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

[thepenmonster.3621]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Still, how many players repeat the Stories? Especially the Living World Stories?

I do everytime I level an alt. If only to get the notification off of my screen. But I do pick and choose the S2- S5 episodes nowadays because those bosses arent worth the effort.

[battledrone.8315]

@"Shadowmoon.7986" said: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).

if it was popular and functional content, they prolly wouldnt had scrapped itthe hardcores farmed them, but casuals rarely even tried to do themsame with fractals, if it says "challenging" or "end game", im not gonna waste my time on it

[battledrone.8315]

@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.

it would be another gold farm for the hardcores , and casuals would mostly ignore it.dont you remember champ trains? that should tell you everything about difficulty and rewards

[Shadowmoon.7986]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@"Shadowmoon.7986" said: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).

if it was popular and functional content, they prolly wouldnt had scrapped itthe hardcores farmed them, but casuals rarely even tried to do themsame with fractals, if it says "challenging" or "end game", im not gonna waste my time on it

Or they scrapped them because they wanted to funnel that crowd into raids and fractals, how do I know this, because that is exactly what they said. When they released HoT 2.0, they even returned some of the rewards back to them, because they realized it was a mistake. Don't spout off a false narrative.Honestly you should not even be chimming in to this topic. This is how to make the playerbase better at the game, you are not the target for this discussion because by you own omission you don't want to get better at the game. " if it says "challenging" or "end game", im not gonna waste my time on it" then go play 99% of the game when you only need to spam 1 in you rainbow rarity colored gear, with your random minor runes, with traits you don't know what they do. This is discussion on how people who want to get better has a pathway to get better, not hit a sudden wall when this difficulty spikes.

[Pirogen.9561]

@"zealex.9410" said: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

From where I stand, how I play:

• I am not interested in "instanced content"
• whatever game wants to teach me, I can not learn, because "tell" (what mob will do and when to lest say dodge) is animation that is not distinct enough from other animations that mob does. There are also 5 other mobs, lots of other players with flashy stuff around, .... oh, and I have 2 dodges
• until I get a simple text "tell", I will never be able to learn

But devs will not do it. Even in latest nerf expansion, there is "will add visual clue to pets", "will add visual clue to carapace buff". Visual, visual, and more visual. How the heck anyone can see important stuff with so much visual noice around.

When I started GW2, I did wanted to learn, I refused to belive that 'zerk is to only way to do it. I was wrong, a newbie. Berzerk is the only good way to do it. Boost power sky high, jump in and push all buttons fast. If it works, fine. If not ... you need more Power.

[Teratus.2859]

Yep, this is because between the release of Gw2 even as far as upto PoF.. Gw2 has had a pretty poor sense of direction.

It's kinda like Gw2 didnt really know what it wanted to be and was constantly experimenting with what worked and what didnt.Living world season 1 being a prime example of something that didnt work in it's intended form.. that being one time non replayable content.This is in part one of the reasons HoT got such a diffuclty spike originally, fans said they wanted harder and more challenging content so Anet give it to them.. and broke most of the meta builds and playstyles defined by the Vanilla games wimpy difficulty lol

This has created a game that for the most part, just doesn't prepare you for what comes next.This is far less noticable in newer content now but go back and play the Personal Story then HoT and there is so much of a jump there.Less of one between HoT and PoF but it is still there.

I do agree that Anet really REALLY!! need to take a few steps back at some point, preferably very soon!.. and go back and revamp a lot of stuff in the core Tyria maps, the personal story and finally remake/remaster living world 1 and reintroduce it to the game.. seriously that story gap has been P'ing me off for YEARS!!! come on Anet please fix it lol I hate that story hole so much xD

I don't think much needs to change in the early game maps, if anything at all really but once you start pushing into the 40-60 maps things do need to start getting more difficult and by the time you get to Orr you should be dealing with all sorts of mechanics that demand at least some experience with most of the basic game mechanics like jumping, dodging, condi cleanse, buffing, teleports, healing, ground targetting, combo attacks etc.Hell if they did this you may even find some players coming back to experience this Gw2 remastered kind of feeling.

It's worth doing and I for one am more than willing to wait a while for new content if we could get significant upgrades to the core game and a remaster of living world one.Hell I'd even say I want that just as badly as I want new content these days.. if not more so.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I don't expect ANet will put any effort into legacy content. If they had the resources to do so, they'd probably be using them to push out more new things to ablate the near-constant complaints about "not enough" from the vocal.

I took Mr. Gray's post to mean that ANet wants players to learn the necessities of playing in a coordinated team doing harder, instanced content. While strike missions can do that, I have a hard time seeing anything from core doing so -- unless ANet were to revise dungeons. If they did, they'd also need to put in new rewards, or the effort would be a waste for the vast majority of players.

[Astralporing.1957]

@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.Problem is, nothing you suggest helps anyone learn anything. All it would do is increasing

requirements

.

Without

actually teaching anything. And the whole build/mechanic system makes teaching anyone anything a really hard job - and not only because the game has absolutely no knowledge of what builds, for example, are okay and what aren't.You can lead a horse to water, but if you don't teach that horse to swim, it will just drown once you'll try to push it past it.

@zealex.9410 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.FF XIV doesn't really teach new players. What it does is not letting players make bad choices - and it does that by not

offering

them choices.If you play a specific class, then the game will decide for you what role you will play. It will pick for you what type of stat sets, weapons and what skills you should have. You will have some slight options in minmaxing those (with materia, and sometimes with alternative stat set choices), but the difference between those is very minimal (we're talking single digit percentage point values here).So, basically, the only choice you can still make is the order in which the skills are used ("rotation") - but even there the game will try to guide you towards it.

GW2 goes the opposite way - it offers a multitude of choices, but at a price of most fo those choices being bad, and no way for new players to easily distinguish those from each other.

Yes, going the FF XIV way would fix a lot of problems existing in this game, and allow devs to start introducing features meant to teach players how to play well. At the same time it is guaranteed to make all the people that like the current freestyle build system very, very angry.

TL/DR;Before you start requiring increased skill from players, you need to help them learn it first. GW2 is not well suited to teach players anything more complex, and no in-game teaching system is going to work unless the whole game mechanic gets heavily revamped.

[zealex.9410]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@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.Problem is, nothing you suggest helps anyone learn anything. All it would do is increasing

requirements

.

Without

actually teaching anything. And the whole build/mechanic system makes teaching anyone anything a really hard job - and not only because the game has absolutely no knowledge of what builds, for example, are okay and what aren't.You can lead a horse to water, but if you don't teach that horse to swim, it will just drown once you'll try to push it past it.

@zealex.9410 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.FF XIV doesn't really teach new players. What it does is not letting players make bad choices - and it does that by not

offering

them choices.If you play a specific class, then the game will decide for you what role you will play. It will pick for you what type of stat sets, weapons and what skills you should have. You will have some slight options in minmaxing those (with materia, and sometimes with alternative stat set choices), but the difference between those is very minimal (we're talking single digit percentage point values here).So, basically, the only choice you can still make is the order in which the skills are used ("rotation") - but even there the game will try to guide you towards it.

GW2 goes the opposite way - it offers a multitude of choices, but at a price of most fo those choices being bad, and no way for new players to easily distinguish those from each other.

Yes, going the FF XIV way would fix a lot of problems existing in this game, and allow devs to start introducing features meant to teach players how to play well. At the same time it is guaranteed to make all the people that like the current freestyle build system very, very angry.

TL/DR;Before you start requiring increased skill from players, you need to help them learn it first. GW2 is not well suited to teach players anything more complex, and no in-game teaching system is going to work unless the whole game mechanic gets heavily revamped.

I wasnt speaking of teaching ppl what builds to use because builds and balance are in flux. On the other hand mechanics such as cc, dodging, stacking, spliting, boons, conditions, cleanses, corrupts etc those are more likely to remain the same throughout the games history or for long periods of time(bar massive reworks obv like the condie rework pre hot).

But speaking on build making and learning to play specific class builds is kinda weird in gw2 because the game (at least to me) wasnt designed with clear gameplay loop and rotations in mind. ff14 has skill that tie to eachother, combos that lead you through the rotation, wow does too (basically over half the specs id say are builders spenders in that game), even gw1 had skills that tied with eachother and created a sense of rotation (e.g use hex, if the enemy loses mana they take dmg > use skill that removes mana > ... > profit)

Gw2 doesnt really have any of this, you basically create a rotation through theory crafting what would flow well into eachother and slotting in a bunch of autos between cds (since theres no gcd gameplay goes from busy moments to moments of passive aa)

[zealex.9410]

@Pirogen.9561 said:

@"zealex.9410" said: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

From where I stand, how I play:

• I am not interested in "instanced content"
• whatever game wants to teach me, I can not learn, because "tell" (what mob will do and when to lest say dodge) is animation that is not distinct enough from other animations that mob does. There are also 5 other mobs, lots of other players with flashy stuff around, .... oh, and I have 2 dodges
• until I get a simple text "tell", I will never be able to learn

But devs will not do it. Even in latest nerf expansion, there is "will add

visual

clue to pets", "will add

visual

clue to carapace buff". Visual, visual, and more visual. How the heck anyone can see important stuff with so much visual noice around.

When I started GW2, I did wanted to learn, I refused to belive that 'zerk is to only way to do it. I was wrong, a newbie. Berzerk is the only good way to do it. Boost power sky high, jump in and push all buttons fast. If it works, fine. If not ... you need more Power.

See alot of classes dont only have dodges, some have 2 healthbars, some have barier, some have invuln, some have blocks/reflects/teleports. Alot of tools to deal with situations id say, ill even go as far as to say gw2 gives you more tools to deal with mechanics than your average mmo.

Alot of the modern content has some pretty clear telegraphs and aoe indicators to show you which attacks are usually the most dangerous or very long charge up times for attacks (smth that older content didnt really do well or showed clearly). Thats the way alot of mmos "tell you" "hey smth's 'bout to happen, smth harmful, avoid" because lat out telling you would turn off alot of ppl.

I completely agree with you on the visual noise and didnt myself give this issue enough attention until i saw how other mmos deal with it. If i was anet i would look for a robust system to turn on any and all attack effects, aoe/aoe indicators, cosmetic effects etc for the sake of clarity.

Not claiming simply making the tutorial and the campaign more robust will solve every issue, we deff nead more, esp in the way of clarity.

[Taylan.2187]

I would have benefited from something like this. Took me way too long to learn how defiance bars work, because for the longest time playing the game, my opponents would die after some face-rolling anyway.

In solo content they don't make much sense I guess because many builds don't have access to a lot of CC so the bar would need to be super weak, but they could have replaced defiance bars with the need of simple interruptions in solo content. Like the Awakened Soldiers who take some time to charge up a big blow, but you can simply interrupt them with a single CC move. They could have made learning that a requirement to advance in some boss battles so people understand that CC is important.

Dodging is also rarely actually needed in solo content, if I remember correctly. Knowing how to dodge just makes things a bit easier.

[battledrone.8315]

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Shadowmoon.7986 said: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).

if it was popular and functional content, they prolly wouldnt had scrapped itthe hardcores farmed them, but casuals rarely even tried to do themsame with fractals, if it says "challenging" or "end game", im not gonna waste my time on it

Or they scrapped them because they wanted to funnel that crowd into raids and fractals, how do I know this, because that is exactly what they said. When they released HoT 2.0, they even returned some of the rewards back to them, because they realized it was a mistake. Don't spout off a false narrative.Honestly you should not even be chimming in to this topic. This is how to make the playerbase better at the game, you are not the target for this discussion because by you own omission you don't want to get better at the game. " if it says "challenging" or "end game", im not gonna waste my time on it" then go play 99% of the game when you only need to spam 1 in you rainbow rarity colored gear, with your random minor runes, with traits you don't know what they do. This is discussion on how people who want to get better has a pathway to get better, not hit a sudden wall when this difficulty spikes.

you heard it here first folks: customers have no power, it works like a charm, doesnt it?this is a discussion about tutorials, something this game isnt doing very well eitherand difficulty spikes are generally considered BAD , it is something most devs go long ways to avoidit is usually a good idea to try and please the customers, not pushing them awayrunning in circles around bosses is NOT my idea of fun

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

@"IndigoSundown.5419" said:I don't expect ANet will put any effort into legacy content. If they had the resources to do so, they'd probably be using them to push out more new things to ablate the near-constant complaints about "not enough" from the vocal.

I took Mr. Gray's post to mean that ANet wants players to learn the necessities of playing in a coordinated team doing harder, instanced content. While strike missions can do that, I have a hard time seeing anything from core doing so -- unless ANet were to revise dungeons. If they did, they'd also need to put in new rewards, or the effort would be a waste for the vast majority of players.

I'm all for them dedicating dev time into new content. Its just that the longer the story gets without streamlining early content (and not including Living World seasons into expansions) the less likely new players will ever get to it.