This is gonna be a HUGE post, apologies. This is my own thoughts of the recent feature pack, now that I've learned more about it. Read if you like, and please do share your opinion. Anyways, my review’s down below.
Oookay. So I’ve now read up on the changes, as well as logged in to see them in person, and I have come to my conclusions.
Conclusion 1: The patch being released on the night of a full moon explains why so many people went crazy.
Conclusion 2: It’s not as bad as I thought but I still don't understand it.
So, I'm a vet player with no characters under level 20. I also don't have the money or time to create a bazillion alts and go through the levelling process again. That means that about 80% of the changes in the patch don't affect me. First I’ll go through the things that do affect me.
Trading Post—I like some of it (the categorization, the home page, the basic navigation), but the part I absolutely loathe is the selling window. It felt so much smoother the old way, but now I get so confused when I'm trying to sell things. And considering how much I need to sell stuff, it gets frustrating. But I guess I’ll live, eh?
Minis in the Wardrobe—love it. I don't typically have room in my inventory to carry minis around so this is lovely—I can now enjoy any mini I want without losing valuable pack space! Yay wardrobe feature!
Nav Feature—y’know, that thing in the top right corner? I don't mind it, and you can turn it off anyways so it’s no big deal. I haven't used it yet for exploratory purposes, but I don't mind having a customizable thing to lead you around. However, for newbies I feel like it might be too commanding. Starting out in GW2, I explored everything, wandering from event to event and revelling in the freedom. I would've hated having an arrow telling me where to go. Maybe some newbies like it, or need it. I guess it’s personal opinion. But it makes me a bit sad that it takes away from the spirit of exploration and adventure.
Level Rewards—I levelled up on one of my younger characters and quite enjoyed the pop-up showing me what I’d earned. It’s a nice touch that I feel accomplished the goal ANet had in mind when creating this patch.
Dodging Tutorial—I tried it out and really liked it. Giving players a little chest for learning how to dodge was nice and I feel like it served as an excellent tutorial to an important game feature.
Salvage Kits—they now highlight things you can actually salvage. Love it.
So I'm not as upset with the patch now that I can see it doesn't affect me very much at all, and where it does affect me, it’s typically positive.
Now, the stuff that doesn't affect me—the newbie changes.
Locked Weapon Skills—I still don't like the sound of it. I remember being a newbie and experimenting with all sorts of different weapons because I knew that the only way to unlock all the skills was to actually use them. That's how I realized I actually liked playing a hammer more than dual swords, and how I realized I actually liked playing a greatsword more than a hammer. I was encouraged to experiment with weapon builds to try to unlock all their skill slots and I don't like that you now unlock skills for ALL weapons based on your level.
No Pick-up Bundles—this annoys me more than it should. I remember before GW2 was launched, they proudly advertised that you could interact with the environment and use different items to do different things, as if you were really interacting with the world. The fact that low-level events don't use these bundles anymore makes me sad.
Exp Curve and Difficulty—so you reach level 15 faster, that's great. Whoopee. I don't really have an opinion on that. What bothers me, though, is that the difficulty level was reduced. Maybe some players find it too hard when they're just starting out, but I think that being introduced into a challenging world isn’t always a bad thing. It encourages players to learn how to play the game better and I think that if you set them up with the right information, they can overcome the moderate difficulty without too much hassle.
No Downed State?—I'm still not 100% clear on this one, but I've read that you can't be downed when you're a low level? What happens to you then? This is another thing I remember GW2 advertising pre-launch and I was really excited about it. A second chance? Yes please! I feel like taking it out of early gameplay isn’t helping. Teaching newbies what it’s all about is more helpful.
Aaaaand the Personal Story—oh, I wish this hadn't changed. On one hand, I love the idea of unlocking chunks of your story. I hated waiting two or three levels to be able to play through the next chapter (although one might argue that was what kept me actively playing and levelling...). But the fact that you now have to wait till level 10 bothers me so much. When I entered the game and went through the first story instance, I officially entered the story. I wanted to stay in the story. I feel like the gap is too large between the beginning and the first chunk of the story.
Now, I've heard a rumour that ANet is going to go back and make it so that the newbie changes only affect an account’s first character (can anyone confirm?). Some people call this backpedalling, I call this listening to the players. If it’s true, I'm happy about it. Yay for ANet for not being too ignorant to go back and correct something that didn't work.
I'm not quite as worried about this patch now, but there are still things I’ll never understand. Oh well. ANet has done what ANet thinks necessary and HALLOWEEN’S COMING HOW COULD I BE SAD WHILE EATING CANDY CORN AND GOING INSANE IN THE CLOCK TOWER?!?!?!?!?!
