knew it was going to change before the NPE was released.

It was both. There was a big change to traits in the April 2014 Feature Pack, which among other things made it free to unlock different tiers of traits or change which ones you were using (previously they cost gold) and re-worked how points were allocated, but moved the initial unlock from level 11 to level 30 and required unlocking each individual trait by completing specific events, story steps, mini dungeons, WvW activities etc.

That was supposed to mimic the elite skill collection system from GW1 (where skills had to be obtained by defeating bosses then using a special skill on them) which is something that had been frequently asked for, but it was probably one of the most unpopular changes Anet ever made to GW2.

The New Player Experience update in the September 2014 Feature Pack didn't affect traits. The June 2015 update re-worked them into the specialisation system which is pretty much what we have now. (This update also undid several of the more unpopular aspects of the NPE update, like restoring the original order and all the steps to the personal story.)

Original (2012) version of the trait system: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Trait&oldid=412358

April 2014 updated version: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Trait&oldid=798526

June 2015 updated version: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Trait&oldid=1064686

Early version of the specialisation article from just after June 2015 update: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Specialization&oldid=1066232

 

[Altonese.6542]

I can't say I pine for the old trait/skill system, though I do miss having to train up weapons since I felt like it added a bit more experience to leveling!

That said, the reason I dislike the NPE is because of the changes it effected in the world. Small/minor changes, yes, that likely most people don't care about, but I did.

1. No golem chess in the First Metrica Heart. Absolutely miniscule, but I just want to know why - Why take something out that could have just been left in.

2. Sylvari no longer start naked and get gear talking to Warden Arondele. Again, yes, its not something to really kitten over, but, just, why remove it? It was a neat little flavour thing in a game you're supposed to immerse yourself in. They did the same with humans now coming out of the starting area outside of the infirmary instead of inside. Apparently, though this is just what I heard, it was because new players found it hard to figure out where to go? In a -house-?

3. Activities like keg brawl, etc. Instead of being made in a way to really encourage their play, they got smushed in to an activity npc thats used just for a daily. One of my first experiences as a player was going in to keg brawl in hoelbrak and having a ton of fun.

4.Not to do with NPE I think, but why can't we bet on cows in Diessa still? I don't get it. Also not having to do with NPE, but give us a Lion's Arch that isn't meant to just be a pver haven. Give us a real city.

5. Swimsuits, still waiting. I'll blame NPE for it just because.

Does any of this warrant a 'classic server'? No. Just some thoughts.

[Gibson.4036]

29 minutes ago, Altonese.6542 said:

4.Not to do with NPE I think, but why can't we bet on cows in Diessa still? I don't get it. Also not having to do with NPE, but give us a Lion's Arch that isn't meant to just be a pver haven. Give us a real city.
 

This reminded me of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mina's_Target_Shooting

Ten years later, Minister Caudecus has gone mad and been killed by the commander, but his private party at the target shooting range goes on. You gotta wonder how much he paid Mina to set her business up for a decade. And are his guests starting to wonder where their host has gotten to?