This game isn't very new player friendly.

[Gibson.4036]

3 minutes ago, Hashberry.4510 said:

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.

And champ trains and the like.

I've recently gone through the game with my son from 0 to IBS. He's only now working on his skyscale, and mostly hasn't had a problem with not being able to keep up with trains. The first time through, we focused on story and events happening around us as we encountered them. There was no need to "keep up" with all the farmers who long ago went through all that and are just there to target the best rewards.

They're playing a different portion of the game, even though they are in the same zones. Maybe that's confusing to some?

[kharmin.7683]

7 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

Player A buys the expansion, but does not buy anything else on the gem store. They are actively playing, so they get to play the living story. They are not paying a subscription.

 

Player B is new, they have bought all the expansions and have not bought anything else on the gem store, they too are not paying a subscription. They have to also buy the living story chapters.

If you fail to see why this is an odd business practice, then you are inhaling the copium hardcore. 

 

And with that, I take my leave.

Player B can easily play the game and exchange gold for gems and purchase chapters as they move along.  At 250Gems per chapter, they're not all that difficult to acquire.  They don't have to buy anything with cash.  As was mentioned before, there is no need to have all of the LS chapters unlocked from the very beginning, but you don't seem to want to accept that point.

No need to be rude, either.  I'm not inhaling anything.  You talk about the toxic community, yet you insult me -- twice -- when I had never attacked you at all.  /smh

 

[ASP.8093]

1 hour 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. 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.

I really liked soloing most of the post-Core maps in release order ~1.5 years ago. (I'd played HoT years before, but I was missing completion and also switched characters a few times.) And I've tried to help other people (semi-veteran players who wanted hero points for an espec unlock) through it, and what I've noticed is that it's actually quite horrible if you're trying to blitz through it without a good handle on the environment and a bunch of masteries already unlocked.

All of which is to say: if you want to get through HoT to get to other stuff, I recommend following the story breadcrumbs and leaving the map completion for later. The best way to do map completion is to come back later, focus on the task at hand, and take your time. (And call in some allies via /map chat if you can't handle a certain boss here and there.)

[Excursion.9752]

Anet is in no way responsible for anyone coming to the game late. Lets not forget they have been giving away recently, the living story episodically one week at a time. So in fact they have offered this content twice to their customers for free. 

I'll agree the new player experience could be a lot better. But in my opinion people want to be able to glide and use mounts before they even know how to play the game yet or understand the UI. These are luxuries items that are supposed to be accessible for end game content. Not the new player experience. 

This game has a progression that everyone seems to want to skip.  Causing them to feel like people are being toxic to them because they are in an area of the game where people expect them to be at a certain skill level but they are not, because they jumped past  all the things they were supposed to learn while exploring the world.

If it was up to me, Gliding and mounts, would have a few more prerequisites before they could be obtained. Not just a level boost and a few mastery points.  So I'm sure people are glad its not up to me haha!

[Svarty.8019]

38 minutes ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

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?

 

I get it. When the content release was regular, disinterested players like you could pop back and play for a night or two and then move on with their lives. That's fine and I'm not critical of that - I have a firm belief that people like you spend as much if not more than the so-called hardcore fans. 

 

But when the content releases aren't regular, you don't know when it makes sense to return and check out what's going on. So now you've not played for ages, and you missed a bunch of content.

 

Well that's sad, but you can either wait for ages for the content to be free one day - or you can pay now. 

 

It's up to you whether you are interested or not, but the company wants people to pop back from time to time, and if you don't, they don't get money- - the incentive for you is the freeness of the episode at that time.

[ASP.8093]

46 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Player B can easily play the game and exchange gold for gems and purchase chapters as they move along.  At 250Gems per chapter, they're not all that difficult to acquire.  They don't have to buy anything with cash.

Uhhh, that's 1250 gold. You're asking newbies to forgo basically every convenience item or fun chase goal they could be doing in the game for several months and take long farming breaks in between story chapters.

(EDIT: Technically it's only 1000 gold if they buy now, before Return to Icebrood kicks in! Get the game today so you don't have to spend another 250 gold on something almost none of the existing player base has ever felt the need to pay for! This is my sales pitch but my friends aren't biting.)

Edited October 12, 2021 by ASP.8093

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I sympathize with your situation.  Unlike some other MMO players, I take my time getting through story and progression.  I also tend to wait until a new MMO or Expansion has been out a while before buying so I can read reviews.  I imagine my experience of always being way behind the leading edge of players, effectively out of the loop, is similar to yours.  This experience is an unfortunate side effect of being late adopters (in your case) or a smell-the-flowers player (in mine).

 

I'm not sure what ANet is going to be able to do about your issue.

 

* Pay-for story chapters: they've been offering free story unlocks, but as with the original free story unlocks, you have to log in when that chapter's free unlock is available.  Pay attention on release days and be sure to log in to get a free unlock of whatever chapters remain in the current giveaway.  Sales do occasionally happen, and as you play, you'll accumulate gold which you can exchange for gems to get chapters.

* Mounts: These unlocks are tied to story, progression in PoF, a PoF collection (Griffon) or a Living World Chapter 4-6 collection (Skyscale).  Iirc, the free unlock of 4-6 is still coming.  Were ANet to make unlocks available without story progression, outcry by those who did the content is going to be happen.  It's happened every time ANet has "given something away for free" (or for "less work").

* Empty HoT game maps.  While HoT maps are still active at times, even 6 years past the XPac release, 6 year old content is going to have dead times.  The best workaround for this issue is to join a guild which includes helpful people.  There is a Looking for Guild sub-forum in the Community Section, but chance encounters are often the best.  For instance, the guild I belong to adds members every week during our daily World versus World play.  Many of them are new players.

 

Whether you choose to continue with or not,  I wish you well.  The truth is, experiencing the game with a community is the only reason I still play, and finding a good one will not only enrich your time in game, it may help solve some of your issues.

[Ember.6478]

What I will never understand is why people who would gladly pay a monthly subscription fee for another game would complain so much about having to pay money to unlock further content in Guild Wars 2. It's nice you can even use gold for gems to unlock any content. If you're a new player then play the free game and figure out if it's worth it to you to spend more time and money on it. Figure out how to use the LFG tool or join a helpful guild. I only started playing a year ago and I haven't had any of the issues you say you experienced. There are so many helpful people willing to portal you somewhere or help you get a bounty you just have to reach out and ask people nicely.

[nthmetal.9652]

1 hour ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

Player A buys the expansion, but does not buy anything else on the gem store. They are actively playing, so they get to play the living story. They are not paying a subscription.

Player B is new, they have bought all the expansions and have not bought anything else on the gem store, they too are not paying a subscription. They have to also buy the living story chapters.

If you fail to see the difference, I don't understand your logic. Player A has been active in the game for quite some time. He has actively contributed to the content by playing, while the living story episodes were introduced. This is a benefit to the community as a whole but on top of that, it is quite likely, that said player has directly or indirectly contributed to the game development by either paying for gems, or trading gold (and thus time spent in-game) for gems (which other players have bought with real money by the way, to trade them for gold in turn) to get some in-game gemstore content. Yes, this isn't guaranteed, but it is quite likely. After all, the game is very much still alive, and I am pretty sure it does not live off the expansions sold alone.

Player B has not done that. He was not there in the past the support the game. He did not have the chance to spend as much on the continued development of the game, yet expects everything to be available for free? No, I don't follow that kind of logic.

Also Living Story episodes can be bought for gems (which can be traded in for gold), so you don't have to spend real-life money, if you just play the game actively.

Edited October 12, 2021 by nthmetal.9652

[Cuks.8241]

I think they need to do something with EOD if they want to attract players and more importantly keep them playing. I can relate as I started with the game in Pof and although I don't really care for the story and I just skipped the LS initially, it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

Right now you finish the free part of the game and at the point when you spend money, you immediately need to pay more money to continue the story chronologically. For those that buy the game after playing the free part, it's day 0 paid DLC. The worst monetization practice out there. Even worse, it's the "start" of the story you are being charged for, not some side quest. Terrible first impression for a game that really doesn't have aggressive micro transactions.   

I don't see a way to completely avoid this without making all LS free, which is probably not an option. But they can do some mitigation.

Season 2 could be free. It doesn't bring new maps. It's a nice ramp up to Hot and it gives player some play time in expansions before needing gems for LS3.

Give springer, raptor and/or warclaw at hitting lvl 80 with a paid account. They will need to do something with mounts for Eod anyway. I don't think they intend to design maps for players without mounts. Unless if they bundle Pof with Eod. Even then some people like to jump straight to latest content, the things that was advertised and they bought and mounts at this point could be just baseline (not all, just basic).

Edited October 12, 2021 by Cuks.8241

[Randulf.7614]

2 hours ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

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.

Because the alternative is we all pay more. So the story is still locked behind a paywall no matter what, just like any mmo. 
 

GW2 is generally regarded as the most new player, casual friendly mmo around, but it is impossible to find a business model to please everyone. This is the one that has worked very well for the game for nigh on 10 years and keeping the story free when you login has helped encourage those players to stay.

 

The lack of ls1 or a proper bridge to ls2 and the poor communication of how the living world works up front is a viable piece of feedback.

 

In an age where everyone wants our money on a sub for everything, it’s refreshing to have a game only requiring one time costs for a piece of content or making it free for logging in at the right time or using in game currency to buy it. Sounds like a wining business model right now in an uncertain financial climate

[Batel.9206]

When I started playing this game, I didn't have a problem figuring out what was available to buy and what wasn't. I bought the expansions. I used the gems from said purchase to buy the Living Wold seasons. Then I just logged in every once in a while, when I wasn't actively playing the game, to make sure I'd unlock the Living World episodes that came out.

But that's because I did research in order to understand the game before I invested any money in it. I wanted to know what I would be getting into.

 

That said, I do think ArenaNet should make the price tag of the Living World seasons much more obvious, to let new players know that the "expansions" (Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, End of Dragons) aren't the only bits of DLC. Maybe they should offer the Living World seasons in bundles when you go to buy the game.

[ArchonWing.9480]

The game's story is really not the main focus of the game. That's why there's so many levels between each step in the core story as you're supposed to explore the world in between steps. They're more meant to explain the zones that you're heading into. But in the end, this game's not designed to run on rails. There is really no such thing as "doing it as intended".

But if you decide to rush to the endgame things like gliders and mounts, then yes, things will be a bit off.

I mean it makes no sense to me. Would it be better if you couldn't skip ahead to get gliders or mounts?

 

Living story pricing leaves much to be desired and perhaps needs to be packaged in something.

HoT was designed to be done without mounts, and most cases, solo except for the last map where you have to slow down anyways.. You can use the LFG to find a more full map or simply, just ask in chat for help.

You only need to do the first story step. of PoF for the mount. Yes that is a bit jarring.

Now granted, I didn't care about the story  and I almost always care little about the story mode in every multiplayer game (didn't finish personal story until 7 years of playing, did LS4 backwards, and never finished PoF story). I know not everyone is like me, but when I play story, I care more about the above and the combat mechanics. And honestly, I guess nobody I've played with really cares explicitly about the story. So I suppose it does leave some to be desired.

Edited October 12, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

4 hours ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

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.

 

This kind of tells me enough  already.

 

Quote

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).

Season 1 being temporary was and still is a mistake.

 

Quote

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)

If I'm reading this correctly, your friend got fed up with  not being able to use all the  neat features (Gliding, mounts, etc).  Going through the story is the intended route.  Also, FF14 has the same kind of crap in it with certain features locked behind MSQ progression and you can't even just skip to that part of the story, unlock the bare minimum version of that feature, then go back to where you were in FF14.  You have to play through it all.

 

Quote

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.

HoT maps have weird populations.  It's entirely dependent on a few things like what map shard you're on, if there are even groups going for  full meta clears on each map, how well you can keep up with the commander and such.    Chances are, if you join late, you'll be put on a map that's mostly empty.  This shouldn't be a massive problem, though.  Most things on the maps can be done as a group of two easily (Hero points, most events)

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

The game's story is really not the main focus of the game. That's why there's so many levels between each step in the core story as you're supposed to explore the world in between steps. They're more meant to explain the zones that you're heading into. But in the end, this game's not designed to run on rails. There is really no such thing as "doing it as intended"

Living story pricing leaves much to be desired and perhaps needs to be packaged in something.

HoT was designed to be done without mounts, and most cases, solo except for the last map where you have to slow down anyways.. You can use the LFG to find a more full map or simply, just ask in chat for help.

You only need to do the first story step. of PoF for the mount. Yes that is a bit jarring.

Now granted, I didn't care about the story  and I almost always care little about the story mode in every multiplayer game (didn't finish personal story until 7 years of playing, did LS4 backwards, and never finished PoF story). I know not everyone is like me, but when I play story, I care more about the above and the combat mechanics. And honestly, I guess nobody I've played with really cares explicitly about the story. So I suppose it does leave some to be desired.

The story is pretty much the main event for this game between expansions, which are also story driven.  It's really an odd choice to allow players in a game like this to buy only part of the story and end up with pieces of it simply missing.

[Sarm.5923]

Yeah, as a new player myself, I definitely had a couple of "what on earth" moments, namely:

Spoiler

Finding out that I adopted and lost Aurene's egg entirely off-screen. I'm the worst dragon daddy ever, I guess. But the REAL weird moment was trying to go from HoT to PoF, where my character seemingly developed an antagonistic relationship with a fire god I didn't know, and my charcter musing about how it's still odd to think that the elder dragons need to be preserved. I agree, it's very odd! Why is that my motivation now?

With HoT it was kinda whatever to me; you don't need much of an explanation to go after a jungle dragon when you're fresh off the boat from the original campaign, and I had the Sylvari stuff spoiled for me through NPC dialogue when the Festival of the Four Winds event was active. But since I already stumbled across the Silverwastes on my own and saw Mordremoth's stuff there, I wasn't terribly motivated to spend 1,260 gems for the sake of a single bizarre plot point. My friends did convince me to at least pick up Living World: Season 3 though, so I stopped the PoF intro as soon as I got the raptor and reluctantly liquidated my entire bank inventory (and grinded for a couple of days thereafter) to cover the gold for it. The content was enjoyable enough and I don't regret being able to experience it, but I didn't know the gem store was going to rotate out an item I was originally saving up to buy, which stung a bit.

I'm lucky that I at least got almost all of LW4 for free, but I imagine even newer players are going to be in for a rougher story experience, especially since they're not necessarily going to know how to efficiently get gold in the first place. Come to think of it, could a free account  theoretically access those Return To LW3 freebies without the expansions? Wouldn't you be doing those zones without a glider, or would you have been able to train it when the game gives you Ancient Magics?

[ArchonWing.9480]

14 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The story is pretty much the main event for this game between expansions, which are also story driven.  It's really an odd choice to allow players in a game like this to buy only part of the story and end up with pieces of it simply missing.

Well like I said, it should come in  with a  package with new expansions and explicitly stated.

This is the main reason for the confusion.

They could make a package for each season, or at this point, just all of the previous seasons.

Edited October 12, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Gehenna.3625]

This topic of having to buy LS chapters as a new players has been discussed here multiple times but it keeps popping up. The reason it keeps popping up because it's unexpected. You buy the expansions and think you have all the content. Nothing alerts you to this extra content when you buy the expansions and there isn't even a package there to buy with the LS chapters in it.

The argument of whether or not they should charge for these chapters isn't even the real issue. People buy the expansions in good faith only to find out later that they don't have access to all the content. That's just weird.

I get that all the people say "but you don't have to pay for a sub so what's the problem?". Well the problem is that you don't know this when buying the game as a new player and it feels like something underhanded, like they got you hook, line and sinker into their money making scheme. It may not be like that, but it does have the appearance of that and that's what counts.

I really wish that Anet would sell packages with LS chapters in the front store and have combination packages as well with the expansions.

All the arguments against finding this a bad idea are in hindsight. You're familiar with the game now and it makes sense to you. And at first it wasn't so much but now there are 4 full seasons to buy. (2,3,4 and ibs). That adds up and new players have no idea of what cadence these LS chapters come with. All in all it's still a good deal but that really begs the question why Anet are not upfront about this.

[Xenesis.6389]

I like how people are suggesting to just "pretend you're paying a monthly sub" and pay for the living stories. Did you guys do the same? oh probably not, I would guess you got it for free for just logging in for one day when it was first available.

 

So the people playing everyday get the content for free, but the people who decide to give the game a chance years later get punished to pay extra? Does that sound like a good business model to attract new players?

 

Hey I get it, it's not a monthly sub game, they have to make money somewhere somehow on every little thing they develop for the game, but since living stories are mostly optional content, maybe they should just charge everyone for them? I wonder how many of those suggesting to "pretend it's just a monthly sub" would agree to this.

 

As for the OP. Go get the raptor mount as soon as you get to 80, there's no point waiting on it, it's at the very start of pof and takes like 10 mins, then you can go back to hot and play the story in order if you want.

 

There are sometimes hp trains that run to get mastery points in hot and pof. For example for EU 

 

 

I have a commander on my friends list for NA that does them, look in the lfg section (keep in mind most players are probably busy running the mad king stuff these days so probably why some maps will be empty right now). There's also groups that run the map meta events, you could try tagging along with those and grabbing nearby masteries along the way as well.

 

 

[JustTrogdor.7892]

I've seen so many complaints about not knowing about buying the story chapters over the years.   IMO Anet needs to make it more clear at the point of sale.   They should also offer a bundle at the point of sale that includes all the story chapters.  Right now the only add on I see from the GW2 sales page during the buying process is Living World Season 2 Complete Pack for $16. 

IMO they should offer an "All past episodes" add on with a discount based on the level purchased.   Buy base normal price, buy deluxe a % off, ultimate even more off.    But mostly they need to make it more clear at the point of sale that past Living World episodes are not included and will cost extra  for new players.    I have no problem with Anet charging for it.  They just need to be more open about it and make it more clear for new customers.

If GW2 actually ever goes to Steam, like they planned, they are going to get a lot of negative feedback unless they are more clear on what more needs to be purchased. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by JustTrogdor.7892

[Firebeard.1746]

Let me rephrase: playing through the content in chronological order is not the funnest thing. HoT is notorious for having players leave in the middle of it and it caused a massive drop in player base,  it's mostly become and endgame area because of exclusive legendaries associated with the gifts and currencies there. If you choose to do it disjointed, you can always repeat the story or even repeat on a different character if you don't want to lose progress on your current one. 

Also, most people don't form groups for masteries, some are tied to metas, but you can get them without doing metas, especially just the parts for passing the story, that being Said HoT is still done periodically, and the maps tend to be decent on weekends. I can't say I've always found parties on weekends, but generally there's been active players. (if you see a tag on your map, follow it around, also check LFG for groups. If they're in a different instance, you can port to it). 

I HIGHLY recommend giving it another go getting basic QoL first, like raptor and bunny and show off the content that's fun on this game: popular metas, fractals, PVP, WvW and do the story in between. The story is good, but I honestly haven't gotten a firm grasp on it till now because it's literally been the last thing I've focused on. All the different activities + festivals are actually what got me about this game once I wandered out of PVP.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[ArchonWing.9480]

6 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

I like how people are suggesting to just "pretend you're paying a monthly sub" and pay for the living stories. Did you guys do the same? oh probably not, I would guess you got it for free for just logging in for one day when it was first available.

 

So the people playing everyday get the content for free, but the people who decide to give the game a chance years later get punished to pay extra? Does that sound like a good business model to attract new players?

Yea, but those people playing every day also may have had to buy the game for $130 (50 for core, 50 for hot, 30 for PoF).

The problem here is that the game does not really emphasize the importance of Living Story so that people think they've bought the full game when they really haven't.

[Rasimir.6239]

3 hours ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

I am not claiming to want these 'living stories' for free, I believe that they should be bundled with the expansion that you purchase. 

Why should they? None of the other big games do it that way. You either have to pay for the expansion, then pay a subscription to access it on top of the expansion price, or you won't be able to play your story at all (wow, ff). Or you pay for the expansion, then pay extra for each of the dlc that continue the story, with significant rewards as well as story parts tied to you having access to both expansion and dlc (eso ... which incidentally is a good bit more expensive than gw2 if you want permanent access to all story content without subscribing).

[Sobx.1758]

4 hours 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?

When you try to use "the story is the base line for the content being delivered" as an argument here, what exactly do you mean? If I had to make a bet, I'd say open world content easly beats story in terms of activity and replayability.

4 hours 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.

What does this have to do with player retention? If anything, having an incentive for the players to stick around in order to get additional content for free (like it currently is) seems to support that goal better. You even later wrote it yourself:

4 hours ago, jeyaredubs.9348 said:

Player A buys the expansion, but does not buy anything else on the gem store. They are actively playing, so they get to play the living story. They are not paying a subscription.

 

Player B is new, they have bought all the expansions and have not bought anything else on the gem store, they too are not paying a subscription. They have to also buy the living story chapters.

Unless by ""player retention"" you've meant a situation where the players come back at any point after multiple lw episodes/seasons are released, still get them for free, play through the story and then leave again -except then, obviously, that's just not helping "player retention" at all. Currently for the new players, just buyng 3 expansions, playing through them(+core) along with their achievements and side activities builds up to a rather significant amount of content to complete. Just playing through the story has nothing to do with what you try to use as a motivation for more free content for new players here.

4 hours ago, 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(which it certainly is not), this is just wanting the game to be more friendly to new players. 

"this is not wanting free things, this is just wanting the game to be more friendly to new players" -which, in this context and according to your posts, is strictly connected (and even limited to) "getting more free content". Right?

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Xenesis.6389]

11 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Yea, but those people playing every day also may have had to buy the game for $130 (50 for core, 50 for hot, 30 for PoF).

The problem here is that the game does not really emphasize the importance of Living Story so that people think they've bought the full game when they really haven't.

 

As with most other things, content value always diminishes over time (except for living stories they go up!), now you get core for free, and pay $30 for both expansions. I'm one of those players that paid full price for the game and expansions, yet if I missed any time in the last four years since pof I would be expected to pay for the living stories too. So core prices doesn't exactly factor in living story cost.

 

I'm not going to say much against the model as I've logged in to collect the stories for free over the nine years, just that the model is a bit disjointed for new players and maybe they should try and smooth out transitions into next expansions by merging living stories back in their own expansions when you start to reduce prices. Like why drop HoT price down to $30 and then to a two for one price of $30 with PoF, only to leave the living story seasons up in the shop to still try and make a quick buck out of them? yes I know sell them the base for cheap to get them invested to buy the bit parts yada yada yada, it just leaves it a mess end of the day.