Let’s Talk About Marketing...

[Schnuschnu.9857]

I'm with Guild Wars 2 for over 5 years now and here are my suggestions to make the game more appealing to new players.

• Tutorial
• different Access to content (PvE, WvW)
• overhaul of Dungeons (not gonna happen, I know)
• Balance

In the end I explain why these are important for marketing.

Tutorial

I played my fair share of online games and most have at least some type of tutorial. Since the combat in Guild Wars 2 is very fluid and fast new players need a proper tutorial. If you log in the game you are given the option to play the tutorial which teaches you the basics like: dodging (I once meet a lvl 80 in a dungeon who didn't know you can dodge in this game...), breakbars, overview about boons and conditions (since a new player will only know the ones of his choosen class), combos, reviving (dangers and benefits) etc. With a tutorial new players won't struggle with mechanics they don't understand and just quit the game because the die over and over again not knowing what to do. Which leads me to the next point.

Access to content

Lately I had to stop some new players (like 200 to 300 ap) from diving straight into WvW (especially without any kind of real tutorial) because they will experience mostly the following: They want to do something cool in the mode called WvW which sounds interesting to them so they walk around the map just to get killed by roamers over and over again. Mostly they quit than playing WvW altogether and the community just lost another potential WvW player. Therefore WvW should only be available for lvl 80 characters. This won't prevent the death due to experienced roamers but it gives new players more of a chance to fight back and they may understand the fact better that they will only meet fully leveled and geared characters in WvW and can prepair better for this. A real tutorial is nontheless essential for a good playing experience.This point involves dungeons too. New players which hit 30 get a message to explore the first dungeon. They join a group with mostly experienced players which often rush through the content, skipping parts and leave everyone not capable to follow them behind in their DPS race. This a bad experience for new players and I had new players complaining about dungeons saying they think the game is trash because in their opinion the dungeons are (they said it not that nice). Which leads directly t the next point.

Dungeons

I know there is no dungeon team anymore but dungeons desperatly need a overhaul. It is the first big thing new players get to see and it is outdated, bugged and largly skippable. It ruins the experience for some new players and this can't be the goal if want new players to stay. In fact I had introduced the game to some friends of mine and most found dungeons confusing and not looking fun (because of skipping and bugged mechanics) and I couldn't reassure them that all will be easier once they learned the game with the tutorial, well, because there is none.

Balance

I do not want to beat a dead horse here but there are some major things for new players here which break their fun. New players are eager to explore the game and therefore all the skills of the class they have choosen to play. It is quite hard for them to learn that many skills on professions are underwhelming to said it nice. Quaggan would say foo. This breaks the idea of playing what you want and fully exploring the class since some skills are foo anyways and may take away the fun of a class if someone liked specific skills just to learn: "You will never use them because they are... (I'm not going to repeat things players said here)".

What does this have to do with marketing? Well, at first glance not very much, but you can't market a game to new players as the game just to drive them away at, like, level 30. What will they tell their friends if they ask them about this game they tested last week. No good promotion for the game. Marketing will not work, if you "reverse" everything you just said by letting them play the game. Dramatic, I know, but some players I talked to have seen it like this. And you, as a "veteran", have to keep chanting: "It will get better once you reached 80."Also you can than show in videos to new players: "Hey we did these things to make it easier for new players. Come and try yourself."

PS: Make the level 80 boost only available once a new player has one character leveled to level 80. It teaches them nothing to boost directly to level 80 with no clue what to do next and they might just loose the fun because they than try everything but fail everywhere because they don't know anything about the game and it's mechanics.

And here some kittens just for good mood.

! Thank you for all the time you take for the community. It really is appreciated.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

This was ever really a thing? I thought this was just a reddit meme...

[Danikat.8537]

Was it really worth bumping up a 3 year old topic because you'd seen it mentioned on a different website? Why not just link it in the discussion there?

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:This was ever really a thing? I thought this was just a reddit meme...

Your Necromancy have improved and don't forget to kill that Ghul waiting outside of GW2 forum!

A three year old tread where most people have forgotten what it all was about isn't really nice thing to do....