Guild Wars 2

My purpose for this thread is NOT a kitteny rant, but to start constructive feedback for the NPE. Personally I feel kitteny rants may announce a problem, but they do nothing towards actually resolving the issue. Any discussion following please keep constructive and on the topic of how it could have been done, and what they can do to fix what is out now (and don’t just say roll everything back, ANet won’t roll back – but they can change it moving forward).

First of all, I understand the need for a NPE. I love(d) GW2 so much that in an effort to addict my friend I bought her an account. Her first few hours (pre NPE) in the game were spent at my house as I tutored her on how to do…well everything. “What was this, what was that, what do I do with this, where do I go/what do I do next” etc. Even with the concerning information I was receiving about the level gated NPE I was looking forward to it hoping it really would make things easier on new players, but I think in many aspects it might have made things worse.

When I first logged in it was on my main and the first thing I noticed was the compass. It annoyed me so much, after 5 min I was digging in the options for the control that was supposed to be there, and rage quitted when I couldn’t find it. I returned some hours later (after calming down) to play with my newbie friend on a lower level character and finally understood the purpose of the compass. I LOVE the compass. It’s fantastic for directing players to new things to do while wandering the world. I believe what angered me so much on my main, which has world completion, the compass just screams and screams at me to do local events. I want the compass to stay.

In order to get the full NPE experience, I made a new ( guardian charr) character and tried to play as if I had no working knowledge of gw2 – pulling a lot on memories of when I played at launch. First off is the tutorial, which immediately tells you WASD for movement. If you are around long enough it will also tell you how to control the camera via the mouse. I talked to the NPC with the green thingy, and was instructed to fight my way through the barracks. Quickly I established you press 1 to attack, and that these enemies won’t hurt you unless you hurt them, so I walked through the barracks to the dying charr with the green thingy over his head. He says go to the Crypts ASAP. Every NPC on the way (if they talk to you) says go to the crypts ASAP. No dilly-dallying, don’t look round, go-go-GO. I went in, walked past all the mobs (as they had no interest in me) and did the boss fight (which NPCs do most of the work anyways which is good else it’d take forever). End tutorial. I received a better version of my existing weapon as a reward.

Summary of what the tutorial teaches:

• WASD to move
• Moving the Camera with the right mouse button can also steer your character
  Possible additional lessons gleamed:
• Red circles = bad
• There’s this thing that makes my character run away and my skills lock up (ie fear)

The next step is to do renown hearts until you are level enough to do something else. So, as the compass directed me: I killed X number of barn spiders to help the rancher, then I killed X skritt to help the training yard, then I killed X flame legion to help the forge place where they make mortar munitions, and then killed some flame legion at the junk yard, but that was going to take forever so I went inside the junk yard to kill X rust oozes. Then I went to the lake, learned how to dodge (I’m just about level 5 at this point), and killed X tar oozes & river drakes. Do you see the pattern? Now that bundles have been removed all that remains are “Kill 10 rats” type-quests.

This test character is a guardian, which upon starting I noticed mechanically looks just like any other heavy class (since the class mechanics don’t start to open until lvl 5 depending on the class). The class mechanics are not greyed out – they are GONE, like they don’t exist at all. The only class that is unique from any other game at startup is ranger, because of its pet controls. (You have to assume the new player has not done any research into the game, as that is what ANet’s NPE assumes). I did unlock the F1 skill at level 5, but based on icon size in the reward window it was secondary to the Downed skill and explanation will likely get missed.

Also, by level 6 I am still using a mace, because I haven’t found or been offered a different weapon. All the equipment I have received in the leveling bonuses have been improved versions of what I already have equipped. As an uneducated ‘new player’ this would leave me to believe that Guardians use maces, and by extension, all other classes use a specific weapon; unless maybe I have to be a certain level to access something different.

In summary the low level/tutorial NPE is: combat is press 1, there are other skills I guess – eventually, but primary combat is just press1. Quests, while not offered in the traditional quest log format, are the standard “kill X things and return for reward”. And other than perhaps Ranger, there is nothing unique about the classes in comparison to any other game out there. There is nothing to do other than grind-to-unlock in this game, like just like any other mmorpg.

Anet has removed, at least for the lower levels – where people are apt to get hooked- everything that made GW2 unique, special and award winning.

Here’s how I feel it should have been done:
More teaching should be put into the tutorial zone instead of trying to teach players in the world. My guildmate put it succinctly that: “Anet is not teaching the new players anything, they are just delaying when they learn them.”

When I did the tutorial level in the betas and opening days there were so many people in there it was a small zerg. I didn’t look about, and just kinda got pushed forward with the flood. In fact I thought the downed state was actually just a phase of the Barradin fight; since I went down every time I fought Barradin. Now you’re lucky to see 1 other person in there. I don’t think there will ever be the large numbers flooding in like those opening days, so I don’t think there is an issue in tweeking the tutorial zone. Instead of pushing players towards the tutorial end boss, the players should be diverted to regularly occurring events in that zone, events designed to teach them basic combat.

For instance instead of directly to the boss fight, the dying charr sends me to the side to help with an event chain to set up > repair > defend some defensive mortars. The player does not have to attend the whole chain, the chain exists just in case of a large influx of players occurs, so that there is something for the next wave of players to do. These mortars are past some sort of barricade – like Ascalonian ghost fire setup to try to cut the charr off from re-reinforcements, this would facilitate as a dodge tutorial just like what is in the open world now. In the human tutorial, the bridge to the fort could be blocked by churning earth, etc etc for the other races. The event surrounding these mortars involves a few waves of enemies – so players get practice dealing with aggro and combat. In here, they can unlock their other Primary hand weapon skills (only 1 weapon skill makes for very boring combat), and pop tips on strafing and other introductory combat concepts (even class specific ones) could occur. After completing one phase of the event, the story tool tip sends them out of that event (preferably during the break between each event phase) that then sends the player onto the boss-fight. The players should have a cursory feel for the uniqueness of their class BEFORE tackling the boss fight.

Possible changes moving forward:

• Remove the level-gating on the weapons, or at least shift it to main vs offhand gating. To elaborate: players start off with access to ALL main hand skills, or progressively unlock them like the old system, and gain access to offhand weapons at some level. The tutorial popup for unlocking off hand weapons should direct players to the page to see weapon skills, and in the case of thieves explain that skill 3 varies with your main/offhand combination. This will also serve to show new players they aren’t isolated to one weapon, and to see what other options there are.
• Stop hiding UI. If it’s “too high level” for a player (like PvP or WvW) grey it out, fade it, but do NOT hide it.
• Allow access to the unique class mechanics (F1 etc) as per the old system.
• Remove the level restriction on bundles, and revert the Hearts so that you remove the “kill 10 rats” grind issue
• Keep the compass, and the way the Hearts shine when you are in their active area. That’s fantastically helpful.
• While I don’t necessarily agree with hiding minimap marks by player level (I believe and have witnessed that if a new player doesn’t understand the marker they’ll ignore it), it does clear up the minimap which might have been daunting to some – So keep that, as long as they can use those marks (vistas, skillpoints, gathering nodes etc) when they encounter them. There should never be an open world item that says “come back when you’re higher level”, it’s like saying “you can’t have fun or play the game the way you want yet. Go prepare some more, fun will come later”
• Remove the level gate on Downed-state. It’s not fair to new players to change the mechanics of combat just as they are getting the hang of the game.
• Add a tutorial somewhere (say level 20s) to teach about combo fields. I played for over a year before I was truly aware of them, and figured out, through a great deal of wiki research and assistance from peers, how to regularly trigger them with my thief. It was very exciting when I did because I finally figured out (other than Shadow Refuge and res’ing) how I could support my party members instead of feeling like a leech/tool.

Many of these ideas came as a result of this (unusually ragey) CoT Podcast #111

Sorry this turned out so long, but I wanted to explain where these complaints/ideas where coming from; that they aren’t just a knee jerk reaction to change.

I’d like to see what other people’s ideas and feedback are, and open this to discussion. Please remember to keep commentary CONSTRUCTIVE. Saying “I hate it, revert back. Period” won’t help us players or ANet on fixing this.