Mandatory Infrastructure Fixes Before Steam Launch

[lothefallen.7081]

I'm happy to hear that GW2 will be available on Steam in November. With this recent news, I feel that there are a few things that need immediate attention in order to ensure that new players acclimate to a coherent game-play experience. Because the game has been out for almost a decade, people can tend to overlook major structural issues with the way content progression is set up in the vanilla game mode. It's obviously in the best interest of both ArenaNet and the greater GW2 community to have a game play pipeline that is easily communicable and understood by new players. With this in mind, I intend to start a conversation to allow ArenaNet to get feedback about infrastructure changes that could mean the difference between player retention or a missed conversion. In my opinion, ArenaNet needs to correct some fundamental game-play design and implementation flaws as follows:

1. Dungeons in GW2 are defunct content. They used to be difficult before the power creep of HoT and PoF and they were an integral part of gear progression in the vanilla game. Often, a player will play through to level 30-40 and the first time they hear about a dungeon is through the mail system - this is a pretty significant problem and makes the content feel arbitrary. They're told to go to the dungeon, but find that the content is pretty much abandoned as there are copious other ways to acquire exotic gear that may even be easier than dungeons. Seeing as this is an MMO, people want to jump into group content and get a feel for what GW2 has to offer on that front. Right now, I feel like the current content pipeline and implementation for dungeons makes them incoherent and an after-thought. New players coming to the game to experience group content are going to see that there's no coherent dungeon progression, they're going to get told that end game content is fractals and raids and then never learn how to properly play their class in context of group content.

TL;DR: Dungeons don't provide reliable instruction on how to approach group content. They should be re-tuned, overhauled, and new rewards provided so that dungeons become an important part of vanilla progression for newbies.

2. Gearing up in GW2 can be really confusing for new players because of the steep curve in progressing from full exotic to full ascended. Not only this, but the lack of clearly defined roles means that players need to have a strong understanding of end game content and classes to be able to understand how best to gear their character. This creates a culture of elitism because there's so much additional research a new player needs to do just to play the game properly and in most cases, that information that they need is external to the gameplay process, only on the wiki, or just plain not communicated to the player in a clear or concise manner. Coupled with the issue above, some players just don't socialize and get the information they need to take their gameplay to the next level because the content design is inherently anti-social and co-operative rather than requiring players to learn the depth or complexity of their class or combat in order to excel. This results in an extremely stratified player base that often excludes inexperienced players from participation outside of the open world.

TL;DR: ArenaNet needs to create a more coherent pathway for new players to gear to full BiS (best in slot) ascended, change their build, and experiment without the sunken cost of having to have a bunch of legendary items or multiple sets of ascended gear. The actual gameplay needs to teach players how to play the game properly. Right now, the new players can't learn all they need to know just by playing because the game doesn't encourage depth of strategy in group content prior to level 80. Do more to allow the game to teach players through consequence.

3. Right now, the game's reward systems are super homogenized. Everything is channeled through the cash shop. New skins feel like less of a reward for good game play and achievement and more like a transaction. Players need to feel rewarded with cool and interesting items for excelling at the game. Blue, green, yellow loot mostly just exists to be salvaged. Loot often feels like a byproduct of the system rather than exciting and rewarding like GW1. ArenaNet needs to use new incentive structures when addressing the above two major issues and think about how they can re-tool old content to bring freshness to the whole community and coherence to new players who are making a decision to either play and spend money in GW2 or play something else.

TL;DR: The game itself should feel rewarding and coherent to play on its own merits.

I'm sure there are tons more structural issues that people have identified with GW2 that will probably limit how long the game stays relevant. If you have anything to add to this discussion for the above stated purpose, I would love to get your feedback too. Thanks!

[Maethendias.1305]

"infrastructure fixes"

meanwhile you arent talking about any infrastructure

[Blocki.4931]

Why don't you just title your posts properly and call it "Bring back dungeons plsss"

[Astyrah.4015]

@"Maethendias.1305" said:"infrastructure fixes"

meanwhile you arent talking about any infrastructure

this. i was expecting the OP to suggest ArenaNet should ensure the servers are no longer causing lag, the server hardware upgraded, software updated, TP/Gemstore issues resolved... basically IT Infrastructure and backend stuff =)

but it goes without saying, we need stable servers and no errors popping like mad if we want those steam players to stay. it's a big turnoff for new players and a would likely make GW2 Steam suffer a lot of Mixed~Negative reviews on it's first month if the basics to keeping things stable aren't addressed and sorted out.

that said, OP:

a lot of your suggestions, if considered at all, may take time and may not make it on the planned november steam launch

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I feel like these 'issues' are from a veteran's outlook, rather than a new player's experience.

If there is a copious amount of new players, then there may be plenty of players wanting to experience dungeons. If not, I've heard low-level Fractals aren't too difficult, and player level is adjusted.

As is stated repeatedly, at least in the Forums, Ascended Gear is not required, except for high-level Fractals. It takes time to learn to play well, and having 'BiS' gear won't magically make for better players.

I think veterans forget how exciting it was to get Rare and Exotic drops, or even just new skins, when we were new. Again, I think the opening post is more of a veteran's point of view.

[T G.7496]

@lothefallen.7081 said:BiS (best in slot)

Why use an acronym, tell us what it means, and then never use it again?

[yoni.7015]

Dungeons were not difficult before HoT.

[kharmin.7683]

Nothing in the OP is mandatory.