ArenaNet Studio Update: April 2022

Here's my personal wishlist:

• Restore the original weapon skill unlock system (based on kills instead of leveling up).

• Restore renown hearts on their original forms, including bundle interaction (feed the cows instead of dancing, it's stupid).

• Restore the renown heart that was deleted in Wayfarer Foothills, and move the rabbit renown heart back to its original location.

• Restore champion events all across starter zones (these weren't nuked because of the NPE, but still).

• Restore gathering nodes in the starter areas.

• Remove level restrictions for the Personal Story.

• Restore all the removed vendor options from the NPCs in the starter areas (many recipes were permanently lost due to this).

• Make the level up "rewards" far less annoying and intrusive (would need quite a bit of attention, but they're absolutely annoying right now, they need to be addressed one way or another).

As a bonus, I'd say they should add more "side activities" similar to those we see at the beginning of EoD, in the monastery training grounds. That would be quite a bit of work, but redesigning some of the early hearts to focus on stuff like dodging, crowd control, conditions, etc would help the early game immensely. Maybe even extend the tutorial experience a bit, teaching the players the basics across a series of activities, then make them apply those lessons for the tutorial boss fight. Again, quite a bit of work, but more than worth the effort.

I'd also suggest adding a basic mount to the core game, so new players don't feel the need to rush the first PoF story mission just to get the raptor. Some kind of dolyak mount (with kirin/horse skins in the gem store) would be great. Could even make it two-passenger friendly, encouraging new players to socialize. Maybe design this new mount with a new type of "delivery activities" in mind, where you need to ride a dolyak to carry a package.

Finally, I'd suggest enabling mastery progression outside of the leveling process, meaning any experience you earn would progress both your character leveling process and your mastery level. Could wait until the account reaches level 30 with one character to introduce the mastery system. Add a few new "filler" masteries for the new players as well, great opportunity to retroactively introduce some for LW1 and LW2. Some kind of mastery where you get bonus XP when you play as a party would be great for new players too (plus, encourage socialization).