Don't like the POF expansion area's very much.

[Pirogen.9561]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"ewenness.6482" said:There is something to be said for the big revenue and activity drop following Heart of Thorns.

According to NCSoft the reason for the revenue drop was the lack of conversions from free players into paying customers. Any other reason is just speculation and bias. So the problem was in the core game, not the expansion, not being good enough to entice players into becoming paying customers. I've done extensive research, mostly using the official achievement boards, showing just how early the ovewhelming majority of accounts stopped playing this game. (hint: it's before hitting the mid point in level, so way way too soon to have any expansion access) If we take a look at the massive revenue/sales drop in the first year, we can see that the core game always struggled to attract players, and keep them busy. As for the activity drop, I don't recall anyone mentioning an activity drop, other than forum posters talking about a "mass exodus" that was never confirmed, or justified, in any way or form.

Have to assume that a lot of them didn't return since the sales for Path of Fire were a lot lower.

Path of Fire revenue was higher than Heart of Thorns revenue. Of course during the release of the second expansion, both were on sale, obviously selling two expansions makes more money than selling only one, and during Path of Fire there was overwhelming emphasis on the gem store, far more items, and more expensive items, were added to the game during Path of Fire, driving revenue way up, compared to the limited (and lacking) gem store offerings during Heart of Thorns. But still, Path of Fire had higher sales than Heart of Thorns.

Mounts. If I would have not seen raptor or bunny in action(other players) and then bought PoF(to get mounts), I'd never finished even core.

Without mounts, core is not that cool. HoT is horible. Instant GW2 client delete. PoF? It has mounts!

For me its "mounts".

[artcreator.4859]

I really love the grenade firing creatures, alone they are not a problem, you just walk straight and they cant hit you, but they help spice a fight up when you're taking on another creature, also in PoF you can just ride past everything, I almost don't even notice the trash mobs.

[Cuks.8241]

I am against extensive tutorials. An integral part of any adventure, rpg game is exploration. Not just the world but also the gaming mechanics and how to best utilize them. Extensive tutorials are imo actually against the nature of what a game is.It's like Hollywood movies. When people talk and explain way too much. "Hello, nice to meet you, now I am going to tell you my life story all my motives and all my thoughts." I don't need to be explained everything, let me figure something out by myself, I am not stupid.

[sewenewes.4176]

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Edited August 20 by sewenewes.4176

[Sobx.1758]

@ewenness.6482 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:

Ye ye ye, as if it's already in the game, right? :D Maybe you should replay the leveling process instead of repeating your false information while ignoring the facts over and over again as you carefully cut around anything related to that from the messages you quote.

It isn't in the game.

It is, the systems, items, stats and what you've listed in your previous posts are already explained in the game.

If you want to learn about builds, synergies, get tips on how and when you should use your crowd control skills

What tips do you need to use those? You need to read and add one to another. There's no tutorial for creating a build someone wants to play (not the build YOU WANT SOMEONE TO PLAY) above what's already available in the game. Any mix-and-matching, preferences about what someone wants to use and so on is up to the player.

or which skills and traits are the best for cleansing ones you put on yourself you have to go outside of the game and look on external websites.

You don't need to "look at external websites", you need to read skill/trait descriptions as was already mentioned multiple times before. Not sure why you pretend it's not a fact and you need to look somewhere to understand what any given trait/skill does, lmao.Just. Read. (...and think)Yup.

There is no explanation of the difference between power and condition damage

There is, during the level process. Just like vast majority of things you pretend "isn't in the game so we need to explain them again between the expansions for some reason".

and how builds should usually focus on one

Oh, maybe that's because it's false and they can focus on whatever they want. Plenty of high dps builds focus on both and have no issues btw.So much for you not trying to push players into cookie cutter builds you want them to play, when you pretty much make up the rules on the spot and claim it's something player should be guided towards. :/

or that wearing gear with a lot of toughness will make enemies focus on you so that if you want to aim for a defensive build then you should go for vitality first and foremost.

Nope, the player can focus on whatever they want, not what you want them to focus on. If someone builds tanky, it's rarely a fact that they aren't expeecting to get hit, that just makes no sense. That "toughness will make enemies focus" isn't a universal rule, so again false information you want to pass as a tutorial to a new player.

There are no sample builds within the game that show you a good baseline set-up for open world which you could then tweak further as you learn more.

No mmorpg game needs "a sample build", what it needs is explain parts that come together and create a build and this is already explained in this game.

"show you good baseline setup""no no, I don't want players to play build I picked for them!"

Literally pick one or another and stop pretending that's not your goal.

None of that is in the game

This is straight up wrong as I keep telling you from post to post and you keep ignoring it. Why didn't you answer to anything I write about the things that you claim aren't in the game, but they are actually explained during the leveling process? Why will you ignore it this time too? :DMaybe you should start reading what the came tells you before you try claiming it doesn't tell you anything. You're simply wrong in vast majority of your claims and that's a fact.

Is this in the game? Is anything even remotely this detailed in the game? No? Then the explanation isn't in the game.

YES, it is. And I already told you where but you ignored it mutliple times. Not sure what you're playing here, but it doesn't really work.

WoW

Nobody cares.

I suggested going for a text-based approach in this game

This is already the approach this game takes while explaning those elements. As I already wrote. Are you even reading anything or just picking out 3 random sentences you quote and ignore anything else?

@"Sobx.1758" said:you wanted to urge your friends to boost or because they decided to spam "x" without reading anything

I have repeatedly said that most of my friends never boosted a single character and those that did never struggled for a moment because they are former raiders and know the drill on how to go to theorycrafting websites. Everyone can read what is written in the skill and trait descriptions but as I already mentioned it, being able to read descriptions doesn't immediately translate to applying the knowledge successfully.

And I have repeatedly said that things you claim "aren't explained in the game" ARE explained in the game during the leveling process and no amount of you pretending I didn't write it in my last few posts will change that fact. If they didn't skip leveling, then they didn't read. If they didn't read, it's not game's fault but theirs. What's not clear here for you?

[Joote.4081]

As I warm to HOT I chill to POF. Every time I play POF I come away frustrated. Last night I crossed a river to the south of POF only to find there was no way to climb back onto the northern bank. I had to swim for miles to find a way while continually being attacked by sharks. It's these little things that make me wonder why they made the map to focus on frustration so much. It's as if they have gone out of their way to kiss the player off. It's not fun and you can't even call it challenging. It's more like the POF map is continuously out to get you.I can't see my personal view of POF ever changing unless they give it a overhaul in the name of fun.

And how does the creature agro work in POF? Are they sort of linked together? I pull and sand worm that in turn pulls and sand shark which in turn pulls a few ghosts which in turn pulls something else. I start with one worm nothing else around but end up fighting a army. It doesn't work like this anywhere else in the game, just the POF maps. Tell you the truth I don't know if they are getting pulled from around the area or actually being spawned.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"ewenness.6482" said:It can be argued that the lower profits were due to Arenanet lowering the price of the second expansion compared to the first one but I can't find data on that. What is shown here is that though following the launch of PoF revenue was lower than following the launch of HoT (since it already started at a lower point) but the earnings didn't fall off at such breakneck speed as they did after HoT.

HOT and POF didn't launch on the same quarter. HOT launched in Q4 2015, POF launched in Q3 2017. POF sales started in late Q3 2017, HOT sales included the whole Q4 2015. Other than that, the drop in earnings was normal because during HOT there was very little attention to the gem store. We got more outfits, including VERY EXPENSIVE bundles, during POF, we got more black lion weapon skins, heck we even got quite a lot GLIDERS in POF. We got account inventory slots, we got instant-level 80- boosts with POF. And of course the massive number of mount skins, including the never before done by Anet, mount licenses adding complete RNG to gem store skins, and of course the "deluxe" mount skins that are overpriced.

NCSoft isn't going to tell the truth, ever. It's more acceptable to say that free players failed to convert to paying players at the rate the company expected them to than to publicly admit that the first expansion of the game (something that its players were absolutely clamoring for) performed a lot worse than expected.

For calling NCSoft liars, honestly what's the more likely case: that NCSoft lied to their investors about the core game (Which went free) didn't convert enough players into paying customers, or that it is actually the truth? I'm not sure why you go all conspiracy thoery there when the data is publicly available. It wasn't the expansion that wasn't doing well though. The game was still selling before it went free, the legendary edition was on top 100 PC Games on Amazon in 2015, which was higher rated than the (then new) Elder Scrolls Online. So Guild Wars 2 (the core game) was selling better there than Elder Scrolls Online, which just tells us that a great number of revenue was cut off when they went free to play. They expected to recoup those costs by the core game (now free) being good enough to attract customers and convert them into paying customers, but that didn't happen.

To sum up a few reasons for the less revenue during HOT compared to POF:lack of gem store items, HOT had seriously less focus on the gem store than POF, even without including MOUNTS, POF had way more offerings on the gem store than HOT. And if we include mounts the difference is just sillyHOT was still selling when POF launched, increasing the revenue of the "POF era"Quite a lot of contributing factors to the higher revenue during POF compared to HOT

One thing is sure. Arenanet nerfed Maguuma quite a lot.

They did not actually nerf Heart of Thorns zones though, so what is "sure" is that they did not nerf them.

[Joote.4081]

I feel POF was built from the ground up with frustration being it's prime attribute.
Take a look at the chef mastery challenge. Frustration on a stick.How about this one. I was confident I could beat the magic muddled djinn solo easily. I look around and not another hostile creature in sight so I start my attack. As soon as I got stuck in along comes a hydra, a pack of sand lions and a couple of sand sharks (veterans). Can you see what I'm getting at here?Then there was these 2 scruffy looking dog things. Easy to beat I thought, ha, I spent the whole fight on my a***. They spammed knockdown so I never got one blow or spell in.Lovely stuff A-net, I award you the golden globe of frustration.

[Sobx.1758]

@"Joote.4081" said:As I warm to HOT I chill to POF. Every time I play POF I come away frustrated. Last night I crossed a river to the south of POF only to find there was no way to climb back onto the northern bank. I had to swim for miles to find a way while continually being attacked by sharks. It's these little things that make me wonder why they made the map to focus on frustration so much. It's as if they have gone out of their way to kiss the player off. It's not fun and you can't even call it challenging. It's more like the POF map is continuously out to get you.

I don't know which place you're talking about, but maybe it's the river where you get the skimmers? You can mount up on a skimmer while you're on the water surface (or, more importantly, you've never even needed to "get into the water") and then hold space to fly up the small edges/riversides.It's... probably pretty much the point of it being this way. So you use and understand your new mounts.

Take a look at the chef mastery challenge. Frustration on a stick.

Only if you want to "rush masteries right now!" instead of actually having fun playing through the content. They pretty much reintroduced it in one of the later LW episodes as a repeatable event and people seemed to be ok with it. At the very least it's "something different", whether you like it or not.

How about this one. I was confident I could beat the magic muddled djinn solo easily. I look around and not another hostile creature in sight so I start my attack. As soon as I got stuck in along comes a hydra, a pack of sand lions and a couple of sand sharks (veterans). Can you see what I'm getting at here?Then there was these 2 scruffy looking dog things. Easy to beat I thought, ha, I spent the whole fight on my a***. They spammed knockdown so I never got one blow or spell in.

This is basically you not knowing new areas/enemies and this complaint boils down "I thought I could easly, but I couldn't" (or "it wasn't as easy as I -for some reason- thought it would be"). It's all learning experience and if you expected to just keep pressing 1 to progress then you and I have different ideas about progressing in games.

[sewenewes.4176]

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Edited August 20 by sewenewes.4176

[Joote.4081]

I spent the afternoon in POF fighting mobs and bosses, helping the locals out. And for my troubles I got a few fancy looking crates. When I opened them they contained worthless loot which I broke down for a few dirty rags. All afternoon for a few dirty rags. I could get much better loot in the starting areas for a quarter of the effort.What's plain to me now is you have only 3 reasons to go to POF, of course the splendid raptor, then hero and mastery points. After you have those 3 things there is no reason for you ever to go back.One word describes POF, robots on skateboards. Has there ever been a worse enemy created for a game? What is it, what's it doing, why is it even there.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"ewenness.6482" said:Both expansion launches and the quarters following them are included in the graph.

Here is a complete and up-to-date list:Quarterly:

Yearly:

Even with HoT still being sold at the time and more gem store offerings, PoF brought in less revenue both during its launch quarter

It's why I told you HOT and POF did not launch at the same time. Launch quarter of POF lasted a wooping 8 days, it launched on September 22, 2017, which is near the END of Q3 2017. HOT launched on October 23, 2015, so it had a great 2 months (including the holiday of 2015) for extra quarter sales. How can you compare 8 days with 2 months and 7 days as "launch quarters" is beyond me.

and the one following it than HoT did.

Not according to the graphs you yourself posted. HOT launched on Q4 2015, the quarter following it is Q1 2016, the game earned 30557. POF launched on Q3 2017, the quarter following it is Q4 2017, the game earned 34903, which is more than how much HOT earned in the quarter following the launch. You know, if we follow the graphs.

Even at its lowest quarter (in the pre-expansion drought) the base game was outperforming the time between HoT and PoF and has been begun to outperform PoF since the end of 2018.

That could easily attributed to the core game not being free and requiring a sale before somone could try it first. That revenue during Core doesn't tell us how many of those buyers, players that spent money to buy the core game, then left after the first hour. However, achievement point totals can tell us that. 70% of this game's accounts have less than 700 AP. This tells us a lot about how much players actually "liked" the core game. And it's mechanically impossible for a player with that many AP to even consider an expansion. This means the accounts dropped due to Heart of Thorns is a tiny droplet in the ocean of accounts that dropped the game thanks to Core.

I have been there through the closure of City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, and Wildstar.

Funny how all 3 of those games earned in their final year less than how much Guild Wars 2 earned in its worse QUARTER ever. Scratch that, Guild Wars 2 made more in the last quarter ever (Q4 2019) than City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa and Wildstar earned combined in their last year of existence. So this "NCsoft lying" isn't gonna work with such obviously non-sensical numbers. And yes I've read a lot about how evil NCSoft cancelled City of Heroes "while it was doing fine", but that's an internet meme.

As an interesting addition, I have learned during my search that the enemies in Silverwastes were nerfed following the release of HoT. I never realized it as I barely played that zone before HoT came out. I actually wonder why they changed them.

That always baffled me as well. The gigantic nerf of the Silverwastes and Dry Top enemies came at a time when they added Heart of Thorns, which included challenging foes, this made the gap between pre-HOT and HOT ever greater.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"Joote.4081" said:I spent the afternoon in POF fighting mobs and bosses, helping the locals out. And for my troubles I got a few fancy looking crates. When I opened them they contained worthless loot which I broke down for a few dirty rags. All afternoon for a few dirty rags. I could get much better loot in the starting areas for a quarter of the effort.What's plain to me now is you have only 3 reasons to go to POF, of course the splendid raptor, then hero and mastery points. After you have those 3 things there is no reason for you ever to go back.One word describes POF, robots on skateboards. Has there ever been a worse enemy created for a game? What is it, what's it doing, why is it even there.

If "robots on skateboards" are giving you problems, try learning how to manipulate their behavior. For example, did you know that when they send out their spinning blades you're actually perfectly safe at very close range?

If you're the only target and you're at melee range they will generally try to use the blades or flame breath attacks instead of zooming around. But if you disengage to range then they will zoom around shooting fireballs.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@ewenness.6482 said:

It isn't in the game. If you want to learn about builds, synergies, get tips on how and when you should use your crowd control skills (with or without breakbar) or which skills and traits are the best for cleansing ones you put on yourself you have to go outside of the game and look on external websites.

But it is. In fact, how do you think all those external guides get that information? Wow! From the game itself! Who would have known?

TLDR; you don't have to be super hardcore or a theorycrafter to figure out a successful build that works for you, the game provides plenty of tooltip information to get there.

I see this attitude (the game isn't providing enough information/practice/etc.) as deeply problematic. Like you @ewenness.6482 , I'm not a hardcore elitist either, and I never judge players by a singular metric. In fact, the best use I get out of arcdps is to see how my very off-meta builds perform on non-dps metrics, and many of my most favorite and most successful oddball builds struggle to get anywhere near 10K dps and honestly average around 5-6K if I'm playing the build to its true purpose (instead of trying to just push dps on the meter).

However, I have zero sympathy for someone who can't read several tooltips and them form coherent thoughts based on that information. GW2 is not a particularly complex game for the non-elite/non-tryhard player. Sure, there's never an exhaustive explanation of each stat given to you by some stupid exposition NPC, because there doesn't need to be. There's an accurate tooltip over each one in the hero panel. The game even helpfully breaks it down between the stat itself (such as precision) and lists the outcome produced by the stat (crit chance) side-by-side. Aside from buggy abilities and the occasional inaccurate tooltip, by and large GW2 tooltips are succinct and helpful.

There's a difference between (1) demanding that players reach certain performance benchmarks within a specific meta, and (2) not seeing any need to literally form thoughts for people too lazy to do it themselves. The game is very generous with information, and tooltips are absolutely everywhere from the very beginning. If that's not a huge tip to someone to think "hey, maybe I should read these, these things tell me how the game works", I don't... I don't have anything appropriate to say on the matter beyond that, frankly. The thing is, every bad player I've met knows the answers are in the tooltips. They just pester people with dumb questions because they can't be bothered to figure anything out for themselves.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@ewenness.6482 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Joote.4081" said:One other thing I would like to mention is the power of the normal and living world story's. I never really bothered with them before but they are sort of a advanced tutorial plus a leverage into the world of GW2. In a feral nut shell, they help understand the game to it's fullest, and I would always advice new players to play the story lines.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1429219/#Comment_1429219

Yup. If you want to rush content, then it's not game's fault despite of what some people on this forum seem to think.

Except new players and those returning from longer stretches of inactivity typically do not have access to the living story episodes. I don't mean to say Arenanet doesn't deserve the money for said episodes. Frankly, they're well worth it even if you don't get them for free. However, new players or those out of the loop have no way of knowing that. They are directed towards the latest content as that's where most players are.

When they struggle with the combat and can't make sense of the story they either quit or start asking questions at which point they are told to play through the living story because it puts everything in context and also teaches you about the more difficult enemies and environmental dangers you have to face in both expansions. Not to mention giving you access to additional masteries that make traversing Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire much easier.

So they go to the story tab and notice how many episodes they are missing and see the price for getting them all then rightfully ask why the story and what is essentially a combat tutorial for the expansion are both hidden behind a paywall. One which they were not told about when buying the game. Since they're new or returnees from a long hiatus they won't know that said episodes are more than worth the asking price. They also will not have the gold to convert for gems. All they see is a somewhat steep up-front cost for what can be considered an integral part of the game. That turns off quite a few players

There should be some sort of stop-gap solution for this.

I fully agree. I'm not sure what the stop-gap should be myself, haven't put enough thought to it yet. But I think you describe the bulk of the issue quite well for returning folks. It's natural for them to be pushed/gravitate toward the most recent content, which will often be very different from what they remember. To make matters worse, it's likely that abilities and traits they depended on prior to taking a break have been radically changed (or even removed altogether) as a result, breaking any synergies they might have leaned heavily on.

The thing is, IMO the vast majority of these issues can be solved if the returning player just reads the tooltips and gains a sense of what still works and what doesn't via combat testing. It's not that hard to refine your build, although not everyone coming back to the game might have the resources on hand to re-gear several characters fully. I think the best solution would be for ANet to somehow incentivize the act of staying in a sort of tutorial or testing instance for returning players, where they can hit/get hit by dummies to get their feel for the game back.

[Cleopatra.4068]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@ewenness.6482 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Joote.4081" said:One other thing I would like to mention is the power of the normal and living world story's. I never really bothered with them before but they are sort of a advanced tutorial plus a leverage into the world of GW2. In a feral nut shell, they help understand the game to it's fullest, and I would always advice new players to play the story lines.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1429219/#Comment_1429219

Yup. If you want to rush content, then it's not game's fault despite of what some people on this forum seem to think.

Except new players and those returning from longer stretches of inactivity typically do not have access to the living story episodes. I don't mean to say Arenanet doesn't deserve the money for said episodes. Frankly, they're well worth it even if you don't get them for free. However, new players or those out of the loop have no way of knowing that. They are directed towards the latest content as that's where most players are.

When they struggle with the combat and can't make sense of the story they either quit or start asking questions at which point they are told to play through the living story because it puts everything in context and also teaches you about the more difficult enemies and environmental dangers you have to face in both expansions. Not to mention giving you access to additional masteries that make traversing Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire much easier.

So they go to the story tab and notice how many episodes they are missing and see the price for getting them all then rightfully ask why the story and what is essentially a combat tutorial for the expansion are both hidden behind a paywall. One which they were not told about when buying the game. Since they're new or returnees from a long hiatus they won't know that said episodes are more than worth the asking price. They also will not have the gold to convert for gems. All they see is a somewhat steep up-front cost for what can be considered an integral part of the game. That turns off quite a few players

There should be some sort of stop-gap solution for this.

I fully agree. I'm not sure what the stop-gap should be myself, haven't put enough thought to it yet. But I think you describe the bulk of the issue quite well for returning folks. It's natural for them to be pushed/gravitate toward the most recent content, which will often be very different from what they remember. To make matters worse, it's likely that abilities and traits they depended on prior to taking a break have been radically changed (or even removed altogether) as a result, breaking any synergies they might have leaned heavily on.

The thing is, IMO the vast majority of these issues can be solved if the returning player just reads the tooltips and gains a sense of what still works and what doesn't via combat testing. It's not that hard to refine your build, although not everyone coming back to the game might have the resources on hand to re-gear several characters fully. I think the best solution would be for ANet to somehow incentivize the act of staying in a sort of tutorial or testing instance for returning players, where they can hit/get hit by dummies to get their feel for the game back.

The tool tips are1) Frequently wrong, they forget to update them when they update the skills2) Confusing if you don’t already know what all the terms mean, which a lot of people don’t.3) misleading, with terminology indicating that interactions will or won’t happen when they actually don't or do4) scattering information all over the place. You have tool tips on your traits, your weapon skills, your utilities, your upgrades. Trying to keep all of the information straight in your head may be easy for some people, but it is not for others.

Personally, I find the tool tips useless. I never understand what they are talking about until I’ve already researched my build on meta battle, YouTube, and played it for multiple hours. It’s only in retrospect that I realize what the tooltip was trying to say.

[Sobx.1758]

@Cleopatra.4068 said:

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@ewenness.6482 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Joote.4081" said:One other thing I would like to mention is the power of the normal and living world story's. I never really bothered with them before but they are sort of a advanced tutorial plus a leverage into the world of GW2. In a feral nut shell, they help understand the game to it's fullest, and I would always advice new players to play the story lines.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1429219/#Comment_1429219

Yup. If you want to rush content, then it's not game's fault despite of what some people on this forum seem to think.

Except new players and those returning from longer stretches of inactivity typically do not have access to the living story episodes. I don't mean to say Arenanet doesn't deserve the money for said episodes. Frankly, they're well worth it even if you don't get them for free. However, new players or those out of the loop have no way of knowing that. They are directed towards the latest content as that's where most players are.

When they struggle with the combat and can't make sense of the story they either quit or start asking questions at which point they are told to play through the living story because it puts everything in context and also teaches you about the more difficult enemies and environmental dangers you have to face in both expansions. Not to mention giving you access to additional masteries that make traversing Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire much easier.

So they go to the story tab and notice how many episodes they are missing and see the price for getting them all then rightfully ask why the story and what is essentially a combat tutorial for the expansion are both hidden behind a paywall. One which they were not told about when buying the game. Since they're new or returnees from a long hiatus they won't know that said episodes are more than worth the asking price. They also will not have the gold to convert for gems. All they see is a somewhat steep up-front cost for what can be considered an integral part of the game. That turns off quite a few players

There should be some sort of stop-gap solution for this.

I fully agree. I'm not sure what the stop-gap should be myself, haven't put enough thought to it yet. But I think you describe the bulk of the issue quite well for returning folks. It's natural for them to be pushed/gravitate toward the most recent content, which will often be very different from what they remember. To make matters worse, it's likely that abilities and traits they depended on prior to taking a break have been radically changed (or even removed altogether) as a result, breaking any synergies they might have leaned heavily on.

The thing is, IMO the vast majority of these issues can be solved if the returning player just reads the tooltips and gains a sense of what still works and what doesn't via combat testing. It's not that hard to refine your build, although not everyone coming back to the game might have the resources on hand to re-gear several characters fully. I think the best solution would be for ANet to somehow incentivize the act of staying in a sort of tutorial or testing instance for returning players, where they can hit/get hit by dummies to get their feel for the game back.

The tool tips are1) Frequently wrong, they forget to update them when they update the skills

Sure, so the solution to this is simply updating the tooltips, not whatever was listed above by another person.

2) Confusing if you don’t already know what all the terms mean, which a lot of people don’t.

Which ones?

3) misleading, with terminology indicating that interactions will or won’t happen when they actually don't or do

Which ones?

4) scattering information all over the place. You have tool tips on your traits, your weapon skills, your utilities, your upgrades. Trying to keep all of the information straight in your head may be easy for some people, but it is not for others.

Because each of them is "their own thing" and each of them can interact (or not) with others based on what they do. Not sure how that's somehow an issue? Moreover it won't change if you just received a "premade build" assigned to your class/character -you'd still need to read all of it and understand what it does. Again, if someone doesn't want to read, it's not exactly game's problem as far as "explaining stuff" goes.

[sewenewes.4176]

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Edited August 20 by sewenewes.4176

[Sobx.1758]

@"ewenness.6482" said:People who I have invited over to the game or have met and started chatting with while playing could all read what the skills said, what the specialization traits said, what the stat portion of the character panel said. They weren't illiterate or stupid. What they struggled with (those who did struggle) was seeing the bigger picture of how a build comes together.

Then why did you pretend that those things (stats, runes/sigils, ...) aren't explained ingame and need to be re-explained in the beginning of the expansion area? Seems like you've just changed what you've been previously saying.As for "How it comes up together", while leveling up you pretty much unlock "one thing per level". While getting hero points, you "buy out" single traits/skills so you can slowly get introduced to them and "use what you've just unlocked". Pretty much a big part of the whole leveling system 0-80 is the introduction that you claim is missing. But it's right there. So how exactly did your newly introduced to the game friends (and apparently you as well) miss all of it? It doesn't get much more "step by step" than it currently is in the game. Which is also the very reason I kept suspecting they straight up boosted to 80 right away and then got confused by "all this stuff they suddenly got".

[maddoctor.2738]

@ewenness.6482 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:And yes I've read a lot about how evil NCSoft cancelled City of Heroes "while it was doing fine", but that's an internet meme.

It wasn't turning as big of a revenue as their other titles but it was still turning a profit and paying for itself. Maybe they considered a low revenue (even if still profitable) product to be a shameful addition to their line-up? To me it always seemed like politics at play but don't think we'll ever find out the truth. I miss it terribly though, along with the community. No one has made a game like that since.

How do you know it was making a profit or that it paying for itself? The revenue in a year was less than what Guild Wars 2 makes in a quarter. And the other two games you mentioned, Tabula Rasa and Wildstar earned even less than that.

I compare them because we don't have access to more accurate numbers. It would be nice if we could see how much of a quarter's revenue comes from those days when the expac was available for purchase but we don't. That's also why I looked at the sales quarter and the quarter following it as that's the more fair metric I could think of, so 37331 + 30557 for HoT and 20145 + 34903 for PoF.

So you are indeed comparing 8 days + 1 quarter with 2 months + 7 days + 1 quarter. And then call it "fair".... We don't have accurate numbers and that's probably on purpose. There is a good chance EoD won't launch on the same day as either expansion so we can't have accurate numbers ;)

There's no way to prove that the quarter in which HoT launched is significantly boosted by the holiday gem sales

It's holiday -game- sales, not gem sales.

So HoT is in the lead there although not by much.

HOT sold for 50$, POF sold for 30$, it probably played a role in the expansion sales (the initial burst), that price difference does make the difference between the two widen though. Of course it's not that simple, because as I already said, during POF launch, HOT was also selling. In the end you can't arrive to any kind of conclusion regarding which expansion had more players, or which expansion did better in the end. That last one is because of the gigantic difference in gem store offerings between the two expansions, so the higher revenue during POF doesn't mean more players were playing. But it doesn't prove the opposite either, there isn't enough data to compare the two expansions

[Joote.4081]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"Joote.4081" said:I spent the afternoon in POF fighting mobs and bosses, helping the locals out. And for my troubles I got a few fancy looking crates. When I opened them they contained worthless loot which I broke down for a few dirty rags. All afternoon for a few dirty rags. I could get much better loot in the starting areas for a quarter of the effort.What's plain to me now is you have only 3 reasons to go to POF, of course the splendid raptor, then hero and mastery points. After you have those 3 things there is no reason for you ever to go back.One word describes POF, robots on skateboards. Has there ever been a worse enemy created for a game? What is it, what's it doing, why is it even there.

If "robots on skateboards" are giving you problems, try learning how to manipulate their behavior. For example, did you know that when they send out their spinning blades you're actually perfectly safe at very close range?

If you're the only target and you're at melee range they will generally try to use the blades or flame breath attacks instead of zooming around. But if you disengage to range then they will zoom around shooting fireballs.

Yet again, it's not that I can't kill them it's the fact there is only so far one can push the imagination. Exploding pumpkins, well okay I suppose. Bouncy fart stones, not really but I can bare it. Large colourful robots on skateboards? Nope. They have crossed the line there from the silly and outrageous to the totally ridiculous. What ever next? more to the point how much more will players put up with until they press the delete button?I am literally only playing it to max out my mount and hating every moment of it. I can't wait to leave and forget it ever existed.POF does not feel like GW2 to me. It's as if it's the product of another company.

[Cleopatra.4068]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Cleopatra.4068 said:

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@ewenness.6482 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Joote.4081" said:One other thing I would like to mention is the power of the normal and living world story's. I never really bothered with them before but they are sort of a advanced tutorial plus a leverage into the world of GW2. In a feral nut shell, they help understand the game to it's fullest, and I would always advice new players to play the story lines.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1429219/#Comment_1429219

Yup. If you want to rush content, then it's not game's fault despite of what some people on this forum seem to think.

Except new players and those returning from longer stretches of inactivity typically do not have access to the living story episodes. I don't mean to say Arenanet doesn't deserve the money for said episodes. Frankly, they're well worth it even if you don't get them for free. However, new players or those out of the loop have no way of knowing that. They are directed towards the latest content as that's where most players are.

When they struggle with the combat and can't make sense of the story they either quit or start asking questions at which point they are told to play through the living story because it puts everything in context and also teaches you about the more difficult enemies and environmental dangers you have to face in both expansions. Not to mention giving you access to additional masteries that make traversing Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire much easier.

So they go to the story tab and notice how many episodes they are missing and see the price for getting them all then rightfully ask why the story and what is essentially a combat tutorial for the expansion are both hidden behind a paywall. One which they were not told about when buying the game. Since they're new or returnees from a long hiatus they won't know that said episodes are more than worth the asking price. They also will not have the gold to convert for gems. All they see is a somewhat steep up-front cost for what can be considered an integral part of the game. That turns off quite a few players

There should be some sort of stop-gap solution for this.

I fully agree. I'm not sure what the stop-gap should be myself, haven't put enough thought to it yet. But I think you describe the bulk of the issue quite well for returning folks. It's natural for them to be pushed/gravitate toward the most recent content, which will often be very different from what they remember. To make matters worse, it's likely that abilities and traits they depended on prior to taking a break have been radically changed (or even removed altogether) as a result, breaking any synergies they might have leaned heavily on.

The thing is, IMO the vast majority of these issues can be solved if the returning player just reads the tooltips and gains a sense of what still works and what doesn't via combat testing. It's not that hard to refine your build, although not everyone coming back to the game might have the resources on hand to re-gear several characters fully. I think the best solution would be for ANet to somehow incentivize the act of staying in a sort of tutorial or testing instance for returning players, where they can hit/get hit by dummies to get their feel for the game back.

The tool tips are1) Frequently wrong, they forget to update them when they update the skills

Sure, so the solution to this is simply updating the tooltips, not whatever was listed above by another person.

2) Confusing if you don’t already know what all the terms mean, which a lot of people don’t.

Which ones?Any of the terms can be confusing if you don’t know what they mean. Precision, might, crowd control, break bar. I’ve seen people ask in the forums what condition damage meant. If they don’t know what condition damage is, how are they supposed to know what expertise or duration mean?

If someone has never played an rpg before, reading the words does not give them comprehension. Yes, a lot of players, maybe even most, have played these types of games before, but not all. There should be explanations, in game, for those people.

3) misleading, with terminology indicating that interactions will or won’t happen when they actually don't or do

Which ones?There are plenty of skills in the game that say things like “grants x effect on evade” or “grants x effect when inflicting x type damage”. But what counts as an evade? A dodge? A skill that teleports you? A skill that grants a second of invulnerability by which you “evade” an attack? That isn’t specified. And what does inflicting x type damage mean? Using a skill that does that type of damage seems obvious, but what about other ways of inflicting that damage? If I get extra stacks of might on inflicting bleed, do traits that add bleed count? Do upgrades that add bleed stacks count?

Sometimes it just isn’t clear, and often times it isn’t consistent. Some upgrades count, and others don’t. Some traits count, and others don’t. Usually once I have a firm understanding of how the build works, then I understand how the interactions function and why. I don’t get that understanding from reading the tool tips, however. I get that understanding of the build by reading websites that list the builds and explain them, or by watching YouTube videos of someone explaining them. I get that understanding by copying what other people have done and trying it out. Only then do I understand what the tool tips were trying to say.

And yes, those resources are available, but that is just an indication that those explanations are not available in the game in a manner that is widely understood by everyone.

4) scattering information all over the place. You have tool tips on your traits, your weapon skills, your utilities, your upgrades. Trying to keep all of the information straight in your head may be easy for some people, but it is not for others.

Because each of them is "their own thing" and each of them can interact (or not) with others based on what they do. Not sure how that's somehow an issue? Moreover it won't change if you just received a "premade build" assigned to your class/character -you'd still need to read all of it and understand what it does. Again, if someone doesn't want to read, it's not exactly game's problem as far as "explaining stuff" goes.

You keep saying “people don’t want to read”. What I’m saying is that at least some people do read it and still don’t understand what they are supposed to understand.

Sure, maybe some people “don’t want to read”.

And maybe some people cannot read. Maybe they are playing the game in a language not their native language. Maybe they are dyslexic.

Maybe they did read and still don’t understand what the heck is going on.

It is the game’s problem in so far as the game loses customers who might pay them money if the game was more user friendly to them. Maybe the cost of adding a better explanation is higher than the revenue lost. I’m not sure how you would determine that metric, however, as I’m not sure there is any way to calculate how many players leave the game due to lack of understanding of the game.

[Healix.5819]

@Joote.4081 said:Large colourful robots on skateboards? Nope. They have crossed the line there from the silly and outrageous to the totally ridiculous. What ever next? more to the point how much more will players put up with until they press the delete button?

Forged are essentially armored fire elementals. They don't actually need the skates to dash/fly around, but it is a natural choice given their control over fire - they're simply standing on their second set of weapons for additional control, while also using them as weapons.

[Sobx.1758]

@Cleopatra.4068 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Cleopatra.4068 said:

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@ewenness.6482 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Joote.4081" said:One other thing I would like to mention is the power of the normal and living world story's. I never really bothered with them before but they are sort of a advanced tutorial plus a leverage into the world of GW2. In a feral nut shell, they help understand the game to it's fullest, and I would always advice new players to play the story lines.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1429219/#Comment_1429219

Yup. If you want to rush content, then it's not game's fault despite of what some people on this forum seem to think.

Except new players and those returning from longer stretches of inactivity typically do not have access to the living story episodes. I don't mean to say Arenanet doesn't deserve the money for said episodes. Frankly, they're well worth it even if you don't get them for free. However, new players or those out of the loop have no way of knowing that. They are directed towards the latest content as that's where most players are.

When they struggle with the combat and can't make sense of the story they either quit or start asking questions at which point they are told to play through the living story because it puts everything in context and also teaches you about the more difficult enemies and environmental dangers you have to face in both expansions. Not to mention giving you access to additional masteries that make traversing Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire much easier.

So they go to the story tab and notice how many episodes they are missing and see the price for getting them all then rightfully ask why the story and what is essentially a combat tutorial for the expansion are both hidden behind a paywall. One which they were not told about when buying the game. Since they're new or returnees from a long hiatus they won't know that said episodes are more than worth the asking price. They also will not have the gold to convert for gems. All they see is a somewhat steep up-front cost for what can be considered an integral part of the game. That turns off quite a few players

There should be some sort of stop-gap solution for this.

I fully agree. I'm not sure what the stop-gap should be myself, haven't put enough thought to it yet. But I think you describe the bulk of the issue quite well for returning folks. It's natural for them to be pushed/gravitate toward the most recent content, which will often be very different from what they remember. To make matters worse, it's likely that abilities and traits they depended on prior to taking a break have been radically changed (or even removed altogether) as a result, breaking any synergies they might have leaned heavily on.

The thing is, IMO the vast majority of these issues can be solved if the returning player just reads the tooltips and gains a sense of what still works and what doesn't via combat testing. It's not that hard to refine your build, although not everyone coming back to the game might have the resources on hand to re-gear several characters fully. I think the best solution would be for ANet to somehow incentivize the act of staying in a sort of tutorial or testing instance for returning players, where they can hit/get hit by dummies to get their feel for the game back.

The tool tips are1) Frequently wrong, they forget to update them when they update the skills

Sure, so the solution to this is simply updating the tooltips, not whatever was listed above by another person.

2) Confusing if you don’t already know what all the terms mean, which a lot of people don’t.

Which ones?Any of the terms can be confusing if you don’t know what they mean. Precision, might, crowd control, break bar. I’ve seen people ask in the forums what condition damage meant. If they don’t know what condition damage is, how are they supposed to know what expertise or duration mean?

If someone has never played an rpg before, reading the words does not give them comprehension. Yes, a lot of players, maybe even most, have played these types of games before, but not all. There should be explanations, in game, for those people.

...so you don't have anything in particular in mind, just the general "something for someone might maybe potentially be confusing!"? If that's the way we're looking at things then nothing is EVER going to be enough. Not sure what's the purpose of that approach.And the terms you've just listed are already explained in the game in a rather simple language, pretty sure enough to have a basic understanding of those terms. It's getting insane how many times I have to repeat this very same thing in this thread and still in the answer someone will pretend it's not a fact.

3) misleading, with terminology indicating that interactions will or won’t happen when they actually don't or do

Which ones?There are plenty of skills in the game that say things like “grants x effect on evade” or “grants x effect when inflicting x type damage”. But what counts as an evade? A dodge? A skill that teleports you?

So again nothing specific in mind, mostly just "maybe something for someone somewhere"?What dodge is? Doesn't the game tell you what dodging is? Don't you have a literal key bind for "dodge"?What's evade? Most (all?) skills that evade tell you they evade. When you evade the attack, there's literally a word "evade!" popping up on your character, what's unclear about that?

A skill that grants a second of invulnerability by which you “evade” an attack? That isn’t specified.

How is this not specified? What exactly is confusing or "not specified" about "you evade => you get a second of invuln"?

And what does inflicting x type damage mean? Using a skill that does that type of damage seems obvious, but what about other ways of inflicting that damage? If I get extra stacks of might on inflicting bleed, do traits that add bleed count? Do upgrades that add bleed stacks count?

What do you mean what does "inflicting x type damage mean?" ? It means you inflict "x damage", which is pretty clearly specified by your skill/trait/upgrade component. I don't see the reason why something like traits or upgrades would not count for some reason when it's not specified ("except..."; "...from using x" etc) anywhere.Why are you so hard set on creating fake complaints and nonexistant problems "for someone that might be existing somewhere and maybe potentially have a problem with this thing that isn't a problem for anyone else"? I don't really see the point of that? I asked you for specifics and you still didn't answer with anything specific outside of "maybe someone doesn't understand this already explained thing". If "applying bleed causes x" is not enough then what even is?

Sometimes it just isn’t clear, and often times it isn’t consistent. Some upgrades count, and others don’t. Some traits count, and others don’t. Usually once I have a firm understanding of how the build works, then I understand how the interactions function and why. I don’t get that understanding from reading the tool tips, however. I get that understanding of the build by reading websites that list the builds and explain them, or by watching YouTube videos of someone explaining them. I get that understanding by copying what other people have done and trying it out. Only then do I understand what the tool tips were trying to say.

And yes, those resources are available, but that is just an indication that those explanations are not available in the game in a manner that is widely understood by everyone.

I asked for specifics, you still didn't give me any. So not sure what else there is to answer to this than what I've already wrote above. Up until this point it all seems to be "maybe someone won't understand this pretty clearly specified thing because I said so?", right? Or did I not understand something you've said here or missed specific examples of what you're talking about? Again (like the answer to your point #1 from previous post), if some tooltips are inaccurate, then all it means is that they should be updated. That's about it. I don't know if you agree with it or not, because you've skipped right over it in your response.

4) scattering information all over the place. You have tool tips on your traits, your weapon skills, your utilities, your upgrades. Trying to keep all of the information straight in your head may be easy for some people, but it is not for others.Because each of them is "their own thing" and each of them can interact (or not) with others based on what they do. Not sure how that's somehow an issue? Moreover it won't change if you just received a "premade build" assigned to your class/character -you'd still need to read all of it and understand what it does. Again, if someone doesn't want to read, it's not exactly game's problem as far as "explaining stuff" goes.

You keep saying “people don’t want to read”. What I’m saying is that at least some people do read it and still don’t understand what they are supposed to understand.

...how?Also lets not forget that it was the response to your complaint about "information being scattered all over the place", by which you've meant (because you said so right after) that "each trait, skill, utility and upgrade having its own tooltip/description" is somehow confusing and bad? How is it bad? How else do you describe what a singular skill, trait or upgrade does? Honestly, I don't even understand what hat complaint is supposed to be.

Sure, maybe some people “don’t want to read”.

Yup, which is nothing else than "Skipping the tutorial and then complaining about no tutorial" -something we've already seen example of in this thread.

And maybe some people cannot read.

Not exactly the game's problem tbh. People with actual undeniable real life problems like that need to work around them by having accessibility tools of their own. This is not somehow limited to gw2 that it can just solve and bringing it up in this thread during the complaint of "not enough tutorials and whatnot" seems pretty misguided imo.

Maybe they are playing the game in a language not their native language. Maybe they are dyslexic.

Again, not exactly "gw2 problem" and something like adding second tutorial between expansions doesn't change a thing about it.The training buildup of LITERALLY unlocking singular skill slots per level during leveling process is already as gradual/gentle learning curve as you can get. Not sure what is this argument about "dyslexia" supposed to be. Those people can and understand what they read.

Maybe they did read and still don’t understand what the heck is going on.

Maybe maybe maybe... maybe this is something you can say about LITERALLY anything anytime and anywhere. All of these are blind guesses that "maybe someone somewhere doesn't understand a word". Oh well, there are dictionaries around, I don't know what else to tell you about that. No amount of "added tutorials" fixes anything if "maybe someone somewhere does or doesn't" is all you'll repeat, right?

[Cleopatra.4068]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Cleopatra.4068 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Cleopatra.4068 said:

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@ewenness.6482 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Joote.4081" said:One other thing I would like to mention is the power of the normal and living world story's. I never really bothered with them before but they are sort of a advanced tutorial plus a leverage into the world of GW2. In a feral nut shell, they help understand the game to it's fullest, and I would always advice new players to play the story lines.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1429219/#Comment_1429219

Yup. If you want to rush content, then it's not game's fault despite of what some people on this forum seem to think.

Except new players and those returning from longer stretches of inactivity typically do not have access to the living story episodes. I don't mean to say Arenanet doesn't deserve the money for said episodes. Frankly, they're well worth it even if you don't get them for free. However, new players or those out of the loop have no way of knowing that. They are directed towards the latest content as that's where most players are.

When they struggle with the combat and can't make sense of the story they either quit or start asking questions at which point they are told to play through the living story because it puts everything in context and also teaches you about the more difficult enemies and environmental dangers you have to face in both expansions. Not to mention giving you access to additional masteries that make traversing Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire much easier.

So they go to the story tab and notice how many episodes they are missing and see the price for getting them all then rightfully ask why the story and what is essentially a combat tutorial for the expansion are both hidden behind a paywall. One which they were not told about when buying the game. Since they're new or returnees from a long hiatus they won't know that said episodes are more than worth the asking price. They also will not have the gold to convert for gems. All they see is a somewhat steep up-front cost for what can be considered an integral part of the game. That turns off quite a few players

There should be some sort of stop-gap solution for this.

I fully agree. I'm not sure what the stop-gap should be myself, haven't put enough thought to it yet. But I think you describe the bulk of the issue quite well for returning folks. It's natural for them to be pushed/gravitate toward the most recent content, which will often be very different from what they remember. To make matters worse, it's likely that abilities and traits they depended on prior to taking a break have been radically changed (or even removed altogether) as a result, breaking any synergies they might have leaned heavily on.

The thing is, IMO the vast majority of these issues can be solved if the returning player just reads the tooltips and gains a sense of what still works and what doesn't via combat testing. It's not that hard to refine your build, although not everyone coming back to the game might have the resources on hand to re-gear several characters fully. I think the best solution would be for ANet to somehow incentivize the act of staying in a sort of tutorial or testing instance for returning players, where they can hit/get hit by dummies to get their feel for the game back.

The tool tips are1) Frequently wrong, they forget to update them when they update the skills

Sure, so the solution to this is simply updating the tooltips, not whatever was listed above by another person.

2) Confusing if you don’t already know what all the terms mean, which a lot of people don’t.

Which ones?Any of the terms can be confusing if you don’t know what they mean. Precision, might, crowd control, break bar. I’ve seen people ask in the forums what condition damage meant. If they don’t know what condition damage is, how are they supposed to know what expertise or duration mean?

If someone has never played an rpg before, reading the words does not give them comprehension. Yes, a lot of players, maybe even most, have played these types of games before, but not all. There should be explanations, in game, for those people.

...so you don't have anything in particular in mind, just the general "

something for someone might maybe potentially be confusing!

"? If that's the way we're looking at things then nothing is EVER going to be enough. Not sure what's the purpose of that approach.And the terms you've just listed are already explained in the game in a rather simple language, pretty sure enough to have a basic understanding of those terms. It's getting insane how many times I have to repeat this very same thing in this thread and still in the answer someone will pretend it's not a fact.

3) misleading, with terminology indicating that interactions will or won’t happen when they actually don't or do

Which ones?There are plenty of skills in the game that say things like “grants x effect on evade” or “grants x effect when inflicting x type damage”. But what counts as an evade? A dodge? A skill that teleports you?

So again nothing specific in mind, mostly just "maybe something for someone somewhere"?What dodge is? Doesn't the game tell you what dodging is? Don't you have a literal key bind for "dodge"?What's evade? Most (all?) skills that evade tell you they evade. When you evade the attack, there's literally a word "evade!" popping up on your character, what's unclear about that?

A skill that grants a second of invulnerability by which you “evade” an attack? That isn’t specified.

How is this not specified? What exactly is confusing or "not specified" about "you evade => you get a second of invuln"?

And what does inflicting x type damage mean? Using a skill that does that type of damage seems obvious, but what about other ways of inflicting that damage? If I get extra stacks of might on inflicting bleed, do traits that add bleed count? Do upgrades that add bleed stacks count?

What do you mean what does "inflicting x type damage mean?" ? It means you inflict "x damage", which is pretty clearly specified by your skill/trait/upgrade component. I don't see the reason why something like traits or upgrades would not count for some reason when it's not specified ("except..."; "...from using x" etc) anywhere.Why are you so hard set on creating fake complaints and

nonexistant problems

"for someone that might be existing somewhere and maybe potentially have a problem with this thing that isn't a problem for anyone else"? I don't really see the point of that? I asked you for specifics and you still didn't answer with anything specific outside of "maybe someone doesn't understand this already explained thing". If "applying bleed causes x" is not enough then what even is?

Sometimes it just isn’t clear, and often times it isn’t consistent. Some upgrades count, and others don’t. Some traits count, and others don’t. Usually once I have a firm understanding of how the build works, then I understand how the interactions function and why. I don’t get that understanding from reading the tool tips, however. I get that understanding of the build by reading websites that list the builds and explain them, or by watching YouTube videos of someone explaining them. I get that understanding by copying what other people have done and trying it out. Only then do I understand what the tool tips were trying to say.

And yes, those resources are available, but that is just an indication that those explanations are not available in the game in a manner that is widely understood by everyone.

I asked for specifics, you still didn't give me any. So not sure what else there is to answer to this than what I've already wrote above. Up until this point it all seems to be "maybe someone won't understand this pretty clearly specified thing because I said so?", right? Or did I not understand something you've said here or missed specific examples of what you're talking about? Again (like the answer to your point #1 from previous post), if some tooltips are inaccurate, then all it means is that they should be updated. That's about it. I don't know if you agree with it or not, because you've skipped right over it in your response.

4) scattering information all over the place. You have tool tips on your traits, your weapon skills, your utilities, your upgrades. Trying to keep all of the information straight in your head may be easy for some people, but it is not for others.Because each of them is "their own thing" and each of them can interact (or not) with others based on what they do. Not sure how that's somehow an issue? Moreover it won't change if you just received a "premade build" assigned to your class/character -you'd still need to read all of it and understand what it does. Again, if someone doesn't want to read, it's not exactly game's problem as far as "explaining stuff" goes.

You keep saying “people don’t want to read”. What I’m saying is that at least some people do read it and still don’t understand what they are supposed to understand.

...how?Also lets not forget that

it was the response to your complaint about "information being scattered all over the place", by which you've meant (because you said so right after) that "each trait, skill, utility and upgrade having its own tooltip/description" is somehow confusing and bad?

How is it bad? How else do you describe what a singular skill, trait or upgrade does? Honestly, I don't even understand what hat complaint is supposed to be.

Sure, maybe some people “don’t want to read”.

Yup, which is nothing else than "Skipping the tutorial and then complaining about no tutorial" -something we've already seen example of in this thread.

And maybe some people cannot read.

Not exactly the game's problem tbh. People with actual undeniable real life problems like that need to work around them by having accessibility tools of their own. This is not somehow limited to gw2 that it can just solve and bringing it up in this thread during the complaint of "not enough tutorials and whatnot" seems pretty misguided imo.

Maybe they are playing the game in a language not their native language. Maybe they are dyslexic.

Again, not exactly "gw2 problem" and something like adding second tutorial between expansions doesn't change a thing about it.The training buildup of LITERALLY unlocking singular skill slots per level during leveling process is already as gradual/gentle learning curve as you can get. Not sure what is this argument about "dyslexia" supposed to be. Those people can and understand what they read.

Maybe they did read and still don’t understand what the heck is going on.

Maybe maybe maybe... maybe this is something you can say about LITERALLY anything anytime and anywhere. All of these are blind guesses that "maybe someone somewhere doesn't understand a word". Oh well, there are dictionaries around, I don't know what else to tell you about that. No amount of "added tutorials" fixes anything if "maybe someone somewhere does or doesn't" is all you'll repeat, right?

You obviously have no interest in listening to anything anyone says. You think explaining things is a waste of time, and don’t care about anyone else’s opinion on the subject. Got it.