Guild Wars 2

HOW OTHER MMOS RUIN IT or THE ENDLESS EXCUSE BRIGADE

A lot of people now know that the new traitwork has made alt leveling a painful, unrewarding slog for the first 80 levels or so. Especially in the pre-30 era. Anet has explained why they did this. Their idea is that, players were too busy being distracted by traits, so if we don’t give players traits, they’ll spend that whole time learning how to pull off epic combos with their skills. AKA: selective pressure is boredom.

Now, this doesn’t work in part because of human nature’s tendency to take the path of least resistance, but this is compounded by the expectations that…
<.<
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… other MMOs have instilled upon the gaming community. I’m talking, of course, about things such as the following:

#1: A 3 skill repetition that takes up the entirety of someone’s action chain.
#2: 80% of the game is end game, and leveling is just a time tax to get to the fun part.
#3: Classes will naturally level themselves out to fulfill their hard role (part of the 14/14/14/14/14/14 issue)
#4: All non DPS dedicated specs being a boring trudge through the muddy terrain that is conventional leveling.
#5: Terrible random number generators that range from 0 to maximum damage (in the hundreds).
#6: Endless gear tiers that trivialize content while simultaneously making things too hard to go forward.
#7: Cheaters…
#8: You’re supposed to face tank unavoidable deeps while other people support you.
#9: Maximum damage is achievable at distances, since melee fighting is reserved for other classes.

This is important, because if people come to GW2 with the experience or expectations of other MMOs in mind, then they will have over half a dozen legitimate excuses to shut their mind down, and just signet warrior through the entire leveling experience. Remember: the inspiration for players to learn in this game is boredom, so if they have any mindset other than “I should use this terrible time to learn everything about the class, including research other classes and how all the game mechanics work on different websites”, then they aren’t going to get anything out of it.

You’d be amazed how many people can play GW2 while simultaneously watching the bachelorette. They’ll grind themselves to level 80, and of course there isn’t anything in the overworld to discourage being a signet warrior, so they’ll never change. In order for a player to realize that active defense is king, you’ll have to fight against every single one of these preconceived notions about MMOs. Otherwise, players will learn nothing.

THE TROUBLING PRINCIPLES

Being both in college and been a college tutor, I’ve always had very strong opinions about the education system, primarily because I’ve been on both sides of the river. So, I tend to see what works and what doesn’t work.

Social Darwinism doesn’t work. Where as most instruction would go along the lines of “tell peeps da stuffz, yo”, social darwinism works through the philosophy of “Don’t tell, punish for not knowing”. In this case, the punishment is boredom through leveling then unexplained hostility from other players followed by unexplained failure. One particular professor I had (art appreciation) was proud of this, literally to the point of proclaiming “you should already know art!”, giving us open ended essay tests, and boasting about how ill will makes him a great professor.

The biggest problem is that the difficulty dissonance and community division drives away players. Without proper instruction, there’s nothing to differentiate between a call to learn vs. a call to stop playing the game and go do something else. The worst sensation anyone can ever have at a game is frustration, and that is exactly what difficulty dissonance causes.

I have to wonder what is so bad about just telling players how the game works, or how a class works. Anet refuses to touch this issue with a 10 foot pole.

HOW DO I FIX IT!!!

There probably isn’t one way that’ll work for everyone, but there are a few things that will certainly help.

#1: No stupid and arbitrary limitations.

The good news is, Anet has moved forward with some of these changes already, so it isn’t all doom and gloom. The removal of shared global procs for sigils was a step in the right direction, but there are other things that are just plain bothersome. For example, take the condition and boon duration cap. It is set at 100% (some exceptions apply), but I can’t find a good reason why it can’t just go up to 115%, or 125%. I don’t know of any other stat that has such a hard cap like this.

Removal of limitations means less blocks for players to stumble upon.

#2: In-game manual. I should never have to tab out to learn something about the game. The in-game manual should explain all of the following:

Basic gaming philosophy
-lack of trinity
-lack of dedicated roles
-lack stringent gear requirements
Experience
-how everything gives it
Conditions and what they do
-Condition cap
-Condition removal mechanics
-Condition duration
Blocks, evades, invulnerability.
-Differences between the three
-How endurance and vigor work
-What goes through each
Melee vs. Range
-Melee does more damage
-Difference between melee, spell, and projectiles
Boons and what they do
-How they stack
-How they are removed
Combo Fields
Combo Finishers
Dynamic Events
-How scaling works, even when dead
-How rewards work
-Downscaling
Cleave and AoE limits
Salvaging
UW combat
-differences in targeting and skills
Generalized overview of class specifics
-armor and health
-primary strengths and utilities
-class weaknesses
-combo fields and finishers
Finally, compendium of in-game formula
-Damage
-Crit chance
-Crit damage
-Formula for each condition
-Toughness/Armor and how they work
-Vitality and Health
Emotes

If there is anything from this list that is missing or you would like to add, please let me know.

#3: Better conveyance.

A)Ability to reduce particle effects to nearly none.
B)Cast Bars for big attacks
C)Indicators for unblockable attacks
D)Larger enemy models, as to see the telegraphs
E)Indicate enemy invulnerability periods and reflect periods better.

#4: Change how fields are displayed. Currently, we get red rings for damage, with a red/orange blotch for certain enemies, and all friendly fields are white. This… is not a good system. So, my suggestion is that all enemy damage fields become those red/orage blotches, and instead each kind of combo field gets its own individually colored ring. Red for fire, light blue for ice, purple of ethereal, black for dark, gray for smoke, dark blue for water, yellow for light, etc.

#5: There should be in-game tutorial missions that go over the basics of combat.

#6: Target HP should be displayed when their nameplate is scrolled over with the mouse. Not necessary for PVP.

#7: Bind the sheath weapon tool automatically for new players. Just pick any key not currently in use through the default settings.

#8: Set up some basic tutorial videos on the main website that will give class specific instructions on the various tricks and combos that class can do. Have them clearly labeled as “guides”.

#9: For goodness sakes, have the foreign language filter set to off by default. Seriously.

EDIT: NOW I REMEMBER WHAT TO PUT HERE! THEORY STUFFS

O.K. Anet has talked about increasing the difficulty in the game, mostly through new content. Now, currently their selective pressure to encourage new players to improve is through boredom: give them nothing, and let them experiment with their skills first.

This reminds me a bit about the videos I saw during the beta, where the enemies were quite a bit stronger than they are right now. Enemies would, by default, kill a player if the player just stood there and attacked in melee range. So, to survive, players would have to use different attacks and skills to mitigate enemy attacks, leading them to victory.

Now, although I am still not a fan of the social darwin aspect, a game system that is more hostile but has less dissonance would do a better job of encouraging players to learn content. The curve would be a bit steeper, but also less selective to different game content. With proper instruction, this may be an option.

This has plenty of caveats, though. Players are currently very familiar with the lax version of the game, so they would experience a global difficulty shock. This also decreases the friendlyness to the casual market, and may drive away players who wouldn’t be satisfied with the game requiring more skill on the open world.

Because of this, I’m hesitant to suggest such a change. This falls into the “solution may be worse than the problem” category.

EDIT:

Gearbox.2748:

Key point missing.: Serious lack of usable data in the combat log.
In just about any game with a combat log; you have a fairly size-able data to go back and read after a fight.
Information gained there helps players when they are killed by x. or y was ineffective against a monster..
Usually in fight you do not have time to figure out exactly what happened, and here in gw2 you mostly can’t even get usable data after to improve on or figure out a mechanism.

Though I personally don’t care much for the extra data, I can’t find a good reason to dismiss this idea, so it gets in.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to know squat about how to play the game.

I stopped reading right here and I will not read further because this sentence alone makes me think the rest of the OP is going to be bad.

Amended statement:
Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to be as skilled as the top 5% of us.

This is going to blow…your…freakin…mind…

But the game’s easy. People don’t need to be “Top Ten” and theorycrafters to do the content because the content is that menial. Much like other games, the challenge comes from self-deprivation and personal goal setting. I’ve played a gratuitous amount of games (granted I’ve only touched three MMOs in my entire life, but I digress) and in every single game I can tell you there’s a challenge that emerges from personal handicaps.

What you think is “people knowing how to play the game” is, in fact, an outline of the learning curve – a phenomenon that exists far outside of just Guild Wars 2. As far as most of those examples go, they seem to just be shy of not understanding a certain boon or mechanic, which happens a lot when people are new or they are visually limited by stacking and having a narrow field of vision.

A classic example I’ve always used is the game of BioShock 2. I ran around in Free-for-All multiplayer mode with Slugger and often went 20:0. That didn’t mean I knew any more about the game than other players, it just meant I was better at Sluggering than them and I went further up the learning curve.

Against what some people like to believe, some people really can’t progress up the learning curve because they are incapable. It only seems to echo loudly throughout GW2 though…I guess because the forums on the website allow people to be a bit more vocal.

Nice read. I’ll highlight the issue of conveyance, and even more specifically, particle blur. ANet set out to design a game with the intent that players would watch the action onscreen rather than their UI. They then made what’s happening on screen massively unappealing to actually look at. That’s in addition to the fog-of-war effect that the particle blur produces. Massive design gaff, but not the only one.

Guild Wars 2 is the only MMO I’ve ever played that didn’t have a tutorial. No, there’s a story intro stage that teaches players absolutely nothing but how to use 1, and that red circles are bad. From there, players are put into the wide open world, where we can do amazing things like learn about norn totems or help out on various farms with menial tasks. Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to know squat about how to play the game.

I stopped here because, no offense, it doesn’t sound like you’ve played many MMOs at all. Most of them are more or less the basics and then crowd sourcing knowledge. That’s intentional to push the social aspect. It’s been done since WoW and god help you if you didn’t know something in Everquest.

@Hannah

There’s plenty people who do not fall under the category of who you describe.
The ‘’learning curve’’ does not apply to everyone, and that is mostly for a simple reason.
You seem to think that mechanical skill = learning curve. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Learning how the game works is the biggest issue that we’re discussing here. Not so much that people can’t perform well.

I do have to note that so far every piece of content I’ve played through was easy to medium in difficulty at most. The more ‘’hard-core’’ events right now, such as Tequatl and the Three Headed Wurm, are in a state where they aren’t hard. It’s just organising and knowledge that is the issue. Either you don’t have enough people willing to cooperate, or they don’t know what is expected of them. That is not to say they can’t do it or they can’t learn how to do it.

@OP

Biggest issue I have right now is poor display of what’s going on.
Ask people what the visual difference between a symbol of protection or symbol of wrath is. I doubt anyone will know.
This puts combat more into a state where you expect certain things from certain people. For instance: I expect a guardian to give me aegis to block important attacks.
Like in CoE, when you’re trying to burn down the Destroyer boss in one attempt. There’s a ’’Dragon’s Tooth’’ falling from the sky that does knockdown. Plenty of guardians I’ve been don’t know this. And plenty of people I’ve given aegis don’t realise they don’t need to dodge.

hannah mee.7925:

I stopped reading right here and I will not read further because this sentence alone makes me think the rest of the OP is going to be bad.

Amended statement:
Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to be as skilled as the top 5% of us.

This is going to blow…your…freakin…mind…

But the game’s easy. People don’t need to be “Top Ten” and theorycrafters to do the content because the content is that menial. Much like other games, the challenge comes from self-deprivation and personal goal setting. I’ve played a gratuitous amount of games (granted I’ve only touched three MMOs in my entire life, but I digress) and in every single game I can tell you there’s a challenge that emerges from personal handicaps.

What you think is “people knowing how to play the game” is, in fact, an outline of the learning curve – a phenomenon that exists far outside of just Guild Wars 2. As far as most of those examples go, they seem to just be shy of not understanding a certain boon or mechanic, which happens a lot when people are new or they are visually limited by stacking and having a narrow field of vision.

A classic example I’ve always used is the game of BioShock 2. I ran around in Free-for-All multiplayer mode with Slugger and often went 20:0. That didn’t mean I knew any more about the game than other players, it just meant I was better at Sluggering than them and I went further up the learning curve.

Against what some people like to believe, some people really can’t progress up the learning curve because they are incapable. It only seems to echo loudly throughout GW2 though…I guess because the forums on the website allow people to be a bit more vocal.

The biggest problem with your assertion is that Anet has already said that this is a problem. They’re already working on it by idiot-proofing various aspects of the game (sigil rework, and trait rework). They have also said that they are making new content harder, with the hopes that the increased difficulty will encourage players to explore more tactics and options within their own class.

Anyway, there is something I mention in the thread, and I didn’t talk about it much since it delves deeply into balance issues, but it is difficulty dissonance. That is, the drastic change in difficulty between different forms of content. The wider this gap is, the more “difficulty shock” a player gets when exploring different content. This… presents an issue from a designer perspective, because it is hard to design content that is both faceroll and face smashing at the same time. So, the designer either has to cater to a crowd, or they have to try and compromise and disappoint everyone.

hannah mee.7925:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to know squat about how to play the game.

I stopped reading right here and I will not read further because this sentence alone makes me think the rest of the OP is going to be bad.

Amended statement:
Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to be as skilled as the top 5% of us.

This is going to blow…your…freakin…mind…

But the game’s easy. People don’t need to be “Top Ten” and theorycrafters to do the content because the content is that menial. Much like other games, the challenge comes from self-deprivation and personal goal setting. I’ve played a gratuitous amount of games (granted I’ve only touched three MMOs in my entire life, but I digress) and in every single game I can tell you there’s a challenge that emerges from personal handicaps.

What you think is “people knowing how to play the game” is, in fact, an outline of the learning curve – a phenomenon that exists far outside of just Guild Wars 2. As far as most of those examples go, they seem to just be shy of not understanding a certain boon or mechanic, which happens a lot when people are new or they are visually limited by stacking and having a narrow field of vision.

A classic example I’ve always used is the game of BioShock 2. I ran around in Free-for-All multiplayer mode with Slugger and often went 20:0. That didn’t mean I knew any more about the game than other players, it just meant I was better at Sluggering than them and I went further up the learning curve.

Against what some people like to believe, some people really can’t progress up the learning curve because they are incapable. It only seems to echo loudly throughout GW2 though…I guess because the forums on the website allow people to be a bit more vocal.

you should have read the rest, although it was long, i think it wasnt super boring.

Basically a lot of what he is saying is accurate.
yes the game is easy, and they had to set it this way because they didnt teach people how to play the game. Better they cruise through everything than they die repeatedly. But if they trained people how to play better, they would play better.

And its not all sluggering, there are somethings that are just knowledge based. Like how to do blast finishers.

Gw2 really suffers from lack of clarity, and a lot of this came after the game came out, they have messed with a great amount of numbers/aoes special properties, without adding any tells.

Basically everything he says is right, however correcting it would probably take them forever.

I would say the priority would be to create clear tells for whats going on.
They also (its too late now) should have probably used the low level trait system as a teaching tool.

oh wells.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

hannah mee.7925:

I stopped reading right here and I will not read further because this sentence alone makes me think the rest of the OP is going to be bad.

Amended statement:
Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to be as skilled as the top 5% of us.

This is going to blow…your…freakin…mind…

But the game’s easy. People don’t need to be “Top Ten” and theorycrafters to do the content because the content is that menial. Much like other games, the challenge comes from self-deprivation and personal goal setting. I’ve played a gratuitous amount of games (granted I’ve only touched three MMOs in my entire life, but I digress) and in every single game I can tell you there’s a challenge that emerges from personal handicaps.

What you think is “people knowing how to play the game” is, in fact, an outline of the learning curve – a phenomenon that exists far outside of just Guild Wars 2. As far as most of those examples go, they seem to just be shy of not understanding a certain boon or mechanic, which happens a lot when people are new or they are visually limited by stacking and having a narrow field of vision.

A classic example I’ve always used is the game of BioShock 2. I ran around in Free-for-All multiplayer mode with Slugger and often went 20:0. That didn’t mean I knew any more about the game than other players, it just meant I was better at Sluggering than them and I went further up the learning curve.

Against what some people like to believe, some people really can’t progress up the learning curve because they are incapable. It only seems to echo loudly throughout GW2 though…I guess because the forums on the website allow people to be a bit more vocal.

The biggest problem with your assertion is that Anet has already said that this is a problem. They’re already working on it by idiot-proofing various aspects of the game (sigil rework, and trait rework). They have also said that they are making new content harder, with the hopes that the increased difficulty will encourage players to explore more tactics and options within their own class.

Anyway, there is something I mention in the thread, and I didn’t talk about it much since it delves deeply into balance issues, but it is difficulty dissonance. That is, the drastic change in difficulty between different forms of content. The wider this gap is, the more “difficulty shock” a player gets when exploring different content. This… presents an issue from a designer perspective, because it is hard to design content that is both faceroll and face smashing at the same time. So, the designer either has to cater to a crowd, or they have to try and compromise and disappoint everyone.

yup, this is another big issue. GW2 generally goes from auto pilot to master flyer. You can get from level 1-80 learning very little about the game mechanics.
Then you go to a dungeon and evryones dead.

Adjusting numbers was their last solution, but its a bad solution, because it actually lowers the players need to learn how to play.

I could have sworn I posted this before. Something must have gone wrong.

OP – what I believe is that you can’t really fix bad players because they won’t put in the time and effort to get good.
How do you fix the " it’s just a game man, doesn’t matter if I’m good or not, I play it for the lulz" mentality?

Key point missing.: Serious lack of usable data in the combat log.
In just about any game with a combat log; you have a fairly size-able data to go back and read after a fight.
Information gained there helps players when they are killed by x. or y was ineffective against a monster..
Usually in fight you do not have time to figure out exactly what happened, and here in gw2 you mostly can’t even get usable data after to improve on or figure out a mechanism.

Harper.4173:

I could have sworn I posted this before. Something must have gone wrong.

OP – what I believe is that you can’t really fix bad players because they won’t put in the time and effort to get good.
How do you fix the " it’s just a game man, doesn’t matter if I’m good or not, I play it for the lulz" mentality?

You are far underestimating the human ability. The key to what he is saying here, is many people just have no idea at all whats going on.
Is a combo feild really hard? no its not, however learning about a combo field, isnt something that would easily happen in game.
most finishers are hidden information, or have no tells
some fields have poor tells
much of what they do isnt clearly represented.

point is, you are right many people arent going to go out of their way to learn, thats why you teach them without making them go out of their way. Or you make it so that they must learn in order to succeed.
FFXI had like 2 million players? something like that, you couldnt get past like level 20 without learning how to play at a level that is higher than is required to play GW2 level 70 content. I will say that FFXI would probably now be placed in the hardcore game category, but i didnt think so at the time.

point is,
people would play at least somewhat better if the game was A) clearer oractually taught them game mechanics through play. Wildstar does a very good job of both. My guess is the same exact player will be much better at playing wildstar at cap than a GW2 player at cap.

I read the whole post and I agree with you, OP, on pretty much all of it.

I also kind of agree with you, Hannah, that the game isn’t actually hard, and that’s true for anybody who makes a basic effort to understand it, but a central issue the OP raised was that at no point during the leveling process is it made clear that the bare minimum amount of effort will suffice “for now,” but you’d better know which skills block, reflect and grant vigor (wot? vigor?) when we throw you in with Lupicus.

My wife and I started played this game at head start and we both still play. Neither of us are GWAMMs or anything, but she even less so, simply because she has fun soloing in open world PvE and has found no reason to branch out beyond that. I have done pretty much all of the content the game offers, mostly because I must have “all the skins.”

Anyway, about a month ago, we were both just relaxing, probably getting dailies done or something mindless, and she asked me what a combo field was. That is a problem.

Harper.4173:

I could have sworn I posted this before. Something must have gone wrong.

OP – what I believe is that you can’t really fix bad players because they won’t put in the time and effort to get good.
How do you fix the " it’s just a game man, doesn’t matter if I’m good or not, I play it for the lulz" mentality?

There’s actually a teaching philosophy I’ve heard about a few times. I think it is Buddhist in origin. Anyway, it goes something like this: A good teacher can teach without the student knowing that he is learning.

There is an expectation in the game of laziness, and this expectation is vindicated regularly. But, if the game had a different expectation… you see where I am going with this.

Anyway, this actually leads into another suggestion I had awhile ago regarding the zerker meta, in which I suggested that the game be harder in specific ways to encourage more build diversity. But, the more I thought about this suggestion, the more I realized that there is a really, really big obstacle to just making the game harder. That obstacle being that it is quite hard to get good at the game. Once you know everything it is pretty easy, but knowing everything is a challenge that requires in-depth research and repetition of the content. The least one can do is amend the whole “extraneous research” aspect, and make the learning curve more about practice and learning enemies.

Heck, I’m not even “good” at the game. I just let perseverance and problem solving skills carry me through most stuff. I’m the most clumsy and haphazard player I know, but I’m darn near unstoppable if you give me time to think.

I don’t think I can “fix everyone” in a certain extent, but I’ve certainly encountered a large enough group of players who’s biggest fault is that they don’t know whats going on.

Let me tell you the story of Fading Frost, a sylvari necromancer, created at release, that somehow managed to get to lvl 80, using only staff and trident. She had no idea about combo fields, might stacking, skipping nor did she know what vigor or fury were. At level 80, she began aquiring her exotic armor, an activity better described as dying in Twilight Arbor.

My life would have been much easier if there had been some in game tutorial explaining those things. I was lucky that I met people willing to teach me, but not everyone has that.

Guild Wars 2 tries so hard to differentiate from other games, yet assumes that everyone has played them and should learn on their own or rely on random access to player knowledge.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to know squat about how to play the game.

Agree. After about over 450 hours of play, I learned to solo capping Sentries in WvW and after about 600 hours solo capping Camps.

Getting all the skills and reaching level 80 do not prepare players on how to use the skills effectively and what to equip.

It is a deep, complex, dynamic, and beautiful game that takes a lot of time to learn.

Knowing the complexity and depth of the game also discourages some players to continue because they could not rationalize the time invested in a game that does not offer any obvious real life rewards.

I think the problem is, the game doesn’t really teach you. To learn something you need to research and read about it. Not everyone wants to do that or even knows that there is something to look up.

After all this time, playing since beta, and I’m still shaky on combo fields, how to generate might on various professions, etc. Information on subjects such as Defiance needs to be explained somehow in game.

Even having a tutorial with NPC of various professions explaining each one’s combo fields and how to use them would be a help.

And it’s not just me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been meleeing a mob on my guardian and had someone knock it away from me so that I have to go chasing after it.

Conveyance is important.

Megaman did it so well that you didn’t need a tutorial level because the entire thing was integrated so well into the first level that you didn’t even know it was a tutorial.

Its something that’s sorely lacking in GW2 and sadly many other games today. It is not so much the knowledge that’s critical but rather the delivery of the knowledge that makes or breaks the game.

Harper.4173:

I could have sworn I posted this before. Something must have gone wrong.

OP – what I believe is that you can’t really fix bad players because they won’t put in the time and effort to get good.
How do you fix the " it’s just a game man, doesn’t matter if I’m good or not, I play it for the lulz" mentality?

Though it’s true you can’t make an unskilled players want to hone their skills by throwing a few tutorials at them, you can educate them. An Educated unskilled player is far better then an ignorant unskilled player.
They could do it like GW1 where the first thing they dropped every player into was a tutorial mission. They could modify the PS stories they start in to demonstrate the basics of combat. Show them the fact that you can dodge, show them how combo fields work, all the basics that somehow have eluded even some of our level 80s. To make sure it’s not a slog, insentivize it. In gw1 the extra loot and experience of the tutorials was enough for me to the tutorials over whenever I roled a new character.

If not the start missions they could also revamp then first hearts in the starter zones to demonstrate these key skills.
For instance they could make the worms at the farm in queensdale try to strike you from underground with a red AoE circle, if you dodge it they stay above ground, if they hit you, you’re knocked down and they go back under.

Astral Projections.7320:

I think the problem is, the game doesn’t really teach you. To learn something you need to research and read about it. Not everyone wants to do that or even knows that there is something to look up.

After all this time, playing since beta, and I’m still shaky on combo fields, how to generate might on various professions, etc. Information on subjects such as Defiance needs to be explained somehow in game.

The problem is none of those things are required. Sure, dungeon groups want them, but game mechanics like dodging, fields and Defiance are not required to complete the game at its most basic level. This isn’t a standalone issue for Guild Wars 2, a lot of games have helpful tools to do better at the game without the developers dropping a tutorial on a person.

List of some game series that don’t have obvious conveyance:
Kingdom Hearts
BioShock
God of War
InFamous
Devil May Cry
Ninja Gaiden
Resident Evil
Uncharted
Batman
And many, many more…

You can play through any of these games, just like you can play through Guild Wars 2. You won’t be as good as other players who decide to test and learn what something is (a skill that says Combo Field: X would make you wonder what a Combo Field is, so you mess around with it until you find out). Sure, now we just go to the forums and to guides and read about the game mechanics – but at some point people decided to test these mechanics out instead of just staring at them.

The game’s easy enough to complete without all of the tactics they don’t cram into a tutorial. The extra mechanics that players have to learn about themselves just make speedclearing better.

This thread has a point. Combo Fields and finishers where something I only learned about after a bit of reading on the forums and/or seeing them in action from other players. I had to ask how to separate stacks of materials, because the game’s instructions don’t show how to do that (to my knowledge). Even emotes and other little gray messages where something I had to find out how to use from other players, which is important in a few spots throughout the game.

While this game is still good to me, one of the big problems is that it don’t really tell you about those little things, and quite some others.

Like those Mystic Forge recipes for exotic weapons, too. How did people find out about those to begin with/how to make them? I had to look up the wiki to find out about all that, there’s no one in-game to teach you about it. I wouldn’t have known about much of it otherwise.

Which gets annoying at times…having to look up most things.

Man I dunno who you wrote all that for.

Maybe if ANet advertised the wiki as much as the gem store, we wouldn’t have this problem. Hah! :P

Andred.1087:

Man I dunno who you wrote all that for.

Maybe if ANet advertised the wiki as much as the gem store, we wouldn’t have this problem. Hah! :P

Long story short, I write this stuff for me. Long story slightly less short, I have a crazy brain that latches on to these subjects and runs like a freight train, and if I don’t pull that train into the station it’ll just derail into chaos. So, I write a small essay worth of information on the subject and throw in a couple of jokes for astute readers to catch (which is hard, since I’m only so-so funny).

Anyway, Emotes is now in the manual list. It isn’t combat pertinent, but it is something to know.

While I was away, I remembered something: There is actually an enemy in the game that uses a combo field effectively! You all remember the risen pirates in orr? They throw down a fire field, then leap through it to get the fire shield.

I mentioned in game tutorials, but I never actually described how to do that. There’s quite a few limitations to them, and because of these limitations I didn’t actually know how to do in-game tutorials:

#1: Not every class has access to all the different mechanics.
#2: Not every player will have purchased the same skills, if any skills at all.
#3: Not every player will have their particular required weapons.
#4: Not every player will have the prerequisite traits for combos.

The solutions to these would open up more problems. #4 would require reorganizing trait unlocks, which would tick off a lot of people. #3 could be solved by instanced lock environmental weapons, but this would cause a disconnect between actual player experiences. #2 would be a real lockdown, since it could be solved by temp weapons to make fields, but no overlap with solution #3. #1 is the biggest problem, since each class would have to get their own instance mission, and thus this would become a large load of programming and information.

But… one way to do this would be to have enemies that would blatantly use combo field interactions in their attacks. The risen pirate is a good example, but he’s a late game mob. Ideally, you’d have something that used combo fields at around level 25 to 30. A few of the more blatant ones, like fire fields, ice fields, ethereal fields, or smoke fields.

Also, having NPCs use techniques on duels and training dummies. In the original queens pavilion, there was an exhibition match between Logan and various watchknight holograms, and in this scripted battle, Logan used several attacks to counter their moves.

I’m thinking of something that was in Twilight Princess, where you’d enter into an area where that gold wolf/ancient knight would demonstrate a technique to teach you. I figure that, if you had an NPC that merely showed you some tricks (and likewise, explained them in a voice acted manner), then it wouldn’t be absolutely necessary for players to do them personally.

While I dunno about everything here because I am really tired and my brain is relaxing, a ‘manual’ of sorts would actually be really cool to have. There are some things that new players will only learn the existence of by chance. I didn’t even know that sigils shared cooldowns until the feature patch fixed it.

Something like loading screen tips would be really cool, too.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Andred.1087:

Man I dunno who you wrote all that for.

Maybe if ANet advertised the wiki as much as the gem store, we wouldn’t have this problem. Hah! :P

Long story short, I write this stuff for me. Long story slightly less short, I have a crazy brain that latches on to these subjects and runs like a freight train, and if I don’t pull that train into the station it’ll just derail into chaos. So, I write a small essay worth of information on the subject and throw in a couple of jokes for astute readers to catch (which is hard, since I’m only so-so funny).

---

Anyway, Emotes is now in the manual list. It isn’t combat pertinent, but it is something to know.

While I was away, I remembered something: There is actually an enemy in the game that uses a combo field effectively! You all remember the risen pirates in orr? They throw down a fire field, then leap through it to get the fire shield.

I mentioned in game tutorials, but I never actually described how to do that. There’s quite a few limitations to them, and because of these limitations I didn’t actually know how to do in-game tutorials:

#1: Not every class has access to all the different mechanics.
#2: Not every player will have purchased the same skills, if any skills at all.
#3: Not every player will have their particular required weapons.
#4: Not every player will have the prerequisite traits for combos.

The solutions to these would open up more problems. #4 would require reorganizing trait unlocks, which would tick off a lot of people. #3 could be solved by instanced lock environmental weapons, but this would cause a disconnect between actual player experiences. #2 would be a real lockdown, since it could be solved by temp weapons to make fields, but no overlap with solution #3. #1 is the biggest problem, since each class would have to get their own instance mission, and thus this would become a large load of programming and information.

But… one way to do this would be to have enemies that would blatantly use combo field interactions in their attacks. The risen pirate is a good example, but he’s a late game mob. Ideally, you’d have something that used combo fields at around level 25 to 30. A few of the more blatant ones, like fire fields, ice fields, ethereal fields, or smoke fields.

Also, having NPCs use techniques on duels and training dummies. In the original queens pavilion, there was an exhibition match between Logan and various watchknight holograms, and in this scripted battle, Logan used several attacks to counter their moves.

I’m thinking of something that was in Twilight Princess, where you’d enter into an area where that gold wolf/ancient knight would demonstrate a technique to teach you. I figure that, if you had an NPC that merely showed you some tricks (and likewise, explained them in a voice acted manner), then it wouldn’t be absolutely necessary for players to do them personally.

Hmm it actually wouldnt be that hard to come up with an algorithm. that gave you different instructions based on your level/proffesion/unlocks.
The npc could even tell you to come back when you get X, Y or Z ability.
lets say…
The npc tainer could act as an alternate means for low level unlocks.

Or they could just give you gold/skillpoints so you could theoretically unlock traits yourself.

it would even make sense.

Also the npcs could provide the fields, or even the finishers, remember many combos are between players, not self oriented.

I think part of the problem with teaching the basics is that I think even as the game was being developed many advanced techniques weren’t anticipated by the developers.

I mean we primarily use combo fields for might stacking with blast finishers, healing with water fields, stealth with smoke fields and swiftness with static fields. Otherwise other finishers and combo field are ignored. When was the last time you even payed attention to projectile finishers?

So really I think the seed of the problem is that Anet didn’t even anticipate what the high-end PvE metagame would even look like which meant they couldn’t really make a proper tutorial about it. That being said, they really need to go back and figure out ways to teach players about these especially if they want to continue to increase the difficulty of future content.

guardian.6489:

So really I think the seed of the problem is that Anet didn’t even anticipate what the high-end PvE metagame would even look like which meant they couldn’t really make a proper tutorial about it. That being said, they really need to go back and figure out ways to teach players about these especially if they want to continue to increase the difficulty of future content.

Except they don’t even educate you about combo fields beyond that one time it pops up in Hints.

You don’t have to teach people about the complex nuances of high-end gameplay (because those come from experience) but you do need to give them a solid foundation on which they can build upon.

The very fact that we don’t have this foundation is the reason why PvE is in such a dismal state at the moment.

phys.7689:

Harper.4173:

I could have sworn I posted this before. Something must have gone wrong.

OP – what I believe is that you can’t really fix bad players because they won’t put in the time and effort to get good.
How do you fix the " it’s just a game man, doesn’t matter if I’m good or not, I play it for the lulz" mentality?

You are far underestimating the human ability. The key to what he is saying here, is many people just have no idea at all whats going on.
Is a combo feild really hard? no its not, however learning about a combo field, isnt something that would easily happen in game.
most finishers are hidden information, or have no tells
some fields have poor tells
much of what they do isnt clearly represented.

point is, you are right many people arent going to go out of their way to learn, thats why you teach them without making them go out of their way. Or you make it so that they must learn in order to succeed.
FFXI had like 2 million players? something like that, you couldnt get past like level 20 without learning how to play at a level that is higher than is required to play GW2 level 70 content. I will say that FFXI would probably now be placed in the hardcore game category, but i didnt think so at the time.

point is,
people would play at least somewhat better if the game was A) clearer oractually taught them game mechanics through play. Wildstar does a very good job of both. My guess is the same exact player will be much better at playing wildstar at cap than a GW2 player at cap.

The OP mentions that Social Darwinism doesn’t work but if the game wiped the new players more often they would be forced to learn.
As it stands now you’re NOT forced to learn anything. You can complete dungeons even if you’re terrible at dodging and have a sloppy build.

The game should be more punishing.

@To all who replied to my post – the main issue with GW2 is that it has generated a lot of player entitlement – “I’m level 80, I should be able to finish this dungeon”.
“I should be able to win in SPVP”. “I should be able to do good in WvW”.

No you should not. I dislike what the player base for this game has become. People want to do good at the game without putting in any effort at it.
Newbie players in sPVP that call a class or another OP but they don’t even have 20 matches played.
Newbie players wanting to be " 1337 dungeons speed runners" but they haven’t even bothered to figure out what their class should bring to a dungeon.

This is happening because GW2 was too “forgiving”. I remember GW1 was much more strict – you didn’t have the proper build or at least something that was thought together properly or viable you would wipe and keep on wiping until the game kicked you out of your dungeon.

Lyralei.5920:

guardian.6489:

So really I think the seed of the problem is that Anet didn’t even anticipate what the high-end PvE metagame would even look like which meant they couldn’t really make a proper tutorial about it. That being said, they really need to go back and figure out ways to teach players about these especially if they want to continue to increase the difficulty of future content.

Except they don’t even educate you about combo fields beyond that one time it pops up in Hints.

You don’t have to teach people about the complex nuances of high-end gameplay (because those come from experience) but you do need to give them a solid foundation on which they can build upon.

The very fact that we don’t have this foundation is the reason why PvE is in such a dismal state at the moment.

Ya but what’s to say about combo field other then “Hey this is a thing, you should pay attention to this thing!” unless you know specifically what each combo field and finisher does.

It’s also not like the game doesn’t show you what your doing now, that big “Area Might” sign is visible enough that if you deliberately put a specific field and finisher together you can see what your doing.

From what I gathered the original intention of that prompt was to allow the player to experiment with different combo fields and finishers to allow players to figure out what was effective….. when in reality only a few combos are even noticeable which is why players are obvious to combo finishers until they’re introduced to high-end dungeon crawling and world bosses.

An insightful post that echoes much own concerns. Interestingly enough, I too am in education, a agree with your observations on cognitive estrangement/ dissonance in learning, both there and in the world.

As I am mostly interested in aesthetics, the mastery of many of the areas you address remains lost in the fog of ignorance.

I have, for example, run Twilight A ‘Up’ more times than I can recall, and yet I have no idea why I get one shot on the tree at times, no how to avoid it. No idea at all.

Perhaps shaped by a 10 year reliance on such information sites as wowhead, I have become dependent upon such things and have struggled to find resources for research outside the game. I doubt I am the only one and am sure I am one of many. It took me a year discover dulfy sites, and despite 5 × 80s, I have remained unschooled in the art of simple things such as might stacking for most of my GW2 playing history.

In many ways. Anet’s deliberate reluctance to provide information seems a bewildering financial strategy, as it keeps players such as I at an almost carefully calibrated remove from the immersive potential of information. Consequently, I am left feeling peripheral and reluctant to spend money in the BLTP, in game where, given the potential for immersion resulting from the aesthetic qualities of the game, I could foresee myself spending a fortune.

Ah well, off to get carried for more visually pleasing armor combinations….

I totally agree about the fuster cluck of special effects on screen. It’s like GW2 wants to be Final Fantasy, and even FFXIV allows the user to tone down or remove the special effects for better clarity.

Also, I don’t enjoy leveling now, the lack of trait points gained per level made it feel rather lacking.

Lyralei.5920:

Except they don’t even educate you about combo fields beyond that one time it pops up in Hints.

You don’t have to teach people about the complex nuances of high-end gameplay (because those come from experience) but you do need to give them a solid foundation on which they can build upon.

The very fact that we don’t have this foundation is the reason why PvE is in such a dismal state at the moment.

People are generally fine until they get to high-end dungeon and certain world bosses where there is a huge difficulty spike.

Since this game doesn’t really have tutorials to teach people to play the game, I am under the impression that developers believe the burden of knowledge fall on the players themselves to learn how to play the game.

Harper.4173:

The OP mentions that Social Darwinism doesn’t work but if the game wiped the new players more often they would be forced to learn.
As it stands now you’re NOT forced to learn anything. You can complete dungeons even if you’re terrible at dodging and have a sloppy build.

The game should be more punishing.

@To all who replied to my post – the main issue with GW2 is that it has generated a lot of player entitlement – “I’m level 80, I should be able to finish this dungeon”.
“I should be able to win in SPVP”. “I should be able to do good in WvW”.

No you should not. I dislike what the player base for this game has become. People want to do good at the game without putting in any effort at it.
Newbie players in sPVP that call a class or another OP but they don’t even have 20 matches played.
Newbie players wanting to be " 1337 dungeons speed runners" but they haven’t even bothered to figure out what their class should bring to a dungeon.

This is happening because GW2 was too “forgiving”. I remember GW1 was much more strict – you didn’t have the proper build or at least something that was thought together properly or viable you would wipe and keep on wiping until the game kicked you out of your dungeon.

I am under the impression that people who like difficult content are the minority. Nothing wrong with catering to the larger casual crowd. When this game is about playing how you want to, if you make most of the game inaccessible and difficult, you are just alienating your players. Making punishing content only make the game not fun and frustrating. Challenging doesn’t necessarily mean hard or frustrating. They need to make content that are enjoyable and fun.

Harper.4173:

No you should not.

So much agree.

The only thing a player is entitled to do is hit level 80 and complete the story. Beyond that, it’s their prerogative how to learn the game.

The game is for the main part really rather easy and is predominantly aimed at a hypercasual playerbase (now I am not saying that is a bad thing, not every game should be a twitch full loot FFA game, a massively strategic strategy or something insanely deep and complex like EVE or UO). But it should come as no surprise that there are skill/knowledge issues.

99% of the time you don’t need to think or do anything other than autocleave and half the playerbase seemingly cba to engage their brain or research (warning totally made up statistics alert!).

If only the “top 5% min/maxers” are able to work out how how to effectively blast fields or when and why stacks fails etc, then that reflects worse on the players than on the game really, given those kinds of things are hardly deep/complex issues to work out.

Just look at how often people use knockbacks at ridiculous moments when a melee train is trying to nail a mob. It’s common sense not to do that, it shouldn’t need a long old tutorial to realise that is for the main part an idiotic thing to do, and yet it happens time after time after time again.

Whilst I think that being able to dramatically tone down particle effects and the like would be great, I don’t feel that dumbing down the encounters even more by having oversized mobs and massively telegraphed attacks is a good idea.

For all that, it is hard to argue against putting more accessible and clear information up in the form of a manual. It is also hard to argue against adding in more early level content which attempts to guide the player through a process of looking at their skills, synergies, gear and stuff like combo fields. I just don’t think it will make any difference at all…. Unless the majority of the content starts demanding the player has a reasonable level of skill/knowledge, then the situation will not improve and there will always be a large gap between the faceroll content and the non faceroll content.

Fenrir.3609:

Just look at how often people use knockbacks at ridiculous moments when a melee train is trying to nail a mob. It’s common sense not to do that, it shouldn’t need a long old tutorial to realise that is for the main part an idiotic thing to do, and yet it happens time after time after time again.

I notice it when people are doing this at champions and world bosses events. You do realize some of them are doing it on purpose so that it screw over other people damage. Some of them aren’t in a party. It is a matter of “I am range and you are not.” It is a matter of "I am screwing up your damage so I have better chance at getting credit for this. " It is matter of conflict of interest.

OP, you are one boss-monster of a poster. Epic.

I agree with a lot of the stuff you wrote, and on the stuff I don’t, it still gets the mind ticking.

I do think your parting suggestion is valid, and here’s why:

Daily Skill Interrupter – Ever try to do this on any old class just out in the open world?

You soon notice that enemies don’t just have poor conveyance, they have anti-conveyance. They don’t attack intruders ruthlessly, they throw out a swing randomly every once and a while. In the only way they are challenging is trying to predict when they are going to use their next skill so you can interrupt it.

I can see that in the starter zones, but Gendarran? I think by then the enemies should behave differently.

Fenrir.3609:

The game is for the main part really rather easy and is predominantly aimed at a hypercasual playerbase (now I am not saying that is a bad thing, not every game should be a twitch full loot FFA game, a massively strategic strategy or something insanely deep and complex like EVE or UO). But it should come as no surprise that there are skill/knowledge issues.

99% of the time you don’t need to think or do anything other than autocleave and half the playerbase seemingly cba to engage their brain or research (warning totally made up statistics alert!).

If only the “top 5% min/maxers” are able to work out how how to effectively blast fields or when and why stacks fails etc, then that reflects worse on the players than on the game really, given those kinds of things are hardly deep/complex issues to work out.

Just look at how often people use knockbacks at ridiculous moments when a melee train is trying to nail a mob. It’s common sense not to do that, it shouldn’t need a long old tutorial to realise that is for the main part an idiotic thing to do, and yet it happens time after time after time again.

Whilst I think that being able to dramatically tone down particle effects and the like would be great, I don’t feel that dumbing down the encounters even more by having oversized mobs and massively telegraphed attacks is a good idea.

For all that, it is hard to argue against putting more accessible and clear information up in the form of a manual. It is also hard to argue against adding in more early level content which attempts to guide the player through a process of looking at their skills, synergies, gear and stuff like combo fields. I just don’t think it will make any difference at all…. Unless the majority of the content starts demanding the player has a reasonable level of skill/knowledge, then the situation will not improve and there will always be a large gap between the faceroll content and the non faceroll content.

telegraphs are not really about a huge wind up all the time, its sometimes just about here is where my attack is hitting. There is a lot of enemies who hit you invisibly, with no visual indication that an attack should be in that range, like ogres.

Its basically like this, does the game accurately show you whats happening? many times the answer is no

Saylu.8271:

Fenrir.3609:

Just look at how often people use knockbacks at ridiculous moments when a melee train is trying to nail a mob. It’s common sense not to do that, it shouldn’t need a long old tutorial to realise that is for the main part an idiotic thing to do, and yet it happens time after time after time again.

I notice it when people are doing this at champions and world bosses events. You do realize some of them are doing it on purpose so that it screw over other people damage. Some of them aren’t in a party. It is a matter of “I am range and you are not.” It is a matter of "I am screwing up your damage so I have better chance at getting credit for this. " It is matter of conflict of interest.

Sometimes its unintended, at least I have pressed the wrong key from time to time. There is also pets with knockbacks, though the user should be aware of it.
Also, on some bosses knockback works as an interrupt, sometimes stun them, though you get the “immune” msg. At least they did, dont know if this is changed.

You know, I do wonder if skill point challenges were meant to be subtle lessons (the whole teach without making it obvious you’re teaching idea). Some SPs are ridiculously easy to get, but others have interesting mechanics that seem like an attempt to teach.

I’m thinking specifically about the Asura turret in the southern part of Cursed Shore. It seems like it was nerfed recently, but I think that it originally had higher HP, fired projectiles and cast a stack of confusion whenever it was attacked in melee range. I remember the first time I did it I kept trying to melee it down, but I went down much faster than it did every time. The reason this teaching strategy failed goes back to what people have been saying in this thread: the game isn’t punishing enough. It was a whole lot easier to simply melee like mad, then stop and let the confusion stacks wear off, then heal, then melee again, than it would have been to think about how to change my weapon/build to win. If that turret applied more stacks or had stronger projectiles, maybe I would have learned something from it.

I’m sure there are more SPs like this, though to my memory, for everyone 1 like this there are 20 or more “defeat veteran then commune.”

I completely agree on the need for a good manual in-game. Also, while I appreciate ANet’s desire to have us not ‘playing the UI’, but I would like to see cast bars for enemies. I also would like the ability to enlarge the boon/condition icons on enemies and myself, as well as the ability to re-locate UI elements. Add I agree that an option to turn particle effects down/off would be nice.

“No you should not. I dislike what the player base for this game has become. People want to do good at the game without putting in any effort at it. "

LOL… to me a percentage of the game’s players mimics society as a whole now-a-days and this comment above covers way more about life than the small realm of GW2. It’s the" I want it all right now "without effort or responsibility that we see in every facet of our daily lives spilling over into the game. These types of players have no interest in learning how to correctly or successfully play the game but endlessly whine about how it’s not fair they don’t have BIS gear or for that matter know how to use anything effectively in game.

I do agree Anet could do more to help teach players the proper dynamics but like most everyone else if I need to improve my toon or playstyle I make a trip to youtube and watch the masters of different professions explain the aspects of GW2 and learn by example then try to implement what I learn in game. Frankly Anet could give us a basic direction but for very precise info other players who have mastered the profession/build/etc to me are a much better source to draw from but it does take a little effort like most worthwhile things in life.

Facepunch.5710:

You know, I do wonder if skill point challenges were meant to be subtle lessons (the whole teach without making it obvious you’re teaching idea). Some SPs are ridiculously easy to get, but others have interesting mechanics that seem like an attempt to teach.

A lot of the renown hearts are not-so-subtle lessons. The first one that comes to mind are the militia trainers in Claypool that teach blocking mechanisms and spotting blocks. Many renown hearts, especially in the early zones, have options for using kits that mimic skill sets to teach how to use those skills effectively. But many players skip the renown hearts or take the simple ‘kill stuff’ methods to complete them because they are faster.

My problem is that a lot of these skills seem to be of marginal utility to certain types of player. I do a lot of solo PvE; practicing skills for group utility and building my character accordingly takes a lot of work for limited benefit.

Even simple techniques like dodging seem to be limited by factors other than training. Personally, I can’t always focus on everything on the screen at once, either missing important attack tells or status indicators. If I catch the attack tell, I still have a high chance on most attacks of mistiming my dodge… the time to dodge isn’t always when the attack indicator appears. I also have a lag issue, so I don’t know if I failed to dodge at the right time or I pushed the button at the right time this time but my response lagged in the system.

DarkWasp.7291:

OP, you are one boss-monster of a poster. Epic.

I agree with a lot of the stuff you wrote, and on the stuff I don’t, it still gets the mind ticking.

I do think your parting suggestion is valid, and here’s why:

Daily Skill Interrupter – Ever try to do this on any old class just out in the open world?

You soon notice that enemies don’t just have poor conveyance, they have anti-conveyance. They don’t attack intruders ruthlessly, they throw out a swing randomly every once and a while. In the only way they are challenging is trying to predict when they are going to use their next skill so you can interrupt it.

Argh argh argh. I knoooow.

And as far as the original post(s), I agree with this a lot. GW2 has a severe lack of information in a lot of things, and the punishments for trying to determine minute differences in attack tells is very frequently unwarranted.
And there’s very little reward for paying attention to what your allies are doing. Aside from might-stacking, most of the combo effects are just.. blah, nor do they last very long to make it worth it, unless you’re on TeamSpeak/Ventrilo actively calling it out in a guild.

I’m not sure how much of a tutorial the game needs, but good game development states that a useful tutorial is vital to the intro-game experience. I certainly wouldn’t turn down a better training area. …That’s actually an idea. Those areas that have training dummies and such? Why not have NPCs performing various attacks on a few (whirl, leap, element fields, etc), and give players a chance to time them and see what their effects are? That way, it’s there, it’s in the game properly, and you don’t need a friend or guildie nearby to learn them.

Still, GW2 also relies very much on /wiki. I’m glad it’s there, but it’s not teaching anything in a convenient space in the game itself.

I suddenly feel old. Gone are the days of figuring things out. Now we must be told from the get go or else its bad design. Or maybe its different cultures way of learning perhaps. not knowing something is a poor excuse after the first failure

I knew what a combo fields and finishers were within minutes of touching the game.
may be longer depending on class was ele
steps on how to learn what those are

1. mouse over skill
2. Read skill
3. stop and experiment based on what I read
" Make lava erupt from the target area.

Damage (4x): 302 (0.9)?
Number of Targets: 5
Duration: 4 s
Radius: 120
Combo Field: Fire
Range: 1,200

Hmm combo field.. mouse over other skills
Eruption
Shake the ground until it erupts and damages foes.

Damage: 462 (1.25)?
Bleeding: 12 s (3060 damage)
Radius: 240
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 1,200

hmm combo field combo finisher

and after a couple of tries I figure out combo blast into combo fields give me an extra effect.
Rather than experiment with all I go onto wiki to see what they are.
Based on info I deduce fire and water seem to be the two most useful ones.

Pass on information to guild. seem like Guild Wars Expert #L33tPr0

Also food for thought that someone else mentioned How much exactly would you show? There can be too much info to learn in the beginning thus taking away from the learning from experience.

Combo fields / finishers are the most obvious thing learn atleast to me and I consider myself a blathering fool. Assuming one reads that is.

Rauderi.8706:

I’m not sure how much of a tutorial the game needs, but good game development states that a useful tutorial is vital to the intro-game experience. I certainly wouldn’t turn down a better training area. …That’s actually an idea. Those areas that have training dummies and such? Why not have NPCs performing various attacks on a few (whirl, leap, element fields, etc), and give players a chance to time them and see what their effects are? That way, it’s there, it’s in the game properly, and you don’t need a friend or guildie nearby to learn them.

My question is how many people would choose to practice in a better training area, even if it were provided for them? Without a need for all game mechanics, in ALL areas of GW2, there is no pressing need for everyone to learn. Its a sad situation and I don’t see people changing. My apologies for not being optimistic. There are too many things that melt before a zerg spamming 1, just too many.

Azhure.1857:

Rauderi.8706:

I’m not sure how much of a tutorial the game needs, but good game development states that a useful tutorial is vital to the intro-game experience. I certainly wouldn’t turn down a better training area. …That’s actually an idea. Those areas that have training dummies and such? Why not have NPCs performing various attacks on a few (whirl, leap, element fields, etc), and give players a chance to time them and see what their effects are? That way, it’s there, it’s in the game properly, and you don’t need a friend or guildie nearby to learn them.

My question is how many people would choose to practice in a better training area, even if it were provided for them? Without a need for all game mechanics, in ALL areas of GW2, there is no pressing need for everyone to learn. Its a sad situation and I don’t see people changing. My apologies for not being optimistic. There are too many things that melt before a zerg spamming 1, just too many.

Essentially what you said. better training pls. I know lots of bowbears/staffguards/staffmesmers/necro’s that know better but dont care. Why?

They can be carried. At the end of the day as long as one can solo a dungeon it doesnt really matter if other teammates can dodge or not. what we have right now is punishing? Pls.

There’s no doubt in my mind that I learned more about playing the game in persistent world during the first two BWE (when mobs hit harder) than I’ve learned since. Let’s not forget, however, that persistent world can still be dangerous, and that dungeons — if you don’t already know them — can be quite punishing. It’s easy to say, “The game is too easy!” when you’ve already learned how to play it.

That said, what does existing game-play teach players in GW2?

Dungeon PuG Meta Play

• All coordination and team play must take place at short range.
• Dungeon mobs other than those “required” are to be skipped because they aren’t worth the time to fight them.
• 50-75% of utility skills are useless.
• There are good weapons and bad weapons, then there are really bad weapons.

Dungeon Non-Meta Play

• Keep moving and hope the mobs aggro on the other guy.
• If you go down, expect to die unless your downed state has an escape skill.
• Doing things the same way (after a wipe) and expecting different results can work.
• What’s that white circle under me? I’d better dodge!

Persistent World Meta Events

• Timer = Difficulty.
• I’m glad I don’t get seizures or migraines.
• Someone will revive me.
• Don’t revive others while they’re in AoE.

Harder Persistent World Meta Events

• Success = getting into an instance with people who know the event.
• Getting in the right instance = difficulty.
• I’m glad I don’t get seizures or migraines.

Soloing in Persistent World

• Most builds work fine.
• The game expects me to be able to fight multiple mobs at the same time.
• There is little rhyme or reason to mob design. Some hit like trucks, others like origami.
• Why bother to change my utilities or weapons?

I believe both that increased difficulty can be a better teacher and that GW2 could do a better job of providing information about the game. This issue is not a dichotomy.