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Teaching players should start at the start, not be shoehorned in today's content.


zealex.9410

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What im saying pmuch is that the game teaches bad habbits with most of the content up until id say, HoT.

The system will be flawed for as long as new players go through personal story then se2 then hot and get hit by the shock that is the heavier focus on mechanics such as dodge and cc, boons, healing etc when they never really needed it before.

I said as much in the thread made by Andrew Gray (specifically in the raids section) were anet hopes ppl will learn how to play the game in season 5 after years of content that taught them the opposite. I suggested making tutorials about these things (global mechanics and specific class tutorials with rewards) but i had in mind something more akin to lvl 80 content.

This comment from the reddit thread of teapot's video about Andrew's message tho has a better idea:

They really need to set a 'refurbishing' team to improve old content eventually, including returning S1 and making strikes out of past bosses.

No one gets to the future by only paving new roads, you have to maintain the old ones to have a good transportation network to the future.

(Credit to MithranArkanere)

It really is that simple imo. The base game (id say up until se2) really needs to do a better job at teaching these things and the idea of having strikes for earlier content as well is an excelent way imo to further introduce ppl into instanced group content.

Personal story could benefit massively from a revamp, not a narative one (necessarily) but a structural one to aply things they learned over the years from fight design, special action key to better dialogue and camera placement, strikes for all the big bosses (zhaitan included) etc.

Furthermore, naratively not having se1 is a crime imo so they can kill 2 birds with one stone and introduce se1 changed up abit with modern designs in mind like the ps and further introducing strikes into it to aply what they've learned for the first time in a lvl80 environment.

Obv this takes resources and manpower but i believe that this is an mmo, an 8 years old one and it needs a strong first experience for a rocksolid future if it is to last. I imagined it as a small team(or big idk) thats cut off from the live content teams and their job is to go back and revamp the old content, kinda like the current events team but more important. I wouldnt put a cadense to this as i believe realeasing this as bite sized will give a weird first impression to ppl so i think it should be a project that releases big chunk when they are done.

Link from the reddit thread the quote was take from:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/eypz84/mightyteapot_massive_news_for_guild_wars_2_in_2020/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

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This isn't a new idea - it's been discussed a few times that old content needs a bit of jazzing up when it gets to the point of abandonment. The response is surprisingly, but I side on the idea that yes modernising certain older content is prob more beneficial than leaving it as is.

I guess it simply comes down to the fact that Anet want to funnel players up and into newer stuff and boost metrics for those areas

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Oh man, some people are still so bad at this game. Like they're immune to learning. They need as much handholding as ANet can give them and then some. Old and new content. I don't do it often, but every time I do the Shatterer the CC bar phase might as well just be a wind up to the follow up phase.

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@Randulf.7614 said:This isn't a new idea - it's been discussed a few times that old content needs a bit of jazzing up when it gets to the point of abandonment. The response is surprisingly, but I side on the idea that yes modernising certain older content is prob more beneficial than leaving it as is.

I guess it simply comes down to the fact that Anet want to funnel players up and into newer stuff and boost metrics for those areas

Ik its not a new one, just the Andrew post about trying to get ppl into more demanding (skill wise content) amd their aproach kinda made obvious that this problem is still there.

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@"Ayrilana.1396" said:You can’t teach those that don’t want to make the effort.

And thats fine, i guess? That doesnt mean imo that you shouldnt help ppl learn the game from the getgo.

I suspect a number of ppl are actually completely open to the idea of learning its just that you spend so much time not having to that when its ""required" of them" to learn to have more fun with the content it feels like a montains worth of work.

Besides i doubt alot of new players are rn checking out the game msot current players (that would love to learn the mechsnics of the game or not) are already at endgame.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:You can’t teach those that don’t want to make the effort.

And thats fine, i guess? That doesnt mean imo that you shouldnt help ppl learn the game from the getgo.

I suspect a number of ppl are actually completely open to the idea of learning its just that you spend so much time not having to that when its ""required" of them" to learn to have more fun with the content it feels like a montains worth of work.

Besides i doubt alot of new players are rn checking out the game msot current players (that would love to learn the mechsnics of the game or not) are already at endgame.

It was just a statement and not one for or against any initiative to instruct players on how to play the game.

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Would there not need to be pretty substantial rewards (AP/Gold/Gear/Unique items) to motivate the playerbase to go back and play through the beginning of the game? And, what exactly is the beginning of the game? Personal Story? Starter zones? Isn't that content super-easy for 'veteran' players? And if it is made difficult for somewhat geared-up 'veteran' players, how will not be too difficult for new players?

And if it's just for new players, isn't most of the population non-new players?

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Would there not need to be pretty substantial rewards (AP/Gold/Gear/Unique items) to motivate the playerbase to go back and play through the beginning of the game? And, what exactly is the beginning of the game? Personal Story? Starter zones? Isn't that content super-easy for 'veteran' players? And if it is made difficult for somewhat geared-up 'veteran' players, how will not be too difficult for new players?

And if it's just for new players, isn't most of the population non-new players?

The idea isnt to make it hard for old players, its to realistically make it teach you more stuff, like bisses that need cc or bosses with well telegraphed attacks for you to dodge.

To me it seems easier to change and balance instanced content like the ps, and s1, s2 (maybe dungeons? unlikely) than the ow. After all the game drew critisism for its ps and its climax, not its ow.

I guess you can put new achieves and boss achieves ala lw

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@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:Making story content that really emphasized character position and break bars as lootable mini dungeon dailies would certainly motivate players to get better and more efficient at their own pace without having to rely on party coordinated mechanics.

yeah it doesnt have to be a 1shot fest or tight dps checks (strike cms could tho ;) ) but like added importance to dodge positioning and cc which old content lacks.

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This idea won't really work due to how the game is monetized and even promoted. For example, at the moment they focus on bringing players to play the Icebrood Saga, even new players. Revamping old content won't do anything for training as long as future content doesn't require previous content to be finished. Judging by the overall difficulty of the story in the Saga it's a safe bet that loads of players playing it haven't touched the expansions at all, nor many of the season episodes. If that wasn't the case then the Icebrood Saga wouldn't have a lower difficulty than the previous content. In other words they are already doing what you are saying, instead of revamping old content they make new content that fills the same role.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:This idea won't really work due to how the game is monetized and even promoted. For example, at the moment they focus on bringing players to play the Icebrood Saga, even new players. Revamping old content won't do anything for training as long as future content doesn't require previous content to be finished. Judging by the overall difficulty of the story in the Saga it's a safe bet that loads of players playing it haven't touched the expansions at all, nor many of the season episodes. If that wasn't the case then the Icebrood Saga wouldn't have a lower difficulty than the previous content. In other words they are already doing what you are saying, instead of revamping old content they make new content that fills the same role.

The problem with that is that a number of ppl know gw2 as an mmo has focuses on story and as such a number of ppl will likely want to play through the story the linear way. Its also what anet really pushes as their main content.

Regardless of how easy se5 is or hard you still go through se2, hot, se3, pof and se4 if you play in a linear fashion.

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The natural way of doing this, would have been to slowly increase the difficulty of zones, so you'd have to learn new mechanics and learn to your your skills better naturally as you leveled up and progressed to new zones. Like a normal video game.

But that would require a lot of work at this point, and there is a large enough group of players that wouldn't like any kind of change (that they perceive as harder) to OW tyria. Kinda realized that was a lost cause when they nerfed OW Tyria around launch, and even gutted Orr which was supposed to be the end-game area at that time.

So what would be the best option now ? Make a own stand alone map instance with a ton of "guide missions" that will teach you basics, and give you achievement points, and Character/Account rewards ? Something like the Novice Network guides in FF14 that most players skips anyways?

The only way I can imagine seeing this work, is to lock it to the 80boost, require you to go through a tutorial-story thing in order to actually make the permanent 80 change with the 80 boost.

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@"joneirikb.7506" said:The natural way of doing this, would have been to slowly increase the difficulty of zones, so you'd have to learn new mechanics and learn to your your skills better naturally as you leveled up and progressed to new zones. Like a normal video game.What you call the "natural way" would mean restricting the freedom of "play how you want" and shoe-horning players into being railroaded from one "checkpoint" to the next just like any other game out there. For some people this certainly is the natural way, but it's not a one size fits all situation.

For every player that needs (and wants) that kind of handholding to learn what they're doing, there's one that intuitively does things right and would just be bored out of their mind if they had to go through all of this (or worse go through it again for each alt), another one that somehow muddles through it all but doesn't learn anything anyway, a third one that looks up how to game the system and get through to endgame with minimal exposure to the actual leveling game, a fourth that got here to play with friends who already are at endgame and throws the towel because he realizes that there's hours and hours of "teaching" content he has to do without his friends first, a fifth that can't be bothered with leveling and learning and instead buys a fully leveled account on ebay, and so on.

A game such as GW2 at its current lifetime is a super complexe thing. There's no one right or wrong way to teach people everything they "need" to know, from the game basics to all the little skills the veterans have picked up in years of playing. Trying to force people to learn stuff by gating them from content and making them go through lengthy preparations is neither a guarantee that they'll get up to the level quickly that you attained after years of playing the game, nor motivating them to play at all.

If you don't enjoy the people currently playing the same content you play, there's three ways to deal with it: offer help and information (but don't be obnoxious about it, if somebody doesn't want any help nor information that's their right), try to play in a way that others don't interfere with (e.g. by playing instanced content with hand-selected people that fit your standards), or ignore them and do your thing. Expecting others (including the game itself) to "fix" other people because they don't play in a way that suits you isn't the solution.

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@Rasimir.6239 said:

@"joneirikb.7506" said:The natural way of doing this, would have been to slowly increase the difficulty of zones, so you'd have to learn new mechanics and learn to your your skills better naturally as you leveled up and progressed to new zones. Like a normal video game.What you call the "natural way" would mean restricting the freedom of "play how you want" and shoe-horning players into being railroaded from one "checkpoint" to the next just like any other game out there. For some people this certainly is the natural way, but it's not a one size fits all situation.

For every player that needs (and wants) that kind of handholding to learn what they're doing, there's one that intuitively does things right and would just be bored out of their mind if they had to go through all of this (or worse go through it again for each alt), another one that somehow muddles through it all but doesn't learn anything anyway, a third one that looks up how to game the system and get through to endgame with minimal exposure to the actual leveling game, a fourth that got here to play with friends who already are at endgame and throws the towel because he realizes that there's hours and hours of "teaching" content he has to do without his friends first, a fifth that can't be bothered with leveling and learning and instead buys a fully leveled account on ebay, and so on.

A game such as GW2 at its current lifetime is a super complexe thing. There's no one right or wrong way to teach people everything they "need" to know, from the game basics to all the little skills the veterans have picked up in years of playing. Trying to force people to learn stuff by gating them from content and making them go through lengthy preparations is neither a guarantee that they'll get up to the level quickly that you attained after years of playing the game, nor motivating them to play at all.

If you don't enjoy the people currently playing the same content you play, there's three ways to deal with it: offer help and information (but don't be obnoxious about it, if somebody doesn't want any help nor information that's their right), try to play in a way that others don't interfere with (e.g. by playing instanced content with hand-selected people that fit your standards), or ignore them and do your thing. Expecting others (including the game itself) to "fix" other people because they don't play in a way that suits you isn't the solution.

This was exactly why I said the best way to do this would be to do it progressively through the maps/zones as you leveled up. To avoid making long tutorial chains or story steps that just slows you down hand-holding you.

If Queensdale remained as it is. Then in Kessex Hills they design in a lot of events that require you to dodge to survive, and have a few npc's mention it quickly right near the enterances, that "The monsters here are nasty, you have to dodge out of some of their attacks!", and make this into a mechanic that is used often in this zone, players will learn it. And players that already know it, won't think twise about it.

Then introduce something else in Gendarran Fields, probably CC and break-bars. Make about half the events or so into resolving around CC and break bars, and all the group events. Etc.

That way, players learn it naturally as they progress through zones, without boring stuff like the "Novice Network Tutorials" from FF14 where you sit 1-2 hours going through boring mechanical guides on how to Tank and heal, and avoid aoes etc.

Just make sure those events scale well enough that you can't just zerg them down while ignoring mechanics. And that breakbars scales well enough that even 1 person can break it with a few soft cc's, and that it won't be automatically obliberated in huge zerg (possibly adding a timer that it can only lose X% in 1 second).

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@zealex.9410 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:This idea won't really work due to how the game is monetized and even promoted. For example, at the moment they focus on bringing players to play the Icebrood Saga, even new players. Revamping old content won't do anything for training as long as future content doesn't require previous content to be finished. Judging by the overall difficulty of the story in the Saga it's a safe bet that loads of players playing it haven't touched the expansions at all, nor many of the season episodes. If that wasn't the case then the Icebrood Saga wouldn't have a lower difficulty than the previous content. In other words they are already doing what you are saying, instead of revamping old content they make new content that fills the same role.

The problem with that is that a number of ppl know gw2 as an mmo has focuses on story and as such a number of ppl will likely want to play through the story the linear way. Its also what anet really pushes as their main content.

Regardless of how easy se5 is or hard you still go through se2, hot, se3, pof and se4 if you play in a linear fashion.

You can't play the seasons without unlocking them first. Do you think a new player will spend the money (because they are new and don't have gold) to unlock the seasons first, or go play the expansions and the latest season first? It's highly unlikely that any new players will play the content in release order, thanks to the game's design.

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The base game did teach these things, it was called dungeons. That content got abandoned. Also ls1 did teach players to be better at the game. Remember molten duo and mai trin were ls1 bosses. The difficulty of the game was ramping up until hot, but then power creep hit with e specs and the change to the condi limit. Because of how much damage and passive survivability there is now, all of the base game feels easy.I do agree they need a refurb team, but not to put ls1 bosses in strikes. I would rather finish filling out the fractal roster, because lore wise this would be a better location for them. If i was in charge, i would import 3 ls1 events into fractals aasp, scarlets playhouse, clockwork marionette (5 mini boss rush), and battle aboard the breachmaker (a 10 minute long multiphase boss fight, with a cm the difficulty of nm raids).

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@"joneirikb.7506" said:The natural way of doing this, would have been to slowly increase the difficulty of zones, so you'd have to learn new mechanics and learn to your your skills better naturally as you leveled up and progressed to new zones. Like a normal video game.

But that would require a lot of work at this point, and there is a large enough group of players that wouldn't like any kind of change (that they perceive as harder) to OW tyria. Kinda realized that was a lost cause when they nerfed OW Tyria around launch, and even gutted Orr which was supposed to be the end-game area at that time.

So what would be the best option now ? Make a own stand alone map instance with a ton of "guide missions" that will teach you basics, and give you achievement points, and Character/Account rewards ? Something like the Novice Network guides in FF14 that most players skips anyways?

The only way I can imagine seeing this work, is to lock it to the 80boost, require you to go through a tutorial-story thing in order to actually make the permanent 80 change with the 80 boost.

Thats why i suggested going about reworking instanced content. Idk how ff14 teaches new players but from what ive been told it does so fairly well.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@"joneirikb.7506" said:The natural way of doing this, would have been to slowly increase the difficulty of zones, so you'd have to learn new mechanics and learn to your your skills better naturally as you leveled up and progressed to new zones. Like a normal video game.

But that would require a lot of work at this point, and there is a large enough group of players that wouldn't like any kind of change (that they perceive as harder) to OW tyria. Kinda realized that was a lost cause when they nerfed OW Tyria around launch, and even gutted Orr which was supposed to be the end-game area at that time.

So what would be the best option now ? Make a own stand alone map instance with a ton of "guide missions" that will teach you basics, and give you achievement points, and Character/Account rewards ? Something like the Novice Network guides in FF14 that most players skips anyways?

The only way I can imagine seeing this work, is to lock it to the 80boost, require you to go through a tutorial-story thing in order to actually make the permanent 80 change with the 80 boost.

Thats why i suggested going about reworking instanced content. Idk how ff14 teaches new players but from what ive been told it does so fairly well.

It really doesn't. What it has is an in-game manual.

Also... GW2 already does this:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosive_Intellecthttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fury_of_the_Deadhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defending_Shaemoorhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Great_Hunthttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fighting_the_Nightmare

...what it doesn't do is block you from progressing if you choose not to demonstrate a grasp of the basics, as a "traditional tutorial" would.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@"joneirikb.7506" said:...

Thats why i suggested going about reworking instanced content. Idk how ff14 teaches new players but from what ive been told it does so fairly well.

Personally I don't think the instanced content would work, because there is a large amount of players that flat out ignore them (For various reasons like: I want to play solo, people that play dungeons are elitist, I'm nervous that others will complain about my performance, I heard dungeons are dead, etc). So I don't think it would reach the audience that would need it.

FF14 has a house outside the first dungeon you unlock (that you have to go through to progress story btw), where a bunch of npc's stand can give you lectures that put you into scripted short instances, like an arena where they teach you about basic dungeon mechanics and how to do things in very basic ways. Like how to heal, tank, dps, deal with some mechanics and aoes etc. I think it's at least a good effort, though since it isn't required most skip it, either because they don't NEED to do it, or because they hate tutorials, or done it before etc.

If a player can skip something or go through in the easiest way possible, always assume they do so.


So, if ANet where to make an instanced content that teach players basic mechanics, and make people play it? I'd probably say make it a tier0 Fractal, With honestly zero difficulty, great daily rewards, infact so good that people actually consider it a good gold-grind (that will make people talk about it and and thus new players hear about it, that it's basically "free gold"), and make it entirely based on just doing mechanics with very little combat.

It would be cheesy as heck. Stuff like a giant pacifist turtle that is invulnerable until you CC the break-bar etc, with big text on the screen with arrows pointing at the break-bar, and lists of what C skills are, and be scripted so when each player hits it once with a CC it breaks. That kind of stuff.


Personal Story could be a place to do it, but I think they would need to change parts of the story first, since PS is generally the least popular part of the story and I see a lot of people that just do the first and skip to the LS parts instead.

If they somehow re-made LS1 and made it free so everyone would have it, then that could have served as a good gateway for teaching, but I just don't see that happening.

The most ideal would be to use the OW events through the maps/zones, since that's the one thing everyone goes through.

@"Trise.2865" said:

This is an interesting point, as this is kind of the "mechanics tutorial" in the game. But at level 1, how many classes even have the tools to do much? And overwhelming new players with mechanics isn't a good thing either.

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@"joneirikb.7506" said:So, if ANet where to make an instanced content that teach players basic mechanics, and make people play it? I'd probably say make it a tier0 Fractal, With honestly zero difficulty, great daily rewards, infact so good that people actually consider it a good gold-grind (that will make people talk about it and and thus new players hear about it, that it's basically "free gold"), and make it entirely based on just doing mechanics with very little combat.

It would be cheesy as heck. Stuff like a giant pacifist turtle that is invulnerable until you CC the break-bar etc, with big text on the screen with arrows pointing at the break-bar, and lists of what C skills are, and be scripted so when each player hits it once with a CC it breaks. That kind of stuff.

LOL. They should put that on every boss, GW2 players are truly special.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Would there not need to be pretty substantial rewards (AP/Gold/Gear/Unique items) to motivate the playerbase to go back and play through the beginning of the game? And, what exactly is the beginning of the game? Personal Story? Starter zones? Isn't that content super-easy for 'veteran' players? And if it is made difficult for somewhat geared-up 'veteran' players, how will not be too difficult for new players?

And if it's just for new players, isn't most of the population non-new players?

The idea isnt to make it hard for old players, its to realistically make it teach you more stuff, like bisses that need cc or bosses with well telegraphed attacks for you to dodge.

To me it seems easier to change and balance instanced content like the ps, and s1, s2 (maybe dungeons? unlikely) than the ow. After all the game drew critisism for its ps and its climax, not its ow.

I guess you can put new achieves and boss achieves ala lw

And what will entice the current playerbase to replay the Personal Story? Great rewards? Lots of AP? Unique items? (What happened the last time the Devs changed the Personal Story? It was a mess, and had to reverted, more or less.) Again, how to balance the Personal Story where it's not to difficult for new players and not too easy for L80 players.Season One? It's gone, and unlikely to return.Season Two? Maybe the Devs could change it, if it wouldn't have the same problems the Personal Story had when changed.

Still, how many players repeat the Stories? Especially the Living World Stories?

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