[How would casuals prepare to clear Kaineng Overlook]

1 hour ago, CaffeeCup.5742 said:

 

Another thing that truly wipes beginners is the 2nd fight Li that puts bombs under feet while preparing a big red zone Dragonslash.   It confuses beginners, because they don't want to stack, but they don't want to stand inside the big red zone.  Stand in the big red zone with good spacing between each other, and simply dodge the Slash.  I, personally, do a quick 1-2 count in my head when I see the big red zone, then I press dodge while inside it. I just ignore the explosion after but you can dodge that too

Yeah this is probably the most dangerous part for new players unless players really mess up the numbers. 

You actualy have enough time to wait out the slash behind or on the side of Li and spread afterwards.

[Petition to put Roller Beetle in WvW]

To balance it out they could make it really hard to steer and low hp. Like a car with 500 hp, rear wheel drive on clean ice with slick tires and no breaks. And if you crash you go down immediately,  and if you crash hard you're dead. You can only mount it near your objectives (could also be a tactic).

Your 2 ability should be just standard feature if you hit enemies with high speed. Knockback would work better I think.

Crazy kamikaze beetle. Boon ball bowling.

I'm actually quite serious on the idea. Could be just an event that occurs periodically.

 

[Warclaw Utility Outside of WvW]

Speed bonus to players in proximity as it does in WvW. 

[How would casuals prepare to clear Kaineng Overlook]

If you have 6-7 players that are willing to exhibit some patience youre actually golden. Its basically a static. I would cover the support roles. I'm sure between you all, even if you dont have many characters, you can make 2 or even 3 healers and cover the basic boons. Ill not go into details, there is plenty of information on net. There is no time limit. So if think you will have issues surviving you can easily go more tanky builds. Raid meta is fine and all but if you die because of it, its bad. Those builds are made for fast clears, you will probably prefer reliable clears.

Now when you have that just open lfg and look for 3 - 4 dps. Youll get them in seconds. If you wipe and they leave. Dont worry, it happens. Hey there are still plenty of LI or KP groups for Harvest temple that wipe 5 times out there and no one complains. Or find 3-4 like minded players.

The strike is nothing special. It doesnt have any special requirements or complex mechanics. The number thing is maybe something that is unique in this strike but its not hard at all. Everything else is just avoid the orange/red telegraphs and stand in green circle. Its a bit longer, especially the second adds (golem and sniper) are big hp sponges. 

Hey you might even like it at the end. Playing with friends, learning mechanics is super fun. You might even start playing fractals (very fun btw, good difficulty curve for beginners) and raids and more strikes.

As for the age. 40-50 is not old for gaming in these times. There is really no limits for 50 y old in this game. Reflexes should be fine. I mean you probably wont cut it as a professional RTS players with 250 actions per minute or a professional FPS players where micro seconds count. But this is a casual mmorpg, as casual as it gets. Its made for 50 y old moms and dads.

[New player experience is the games biggest detriment]

14 hours ago, Redfeather.6401 said:

Seems you people have a real limited understanding on what games have done and have no idea how good quests can be. Get out and try more stuff. Expand your knowledge. The ability to judge gw2's new player experience isn't very effective when you compare gw2 to such antiquated things.

I think you are referring to quests that take you around the world, maybe visit a dungeon and actually reward a cool item in the end. These are indeed missing in gw2. Story missions are kinda like that but for me the vanilla story was really not enjoyable and its mostly instanced so its not the same. But that is personal preference, I dont like the story at all in gw2. The upside is definitely that its voiced. And thats a huge upside.

Events are really good though. Some do take you a bit further. The epic ones only come in expansions though.

[LFG System is Unfriendly (as a New Player)]

Non automated grouping tools are always confusing for new players. While I fully support the tag system this game is quite complicated and changing in this regard. 

I means you have the basic dps, alac (alacrity provider) and quick (quickness provider). But after that it gets complicated because there are many acronyms for specific subroles or builds or encounter specific roles. cdps, pdps, hmech, hfb, qhfb, hscg, bs, alaren, qfb, cqfb... 😁

Maybe an ingame wiki dictionary would help. 

I know this is not a general solution but your best bet is to just ask in chat in one of the hubs. 

[New player experience is the games biggest detriment]

1 minute ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Th

And yet I, and who knows how many others, dislike HoT. I know that there have been countless threads on these forums, and elsewhere, decrying HoT while holding vanilla up as the ideal. So maybe, just maybe, vanilla isnt as bad as you believe, or at leadt not as bad for others as you believe.

And, again, I am not saying that there are no issues with the early game, just that some people might be overstating them because of their own preferences.

Well I like hot. Maybe Im biased. People that play the game since vanilla probably have a bit of nostalgia. 

Vanilla doesnt really have anything outstanding for todays market. World bosses are kinda meh today. Some literary die in seconds. The story delivery is ackward mildly saying. 

Hot has awesome meta events. Outstanding. Makes an impact. Hot has one of the best designed maps I have ever seen, ever in games in general. Some dont like them? Hard to traverse? Sure thats fine, different player preferences. They are still somewhat unique and many will appreciate the intricate design. And guess what, you give people a free mount and you fix the traversal and difficulty problem to an extent. 

[New player experience is the games biggest detriment]

1 minute ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I would be surprised, shocked really, if expansions were as profitable as the gemstore. Expansions are important to get money from players who have already bought all they want from the gemstore, and to keep people who have played vanilla content into tbe ground around long enough to entice them with new gemstore releases. New players in vanilla will have many hours of playable content and a gemstore filled to the brim with stuff they havent yet purchased but might desire.

I dont know the structure of their revenues but I suspect the same. 

But the point is that vanilla is old and it shows. Hot already feels way better. Right now you have to play tens of hours to get to Hot. No mount unless you go through gimmicks. Players might just quit. Lost Ark is a good counter example. Doesnt mean its a better game, irrelevant (hate korean mmos, masohism). But its start is a bang, f2p, designed to hook you in this decade. 

Whats one of the best feature gw2 has in this market? Mounts. Option 1, lets give players the best feature after 100h of gameplay or through a gimmick. Option 2, let players taste the best feature from the start. I can see how Anet with their great marketing chose option 1.

[Before the steam launch things need to be properly explained - namely the fact that there is content gated by further paywalls beyond the expansion purchase price.]

3 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I suggested including LW seasons with the expansions...but even so, how is asking people to pay for the products they receive a bad thing?

Well we agree then.

But on second point. You have to adjust the price over the products lifetime according to the changing market and customer expectations. You have to keep market presence even if it means underselling some products or in this case older parts of the product to have better sales of the rest of your portfolio. 

[New player experience is the games biggest detriment]

4 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

And we also see people complaining that they prefered vanilla GW2, that the post launch content doesnt measure up, etc. There are youtube videos where the YTer expresses how GW2 has ruined other games for him. 

Yes, different taste, but vanilla is free. Anet doesnt get much out of gamers that like to play vanilla. I'm pretty sure their goal is to get people to the expansions.

[Before the steam launch things need to be properly explained - namely the fact that there is content gated by further paywalls beyond the expansion purchase price.]

3 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

ANet listed two currencies that they would accept as payment for access: 

1) time. If you gave them your time, by logging in during a specific time period, you would have access. I made a point of logging in during a time frame when I was taking a break from the game. This price was very affordable but was still a price to be paid.

2) real world money.

 

As far as I know everyone with access to those LW chapters paid one of those prices.

Sure, explain that to the customer for whom the option 1 is non existent. We're sorry, we do not accept current time and perhaps in few years we will accept future time (no promise though) but we do accept $$$.

[New player experience is the games biggest detriment]

6 minutes ago, disco.9302 said:

I couldn't think of a worse structure other than P2W (which I think BDO is anyway? idk). The games where you're introduced to the starter zone as an OP character 1shotting everything and then progress to the endgame which is exactly the opposite are incredibly depressing.

The point is to get the players to the end game. GW2 is a great game, not many actually get to the good part though. I've seen many youtube reviews where players play for a few hours and than review it (not that good often). They dont even see a meta event, a raptor (let alone the cool mounts), any expansion content.  You have to sink many hours into the game to get to the good parts. The vanilla today feels like so many f2p games out there but a bit old.

[Before the steam launch things need to be properly explained - namely the fact that there is content gated by further paywalls beyond the expansion purchase price.]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

We didn't get it for free. We paid the price set byANet.

 

Still I think that the Steam launch is a good time to include LW seasons with their relevant expansions.

I got it for free (LS4+ because I started before LS4). And could get the rest for free a few months a go if I hadnt got them before.

[New player experience is the games biggest detriment]

You make many good points @Ravenmoon.5318. But here you will find many players that have this mentality if I did it 9 years a go, new players should do it also (well some might, many will just quit after 10 lvls).

Yes NPE can suck for a new player and I went through it first hand during POF. I am a very patient dungeon crawler that often likes to do at least the first play through on my own and slowly exploring everything (did the whole Hot without mounts first time just for the experience for example) so I didnt mind it that much. But I dont think today's crowd is prominently like that. And the older the game gets, the bigger the disparity between the vanilla and latest content becomes. 

Mount are great example. Many players will give advice to new players to just start Pof and get a friend to help him get the mount. Sound advice but actually horrible system. Just horrible for new players. Why the hoops and loops? They did the smart think with EOD and raptor and bunny. Just give a new player a raptor. Or/and warclaw for that matter. Or at least free mount rentals in hubs with limited timers on them. So they can play the game in chronological order without gimmicks. 

The thing is. Mounts have such a good feel in this game and are on another lvl to any other mmorpg. This alone would be a great early experience and selling point. And Pof is so late in the game. Keep in mind most players dont go to outside sources for information at all. Its a f2p start. You test it and if the initial feeling is not good. Well on to another.

[Before the steam launch things need to be properly explained - namely the fact that there is content gated by further paywalls beyond the expansion purchase price.]

Get everything you need to experience the vast living world. Oh we forgot to mention the world is not included. 

But after spending 50 bucks you can go to forums to express your opinion where people who got it for free will explain how its such good value. 

[Need more clarity around 60% success rate in DE meta]

6 minutes ago, Zauriel Mooncat.4968 said:

Oh no no no, it was complete evasion towards the tail, it was completely skipped every time it came up and we where all fully focused on damage towards the dragon. 

Interesting. Was the tail up close to the phase transition? That would make sense, but that is case by case. 

You only need ~ 5 good players to get the tail and the strategy could be coordinated in advance. You can also have a Mesmer set up a portal so everything happens really fast. Is it possible you didn't notice it? Or you just powered through the debuff? 

[Need more clarity around 60% success rate in DE meta]

13 hours ago, Zauriel Mooncat.4968 said:

There was a group 2 days a go that was forcing the group to completely avoid the tail and we made it with 4 minutes to spare (I dont know if this is or was an exploit or not?)

 

If you have a few good players you know you can rely on, you can just send those few to kill the tail and the rest can just stay on the head. And you avoid everyone running around getting stuck in bubbles all over the place.

[What is the average player?]

I think 6-12 hours is waaaay above average. Thats in my ballpark. 1 hour per day, usually not every work day and a few more for weekend. I think the average play time is more like under 4 hours per week. 

As for the population. The people I know best are from my WvW guild. Its a no pressure guild. We really have a mix of everything, mothers, fathers, teens... you name it. I think the general population in this game is quite old. Plenty players that used to be quite into mmo gaming and we moved into gw2 due to no gearing progression.

[Is there a way to register that we hated a required adventure?]

3 hours ago, Bronze Centipede.5230 said:

Thanks again for the advice!

In this case, I can't complete the scenario at all. I can't get into Cantha because I can't Prismatic Leap because of something about my internet connection. If I can't resolve the issue, I can't play End of Dragons at all.

I should probably add that when I started this thread, I didn't realize what the issue was. I just thought I was failing at a jumping puzzle.

Can you detail what is the issue with the prismatic leap? Maybe its nothing wrong with your game or internet connection. I dont see how this could be an issue anyway, I sometimes play with very bad internet connection and these type of skills are not interfered by it. And the mission is very forgiving. Often even if you miss the landing the game will just spawn you where you should be.

It helps a lot if you bind the special action key. So you dont need to click it with mouse.

Do you have any quick casting options on? 

Otherwise it works like any ground target skill. You press the skill, aim the ground with your mouse and click. Or if you have quick casting on, hover the mouse on the land spot and click the special action key (needs to be bound for quick casting).  I hope I got the quick cast description correct, I always use it but never really think about it. 

[Need more clarity around 60% success rate in DE meta]

1 hour ago, Hesione.9412 said:

1. It's one event, and the point of an entire map. It's the Dragonstand equivalent in EoD.

2. That means that only three of the four maps released in EoD should cater to the average player? PvP is irrelevant to this conversation.

Your point 2 (the four maps were for the average player) argues against your first point (not everything needs to be catered for the average player).

3. No, I did not say that at all. I haven't mentioned strikes, which are instanced content. My only points have been about the fourth EoD map. I'm not saying "screw all else", and I have never said that in any thread.

 

Please (consistently) attack the points and not me. This thread has become woefully emotive. There are numerous instances where people have been insulted for having a different opinion, rather than having an argument made.

 

Coming back to the point of the OP: yes, it would be great to have more clarity around the 60% success rate.

Your initial point was that its not fine that the meta is only OK for players that are willing to organise themselves for it. So it is not fine that it is fun for those people, guilds, it needs to be changed to cater to players that are unable or unwilling to do it. I prefer content I can do with my guild, put some thought into it. It is more long term interesting for me than a 111 event. But I guess such content needs to be changed to cater to someone else that already got 3 other meta events (maybe 4 if you count the mini meta in Echovald).

This is not Dragon stand. This map has collections, story parts in open world, fishing spots. Events that are not connected to the meta. In the end it comes to 1 meta event. Players can experience the end of dragons in the story.

Pvp content is remotely relevant because it just shows how Anet actually moved most of their resources to open world content. And its still not enough for the entitled. I guess everything needs to cater to them. The only acceptable solution is to put all the rest in some instance so they can never come in contact with any organised content, lets not even talk about pvp because that is just over the top offensive. Possibly without any unique rewards because if they get even one interesting reward the next day you will see people crying how this should be available through other means because this is a "core" feature of the expansion or whatever.

[Need more clarity around 60% success rate in DE meta]

8 hours ago, Hesione.9412 said:

The game will die unless these players are catered to.

Its one event. Not everything needs to be catered to the same type of player.

The whole expansion was for average ow player minus the 4 strikes. There were even 0 updates for pvp modes. 

So basically youre saying that all the new content needs to be for average ow player and screw all else. 

[Ways of getting the Spark Precursor]

Crafting right now costs 321 g in materials. Now you probably have some of the materials so it would be cheaper for you. gw2efficiency.com is definitely a good site for crafting legendary stuff. 

Also keep in mind for crafting you need to have crafting disciplines lvled up. In this case its really only weapon smithing at 500 and you can buy a few mats that come from others. 

[Do you use your Turtle?]

I dont use it much but think its a good unique mount addition. Its fun with a friend in its 2 player combat mount niche but doesnt outshine any other mount, which is good.

[Please stop changing our camera zoom]

And after you fix camera zoom let us rebind mouse wheel. 

[Dear Anet: Condi gear prices are out of control]

I wouldnt mind if they added a  few named armor sets drops with more recent stat selections. All the newer drop sets have old stats on them. Not that I need them with all the wvw and pvp armor boxes in my bank and legy set.