New player experience is the games biggest detriment

[Redfeather.6401]

14 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I think you are referring to quests that take you around the world, maybe visit a dungeon and actually reward a cool item in the end. These are indeed missing in gw2. Story missions are kinda like that but for me the vanilla story was really not enjoyable and its mostly instanced so its not the same. But that is personal preference, I dont like the story at all in gw2. The upside is definitely that its voiced. And thats a huge upside.

Events are really good though. Some do take you a bit further. The epic ones only come in expansions though.

I don't know how to refer to them except for recently when I thought of the term 'journey quests'. It is what you are describing. In everquest I could find a note that says the ruins in another zone had a person kidnapped that needs help. Or I find a ring with engravings that point to a secret vault in another zone's mansion. There is a lot of journey quests in other games I've played but I cannot think of gw2 doing anything like that. Like you said the personal story is the only thing that travels across zones, but it doesn't feel like an mmo adventure, it's a single player experience.

[Einlanzer.1627]

On 4/24/2022 at 7:48 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

Dungeons start at level 30 (Ascalon Catacombs story mode) and more unlock every 5 levels after that. A lot of people prefer to wait until level 80 to play them but it's not required and the game will send you mail when you're the right level for each dungeons story mode to prompt you to try it.

Also as I'm sure you know group content in this game doesn't have to mean instances for just a small group, if you're looking for something to do with friends you could introduce them to world bosses or some of the meta event chains in the core maps. You can also do the personal story with up to 4 other people, even if they're not on the same step.

 

The problem is that dungeons are way, way overtuned for newer players with no knowledge of exploits or how to gear, build, and play classes properly. Right out of the gate, AC has tons of barely-visible OHKO mechanics and some bosses that all but require stacking to reliably beat them.

In fact, the chaos and difficulty of dungeons was almost certainly the primary reason for the mass exodus that happened shortly after launch, and there's currently a risk of the same thing happening with the launch on steam.

This has been a problem for 10 years running that was never corrected because they brilliantly fired the dungeon team and put all of their focus on FOTM & raids, which have also now both been all but abandoned (with FOTM having its theme diluted and ruined in the process).

They desperately need to put some serious TLC into all the game's instanced content and work on expanding as a cohesive "whole" of experience with proper ramp-ups to difficult end game content.  

Edited April 27, 2022 by Einlanzer.1627

[SinisterSlay.6973]

30 minutes ago, Redfeather.6401 said:

I don't know how to refer to them except for recently when I thought of the term 'journey quests'. It is what you are describing. In everquest I could find a note that says the ruins in another zone had a person kidnapped that needs help. Or I find a ring with engravings that point to a secret vault in another zone's mansion. There is a lot of journey quests in other games I've played but I cannot think of gw2 doing anything like that. Like you said the personal story is the only thing that travels across zones, but it doesn't feel like an mmo adventure, it's a single player experience.

Gw2 does this a ton.  I've spent weeks doing some since Cantha.  A great one called character growth, zu heltzer, lost lore, etc.

Gw2 hides these as achievements. But they are the exact same thing. Some like Looking Back even have story tie ins and are kind of important.

Go through your story achievements panel and you'll find a ton of them. Or make a thread and ask here which ones are recommended.

 

[Redfeather.6401]

2 minutes ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Gw2 does this a ton.  I've spent weeks doing some since Cantha.  A great one called character growth, zu heltzer, lost lore, etc.

Gw2 hides these as achievements. But they are the exact same thing. Some like Looking Back even have story tie ins and are kind of important.

Go through your story achievements panel and you'll find a ton of them. Or make a thread and ask here which ones are recommended.

 

The topic is about the new player experience. Maybe suggest that such things you mentioned be reworked to be accessible to new players in the core game and clearer in their existence. I hope you understand.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

3 minutes ago, Redfeather.6401 said:

The topic is about the new player experience. Maybe suggest that such things you mentioned be reworked to be accessible to new players in the core game and clearer in their existence. I hope you understand.

So mobile game style click for you tutorials to show you how to view the story achievements?

 

Personally I stumble on them all by focusing on achievements that give a mastery. Those always seem to be the best ones.

Edited April 27, 2022 by SinisterSlay.6973

[Ravenmoon.5318]

6 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Personally I stumble on them all by focusing on achievements that give a mastery. Those always seem to be the best ones.

No new player would ever hit the hero panel until level 80 I guarantee it. Which is a cluster%$#@# of ideas that barely stick together but I digress

[Danikat.8537]

I just stumbled on one of those 'quest' achievements on a level 11 character on my free account: Bloodstone Harvest.

I was trying to get to the vista above the College of Statics in Rata Sum, noticed a bloodstone shard on the side of the building and when I picked it up it triggered the achievement.

You can't finish that specific one until level 80 because some of the objectives are in high level maps, but you can start it at any level and for some players it might be an additional incentive to level up.
 

6 minutes ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

No new player would ever hit the hero panel until level 80 I guarantee it. Which is a cluster%$#@# of ideas that barely stick together but I digress

If you mean achievements specifically you may be right about some players. But you can't seriously suggest that no one uses the hero panel at all before level 80. That would mean never equipping anything except by double clicking in the inventory, never unlocking any utility skills or traits, never checking their story journal, never trying to dye their armour (something they'll know is possible from the character creator) and various other things.

Honestly some of this "new players won't know X" trend is going from genuine concerns about some of the more complex and obscure areas of the game being difficult to learn without external resources to portraying new players as deliberately handicapping themselves by refusing to do any more than the bare minimum after logging in. I know hyperbole is standard practice on forums (not just this one) but I'm really not sure what these absurd secenarios about imagined new players are supposed to achieve.

[Voltage.8027]

On 4/24/2022 at 11:33 AM, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

It's just insane that the game with the best mount system ever made doesn't offer the option to rent mounts for 1g/hour or something like that or some horse mount even that just let's you go from point a to point b a little faster. It's absolutely irritating seeing everyone just zoom around you and you being unable to get a mount until you reach lvl 80 or skip the game and boost yourself.

Walking is how the core game was originally designed to be experienced, I wouldn't recommend new players who haven't walked it once to use a mount. In my opinion, it would really ruin the exploration experience if you could zoom everywhere in core and HoT maps.

[battledrone.8315]

20 hours ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

That's the thing, if Gw2 wants to progress it doesn't need to compare itself with 2012 MMORPGs. It needs to compare itself with today's MMO and today's gamer, not the gamer from 10+ years ago because demographics change. Very difficult concept, I know.

 

I disagree. SWTOR feels like a Mass Effect game ... with lightsabers. What pulls it back is the business model, really. ESO just kills it out of the ballpark with their lore. Gw2 can't hold a candle to TESO's start. Lost Ark, albeit having no actual lore, throws you straight into the action and it's extra enjoyable with friends. 

 

To the guys who spoke about downlevel, bruh I don't think you've been to a low level area recently. You literally 1-shot everything. You look at the mob you press anything that isn't auto attack and the thing dies. Like I said in the previous post, downscaling and low level dynamic event spawn scaling needs some work. My friends were barely able to obtain bronze medals when there were high level characters around. Not only they needed to throw multiple hits, most of their gap closing abilities, even weapon ones were closed because ... reasons.

Also I don't know why the personal story starts at level 10. I think it's great and the fact that I can hop in is fantastic. Just grinding to level 10 initially is a bit boring. 

Dynamic events are cool and all, dynamic event chains even moreso but you can play for hours and not hit a single DE. Especially if you move around. 

you are talking about "todays mmos" like that is a good thing. all new mmos have failed hard. 

i have played teso, and the combat is super clunky, compared to this game. the world looks okay-ish,

burt its a lot smaller. and, of course, no really epic music . teso is meh. never mind the complex 

skill/armor system. 

Edited April 28, 2022 by battledrone.8315

[Ravenmoon.5318]

8 hours ago, Voltage.8027 said:

Walking is how the core game was originally designed to be experienced, I wouldn't recommend new players who haven't walked it once to use a mount. In my opinion, it would really ruin the exploration experience if you could zoom everywhere in core and HoT maps.

That was 10 years ago buddy. Demographics and MMO landscape changes. So does player expectation. Great, 10 years ago you ran around the world and you were happy. That's how things were done back in the day. Today is different. Besides I'm no longer a 20-something just graduated high school with lots and lots of free time. By latest demographics the average gamer is 30+ year old with kids. My generation keeps playing games but we have less and less time for it. Newer generations do Fortnite, not MMORPGs.

3 hours ago, battledrone.8315 said:

you are talking about "todays mmos" like that is a good thing. all new mmos have failed hard. 

i have played teso, and the combat is super clunky, compared to this game. the world looks okay-ish,

burt its a lot smaller. and, of course, no really epic music . teso is meh. never mind the complex 

skill/armor system. 

Go to any MMORPG forum and ask which is the better/more populated MMO. Or ask people to recommend a good MMO to you. Chances are, 9/10 times you'll get TESO recommended. I know because I go to these forums and am one of the folks that claim that TESO is garbage compared to Gw2 but I often feel like a lonely bird there. It's absolutely insane.

Word of mouth > any marketing material

Edited April 28, 2022 by Ravenmoon.5318

[battledrone.8315]

4 hours ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

That was 10 years ago buddy. Demographics and MMO landscape changes. So does player expectation. Great, 10 years ago you ran around the world and you were happy. That's how things were done back in the day. Today is different. Besides I'm no longer a 20-something just graduated high school with lots and lots of free time. By latest demographics the average gamer is 30+ year old with kids. My generation keeps playing games but we have less and less time for it. Newer generations do Fortnite, not MMORPGs.

Go to any MMORPG forum and ask which is the better/more populated MMO. Or ask people to recommend a good MMO to you. Chances are, 9/10 times you'll get TESO recommended. I know because I go to these forums and am one of the folks that claim that TESO is garbage compared to Gw2 but I often feel like a lonely bird there. It's absolutely insane.

Word of mouth > any marketing material

garbage is a strong word, i would put it on the same level as FF, they definately dont have the strong back bone,

that this game has. i have a feeling, that core loses a lot of players before they even reach zhaitan. 

the zhaitan story is way too long, and when the world loses its charm in orr, many people simply give up.

and then comes the zhaitan fight itself...the lesser said about that, the better.

if you want to change some thing, then lets start with that. the beginner zones are pretty much perfect.

[Ravenmoon.5318]

48 minutes ago, battledrone.8315 said:

garbage is a strong word, i would put it on the same level as FF, they definately dont have the strong back bone,

that this game has. i have a feeling, that core loses a lot of players before they even reach zhaitan. 

the zhaitan story is way too long, and when the world loses its charm in orr, many people simply give up.

and then comes the zhaitan fight itself...the lesser said about that, the better.

if you want to change some thing, then lets start with that. the beginner zones are pretty much perfect.

I agree that garbage is a strong word. At least Orr is dynamic and there's threats from everywhere, which to me makes it exciting ... kinda like Elden Ring, but I'll agree with you that players fall off way before Orr. I'd wager you one up and claim the dropoff is before level 30 even. And I wouldn't blame the story. The first act for every race is cool, albeit it takes like 20 levels to fully see it and there's no dungeons around. You literally go through CM to do hearts and stuff, I think there was 1 story chapter there like right infront of the dungeon and yet you can't go in for the next 15 or so levels 😄 . The second act with the orders is a bit boring I feel mainly because some setup has been butchered since NPE was introduced. The rest is questionable at best, but at least their storytelling improved in the living world seasons and the following expansions. Maybe throw living world season 1 for free to new characters? Also the story segregation per 10 levels is a bit ~~~~. Back when Gw2 released story was segmented into "recommended levels" but the recommended level did not stop me from entering. So instead of grinding more of the same for the next 5 levels I was like .... yeah, I'll take on the challenge of doing this chapter underleveled. Sure you die a lot, and some of the times I did quit because I was too low, but the option was always there.  I don't know why they separated the story in chunks. It's not like you can go super high. You still have to go to the entrance of the story, so you do have to walk though a higher level area where mobs will definitely kill you if you are not careful.

Also the activity compass that they introduced often doesn't prioritize the proper things. It goes for hearts/pois rather than events unless the event is super close. Would've been cool if I could toggle whatever I wish to do at that exact moment. 

 

I don't know guys, the MMO market, even though in general decline is still increasingly competitive. It's a foolish errand to have something that irritate your users in my opinion.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Ravenmoon.5318

[SinisterSlay.6973]

That ending was like... Why was this such an effort to need a pact when literarily 1 person working a single gun on an airship was enough to take down the Dragon?

[Ravenmoon.5318]

3 minutes ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

That ending was like... Why was this such an effort to need a pact when literarily 1 person working a single gun on an airship was enough to take down the Dragon?

I feel like this is one of those things that's too late to fix now. Speeding up the last mission wouldn't hurt though. Like it takes half an hour to complete and it's mostly you waiting for some monster to align itself in front of the gun. And then rinse and repeat with Zhaitan. 

But you know, maybe Zhaitan sucking so hard gave us some of the best world events in MMORPG history \o/. I think I like all the dragon fights post zhaitan.

 

P.S: But it's never too late to fix the starting experience!

Edited April 28, 2022 by Ravenmoon.5318

[SinisterSlay.6973]

44 minutes ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

I feel like this is one of those things that's too late to fix now. Speeding up the last mission wouldn't hurt though. Like it takes half an hour to complete and it's mostly you waiting for some monster to align itself in front of the gun. And then rinse and repeat with Zhaitan. 

But you know, maybe Zhaitan sucking so hard gave us some of the best world events in MMORPG history \o/. I think I like all the dragon fights post zhaitan.

 

P.S: But it's never too late to fix the starting experience!

It might require some effort. But I think after the attack from the big canon. The Dragon should be forced to land because it just had its wing blasted off.

The commander and party should also land and turn into a ground battle.

Dev work wise this would be a new Dragon ground battle. So no small task.  But add some achievements, maybe make it a strike. I think it would make it a lot more satisfying.

Also, most importantly, add checkpoints like the newest stories so when the server crashes, you don't lose progress. No one wants another The Departed again.

[standardFoe.2983]

@Ravenmoon.5318  I have been watching this thread grow over several days and I can't figure out why you even want to play GW2, you don't seem to enjoy much of the game. 

 

Mounts, and other end-game content is complementary to the game but not necessary to success in core Tyria, and a lot of end game shinies are designed to get people to buy stuff in the gem store.

 

I've always enjoyed the OW leveling experience it forces you to explore and listen to NPC's and all of it ties into the greater story in other maps. Not to mention combat progression through the story and OW is good at teaching weapon skills and fight mechanics as long as a player pays attention and is willing to learn.

 

Yes I do agree that the core Tyria maps could use an update and the personal story boss fights (they were designed a decade ago for crying out loud) are annoying so what do you want the developers spending money on? They can focus on making new content that keeps veterans coming back or they can go rework old content so newbies feel indulged, but I seriously doubt anet has the funds or staff to accomplish both.

Edited April 28, 2022 by standardFoe.2983
grammar

[DeanBB.4268]

I made a free to play account and have played it for a little under 5 hours. Made level 42 just working on the Tutorial achievements plus a day's dailies. Only finished Queensdale, Metrica, and the Beginner Experience, so will undoubtedly hit level 80 just finishing that. You get so much XP now that using the writs of XP feels like a waste. Granted, I am an experienced player not a newbie, so don't have to waste time figuring the game out. I did use the boosters the Tutorial throws at you as well.

I hope they keep this new turbo mode XP!

[Ravenmoon.5318]

7 hours ago, standardFoe.2983 said:

I have been watching this thread grow over several days and I can't figure out why you even want to play GW2, you don't seem to enjoy much of the game. 

Uhhh?? Okay? I've done nothing but praises for the game and > only < talking down the NPE. 

 

7 hours ago, standardFoe.2983 said:

Mounts, and other end-game content is complementary to the game but not necessary to success in core Tyria, and a lot of end game shinies are designed to get people to buy stuff in the gem store.

You aren't going to sell anything without acquainting your customers with the system one way or another. When you go shopping for clothes, you get to put them on, to see how they fit. You go to the farmer's market, if you are smart, you do a tasting before buying. 

 

7 hours ago, standardFoe.2983 said:

I've always enjoyed the OW leveling experience it forces you to explore and listen to NPC's and all of it ties into the greater story in other maps. Not to mention combat progression through the story and OW is good at teaching weapon skills and fight mechanics as long as a player pays attention and is willing to learn.

Sounds to me like you are a solo player, in a MMORPG. Which is fine, Gw2 totally allows that and I've played solo for years. However, on the off-chance you get your buddies together, until they hit 80, there isn't really much exciting content to do together. When I play with my friends, I don't stop to listen to NPCs. I listen to them and interact with them. Most of the time I turn down the master volume level to something like 5-10%. And I doubt I'm the only one.

 

7 hours ago, standardFoe.2983 said:

Yes I do agree that the core Tyria maps could use an update and the personal story boss fights (they were designed a decade ago for crying out loud) are annoying so what do you want the developers spending money on? They can focus on making new content that keeps veterans coming back or they can go rework old content so newbies feel indulged, but I seriously doubt anet has the funds or staff to accomplish both.

Core maps don't need updates, new players need to be introduced to the newer mechanics one way or another to show them what the game is all about NOWADAYS. I have no issues with the personal story bosses, except Zhaitan, but I'm actually talking about the NPE, not the final battle of the core game. Like I said in my previous post, I feel like Zhaitan fight is too late to get fixed. Some other dude wants updates there. 

 

What I want is to be able to play with my friends even in a limited capacity in a way that's fun for all of us. I'm sorry but sharing exploration and hearts is not something I go "kawaii" over especially since I've completed the world 2-3 times already. Interestingly enough, my friends that I introduced to the game don't find it that much fun either. They want to play together, not just run around together. 

 

Bottom line is ... if the game has nothing to offer in level 1-79 range, just shorten the grind. Apparently that's what they're testing already. I was hoping for more though, something like, reworking the minimum level for 1st tier fractals, lower barrier to entry even further for dungeons etc, etc. But meh. Feels like I'm pissing against the wind with this community.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Ravenmoon.5318

[SlayerXX.7138]

1 hour ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

Sounds to me like you are a solo player, in a MMORPG. Which is fine, Gw2 totally allows that and I've played solo for years. However, on the off-chance you get your buddies together, until they hit 80, there isn't really much exciting content to do together. When I play with my friends, I don't stop to listen to NPCs. I listen to them and interact with them. Most of the time I turn down the master volume level to something like 5-10%. And I doubt I'm the only one.

Obviously i am a friendless hobo on the internet so I'm just guessing. Killing waves of centaur seems like a good team building exercise(level20). You can open a Guild with them and do some race mission or invite them to your guild and show the hall. Speaking of race you can rent beetles and low level maps and race them. Doing jumping puzzles together! Dueling them in the PvP lobby. Worldbosses! Like there is a lot of stuff to do. On a side note: you aren't running around with your fully geared 80 with them?

 

Dungeon could be tuned down so they are actually leveling content. But otherwise i would like to know in which exciting content they wanna get. Doing Events with level gear in queens dale isn`t much different then doing HoT events in exotics.

 

You could craft them the overpriced exotic Leveling equipment and do the dungeon with them if you want them in your fractals later on.

[TheWaternymphHC.1847]

1 hour ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

Core maps don't need updates, new players need to be introduced to the newer mechanics one way or another to show them what the game is all about NOWADAYS.

The lower level core maps definitely need quite a number of updates, especially in the graphics department, e.g. better near distance LoD, UV-scaling on many too large environmental assets, lot less floating tress, gathering nodes and event items, fewer poorly intersecting meshes, more variety in random generated NPC looks, higher texture resolution for assets you interact closely with, etc.

Also mechanically speaking there are quite a number of events that need tweaking to either better scale with the number of players or the character's power of players. Not to mention that there are a still some events that are fairly buggy after many years.

When it comes to leveling, the first thing that should be done, is a rework of the leveling and personal story reward structure. There are way too many redundant and fairly confusing choices at certain levels that don't fit very well together, e.g. you don't need an Aqua Breather at level 8 that is replaced during the personal story at level 11. Or why do we get three flavors of the same weapon at 15 that just comes with different sigils that don't really make any noticeable difference at that level range? 

What do you think GW2 is all about nowadays? An eSports dungeon crawler with MoBa mechanics, like End of Dragons seems to try to mimic in certain aspects? Too be completely honest, I doubt that Anet actually has an idea what they want the game to be about after playing through EoD. It feels a bit like they put their finger in the wind and mainly tried to attract the disenfranchised WoW crowd that enjoys the constant grind of dailies and weekly lockouts.

2 hours ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

Interestingly enough, my friends that I introduced to the game don't find it that much fun either. They want to play together, not just run around together. 

Sounds like your friends want to play a different game then. Nothing wrong about that, but complaining on the forums that your friends should be the measure of future changes made by the devs seems quite selfish to me.

2 hours ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

if the game has nothing to offer in level 1-79 range, just shorten the grind. Apparently that's what they're testing already.

I have two (new) accounts that are part of the mentioned a/b-testing Anet is doing at the moment. Both of them have a 300% XP rate from 1 - 79, even after upgrading one of them to EoD and using the level 80 boost.

I casually leveled a Warrior from 1 - 80 as completely fresh F2P character in less than 16h playtime over a few days and it felt like a  joke. I pretty much just ran around exploring the cities and doing stuff in the five starter zones. I finished the whole set of tutorial achievements, did a lot of gathering, completed a few of these maps and followed the personal story till Claw Island (for the third Black Lion Key).

That's it. If you level that way in the future, you'll even see less of the game than you do right now and probably learn less about your profession than trialing a level 80 boost in the Silverwastes for an hour or two. Anet could just add a vendor for XP tomes in-game or add them permanently to the gem store, and leveling would basically be as meaningless as it is with 3x XP rate.

The experience was quite similar to leveling at the end of WoW Legion when Blizzard introduced level scaling for the older expansions and base game, and folks went from 1 - 60 inside lowbie zones since these were the quickest to traverse.

[Vertmont Champlain.2548]

On 4/25/2022 at 9:54 PM, Vayne.8563 said:

And yet this was initially the entire appeal of the game to me.  Not reading a wall of text in a quest hub, following an arrow to a star and then running back to an NPC to be given a mace I don't want and can't use.  This is a superior system, because to me it feels like a living breath world. If I don't help this guy, his house burns down, or the bridge is destroyed, and then I have to defend workers to rebuild. 

Yep, I like this better. This is pointless to you. Quest hubs are pointless to me.

 

 

The core world and expansion maps are fun.  Not much longevity for full time players, but the events are really immersive in my opinion.  The story quests for me however are an absolute chore, despite better than average writing for an MMO.  I try to follow the story as best I can but the game mechanics are so jarring at times that I stop paying attention to story and try to find out how to finish and be done with it.  Also, disconnects or logging out often requires the complete restart of the layered quest which is even more of a chore.  (There were some really wonderful moments however in HOT I experienced; and gliders alone were worth that purchase.)

 

  I decided to skip the stories entirely at this point.  The beauty of the open world is that I can jump in anytime.  I learned an expensive lesson, but at least I can still enjoy this game for whatever it's worth.  

 

Also, a very positive note is how much of the progression lies with actual playing.  I got better at combat through experimenting with skills and timing as opposed to gear doing most of the work.  That is a happy surprise.  

 

 

[Dark.8093]

I remember when I started playing gw. It was quite interesting, making hearts and other activities, even the oldest locations were never empty. And I quit because the computer was more like a calculator and it was unbearable to play in mass events. But now, after about 3 years of active play, I log in simply because it does not require a subscription and for me this is its only plus. 

[Dark.8093]

.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Dark.8093
Double posting, sry

[Bast.7253]

I think the level 1 and up experience probably puts people off. Starting with only one handed weapon and 2 or 3 empty weapon skills is… lame. 
 

As to what they could do - make more skills available at an earlier level, more weapons, increase difficulty while leveling to the point those skills are needed.

 

They never have the resources to do a full revamp and it’s legacy code that they probably don’t want to deal with at this point but it does feel like it could use a rework. World boss revamp helps some but maybe they could add something akin to the old bounty system across older zones. Challenging bosses that can be spawned by a group, offer more experience than other events, train players on things like dodging, skill indicators like red/green/yellow circles, breakbars.

[robertthebard.8150]

On 4/24/2022 at 8:01 AM, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

Bosses require timers and are a cluster kitten of abilities and are one of the pain points in this game - too much ability SFX to figure out what's going on. Instanced content is way better in pretty much every way. Also, unless you can hit lvl 30 in 2 hours good luck keeping your friends playing until the first dungeon and then find a good joke for the lfg wait time because story mode dungeons are never ran, much like exploration paths which also require level 80

Come on man, I dare you. Create a new free to play account and try to play for few hours. You're going to be running back to your main account. The initial experience is terrible. For a game with such an active and layered combat your hero is super stiff for HOURS 

Interesting take, this and the OP in general.  I didn't have that experience.  I came over from ESO with a few guildmates that wanted to try it out.  We all did the F2P option, and after a few hours, I decided to get the game, and the expansions, both PoF and HoT were out at that time.  What I find more curious though, is that if you're focused so heavily on group content, specifically instances, why would you have to use the LFG tool to fill a group for it?  If I were that focused, I'd have a list of friends that run that content with me and could pull one or two from that list to join a group to help show my friends that are new the content.  Maybe it requires some "behind the scenes" scheduling, but that's what I'd be doing, assuming, of course, that my goal is to entice new players to stick around, and not lobby for more "we need more free stuff for Steam"...

I know that across all of the MMOs that I've played, that that's what gets done when new people come in.  I can recall several instances of being one of those "on call" friends that someone said "hey Rob, I've got a couple friends that are trying out the game, can you jump on your tank and run us through X?".  I know this happened in DDO, swtor, and an old Korean Grinder called Rappelz right off the top of my head.