Should ANET introduce a basic tutorial on PvP for new players?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Arlette.9684 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@Arlette.9684 I'll bet you'd be surprised at how many people wouldn't even read, watch, or run through it.

Oh I totally foresee that happening, that shouldn't be an excuse for the Devs being lazy for the 6 years since game launch. Even if 20% of the New players check those tutorials, that's still 20% more than what we have now.

I took my time to write a conquest tutorial, the link in my signature, and it only gets 1700 views. But something like this https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18677/do-raids-need-easy-normal-hard-difficulty-mode-merged gets 47000 views.

I thought that was interesting ^^

If they do add a tutorial, it would need to be a mandatory watch.

[Shadow Order.7258]

You have "hold on to your points, seize theirs". Is that not good enough? Anything more than that might cut into the gem store production.

[Arlette.9684]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Arlette.9684 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@Arlette.9684 I'll bet you'd be surprised at how many people wouldn't even read, watch, or run through it.

Oh I totally foresee that happening, that shouldn't be an excuse for the Devs being lazy for the 6 years since game launch. Even if 20% of the New players check those tutorials, that's still 20% more than what we have now.

I took my time to write a conquest tutorial, the link in my signature, and it only gets 1700 views. But something like this

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18677/do-raids-need-easy-normal-hard-difficulty-mode-merged

gets 47000 views.

I thought that was interesting ^^

If they do add a tutorial, it would need to be a mandatory watch.

I think it illustrates the PvE to PvP ratio, rather nicely.

[incisorr.9502]

they should explain that if you're zerging someone that means your teammates are getting zerged elsewhere on the map unless you killed a guy to cover for the numbers

and also if you're 2v1ing on a point that's capped by the enemy and are chasing the guy off-point you should at least spend 3 seconds to decap it cus i've seen people ignore a capped point while chasing someone for 1 minute more than once and that's one of the reason why so many "solo far" clowns get to get to high elo cause they "outsmart" noobs but can't actually fight and then when they get against enemies that can fight and lose they end up qqing about team

[malisivo.5264]

There are many of them on Youtube now, which is probably why ANet hasn't stepped forward with a tutorial? I think it's a good idea, but yes, who will take time to actually read through it? Our PVP is a bit more complex than some people are choosing to believe. It's not just rotation and map awareness, it's also personal builds, team composition, team communication, choosing your fights, knowing your role (after crafting your build), the differences between conquest and stronghold, and so much more.

Fundamentally, players need to learn their classes first, the ins an outs, before going into a match. Which is why I would rather propose a mentor system for PVP in particular, rather than a tutorial. The good players we have today are good because of trial and error, but I think they could have gotten there faster with a mentor teaching them the game mode. Anyway, good idea, OP, but there are already some tutorials out there in the world wide web.

[Arlette.9684]

@malisivo.5264 said:There are many of them on Youtube now, which is probably why ANet hasn't stepped forward with a tutorial? I think it's a good idea, but yes, who will take time to actually read through it? Our PVP is a bit more complex than some people are choosing to believe. It's not just rotation and map awareness, it's also personal builds, team composition, team communication, choosing your fights, knowing your role (after crafting your build), the differences between conquest and stronghold, and so much more.

Fundamentally, players need to learn their classes first, the ins an outs, before going into a match. Which is why I would rather propose a mentor system for PVP in particular, rather than a tutorial. The good players we have today are good because of trial and error, but I think they could have gotten there faster with a mentor teaching them the game mode. Anyway, good idea, OP, but there are already some tutorials out there in the world wide web.

Or they could actually put in some effort and animate it and make it into a rewatchable cutscene, I know mind blown.

[malisivo.5264]

Yeah, well, I'm saying that the basics of GW2 PVP are still very complex than most other MMOs. A tutorial may not be as helpful as you believe. But, I do agree that something needs to happen so that new players don't feel like headless chickens running around

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"malisivo.5264" said:Our PVP is a bit more complex than some people are choosing to believe. It's not just rotation and map awareness, it's also personal builds, team composition, team communication, choosing your fights, knowing your role (after crafting your build), the differences between conquest and stronghold, and so much more.

Fundamentally, players need to learn their classes first, the ins an outs, before going into a match.

This. This x 10,000. The superficial simplicity of the game mode, combined with its underlying complexity, makes any tutorial pretty useless in my opinion.

GW2 pvp is one of those many things in life that is simple to learn and difficult to master at a higher level.

The simple to learn part: It's not too hard to learn how to be minimally competent in Conquest - if you're squishy but hit hard, try not to get stuck alone, and find targets to nuke and kill while helping your team. If you're built to stay alive under pressure, stick around and focus on staying alive (even if it means leaving point for brief bursts to LOS/reset/whatever). If your build turns out to be good at nothing in particular, that will become painfully obvious rather quickly. Either way, I don't think it's difficult to find your niche playstyle and adapt it to work in unranked.

The difficult to master part: To become a more clutch playmaker requires significant investment of attention to what is going on, how your build stacks up against others, accurately gauging enemy skill when trying to troll or use other non-combat countermeasures to unbalance the fights. The sheer amount of variability here would be impractical to try to fit into a tutorial. The number of things you can do to help win a match - "outrotate the other team", "don't die uselessly in 2 secs", "help land kills on the marked target", etc. - are limited in number, but what it means to "outrotate" or "not die" varies considerably from match to match.

So for me, the problem is that (1) anything a tutorial can reasonably teach is just not worth the effort for making a tutorial for, and (2) the situational knowledge that is actually worth learning can't be contained practically into a tutorial. At minimum it would end up being an extensive single-player campaign covering most builds across every single class, not to mention needing to try each class against a large combination of other classes pitted against you. It would be stupidly long, and if it weren't stupidly long it would likely fail to do little more than teach people the obvious stuff. Just doesn't seem worth the effort to me.

[Arlette.9684]

@"voltaicbore.8012" Suggestive coaching is what they need to be aiming for.Example that could be included in an animated cutscene: "Since PvP uses normalized gear, it is unlikely you will succeed in a 1v2 situation, your time could be spent better at a different node helping your team achieve victory." Throw in a couple pan outs to the other two nodes or even the "map specific objectives" and voila.

Obviously this is oversimplified but it draws the attention of the player and sets their mindset on that path.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@Arlette.9684 said:@"voltaicbore.8012" Suggestive coaching is what they need to be aiming for.Example that could be included in an animated cutscene: "Since PvP uses normalized gear, it is unlikely you will succeed in a 1v2 situation, your time could be spent better at a different node helping your team achieve victory." Throw in a couple pan outs to the other two nodes or even the "map specific objectives" and voila.

Eh, I file that under "things almost any sentient being can learn within 5 matches." Most of the bads (who are likely bad at the game because they skip explanations and don't read tooltips) would breeze right past it. Even if it's unskippable, I'm not sure it would really help the vast majority of newcomers.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@Arlette.9684 said:@voltaicbore.8012 Suggestive coaching is what they need to be aiming for.Example that could be included in an animated cutscene: "Since PvP uses normalized gear, it is unlikely you will succeed in a 1v2 situation, your time could be spent better at a different node helping your team achieve victory." Throw in a couple pan outs to the other two nodes or even the "map specific objectives" and voila.

Eh, I file that under "things almost any sentient being can learn within 5 matches." Most of the bads (who are likely bad at the game because they skip explanations and don't read tooltips) would breeze right past it. Even if it's unskippable, I'm not sure it would really help the vast majority of newcomers.

I see what you're saying and I agree with a great deal of what you're saying, but there are seriously people out there who will play for YEARS and never recognize the difference between something like: "Bruisers" "Roamers" "Supports" "Bunkers" or their roles and how to appropriately play them. <- It's that kind of information that needs to be in an in-game tutorial.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:I see what you're saying and I agree with a great deal of what you're saying, but there are seriously people out there who will play for YEARS and never recognize the difference between something like: "Bruisers" "Roamers" "Supports" "Bunkers" or their roles and how to appropriately play them. <- It's that kind of information that needs to be in an in-game tutorial.

But that's just the thing - "how to appropriately play them" is the problem. If you're the kind of person who's played for years and couldn't recognize those distinctions you mentioned, the level of information and practice you'd require from a tutorial to play one of those roles "appropriately" seems way too large to be practical.

I think the solution is already in place, in the form of videos folks like you put up that cover certain topics. Your recent self-assessment video was good for someone looking to move out of gold. Even so, while your advice in that vid was really admirably un-specific to class, some of your advice might not translate for non rangers who lack the multiple mobility tools you have as a GS + rock gazelle soulbeast on a different map.

[Arlette.9684]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:I see what you're saying and I agree with a great deal of what you're saying, but there are seriously people out there who will play for YEARS and never recognize the difference between something like: "Bruisers" "Roamers" "Supports" "Bunkers" or their roles and how to appropriately play them. <- It's that kind of information that needs to be in an in-game tutorial.

But that's just the thing - "how to appropriately play them" is the problem. If you're the kind of person who's played for years and couldn't recognize those distinctions you mentioned, the level of information and practice you'd require from a tutorial to play one of those roles "appropriately" seems way too large to be practical.

The advanced tactics come with experience, what we're aiming for here is a baseline.

[SoulSin.5682]

I actually tough once of a "Academy of the Mists" ingame that would players basic roles and rotation.

The player would play a set of pré-determined moments using pre-determined classes and builds and just like a puzzle would need to act "correctly" to complete.

These would be divided for every role. Players would be forced to play those tutorials at least once or they wouldn't be allowed to play ranked. (or they would need to farm a higher level, say "Tiger" or "Shark" to skip it entirely).

The last class of said role would be a Bot game with the player against a extremely rigged bot system. Where instead of the player forcing his way trough the AI and kill everything, the game would be rigged just enough that the player is forced to play his role of choice to win. Like for example if they decide to play a Roamer, they bots would deal massive damage against the players at 1x1, yet they would receive extra damage at a +1, and etc, etc.

Conquest is not simple. In a certain way, GW2 conquest is a divisive line between the common PvP game mode (DeathMatch, King of The hill, Etc) and full MOBA map.The game mode don't reach absurd levels of map awareness like defense of the ancients but its not as simple as Overwatch or Fortnite.In fact, Overwatch also has a "conquest" mode of sorts. But instead of 3 points and all rotation and shit, the game has only one, at middle, push the enemy away and win.Our gamemode is a whole level higher in complexity.

@"Arheundel.6451" said:There is no tutorial for common sense....3 people who chase one guy off point while rest of their team struggle to keep a single point against 4 opponents...they are clearly not interested in learning anything

Common sense must be developed just like everything else.Its "common sense" for anyone that plays PvP games for years. It's not common sense for someone starting now.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"SoulSin.5682" said:I actually tough once of a "Academy of the Mists" ingame that would players basic roles and rotation.

The player would play a set of pré-determined moments using pre-determined classes and builds and just like a puzzle would need to act "correctly" to complete.

These would be divided for every role. Players would be forced to play those tutorials at least once or they wouldn't be allowed to play ranked. (or they would need to farm a higher level, say "Tiger" or "Shark" to skip it entirely).

The last class of said role would be a Bot game with the player against a extremely rigged bot system. Where instead of the player forcing his way trough the AI and kill everything, the game would be rigged just enough that the player is forced to play his role of choice to win. Like for example if they decide to play a Roamer, they bots would deal massive damage against the players at 1x1, yet they would receive extra damage at a +1, and etc, etc.

You know after reading this, I think this is exactly what is needed. They actually had something similar to this in GW1, the old Xaishin tutorial matches where you'd fight a bunch of NPCs who would introduce you to different kinds of teams that required different approaches to beat. I'll try to expand a bit on SoulSin's idea and toss a few rough ideas to work with:

• Rigged Bruiser tutorial that wants you to follow a support NPC to mid and stay alive while holding it your color while it ticks to win the game. If the player leaves and tries to go to side nodes, he finds unkillable enemy bunker NPCs vs. allied bunkers who do not need his help, that are fighting on neutral nodes. If the player leaves mid he quickly realizes the support and the other NPC aren't able to hold mid without his presence, and will eventually lose the node. If it gets enemy capped, the player could eventually lose the tutorial. The player and the NPCs would respawn if killed as normal, and the NPCs would repeatedly push mid to challenge the objective of the player. The point here is to stress the importance of supporting the team fight. With a bit of experimentation, the player would realize that using something like the current Reaper for this tutorial yielded better results than trying to stand on node in the 3v3 with a Berserker Thief.
• Rigged Roamer tutorial that begins with a 5v5 at mid against an enemy team that has a strong unkillable support that keeps the other enemy NPCs alive at mid, which is already capped the enemy's color. When the tutorial begins, the side nodes are the color of the player's team, but at some point, 2 very mobile enemy NPCs begin going to decap the nodes. They only decap and then they return to mid. If the player does not leave the mid fight to defend the nodes and/or backcap behind the NPCs, he will eventually lose the tutorial because the enemy colored mid will continue to tick. The enemy NPCs doing the decapping should attempt to do decap maybe every 60s or something, to give the player plenty of time to either backcap behind them or even fight and kill the NPCs, sending them into respawn. The point here is to stress the importance of mobile high DPS Roaming builds that are actually capable of completing this tutorial. Here the player would recognize that the Berserker Thief was better at this job than the Reaper.
• Rigged Support tutorial where it begins with a 1/3/1 split on each node being neutral, and the player starts at mid playing as the support. The enemy NPCs have no support in their team, but they are significantly stronger than the allied NPCs so if the player support is not present, they will gradually lose the node they are fighting on. The idea here is that the player support can keep his allies alive on the nodes long enough for them to wipe the enemy and full cap, and then the player should have enough time to rotate to other nodes to save those fights before they are lost. Eventually the player could triple cap and help his team quickly tick to win. If the player is too slow, it would be possible for the enemy NPCs to eventually send his allied NPCs into respawn and cap nodes for enemy ticks.
• Rigged Bunker tutorial that begins play with the enemy at 475 points and the player's team only at 250. The tutorial begins with the player standing on his home node which is his color, with 2 enemy NPCs with high DPS approaching him. Mid is neutral with a 2v2 going on, and far has a single powerful enemy NPC Bunker against 2 allied NPCs. The NPCs on mid and far are rigged to achieve nothing but fighting each other on neutral nodes. The player will learn in this tutorial that he has no choice in this situation but stay and defend his home node. If he leaves, the enemy decaps and will full cap him and win quickly. If he stays, defends and survives, he can make a comeback and win the match. The point here is to stress the role of a Bunker in outmanned situations. The player would realize that only a Bunker spec would be capable of completing this tutorial. Again, he wouldn't get far with the Berserker Thief.

These are just working ideas but it's something to note for any Arenanet eyes reading this thread. I thought these tutorials would be easier to concoct but when you sit down and actually think about this stuff, there is a lot more that goes into organizing such ideas than it would seem.

[Balsa.3951]

yes i need one too, I play gw2 since the start and i still have no idea about rotation

[xp eke xp.6724]

Not only a tutorial, a instance for training would be great too. Cause you can group up with your team/ friends or solo to learn different mechanics if they do well ;)

At best every time useable (like on living story you can allways go back to a part of your history)

[Arlette.9684]

@xp eke xp.6724 said:Not only a tutorial, a instance for training would be great too. Cause you can group up with your team/ friends or solo to learn different mechanics if they do well ;)

At best every time useable (like on living story you can allways go back to a part of your history)

A mock pvp match option would nice.

[BeLZedaR.4790]

@wanya.1697 said:basic tutorials are on youtubeI would like to see anet take more time on better tooltip description so new players get a better understanding about what is influenced by their trait or even rune choicesand why skill x does 5k+ dmg instead of only 495 like mentioned in description would also help very much so you dont have to look at the wiki to get info on skills coeficent

I generally agree, but specifically what you mentioned on skill coefficient: it is already included in that number.In fact what that number means is (weapon damage)(power)(coefficient)/(armor).The only mystery is what armor weight its setup against.

And then when you addup to that all your +damage% traits and a crit on top of that it is relatively accurate.

P.S add vulnerability too

[Swagg.9236]

The basic tutorial is to just throw a highlighted border around the traits, skills and weapon types that directly or tangentially make you the most immune to damage and incoming effects. After those, put a different highlighted border on lethal-level ranged damage and teleports that can't be adequately or consistently negated except by line of sight. Those two aspects encompass the entire game across all classes.

[Abazigal.3679]

You obviously need a basic tutorial, but i believe this is way too late. It is too complicated to learn in the actual meta with PoF builds, it was much easier when it was slower fights and no OP builds. I mean, probably many players climbed with scourge, mirage or spellbreaker, and are probably good with their builds, but have litterally no idea how to play on capture points.

The best way to learn right now is probably to play a crap build that has good mobility, i.e shortbow thief, so you know when to dodge, what to dodge, when to +1, when to go away, when to decap far point. But if i place myself as a beginner, it's going to take time while picking a scourge and sitting on mid will provide several victories...

[Vieux P.1238]

should they? no it's a waste of money.

[Arlette.9684]

@Vieux P.1238 said:should they? no it's a waste of money.

And so is PvP with it’s current population being as low as it is.

[Deimos.4263]

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:Because it is a Learn to Play issue, there should be a lesson dedicated to fighting a mirage. A little birdy can float around as you are about to activate skills and say things like "no, no, no, I wouldn't do that if I were you" or "wait, don't use your burst, it's a trick"

I would kill that bird so fast. Stupid talkin' know-it-all bird. Clearly a mesmer trick.

[deadpool.7036]

@Arlette.9684 said:

@Sampson.2403 said:LOL come on football is way more complex than GW2. This game is super simple - over-glorified map control at best. The game mode descriptions explains this very well. If someone can't figure out that the game is about controlling the nodes, then no tutorial will help them.

You wanna be good at this game? Two things you need to do:

1. Learn all the cooldowns from all the meta builds so you can pwn anyone 1v1 or survive 2v1 while you kite like an kitten hole
2. Learn all the kiting spots, sit on the enemy home node and give your team an enormous advantage

I am personally not willing to invest my time into learning these things, so i gather them slowly, and I one shot to HEAVEN.

You're looking at this from the perspective of a player that has learned strategy through months and years of trial and error. Now think back to when you first started, wouldn't you've been happier if there was a tutorial that at least touched upon those things?

Months and years? It took me one night mate, maybe 5 games. It really isn't that complex.

The tutorial told me what was special about the map. Boom, done. Priority: Event when it procs, capture points, don't die, keep enemy from capping.

However, I've watched my other 4 teammates run to the middle, get AoEd to death. And then repeat that 8 more times till the end of the match. So.....