Story content its not newbie friendly

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I hope Anet have plans to rethink pricing on LW content. Maybe just more frequent discounts.

The whole LW model was backwards which I suspect is one reason they dropped it. In normal sales/marketing you want to sell products high to those who most want them (and hence will pay) and then more cheaply to those less willing to pay. Expansions work this way, high price on release for the active/keen players, then discounts sometime later, then maybe rolling them together into a cheaper bundle like HoT/PoF.

But with LW they gave it away free to the active/keen players (at the time of release) then hit their newer (and less sticky) customers with the (often unexpected) need to buy LWS2 before they can enjoy HoT. It's completely backwards and not a good way of retaining new players and generating income.

This might be fine if the core story was amazing but it's not. I enjoyed the core story and completed it but none of the 10 friends/family playing with me reached the end of the core story (a few got to L60 or L70 story but none have finished). It's just a bit meh, the missions are somewhat uninspiring and basic (probably due to the more basic tools back then), you're a hanger on to Destiny's Edge, the only characters you get to know are your mentor (who *spoiler* doesn't stay with you to the end) and Trahearne who's very dry. LWS1 (the remade version) is a significant improvement in gameplay and story, while LWS2 is another big improvement which I really enjoyed.

But new players have to cough up money to even play LWS2 which might actually hook them on the game! And if they go direct to HoT then they are dumped with new companions who they don't know.

tldr; it would really help GW2's ability to get new players hooked on the game if they found a way to make LWS2 either free or maybe bundled with HoT.

[kharmin.7683]

12 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

tldr; it would really help GW2's ability to get new players hooked on the game if they found a way to make LWS2 either free or maybe bundled with HoT.

How would that help their bottom line?  How could the studio make money to pay devs and keep the servers running?

[Mistwraithe.3106]

4 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

How would that help their bottom line?  How could the studio make money to pay devs and keep the servers running?

I think it's self evident that there's a relationship between the number of new players who get hooked enough to play through all the content (which is substantial) and how much income Arena Net earn in the medium and long term. Essentially I'm saying that the core content isn't great for doing this and LWS1 helps but not enough. LWS2 is much better and flows nicely into HoT.

The flip-side with my suggestion is that they would lose some income from these hooked new players by making LW free or bundled (at least LWS2 which I think is the biggest issue here, if someone gets to LWS3 they are probably already hooked).

No one knows, and only Arena Net can accurately guess, whether the extra income from hooking new players better (and hence having a higher percentage play through lots of content) would be greater then the lost income. However, with Anet's new annual mini-expansion plan it seems like they will have plenty of DLC type content for new players to buy (in addition to all the QoL and skins on gemstore). I think it would be a good bet for Anet to take, certainly with LWS2.

[Luthan.5236]

Buying the living world season with gems is not a good suggestion though - imo. Especially for a new player. (Old players that missed something when it was free at release ... might have more options.) Depends on what the new player likes and/or wants to achieve. If they generally are into hardcore grinding and mainly want to unlock the story - not getting other stuff that needs gold (legendaries) ... they can farm the gold to trade for gems of course.

Game is more targeted at the casuals as main target audience though. But I mentioned already that other games also sell expansions. WoW though seemx to include - I just googled that - all the prevous ones with the subscription and requires you only to buy the latest one. Don't know how this is for most other newer MMORPG nowadays. In the past afaik in subscription model based games you also had to buy all the expansions as well - additionally to having to pay for a subscription.

Just taking the money you'd pay for a subscription and then using it to buy stuff in order (expansions) in GW2 ... might work. If the game is enjoyed slowly ... core should already offer a lot and the HoT/PoF bundle (+ S2 if you want it for the story) gives access to content until end of HoT (if you play in release order). Not that expensive. I doubt most casuals would finish the majority of content so fast that a subscription based game would be cheaper there.

I'd suggest using the ingame gold for gems only if you want one small thing (one story chapter - but that is mainly interesting for people that got a lot for free and missed one chapter when it was available for free) or if you miss a few gems. (When buying 4k gems I sometimes end up spending most and having a few left over where the next item I want ... could need a small amount more where I just trade that amount for gold.) Having to grind from the start ... might scare away the new player. (Depending on the player type.) They grind ... get the buy the story chapters. And are exhausted from the grind and try to stop playing. Something like that. Lol.

[Danikat.8537]

If you have a paid account and don't want to make legendaries early on you could sell the mystic coins from login rewards and use that as a source of gold to convert to gems. Like other methods it depends on how long you're willing to wait before purchasing, but it's an option.

But that's why I said if I was a new player now I'd convert gold to gems when I could (ideally when the exchange rate was good) and then use real money for the remaining amount. That doesn't work if your intention is to get the entire living story for 'free' of course, but if you're just concerned about the total cost and looking for a way to bring it down a bit I think it'd work.

It will be a matter of prioritisation - deciding whether it's more important to you to unlock the story soon and without spending much/any real money, or if you'd rather use the gold for other things like buying equipment (which isn't that expensive if you go for exotics) or unlocking skins and dyes or making a legendary early on. But that's true for everyone. When I was new I put all the gold I could spare into buying mini pets and it meant I couldn't get all the stuff my friends were buying instead like skins, dyes and legendaries, but I was ok with that.

BTW one thing I keep seeing coming up here is people's friends getting caught out that they thought the entire game was completely free to play (which I don't think is true of any free to play game) and didn't know they'd have to pay for most of the maps and story. IMO the solution there is they've got a friend who already plays who can let them know exactly what to expect.

I've recommended GW2 to several people in different situations and I've never told anyone it's free to play. I'll say they can try it out for free and can play the entire base game that way if they want to, but I also tell them about the restrictions on free accounts and that all the expansions and DLC (aka Living World, but DLC is a more well known name) is paid. It's basically a paid game with a free trial version that has no time limit and a very generous limit on what you can complete, but it's still functionally a trial of what is now the full game, even if it was the full game 10 years ago.

[kharmin.7683]

58 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

That doesn't work if your intention is to get the entire living story for 'free' of course, but if you're just concerned about the total cost and looking for a way to bring it down a bit I think it'd work.
 

No, that is the point from many of these threads.  They want it for free, end of line.  There is no concern about ways to bring the cost down other than making it free.

[Gorem.8104]

Ya know, its probably not a good healthy game stance to see someone trying to get new players into the game and they are greeted with 14 downvotes. 

The game does have sales and every now and then the LW's do become free which is nice, been awhile since the last free event. The real kicker though is if you see a GW2 pack advertised as "Unlocks all content" what it actually does is gives you everything but the living worlds. 

[Tachenon.5270]

I, being somewhat cynical in my old age, and prone to rambling in a manner not always coherent, suspect anet doesn't want the newbie experience to be TOO friendly. It's a fine line, I suppose, between fun and frustration. Carrot and stick. Cows and free milk. Sonny and Cher. To gently (or not) prod the newbies into forking over that sweet newbie cash for the 'shiny woo!' benefits granted by the expansions and their associated by-products, without the newbies deciding it's all just a big litter box and they're just fresh grains awaiting the inevitable kitty. If you've participated in a world boss event in a low level zone when there's not a lot of max level boon-spamming elite-spec types around to scoop the kitten out of the box, maybe you'll agree. But probably not, since this IS the game forums. Heh.

As an aside, just think of the time and resources the devs could have saved for SOMETHING ELSE if they'd kept the old champ trains instead of doing the bandits and buffing the low level zone World Bosses.

More coffee.

[Danikat.8537]

46 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Ya know, its probably not a good healthy game stance to see someone trying to get new players into the game and they are greeted with 14 downvotes. 

The game does have sales and every now and then the LW's do become free which is nice, been awhile since the last free event. The real kicker though is if you see a GW2 pack advertised as "Unlocks all content" what it actually does is gives you everything but the living worlds. 

Then it's probably a good thing this forum has no down vote function and people putting an emoji sticker on the bottom of the OP's post does nothing.

Also Anet fixed the problem with saying the pack with just the expansions unlocks everything a year ago when they launched the Complete Collection that includes the Living World. If someone wants to buy everything in one go they have that option, it's right at the top of the store page and if they click into the page about the other pack (or are sent a direct link to it) it will only talk about the expansions, no mention of Living World. If someone is under the impression they can play the entire game for free then someone has mislead them but I don't think it was Anet because they've never made that claim. (If you're on a free account it's pretty hard to miss the reminders that they want you to buy a version of the game, if you're missing any expansions you'll periodically get pop-ups when you login advertising them and banners when you open the gem store.)

[Cyninja.2954]

Cynincal take but:

We want more players who aren't willing to (or can't) afford 125$ for 11 years (even if Arenant years) worth of content why exactly?

If it's to big a chunk at once, break it down into smaller increments, wait for sales, etc.

The soon to release mini expansion is right around the corner, requires no previous story knowledge and goes for 25 bucks. Start there maybe.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[TexZero.7910]

2 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Ya know, its probably not a good healthy game stance to see someone trying to get new players into the game and they are greeted with 14 downvotes. 

The game does have sales and every now and then the LW's do become free which is nice, been awhile since the last free event. The real kicker though is if you see a GW2 pack advertised as "Unlocks all content" what it actually does is gives you everything but the living worlds. 

It's probably also a bad look to make a disingenous argument then.

The story is very newbie friendly. As in literally anybody can do it.
What they should have stated the issue was is the barrier to entry being finacially steep. This though is also a bad faith take.
Anet currently offers all of the story and i do mean all of sans the upcoming expansion for $100.

If that's too much to ask you can buy the "Elder Dragon Saga" for half of that cost and just convert gold to gems as you go to buy the missing living world content. The upside here is that the OP as a "Friend" can help with that.

So please don't blame the forums for the OP's bad take and your worse response. It's up to the consumer to shop appropriately and read what they buy.

 

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

I can never understand why some people demand LW to be cheaper or even free. The price to get all expansions and Living World gets you the latest WoW expansion and 6-7 months of sub only.

The price of playing WoW for a year, without buying an expansion is around the price of ALL the content for GW2. You get prior content in WoW for free, because it's outdated. In GW2 you still see people farming Silverwastes, which came out ~9 years ago. Maps like Bloodstone Fen are still more populated than Shadowlands maps in WoW and that's only ~3 years old.

It's also seemingly always ignored that you can just buy LW episodes with in game money and compared to WoW's sub it's not insanity priced.

Keep this in mind when you think that GW2 costs a lot. You pay once and you can play whenever you want and the content you buy access to doesn't get outdated every new expansion.

[Lunarwolf.5698]

3 hours ago, Tachenon.5270 said:

I, being somewhat cynical in my old age, and prone to rambling in a manner not always coherent, suspect anet doesn't want the newbie experience to be TOO friendly. It's a fine line, I suppose, between fun and frustration. Carrot and stick. Cows and free milk. Sonny and Cher. To gently (or not) prod the newbies into forking over that sweet newbie cash for the 'shiny woo!' benefits granted by the expansions and their associated by-products, without the newbies deciding it's all just a big litter box and they're just fresh grains awaiting the inevitable kitty. If you've participated in a world boss event in a low level zone when there's not a lot of max level boon-spamming elite-spec types around to scoop the kitten out of the box, maybe you'll agree. But probably not, since this IS the game forums. Heh.

As an aside, just think of the time and resources the devs could have saved for SOMETHING ELSE if they'd kept the old champ trains instead of doing the bandits and buffing the low level zone World Bosses.

More coffee.

Thing about low level area bosses getting boosted I kinda sorta agree was a bad thing however in my experience playing the game one doesn't stay low level very long I mean you could grind out a lvl 80 within a week or few days depending how hard core you wish to apply yourself. One could also argue that having high levels in low tier areas helps to showcase the end game legendary gear , mounts, gliders ect not to mention adds to the initial spectacle of the first timer newbie at a meta event to bear witness to. Personally I think this works more as a carrot to motivate than stick to bash a newbie. 

[Danikat.8537]

16 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

I can never understand why some people demand LW to be cheaper or even free. The price to get all expansions and Living World gets you the latest WoW expansion and 6-7 months of sub only.

The price of playing WoW for a year, without buying an expansion is around the price of ALL the content for GW2. You get prior content in WoW for free, because it's outdated. In GW2 you still see people farming Silverwastes, which came out ~9 years ago. Maps like Bloodstone Fen are still more populated than Shadowlands maps in WoW and that's only ~3 years old.

It's also seemingly always ignored that you can just buy LW episodes with in game money and compared to WoW's sub it's not insanity priced.

Keep this in mind when you think that GW2 costs a lot. You pay once and you can play whenever you want and the content you buy access to doesn't get outdated every new expansion.

Another suggestion I've seen for people who think a subscription is reasonable and buying past expansions is not is to save up what you'd be willing to spend on a subscription each month and use that to buy the expansions.

Elder Scrolls Online's subscription costs £8.99 per month, so it'd take 10 months to afford the Complete Collection (or 3 months to afford one expansion). They also offer a slight discount if you buy more time at once, the cheapest rate is £6.73 per month, but that's if you buy 365 days at once so the actual up-front cost is £81.99 and IMO if you'd consider doing that you may as well pay £86.99 to get the Complete Collection right away.

[Gravitron.7982]

5 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

No, that is the point from many of these threads.  They want it for free, end of line.  There is no concern about ways to bring the cost down other than making it free.

That is your opinion. Others disagree.

[Linken.6345]

3 minutes ago, Gravitron.7982 said:

That is your opinion. Others disagree.

Oh can you show anyone who disagree that are on the OPs side?

 

[Gravitron.7982]

1 minute ago, Linken.6345 said:

Oh can you show anyone who disagree that are on the OPs side?

 

Reporting for duty, sir!

[kharmin.7683]

14 minutes ago, Gravitron.7982 said:

That is your opinion. Others disagree.

True.  I didn't say everybody. 

[Linken.6345]

58 minutes ago, Gravitron.7982 said:

Reporting for duty, sir!

Ok so how would you solve it, just saying you agree is not enough you have to have counter point to the ones disagreeing right?

[Gravitron.7982]

55 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

Ok so how would you solve it, just saying you agree is not enough you have to have counter point to the ones disagreeing right?

It might not be enough for you, but it's enough for me.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Having to pay for content. THE HORROR! 

[oZZie.4762]

I agree with OP. The story stuff is just not that accessible to new players and that's not good.

Honestly, most of the people on the forums and in this thread are the extreme outliers of players. They've got theirs and want to pull up the ladder to new players. I get it. But really the LW content isn't very good anyways. The primary goal of LW content was to waste the time of these extremists until Anet can sell a new expac. Now that it successfully did that, they can just bundle it together with the expacs. This will bring in more money and players. LW content just isn't good enough to justify selling on its own.

*Also what in the mother flipper, do people actually think new players are going to waste time farming gold for LW? That's a very....unique.. take. Gotta be 95+% of new players will say screw that and play something better.

Edited August 15, 2023 by oZZie.4762

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

15 minutes ago, oZZie.4762 said:

I agree with OP. The story stuff is just not that accessible to new players and that's not good.

Honestly, most of the people on the forums and in this thread are the extreme outliers of players. They've got theirs and want to pull up the ladder to new players. I get it. But really the LW content isn't very good anyways. The primary goal of LW content was to waste the time of these extremists until Anet can sell a new expac. Now that it successfully did that, they can just bundle it together with the expacs. This will bring in more money and players. LW content just isn't good enough to justify selling on its own.

*Also what in the mother flipper, do people actually think new players are going to waste time farming gold for LW? That's a very....unique.. take. Gotta be 95+% of new players will say screw that and play something better.

"We have to pay less for our game than other MMOs, but it should be even less"

[Gravitron.7982]

1 hour ago, oZZie.4762 said:

I agree with OP. The story stuff is just not that accessible to new players and that's not good.

Honestly, most of the people on the forums and in this thread are the extreme outliers of players. They've got theirs and want to pull up the ladder to new players. I get it. But really the LW content isn't very good anyways. The primary goal of LW content was to waste the time of these extremists until Anet can sell a new expac. Now that it successfully did that, they can just bundle it together with the expacs. This will bring in more money and players. LW content just isn't good enough to justify selling on its own.

*Also what in the mother flipper, do people actually think new players are going to waste time farming gold for LW? That's a very....unique.. take. Gotta be 95+% of new players will say screw that and play something better.

I definitely agree with you here.

[Jianyu.7065]

I purchased HoT and PoF separately - how should I feel about this?