New player experience is the games biggest detriment

[Cuks.8241]

You make many good points @Ravenmoon.5318. But here you will find many players that have this mentality if I did it 9 years a go, new players should do it also (well some might, many will just quit after 10 lvls).

Yes NPE can suck for a new player and I went through it first hand during POF. I am a very patient dungeon crawler that often likes to do at least the first play through on my own and slowly exploring everything (did the whole Hot without mounts first time just for the experience for example) so I didnt mind it that much. But I dont think today's crowd is prominently like that. And the older the game gets, the bigger the disparity between the vanilla and latest content becomes. 

Mount are great example. Many players will give advice to new players to just start Pof and get a friend to help him get the mount. Sound advice but actually horrible system. Just horrible for new players. Why the hoops and loops? They did the smart think with EOD and raptor and bunny. Just give a new player a raptor. Or/and warclaw for that matter. Or at least free mount rentals in hubs with limited timers on them. So they can play the game in chronological order without gimmicks. 

The thing is. Mounts have such a good feel in this game and are on another lvl to any other mmorpg. This alone would be a great early experience and selling point. And Pof is so late in the game. Keep in mind most players dont go to outside sources for information at all. Its a f2p start. You test it and if the initial feeling is not good. Well on to another.

[Ashen.2907]

5 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

You make many good points @Ravenmoon.5318. But here you will find many players that have this mentality if I did it 9 years a go, new players should do it also (well some might, many will just quit after 10 lvls).

Yes NPE can suck for a new player and I went through it first hand during POF. I am a very patient dungeon crawler that often likes to do at least the first play through on my own and slowly exploring everything (did the whole Hot without mounts first time just for the experience for example) so I didnt mind it that much. But I dont think today's crowd is prominently like that. And the older the game gets, the bigger the disparity between the vanilla and latest content becomes. 

Mount are great example. Many players will give advice to new players to just start Pof and get a friend to help him get the mount. Sound advice but actually horrible system. Just horrible for new players. Why the hoops and loops? They did the smart think with EOD and raptor and bunny. Just give a new player a raptor. Or/and warclaw for that matter. Or at least free mount rentals in hubs with limited timers on them. So they can play the game in chronological order without gimmicks. 

The thing is. Mounts have such a good feel in this game and are on another lvl to any other mmorpg. This alone would be a great early experience and selling point. And Pof is so late in the game. Keep in mind most players dont go to outside sources for information at all. Its a f2p start. You test it and if the initial feeling is not good. Well on to another.

Mounts are indeed a great selling point...for something that ANet actually sells, the PoF expansion. Giving that feature away means, by definition, not selling it. Would you advocate for giving away all expansions and all gemstore content because they would be nice to have?

[Ravenmoon.5318]

10 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Mounts are indeed a great selling point...for something that ANet actually sells, the PoF expansion. Giving that feature away means, by definition, not selling it. Would you advocate for giving away all expansions and all gemstore content because they would be nice to have?

Bruh, when you buy cheese from the farmer's market, don't you like ... have a sample from it? To taste it? Nobody is advocating to give mounts for free to new players. Or even the mounts that an endgame player would have. I'm talking about a freaking horse that'd be worth 1g (for example). To a new player that's a lot of investment BUT if that guy has friends like me, I'd happily send them even 10g. You get a horse in Lost Ark after 5 minutes of playtime btw. And there sure are better mounts. Also Lost Ark didn't start like that. The mounts were hard to unlock in the initial korean version. ez-mode mounts came later on to ... you guessed it ... attract new players.

 

The other issue I haven't talked about but is there is that ... I can't help my friends. Yeah I can join in a party, send them money, but they have to do all the heavy lifting themselves, run and explore. There's no power-level mechanic even if I wanted to show them something (say, the first dungeon). He'll have to spare 10-15-20 hours to reach level 30. It's just not going to happen if he has to play alone all this time. And yes, they are playing alone because if i start to help them out in the early maps, I simply 1-shot everything. The power creep of a legendary/ascended with infusions stacked hero is insane in the starter maps. Meanwhile the personal story stuff has some waiting for things to happen so even if I 1-shot everything, you're not going to pass the story any faster than 20 minutes.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Ravenmoon.5318

[disco.9302]

51 minutes ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

But ultimately, if you don't have anything constructive to say, why don't you try what you're selling? 

 

If you had read my post more carefully, you would see that, although sprinkled with a pinch of sarcasm, the feedback was constructive; explanation for you below.

 

How considerate of you to create a new thread ignoring the many other identical threads (there are many threads about this topic which are easy to locate - it is better to do this)

and also offer absolutely no constructive comments (it is important to offer solutions rather than just highlight problems) 

other than compare the game to another entirely different title (simply comparing the game to another vaguely similar title is bad logic).

 

57 minutes ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

It's not for me to tell the developers how to develop their game. Much on the contrary of what you guys have come to expect. It is okay to point out that something isn't right.

In this case that is incorrect. Consider the below analogy to be more accurate for the situation.

If I ask you to make me an item, you return with said item and I just say "the colour is wrong", you ask, "what colour do you want?" and I respond with "idk, I'm just telling you it's wrong". At this point, you as the creator have limitless options to change your item but absolutely no direction.

This is the same as your post.

 

1 hour ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

Also I actually searched for such posts but I suppose they got burried. 

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/112017-feedback-updates-to-new-player-experience/?tab=comments#comment-1615220

literally 30 seconds of searching.

1 hour ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

Have you tried BDO? This game has maddeningly good start. It gets tedious at the end, but the start, the thing that hooks you, is amazing.

I couldn't think of a worse structure other than P2W (which I think BDO is anyway? idk). The games where you're introduced to the starter zone as an OP character 1shotting everything and then progress to the endgame which is exactly the opposite are incredibly depressing.

[Ashen.2907]

4 minutes ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

Bruh, when you buy cheese from the farmer's market, don't you like ... have a sample from it? To taste it? Nobody is advocating to give mounts for free to new players. Or even the mounts that an endgame player would have. I'm talking about a freaking horse that'd be worth 1g (for example). To a new player that's a lot of investment BUT if that guy has friends like me, I'd happily send them even 10g. You get a horse in Lost Ark after 5 minutes of playtime btw. And there sure are better mounts. Also Lost Ark didn't start like that. The mounts were hard to unlock in the initial korean version. ez-mode mounts came later on to ... you guessed it ... attract new players.

 

The other issue I haven't talked about but is there is that ... I can't help my friends. Yeah I can join in a party, send them money, but they have to do all the heavy lifting themselves, run and explore. There's no power-level mechanic even if I wanted to show them something (say, the first dungeon). He'll have to spare 10-15-20 hours to reach level 30. It's just not going to happen if he has to play alone all this time. And yes, they are playing alone because if i start to help them out in the early maps, I simply 1-shot everything. The power creep of a legendary/ascended with infusions stacked hero is insane in the starter maps. Meanwhile the personal story stuff has some waiting for things to happen so even if I 1-shot everything, you're not going to pass the story any faster than 20 minutes.

Giving a mount for 1g is essentially giving it for free (half of their first daily) It wouldnt be a new mount, such as a horse, it would be an existing mount. There have been multiple suggestions to give mounts for free (including, essentially, yours).  

 

From what I have read, and what friends and trusted guildmates have said, I am not particularly inclined to take what Lost Ark does as any form of good example.

Remember, GW2's population has increased dramatically over the past three years...there are issues, but the only data available to us certainly implies that you are overstating them.

[Cuks.8241]

6 minutes ago, disco.9302 said:

I couldn't think of a worse structure other than P2W (which I think BDO is anyway? idk). The games where you're introduced to the starter zone as an OP character 1shotting everything and then progress to the endgame which is exactly the opposite are incredibly depressing.

The point is to get the players to the end game. GW2 is a great game, not many actually get to the good part though. I've seen many youtube reviews where players play for a few hours and than review it (not that good often). They dont even see a meta event, a raptor (let alone the cool mounts), any expansion content.  You have to sink many hours into the game to get to the good parts. The vanilla today feels like so many f2p games out there but a bit old.

[Ashen.2907]

2 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

The point is to get the players to the end game. GW2 is a great game, not many actually get to the good part though. I've seen many youtube reviews where players play for a few hours and than review it (not that good often). They dont even see a meta event, a raptor (let alone the cool mounts), any expansion content.  You have to sink many hours into the game to get to the good parts. The vanilla today feels like so many f2p games out there but a bit old.

And we also see people complaining that they prefered vanilla GW2, that the post launch content doesnt measure up, etc. There are youtube videos where the YTer expresses how GW2 has ruined other games for him. 

[Cuks.8241]

4 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

And we also see people complaining that they prefered vanilla GW2, that the post launch content doesnt measure up, etc. There are youtube videos where the YTer expresses how GW2 has ruined other games for him. 

Yes, different taste, but vanilla is free. Anet doesnt get much out of gamers that like to play vanilla. I'm pretty sure their goal is to get people to the expansions.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Cuks.8241

[Granrey.8920]

I'm being on MMO for almost 2 decades. I can tell you the best time to play any of them is shortly after lunch.  

 

The low level areas are great, they just don't dont have enough players in it.  Which is the issue I've been referring all along. They have revamp to areas to bring high level characters to them.  

 

 

[Ashen.2907]

15 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Yes, different taste, but vanilla is free. Anet doesnt get much out of gamers that like to play vanilla. I'm pretty sure their goal is to get people to the expansions.

I would be surprised, shocked really, if expansions were as profitable as the gemstore. Expansions are important to get money from players who have already bought all they want from the gemstore, and to keep people who have played vanilla content into tbe ground around long enough to entice them with new gemstore releases. New players in vanilla will have many hours of playable content and a gemstore filled to the brim with stuff they havent yet purchased but might desire.

[Kozumi.5816]

On 4/24/2022 at 9:22 AM, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

It would be better if every weapon skill was unlocked immediately rather than level gated. Also give offhand access immediately.

That's how vanilla was then they revamped the new player experience listening to very dumb people and made it worse.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Cuks.8241]

1 minute ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I would be surprised, shocked really, if expansions were as profitable as the gemstore. Expansions are important to get money from players who have already bought all they want from the gemstore, and to keep people who have played vanilla content into tbe ground around long enough to entice them with new gemstore releases. New players in vanilla will have many hours of playable content and a gemstore filled to the brim with stuff they havent yet purchased but might desire.

I dont know the structure of their revenues but I suspect the same. 

But the point is that vanilla is old and it shows. Hot already feels way better. Right now you have to play tens of hours to get to Hot. No mount unless you go through gimmicks. Players might just quit. Lost Ark is a good counter example. Doesnt mean its a better game, irrelevant (hate korean mmos, masohism). But its start is a bang, f2p, designed to hook you in this decade. 

Whats one of the best feature gw2 has in this market? Mounts. Option 1, lets give players the best feature after 100h of gameplay or through a gimmick. Option 2, let players taste the best feature from the start. I can see how Anet with their great marketing chose option 1.

[Ashen.2907]

13 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I dont know the structure of their revenues but I suspect the same. 

But the point is that vanilla is old and it shows. Hot already feels way better. Right now you have to play tens of hours to get to Hot. No mount unless you go through gimmicks. Players might just quit. Lost Ark is a good counter example. Doesnt mean its a better game, irrelevant (hate korean mmos, masohism). But its start is a bang, f2p, designed to hook you in this decade. 

Whats one of the best feature gw2 has in this market? Mounts. Option 1, lets give players the best feature after 100h of gameplay or through a gimmick. Option 2, let players taste the best feature from the start. I can see how Anet with their great marketing chose option 1.

And yet I, and who knows how many others, dislike HoT. I know that there have been countless threads on these forums, and elsewhere, decrying HoT while holding vanilla up as the ideal. So maybe, just maybe, vanilla isnt as bad as you believe, or at leadt not as bad for others as you believe.

And, again, I am not saying that there are no issues with the early game, just that some people might be overstating them because of their own preferences.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[SinisterSlay.6973]

Just want to say I did start a new free account for fun. Made a very poor Minion master necro. And in what felt like a couple hours I'm already level 40. I level so fast I don't even bother getting new equipment. Most of my stuff is level 20s and gotten from level up boxes.  Exploring and doing hearts isn't boring at all. And I even played it up and asked someone on a Mount how they got it and immediately they offered to take me to path of fire to get the Raptor.  

The new player experience is pretty amazing, made even more amazing by the community.  This is a great MMO.

Edited April 26, 2022 by SinisterSlay.6973

[Cuks.8241]

1 minute ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Th

And yet I, and who knows how many others, dislike HoT. I know that there have been countless threads on these forums, and elsewhere, decrying HoT while holding vanilla up as the ideal. So maybe, just maybe, vanilla isnt as bad as you believe, or at leadt not as bad for others as you believe.

And, again, I am not saying that there are no issues with the early game, just that some people might be overstating them because of their own preferences.

Well I like hot. Maybe Im biased. People that play the game since vanilla probably have a bit of nostalgia. 

Vanilla doesnt really have anything outstanding for todays market. World bosses are kinda meh today. Some literary die in seconds. The story delivery is ackward mildly saying. 

Hot has awesome meta events. Outstanding. Makes an impact. Hot has one of the best designed maps I have ever seen, ever in games in general. Some dont like them? Hard to traverse? Sure thats fine, different player preferences. They are still somewhat unique and many will appreciate the intricate design. And guess what, you give people a free mount and you fix the traversal and difficulty problem to an extent. 

[Ashen.2907]

4 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Well I like hot. Maybe Im biased. People that play the game since vanilla probably have a bit of nostalgia. 

Vanilla doesnt really have anything outstanding for todays market. World bosses are kinda meh today. Some literary die in seconds. The story delivery is ackward mildly saying. 

Hot has awesome meta events. Outstanding. Makes an impact. Hot has one of the best designed maps I have ever seen, ever in games in general. Some dont like them? Hard to traverse? Sure thats fine, different player preferences. They are still somewhat unique and many will appreciate the intricate design. And guess what, you give people a free mount and you fix the traversal and difficulty problem to an extent. 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that there won't be plenty of people who end up liking HoT. I am merely pointing out that not everyone likes HoT more than core, and that many people like core more than HoT. Personally I would love HoT level mobs in level 80 core zones so that I could enjoy the encounters in maps that I dont detest.

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Granrey.8920 said:

 

The low level areas are great, they just don't dont have enough players in it.  Which is the issue I've been referring all along. They have revamp to areas to bring high level characters to them.  

 

 

Not sure what GW2 you're playing, but I see low level maps populated pretty much all of the time.  However, there is a good reason to not encourage high level characters to come to low level maps.  There are many complaints here in the forum about how high level players kill everything before the new players can get in a shot.

And yet, starter maps like Queensdale and Wayfarer have high level events already (bandits, legendary executioner, Joko minion attacks), so what more do you advocate?

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Just want to say I did start a new free account for fun. Made a very poor Minion master necro. And in a couple hours I'm already level 40. I level so fast I don't even bother getting new equipment. Most of my stuff is level 20s and gotten from level up boxes.  Exploring and doing hearts isn't boring at all. And I even played it up and asked someone on a Mount how they got it and immediately they offered to take me to path of fire to get the Raptor.  

The new player experience is pretty amazing, made even more amazing by the community.  This is a great MMO.

If you were level 4 when exiting first intro story then you got the bonus exp they are testing out atm hence why it was so easy for you.

[Dante.1508]

7 hours ago, disco.9302 said:

Another post about inaccessibility for newbies. How considerate of you to create a new thread ignoring the many other identical threads and also offer absolutely no constructive comments other than compare the game to another entirely different title. Mission accomplished.

Why do you need to be condescending about it.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

2 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

If you were level 4 when exiting first intro story then you got the bonus exp they are testing out atm hence why it was so easy for you.

Usual level 2

[Zoid.2568]

It's not that bad, many games do the same thing and people play and enjoy. What's the difference here?

[phandaria.4891]

Yes, the New Player Experience is horrendous.

If any of my friend started playing, I'd suggest to buy PoF immediately, start with Lv.80 Boost trial to find his/her favorite class. Then move on to first chapter of PoF to unlock Raptor. GW2 already so cheap as it is, there is no reason to not unlock PoF. Core Tyria experience afterwards is still relevant for Mastery unlocks.

IMO, Silverwastes Lv.80 Trial should be available to all accounts since the start even without the boost. It really shows what GW2 is all about, meta events and fluid combat.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

6 hours ago, Ravenmoon.5318 said:

The other issue I haven't talked about but is there is that ... I can't help my friends. Yeah I can join in a party, send them money, but they have to do all the heavy lifting themselves, run and explore. There's no power-level mechanic even if I wanted to show them something (say, the first dungeon). He'll have to spare 10-15-20 hours to reach level 30. It's just not going to happen if he has to play alone all this time. And yes, they are playing alone because if i start to help them out in the early maps, I simply 1-shot everything. The power creep of a legendary/ascended with infusions stacked hero is insane in the starter maps. Meanwhile the personal story stuff has some waiting for things to happen so even if I 1-shot everything, you're not going to pass the story any faster than 20 minutes.

What I am reading is that you find the new player experience doesn't suit the way you want to play the game with your friends.  Of course the game is boring for your friends if you have a level 80 killing everything in the newbie zones.  Of course they feel like they are going slow when you are running around them on a mount, letting them tag and then killing everything for them.  Do you tell them to rush along as well, skip the scenery, it's a lowbie zone, it doesn't matter?

The game has traditionally had a slow ramp up (not saying the pacing is good or bad) and the purpose of this was to immerse the player into the stories and content of the game, and understand some of the game mechanics.  If you want to rush through the content, you will miss the game for what it is.  Why bother playing the game if all you want to do is rush to the next level?  I mean, there is an option, trade your Gold for Gems and gift them a level 80 boost.  Then they can enjoy what, the level 80 content you have already finished?

Could the NPE be better, of course, but if you are too impatient to slow play with your friends, or your friends are to distracted to engage with the game as it is presented, then of course you and your friends will have a bad time playing.  I would suggest you let your friend sink 10-20 hours solo in the game and tell you if the actually like it though.  If your friend isn't interested in playing the game alone, then how interested in playing the game at all are they really?

[Granrey.8920]

Great events  in vanilla.  These events need lots of people to show the beauty. However, those are maps that current players have no interest at all due to lack of interesting rewards.  

 

I think a way to solve this is with a bit of "engineering" from ANET.   They should improve the tool for moving you to another server with more players. 

 

 

[loregnum.3619]

Decided to chime in since I'm a new player that started this game at the start of this month and I've enjoyed my time in it as I level up. Does the new player experience just mean say the first 10 to 15 levels? If so, it is a bit slower compared to after that but nothing that would make me want to quit.

Maybe the issue is what profession someone chooses and how they are off the bat. The first one I created was a necromancer and I wasn't feeling it early on regardless of the weapon I tried out so after I got to 16 on my necro, I decided to make another character, a ranger. Enjoyed the ranger from the start and I'm now at level 65 with 64-ish hours played on that character since I like to explore and try and complete the zones.

I recently made a thief and I'm enjoying that play style as well from the very start. I'm at 20 right now after I think 8 hours and change  since I am not spending as much time exploring as I did the first time with my ranger.

Just tonight I used the 80 boost for my necro (I tested out a level 80 reaper build in the pvp golem area and liked it) to unlock the raptor mount for my thief and wow, that thing is awesome! It should save some solid time as I repeat everything with my thief. I still plan to mostly walk with my ranger as I explore the rest of the new base game areas so I can get the "original" experience. If I decide to go back to some previously explored areas to do some events before continuing to move on then I'll whip out the mount with the ranger.

Regarding Lost Ark since it was brought up in the first post, I started playing that game when it was released on Steam and enjoyed it for quite a while but then the honeymoon period ended to the point I barely play it now and only really log in for maybe 30-40 mins each day to do a few things and even that time is going to soon drop to probably under 10-15. I can say that I find GW2 to so far be better in almost every single way and I am having more fun in GW2 levelling up than I do now in Lost Ark's "end game" after just under 500 hours played and also more fun than I did when I was levelling up in Lost Ark. Lost Ark's levelling is basically pushing the G key or doing emotes in a circle and going from NPC to NPC. The hearts system in this game has far more action/combat than in Lost Ark's levelling system and the only really enjoyable thing in levelling Lost Ark would be the occasional story dungeon you had a mission in. Killing mobs in that game was useless since you got next to no xp for it. I also skipped the cut scenes and NPC chat windows in Lost Ark while here I am watching and reading them. GW2 so far seems to simply be more my type of game as I like the horizontal progress design, the open world feel, and the fact you can get xp from just running around and taking out mobs and doing the fun world events. Lost Ark is basically a raid simulator game and the gear/vertical progression system in it is a hamster wheel type design.

If there is one thing that kinda sucks in GW2 levelling is this apparent A/B testing they are doing with xp. I got my buddy to join the game after I checked it out (btw, he really likes it too and prefers it to Lost Ark which he quit playing after over 400 hours) and he apparently got put into the group getting the increased xp as he's actually higher level than I am despite playing for far less and doing far les both in completing zones, hearts, and events I've basically done twice as much as he has and he's level 68 to my previously mentioned 65. He started the game when I was already in the 20s with my ranger. It seems like he is getting double the xp I get. It'd be nice if they just had everyone getting that same amount of xp from the start both for time reasons as well as it can cause issues if you are playing co-op with someone and they have it while you don't and a big gap in levelling can show up which can factor into things like working together on each other's personal story. At one point he was 9 levels ahead of me.

All in all, this is a great game so far for me and I could easily recommend it to anyone looking for a fun game that so far appears to respect your time. Lost Ark does not respect your time. I also wish I had found out about this game months or years ago than recently and wished I started this game back in Feb rather than Lost Ark...though I guess playing that game and seeing how it is designed has let me appreciate GW2 even more.

Edited April 26, 2022 by loregnum.3619