New Players taken aback by what they call "one-shotters"

[Katiekaboom.1980]

Please be aware of how new players coming into the game for the first time are experiencing their first time experience. I know I heard a LOT of complaints of so many shooting a target and killing it before the new player could get any hits in. Mounts racing around and killing everything before the new player can even figure out where to go and what the objective is. They don't start out with a lot of armour or all their weapon skills but just skill 1 and are confused and blindsided by all the shininess of new players who wanted to welcome them to the game.

I felt it was important to make this aware as it has been a long time since most of us were new players. I myself, having had played since 2012, made a new account back when free accounts first came out to get a feel for what their experience was so that I could better relate to them to help them more adequately but that is just me. I am disabled and have the time to help but all the years of experience, especially in PvE. But was not prepared for the repercussions of the new "Character Adventure Guide" achievements and long time players trying to get into all the events to get theirs while at the same time new players were trying to for the first time. This should have been foreseen and I thought that the "Character Adventure Guide"  was only going to be for new accounts. I personally feel it still should have been because this is what happens when it is not.

I found this review on Steam VERY telling of one player's first hand new experience Tuesday August 23rd 2022:

Quote

It looks like a bunch of players from a non-steam launchers are inflating positive reviews, so I'm not really sure if that is a bad sign or not. I am new and when I completed the tutorial I came out to a bunch of glowing skins, motorcycle things, and dragons in my face. After talking to a map dude who pointed out 3 areas of interest, I has a guy with a green dragon and once with 2 big mechanical things follow me and another ranger while proceeding to 1-2 shot everything in range including the mobs we needed to complete quests. I am leaving a negative review for now, as I am slightly frustrated at how higher players enjoy doing this, but will continue at some point to see if anything changes and alter this review.

I felt bad for them but 100% know what they are talking about. I had heard a lot of similar comments in game and frustration and rage quitting .. which is not what we would expect with GW2 especially in PvE in s starter zone.

Let's try to be more considerate and helpful in the starter areas and try to remember what it was like to be new to a game that is unlike most others.

Thank you.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Katiekaboom.1980

[Scalacious.4139]

I would never have expected something like this from the guild wars community, which I have experienced quite differently in the last 10 years.

[Scalacious.4139]

Is there anything we can do to prevent something like this? Maybe the starter zones should have the option to play in an instance with only charakters that are below level 30 or something.

[Hesione.9412]

It's an ongoing problem, I did a post about this *months* ago. I've asked in map chat for people to stop doing this, with one person saying, in map chat, not to tell them how to play the game. I don't think we will get through to this particular set of the player base. If they were going to improve, it would have happened by now.

[Katiekaboom.1980]

8 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

It's an ongoing problem, I did a post about this *months* ago. I've asked in map chat for people to stop doing this, with one person saying, in map chat, not to tell them how to play the game. I don't think we will get through to this particular set of the player base. If they were going to improve, it would have happened by now.

Anet has tried to improve things with the new player experience but I think they missed the mark. The Adventure Guide should have only been for new players or new accounts as having experienced players running around doing them all just successfully overwhelmed and turned off the new player base as a whole sadly.

[Katiekaboom.1980]

22 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

Is there anything we can do to prevent something like this? Maybe the starter zones should have the option to play in an instance with only charakters that are below level 30 or something.

Good idea. I mean, there is a reason why other games have starter zones for only new players... But this late in the game .. I don't know what Anet could do now about that..

Edited August 24, 2022 by Katiekaboom.1980

[kharmin.7683]

48 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

 Maybe the starter zones should have the option to play in an instance with only charakters that are below level 30 or something.

Sorta like GW1?  Good idea perhaps, but I think it runs counter to ANet's intended design of GW2.  Not sure they are willing to make a dramatic change in this regard.

[Scalacious.4139]

5 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Sorta like GW1?  Good idea perhaps, but I think it runs counter to ANet's intended design of GW2.  Not sure they are willing to make a dramatic change in this regard.

How would that contradict Arenanet's intended design? Especially, if it is just optional and not forced.

[Gorani.7205]

I think "raptor-ing down" mobs is the biggest issue. But people can't seem to stop doing that, e.g. in escort quests (Ramsey in Snowden comes to min). If you want to be nice, you just AA it and provide buffs and boons while the others try to participate as well.

[Prezombie.7263]

How about giving mobs in <level 80 areas a "minimum livespan" hidden buff? If the mob spawned less than 5 seconds ago, it can't be reduced below 1% health if theres any players nearby who haven't tagged it yet?

[Katiekaboom.1980]

17 minutes ago, Gorani.7205 said:

I think "raptor-ing down" mobs is the biggest issue. But people can't seem to stop doing that, e.g. in escort quests (Ramsey in Snowden comes to min). If you want to be nice, you just AA it and provide buffs and boons while the others try to participate as well.

When I mentioned that to someone in game they said Anet already made it do less damage! As if that gave them permission to keep doing it.

 

[ASP.8093]

I suspect the new anniversary achievements are exacerbating the problem a tad. On account of how we've got a few days of people running around trying to blitz events in lower-level areas they might otherwise ignore.

[Katiekaboom.1980]

2 minutes ago, ASP.8093 said:

I suspect the new anniversary achievements are exacerbating the problem a tad. On account of how we've got a few days of people running around trying to blitz events in lower-level areas they might otherwise ignore.

EXACTLY! 👆

[Danikat.8537]

One thing that could help is making more players aware that you don't have to do the new achievements in starter maps. (Except the ones for speaking to scouts and completing POIs.)

The scaling is a big problem though, sometimes it can be difficult to avoid killing things in 1-2 hits. For an extreme example I have a character who is only level 36 and using only white (common) equipment with no upgrades and no buffs. Ok it's all beserker stats (because that's all that's available on common equipment) and I'm using a power build but my attributes are still much lower than if I was using the greens and rares I've been getting as drops. Even then if I'm in a starter map I find myself struggling to let other players hit things. I hit an enemy once with a longbow autoattack, my wolf jumps on them and they're dead.

Of course there are ways I can hold back - putting my pet onto passive, only using the autoattack, switching to a melee weapon so I have to run up first - but it seems absurd that I have to go out of my way to let other players hit things before I kill them on a character I've already deliberately nerfed. (Also I'm wary of going too far because the point of all this is a no-deaths challenge, I don't want to hold back too much and end up dying because I was counting on other players joining in and they don't.)

But players could definitely do things like avoid using their mount auto-attack. Or at least try to land where the mobs already are instead of pulling them away and don't remount to use it again if you don't need to run somewhere.

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

How would that contradict Arenanet's intended design? Especially, if it is just optional and not forced.

I don't think that Anet intended there to be instanced content other than dungeons and personal story.  They wanted a more open, free-form MMO than GW1 (which technically wasn't an MMO due to the instanced content design).   It might be a waste of resources, especially 10 years in, to develop a separate, instanced starter area regardless of whether or not it would be forced or optional.

[Scalacious.4139]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I don't think that Anet intended there to be instanced content other than dungeons and personal story.  They wanted a more open, free-form MMO than GW1 (which technically wasn't an MMO due to the instanced content design).   It might be a waste of resources, especially 10 years in, to develop a separate, instanced starter area regardless of whether or not it would be forced or optional.

I meant instanced maps in a way like it already is implemented, with there being multiple instances of the same map once a certain number of players are reached in a region. So exactly the same way like that, only that there are only characters on one version of the map that are the appropriate level or only slightly above.

[kharmin.7683]

22 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

I meant instanced maps in a way like it already is implemented, with there being multiple instances of the same map once a certain number of players are reached in a region. So exactly the same way like that, only that there are only characters on one version of the map that are the appropriate level or only slightly above.

Right, but how would they code that to ensure that players who choose to be in these maps are placed there and not with other, active players who did not make that choice?

[Scalacious.4139]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Right, but how would they code that to ensure that players who choose to be in these maps are placed there and not with other, active players who did not make that choice?

I could be wrong, but it feels like it's just an extra query in the sense of "if character level is more than 15 levels above zone level, then put him in this version of the map and if no other version exists yet, create a new one".

[kharmin.7683]

2 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

I could be wrong, but it feels like it's just an extra query in the sense of "if character level is more than 15 levels above zone level, then put him in this version of the map and if no other version exists yet, create a new one".

Then, they would have to re-vamp the entire mega-server so that less populated maps wouldn't close and then toss these new players into maps with others.

[Scalacious.4139]

18 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Then, they would have to re-vamp the entire mega-server so that less populated maps wouldn't close and then toss these new players into maps with others.

There are literally maybe a dozen more variations of the maps and what I consider to be a minor change. Of course, I could be wrong.

[kharmin.7683]

13 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

There are literally maybe a dozen more variations of the maps and what I consider to be a minor change. Of course, I could be wrong.

Maybe.  I don't think that's how the mega server system works, though.  From what I understand, this system creates a new map instance when population hits a certain cap and likewise closes instances when populations drop below a specific threshold.  It isn't like there are empty maps just sitting there waiting to be used.

[Scalacious.4139]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Maybe.  I don't think that's how the mega server system works, though.  From what I understand, this system creates a new map instance when population hits a certain cap and likewise closes instances when populations drop below a specific threshold.  It isn't like there are empty maps just sitting there waiting to be used.

And it would continue to work that way, but with a couple of "more" maps, because there would be "normal" queensdale and "adjusted" queensdale as seperated maps for example.

[kharmin.7683]

8 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

And it would continue to work that way, but with a couple of "more" maps, because there would be "normal" queensdale and "adjusted" queensdale as seperated maps for example.

Right.  And resources would have to be spent to code the game to know the difference and to ensure that players who chose the appropriate option are deposited on the appropriate map.  This would also split some of the player population which, again, I believe would run counter to Anet's original design.

If you think that this proposal has merit, then you might need to show how Anet would profit or benefit from such in a manner that makes good business sense for them.

Good luck!

[Tukaram.8256]

2 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

I suspect the new anniversary achievements are exacerbating the problem a tad. On account of how we've got a few days of people running around trying to blitz events in lower-level areas they might otherwise ignore.

I think that is true.  The anniversary achievements gave me credit for some things I had already done... but not all.  If they credited us with anything applicable that we already did - not so many people would be running around the starter areas. 

[Ronin.4501]

I hate to disappoint you, but this has been occurring since the game was new. I remember arriving in Cursed Shore for the first time (which would have been in 2012) and seeing dozens upon dozens of players farming the camp events; if you weren't running a class with a lot of high-damage AOE attacks you simply weren't going to credit for killing a single NPC. And it carried on that way for months on end. Sadly a lot of players only care about getting THEIR loot bags.

Personally I made certain to enter the starter zones yesterday after the new achievements had come out but before the Steam release, but I can only affect how I play.  Fortunately these new achievements only require 10 events to be completed, so this will likely die down by the end of this weekend.

I suspect Anet planned it this way on purpose in the hopes that the new Steam arrivals would see these areas as being very populated (and thus giving the impression that game is heavily populated) and instead it backfired and resulted in this instead.