This game isn't very new player friendly.

[jeyaredubs.9348]

I've played GW2 a long while, but I have to admit I do prefer FFXIV and play that more religiously as of the past few years. I decided to bring my significant other over to GW2 to fill some time before the next XIV expansion came out, and I noticed a few troubling things I suppose.

 

The story is completely disjointed and the fact you have to pay for chapters in order to know wtf is going on is ridiculous business practice. As of now, if you complete the main storyline you go from dealing with Destinys Edge to suddenly working with a group of people that you don't know, to dealing with a threat that you don't know a lot about or have a vested interest in because you're locked from playing those chapters unless you pay for them. (I know who they are because I was playing when those chapters went live, but I spent the better part of a day trying to summarize who they were to my boyfriend who is completely brand new).

 

Through the whole of the leveling and questing experience in base game, he was asking me when he would get his glider and mounts, and all I could say was that he'd get them in the later parts of the game. I told him we could do that part now and do a disjointed story and be confused about wtf is going on and ruin HoT by skipping to PoF, but he decided we should stick to doing it the way it was intended (even going so far as to buy the chapters we needed so we could find out what was going on)

 

When we got to HoT, we were pretty bummed to find it mostly empty. I remembered that you do need some mastery points in Maguuma masteries in order to successfully get through the story, but trying to join a group and train to do those was proving to be an infuriating task due to the fact that the groups would take off on their mounts and be across the map in seemingly seconds while we straggled behind. Now I personally do have a few mounts, but my boyfriend only had his dingy first tier glider and so I stayed with him the entire way and his frustration was very real. We attempted to form our own group, twice actually, but it was to no avail.

 

Eventually we just decided to hang up our coat and I apologized for the awkward storytelling and gameplay mechanics, but I just thought maybe this should go up in the hopes that maybe Arena Net would see it and decide to make it friendlier for people.

[nthmetal.9652]

While some of what you say is definitely true, it's also what the player base voted for (with their money): We can't have a subscription model, that would allow development of new content, because that won't fly with the playerbase. Not a problem related only to GW2, but almost every MMO does try all it can to prevent subscription-based models.
We also can't just tell the story bits as full add-ons (like HoT and PoF), because people would complain that it's not enough content to justify this kind of invest. Also, I would suspect there is some kind of overhead to this DLC-like approach, which means you'd have to bundle content together ... which in turn means long periods without any new content in between.       

The mounts are kind of a dilemma. They are an awesome addition to GW2, but that also means they are quite mandatory for group content these days. Most players have mounts, and at the very least you'd need the raptor and the skyscale, I'd say. To get there, however you might also need other mounts.
So, if you're listening, Anet, I'd suggest you work on streamlining the mount acquisition as an onboarding process for new players. Get players through the core content (if they don't boost to Level 80), and then provide a path to unlock:
- glider
- raptor
- skyscale

Yes, the skyscale is considered a "premium" mount, but it makes so much of the game more accessible, it makes keeping up with groups so much easier, that it should be considered mandatory as of now.
If you don't wanna do that, at least include the other mounts in the onboarding process, especially the springer.

Only after that should new players prioritize story content. Living World seasons are easy enough to do even without groups, but especially HoT, while a lot easier these days, still has quite some juicy bits, where new players greatly benefit from a group. To a lesser extent, that's also true for PoF.

[SeTect.5918]

10 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

When we got to HoT, we were pretty bummed to find it mostly empty. I remembered that you do need some mastery points in Maguuma masteries in order to successfully get through the story, but trying to join a group and train to do those was proving to be an infuriating task due to the fact that the groups would take off on their mounts and be across the map in seemingly seconds while we straggled behind. 

Well if u even find a group like this, its a wonder. Mastery points are account wide so people wont do them twice. Which makes mastery point runs...lets say...i never saw one.

Hero point runs are more likely to happen because heropoints are only character wide and you can still get a reward from them everyday, but once you got a mastery point, you never have to do it again.

[Fueki.4753]

I don't see a problem with paying for living world.

In other games you pay for game time. Once that time is up, it's up and you can't play anymore.

In GW2 you pay for the content patches (if you missed them). You can replay them as much as you want without time limit.

[jeyaredubs.9348]

18 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I don't see a problem with paying for living world.

In other games you pay for game time. Once that time is up, it's up and you can't play anymore.

In GW2 you pay for the content patches (if you missed them). You can replay them as much as you want without time limit.

So then you agree, that the story is disjointed unless you shell out the money to be able to play the story the way it was intended, in a game where the story is the base line for the content being delivered?

[ASP.8093]

A big problem is that Living Story was free for people who log in a lot and costs money for new or lapsed players. But those are the players who have the least reason to spend that money — usually they've just spent cash on expansions.

And what they get is kind of a mess:

1. The overall quality ramps up over time, which is good except that it means playing through it in order means you're buying the worst stuff first.

2. Season 2 just sorta drops you into things (because of what happened to Season 1), it costs the most, and it and doesn't come with any new maps. Feels bad.

The "Return To" campaign shows that Anet is at least somewhat aware of this problem, but the problem persists: if you didn't get your friends into GW2 four months ago, you're probably not going to want to do it now. Precisely because either playing a really disjointed campaign or paying for all these little extra bits will leave a bad taste in their mouths.

These things need to be auto-bundled with whatever the "new player" pack is or perpetually free.

[kharmin.7683]

5 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

So then you agree, that the story is disjointed unless you shell out the money to be able to play the story the way it was intended, in a game where the story is the base line for the content being delivered?

Or pretend that it is a monthly subscription for you, like other MMOs.  Pay $15-$20/month and buy gems.  Then use gems to buy chapters.  Simple, really.

[Fueki.4753]

9 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

So then you agree, that the story is disjointed unless you shell out the money to be able to play the story the way it was intended, in a game where the story is the base line for the content being delivered?

GW2 is not the only game with that issue.

WoW also has a disjointed story, unless you complete all expansions instead of going to the Shadowlands after hitting 50. And this again, like with the living story chapters, requires paying for it.

And WoW is also missing parts of the story content from Vanilla, which got lost during the Cataclysm revamp. That's not so different from GW2 missing large chunks of Season 1.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[ASP.8093]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I don't see a problem with paying for living world.

In other games you pay for game time. Once that time is up, it's up and you can't play anymore.

In GW2 you pay for the content patches (if you missed them). You can replay them as much as you want without time limit.

The problem is that it's backwards. The people who pay a sub fee are the ones playing the game month after month. This pricing model is like logging into a game for the first time and getting a popup that says "you owe us a year of subscription fees for all that time the game existed while you weren't playing." It's confusing and weird. Other big games that use this "lots of expansions" model (Paradox grand strategy games, for instance) typically charge you money for each one and then reduce the price of the expansions over time, so players who jump in late aren't scared away by a huge lump-sum payment required to start. (Which is how GW2 treats its actual expansions but not the Living World stuff you have to buy in the Gem Store. But the Living World stuff is the glue holding the expansion storylines together.)

And I think Anet probably know that this setup is confusing and weird, they just feel kinda trapped by it.

And, for the record, I think most of the Living World stuff is good enough to justify charging money for it, but they need to find a way to just sell you a thing that contains the whole game as a single unit in clear and unambiguous terms instead of doing this thing where you buy an "Ultimate edition" with "all the expansions" and then log in and some veteran player has to carefully explain to you that the 4000 gems you were gonna spend on extra character slots or fun outfits are gonna need to go to "unlocking" "the story."

Edited October 12, 2021 by ASP.8093

[jeyaredubs.9348]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Or pretend that it is a monthly subscription for you, like other MMOs.  Pay $15-$20/month and buy gems.  Then use gems to buy chapters.  Simple, really.

If you dish out the cash to buy the base game and the expansions, then you should be given the living stories so that way you can properly do the story. Providing a spotty storyline to new players is not good player retention.

 

2 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

GW2 is not the only game with that problem though.

WoW also has a disjointed story, unless you complete all expansions instead of going to the Shadowlands after hitting 50. And this again, like with the living story chapters, requires paying for it.

Yes, this is also a problem in World of Warcraft where it kicks you out of Chromie time when you hit a certain level but it doesn't negate the issue here at all. Like I said above, if you pay for the base game experience as well as the expansions, you should be given the bundles of living stories so that you can do them the way it was meant to be played.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Purchasing the latest content should unlock all of the story content leading up to it.  I also wouldn't be opposed to having basic gliding and the raptor unlocked baseline with expansion purchase.

[OriOri.8724]

12 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

So then you agree, that the story is disjointed unless you shell out the money to be able to play the story the way it was intended, in a game where the story is the base line for the content being delivered?

 

? Of course a story is going to be disjointed if you don't do it in order? I don't really see what you are complaining about in regards to it being disjointed.

 

As for needing to purchase the story chapters, I don't see a huge problem with that. ANet put a lot of effort into them, especially the newer seasons, and without a subscription model they get all of their income from expansion and gem purchases.

[kharmin.7683]

3 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

If you dish out the cash to buy the base game and the expansions, then you should be given the living stories so that way you can properly do the story. Providing a spotty storyline to new players is not good player retention.

 

 

Nothing says that new players have to speed run through content.

 

1 minute ago, OriOri.8724 said:

As for needing to purchase the story chapters, I don't see a huge problem with that. ANet put a lot of effort into them, especially the newer seasons, and without a subscription model they get all of their income from expansion and gem purchases.

Exactly so.

 

Sounds like another "give me things for free since the game is free" thread.

[jeyaredubs.9348]

1 minute ago, OriOri.8724 said:

 

? Of course a story is going to be disjointed if you don't do it in order? I don't really see what you are complaining about in regards to it being disjointed.

 

As for needing to purchase the story chapters, I don't see a huge problem with that. ANet put a lot of effort into them, especially the newer seasons, and without a subscription model they get all of their income from expansion and gem purchases.

The problem being that it automatically disjoints the story into pieces that don't make sense unless you buy the living story chapters that you've missed out on for years, which feels more like a punishment as opposed to anything else. It would be like buying a book series but whole chapters were taken out and separated near the end that lead up to the next book.

[jeyaredubs.9348]

6 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Nothing says that new players have to speed run through content.

 

Exactly so.

 

Sounds like another "give me things for free since the game is free" thread.

I feel sorry for you, that you believe having access to the story in the game you purchased is such a huge issue for you. This is not wanting free things because the game is free(which it certainly is not), this is just wanting the game to be more friendly to new players. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by jeyaredubs.9348

[kharmin.7683]

Just now, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

I feel sorry for you, that you believe having access to the story in the game you purchased is such a huge issue for you. This is not wanting free things because the game is free, this is just wanting the game to be more friendly to new players. 

It is the business model that Anet has chosen.  Someone already mentioned this before.  Since it is not a subscription based game, one needs to pay for content.  Access isn't being denied to anyone.  How is this any different than having to purchase DLC from a sub-based game?

No, it's not a huge issue for me at all.  Asking Anet to provide free content that players like me have paid for over 8+ years seems a tad much, if only to cater to new players and some perceived inability to play out the story in order (which I still don't understand that complaint).

How do you propose to make the game more friendly to new players in this regard while keeping the company going financially?

[ASP.8093]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Sounds like another "give me things for free since the game is free" thread.

I have all the things and I've even paid for a bunch of the Living Story out of pocket since I walked away from the game for years and came back later.

But I've had to introduce brand-new players to this and it was a confusing mess. (And if they don't have like 50 bucks to spend then and there, you gotta be like, "Okay, you need to decide whether to get the Living Story stuff with the fun maps and useful QoL features, or the Living Story stuff that'll actually explain all these characters you're meeting.") It's one of the reasons I don't actively recommend the game to friends — it's irresponsible to do it without explaining exactly what they're getting in the "box" and what they'll have to pick up separately later, and it all sounds really pixelbitchy and tedious when you do.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Perhaps, it is ArenaNet's intention that players spend the amount of time in each area that allows them to earn the Gold to exchange for Gems to purchase the next Living World Episode.  There were months (at the very least 2) between each Episode.  A Living World Episode is not just the story. 

[kharmin.7683]

Just now, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Perhaps, it is ArenaNet's intention that players spend the amount of time in each area that allows them to earn the Gold to exchange for Gems to purchase the next Living World Episode.  There were months (at the very least 2) between each Episode.  A Living World Episode is not just the story. 

Precisely my point about new players speed-running the story.  Thank you.

[OriOri.8724]

2 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

The problem being that it automatically disjoints the story into pieces that don't make sense unless you buy the living story chapters that you've missed out on for years, which feels more like a punishment as opposed to anything else. It would be like buying a book series but whole chapters were taken out and separated near the end that lead up to the next book.

Again, I really do not understand your complaint? Yes, a story will not make sense if you don't go through every chapter. Why are you upset over that logic?

 

Yes, its a lot of money to buy all of the living world seasons at once. But its several years worth of development that goes into it, that is given out for free to people who play when the content is released. There's no problem, zero, with Anet charging $2.50 for each episode after the fact

[Gibson.4036]

Which group events in HoT did you feel needed mounts to keep up?

How would doing Sparking the Flame ruin all of HoT story?

Edited October 12, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[jeyaredubs.9348]

Before I leave this topic, since it's clearly mostly falling on deaf ears. It sounds more to me like there are veteran players here who believe that they have some sort of grandiosity because they were active when the living stories came out, and everyone else should have to suffer and dish out money because of that. You were not paying a subscription when you were playing then, and you're not paying one now. You were simply playing the game. 

 

You bought the expansions just like new players did, and because you were playing actively, you got access to it.

 

So why then, should new and returning players be punished for spending the same amount of money as you all, but because they were not there when it was active, they must spend extra for it? Are they being punished because they didn't buy a hair kit here or there during that time like some of you did?

 

The self-perceived high horse of superiority that several of you have rode in on is telling of the game's community and have precisely proved my point about how unfriendly this game is to new players. 

 

Since some of you seem to enjoy also putting words into my mouth, I am not claiming to want these 'living stories' for free, I believe that they should be bundled with the expansion that you purchase. 

 

Locking the story that you all did not have to pay for behind a pay wall because new and returning players were simply not there, is not good for player retention and I have seen it first hand and there are others in here that have agreed and given good reason as to why.

[kharmin.7683]

Ok, so bundle the LS chapters with the expansions at the same cost making the LS chapters free?  Is that your proposal?

[Hashberry.4510]

This is why hero point trains stink. Too many players think a train is needed when most can be done with two or three peeps. New players hang around looking for a train instead of learning the maps.

[ASP.8093]

22 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

How do you propose to make the game more friendly to new players in this regard while keeping the company going financially?

Perhaps they should've charged everyone for the chapters instead of only people who missed out all the free login windows because they didn't own the game yet. What they have now is a worst-of-both-worlds situation where most of the player base has paid $0 for Living Story but it's a roadblock to getting your friends to join in.

The game's business model has always been selling you expansions, convenience upgrades, fancy skins, and Black Lion Keys. The best way to do that is to convince people you're not looking to punish them and nickel-and-dime them, while still dangling the fun shinies in front of them.

21 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Perhaps, it is ArenaNet's intention that players spend the amount of time in each area that allows them to earn the Gold to exchange for Gems to purchase the next Living World Episode.  There were months (at the very least 2) between each Episode.  A Living World Episode is not just the story. 

"Go farm 50 gold to learn incrementally more about What Caithe's Deal Is" clearly isn't the design intent of Living World episode. Because:

1. That's not actually the release structure at all. People who played Living World chapters as they came out replayed every map a bunch and got actual rewards out of it instead of saving up money for the next map.

2. You actually do want newer players to "catch up" with the story, so they can experience the same new-content buzz and do stuff with their friends.

3. It sucks. Pretend you're a game designer and ask yourself: grinding just to unlock a new map to grind on some more — does that suck? It sucks.

Edited October 12, 2021 by ASP.8093