Painful few dozen hours to start having fun in WvW

[The Boz.2038]

Anyone else started WvW "recently", on a fresh account? 
I've had GW2 since early access, but took a long break after S1, and got back last September. Decided to try WvW again this summer. 
And let me tell you, it was painful. You start off with no masteries, no warclaw, and the average player will have no experience or knowledge of the meta, the builds, the strategies.
Sure, you also start off in PvE with no masteries or mounts, but at least that environment is very relaxed, and not made urgent by the "escaping opportunities" for experience, progress, and loot.
First it takes about a dozen hours to get a few QoL things that just barely makes the experience "not pain": gliding, auto-loot, warclaw, etc. A few dozen more hours so that you're not a detriment to your team with the various supply, ballista, etc. abilities (because you firing the catapult with no upgrades is a straight penalty to your team, if the herald next to you could do it with extra damage, conditions, radius, defenses, etc.).

The initial ten hours of a new WvWer's experience are really discouraging. You are getting crap reward track progress, crap experience, crap loot, every death steals *minutes* of your life in just walking around back to an "opportunistic" area, and every now and then something just random happens that you don't even understand. And I pity the even more new guy that doesn't know you're supposed to do this with a WXP guild boost, enrichment, booster, etc. But the initial ten hours of playing a format are *key*, they are the most crucial "will I stick around" period. Is this fun? Is this rewarding? Is this something I like? Does this entire game mode's recruitment strategy begin and end with "you need to do WvW to get a your Gift"?

I can't be alone in feeling like this.

[joneirikb.7506]

Some good points there, I'll add one of my own: Boosters and other reward increasers.

Basically, you'll want to use wxp boosters, and various enrichment slots etc in order to maximise the "early growing pains" so you can get the required minimum wxp masteries as fast as possible. And new players (wvw) generally doesn't know this, or are too afraid to use them etc.
 

And at that point where things goes pretty slow without boosters, and new players doesn't use them. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to remove all the wxp boosters, and instead just set that as the baseline ? Not like anyone really cares about what rank people are these days anyways, and the faster new players gets autoloot+glider+mount+cata the faster they can be useful for the team, and the faster they can start feeling useful. (Saying this as someone with a small mountain of wxp+div other boosters in the bank that I wouldn't mind losing)

 

Or just really speed up wxp on the lowest ranks. 

(I'm pretty sure someone is going to find some angle that this is all a plot for me to gain something, so I'll go ahead before you and say this is all an elaborate plot of mine to free up 1 bank slot, because I can't get myself to throw WXP boosters! 😉 )

Edit: Honestly, make the first 120 ranks super fast, like 4x faster. And Bronze 2x faster. Leave the rest as they are from silver and out. Get people in fast, fast levels/reward/masteries. Let bronze go decently faster and let them be able to fill out most of the wxp masteries, and then hit silver as normal to fill everything out.

* Solves early game pains where you just lack every QoL and comfort (mount, glide, auto loot, using siege etc)
* Gives faster early WXP, feeling of progress, feels like getting more rewards early.
* Evens out to normal from Silver on, where you got what you really need already.
* Speeds up a little bit the first bonuses to pips as well, making that system feel less unfair.

Edited December 22, 2021 by joneirikb.7506

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think rank in particular is the problem. With PvE and PvP, rank/level is reasonable, you can play about a month and max out, but in WvW it takes you literally years of 40hr a week gameplay to max out rank, and that's with boosters.

 

It also takes about a year of casual play just to max your Masteries, while its 2-3 months in PvE, at most.

 

The current system is not only outdated, but completely unnecessary because by the time a player reaches Silver or Gold they're a veteran, they may not be able to solo most Diamond level players but if a Silver+ player goes up against 4-5 lv1 newbies they'll all get destroyed even as a party, unless they have smurfs.

 

I'd say the best solution is just compressing the ranks down but all the Diamonds would cry havoc. But going forward all the max rank players we'll see are the ones we have now, because the golden age of WvW is gone and the game is quite old now, its unlikely any players joining the game right now will ever max out before the game dies out.

 

The rank system was implemented with zero foresight, just like the original WvW achievements. We need to think about the now times and the next 2-3 years of the game, not live in the past.

 

There's alot of other changes that could be made for newbies, like changing all the WvW Exotic gear at the merchants from Soldier's to Celestial's to work with more build types,, but overall the ability of players to level up faster alone would radically improve the state of the game mode.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Infusion.7149]

The WvW masteries should be scaled back in terms of ranks required especially for warclaw/gliding.
War Gliding is 60 total , Warclaw is 166 total. Autoloot (which is separate from PVE) is 20.

For things such as guard killer/guard defense/siege defense/siege damage that could be reevaluated as well but not nearly as impactful.

All the people focusing solely on gift of battle or whatnot are losing sight of the forest for the trees. The initial experience is contingent on warclaw/gliding now. Before HoT this wasn't an issue.

P.S. I don't understand the above rant about Diamond rank, it is 1226 ranks right now to max WVW masteries.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Zikory.6871]

New player experience is bad, there are a ton of things they could do. But the 1 thing they need to do is everyone has the base Warclaw. The quest/reward track can unlock the rest of the masteries but come EoD, everyone should just have the mount. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Zikory.6871

[ArchonWing.9480]

Oh the Warclaw is badly designed-- it also costs a lot of points to fully level and some key abilities are locked at the end.  On my alt that only has the core game, I use https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Speed but that's a bit costly, needs a build with swiftness, and really only helps in combat.

It seemed to be designed as a endgame component to wvw when it clearly isn't when it's more like a basic requirement.  In PvE all that happens is you miss some tags; in WvW, it's a large disadvantage against players that already have more experience than you and being left behind as a player minus many abilities isn't very fun.

All and all, that means that new players need to pick some class with high mobility and/or tons of stealth. But... a lot of these things aren't good for zergs. Scrapper is probably the best compromise.

Now if we actually had a functional template system that wasn't so expensive, that would be cool , but as is, you pretty much have to devote the character slot to WvW.

 

They really should have had rental mounts maybe.

Edited December 23, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Dawdler.8521]

10 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

It also takes about a year of casual play just to max your Masteries, while its 2-3 months in PvE, at most.

Thats not really "max" PvE though. You are missing alot of content. Well unless you can get all raid legendary armor in 2-3 months coming in with a 0 account and no knowledge of how anything works.

Either way, we are still playing WvW after soon 10 years. That the first few hours are painful... well thats how it is being new. But its still nothing really stopping you - you'll survive and get through those hours. You'll be weaker than the big boys but you can still run with them and catch up (without maxing since its only 2500 ranks or whatever that is "max").

Compare with other games like say... New World... and you can talk about a dying game with little ways to actually get through it as a new player - to level up and really be capable of high level PvP it requires group content for low levels to reach it. What if there are no other low levels because everyone is already above it and 90%+ has left?

[Shroud.2307]

I have a low rank alt and honestly the only things that suck are not having Mount and low Pip gain. Pips being normalized across the board rather than increasing with ranks would be a good change IMO. I've seen people suggest rentable Mounts, but then what's the point of gating it at all? At that point you may as well give it for free (not that I'd have a problem with that either, just citing the flaw in that suggestion).

I do agree it's pretty rough for new players, but I also think being jaded about rewards and mechanics is something that happens with more experience. New players tend to just enjoy the excitement of combat, socializing, and not really knowing what's going on. The rest doesn't matter so long as they're having fun (something an unfortunate number of players have forgotten), and GW2 is the kind of game that does feel fun even when you're learning.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Shroud.2307

[Boh.4568]

I have to disagree on this one. 

PvE is the same, you start at low level, you have no good gear, you don't have access to gliding and mounts until level 80, you don't have access to autoloot until you max a mastery. It looks the same to me, but in PvE it takes you much longer to unlock these things as a new player (unless you use the lvl80 boost and then find yourself into HoT maps without even knowing how to swap weapons)

In WvW you can unlock warclaw, gliding in a few hours, and autoloot in some more days I think? It seems massively faster than PvE.

The difference I can agree with is that in PvE you have a set path to follow to level up (explore zones, do events, do the story), while in WvW when you are rank 0 you must follow some sort of squad to avoid being ganked by randoms, and if the map is empty you basically can't play.

But that's just the very few first hours, and you will get ganked anyway until you learn how to fight/defend, and that doesn't depend on your rank.

[The Boz.2038]

Just to clarify, Boh, Dawdler, we're still talking double digit hours in order to even start having fun, right?

Why would people choose to do this? What is the point of the filter?

[Sobx.1758]

Having fully unlocked warclaw masteries isn't some absolute necessity to "have fun" in wvw. I'd say the key points to the base convenience are auto--pick up,base warclaw and -to the lesser extrent- gliding. Sure, the dismount-spear is at the end of the track, which is pretty annoying, but I wouldn't pretend that you somehow can't have fun in wvw -as a new player, at that- without unlocking the full warclaw mastery line. Not only that, but it's easier to get warclaw than it was before the masteries changed, since you can keep up with groups already using them.

[Cyninja.2954]

WvW rank abilities as I recommend them to new players:

- War Gliding 1 (3 points)

- Warclaw 1 (1 point)

 

Then at about rank 40:

- War Gliding 1 (3 points)

- Warclaw 1 for the additional dodge (1 point)

- Provision Master 4 for Auto Loot (total of 35 points)

 

For a total of 39 points.

 

From there it's eventually Warclaw 3 for the additional dodge and build and repair master 2, to spend supply faster.That's almost all you need tbh and it does not take that long (10h seems about right, depending on content).

 

Yes, the initial hours of WvW can be daunting (especially the lacking Warclaw). Meanwhile you can get some of the most meaningful upgrades every few ranks, making one feel stronger near constantly.

[Boh.4568]

3 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Just to clarify, Boh, Dawdler, we're still talking double digit hours in order to even start having fun, right?

Why would people choose to do this? What is the point of the filter?

I still think PvE for a truly new player is much longer. For most of your leveling experience you don't even have the trait lines available and you play with a kitten core class against trash mobs for a lot of days.

You just notice it more in WvW because you are already used to the comfy endgame build.

[Voltekka.2375]

Join your community guild. Ask when ppt comms are up. Use boosters. Masteries wont be an issue 

 

 

[Zikory.6871]

Anyone against the base Warclaw being default is just being petty. PvE comparison is bad, the story forces you into unlocking mounts. And EoD will unlock Raptor, springer and Glinding for PvE. It changes nothing for existing players and it would be a huge QoL improvement for new players. 

Plus base Warclaw is garbage. They would still want to get the masteries and that could be left behind the achievements. 
 

[ArchonWing.9480]

40 minutes ago, Zikory.6871 said:

Anyone against the base Warclaw being default is just being petty.
 

Lol, especially considering many people didn't have to unlock warclaw when they were new. Reading that high and mighty stuff seems a bit fake. Maybe they don't remember what it was to be new, but I recall it being much easier. Back when I was new to WvW, you had a good chance of 1v1'ing people on an uplevel. You really could come on in anything. (Although to be fair, there were probably much more uplevels out there back then) That's changed quite a bit with elite specs and all.

 

There's also no excuse that you gotta get like 100 ranks for the lance. (should have probably been switched with one of the other abilities like the chain or something)

 

Of course, there's also the fact that one will also need a 2nd set of gear. While this is actually easier to do these days, it's extra strain on new players.

I've also had this concern since autoloot, since it means players will be leveling a ability that doesn't really help out, like I dunno supply master/repair master, and it'll take anyone longer to max out a siege weapon too. So that does have its negative effects which are harder to see since you basically can't let people on stuff like catas without full mastery

But I suppose, it's easier to gank new players like this. So, win?

Edited December 23, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Infusion.7149]

^ yep. This is about accessibility and not the countless other threads asking for free stuff. I'd even go as far as to say max WvW masteries should be knocked all the way down to 570 (Bronze Legend) if not less. If someone can have mistforged armor at rank 500 now there is no reason that max masteries is nearly double at 1226.

This literally hurts noone.

I.e.

• Provisions Master : now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 and autoloot is at first tier --- reduced by 45 ranks
• War Gliding : now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Warclaw: reduced from 166 to 28 total WVW ranks (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) and swap dismount lance with chain pull --- reduce by 138 ranks
• Supply capacity: reduced from 145 to 15 total WvW ranks (1,2,3,4,5) --- removed 130 required ranks
• Siege might: now baseline instead of +10% siege damage --- removed 35 ranks
• Siege bunker: siege was nerfed --- removed 35 ranks
• Siege golem master: now costs  15 total WvW ranks (1,2,3,4,5) instead of 60  --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Flame ram master: now costs  15 total WvW ranks (1,2,3,4,5) instead of 60  --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Catapult master: now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Trebuchet master: now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Cannon Mastery: now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Mortar Mastery: now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Shield gen Mastery: now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Burning Oil Mastery : now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Ballista Mastery: now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Arrowcart Mastery: now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 60 --- reduced by 45 ranks
• Guard Killer : now costs 15 total WvW ranks (1, 2,3,4,5) instead of 35 --- reduced by 20 ranks , maybe remove it outright
• Defense Against Guards : now costs 15 total WvW ranks instead of 35 (1,2,3,4,5) --- reduced by 20 ranks
  
  This would bring you to 308 total required ranks around Bronze Soldier

Edited December 23, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Xenesis.6389]

Starting in wvw, which is primarily an endgame environment mind you, is not really different from starting out new in pve where it's required you take time to learn the game and your class over the course of 80 levels, starting out in fractals where you need to earn masteries and infusions to function in there as you go up in levels, or raids where you need to learn the encounter, proper gear and skills, and practice to function with a team to get them done efficiently.

Everything has a learning curve that requires time and exploration of some sort. I'll tell you one thing though, if you do not like pvp in any form you will always have a rough time in wvw, and you will always feel like you're wasting your time playing in an environment you do not enjoy. Chasing after rewards which isn't the primary purpose or motivation of wvw, which is a more competitive than casual setting than it's pve counterparts. (feel free to continue that argument in the reward threads).

I think some people look at the extremes of the situations too much, as well as focus too much on the long term goals, and not much of the short term of what you need to function. On one hand you could have a miserable 10 hrs trying to figure out wvw solo, or you could go to wvw, get into a guild in the first hour(or even before that if you were in a pvx guild), go on a ktrain zerg ride for 4 hours, get a bunch of levels(the first ones are pretty fast), get most of the achievement done for the warclaw and just have to wait on the track. Two sides to every coin. Server and time determine what happens either way, but also the players choice and action.

Now with masteries you don't need all of them to function, all the siege masteries can be left for last. When you first get into wvw there's 3 things to get first.

1. Mount, just for the simple fact it's consistent faster travel, 1 point, you don't need all it's masteries, just up to the extra dodge if anything 36 points. This alone will take you 4-8 hrs because you need to do the reward track, but this process also requires you to do the achievement collection which takes you to various places to obtain the drops for it.
2. Glider, you only need the first point of the mastery, 3 points, as mounts took away most of the need for gliders in many areas.
3. Auto loot mastery, 20 points, unless you want to click loot all button constantly(lol burnt out my alt button for this on my second account before it had HoT).

Then work on siege bunker to reduce siege damage to you, the rest is whatever. But that's 24 points to start.

I think one of the biggest factors of people being overwhelmed and feeling lost in gw2, goes back to the fact that there is no direct quest system to guide players every step, there's no easy tutorial to explain everything. When you enter a new area you are forced to explore and find out the information for yourself for the most part.

There's a lot of tips and tricks new players could use to ease some frustrations, I mean we should probably start a tips and tricks thread for this, because every few weeks we get this same thread, but heh, getting it stickied would be the problem. One of the most basic things is you don't even need to be in the cap ring to actual cap something(a common complaint for the warclaw achievement and participation), just kill a npc associated with it like a guard, whenever it flips after and you're on the map you get credit anyways.

There's no question the way to obtain the mount is very awkward, and requires too much time to acquire, you can get the raptor mount in pof in the first 10 mins, but need to take 4-8 hrs in wvw to get the warclaw? Maybe they should throw in some reward track potions in the warclaw track to speed that up to 2 hrs instead? Maybe not require you to get tickets from the skirmish track to finish the collection because some new wvw players move servers to be with friends or guilds, and then get locked out of skirmish rewards for a week or more without realizing this, awkward. (Probably fix itself once alliances are in).

Eotm should probably be used as a tutorial area for wvw, and I state again, make reward track progress faster in there than regular wvw as an incentive, even for a place for a more relaxed area for pve players to earn the gift of battle.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Xenesis.6389

[Zikory.6871]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

^ yep. This is about accessibility and not the countless other threads asking for free stuff. I'd even go as far as to say max WvW masteries should be knocked all the way down to 570 (Bronze Legend) if not less. If someone can have mistforged armor at rank 500 now there is no reason that max masteries is nearly double at 1226.

This literally hurts noone. 

I feel like expediting bronze and maybe silver wxp would be overall better. Gaining ranks gives a feeling of progression to masteries and pips, which is what I'd guess most people really want. 

 

Or maybe I just think it feels weird to have all these points with nothing to do with them at higher ranks. I dno. 

[Dawdler.8521]

10 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Just to clarify, Boh, Dawdler, we're still talking double digit hours in order to even start having fun, right?

Why would people choose to do this? What is the point of the filter?

We're talking double digit hours just exploring 10 maps in PvE. What's your point?

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, Dawdler.8521 said:

We're talking double digit hours just exploring 10 maps in PvE. What's your point?

While having fun, yeah, doing back-to-back events, hearts, hero points, etc.

In WvW? You maybe join a zerg, and then they run away from you, and then you die, and then you walk for six minutes from spawn back to wherever you think there might be action, hoping that the action hasn't moved in that time, hoping you don't get ganked along the way, only to rinse and repeat and literally watch your participation vanish because walking takes so kitten long, oh joy, how engaging, and then you learn you aren't even getting the rewards the other people are getting simply because you haven't played WvW for 5000 hours yet, because sure, ranks increase pips, totes a healthy mechanism.

Yeah.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

While having fun, yeah, doing back-to-back events, hearts, hero points, etc.

Fun?

Hahahahahahaha.

Well there's your problem. Peoples idea of fun is different. Kind of explains why some people like playing different modes, imagine that.

[Cuks.8241]

Its a pvp mode and should be primarily about skill not some pve like grind. At least when 2 people meet on the field the chances should be equal and warclaw is an advantage even if minor. Gliding also. No reason to gate it. 

Auto loot or lack of it has no place in pvp. 

Others are fine. 

[Zikory.6871]

What's a realistic rank to get to for a fairly active new player in their first year?

Alternatively, what would be a more acceptable rank to get to in their first year? 

I got ~1600 running boosters all 2021 averaging around 15 hours a week. They won't have a birthday booster so 600-800 ranks? 

Is a year to long of a scale? Should players be able to get 500 ranks every 6? months?

[ArchonWing.9480]

 

12 minutes ago, Zikory.6871 said:

What's a realistic rank to get to for a fairly active new player in their first year?

Alternatively, what would be a more acceptable rank to get to in their first year? 

I got ~1600 running boosters all 2021 averaging around 15 hours a week. They won't have a birthday booster so 600-800 ranks? 

Is a year to long of a scale? Should players be able to get 500 ranks every 6? months?

Well most people aren't going to play only wvw or even this game  for 15 hour/week. Probably realistically say about a little less than an hour a day (so 5 hours per week) .

So assuming 2 levels an hour * 5* 52 = 520 I think.  So Infusion's numbers make a fair bit of sense.

And fyi I gained about 1137 levels this year, sometimes using a booster on those bonus xp weeks.

Edited December 23, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480