Guild Wars 2

With this “Fresh Start” post, it feels like everything they listed is meant for 10-year-olds.

“For example, rallying from the downed state can be overwhelming to a brand-new Guild Wars 2 player”
Really? How is that overwhelming?
Some people like shiny pop-ups proclaiming they’ve gained a level, but that kind of stuff feels empty to me.

I like to call it “convenience” to be honest. From what I can see, it’s more like it’s catering to new “toons” .

The level system for me starts to look like :

So if you level up now .. absolutely nothing happens, since that will only confuse you,
and to minimize confusion you only get some traits and stats and whatever only
all 10 levels.

Next step : now you play as level 1 character until you have collected enough exp
to directly level up to 80 .. that will give you less confusion and a much better feeling
of beeing rewarded if it happens.

Beldin.5498:

The level system for me starts to look like :

So if you level up now .. absolutely nothing happens, since that will only confuse you,
and to minimize confusion you only get some traits and stats and whatever only
all 10 levels.

Next step : now you play as level 1 character until you have collected enough exp
to directly level up to 80 .. that will give you less confusion and a much better feeling
of beeing rewarded if it happens.

Yeah, I saw your comment in another post, but it’s exactly what I mean. Spot on!

To be fair, rallying IS confusing to a new player.

You’re in this state with zero time to read your tooltips and figure out what all your suddenly new abilities do, and then you’re dead.

I don’t mind that. Any of the other changes I have difficulty seeing the motive for, but that is absolutely the least confusing part of this dev blog for me.

As for the downed state, they should just add an option to get used to the downed state skills. A simple tipp would be enough.

Lheimroo.2947:

To be fair, rallying IS confusing to a new player.

You’re in this state with zero time to read your tooltips and figure out what all your suddenly new abilities do, and then you’re dead.

I don’t mind that. Any of the other changes I have difficulty seeing the motive for, but that is absolutely the least confusing part of this dev blog for me.

Well you’re in a starting zone… it takes at least 12 seconds for you to die from a single adversary.

I’d rather be downed, then outright defeated. Downed is more forgiving to new players…

This game should just add a tutorial and be done with it.

lol this game is already one of the most casual MMOs on the market… I can’t believe anet is actually trying to make it even MORE CASUAL..

eye floater.7140:

“For example, rallying from the downed state can be overwhelming to a brand-new Guild Wars 2 player”

They simply wrote it in a way that sounds nice and pushes the blame off of the player rather than making them feel stupid.

Back at launch, at level 80, I encountered many people that didn’t know how to rally and would only bandage, even when getting attacked. The first person with a legendary I saw – Twilight – didn’t know how to rally either. (I’m assuming they didn’t know how to rally, because in most cases, a mob was right in front of them which they could have easily rallied off of)

Unless you looked outside of the game, I don’t even remember rallying being explained in-game.

5 Months later, I still can’t get past the idea traits are “too confusing” for new players, so lets delay the in game implementation. Rather then in game PvE 1v1 type opportunities to try out, lets hold off until 80. After all, World Boss mobs, Dungeons, and WvW are terrific, easy pace, clear cut opportunities to see how your skills and traits function. What’s next? Universal “grow with you” armor and weapons? You can club people with your started stick all the way to 80, then you can have some grown-up weapons. I joked at the time Anet had run out of server storage space and needed people to stop creating characters immediately. I would love to see the how the previous 5 month numbers stack up with the prior 5.

The fact is very few of these changes make any sense from a game play perspective. They had an opportunity to reshape the game in a more profitable way upon entering the Asian market, and they took it. At two years, a large part of the original players will be naturally moving on and they have chosen the focus on the enormous number of new Asian players. It makes sense from a revenue driven model, but they really are going to accelerate their Western decline. Normally, this is where you would save the franchise with an expansion but…

Get downed

Tooltip top right pops up

“You’ve been downed! Defeat an enemy before your HP runs out to rally and recover! "

Healix.5819:

Unless you looked outside of the game, I don’t even remember rallying being explained in-game.

It’s not.

I reached level 60 before I fully understood the down state. I never played a game with it. (or anything like GW2.)
I never felt I had time to read the downstate skills, I used to cycle through them and try healing..

It was reading the forums and guildmates, who taught me what I was meant to do.

And I know to many players that’s like “how dumb do you have to be”. But not every players has a gaming background and what they do, could be totally different.

I didn’t know about traits until I happened upon the merchant and I thought “what’s this??” Click -buy~use….“OHHH”.

The fact is, anet knows the numbers, clearly they thought that there was enough players who don’t know how to play…or didn’t learn about it when they should, there’s enough that it made sense for anet to put the time into changing things.

I have to admit, part of the reason I enjoy this game is because it doesn’t present itself all in one go from the beginning. You didn’t have your hand held though the process and sometimes you were forced to remember how to use Google to look up answers. I like a good challenge and if I wanted something kitten easy to play I’d go find one of those MMOs made for kids. Lets not dumb down our GW2, if downed state is too hard for people to understand, I don’t think they should be playing this game.

I didn’t learn the following about downed until I was about level 5.

Defeating an enemy rallies you
*A player defeating an enemy you touched rallies you
*any of the downed state tooltips. The macabre tone change distracts you from reading your options, and I pretty much had to read the wiki since I didn’t feel like downing just to read the flavor text. armor repairs cost copper/silver.)

I didn’t understand vengeance fully until I saw the trait.

you don’t really need the wiki. you kind of… just understand if you get knocked on your kitten enough times.

Downed underwater though…

Still barely understand it. Need more downbait underwater, Anet.
…less sharks though

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

True, most of the changes announced so far for this feature patch are based on player’s criticism on the early game experience.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

True, most of the changes announced so far for this feature patch are based on player’s criticism on the early game experience.

You have to understand two things about this forum.

1.) the population consists of people working a desk job that use it for entertainment, and then people that have either a genuine concern, dissatisfaction with the game that stems from their attitude, and trolls.

2.) The people with the desk jobs are (hopefully) more focused on their work.

The people that actually enjoy the game will either have very little to say, or actually be in game playing if possible, so expect to see very little more than dissatisfaction and anger bordering on spoiled selfishness.

You can usually tell when someone has a point and when someone is just complaining because (insert something about them) sucks, so don’t get displeased by the overwhelming anger you’re seeing. Many people here will poke holes in their argument very quickly.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

It’s not Dev hate.
I just don’t understand why they bother with some of these change for new players instead of fixing existing problems for veterans.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

True, most of the changes announced so far for this feature patch are based on player’s criticism on the early game experience.

You have to understand two things about this forum.

1.) the population consists of people working a desk job that use it for entertainment, and then people that have either a genuine concern, dissatisfaction with the game that stems from their attitude, and trolls.

2.) The people with the desk jobs are (hopefully) more focused on their work.

The people that actually enjoy the game will either have very little to say, or actually be in game playing if possible, so expect to see very little more than dissatisfaction and anger bordering on spoiled selfishness.

You can usually tell when someone has a point and when someone is just complaining because (insert something about them) sucks, so don’t get displeased by the overwhelming anger you’re seeing. Many people here will poke holes in their argument very quickly.

Now now, lets not derail this (so far) peaceful thread! I had an opinion, I wanted to discuss it, that’s exactly what these forums are for.

eye floater.7140:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

True, most of the changes announced so far for this feature patch are based on player’s criticism on the early game experience.

You have to understand two things about this forum.

1.) the population consists of people working a desk job that use it for entertainment, and then people that have either a genuine concern, dissatisfaction with the game that stems from their attitude, and trolls.

2.) The people with the desk jobs are (hopefully) more focused on their work.

The people that actually enjoy the game will either have very little to say, or actually be in game playing if possible, so expect to see very little more than dissatisfaction and anger bordering on spoiled selfishness.

You can usually tell when someone has a point and when someone is just complaining because (insert something about them) sucks, so don’t get displeased by the overwhelming anger you’re seeing. Many people here will poke holes in their argument very quickly.

Now now, lets not derail this (so far) peaceful thread! I had an opinion, I wanted to discuss it, that’s exactly what these forums are for.

- hands up -

Be my guest, no derailing here.

On topic: The downed state is pretty self explanatory once you get knocked around a couple times, so unless you are the best player ever and don’t find yourself downed before lvl80, a tooltip would suffice.

In fact, I’d go so far to say that suddenly introducing downed at level 5 will confuse and surprise people even more.

There was also a thread about adding downed skills to your character panel. that would work really well too.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

I think this is due to an accumulation of things happening over the last year or so, I personally think most of it is due to not adding the ‘MMO bread ’n butter’ things to GW2, which leaves ANet with not to much to show for, for it being around for 2y.

It’s like any romantic relationship really, you fall in love and all is pink and fluffy, you like how every once a while (s)he watches sport with friends/goes out to shop with friends, so you can have some time for yourself. You go and do all sorts of things together, fun stuff, go out to romantic dinners or see a movie… but then as you get engaged and move in together, it’s starts to annoy you that he wants to watch all the sport that’s available on TV, and that she spends your cash faster then you can own it. You don’t go out to dinner anymore, but you order pizza in. Where at first you went along to family to get to know them, now you favour staying home because you don’t like uncle A or aunti B. You forget birthdays of close relatives, or worse yet, your anniversary! …

And lets face it, buying some flowers once or going out to Christmas dinner, is no excuse to keep behaving the way you do; if anything it’s going to feel like throwing a cheap bone at the situation in hopes it will stay away long enough so the other side will just forget… more likely though, is that these situations will be seen as such and bring up all the frustrations along the relationship, even if you get one thing right people will still blame you for all the other times you got it wrong… up to the time when you show you learned, and do not make the same mistakes you made earlier, where you show you changed and show you value the relationship over your own personal motives.

It’s as simple and yet as complicated as that, so it’s no wonder we see a lot of emotional responses and consequently break-ups. And the longer the relationship lasted the harder it is to deal with people ‘growing in different directions’… I will leave it at that for the analogy, because it wasn’t getting any prettier…

Just let me continue to say this, I have done my thesis on Innovation & Product development, and if one thing stuck to me, is that most people do not like it. Humans are creatures of habit, and new things make them uncomfortable as it shakes up their routines. Yet at the same time, they do like new things, given they are generally small and incremental, come with a lot of the stuff they are used to. And while big shifts sometimes turn into big successes, due to hitting the right nerve, it is way more likely that they are not appreciated, considered to big a leap or demand to big a shift in behaviour. So if you want to be innovative that is something you just have to take into consideration more than anything else.

To put that into an analogy, you can serve potatoes in many different ways and flavours, what you present next to that can be all sorts of culinary excellence. Heck you can even change potatoes for any other starch containing product, even entirely new ones. Some dishes will be better than others obviously… But serve a meal without starch, and people will get cranky, because they feel their meal isn’t giving them the nutrients they need, and seeing this is indeed the case it’s another reason they get cranky… Also, seeing how culinary excellence can be this hit and miss, at some point people will just tell you to make them fries, they know they like fries, it’s not that hard to please us, just make some fries every now and then…

Azure The Heartless.3261:

eye floater.7140:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

True, most of the changes announced so far for this feature patch are based on player’s criticism on the early game experience.

You have to understand two things about this forum.

1.) the population consists of people working a desk job that use it for entertainment, and then people that have either a genuine concern, dissatisfaction with the game that stems from their attitude, and trolls.

2.) The people with the desk jobs are (hopefully) more focused on their work.

The people that actually enjoy the game will either have very little to say, or actually be in game playing if possible, so expect to see very little more than dissatisfaction and anger bordering on spoiled selfishness.

You can usually tell when someone has a point and when someone is just complaining because (insert something about them) sucks, so don’t get displeased by the overwhelming anger you’re seeing. Many people here will poke holes in their argument very quickly.

Now now, lets not derail this (so far) peaceful thread! I had an opinion, I wanted to discuss it, that’s exactly what these forums are for.

- hands up -

Be my guest, no derailing here.

On topic: The downed state is pretty self explanatory once you get knocked around a couple times, so unless you are the best player ever and don’t find yourself downed before lvl80, a tooltip would suffice.

In fact, I’d go so far to say that suddenly introducing downed at level 5 will confuse and surprise people even more.

There was also a thread about adding downed skills to your character panel. that would work really well too.

I think we’ll have to see it in action before we judge. A lot of this is for first time players. Maybe they think they’ll have more of those if they release an expansion. lol

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

For the most part, most of it shouldn’t concern lvl 80 players unless they are leveling alts. Even then, the extent of the concern should simply be to expect the changes. Admittedly I’m not enthusiastic about all of the changes myself, but a lot of them will be helpful for newer players coming into the game. A solid foundation, a solid starting experience is necessary. Unfortunately, those that have flailed through it without these “niceties” don’t see them as necessary, don’t see why other’s might need them. Obviously they made it through, so nothing is “wrong.”

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

For the most part, most of it shouldn’t concern lvl 80 players unless they are leveling alts. Even then, the extent of the concern should simply be to expect the changes. Admittedly I’m not enthusiastic about all of the changes myself, but a lot of them will be helpful for newer players coming into the game. A solid foundation, a solid starting experience is necessary. Unfortunately, those that have flailed through it without these “niceties” don’t see them as necessary, don’t see why other’s might need them. Obviously they made it through, so nothing is “wrong.”

It’s also that most of the people we know that played the game and left never said “too hard to learn” but did say “Now what? Oh well…”

Remember when they wanted to add the option for players to chose in which combo field they execute the finishers? And then said it might be “confusing” to people?
Or now when they keep refusing to do pvp/pve skill splits because it’s also “confusing”?
Fun stuff.

This is a quote from Colin on reddit. Thought I’d leave this hear for you.

“Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.

Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.

This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm"

I’ve said this time and time again. Anet isn’t making decision just to make decisions. They have access to information we simply don’t have. This time he told us, but it’s been pretty obvious to me all along.

Lheimroo.2947:

To be fair, rallying IS confusing to a new player.

You’re in this state with zero time to read your tooltips and figure out what all your suddenly new abilities do, and then you’re dead.

I don’t mind that. Any of the other changes I have difficulty seeing the motive for, but that is absolutely the least confusing part of this dev blog for me.

There’s a bit of a problem with a lot of the limited-time skill switches: downed, Death Shroud, Transformations…

Those should all exist in a skills tab somewhere so players new to a class can actually have time to look at them and have them for reference.

It would also help in skill-buying decisions, especially since several elites are Transform abilities that last about 30 seconds. That’s barely enough time to use the skills, much less read them.

For people just joining it seems alright. I know a friend of mine who joined literally last week had trouble learning things up.

But it’s kind of pointless for basically anyone who’s played the game for more than a month.

LostBalloon.6423:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m more confused about why this change concerns LVL 80 players…. This is an area of the game that has been LACKING for 2 years and when they try to improve it (not saying the improvements are good or bad), the player base wants to complain?

Gotta love the Dev hate this forum thrives on….

For the most part, most of it shouldn’t concern lvl 80 players unless they are leveling alts. Even then, the extent of the concern should simply be to expect the changes. Admittedly I’m not enthusiastic about all of the changes myself, but a lot of them will be helpful for newer players coming into the game. A solid foundation, a solid starting experience is necessary. Unfortunately, those that have flailed through it without these “niceties” don’t see them as necessary, don’t see why other’s might need them. Obviously they made it through, so nothing is “wrong.”

It’s also that most of the people we know that played the game and left never said “too hard to learn” but did say “Now what? Oh well…”

I know a couple that left because they couldn’t get the hang of it, but everyone’s different in that regard.

Still though, you get that exact same reaction when expansions are announced, when it comes to some people. MoP got pretty much that response from a lot of people when it was announced.

ArchonWing.9480:

I’d rather be downed, then outright defeated. Downed is more forgiving to new players…

This game should just add a tutorial and be done with it.

I agree, but I think we need 3 ways to access game info:

1. a tutorial with pop-up tooltips that is default for a new account and can be turned off for the whole account at any time in game options.
2. These simplified tool tips themselves are organized into a menu of basic topics that can be accessed via game options (or some other way).
3. the wiki

Lets face it unless you know exactly what you are looking for the wiki can be difficult to use. The first thing the tutorial should explain is how to turn it off and where to find the tool tip topics. The topics should be basic and explain game play as well as the game interface. The tutorial/tooltips should also explain how to access the wiki in game.

Why do developers always work on the postulate that their players are stupid, and then believe kitten like this will fix that? Yes, there are dumb players. No, this won’t help them. Some players just need to be told to RTFW.

This game compared to GW1 is already incredibly dumb down.
There is not too much space left.

eye floater.7140:

“For example, rallying from the downed state can be overwhelming to a brand-new Guild Wars 2 player”
Really? How is that overwhelming?

Because the rally system is explained nowhere, I’ve commonly seen new players fresh out of the tutorial get downed, then spam all four skills, unknowingly interrupting their self rez, and die. And then it only gets worse, because rallying at WPs wasn’t ever explained either!

Anybody who says these tutorials aren’t needed can’t see past their own nose, most players do not read up extensively on a games mechanics before they first play, and they shouldn’t have to. You don’t have to put in research to understand a movie, to enjoy a painting, or to listen to a song. And you shouldn’t have to for a game, they are each their own piece of art and each should be clear of their own merits.

These tutorial mechanics are not only needed now, they’ve been needed for the past two years, and they affect you in no way way, so quit whining about them.

Good grief. What we need is the tutorial to actually be, you know, a bloody tutorial.

-Press this to move.

-Press this to use your skills.

-Targeting works like this.

-Don’t lick that.

-You can jump pressing this.

-You’ve suffered damage – use this skill to heal before you’re downed.

-Don’t lick that either.

-You’ve unlocked a new weapon skill!

-You’ve been downed, defeat an enemy to rally before health runs out!

-We warned you not to lick that.

Once you’ve covered the majority of the game mechanics, you get turned loose upon the rest of the world.

Instead, it seems they’re going to make leveling enough of a drawn out process that I couldn’t see starting a new character anymore. I do have a warrior alt I started simply to check out how it is to play with the new trait system, and (for me, at least) it’s infuriating. We don’t need more of this.

Conncept.7638:

eye floater.7140:

“For example, rallying from the downed state can be overwhelming to a brand-new Guild Wars 2 player”
Really? How is that overwhelming?

Because the rally system is explained nowhere, I’ve commonly seen new players fresh out of the tutorial get downed, then spam all four skills, interrupting their self rez, and die, and then worse, have no idea how to get back up, because rallying at WPs isn’t explained either!

Agreed.

There are a lot of things that most of us “figured out” either through trial and error, or through asking, googling, etc.

GW2 does not presently have a “tutorial mode” as GW1 did. In prophecies we had pre-searting, which lots of tool tips and lots of quest text to explain. In both factions and nightfall you had an actual tutorial “mission” at the very start before you could even do anything.

GW2 has a starter “mission” but it explains very, very little. For example, in Factiosn, the tutorial intentionally kills you and then proceeds to explain resurrection shrines. In GW2 when you’re downed….that’s it. You see another set of skills pop up, which you really don’t have time to read. You have your health ticking away. There’s no pop up, no npc explaining what just happened. No explanation of what rallying is, how it happens, or how you res if you don’t rally. I only knew what the down state was when I first started because I played the betas and haunted the net daily for game details when information started popping up.

As someone who works in UX and product design, I’ve learned over the years that somebody out there will always find something confusing, despite your best efforts.

It’s a slippery slope making things easier and easier, streamlining stuff, trimming the fat, until what you’re left with is so homogenized that it isn’t an experience at all.

Yes, down/rally can be confusing the first, maybe second or third, times it happens. After that? It’s perfectly logical. New players will inevitably stumble and make mistakes, that’s part of learning. Should we make failure impossible? No, then you rob all reward from success.

pseudonatural.3549:

As someone who works in UX and product design, I’ve learned over the years that somebody out there will always find something confusing, despite your best efforts.

It’s a slippery slope making things easier and easier, streamlining stuff, trimming the fat, until what you’re left with is so homogenized that it isn’t an experience at all.

Yes, down/rally can be confusing the first, maybe second or third, times it happens. After that? It’s perfectly logical. New players will inevitably stumble and make mistakes, that’s part of learning. Should we make failure impossible? No, then you rob all reward from success.

While it is true that you can’t “stupid proof” applications and games, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a tutorial. The tutorial is just basically the help section, in a sense. There isn’t anything wrong with adding some pop ups, some method to call attention to and explain something.

I don’t necessarily agree with how some of the changes are being implemented, but the concept is agreeable.

I don’t feel it’s dumbing down the game at all. Most of the players here are veteren MMO and video games players from back in the days of NES and before. Most of these mechanics are almost second nature to us. I’ve introducted my wife to the world of Tyria. She has 0 background in video games (still has trouble with the controls for wii bowling) and less then 0 experience in PC gaming, and MMOs. Just learning the very basic combat mechanics (attacking, which skills do what, dodging) has been difficult, as well as the camera controls. I taught her much, and she is getting better. But it still is a bit daunting at times, especially when 3 or more enemies are in the area. I showed her the blog, and the changes coming. And she was really excited to get back into it. As it was offering more explainations, tips, and hints to help her figure out the game, what is happening when she levels up, and other useful information.

As a vet player teaching someone new, this is awesome for me as well. I don’t need to spend half my time trying to teach her every little aspect, can we can both spend our time leveling and enjoying the game.

If you are a vet player, making an alt, you can skip/ignor all of that and continue playing normally. It’s really not that big of a deal.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I didn’t learn the following about downed until I was about level 5.

Defeating an enemy rallies you
*A player defeating an enemy you touched rallies you
*any of the downed state tooltips. The macabre tone change distracts you from reading your options, and I pretty much had to read the wiki since I didn’t feel like downing just to read the flavor text. armor repairs cost copper/silver.)

I didn’t understand vengeance fully until I saw the trait.

you don’t really need the wiki. you kind of… just understand if you get knocked on your kitten enough times.

Downed underwater though…

Still barely understand it. Need more downbait underwater, Anet.
…less sharks though

What if they put the skill descriptions in the “weapon skills” panel with all the other weapon skill descriptions, so you can look them up easily at any time?

Judging by the number of people I see on a daily basis who sit there waiting for a revive instead of tagging a nearby trash mob to rally, rallying from downed state isn’t just overwhelming to new players, but many veteran players as well.

Would be cool to have a tutorial island with target dummies, combo fields, etc.

Wethospu.6437:

Would be cool to have a tutorial island with target dummies, combo fields, etc.

This is a good idea, it could be optional and located on the Myst so new players can understand what this weird dimension is as well

SkiTz.4590:

lol this game is already one of the most casual MMOs on the market… I can’t believe anet is actually trying to make it even MORE CASUAL..

They do.
Btw can I have a tutorial for autoattack?

ArchonWing.9480:

I’d rather be downed, then outright defeated. Downed is more forgiving to new players…

This game should just add a tutorial and be done with it.

that’s how you get to level 2 :-)