New player experience sucks

[Pirogen.9561]

2 hours ago, PMoneyMobileRobot.4630 said:

I could just be burned out by the genre in general.  It's been about a good solid 20 years of hopping from one mmo to the other.  Though right now FFXIV is just exploding, but I have everything at max level in that game and nothing to do.  And Wow is dead to me for various reasons over the years.  Deleted my battlenet account and never looked back.  But as I said I always loved GW1 and subsequently I've always tried to love GW2, but it's just not for me.  But no this isn't my first mmo.

You like more static tab based combat and GW2 is not like that. You will never like GW2. Not until you accept more mobile, action based combat.

Its the reason why I like GW2 and can't play FF14 or WoW. Liked lots of thing in FF14, but combat there sucks. For me.

There is no "solution".

Anyway about GW2 leveling. It can be so fast, its pointless to discuss. And it's not "leveling" the keeps you in one game or another. It's more, if it "feels" right. Movement, combat. Does it feel right for you.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Pirogen.9561

[Klowdy.3126]

2 hours ago, PMoneyMobileRobot.4630 said:

So I did all of the dynamic events that would pop up and generally wanted to do map completion.  It's just after like a week of doing it off and on when I got off work I don't really want to anymore.  I'm sure there's other options to level I'm just bored and kind of burned out from it all.  I think it might be how awful the combat feels of how I can't seem to really click with any one profession.  But I can tell you with a certainty it's not a speed issue.  Regardless of what you may think.  Honestly it's kind of telling how quickly you tried to pin something like that onto me.  Speed isn't the issue it's the quality of it all.  Every heart feels the same and the actual gameplay loop is lacking for me as a player.  I've tried several times to get into this game I think I just need to move on as it's not for me.

Burnout could be many thing, from the content you're doing, or the class playstyle, to small things like zone structure/appearance, or even you character race. 

 

One thing that brought me back to this game back in S3 was the introduction of the action cam, and my button layout. Point and click is the way to go for me. It livens up the combat, and makes me not really car what I'm doing, as long as I'm in the middle of an enemy army, spreading torment, lol.

 

Also, the events get better as you get into higher levels. There are also some low level world bosses that are pretty easy, and a good introduction to meta events (which is the real open world content).

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I'd be a fan of there being an opt-out for at least one aspect of the NPE, that being the leveling rewards.  This would be an enormous QoL boost for those who even semi-regularly tome a new character to 80.  Interminable clicks later, I "get" to spend more time discarding things which are useless to the new L80 character.  Even when I choose to level regularly, most of them are useless.

 

As far as the way weapon skills were unlocked... I preferred the old system but the new one is not that bad.

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Randulf.7614 said:

They changed it to this way because of feedback and metrics from new players showed they either didn’t like the freer design or found it confusing

This is hardly a representative sample but I can't remember seeing any new players complain about the speed of unlocking skills, only people who remember the old system and are surprised to find it's changed, so I'd say it's working.

 

I think the only time it bothers me is when I'm playing a ranger, and then only because there's no way to re-name your pet until level 5, and as people have mentioned in this thread it doesn't take long to level up that much.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Bleh, I remember they simplified some of the early hearts. I'm not one too care much about hearts, but apple pie!

Also does anyone find it strange that they simplified the game but Queensdale spawns those level 80 toxic events that a new player certainly won't be able to solo? 🙃

Edited September 23, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[lezbefriends.7516]

13 hours ago, Zentao.6314 said:

The first 40-60 levels are the tutorial of the game.

 

Can we stop excusing bad MMO designs with "it's the tutorial"? Tutorials are not days long. They're not even an hour long.

[Gehenna.3625]

14 hours ago, Mortifera.6138 said:

Tutorials are not days long.

Agreed. Calling the first 40-60 levels tutorial is just not right. Especially since when you hit level 35-40 it feels like you should be done leveling but then you have another 40 levels to go. Levels for the sake of levels I call it.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Gehenna.3625
Edited to adjust the quote to just the part I'm responding to.

[voltaicbore.8012]

3 hours ago, PMoneyMobileRobot.4630 said:

I can't really argue that, but you cannot deny it's rise to prominence.  It has just exploded in popularity.

For me it replaced Wow, but I have been playing FFXIV on and off since 2013.  I bought this game in 2012, but as I said it's never really stuck with me.  Though this time I've spent more time playing it then the most I did last time which was back in like 2012.  But I'm here still talking about it so I might just take a week off and try again.  I'm just getting so bored with it.  I'd rather not force myself to play it.

In all sincerity, if your reason for wanting to like this game is because you liked GW1, I'd say stop trying - it's likely to be a waste of your time. They're just not similar enough. You'd have to be really invested into the lore of the game world, and it doesn't sound like that's what you're here for. I personally like the GW2 combat system (there's enough action-style combat mixed with the few things tab-target is better for), but it doesn't sound like you like much of anything about it.

If you'd still like to give GW2 a try on its own merits, I suggest making characters and taking them into the pvp lobby. That way you can try out their entire core spec right away, as well as the elite specs for any of the expansions you own. So you could see what your engineer would work like as a level 80 holosmith. You can make/delete characters after trying them out in the pvp lobby until you land on one that you kind of like, then stick with it. If you go through every class and can't find one that you look forward to using at endgame, well... that's a clear sign you should just move on.

As for OP's contention that the current new player experience is too slow, I disagree. Having access to what only looks like a full build probably misleads people into thinking that what they have actually works. The current system, at the very least, emphasizes the synergy between your passives (traits) and actives (utilities) by forcing a sort of stair-stepped investment into them.

The real issue, I think, is that GW2 is a game best played somewhat slowly and deliberately for the new player. Unfortunately I think many new players come here thinking that nothing that cool or important happens until you reach level cap and entry-level endgame gear, which is deeply mistaken. Much of what GW2 does better than any of its competitors is the degree of care with which core maps were designed. Not only is exploration encouraged and rewarded, but actually getting to various points of interest lands you in some pretty cool environments. The race to endgame just doesn't make sense here as much as it does elsewhere.

Edited September 23, 2021 by voltaicbore.8012

[Randulf.7614]

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

This is hardly a representative sample but I can't remember seeing any new players complain about the speed of unlocking skills, only people who remember the old system and are surprised to find it's changed, so I'd say it's working.

 

I think the only time it bothers me is when I'm playing a ranger, and then only because there's no way to re-name your pet until level 5, and as people have mentioned in this thread it doesn't take long to level up that much.

Indeed and I never got the impression the devs got a lot of their new player data off the forums. They see a huge amount of metrics and feedback that we rarely glimpse beyond the more controversial aspects. This was a change I think we can trust they know a lot better on than we do

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Agreed. Calling the first 40-60 levels tutorial is just not right. Especially since when you hit level 35-40 it feels like you should be done leveling but then you have another 40 levels to go. Levels for the sake of levels I call it.

Except it's not an excuse since on these levels people are still introduced/explained certain aspects and mechanics of the game. So it pretty much is just that. It's just that it's not in a form of a crash-course, but instead tries to ease the player in, by slowly introducing players to new skills/traits/concepts/mechanics and giving them level/s to familiarize with the old one before introducing next. You might dislike this form, but pretty clearly that's what it is.

 

1 hour ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

I'd be a fan of there being an opt-out for at least one aspect of the NPE, that being the leveling rewards.  This would be an enormous QoL boost for those who even semi-regularly tome a new character to 80.  Interminable clicks later, I "get" to spend more time discarding things which are useless to the new L80 character.  Even when I choose to level regularly, most of them are useless.

True, opting out should be an option, seeing how the system is directed at new players anyways, while skipping the levels by veteran players becomes playing a clicker just to dismiss/accept/delete the rewards you mostly don't need anyways.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[LSD.4673]

It really is awful, and too many die-hards defend it to the death -- like many of the game's issues. It's like a stagnant swamp at this point.

 

It takes 8 levels to unlocks just your 5 weapon skills. You spend the first 2 levels only able to press 1 (two guesses as to why the game devolves into face-tank press-skill-1 on any world boss or meta event...). It takes to level 19 to unlock your utilities (!!!), and 31 to unlock your "elite" skill.

That's tremendously stupid. Nothing specific to the game is explained, yet lots of pointless stuff common to MMOs is (you can kill an enemy by using a weapon). As a great example, i remember when i started playing with a friend in 2016. We got to Kessex, and the Toxic Spider started tearing through a whole bunch of noobs who had no idea what to do. To this day high mastery-level players have no idea how to damage breakbars. 

 

You have to get to 71 to unlock the 3rd spec slot -- you know, the sole means of actually specialising and building your character.

 

It's an absolute joke. I've never convinced anyone to keep playing to max level. They always get tired of the repetition by 25-30 and never return. 

I even tried showing someone a world boss a few months ago. It died and he didn't feel like he'd contributed anything...

[Xenesis.6389]

2 hours ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

Were you around for EQ?  Talk about a grindy treadmill just to level up, let alone camping mobs for days or doing a raid that took 4-6 hours just to have a chance at a rare drop to gear up your character...don't miss those days!

 

LOL most players these days wouldn't be able to handle eq leveling, much less it's "hell levels", or even dying and de-leveling, but it was fun in the times of chain pulling, grab a group, mes them up, chop them down one by one, these days people would expect that same group to be dusted in two aoes while taking no damage.

 

2 hours ago, PMoneyMobileRobot.4630 said:

No, I want to say my first was Earth and Beyond and then I played Wow and hated it and then I played GW1 till around the end of the Burning Crusade.  I've honestly never wanted to play Everquest.  I don't remember why though.

 

Earth and beyond was a fun game, too bad it was under EA....

 

[Gehenna.3625]

14 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Except it's not an excuse since on these levels people are still introduced/explained certain aspects and mechanics of the game. So it pretty much is just that. It's just that it's not in a form of a crash-course, but instead tries to ease the player in, by slowly introducing players to new skills/traits/concepts/mechanics and giving them level/s to familiarize with the old one before introducing next. You might dislike this form, but pretty clearly that's what it is.

I didn't say it was an excuse. My point is that a tutorial should be short and familiarize you with the basic controls and functions. You can still learn after a tutorial. And leveling is not a requirement for learning how to play btw.

 

People overestimate the leveling experience as a teaching model. If that's what it's supposed to be it's a terrible model.

[Sobx.1758]

12 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I didn't say it was an excuse. My point is that a tutorial should be short and familiarize you with the basic controls and functions. You can still learn after a tutorial. And leveling is not a requirement for learning how to play btw.

 

People overestimate the leveling experience as a teaching model. If that's what it's supposed to be it's a terrible model.

Yes, I've read multiple posts in a row and the post you've responded to (with "agreed") said it needs to be stop being an excuse, so just followed up on that. Unless somehow that's not what you've meant at all, then I guess I badly misunderstood your post in the context of what you've quoted?

I know the tutorial is not a requirement, I never had a problem with figuring out things on my own or going for the outside/player help if needed in the past (and I'm mostly talking about pre-gw2 times), so I don't even see that as something that's directed at me. But clearly -if you've seen enough posts/topic on this forum- there are players that are getting overwhelmed with mechanics/content/deeper knowledge in this game. And that's directed at those people, seeing how more "hardcore" players familiarized with the genre can mostly zoom through levels anyways. I disagree it's a terrible model. It just doesn't necessarily target all players, but the ones it doesn't shouldn't really be bothered by it that much as far as my experience with it goes. The most annoying thing about npe for players that aren't new is probably -as mentioned by someone else in this thread- the reward accept spam.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[PeterRedhill.3182]

Just now, Gehenna.3625 said:

I didn't say it was an excuse. My point is that a tutorial should be short and familiarize you with the basic controls and functions. You can still learn after a tutorial. And leveling is not a requirement for learning how to play btw.

 

People overestimate the leveling experience as a teaching model. If that's what it's supposed to be it's a terrible model.

Nor is level a barometer for skill or competency.  I agree with you though.  I think mmo tutorials need an overhaul.

[Sylvyn.4750]

37 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

LOL most players these days wouldn't be able to handle eq leveling, much less it's "hell levels", or even dying and de-leveling, but it was fun in the times of chain pulling, grab a group, mes them up, chop them down one by one, these days people would expect that same group to be dusted in two aoes while taking no damage.

 

Oh man...I ran a monk whose main job was to safely pull only one or two mobs to the group, or feign death to wipe aggro, or die trying so our whole group didn't get wiped as the mobs were so tough.  We did that for hours in some zones, and getting less than 50% of a level for that amount of work was the norm.  Every time someone yelled, "Train to Zone!", we'd be praying that it wouldn't come within aggro range of our group or it would be an insta-wipe. 

For those that never played the original Everquest, mob aggro would not be erased until you left the zone, and as you ran to the zone exit, you and the aggro'd mobs would aggro more mobs until you had a huge train following you to the exit...unsuspecting players standing around near a zone exit would get mowed down in short order if they also did not exit.  The most dreaded trains were the ones caused by aggroing a mob without realizing it, as the mob sometimes got stuck in some buggy pathing until it finally popped free, and then proceeded to aggro more mobs on its way to you on the other side of the zone, so out of nowhere and without warning, a huge train of death descended upon you and anyone nearby.  How times have changed...

[Pacificterror.7805]

Seems like this is something that'd be solved with less QQ and more Pew Pew

[notebene.3190]

I had reservations about it when I first went back to start on my 'New 9', but after awhile, felt it was fine. I found myself trying more new things as I went along that I hadn't ever tried before. Made me more aware of finding synergies between the existing skills I could buy and the starting specialization I picked, things like that.

[zityz.6089]

I think the biggest issue I've always had is how they really don't explain the break bar, specially when people keep yelling CC! CC! in chat, like that is supposed to click in someone's mind.

I've always thought they should add a light blue line around any skill that can damage the break bar( kind of like how in your inventory there are colours which represent the rarity around the box), which I feel would help translate to people who have no idea what actually helps. Yes it can be added in the tool tips as well but, how many people are really reading the tool tips while trying to fight a boss which requires you to break the bar?

Edited September 24, 2021 by zityz.6089

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Here's ArenaNet's reasons for the New Player Experience:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-fresh-start-the-new-player-experience-in-guild-wars-2/

[Gehenna.3625]

12 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Yes, I've read multiple posts in a row and the post you've responded to (with "agreed") said it needs to be stop being an excuse, so just followed up on that. Unless somehow that's not what you've meant at all, then I guess I badly misunderstood your post in the context of what you've quoted?

Ahh let  me explain that, sorry for the misunderstanding. I agree that if people use the "it's a tutorial" for level 40-60 that that's not right, but I didn't say it was an excuse. I shouldn't have quoted the whole post of the person where they used the word excuse and just the second sentence. I was answering to the tutorial part being that many levels, not people supposedly using it as an excuse. I fixed the quote in the post to limit it to what I was responding to.

 

12 hours ago, PMoneyMobileRobot.4630 said:

Nor is level a barometer for skill or competency.  I agree with you though.  I think mmo tutorials need an overhaul.

Oh I definitely agree with that entirely. That's what I meant with people overestimating the leveling process as a teaching tool.

[GuillotineFist.8921]

On 9/24/2021 at 2:52 PM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Here's ArenaNet's reasons for the New Player Experience:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-fresh-start-the-new-player-experience-in-guild-wars-2/

Thanks for posting this, as you can see the biggest drop was due to the lack of direction, which a lot of MMO players at the time were not used to, since they have been conditioned by WoW and those kind of games. I am not criticizing this, I am criticizing the prolonged period of having so few skills to use compared to the previous version of skill unlocks.

If I was criticizing that, I would've complained about the game director on the UI, which I already turn off since its optional.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Prolonged?  What, like an hour? 

[Obtena.7952]

The complaint doesn't really make sense. If you are a new player, your expectation for when you get things is literally zero (unless you are one of those entitled types that isn't used to having to do something to get what you want). They simple have no context to do so. The complaint here is that it changed from one thing to another, something a new player wouldn't even be aware of. 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Dami.5046]

Most of us just logged on and got on with it, without the need for a wiki or anything and still got to lv80, stop trying to be spoon fed on everything.

/rant off

Edited October 8, 2021 by Dami.5046