New Gamer Feedback From A Career Gamer

[Hydev.9521]

Greetings, Programs.

I've been playing GW2 for a little over two months. I felt that now was the time to offer some feedback.  For my background, I've been playing video games starting with the Atari 2600, moved to Nintendo and Playstation afterwards, and have been doing online gaming, including MMO's, since day twelve of WoW's vanilla release.  This also includes EVE:Online, SW:ToR, the original Guild Wars, and a few others.  As you can see, I'm no spring chicken when it comes to gaming.

 

First, the good.  The graphics are very nice.  And the music, ah!  I love a good soundtrack.  Sometimes, I forget I'm on Tyria and instead back in TES'S Skyrim.  Believe me when I say that this is a compliment because I adored the Skyrim soundtrack.  I also enjoy GW2's story.  So far, I haven't yet completed the character story leading up to the events of Living World 1.  But I'm not bored at all with the story.  I do own all of the expansions including EoD.  So, I expect myself to be entertained for quite some time.  The game, and it's individual class mechanics, take some getting used to as they deviate a bit from what I have known in past games.  But once you've got it down, you're off to the races.  So, yes, I do like Guild Wars 2.

 

Now, the not so good.  While I don't necessarily like a game to hold my hand in explanation, GW2 often doesn't explain things very well or at all.  For example, when I was finally able to acquire and use Masteries, it was before the UI changes made in EoD.  I had to ask why I was still earning XP at max level and was told it was to train for Masteries.  But the game left out a few more things like how did I choose a particular skill in Masteries.  What if I didn't want to train a particular Mastery skill but the game was telling me I had to train this one and wouldn't let me switch?  Customer service didn't quite explain this to me.  A player finally told me I had to find Mastery Points in the game, and when I had enough, then I could switch to train the skill I wanted.  I would have preferred an ingame tutorial to clue me in on that.

* Yes, I am fully aware now that your game has a very good Wiki that explains a great deal.  But, as I was growing up, wiki's were not considered valid sources of information because anyone could change them and even something incorrect could be linked to something incorrect.  GW2's wiki is a bit more solid and reliable.  But old habits die hard.  Besides, it's good to have the game your playing explain itself rather than having to go to an outside source.  At least, in my opinion, that is.

*  Game camera.

  Once I finally set the camera to always be behind my character, some of my issues with the camera were eliminated.  But I have noticed that there are times, mostly in combat, where the camera does not remain behind my character.  This is especially true with abilities like the Warrior's Bull Charge or the Guardians Symbol of Blades.  Both of these can put a character behind their target and facing the camera which forces me to right-click and rotate the view.  I've also encountered this issue when strafing using Q and E with my Hunter.  The camera won't stay behind my hunter forcing me to rotate the camera myself or I will lose view of my target.  If there is a way to correct this, let me know.  I'm still "new."

*  Respawn mechanic.

  I think enemy respawns needs to be re-examined because, in a lot of cases, it works entirely too quickly.  The first time I encountered this was for the pack of bandits in Queensland.  The bandits respawned so fast that I thought I had encountered a bug and feared I was using some sort of exploit for quick loot.  This was until players told me this is perfectly normal.  Well, depending on the level of the zone you're in, these rapid respawns can completely overwhelm you.  I've seen on many occasions a mob that I just killed respawn immediately afterwards and attack leaving no time for out-of-combat healing.  The situation is even more annoying when that respawning enemy is a Veteran level enemy.  A previous MMO used this mechanic based on the number of players in an area especially if killing certain enemies were part of a quest or mission.  But GW2 seems to take that to an extreme regardless of how many players are nearby.  A small down time of ten seconds minimum to respawn in the same location doesn't seem too much to ask.  Just my opinion.  Most people seem to love it.

* World bosses bugged?

   I've faced a few world bosses here and there.  Not all, mind you.  But enough to have experienced some of the bosses not appearing when they are supposed to.  Moldir Ulgoth is a prime example of this.  Players have told me that he has been failing to appear at times since 2015.  Now, I don't know if that's true or not.  But there have been entire periods between resets where Ulgoth shouts his threats but never appears on the map.  I'm told that if the prerequisites for him showing up are not met, which I read on the wiki, is controlling the three main centaur camps, players are given twenty minutes to capture said camps and force Ulgoth to appear.  However, I've seen the Seraph hold every camp in Harathi and Ulgoth not show up for the fight.  I was also present for one fight with the Great Jungle Wurm in Caledon Forest.  The husks showed up but the Wurm did not.  Players just said he was bugged and dispersed.  Frankly, I find that unacceptable.  I'm willing to concede that players may not be doing something that is required to activate a world boss resulting in said boss not making an appearance.  But if that's not the case, I don't like accepting that the world boss just won't appear again until reset.

*  The AI is a little slow to react.

   This could be a client-to-server issue or simply lag.  But there are times when enemies take a second or two to realize they're under attack.  I laughed my head off when my hunter fired an arrow in to a bandit that just kept walking like they had no care.  Only when I fired off a second shot with auto attack did the bandit rush to melee range.  I still smile at this when it happens now because it's an "All the easier to kill you, my Dear," situation.  But it happens often enough that I thought I would mention it.

*  No issue communication.

   I'm happy to see that the developers tell the community what is contained in updates and hot fixes every time there is a new build.  And for the most part, GW2 is quite stable.  But there was an incident two weeks ago where I was hit with lag spikes so badly that vendors wouldn't speak to me and I would come back to a dead character after very long pauses.  When chat was working, several players said they were having the same issue.  I knew for a fact that this was not from my ISP (I was working for them at the time and could easily confirm it.)  However, there was no notice about the game having issues or that the developers were even aware of such an issue.  I was booted to the character select screen more than three times and was told several times that the client could not contact the server via pop up.  It took four hours before the lag finally settled and I was able to play again.  Yes, I posted on the forums about this but there was no acknowledgement any where.  It would have been nice to see a "We are aware of severe lag spikes with some players  and are monitoring the situation."  Lack of announcements make me picture a Maytag man sitting in a room saying "Eyup, the server is on."  Some of your competitors are quite good about things like this.

*  Old content and player's impatience

   GW2 is not the only game I've played that experiences this.  But as a brand new player, it was quite disconcerting to be paired up with players who were so bored with previous content that they rushed through it as quickly as possible ignoring whether or not the rest of the group was even caught up.  I dislike playing the game in this manner and was livid with some teams who locked me out of combat credit, and even loot, as I was watching a cinematic and they pulled the bosses.  Or didn't care that I was dead or lost while they ran along at top speed.  I will not do this and I am critical of players who do.  The most common phrase I read my first week was "If you want loot, go run a fractal."  I didn't even know what a fractal was let alone be of a high enough level to run them.  Surely, you would agree that this isn't how you want your new players to learn the game.  Yes, yes.  "Find a starter guild," "Not every one does this."  I know.  But if a majority of your player base is so bored with older content, it may be time to re-imagine that content to give your long time players, or at least max level players, a challenge so that they don't mind running the Ascalon Catacombs again.  Because scaling them down to run rough shot over a new level 35 trying to learn not to step on the glowing ball and summon an elite doesn't seem to matter to many.  This is more of a community issue then a developer issue.  It just bothered me that first week and really still does.

 

The bottom line is that despite the items I mentioned, Guild Wars 2 is an enjoyable game.  Though it will take me some time to advance to the Cantha storyline (I don't like to skip from chapter one to chapter five,) I'm sure it will be a fun ride.  Thanks for your time.

  

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Hydev.9521

[Hydev.9521]

There's just one more thing I want tell, and hope they read, the developers.

 

In WoW's Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the game introduced very large sized mounts.  These mounts were large enough for a player to "sit" on an NPC or spot and entirely cover that NPC or spot.  As an example, there was a fountain in a corner of the city of Dalarn that you could fish out of.  Players could stand around the fountain and effectively block others from fishing since their mounts took up all the space.  This was further hampered by the fact that fishing in WoW was a visual game where you had to wait for your fishing bobber to move and click on it to hook a "fish."

When I saw the large turtle mounts after EoD was released, I knew there was going to be future problems.  

Sure enough, one has started.

Since the Cantha turtle mount can be used in combat, I participated in an Ascended Remnant fight with someone using their turtle mount in combat.  The turtle was large enough to prevent the melee character I was using from seeing the Remnant I was targeting.  Now, imagine what would happen if four or five players with these large mounts were to be in the same location.  Ranged characters may not have much of an issue.  But your melee players are going to suffer from lack of vision.   One person said "I earned this turtle mount and I'm going to use it!"

The longer this goes, the more of an issue it will be.  I'll bet my car on that.  I'd like to ask the developers to take this in to consideration for future updates.

Edited March 13, 2022 by Hydev.9521

[Redfeather.6401]

The respawn thing frustrates me as well. I have seen other games learn to treat respawning more carefully. Like slowly introducing respawns in an invlunerable/non-aggro state that makes it clear an enemy is entering the game. Like a mole coming up from a mound or a bandit coming out of a tent. It's an into animation that takes long enough so that you can see to move out of the area.

[Teratus.2859]

A few of us have been quite vocal about retuning/improving older gw2 content, especially dungeons for a very long time.

This is always going to be the introduction content for new players in Gw2 so it desperately needs that attention if you ask me.

People these days are too focused on new strikes and raids.. they want this content to get new players into group play.
But Dungeons will always!! be the introduction content that gets people into group play, and Fractals will always be the group content after that.
It is important that these areas of the game provide that necessary group play experience and dungeons imo simply do not provide that adequately.

I can offer some advice regarding the story dungeons though.
While some of us (myself included) believe these should be rebalanced for solo play like the final dungeon was.
You can try making an LFG titled as a "lore run" so people know you want to watch cutscenes etc.
This has helped me in the past when looking for groups that don't mind waiting for others.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

For Dungeons and such, use the LFG to create your own party and state your preferences, such as:  No skip cutscenes, new player, no speed run, etc. 

If you heal is not sufficient, you can always run away from mobs until the cooldown has ended.

Some bugs in the game are not fixed because the content is so old that fixing the issue would cause more bugs than just leaving it alone.  Be aware that any stalled events will reset whenever a new map is created, such as after a Release or a patch.

Welcome to Tyria, and good luck. 

[Hydev.9521]

6 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Quote

Some bugs in the game are not fixed because the content is so old that fixing the issue would cause more bugs than just leaving it alone.  Be aware that any stalled events will reset whenever a new map is created, such as after a Release or a patch.

If this is true, then it shows a lack of forethought on the part of the developers.  I heard a similar argument about the Arathi Basin Battleground in WoW.  Developers made public statements that they were surprised the Battleground even worked.  My thought was "And you don't see a problem with that?"  Now I'm being told that GW2 has a known issue that could be fixed but would cause even more problems if it was.  That probably should have been addressed before the content was added. 

 

Finding a new map doesn't appear, in my experience, to reset stalled world bosses.  Daily reset and / or a new build will restore a missing world boss.  Bottom line is that a product should not work "some of the time."

[miraude.2107]

Ulgoth is almost always bugged every other month or so. Major patch comes out? Ulgoth be bugged. It's almost like a mainstay, if Ulgoth isn't bugged after a major patch it feels wrong. Also, I think there's a chat code /id that gives you what map you are on. I usually write myself a note for that and then the next time the boss is supposed to pop, check to make sure it's not that map that is bugged. That should help you and anyone else out in the future for bugged events/bosses or wanting to report a bugged event/bosses.

[Labjax.2465]

Quote

Or didn't care that I was dead or lost while they ran along at top speed.

This is one I see pretty much every time with pug bounty groups and it sucks because people vary widely in what mounts they have on hand, so it's not like everyone can just play follow the leader and use the exact same route the leader is using (and they are usually running ahead like their pants on fire trying to get to the bounty before the world ends). I assume this is because of the timer, but the result is that it doesn't feel like grouping at all, it feels like "everyone for themself." It doesn't help that much of the time, the route to a given bounty is riddled with mobs who try to knock you off your mount. I remember one time trying to join in with a squad that was doing bounties. I stopped halfway there to help someone who got dismounted and they ran on and ignored me trying to kill mobs so they could get out of combat, so now I was stuck soloing the mobs to get out of combat and by the time I got to the bounty, it was dead.

[Hydev.9521]

I had the rush bit happen today in a 1-25 fractal.  One I had never played was selected.  This one involved Jokko and a lot of jumping.  Having never played it before, I got lost.  When I finally found the group, they had already killed the first boss and moved on.  I tried to follow the group as they jumped, missed a jump, and fell.  The group didn't stop.  As the group engaged the finally boss, one of the boss's mechanics teleported all players to it.  That's the only reason I got to participate and get credit.  I hate playing that way.

 

I'm sorry a lot of you are so bored with content that you just want to get it over with.  But, honestly, if you feel that way, find something else to play you enjoy and stop screwing over new players who want to learn the content and be less of a liability.

[yoni.7015]

30 minutes ago, Hydev.9521 said:

I had the rush bit happen today in a 1-25 fractal.  One I had never played was selected.  This one involved Jokko and a lot of jumping.  Having never played it before, I got lost.  When I finally found the group, they had already killed the first boss and moved on.  I tried to follow the group as they jumped, missed a jump, and fell.  The group didn't stop.  As the group engaged the finally boss, one of the boss's mechanics teleported all players to it.  That's the only reason I got to participate and get credit.  I hate playing that way.

 

I'm sorry a lot of you are so bored with content that you just want to get it over with.  But, honestly, if you feel that way, find something else to play you enjoy and stop screwing over new players who want to learn the content and be less of a liability.

Why don’t you let people play the way they want to? Why do they have to follow your way? If you are new to a fractal, dungeon, strike mission or whatever then you should say that. Maybe ask for an explanation of mechanics. If all the other group members are to fast then say it. Ask them to wait for you.  This is a MMO, communicate with your group. And maybe try new fractals with a guild group or with others that are there for the first time. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Freya.9075]

35 minutes ago, Hydev.9521 said:

I had the rush bit happen today in a 1-25 fractal.  One I had never played was selected.  This one involved Jokko and a lot of jumping.  Having never played it before, I got lost.  When I finally found the group, they had already killed the first boss and moved on.  I tried to follow the group as they jumped, missed a jump, and fell.  The group didn't stop.  As the group engaged the finally boss, one of the boss's mechanics teleported all players to it.  That's the only reason I got to participate and get credit.  I hate playing that way.

 

I'm sorry a lot of you are so bored with content that you just want to get it over with.  But, honestly, if you feel that way, find something else to play you enjoy and stop screwing over new players who want to learn the content and be less of a liability.

Have you tried to make your own lfg? Write that you are new to fractals and want to learn mechanics and how the fractal works? It might surprise you that veterans joins your group just to help. It’s one of the good things about gw2. I’ve entered tier 1 fractals to help and two other players  were already there to help. We do have a good community. If you know how to ask for help properly. If you join a daily fractal run they will probably want it done fast and assume you know the mechanics 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Freya.9075
Typo

[OutOfOrder.3719]

The best explanation of Guild Wars 2 is that the game really starts once you hit level 80.

 

probably the best content in the game happened with Path of Fire or End of Dragons.

 

 The ingame tutorial for core Tyria is extremely uninformative for what game modes to play while leveling up to 80 and what to do after level 80.

[Despot.3048]

Gaming 'career'. So cringe. As if that gives your arguments any weight. 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Despot.3048

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

The wiki is community maintained.  By GW2 players, for GW2 players.  While I've only made a couple of additions to it myself, any inaccuracies are quickly rooted out - we're using that info to play the game too.  At times it will become a daily companion, so you might as well embrace it now instead of letting old habits ruin your game time.

BTW, using /wiki (something) will bring up the wiki page for whatever (something) happens to be.  Like /wiki ET for the event timer, or /wiki CC for the page on crowd control, or /wiki mastery for the page all about masteries. 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

1 minute ago, Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294 said:

The wiki is community maintained.  By GW2 players, for GW2 players.  While I've only made a couple of additions to it myself, any inaccuracies are quickly rooted out - we're using that info to play the game too.  At times it will become a daily companion, so you might as well embrace it now instead of letting old habits ruin your game time.

BTW, using /wiki (something) will bring up the wiki page for whatever (something) happens to be.  Like /wiki ET for the event timer, or /wiki CC for the page on crowd control, or /wiki mastery for the page all about masteries. 

The above /wiki suggestions are meant to be used in the chat window. In other words, type /wiki (topic of choice) into chat to open the requested Wiki page in your browser. 

[Ember.6478]

I don't agree that people running older content are bored. If that were true, why would I have to wait for Tequatl 30 minutes early in the morning just to get into a map? I feel like I had trouble keeping up with metas at first until I understood what was happening and I had at least the Raptor mount. Most people have mounts now so the are moving a lot faster than you in the meta. People running dungeons/fractals/strikes/raids usually expect you to understand the mechanics but there are plenty of groups that help new people in lfg or you can find them via Discord if you are patient enough or care to even look for them yourself.

[fenriswolfman.5486]

As a "career gamer" you should be well aware of legacy/spaghetti code.