New player experience sucks

[Embered.5089]

I don't really understand this thread. My account is five years old, so I guess I never experienced the old version that you're talking about.

I think that I took 2 months to get to level 80 on my first character, and I loved the journey. Maybe it was one big tutorial, maybe it wasn't--that doesn't matter to me. What matters is that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that others don't or can't because they have a need for speed. That includes getting mounts on your first day and zipping past everything, yes, but people also think that you need to reach max level to enjoy the game. They spend hours grinding levels, not reading anything, not noticing anything--just mindlessly grinding, and that's on them. That's their gameplay mindset. Guild Wars 2 is a great game if you slow down and notice the details. Smell the flowers and whatnot.

Since I never had the option to pick skills in random order, I can't truly say which I'd prefer. But I think that it's flexible enough. There's many skills split into many sections and tiers. I think the skill progression is fine as it is. To be honest, if every skill was just dumped onto me and I had to choose from that mess, I'd probably be so lost. I like GW2 and its skill system the way that they are.

[Vayne.8563]

On 9/24/2021 at 7:20 AM, LSD.4673 said:

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...

I leveled a free to play account to level 10 in about half an hour. This whole OMG you have to get to level 8 to unlock this skill means nothing.  At those early levels, before level 15, a heart and an event will get you a level.  If anyone is even trying to level, they'll have their skills pretty kitten fast.  I know half an hour into most MMOs I'm not any further than I am here.

If you don't believe me try it yourself. Do a few hearts, few events and you're level 10.  It's a very lazy half an hour.  So I'm not sure what you're on about.

[Wolfb.7025]

New player experience is fine, you get skills enabled little by little so you start to get used to these instead of letting the game throw every trait/utility available for each class at you. Other MMORPgs are so overwhelming with all the options, controls, skills, mechanics you get when starting playing, at lesat GW2 lets you get used to overall movement and simple weapon combat first.

[LSD.4673]

36 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I leveled a free to play account to level 10 in about half an hour. This whole OMG you have to get to level 8 to unlock this skill means nothing.  At those early levels, before level 15, a heart and an event will get you a level.  If anyone is even trying to level, they'll have their skills pretty kitten fast.  I know half an hour into most MMOs I'm not any further than I am here.

If you don't believe me try it yourself. Do a few hearts, few events and you're level 10.  It's a very lazy half an hour.  So I'm not sure what you're on about.

Look at that, an experienced player being able to power level. That's unheard of! 

A key part of being low level if looking at skill descriptions and trying out skills. Much of what you do to begin with will become unconsciously part of your playstyle. If your 1 and your 2 do good damage, and you unlock skill 4 which CCs for 0 damage...why would you incorporate it into your rotation?

[Sobx.1758]

16 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

Look at that, an experienced player being able to power level. That's unheard of! 

But he's correct -leveling isn't hard, new players can go 0-80 in 2-3 weeks by spamming map completion and story whenever it's unlocked. If someone has such a problem with leveling through low levels, then there's even more of a reason to slowly unlock the skills one-by-one in order for new players to get used to every new element.

Quote

A key part of being low level if looking at skill descriptions and trying out skills. Much of what you do to begin with will become unconsciously part of your playstyle. If your 1 and your 2 do good damage, and you unlock skill 4 which CCs for 0 damage...why would you incorporate it into your rotation?

I don't understand where you're going with this argument. Are you trying to suggest that if you've unlocked all skills at the same time and noticed the exact same thing, it would somehow change the outcome and you'd use those skills more? Why?

And cc can/often should be used reactively, maybe near the start of your engage if you decided you're consistently taking too much dmg. You don't need to incorporate it into your rotation if you don't want to.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[LSD.4673]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

But he's correct -leveling isn't hard, new players can go 0-80 in 2-3 weeks by spamming map completion and story whenever it's unlocked. If someone has such a problem with leveling through low levels, then there's even more of a reason to slowly unlock the skills one-by-one in order for new players to get used to every new element.

I don't understand where you're going with this argument. Are you trying to suggest that if you've unlocked all skills at the same time and noticed the exact same thing, it would somehow change the outcome and you'd use those skills more? Why?

And cc can/often should be used reactively, maybe near the start of your engage if you decided you're consistently taking too much dmg. You don't need to incorporate it into your rotation if you don't want to.

Wait what? Who said levelling is hard? Where did that even enter the equation? You've just come up with a strawman to avoid the actual point -- which is par for the course with this stuff. A simple Google of this thread's title will turn up plenty of these responses.

A new player says "the way A is done is not very good", and a bunch of heavy-duty forumers with 10k posts turn up to say "actually B is the best because of C, and if you don't like B then you should stop playing WoW".

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

(I think this is the correct thread...)

For those lamenting tutorials for game mechanics, take a gander at this week's Guild Chat.  Tutorials for Combo Fields, Breakbars, and many other game mechanics.

Another instance of 'ask and ye shall receive'! 

[Sobx.1758]

20 hours ago, LSD.4673 said:

Wait what? Who said levelling is hard? Where did that even enter the equation? You've just come up with a strawman to avoid the actual point -- which is par for the course with this stuff. A simple Google of this thread's title will turn up plenty of these responses.

It's not a strawman and wasn't supposed to be one. After he mentioned how fast/easy it is to level up, you've responded with sarcastic "Look at that, an experienced player being able to power level. That's unheard of!". What else was it supposed to mean in this context?

Quote

A new player says "the way A is done is not very good", and a bunch of heavy-duty forumers with 10k posts turn up to say "actually B is the best because of C, and if you don't like B then you should stop playing WoW".

Now this is an example of a strawman. What's "A"? What's "B"? What's a "heavy duty forumer with 10k posts" (and how does the forum post count change anything that has been said here)? If you're responding to something I said, then quote/respond to it directly, like I did with your "no dmg cc" example. As it is now, I still don't know what point you were trying to make with your "no dmg cc in rotation inclusion" argument for the exact same reason I've mentioned in my previous post.

Edited October 9, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Vayne.8563]

4 hours ago, LSD.4673 said:

Look at that, an experienced player being able to power level. That's unheard of! 

A key part of being low level if looking at skill descriptions and trying out skills. Much of what you do to begin with will become unconsciously part of your playstyle. If your 1 and your 2 do good damage, and you unlock skill 4 which CCs for 0 damage...why would you incorporate it into your rotation?

Doing a heart and an event PER LEVEL is now powerleveling? Who knew?  One heart and one event gets about one level. That's not power leveling. When you start the game it's pretty much the only two things you can do.  You can't harvest. Free to play accounts can't PvP or WvW.  You can't go into your home city.  You're pretty much limited to that and crafting.

To me, the biggest problem in this game in the lowest levels is hearts,. which are permanently marked in the map, while dynamic events just come and go. If you come from another game, you'll end up thinking hearts are the defacto quests in this game and that's just not the case. Aside from that, it's not that hard to power level in this game. 

 

These days there's even stat selectable armor that drops. Of course, because it's stat selectable, new players might well have issues because they aren't selecting stats and don't know how.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Since when can't you harvest or enter your Home City?  Unless, you are referring to Play4Free-only accounts? 

[costepj.5120]

6 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Since when can't you harvest or enter your Home City?  Unless, you are referring to Play4Free-only accounts? 

Well as he mentioned Free to Play accounts several times across a couple of posts, I'd say that was a good bet!

[AliamRationem.5172]

15 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

(I think this is the correct thread...)

For those lamenting tutorials for game mechanics, take a gander at this week's Guild Chat.  Tutorials for Combo Fields, Breakbars, and many other game mechanics.

Another instance of 'ask and ye shall receive'! 

Are we taking bets on whether the players this is meant to target will even notice?  What's that blue bar for?  What are these glowing circles and why does it keep saying things like "area might" when I use this skill inside of them?  The lack of a tutorial is not the reason some players don't understand these concepts.  It's that they don't care about the combat at all and habitually ignore the information provided as not particularly relevant to their interests.

I don't mind having these tutorials.  I just think the repeated calls for things like this represent a misunderstanding of the problem.  We're advocating for others based on things they never asked for.  The only people who want these tutorials are players who already understand the concepts but think others are incapable of learning without having their hands held.  That is not the case.  Those players don't care now and they won't care after you force them to play through a heart tutorial.

[Obtena.7952]

21 hours ago, LSD.4673 said:

Look at that, an experienced player being able to power level. That's unheard of! 

A key part of being low level if looking at skill descriptions and trying out skills. Much of what you do to begin with will become unconsciously part of your playstyle. If your 1 and your 2 do good damage, and you unlock skill 4 which CCs for 0 damage...why would you incorporate it into your rotation?

What does ANY of that have to do with what we are discussing in this thread?

What you are describing is a key part of leveling a character you aren't familiar with (which happens to people who AREN'T new to the game as well). That doesn't change the fact that leveling in this game is not the long, hard, laborious process you want to think it is. Being able to 'powerlevel' at lower levels has NOTHING to do with being an experienced player. It has EVERYTHING to do with with simply PLAYING the game.

The fact is that if an experienced player wants to 'powerlevel' ... they aren't even going to play the lower level game ... they are going to use a booster which Anet gives for nothing every year on their anniversary. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

5 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Are we taking bets on whether the players this is meant to target will even notice?  What's that blue bar for?  What are these glowing circles and why does it keep saying things like "area might" when I use this skill inside of them?  The lack of a tutorial is not the reason some players don't understand these concepts.  It's that they don't care about the combat at all and habitually ignore the information provided as not particularly relevant to their interests.

I don't mind having these tutorials.  I just think the repeated calls for things like this represent a misunderstanding of the problem.  We're advocating for others based on things they never asked for.  The only people who want these tutorials are players who already understand the concepts but think others are incapable of learning without having their hands held.  That is not the case.  Those players don't care now and they won't care after you force them to play through a heart tutorial.

Could be. 

I have a different take, I guess.  I don't see where all this 'no one knows how to break a breakbar' action happens.  Every time I'm playing, in group content, when the group comes across a foe with a breakbar, the breakbar seems to disappear pretty darn quickly.  I rarely hear calls for 'CC', and when I do, again, the breakbars seem to be broken quite quickly.  It just seems to have become a oft-heard lament on the forum/a meme now?  Kind of like 'the game is dead'. 

I would hope that players/posters at least acknowledge that ArenaNet does listen to feedback, and has put in these 'tutorials' so many have said are so sorely needed; among other 'concerns' such as offering Mounts sans Path of Fire-purchase, and Gliding sans Heart of Thorns. 

 

One can dream...🥴🐉

[Linken.6345]

42 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Could be. 

I have a different take, I guess.  I don't see where all this 'no one knows how to break a breakbar' action happens.  Every time I'm playing, in group content, when the group comes across a foe with a breakbar, the breakbar seems to disappear pretty darn quickly.  I rarely hear calls for 'CC', and when I do, again, the breakbars seem to be broken quite quickly.  It just seems to have become a oft-heard lament on the forum/a meme now?  Kind of like 'the game is dead'. 

I would hope that players/posters at least acknowledge that ArenaNet does listen to feedback, and has put in these 'tutorials' so many have said are so sorely needed; among other 'concerns' such as offering Mounts sans Path of Fire-purchase, and Gliding sans Heart of Thorns. 

 

One can dream...🥴🐉

Yes and there is a good reason that happens now its called United Legions Waystations.

[Faridah.8431]

Yeah there are a lot of things with the new player experience that need a lot of work.

I don't mind that they streamlined skills and traits the way they did vs how it worked at launch, but I found it really off-putting that weapon skills were locked. Teaching people at level one to just spam 1 seems really awful to me.

Secondarily, the way they integrated unlocking masteries once you hit 80 is awful. If you are genuinely a new player, perhaps you are also playing through the game in story order, meaning you are playing personal story first. Yet once you hit 80, instead of having some method of unlocking (or just automatically unlocking) Central Tyrian masteries, the game repeatedly spams you in the corner of your screen with a popup telling you to basically stop what you are doing and go play HoT or PoF to unlock masteries. 

Mechanically, that's one of the most ridiculous things I've seen persist in this game since the introduction of masteries and as someone who started a secondary account in 2019 that I wanted to play through in order, it was extremely off putting. Essentially your choices are:

1. Stop what you are doing and play the first mission of PoF or Hot to unlock masteries. Then quit that story and go back to where you left off in Personal Story. If you're deliberately trying to play the game in story order as a new player, that is awful.
2. Ignore the popup, but miss out on all XP gains for masteries as you continue playing the Personal story and Season 2 before even getting to HoT.

[Sobx.1758]

19 minutes ago, Faridah.8431 said:

Teaching people at level one to just spam 1 seems really awful to me.

...but you're leveling up right after leaving the very first introductory instance that tells you how to move. If someone already picks up a habit of "only using 1" within those 5 minutes and can't drop it when they keep unlocking new skills, then I really don't see how that's something that system should fix. At the very least, when you unlock "one skill at a time", you're more likely to actually read its description and focus specifically on trying it out to understand what it does. Pretty sure not throwing everything at new players at the same time is exactly the point of this system.

Edited October 9, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Could be. 

I have a different take, I guess.  I don't see where all this 'no one knows how to break a breakbar' action happens.  Every time I'm playing, in group content, when the group comes across a foe with a breakbar, the breakbar seems to disappear pretty darn quickly.  I rarely hear calls for 'CC', and when I do, again, the breakbars seem to be broken quite quickly.  It just seems to have become a oft-heard lament on the forum/a meme now?  Kind of like 'the game is dead'. 

I would hope that players/posters at least acknowledge that ArenaNet does listen to feedback, and has put in these 'tutorials' so many have said are so sorely needed; among other 'concerns' such as offering Mounts sans Path of Fire-purchase, and Gliding sans Heart of Thorns. 

 

One can dream...🥴🐉

I have a different take on this. I work with new and returning players a lot, it's one of my favorite things to do in game, and one of the things I've found is that less than half of them even know what a break bar is and quite a few don't even know what CC is.

 

There's a good percentage of the population of this game that has never been to a website about the game and has never joined a guild or played with other people or even left the open world.  It's very very easy to get carried in the open world. You run around with a group at a world boss, or you show up on a tag and that's often it for a lot of people. 

 

Back in the day I knew people who would level to 80 on the Queendale Champ Train (which I call the Tramp Chain). Over and over again the same five bosses in a group. People didn't learn the game because they didn't NEED to learn the game. 

Those are on in guilds or do research are a significant portion of the population in my experience. It's only the additions of the tables from Icebrood Saga that allows smaller groups of people to break the bar, thus further carrying the people who don't take the time to learn...and face it, many of those people have no idea they're not contributing because the stuff they're killing dies.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Not seeing a lot of Waypoint Stations, or whatever they are called, but regardless....It's odd that no/few new players are ever in the content I'm playing (and thus, no problem with breakbars).  I guess they are all either never leaving the first few maps, or they've learned, somehow, about breakbars and what to do.  🤷‍♂️

 

Anyway, now there's a 'tutorial' for breakbar/cc that we can direct said 'new players' to...if they are willing to visit End of Dragons (which, of course, will get the usual lament about 'skipping ahead'). 

 

(I wonder....will the automatic Gliding ability/Mount acquisition in End of Dragons take care of the 'Your Mastery Track is ready...' pop-up and unlock the Mastery system.  Would be nice.)

[Ausar.9542]

use to be worst. lord Joko

[Firebeard.1746]

On 9/23/2021 at 1:11 AM, Rasimir.6239 said:

The reason ANet gave for the new player experience (that has been new since 2015 ... I just got my 6th birthday present on the character I specifically made to try it out back then 😉 ) was that player retention was lacking due to too many people needing more guidance than the original system provided.

 

Back in the early days you had to have experience with the game systems (which you only gain by playing) or do internet research to figure out how to unlock "a full bar of skills by level 10is", and apparently many people didn't do either and felt lost in the game.

 

The NPE isn't aimed at veterans, and as the poster before me mentioned there are plenty of ways to short-cut the leveling process for these veterans that come naturally with playing the game (starting with leveling scrolls from birthday presents, which can get you up to lvl 60 if another of your characters had their 6th birthday already).

 

Are there players that pick up things quicker? I'm sure there are. I strongly suspect though that there are enough people that "need" the pacing the NPE provides them with to actually get into this game, else ANet would've changed things again by now. Why stick with a change if you find out what you had before was superior?

Maybe there's a middle ground. I get what the op is saying, i didn't really enjoy the OW and slow experience the game gave me when i started, but you could totally be right that the older experience had its issues. 

 

When i started i was mostly pvp so I kind of skipped leveling altogether. I didn't level "naturally" because i was getting tomes and skipping alot of "lessons" i was supposed to learn. I had some experience with MMOs before joining and knew that being max level would be where the game really starts so i didn't really worry about the experience too much. 

 

I also want to say that the nerfs they've done to core traitlines have ruined the leveling experience significantly. The mesmer build i had with the old phantasm system and old inspiration trait line was really strong out of the box. I'm not sure i could have tolerated ow outside of core without an elite spec like i did back then while trying to unlock it. I didn't even understand that elites were special and stronger and that's not something the game teaches you  explicitly before you unlock one so i wouldn't even realize that i should be unlocking an elite spec and think that the ow outside core sucks. Attempting dungeons the game will point out while leveling with the core traits as they are now would be a mistake, but noobs wouldn't know that.

 

Actually even core tyria can suck. I remember dying alot in particular maps before i came up with that build. Strong core profession trait lines should be a thing. People say we've had power creep but i don't think so. I think they've forgotten the old trait lines. I could have 25 stacks of might with 0 concentration on my flamethrower engi back in the day. And i remember having a ton of survivability on mesmer and the only thing that comes close now is mirage. Even then i don't think it was as durable as my old build for taking tougher targets.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Astralporing.1957]

On 9/23/2021 at 11:20 PM, LSD.4673 said:

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...).

Actually, you get the second skill as soon as you finish the initial "level 1" instance.Which takes maybe 5 minutes. So, if your guesses are tied to that, they are probably wrong.

[LSD.4673]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Actually, you get the second skill as soon as you finish the initial "level 1" instance.Which takes maybe 5 minutes. So, if your guesses are tied to that, they are probably wrong.

Wow you have completely turned my summary of the level system on its head. I'll have to go right back to the drawing board. All criticism is revoked for this eggcellent system.

[Linken.6345]

24 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

Wow you have completely turned my summary of the level system on its head. I'll have to go right back to the drawing board. All criticism is revoked for this eggcellent system.

Great feel free to come back here with your new teories when they are finished.

[LSD.4673]

2 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Great feel free to come back here with your new teories when they are finished.

Ok i got another one for you: Braham is Taimi's brother.