Guild Wars 2

Oh another point I forgot to say… weapon skills unlocking. With the previous system it felt more rewarding and it felt like my char was really “learning” to wield and manipulate an weapon. The progress was smooth and gave some time to really “learn” each skill.

I had recently started a new char a few weeks before the path. I could unlock all my skill set in a matter of 5 mins, even before I’d reach my next level! It also helped me to lvl up with the experience gained from it. Every time a skill unlocked I would hover it and see what it’s meant to do, then I would go and use it on first mob I found and see how it worked. I was like “shinny, this skill seems cool.. what’s next..” and then went to unlock the next.

With the new system characters aren’t “learning” skills anymore, they are gaining the right to use them. What if I have already learned enough what #3 skill does? am I forced to stay bored with my actual skill set until I’m 3 levels higher? Taking it to a specific case: are mesmers forced to be denied from having an easy source of swiftness (Temporal Curtain) until they are lvl 7? Not fun for one of the slowest class in this game.

Same applies with stats and traits, before the progression was smother and it really felt your char was getting progressively stronger. Now they are given the right to become stronger. Before it was like your char was evolving and becoming stronger, now it feels like your char takes an injection of anabolic and get stronger all suddenly after a few levels.

All these “small” things takes away part of the immersion and makes it feel like a “follow the orders” game than a RPG, where you tell a story and feel like living a story. It stops being an immersive game and becomes a computer tutorial where you learn about hitting keys (Stanley? You there? :P).

Anyway, I tried to give my feedback with constructive reasons instead just complaining. I tend to use comparisons to make my point across, hehe, and I hope it worked.

Was there any justification as to why the old system was in such dire straight that need to be replaced by NPE aside from “we need to educate new players” ? I learns all my tricks from conventional leveling since game starts. Nothing wrong with it and, as far as I know there was no desperate plea from the community to replace the old system. Leveling to 80 was quite a process, but you were able to pick a thing to learn whenever you want because they were all readily available for the most part. And here now the NPE is here and indiscriminately affects both new and veterans alike. Locking away things won’t do any good and counter productive because give players less exposure it. The only changes that would be befitting is either giving players an option to opt out of NPE when creating a new toon or removing NPE entirely.

Malkavian.4516:

In fact, that’s the reason why I bought Guild Wars 2 in the first place. The Personal Story wasn’t perfect but I felt like I give a kitten about the things going on in Tyria. Otherwise, I’d just be mindlessly killing mobs all by my lonesome for a few months and move on to another MMO.

Yes, I felt the same way. Personal Story was one of the things that got me hooked in this game, more than dynamic events.

Either way, I find it nice that they are working on addressing this issue among many other issues present in the game. A part of me still wishes this could be given higher priority.

I’ve been playing the game since about a couple of months after launch (if not earlier) and i have created about 25 chars for it, though the first 7 were deleted once I “mapped” the game out and saw what it had to offer (had to redesign them cause i am a perfectionist and I think makeover kits were not available, among other things). I still lament the loss of karma and unique skins (no account wallet or wardrobe back then) but not the time spent exploring the game’s world and mechanics.

Fast forward to now, in the aftermath of the NPE changes. I created my 18th character, an asura ranger, then used a 20-scroll to bump him up a few levels. Doing so, got me stuck right in the middle of the NPE, without the advantage of the speedier leveling from 1 to 15 and all the rewards it offers.
Once that char hit 35 and I got him a set of cultural armour, I decided to make a chain of throwaway characters to unlock some of the starting gear that was still locked in my wardrobe. With the last of them, I decided to not delete outright but actually play a bit to see what the NPE was meant to be like for a brand new character/player.

What follows is a rough compilation of my thoughts on the changes brought by the latest feature patch (as well as two bits regarding the april one). I will not address known (to me) bugs like goggles not working or PS chapters being out of order, just the stuff that -presumably- works as intended:

The awesome:

• Crafting recipe stack. Thank you so very much for this. Should have been in since launch, but thanks all the same.
• Crafting backpacks. Another great addition, it’s just what some of my characters needed.

The good:

• Crafting supplies in leveling rewards. It will make things a bit easier, especially for those of us with multiple characters.
• Race and Order appropriate rewards for (some) Personal Story quests. Bravo! I almost squealed (in a very manly way of course) when I saw I got cultural armour and a choice of Order weapons for my characters.
• Expanded Wardrobe. Including minis and finishers here was brilliant, keep up the good work guys.
• Action compass. While many dislike that feature, I absolutely love it. It reminds me of the compass/tactical map in GW1
• Trait unlocks. Thank you for keeping that feature in. It may need some tweaking, but it’s the closest thing we got to the skill hunting of GW1.
• Balance tweaks. While some further tweaking will probably be needed in the future, I have to say I am pleased with most of the changes made. My rangers thank you.

The indifferent:

• Dodge tutorial in starting zones. A good start actually but, to quote a random mapchat line, you need people to learn -when- to dodge, not how.
• Additional and displaced hearts. Don’t really care either way, some of them were needed, others could be left alone. Overall, probably better for new players.
• Trading Post redesign. While it is a HUGE step in the right direction, i think there is room for improvement, particularly in the Gem wardrobe.
• Personal Story chapters. While I understand why some people dislike having to wait 10 levels to continue, I sort of like the new system. I just don’t think the old one was bad enough to need changing.

The bad:

• Dumbing down of hearts. Why? Seriously… why? Do you just want to attract morons to this game? Are new players so dense they cannot figure out they can pick items off the ground when there’s a bright popup saying Use [F] right next to them? Do they have the attention span of a goldfish?
• Unchanged Traits. Why oh why keep that system? Why not just leave them as they were at launch? It wasn’t complicated, it wasn’t hard… and it allowed for far more diverse builds (granted, not all of them effective).
• Not getting skillpoints for (each) leveling. What exactly was the thought process of this? Despite popular opinion, most players can go through life without someone reminding them to breathe. We would not be confused by getting a single skillpoint every time we level.
• Weapons training. One of the most jarring changes for me. It serves no point except to disconnect me from the character. As things were, I picked up a new weapon and learned to use it on the go, as it should be. Now? it feels… hollow

The abysmal:

• Levelgating. That is the main reason I decided to even post this and if I were to post my initial thoughts on the subject it would be a cross between a series of beep censorship and your average Taz sloberfest tantrum. PLAYERS ARE NOT IDIOTS. STOP TREATING US AS IF WE ARE. Timegating serves no purpose other than to annoy veteran players, make things more disconnected for new players and confuse everyone caught in the middle.

…and still no Guild Halls. Ah well, we’ll get them eventually (I’m an optimist, can’t you tell?)…

EDIT: fixed the error spotted below, added one major change I forgot

smekras.8203:

The abysmal:

• Timegating. That is the main reason I decided to even post this and if I were to post my initial thoughts on the subject it would be a cross between a series of beep censorship and your average Taz sloberfest tantrum. PLAYERS ARE NOT IDIOTS. STOP TREATING US AS IF WE ARE. Timegating serves no purpose other than to annoy veteran players, make things more disconnected for new players and confuse everyone caught in the middle.

Hehe, I “LOLed” at your “Taz sloberfest tantrum”. Anyhow, I couldn’t recall what are you talking about there. Which timegated things do you mean? And yeah, I feel the same that you put in uppercase there.

I should have used “levelgating” instead of timegating… and i refer to anything from using vistas/skillpoints/whatever to the major shift in when and how things like weapon swap, profession mechanics and skill slots become available

[img]http://tazworld.t.a.pic.centerblog.net/4f06143d.jpeg[/img]

smekras.8203:

I should have used “levelgating” instead of timegating… and i refer to anything from using vistas/skillpoints/whatever to the major shift in when and how things like weapon swap, profession mechanics and skill slots become available

Ah ok, I got it. And yes, I also dislike those.

I’d feel a lot happier if people stopped referring to level gating as if the game hadn’t launched with level gating…and no one said a word. Level gating wasn’t just introduced to the game with the NPC. It was in the game from day one.

The ability to switch weapons was gated at level 7…but it was still gated.
You got your 3 skill at level 20…but it was still gated.
You got your elite at level 30 (now it’s 31)…but it was still gated.

If it’s abysmal now, as some claim, why weren’t their complaints during the first two years of the game’s life about it. I’ll tell you why.

Because it’s not leveling gating people are objecting to, but the CHANGE in level gating.

By skipping the first 15 levels, people don’t really how fast most of that level gating goes by.

Vayne.8563:

I’d feel a lot happier if people stopped referring to level gating as if the game hadn’t launched with level gating…and no one said a word. Level gating wasn’t just introduced to the game with the NPC. It was in the game from day one.

The ability to switch weapons was gated at level 7…but it was still gated.
You got your 3 skill at level 20…but it was still gated.
You got your elite at level 30 (now it’s 31)…but it was still gated.

If it’s abysmal now, as some claim, why weren’t their complaints during the first two years of the game’s life about it. I’ll tell you why.

Because it’s not leveling gating people are objecting to, but the CHANGE in level gating.

By skipping the first 15 levels, people don’t really how fast most of that level gating goes by.

The issue isn’t having level gated things, at least I’m fully aware the game already had it (as the examples you gave), the issue is how they are being used. The way it was before was less painful and boring than now. Level gating things like utility and elite skills, switching weapons and such was fine, but level gating things like map completion, merchants, each one of your basic weapon skills, trading post and several other things is what is bad. Some of these stuff don’t have the necessity of being level gated. Again, the main complaint isn’t having level gating, but how they have been implemented.

A: “Can someone help me with a vista?”
B: “What’s vista?”
A: “It’s something required for map completion. Open your map and you will see the items you have to grab for it”
B: “Hmm, I don’t see anything about completion on my map… must be broken?”

shadow.6174:

Vayne.8563:

I’d feel a lot happier if people stopped referring to level gating as if the game hadn’t launched with level gating…and no one said a word. Level gating wasn’t just introduced to the game with the NPC. It was in the game from day one.

The ability to switch weapons was gated at level 7…but it was still gated.
You got your 3 skill at level 20…but it was still gated.
You got your elite at level 30 (now it’s 31)…but it was still gated.

If it’s abysmal now, as some claim, why weren’t their complaints during the first two years of the game’s life about it. I’ll tell you why.

Because it’s not leveling gating people are objecting to, but the CHANGE in level gating.

By skipping the first 15 levels, people don’t really how fast most of that level gating goes by.

The issue isn’t having level gated things, at least I’m fully aware the game already had it (as the examples you gave), the issue is how they are being used. The way it was before was less painful and boring than now. Level gating things like utility and elite skills, switching weapons and such was fine, but level gating things like map completion, merchants, each one of your basic weapon skills, trading post and several other things is what is bad. Some of these stuff don’t have the necessity of being level gated. Again, the main complaint isn’t having level gating, but how they have been implemented.

A: “Can someone help me with a vista?”
B: “What’s vista?”
A: “It’s something required for map completion. Open your map and you will see the items you have to grab for it”
B: “Hmm, I don’t see anything about completion on my map… must be broken?”

But not all that stuff you listed is level gated. You can use the trading post for example from level 2. Who said you can’t use merchants?

The text at various levels gives you information about various things in the game, but most aren’t locked before them. For example, they tell you about Asuran gates at level 20, around the time you need to use them. But you can use them from level 2.

Are changes going to bring combo tutorial ?

Sorry, I didn’t word it properly. I just generalized some stuff. I didn’t mean that merchants and trading post are locked like skill points and traits are per example. But the way they are now new players are kind of prevented from using them at certain point. Taking away that NPCs from starter areas is like locking them for me. Of course they are still accessible at other areas and such (TP can still be accessed via menu), so why removing them from those places? Because the level of the area? Then yes, it sounds like it’s somewhat related to level gating, even though not explicitly related and totally locked out as other things. Taking as example that area near junkyard at Plains of Ashford. The dialogs of some of the remaining NPCs are non-sense now since there’s not TP and even that simple merchant there anymore.

Vayne.8563:

Because it’s not leveling gating people are objecting to, but the CHANGE in level gating.

I’ll admit that yes the way they changed the gating for weapons is not appealing to me.
Before NPE the only real complaint I had was the fact that every weapon had to be unlocked by use.
However it did provide incentive to try them all out, because I wanted them all available for my character. They could have gated it as unlock one weapon’s skills (the old way), unlock them for all.

Nowadays, I don’t even attack the mobs during the tutorial adventure or on my way to the first heart.
There’s no incentive. I just blow through to the big boss or do whatever the heart needs.
It doesn’t matter anymore, there’s no reason to try out different weapons once I get that one which has a powerful 1 or 2 button skill.

On the subject of weapon swap, that’s a wash to me. I was aware of it before and didn’t much care for it. Though not being able to wield an off hand was a bad decision.

The NPE did some things right, but honestly it feels like I’m finally “back to level 1” pre-NPE once I hit 10 and that’s not a good feeling for me.

Maybe it is because I have experience with this game.
All I know is I’ve left some games because the beginning parts were so slow just for the sake of “teaching players”. I’d hate to see starting players have that same feeling.

Vayne, I believe I did specifically say I have a problem with the changes in levelgating regarding some things, not that they were levelgated at all (read my second post for it). But you conveniently ignored that to defend Anet… as usual.

Vayne.8563:

Penarddun.6827:

I was working on my new Thief today, and I just did the first group of personal story quests (the ones that open at level 10). After I finished, I felt very lost and then I realized why. When I had been leveling my other characters, the next personal story step was in the top right of my map, like a goal to aim toward. I could try it at a lower level and if I died, go and gain a level and then try again. This took up a lot of my gaming time because I used the personal story as a framework for my entire leveling experience. Until this change I had no idea how much of an influence the personal story was for me as a leveling mechanic.

I understand the reasons for putting the PS in segments, it does make sense from a writer’s perspective so the player can see the entire mini plot all at once, without breaks. I think that is a good thing. But the change in how it is presented, and the complete lack of a PS after one segment is completed, has caused me to log off right afterwards because I don’t really have a goal at that point and “just leveling” isn’t really a goal for me.

I’m not sure how much of an impact this is going to have on my experience with gw2 in the long run, and there are a lot of other leveling issues that I think need to be addressed first, but it was something that I didn’t expect to be an issue yet is.

I think you’re missing the point though. The point is the personal story was never really supposed to be the backbone of the game. Events were. They’ve always said that was the main thrust of the game.

By having the personal story there all the time,. what they did was give people the wrong message about the game. Because at some point personal story ends, and then there’s nothing.

They’re retraining people to play the game differently for a reason. I used to see people post all the time about how they felt that they weren’t high enough level for their personal story, and they felt they were doing something wrong by being underleveled. Having it there, as it was, affected those people, in addition to affecting people like me, who feel like it breaks immersion to have to stop doing important stuff to do not important stuff. Save the city…but help some farmers first, because you’re not good enough to save the city.

But again, the thing you’re talking about here is probably the very thing Anet is trying to prevent. That’s why the brought in the new content guide.

Didn’t see this reply until today.

You mentioned “The point is the personal story was never really supposed to be the backbone of the game. Events were.” That seems like a strange comment since the PS had so much effort put into it. A different origin story for each character, merging into a tri-fold order choice and culminating in the ending story arc. That’s a lot of content. Backbone (I don’t agree with the use of this term, from what I remember of the original GW2 release notes, this game was all about the different types of content provided), or no, there are so many hours of fun from the PS, and that’s what I enjoyed most about the early game.

Also in response to another poster’s statement that the previous PS was too “hand-held.” I did not think of it as hand holding at all. I can explore and roam when I choose. Which I did, when I felt like it. It’s not telling me I can only do the personal story now, it’s giving me story driven content to mask the fact that I have to level to 80. It gave me something to focus on during the leveling process when I didn’t have all my traits yet. I felt like my character wasn’t complete until around level 60 or 70, since I was lacking my end game traits. So the PS helped me not get bored while gaining my final character specs. I didn’t feel like I could do events, dungeons, or WvW because I was handicapped by not having my final build. Had I had all my traits by level 50ish, I may have felt differently about the Personal Story’s impact on my gameplay. But that is a whole other topic.

There is plenty to do after the personal story. I considered the PS early game content. When I reached level 80, I started to do more map completion, really work on my achievements such as diving and jumping puzzles. I started investigating WvW, and doing dungeons with friends, and finally doing some world events (which I find the least fun, personally).

I know some disagree, and that is okay by me. I accept that different people enjoy different aspects of the game. I only posted my original post here to give my personal perspective about the lack of a PS objective while leveling, since this thread is asking for feedback about the NPE. I don’t want to be “retrained.” That’s an off-putting phrase. I play games to have fun my way, not to be trained to enjoy it in a particular way.

Penarddun.6827:

Vayne.8563:

Penarddun.6827:

snip

I’m not sure how much of an impact this is going to have on my experience with gw2 in the long run, and there are a lot of other leveling issues that I think need to be addressed first, but it was something that I didn’t expect to be an issue yet is.

I think you’re missing the point though. The point is the personal story was never really supposed to be the backbone of the game. Events were. They’ve always said that was the main thrust of the game.

By having the personal story there all the time,. what they did was give people the wrong message about the game. Because at some point personal story ends, and then there’s nothing.

They’re retraining people to play the game differently for a reason. I used to see people post all the time about how they felt that they weren’t high enough level for their personal story, and they felt they were doing something wrong by being underleveled. Having it there, as it was, affected those people, in addition to affecting people like me, who feel like it breaks immersion to have to stop doing important stuff to do not important stuff. Save the city…but help some farmers first, because you’re not good enough to save the city.

But again, the thing you’re talking about here is probably the very thing Anet is trying to prevent. That’s why the brought in the new content guide.

Didn’t see this reply until today.

You mentioned “The point is the personal story was never really supposed to be the backbone of the game. Events were.” That seems like a strange comment since the PS had so much effort put into it. A different origin story for each character, merging into a tri-fold order choice and culminating in the ending story arc. That’s a lot of content. Backbone (I don’t agree with the use of this term, from what I remember of the original GW2 release notes, this game was all about the different types of content provided), or no, there are so many hours of fun from the PS, and that’s what I enjoyed most about the early game.

Also in response to another poster’s statement that the previous PS was too “hand-held.” I did not think of it as hand holding at all. I can explore and roam when I choose. Which I did, when I felt like it. It’s not telling me I can only do the personal story now, it’s giving me story driven content to mask the fact that I have to level to 80. It gave me something to focus on during the leveling process when I didn’t have all my traits yet. I felt like my character wasn’t complete until around level 60 or 70, since I was lacking my end game traits. So the PS helped me not get bored while gaining my final character specs. I didn’t feel like I could do events, dungeons, or WvW because I was handicapped by not having my final build. Had I had all my traits by level 50ish, I may have felt differently about the Personal Story’s impact on my gameplay. But that is a whole other topic.

There is plenty to do after the personal story. I considered the PS early game content. When I reached level 80, I started to do more map completion, really work on my achievements such as diving and jumping puzzles. I started investigating WvW, and doing dungeons with friends, and finally doing some world events (which I find the least fun, personally).

I know some disagree, and that is okay by me. I accept that different people enjoy different aspects of the game. I only posted my original post here to give my personal perspective about the lack of a PS objective while leveling, since this thread is asking for feedback about the NPE. I don’t really want to be “retrained.” That’s an off-putting phrase. I play games to have fun my way, not to be trained to enjoy it in a particular way.

I’m not going by my opinion. I’m going by what Anet said about dynamic events. Anet said they were the center of the game. Everything was supposed to be driven around events. The personal story was supposed to get you to places where events happened.

That’s why you couldn’t just do the personal story to level. The gaps were always supposed to be intentional. They had plans to add more events and take some out and change up the game, but it never eventuated.

Vayne.8563:

Penarddun.6827:

Vayne.8563:

Penarddun.6827:

snip

I’m not sure how much of an impact this is going to have on my experience with gw2 in the long run, and there are a lot of other leveling issues that I think need to be addressed first, but it was something that I didn’t expect to be an issue yet is.

I think you’re missing the point though. The point is the personal story was never really supposed to be the backbone of the game. Events were. They’ve always said that was the main thrust of the game.

By having the personal story there all the time,. what they did was give people the wrong message about the game. Because at some point personal story ends, and then there’s nothing.

They’re retraining people to play the game differently for a reason. I used to see people post all the time about how they felt that they weren’t high enough level for their personal story, and they felt they were doing something wrong by being underleveled. Having it there, as it was, affected those people, in addition to affecting people like me, who feel like it breaks immersion to have to stop doing important stuff to do not important stuff. Save the city…but help some farmers first, because you’re not good enough to save the city.

But again, the thing you’re talking about here is probably the very thing Anet is trying to prevent. That’s why the brought in the new content guide.

Didn’t see this reply until today.

You mentioned “The point is the personal story was never really supposed to be the backbone of the game. Events were.” That seems like a strange comment since the PS had so much effort put into it. A different origin story for each character, merging into a tri-fold order choice and culminating in the ending story arc. That’s a lot of content. Backbone (I don’t agree with the use of this term, from what I remember of the original GW2 release notes, this game was all about the different types of content provided), or no, there are so many hours of fun from the PS, and that’s what I enjoyed most about the early game.

Also in response to another poster’s statement that the previous PS was too “hand-held.” I did not think of it as hand holding at all. I can explore and roam when I choose. Which I did, when I felt like it. It’s not telling me I can only do the personal story now, it’s giving me story driven content to mask the fact that I have to level to 80. It gave me something to focus on during the leveling process when I didn’t have all my traits yet. I felt like my character wasn’t complete until around level 60 or 70, since I was lacking my end game traits. So the PS helped me not get bored while gaining my final character specs. I didn’t feel like I could do events, dungeons, or WvW because I was handicapped by not having my final build. Had I had all my traits by level 50ish, I may have felt differently about the Personal Story’s impact on my gameplay. But that is a whole other topic.

There is plenty to do after the personal story. I considered the PS early game content. When I reached level 80, I started to do more map completion, really work on my achievements such as diving and jumping puzzles. I started investigating WvW, and doing dungeons with friends, and finally doing some world events (which I find the least fun, personally).

I know some disagree, and that is okay by me. I accept that different people enjoy different aspects of the game. I only posted my original post here to give my personal perspective about the lack of a PS objective while leveling, since this thread is asking for feedback about the NPE. I don’t really want to be “retrained.” That’s an off-putting phrase. I play games to have fun my way, not to be trained to enjoy it in a particular way.

I’m not going by my opinion. I’m going by what Anet said about dynamic events. Anet said they were the center of the game. Everything was supposed to be driven around events. The personal story was supposed to get you to places where events happened.

That’s why you couldn’t just do the personal story to level. The gaps were always supposed to be intentional. They had plans to add more events and take some out and change up the game, but it never eventuated.

so then, by what you are saying, the personal story was the backbone (the thing that gives the structure) and the events was the flesh.
now, the backbone is leveling or perhaps map completion.

I think they need some new thing to act as what the personal story was trying to achieve, as far as guiding or giving a context to the dynamic events/world. I think that is actually what the new players really needed.

@phys

Well, actually I think that the leveling experience is pretty good right now and the living story guides people further which seems to by the case.

I mean by the time someone is 80, and this point, they shouldn’t really need a guide to get to new areas. They should at least understand events by then.

If they’ve done the personal story they’ve been to Orr which has no hearts and just events.

No, I don’t believe Anet saw the story as the backbone of the game. I think they saw the game as more amorphous with people just running around and doing stuff without a backbone. After all, they only added hearts when they realized people didn’t go places without map markers of some kind.

I think Anet wanted something more sandboxy than they ended up with.

The problem with a Vet player reevaluating the NPE

I was considering an attempt at just such a thing; however, I realized that I would be unable to unlearn that which I already knew about the game no matter now I try.

One of the first sobering principles I learned in my Cultural Anthropology class was the restrictions of the evaluator on enculturation.

• Enculturation is defined as: the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values.
• Now in this case the reference is: the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of The Game and assimilates its practices and values.

The main restriction in developing an equitable opinion and thus a subsequent unprejudiced evaluation lies in a person’s inability to slough off our engrained learnings and experiences established throughout our personal development.

An Example: Edited…My Example has been removed and can now only be unlocked at Level 80 as it tended to confuse members of my test group

In conclusion: No matter how hard those good intentioned souls try to ignore their previous thoughts, beliefs and considerations, they are unconsciously bound to influence their attempt to deliver an unbiased evaluation of the NPE.

Edit: Example edited for clarity

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

The problem with a Vet player reevaluating the NPE

I was considering an attempt at just such a thing; however, I realized that I would be unable to unlearn that which I already knew about the game no matter now I try.

One of the first sobering principles I learned in my Cultural Anthropology class was the restrictions of the evaluator on enculturation.

• Enculturation is defined as: the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values.
• Now in this case the reference is: the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of The Game and assimilates its practices and values.

The main restriction in developing an equitable opinion and thus a subsequent unprejudiced evaluation lies in a person’s inability to slough off our engrained learnings and experiences established throughout our personal development.

An Example: No matter how hard I try, when I get to that first big boss with the scary looking attack skill about to target me, no force in the universe will be able to stop me from involuntarily hitting my “dodge” key. It has been committed to muscle memory over the past 2 years and the fact that I knew that my actions should have alleviated the perceived threat; the inability to get the expected results will doubtless leave me with a negative impression. Even if ones later logical mind tells you otherwise, your first response has been sorted, filed, stored and archived.

In conclusion: No matter how hard those good intentioned souls try to ignore their previous thoughts, beliefs and considerations, they are unconsciously bound to influence their attempt to deliver an unbiased evaluation of the NPE.

Don’t understand your point, you can dodge in the exact same way now as before.

eyestrain.3056:

(the inquest no longer try to recruit you, no golem chess, you can’t feed bear cubs or play as a sylvan hound)

I have not yet encountered these bewildering and awful changes.

Why on earth would you remove content, particularly when it’s some of your most charming and distinctive content? Those quests really did give a new player a welcoming introduction to the game.

Yargesh.4965:

Don’t understand your point, you can dodge in the exact same way now as before.

He was making a point of why veteran players shouldn’t try to reevaluate the NPE.

Rabe.2456:

Yargesh.4965:

Don’t understand your point, you can dodge in the exact same way now as before.

He was making a point of why veteran players shouldn’t try to reevaluate the NPE.

But why not dodge though? New players are introduced to the fact you can dodge at lvl 5, it takes 10 or so minutes of play to get to lvl 5 and not a lot of champs/bosses are in that area.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

An Example: Edited…My Example has been removed and can now only be unlocked at Level 80 as it tended to confuse members of my test group

Lol, it describes what happen when you find a locked content that new players aren’t supposed to deal with yet in this new system. :P Like you reach a skill challenge or goggles and then “Sorry, you aren’t ready for this yet.” (that implicitly may mean “Sorry, we feel it’s too confusing for you to deal with it for now. Try again later.”).

Nothing is going to change until after the free weekend and they see how these changes affect retention. Even if it’s poor I doubt you’ll see any reversals though some more tweeks might happen but it will never return to what it was. Unfortunately my fear is if they don’t get the numbers they think or see the level of improvement this will continue to be remolded over and over again until they feel they get it right, which could very well send a lot more players elsewhere.

I also find all the psychological explanations for people resisting change to be hilariously irrelevant. You can spell out the reasons with whatever logical diagnostic tool you choose but at the end of the day if people hate change for the sake of change the explanation of why they hate it means absolutely nothing to them, they just hate it lol! Hence the danger in flip flopping strategies, it may not always be a lose all lose all but is most often a lose some and then lose some more.

From my experience of playing a new character, without ‘helping’ by providing armor / gear / etc. a new player has no access to

1). Offhand weapons (warhorn) level 1 still drop, while they cannot be used till level 7. Pointless.

2). Tameable pets have mostly vanished from the low level zones. Wayfarer Foothils used to have juvenile ice drakes, brown bears, snow leopards, wolves and ravens. Only the ravens are now left. I found snow leopards and ravens in Hoelbrak, but no juvenile brown bears, ice drakes or wolves. This is a severe impoverishment of ranger gameplay, and makes it harder to experiment with different pets.

3). Hearts have been dumbed down to the point of utter boredom. I really see no point in e.g. removing combat skills while changed to snow leopard form or removing bundles. It also seems to me the difficulty of mobs has been decreased dramatically, to the point of being almost no-risk.

4). Unlocking weapon skills now involves no actual use of the weapon at all, you just need to equip it. I do not think this contributes to people actually learning the possibilities of each weapon and it’s frankly boring. Please note I call it boring both from a veteran perspective AND from a ‘new to guild wars but veteran gamer’ perspective. I cannot really judge it from the perspective of someone entirely new to MMOs, although I do rather think that if this had been my first MMO, I’d have hated it too.

5). I was drawn to Guild Wars 2 because it had so many different things you could do to level, which suited my guild, which is a mix of PVPers (world pvp mostly), crafters, explorers and loot hunters. Your new player experience skips most of this in favor of PVE combat, the thing that frankly interests most of us the least, and only points to all the stuff that brought us here in the first place in a later stage.

Yes, you DO point it out after a few hours of play. But at that point, you’ve already created an impression of what the game is about. Which is at this point PVE combat boredom.

6). I was unable to use the krait obelisk shard in my home instance at level 9, which is apparently level 10+ now. Seriously?

All the rest has already been said before, probably some of this has been said too.
The game now looks as if it caters to 6 year olds.

Broom.2561:

3). Hearts have been dumbed down to the point of utter boredom. I really see no point in e.g. removing combat skills while changed to snow leopard form or removing bundles. It also seems to me the difficulty of mobs has been decreased dramatically, to the point of being almost no-risk.

Aaand that’s pretty much the worst change of them all, along with the removal with the story arc.

Broom.2561:

The game now looks as if it caters to 6 year olds.

I could even say it summarizes how it feels about the most of the changes…

So, are there any further changes coming to the NPE?

shadow.6174:

Broom.2561:

The game now looks as if it caters to 6 year olds.

I could even say it summarizes how it feels about the most of the changes…

And is that a bad thing? I am not a fan of most of the changes myself, but at least I know I am still playing Guild Wars 2.

Thanks for introducing a how to use combo fields/finishers to newer players.

Oh i just started a new character a few days back and when reached i think level 52 or something, i was given a tip in the game about combos and fields after level up. So any new player out there, if you are taking advantage of combo fields before level 52, Stoppp….you’re doing it wrong, follow tutorial, your not suppose to take advantage of these fields before then

Ok, on another note, seems for Anet staff, this thread is either hidden or invisible. Can someone please fix this or let us know whats happening with this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits

You were pretty quick to push out patches to fix the NPE stuff ups but completely ignore the traits thread, why? This is ongoing since April patch

Testing Gameplay with free weekend Alt:

So i decided to give Anet a chance here and experience the NPE with an alt that i could generate completely vanilla thanks to the free weekend. So absolutely no money/karma/bank/ anything.

I played for about an hour, leaving everything except for a few key binds the way it was configured and set out into Queensdale as a thief. I hit level 9 before logging off and will admit to feeling a little giddy each time a new achievement unlocked on top of the normal level up stuff going on.

I won’t focus on the good stuff though. Not because I want to make a negative post, but because i feel if Anet doesn’t hear what could be wrong, it will never get fixed.

POIs: They are hidden from view for a good while and in the early parts of the map, even though i knew where they were, seeing I’d discovered something like that was a little jarring, but I was able to shrug it off. Not major, but something to think about.

Skill Point Spots: STILL annoying to see it there and see i can interact with it and then be told that i can’kittens still dumb. Please revert this back so people can just get skill points when they come across them. Seriously. its just too dumb the way it is now. just let us get them.

Dailies: Wow, ok, i hadn’t thought about how jarring this would be for starting players, but holy hell this was both jarring and could be pretty confusing for a starting player. Every time I completed something for my daily, the normal pop up fan fare, light show out my bum occurred, but there was no way for me to really see what all it was. Being a vet I knew, but a new player won’t. When I got my reward for the daily later, although once again I knew what it was, the new player might wonder what they did to get that and more importantly, are they going to get it again (possibly soon). Please turn dailies back into something you unlock/see at something like level 3. At least then they can get used to seeing it on their HUD.

Off-Hand weapon: Oh man did this irk me to no end. If you make them available at level 7, then just start everyone off with one of their 2 handed weapons. Its annoying to get those messages reminding you that you are too daft to use a second weapon. Don’t even get me started on weapon set swapping that is just….GAH!

Clippy…i mean, the Compass: It’s like…we need to give that compass Adderall or something. At first it was all “Hey dude, go here. Great. You’re done? Awesome maaaan, no go here. its just over this next hill.” But soon it was all, “Dude, you should so go talk to this scout…somewhere…over…here? NO WAIT! Go do this event. Where? Uhm…in that cave? Maybe? You should really talk to that scout though. CAVE!” Once again, being a vet made dealing with this thing’s issues easier, but a new player is going to feel ping ponged a bit. I kept it on though, for science. Good thing i did too, since it was determined to keep pushing me out to things 2+ levels above my current level, instead of say pointing me to the boar and wasp area, then Beetletun, which would have been more appropriate. My only guess is that it still has much to do with where you are on the map and not necessarily the level of your toon.
Maybe a setting that tells it to direct you to actual level related areas of the map? yes

If you are not using the personality stuff in the game anymore, then please just remove it from character creation. It honestly has no meaning anymore and just saddens me to see it there.

Sleepwalker.1398:

Oh i just started a new character a few days back and when reached i think level 52 or something, i was given a tip in the game about combos and fields after level up. So any new player out there, if you are taking advantage of combo fields before level 52, Stoppp….you’re doing it wrong, follow tutorial, your not suppose to take advantage of these fields before then

Ok, on another note, seems for Anet staff, this thread is either hidden or invisible. Can someone please fix this or let us know whats happening with this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits

You were pretty quick to push out patches to fix the NPE stuff ups but completely ignore the traits thread, why? This is ongoing since April patch

what this generally means, is either 1 of 3 things:

• 1) they have decided what they want to do, and no longer will pay attention to what people want until they finish making the new functionality.
• 2) they arent working on it right now, or its low priority.
• 3) they like it how it is and have no intention of changing it.

They will not tell us which it is, because it is their policy not to tell players anything about whats in development or what development goals are.

Malkavian.4516:

shadow.6174:

Broom.2561:

The game now looks as if it caters to 6 year olds.

I could even say it summarizes how it feels about the most of the changes…

And is that a bad thing? I am not a fan of most of the changes myself, but at least I know I am still playing Guild Wars 2.

Well, if they want achieve that and for that the game needs to be dumbed down and look silly like some FB games out there, yes that’s bad.

shadow.6174:

Malkavian.4516:

shadow.6174:

Broom.2561:

The game now looks as if it caters to 6 year olds.

I could even say it summarizes how it feels about the most of the changes…

And is that a bad thing? I am not a fan of most of the changes myself, but at least I know I am still playing Guild Wars 2.

Well, if they want achieve that and for that the game needs to be dumbed down and look silly like some FB games out there, yes that’s bad.

All mechanics outside combat have been boiled down to pressing F, so it’s even worse than some FB games, which actually ask you to combine object A with object B for profit. ;D And the enemies fall apart like dandellions on the wind. Fun. Fun. Fun. Idiocy.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Every time I completed something for my daily, the normal pop up fan fare, light show out my bum occurred, but there was no way for me to really see what all it was. Being a vet I knew, but a new player won’t. When I got my reward for the daily later, although once again I knew what it was, the new player might wonder what they did to get that and more importantly, are they going to get it again (possibly soon).

This is one of the main issue with this system in general: hiding things but at the same time making them available. This causes nothing more than confuse people even more. If the intention was make things simpler by preventing players to deal with things they weren’t taught about, this was is doing the complete opposite, it’s confusing players even more!

You mentioned dailies but it also applies to several other aspects: map completion skill points, vistas and points of interest), googles, asura gates, combos, trading post… to mention a few, not sure if there are more.

It’s more confused and frustrating to see something and get a “sorry, you can’t use it now” than having it always available there and let the player decide if they want to deal with it now or not. Don’t know what something is for? Let it be for now or seek help, either by asking or exploring the UI (hints or tooltips, descriptions, the Help panel again huh?). Making them visible or accessible but locked is away worse than not seeing them at all.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

If you are not using the personality stuff in the game anymore, then please just remove it from character creation. It honestly has no meaning anymore and just saddens me to see it there.

Oh good point. This “little” thing like Dignity, Charisma and such was one of the things that made me like the game. “oh sweet, my char has a personality by them own”. Now it’s just silly to get dialogs giving that options and knowing they don’t mean anything anymore but giving a different response only.

Spiderbite.8049:

Thanks for introducing a how to use combo fields/finishers to newer players.

Can’t quite see if this is sarcasm or not. I found the brief explanation I got at level 19 (or was it 20) anything BUT helpful. As a new player at launch, I knew it was there, but there was no explanation on how it worked back then, and there really isn’t one now. Although admittedly, I’ve only experienced this misery till level 20 so far…

PookieDaWombat.6209:

If you are not using the personality stuff in the game anymore, then please just remove it from character creation. It honestly has no meaning anymore and just saddens me to see it there.

The personality stuff was another thing I loved about the game. I enjoy the character creation process so much. Even though they don’t use it anymore in the game really, except for the odd conversation where it is still there.

I like that I can choose that during character creation, even if that mechanic has been removed from in-game. I really don’t want more personality stuff removed. We have so little that gives our characters any uniqueness.

Penarddun.6827:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

If you are not using the personality stuff in the game anymore, then please just remove it from character creation. It honestly has no meaning anymore and just saddens me to see it there.

The personality stuff was another thing I loved about the game. I enjoy the character creation process so much. Even though they don’t use it anymore in the game really, except for the odd conversation where it is still there.

I like that I can choose that during character creation, even if that mechanic has been removed from in-game. I really don’t want more personality stuff removed. We have so little that gives our characters any uniqueness.

While i agree on one level, I find that it hurts more to see it there unused and and essentially vestigial. I’d rather they had come up with a good use for it, like i thought they might (like npcs ACTUALLY reacting to you based on your personality or by remembering you after certain events) but now its just..i don’t know. Beyond lame.

So, how about those changes coming to the NPE? Have they all been rolled out already? What about the cows and the golems and the other things in the low level areas that once added unique flavor and color and texture to the game? Any chance of these things being restored? Hello?

Tachenon.5270:

So, how about those changes coming to the NPE? Have they all been rolled out already? What about the cows and the golems and the other things in the low level areas that once added unique flavor and color and texture to the game? Any chance of these things being restored? Hello?

Oh. You poor misguided player. No. There will be no changes to anything between the 25th and the 1st or even the 5th. This is Anet trying to get new blood in the door and getting THEIR input (either through words or potentially upgrading/buying the full game), and THEN they will see if something needs changing based on THOSE players. Those of us that have mentioned these others things have already been heard from, multiple times, in multiple threads, as they are quick to remind us. The only logical extrapolation then is that we’ve been heard and that they are not going to make those changes unless those new players (without our input to them) see those same things as problems. If they don’t, then it won’t change.

Agreed, Pookie. I think all of this patch was designed for the free weekend we’re seeing right now.

Maybe after this free trial they would survey the free account users about their experiences and tweak it further.

I’m going to make a free trial account right now…

Broom.2561:

From my experience of playing a new character, without ‘helping’ by providing armor / gear / etc. a new player has no access to

1). Offhand weapons (warhorn) level 1 still drop, while they cannot be used till level 7. Pointless.

2). Tameable pets have mostly vanished from the low level zones. Wayfarer Foothils used to have juvenile ice drakes, brown bears, snow leopards, wolves and ravens. Only the ravens are now left. I found snow leopards and ravens in Hoelbrak, but no juvenile brown bears, ice drakes or wolves. This is a severe impoverishment of ranger gameplay, and makes it harder to experiment with different pets.

3). Hearts have been dumbed down to the point of utter boredom. I really see no point in e.g. removing combat skills while changed to snow leopard form or removing bundles. It also seems to me the difficulty of mobs has been decreased dramatically, to the point of being almost no-risk.

4). Unlocking weapon skills now involves no actual use of the weapon at all, you just need to equip it. I do not think this contributes to people actually learning the possibilities of each weapon and it’s frankly boring. Please note I call it boring both from a veteran perspective AND from a ‘new to guild wars but veteran gamer’ perspective. I cannot really judge it from the perspective of someone entirely new to MMOs, although I do rather think that if this had been my first MMO, I’d have hated it too.

5). I was drawn to Guild Wars 2 because it had so many different things you could do to level, which suited my guild, which is a mix of PVPers (world pvp mostly), crafters, explorers and loot hunters. Your new player experience skips most of this in favor of PVE combat, the thing that frankly interests most of us the least, and only points to all the stuff that brought us here in the first place in a later stage.

Yes, you DO point it out after a few hours of play. But at that point, you’ve already created an impression of what the game is about. Which is at this point PVE combat boredom.

6). I was unable to use the krait obelisk shard in my home instance at level 9, which is apparently level 10+ now. Seriously?

All the rest has already been said before, probably some of this has been said too.
The game now looks as if it caters to 6 year olds.

Just an FYI…a character always needed to be Level 10 to use the Krait Obelisk in the Home Instance. That has nothing to do with the NPE. =)

The obelisk in my home instance seems to have vanished after the updates.

Bellizare.5816:

The obelisk in my home instance seems to have vanished after the updates.

I know they shifted it slightly in the human instance. Have you looked at your mini-map to see if it’s still there, just moved?

Problem is, this is such a mess and over-all poorly done to such a degree that a roll-back or admitting it would never happen.

They should remove any “gates” they have introduced so players can experience everything at will. And if something puzzles them, well… That’s why there’s a “players helping players” forum, and wiki, and tons of useful websites with loads of info.

The whole NPE thing did the absolute opposit of what it was set to achieve. Instead of explaining, you just barred content and game mechanics, making the lack of said mechanics confusing. Imagin someon who heard this game has underwater combat in it. But for them… There isn’t. Until lvl3 (iirc) so then, they take a dive (just kidding, goggles are way too much for a lvl3) into a lake and see they only have 1 skill. What they understand from that is, that there isn’t any underwater combat, just an over-hyped feature used to get them to play. And then they quit. Because the game is stupid. not the player, who may be a total newcomer to mmorpg, but the game.

By thinking that GW2 is the industry’s answer to uni. level calculus class, you made the mistak of treating every new player like a 6 years old. And let me tell you something: it’s not. GW2 wasnt the obtuse and complicated game you thought it was. But it is now.

Sure, there are things you need to get used to and things that are quit different than other mmorpg, but that’s called a learning curve. And that curve could be made easier to get, but not with your gated method. There are things out there called class quests that helps you understand your character mechanics better; and quests that explain skills and so on. Wouldn’t it be better to create a lvl2 quest that you do underwater, like an obsticles course which, at its end would reward the player with an underwater weapon of their choosing + the 5 weapon skills?

I’m sorry, but this NPE feels like something you thought up in ten minutes and implemented after a particularly hard hangover.