Guild Wars 2

Stephane Lo Presti
ArenaNet Poster
Target Source
Share This Post

1. - 2014/09/09 01:54:57 PM (2014/09/09 09:54:57 UTC-4)
   Hi everyone,

I’m going to paraphrase Colin on this topic. The decision to implement the New Player Experiment system came from 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. It came as a surprise to us but it was an important for us to acknowledge that a number of systems, downed included, were difficult to understand for many players.

For the downed, system we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial and other ideas. After usability testing with numerous different groups, we found that 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 is that all of us (including a lot of people on the forums) probably know games (and Guild Wars 2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny percentage of them frequent game forums. Just because all of us learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm.

I hope this helps everyone here understand that this was a decision to improve the game for many people. Thanks for your understanding

The first thing that worries me is I hope ‘interviews’ doesn’t actually mean multiple choice survey, when I quit a game or stop a service and I get one of those, Oh why you leaving[A][B] etc I click whatever I click first and make it go away as quick as possible.
Another thing that worries me is just maybe some of these people that quit just found the game to not be for them, I mean there is an extremely low chance that this was their first game ever to install for them to not be able to learn game mechanics within the first 4 levels, think about it, when you pop into a new game and something makes you wtf .. you do what .. google amirite. If you notice she says “and left leading up to” so it sounds like boredom set in from either lack of addition content or repetition like with alts .. starting a new alt and going ug gotta roam and get all these kitten icons on the map completed again!
I guess it would be nice for someone to explain to me how it is that someone was able to install the game but yet lack the capacity to figure any of these things out, I can understand a first time gamer of the pc, but all of them? Look at most games in stores now, seriously .. most of them if not all require some level of ingenuity to learn, right?

we all Learnt to play MMO’s at one point in our life.

why is this quote coming across that we were somehow born with the skills to play MMOs…

what a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE patch this has been.

worst MMO NPE in history

What complete nonsense. Were these “thousands of testers” 6 year old children or people that drool and still need to wear diapers? I’ve never, ever, EVER seen players struggle to grasp the fundamentals of this game or even most other ones, and GW2 happens to be one of the easiest MMOs to get into and that’s even comparing it to some of the earliest ones.

This is a major upset. Either they are lying or they tested people with less than 70 IQ, and I’m serious about that.

A few angry threads cropping up is not always a cause for action; ALL the threads cropping up being angry? Map chats being filled with upset players? That definitely is.

Your testers were ignoramuses or nonexistent. The experiment has failed, that is all there is to it.

Not to mention whenever you install an online game, you always get directed to their website which you can always clearly see on the page somewhere forums … so like I mentioned if it was really a game they were looking to get into and spent the money on wouldn’t they at least try some avenues(google,forums) to understand before quitting .. I just don’t understand Anet’s viewpoint.

I also fail to see how a person, after spending money on a game, will just quit within the first few levels by being confused simply by being downed without trying to at least research.

Kamui.4038:

What complete nonsense. Were these “thousands of testers” 6 year old children or people that drool and still need to wear diapers? I’ve never, ever, EVER seen players struggle to grasp the fundamentals of this game or even most other ones, and GW2 happens to be one of the easiest MMOs to get into and that’s even comparing it to some of the earliest ones.

This is a major upset. Either they are lying or they tested people with less than 70 IQ, and I’m serious about that.

A few angry threads cropping up is not always a cause for action; ALL the threads cropping up being angry? Map chats being filled with upset players? That definitely is.

Your testers were ignoramuses or nonexistent. The experiment has failed, that is all there is to it.

I’ve seen people fail to get this game, even a couple of smarter people. It’s designed for explorers, not follow the arrrows type. After years of being conditioned to follow an arrow, they end up thinking the only quest in the game is the personal story.

It’s not that rare to see a post where someone says I must not be leveling fast enough because I’m not up to my next personal story quest, what have I done wrong.

And if you see a few posts like that, you certainly know people who don’t come to forums are experiencing that too.

What could’ve been done is.

- Make a survey
- Post the link to it on the forum / send it via ingame mail
- See what the people who actually play the game have to say about it

I’m pretty sure it would’ve looked different

they have tested with really kittened persons or 5yo babies , so only the results came like that!!

nexusone.2367:

What could’ve been done is.

- Make a survey
- Post the link to it on the forum / send it via ingame mail
- See what the people who actually play the game have to say about it

I’m pretty sure it would’ve looked different

It would have definitely looked different but there’s still a problem with this.

This patch wasn’t made for people who play the game…at least the part of the patch people are complaining most about. It was made for people who don’t.

Problem is that many people and most of the media, seems to think that in MMO you must be able to understand and do everything in the first 30 minutes of game time (like in single player game).
I have seen so many people complaining about the difficulty of games when they have played it for less than an hour.

MMO’s usually open up and you start to understand the game (world and mechanics) after you get to level 15 and above. Level 15 is not possible on game shows where people get to play for few minutes, if you then ask those players what they thought you will get answers that the game is hard to get into etc.

If they have questioned first timers in game shows I would understand their error of thinking, but otherwise the direction of making a simple game even simpler will be driving new and old players away, not bringing them to play the game more.

Zardul.3952:

we all Learnt to play MMO’s at one point in our life.

why is this quote coming across that we were somehow born with the skills to play MMOs…

what a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE patch this has been.

worst MMO NPE in history

That’s the thing though, every MMO (and everything else) is someone’s first. I can see the logic behind this but I think the execution in of itself is severely flawed.

Kamui.4038:

What complete nonsense. Were these “thousands of testers” 6 year old children or people that drool and still need to wear diapers? I’ve never, ever, EVER seen players struggle to grasp the fundamentals of this game or even most other ones, and GW2 happens to be one of the easiest MMOs to get into and that’s even comparing it to some of the earliest ones.

This is a major upset. Either they are lying or they tested people with less than 70 IQ, and I’m serious about that.

A few angry threads cropping up is not always a cause for action; ALL the threads cropping up being angry? Map chats being filled with upset players? That definitely is.

Your testers were ignoramuses or nonexistent. The experiment has failed, that is all there is to it.

Started this game 2 weeks ago and got 2 level 80s, came into the game and was like “this seems easy and fun enough pretty common sense. Thought it was great because I didn’t have to grind several hundred thousand pigs”. With that I learned how to craft and Pvp, all within the first few days.

In short, their game was well off before, this dumbing down is insulting to everybody but 5 year olds. I came in and understood the game, not because of my previous history with mmos but with common sense. So I agree with you

wiredrawn.7298:

Stephane Lo Presti
ArenaNet Poster
Target Source
Share This Post

1. - 2014/09/09 01:54:57 PM (2014/09/09 09:54:57 UTC-4)
   Hi everyone,

I’m going to paraphrase Colin on this topic. The decision to implement the New Player Experiment system came from 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. It came as a surprise to us but it was an important for us to acknowledge that a number of systems, downed included, were difficult to understand for many players.

For the downed, system we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial and other ideas. After usability testing with numerous different groups, we found that 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 is that all of us (including a lot of people on the forums) probably know games (and Guild Wars 2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny percentage of them frequent game forums. Just because all of us learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm.

I hope this helps everyone here understand that this was a decision to improve the game for many people. Thanks for your understanding

The first thing that worries me is I hope ‘interviews’ doesn’t actually mean multiple choice survey, when I quit a game or stop a service and I get one of those, Oh why you leaving[A][B] etc I click whatever I click first and make it go away as quick as possible.
Another thing that worries me is just maybe some of these people that quit just found the game to not be for them, I mean there is an extremely low chance that this was their first game ever to install for them to not be able to learn game mechanics within the first 4 levels, think about it, when you pop into a new game and something makes you wtf .. you do what .. google amirite. If you notice she says “and left leading up to” so it sounds like boredom set in from either lack of addition content or repetition like with alts .. starting a new alt and going ug gotta roam and get all these kitten icons on the map completed again!
I guess it would be nice for someone to explain to me how it is that someone was able to install the game but yet lack the capacity to figure any of these things out, I can understand a first time gamer of the pc, but all of them? Look at most games in stores now, seriously .. most of them if not all require some level of ingenuity to learn, right?

i ask myself who these groups are as well Are they retirement home residents? Are they the neighbours of Anet? And where do they meet these people? I never heard of Anets’"beta testing", surveys or whatever on any site.

To me the reason of all the changes is just the synchronization of all GW2 Versions. In this case the chinese and non-chinese version. It is easier for Anet to develop future updates if they don’t have to look out for different versions.

Vayne.8563:

Kamui.4038:

What complete nonsense. Were these “thousands of testers” 6 year old children or people that drool and still need to wear diapers? I’ve never, ever, EVER seen players struggle to grasp the fundamentals of this game or even most other ones, and GW2 happens to be one of the easiest MMOs to get into and that’s even comparing it to some of the earliest ones.

This is a major upset. Either they are lying or they tested people with less than 70 IQ, and I’m serious about that.

A few angry threads cropping up is not always a cause for action; ALL the threads cropping up being angry? Map chats being filled with upset players? That definitely is.

Your testers were ignoramuses or nonexistent. The experiment has failed, that is all there is to it.

I’ve seen people fail to get this game, even a couple of smarter people. It’s designed for explorers, not follow the arrrows type. After years of being conditioned to follow an arrow, they end up thinking the only quest in the game is the personal story.

It’s not that rare to see a post where someone says I must not be leveling fast enough because I’m not up to my next personal story quest, what have I done wrong.

And if you see a few posts like that, you certainly know people who don’t come to forums are experiencing that too.

But is that cause to restrict weapons/utilities and traits from them? And do they immediately stop and not continue playing because they don’t have the recommended level?

I can understand they could be thinking they missed some quests or something, but the hearts are all over the place and so are the map markers for points of interest and vistas, not to mention in-game chat .. but to assume they don’t understand the basics of the game is insulting really, how did they get through the first story mission then if they didn’t understand skills/abilities etc?

‘tens of thousands of usability testers’

This is what gets me every time. If Anet have TENS OF THOUSANDS OF kittenING TESTERS for anything why is their game a bug riddled dumbed down piece of garbage?

You need to fire all ten thousand of these usability testers right now.

Well…huh. That’s a weird post. On some level I guess I can accept the concept that the vocal group of people on forums would not include those who quit the game. But isn’t this akin to using exit interviews at a job site to determine future courses of action? I mean……. gah. There’s a reason you don’t do that. Those people chose to leave. Their opinions have value, but its below the value of those who support you and stick around. If you go after the black sheep you might get him back, but you’ll probably kitten off everybody else in the process.

we havent even got tens of thousands of players in game

so what a bunch of lies this is.

wiredrawn.7298:

Vayne.8563:

Kamui.4038:

What complete nonsense. Were these “thousands of testers” 6 year old children or people that drool and still need to wear diapers? I’ve never, ever, EVER seen players struggle to grasp the fundamentals of this game or even most other ones, and GW2 happens to be one of the easiest MMOs to get into and that’s even comparing it to some of the earliest ones.

This is a major upset. Either they are lying or they tested people with less than 70 IQ, and I’m serious about that.

A few angry threads cropping up is not always a cause for action; ALL the threads cropping up being angry? Map chats being filled with upset players? That definitely is.

Your testers were ignoramuses or nonexistent. The experiment has failed, that is all there is to it.

I’ve seen people fail to get this game, even a couple of smarter people. It’s designed for explorers, not follow the arrrows type. After years of being conditioned to follow an arrow, they end up thinking the only quest in the game is the personal story.

It’s not that rare to see a post where someone says I must not be leveling fast enough because I’m not up to my next personal story quest, what have I done wrong.

And if you see a few posts like that, you certainly know people who don’t come to forums are experiencing that too.

But is that cause to restrict weapons/utilities and traits from them? And do they immediately stop and not continue playing because they don’t have the recommended level?

I can understand they could be thinking they missed some quests or something, but the hearts are all over the place and so are the map markers for points of interest and vistas, not to mention in-game chat .. but to assume they don’t understand the basics of the game is insulting really, how did they get through the first story mission then if they didn’t understand skills/abilities etc?

You seem to think most people like and use map chat. I haven’t found that to be true. I think an awful lot of people solo MMOs as ridiculous as that might seem to us.

I also think that not everyone has the same level of understanding as others. As I’ve said in other places, I have a friend that was fine in DDO and even Guild Wars 1, but Guild Wars 2 confused him. A lot of it was lack of direction.

He wanted to know what he was supposed to be doing and the game doesn’t tell him.

Honestly I blame WoW clones for dumbing down the genre and training and entire generation of people how not to think.

Tagus Eleuthera.7305:

… There’s a reason you don’t do that. Those people chose to leave. Their opinions have value, but its below the value of those who support you and stick around. If you go after the black sheep you might get him back, but you’ll probably kitten off everybody else in the process.

I just wanted to quote that cause I think it’s important to mention that making the existing, more stable customers happy especially if their happy is above the satisfied spectrum they tend to externalize the happy, like answering questions in game, going to help some one in need of help .. and if they are extra happy with the game and the enjoyment factor they may even offer their time and or knowledge.

wiredrawn.7298:

Tagus Eleuthera.7305:

… There’s a reason you don’t do that. Those people chose to leave. Their opinions have value, but its below the value of those who support you and stick around. If you go after the black sheep you might get him back, but you’ll probably kitten off everybody else in the process.

I just wanted to quote that cause I think it’s important to mention that making the existing, more stable customers happy especially if their happy is above the satisfied spectrum they tend to externalize the happy, like answering questions in game, going to help some one in need of help .. and if they are extra happy with the game and the enjoyment factor they may even offer their time and or knowledge.

Well said, there are business trainings and seminars that state the customer retention and keeping older customers are the best form of business success. You keep the loyal customers happy and they will bird dog you new customers. You chase the new 1 time deal customers and displease the loyal members and you lose money. New 5 year old kids and new people won’t buy gems but people who love the game and are loyal and veterans to the game will buy gems.

why do we continue to fight for this game though?

it really makes me wonder whats the point to some extent that i will be trying new MMO’s

its not because of the mistakes they made with patchs and being disapointed

its because i have no trust and feel too distance from Anet.

it feels like there is no love and no respect from them.

Vayne.8563:

wiredrawn.7298:

Vayne.8563:

Kamui.4038:

What complete nonsense. Were these “thousands of testers” 6 year old children or people that drool and still need to wear diapers? I’ve never, ever, EVER seen players struggle to grasp the fundamentals of this game or even most other ones, and GW2 happens to be one of the easiest MMOs to get into and that’s even comparing it to some of the earliest ones.

This is a major upset. Either they are lying or they tested people with less than 70 IQ, and I’m serious about that.

A few angry threads cropping up is not always a cause for action; ALL the threads cropping up being angry? Map chats being filled with upset players? That definitely is.

Your testers were ignoramuses or nonexistent. The experiment has failed, that is all there is to it.

I’ve seen people fail to get this game, even a couple of smarter people. It’s designed for explorers, not follow the arrrows type. After years of being conditioned to follow an arrow, they end up thinking the only quest in the game is the personal story.

It’s not that rare to see a post where someone says I must not be leveling fast enough because I’m not up to my next personal story quest, what have I done wrong.

And if you see a few posts like that, you certainly know people who don’t come to forums are experiencing that too.

But is that cause to restrict weapons/utilities and traits from them? And do they immediately stop and not continue playing because they don’t have the recommended level?

I can understand they could be thinking they missed some quests or something, but the hearts are all over the place and so are the map markers for points of interest and vistas, not to mention in-game chat .. but to assume they don’t understand the basics of the game is insulting really, how did they get through the first story mission then if they didn’t understand skills/abilities etc?

You seem to think most people like and use map chat. I haven’t found that to be true. I think an awful lot of people solo MMOs as ridiculous as that might seem to us.

I also think that not everyone has the same level of understanding as others. As I’ve said in other places, I have a friend that was fine in DDO and even Guild Wars 1, but Guild Wars 2 confused him. A lot of it was lack of direction.

He wanted to know what he was supposed to be doing and the game doesn’t tell him.

Honestly I blame WoW clones for dumbing down the genre and training and entire generation of people how not to think.

Yes, this was my point, direction, even though on the right side of the screen it shows you heart quests and random popup events it doesn’t make them look like quests, also nearby vistas and points of interest don’t show. But as a solo player myself, especially in a game I’ve put money into how could I not at least google or ask in game I understand not holding conversations in game, but a simple, what quests should I do at level 10 would suffice. But if you have experience with friends running into these issues at least it helps me begin to understand where the problem lies.

They really only needed to amplify local activity notifications and make them look more like quests and include basic directions or a map indicator, similar to the green star for personal story but maybe instead a different color to those events, the one closest to them being the one indicated on the map perhaps.

I just think it’s sad now though that these same people will find those experiences harder now that they have less available to them and less customizations to play around with to aliviate boredom from wandering around lost.

tl;dr We screw you all over so we can attract candy crush saga and farmville players.

And the big elephant in the room here aside from these “testers” is China’s changes being brought to us. Localization has more to it than translating your game. Different demographics do things, wait for it… DIFFERENTLY. Amazing, I know right? They also react differently and handle things differently.

We didn’t pay and spend money on gems for a Chinese WalMart product that seems to be broken even before opening the box. I really loved GW2, especially the flowing combat and the little things like animations – but not even these things are sacred anymore.

Please ArenaNet. If I appear to be coming down strongly (and one only has to see my post history to see that, of which there isn’t much because I rarely posted before) it’s because I love what this game was and it’s heartbreaking to see it go down the kittenter like this. All this hatred and outrage on the forums wouldn’t exist if people didn’t care deeply for this game. Don’t continue making the mistake of alienating your longtime patrons and making decisions that turn away new ones.

Assuming the player is a vapid sponge, artificially slowing down the game pace, locking people out of fundamental game mechanics, and dancing for cows is a recipe for disaster.

Surprise? NO… I….. I can’t believe that post is serious. They were SURPRISED that people had trouble understanding downed state? What? This game had pretty much NO TUTORIAL and very little explanation for any of the basic mechanics. I discovered what my downed state skills were by furiously reading the tooltip every time I went down in hopes that I would be able to figure out what the skills did before I died. Is there even a way to view downed skills in-game without actually BEING downed?

The only way for a casual gamer to find out how to use downed state is to use the wiki. That’s probably still true since there is still no TUTORIAL for downed state, as far as I’m aware. The only changes that they’ve made is that they’ve level-locked the skills. So, instead of furiously trying to find out what four skills do before you die, you’ll be furiously trying to figure out what one skill does before you die and then furiously trying to figure out what another skill does before you die and then furiously trying to figure out what another skill does before you die and then furiously trying to figure out what another skill does before you die. It’s a little bit simpler, I guess? I mean, you are learning one thing at a time spaced over many levels rather than trying to learn one thing at a time four times in a row very rapidly. But, I really don’t see how it makes that much of a difference. Unless there is some way to actually practice using the downed skills, you’re still not going to be very good if you get downed.

How is this better than what we had before, exactly? Is there a new downed state tutorial that I completely missed while leveling my alt? All I noticed was an extremely easy to locate dodging quest, a new GPS system, and some attempts to explain things every time you gain a level. Wouldn’t it be better to add a tutorial level where you actually GET DOWNED and you are taught what the skills do and what they are for? Even Guild Wars Factions had a tutorial level which introduced players to basic game mechanics like Death Penalty. Is it really that hard to add an hours worth of tutorial content to introduce players to downed state, dodging, and underwater combat? And I’m talking about a real tutorial and not trying to introduce the concepts into the starter instance which is actually a story quest regardless of how many times people refer to it as the tutorial instance. Wouldn’t it be better to have a real tutorial instance somewhere in the game?

I guess Arenanet is just catering to a different group of players, now. I liked the freedom I had before to do my personal story at any time that I wanted, or to attempt any skill challenge that I could manage to reach. It actually made the skill challenge….well, challenging. Sure, things were overly complicated and there was a lot of stuff to figure out. But, I was willing to put the time in to figure all of that stuff out because the game was fun. I was willing to figure out whether or not the Shovel or Boulder had any use. I eventually figured out when I should be shattering illusions and when I should leave them standing. I figured out (quickly) that champion monsters were instant suicide at low levels unless you had a large group to help you (hence the term: Group Event)

It looks like it just may be the case that Arenanet is remaking this game for an audience of which I am not a part of.

I still find it almost unbelievable that they didn’t know that downed state was confusing. Downed state, dodging, had pretty much no in-game explanation, and certainly no tutorial. You rarely even get a chance to practice downed skills because when you go down you will probably be defeated shortly unless you are already familiar with the game (in which case you don’t need a tutorial)

The fact that they were surprised that downed state was confusing to new players explains A LOT of things. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that they didn’t realize that some players would have a lot of trouble figuring it out. Guild Wars 2 is not my first MMO, and even I found the basic game mechanics sadly lacking in explanation, particularly the downed state. And, I already knew about downed state before playing the game because I followed beta footage posted to YouTube.

Zardul.3952:

why do we continue to fight for this game though?

it really makes me wonder whats the point to some extent that i will be trying new MMO’s

its not because of the mistakes they made with patchs and being disapointed

its because i have no trust and feel too distance from Anet.

it feels like there is no love and no respect from them.

We fight because we really liked this game. And yeah it feels as if ANet dreads the playerbase and just wants us all to go. What have we done wrong to deserve all this? I didn’t even post on the forums until recently because it’s necessary to join the other disgruntled people. I know people give them a hard time but it’s because they want the best for this game. People wouldn’t lift a finger if they didn’t give a crap about it all.

Difficult? Seriously? Man, it had one of the best leveling systems I’ve ever seen. And now it’s dumb down to WoW-level.

So they nerfed it because players were too whiny, too dumb, and too lazy to learn?

Again . . . seriously?

wiredrawn.7298:

Vayne.8563:

wiredrawn.7298:

Vayne.8563:

Kamui.4038:

What complete nonsense. Were these “thousands of testers” 6 year old children or people that drool and still need to wear diapers? I’ve never, ever, EVER seen players struggle to grasp the fundamentals of this game or even most other ones, and GW2 happens to be one of the easiest MMOs to get into and that’s even comparing it to some of the earliest ones.

This is a major upset. Either they are lying or they tested people with less than 70 IQ, and I’m serious about that.

A few angry threads cropping up is not always a cause for action; ALL the threads cropping up being angry? Map chats being filled with upset players? That definitely is.

Your testers were ignoramuses or nonexistent. The experiment has failed, that is all there is to it.

I’ve seen people fail to get this game, even a couple of smarter people. It’s designed for explorers, not follow the arrrows type. After years of being conditioned to follow an arrow, they end up thinking the only quest in the game is the personal story.

It’s not that rare to see a post where someone says I must not be leveling fast enough because I’m not up to my next personal story quest, what have I done wrong.

And if you see a few posts like that, you certainly know people who don’t come to forums are experiencing that too.

But is that cause to restrict weapons/utilities and traits from them? And do they immediately stop and not continue playing because they don’t have the recommended level?

I can understand they could be thinking they missed some quests or something, but the hearts are all over the place and so are the map markers for points of interest and vistas, not to mention in-game chat .. but to assume they don’t understand the basics of the game is insulting really, how did they get through the first story mission then if they didn’t understand skills/abilities etc?

You seem to think most people like and use map chat. I haven’t found that to be true. I think an awful lot of people solo MMOs as ridiculous as that might seem to us.

I also think that not everyone has the same level of understanding as others. As I’ve said in other places, I have a friend that was fine in DDO and even Guild Wars 1, but Guild Wars 2 confused him. A lot of it was lack of direction.

He wanted to know what he was supposed to be doing and the game doesn’t tell him.

Honestly I blame WoW clones for dumbing down the genre and training and entire generation of people how not to think.

Yes, this was my point, direction, even though on the right side of the screen it shows you heart quests and random popup events it doesn’t make them look like quests, also nearby vistas and points of interest don’t show. But as a solo player myself, especially in a game I’ve put money into how could I not at least google or ask in game I understand not holding conversations in game, but a simple, what quests should I do at level 10 would suffice. But if you have experience with friends running into these issues at least it helps me begin to understand where the problem lies.

They really only needed to amplify local activity notifications and make them look more like quests and include basic directions or a map indicator, similar to the green star for personal story but maybe instead a different color to those events, the one closest to them being the one indicated on the map perhaps.

I just think it’s sad now though that these same people will find those experiences harder now that they have less available to them and less customizations to play around with to aliviate boredom from wandering around lost.

One story Colin told early on involved a test player playing the game for the first time. He ran right by a burning house, without stopping. A dev asked him, why did you run past that house. The reply was, because I didn’t have a quest to go in there.

Some people really are conditioned by other games and can’t think outside the box. That’s why tutorials like this exist.

I tend to ignore these types of tutorials because I prefer to explore, but I recognize I’m not indicative of the majority. In fact, if a game was made that I liked best, I’m probably one of the few who would play it.

Vayne.8563:

nexusone.2367:

What could’ve been done is.

- Make a survey
- Post the link to it on the forum / send it via ingame mail
- See what the people who actually play the game have to say about it

I’m pretty sure it would’ve looked different

It would have definitely looked different but there’s still a problem with this.

This patch wasn’t made for people who play the game…at least the part of the patch people are complaining most about. It was made for people who don’t.

But we have all been new players at some point. It’s about asking the right questions to the right people.
“What did you find difficult when starting your first character in GW2?” paired with a “What’s your MMO experience?” question etc. etc.

Connected with the player names you also have a nice overview about what the casual and “hardcore” players think (just based on hours played, numbers of toons/levels etc.)

Vayne.8563:

He wanted to know what he was supposed to be doing and the game doesn’t tell him.

The first important question here is:

if the new system would have been already in place and would have held his hand till 80 – what would he have done after that?

If the leveling process has to be dumbed down so much (which I even doubt) how shall those players be kept ingame at 80? Is the next step dumbing down “endgame”-experience for level 80?

The second important question:

why is there no option to turn the “newb-mode” off for older or more experienced new players?

Another question is how unattracting this system could be for the main-target group. I for example was almost disgusted how simple ESO was, barely a vanilla-UI, no real weapon-skills, pressing 1 ftw.

I agree Sokia there should definitely be a way to view the actions available to your class at down state somewhere in your hero panel, like they do with all available weapon skills.

And a tutorial would have been great! When you start a new character before throwing us into the intro story thing start us in the tutorial that takes us literally through some of the beginning aspects of the game with a button on the bottom right of the screen skip tutorial then throw us into the story intro with a skip story button, of course if it’s your first character ever to made on that account make them go through the tutorial but nothing extensively long or grueling.

It doesn’t have to immersive and story driven either, anyone play requiem, totally not in-gameish type tutorial, even army of two I think had a tutorial that had some guy talking to you about how the mechanics work and showing a brief video .. allods online same thing at the beginning a tutorial basically looking like a youtube video where the person explained and clicked away.

This way they can easily, quickly and efficiently step through the main beginning aspects, like these are called hearts quests .. bla bla, these are vistas .. bla bla then after talking maybe have the character in a down state with a training dummy there and explaining with a tool tip quickly over each action what they do and if they help you get up etc.

I find it odd that the old system was difficult for people to understand. I am one of those people who does not like a complex new player experience and shuns most MMOs because of it. Yet, I started playing GW2 a year and a half ago and I am still here. That should say something about the complexity of the old system. I am just one person but if I found it easy than surely it can’t be that confusing.

Aguri.2896:

I find it odd that the old system was difficult for people to understand. I am one of those people who does not like a complex new player experience and shuns most MMOs because of it. Yet, I started playing GW2 a year and a half ago and I am still here. That should say something about the complexity of the old system. I am just one person but if I found it easy than surely it can’t be that confusing.

Same, when it comes to FTP mmos, because man have I gone through a lot. The ones that I did pay for I attempted to figure out best I could, because well I invested in it .. until I would find the game just isn’t for me, either the graphics were too cartoonish or there was an aspect of the game that I couldn’t customize to my liking or I didn’t have enough tools available to me to make each encounter unique or repetitious

I think most player’s learned this game by trail and error. Sure, you may not get downed state the first time because there’s no explanation of it until you’re downed but the second time you’ll know and be ready for it. Same thing goes for all the crap they’ve gated behind levels. Seriously the worst patch they’ve put out.

Metrics, i thought this could be the case. Their kittening metrics is also the reason why Skyhammer, the most despised and hated map by PvP community, is still in the game and in soloQ. They recently, finally, acknowledged the problem and promised to work on it. Metrics can be pretty important thing, but it won’t make up for the lack of common sense and of general experience with your own game. Because what the situation with NPE shows, is lack of common sense, some things they did there are just bizarre, and what situation with Skyhammer shows is how disconnected they are from their own game, you don’t need metrics to see why this map is cancer, all you need to play your own game, like at least few hours every couple of days.

In beta they actually did a continuous survey. I was quite surprised when they removed it at launch. I hope – suggest – that ANet start doing surveys again. After all, after 2 years, it’ll be good for them to gauge how well their game is being received and perceived by both new and seasoned players to help with their future decisions.

Whatever happened to doing some research if you didn’t get something straight away? Or click the help button? Or google ‘downed state skills GW2’ if you want to know?

Seriously no idea who these testers are- if they are the future, I pity the rest of you having to live with them.

To mention something positive: I find the new dodging-“tutorials” in the starting areas well done, a good example how to do it.

They are optional, give a little reward and are good to spot – if you are in the right place (their placement is bad, they should be near the area-entrance or spawn-point next to it).

Malkavian.4516:

Zardul.3952:

we all Learnt to play MMO’s at one point in our life.

why is this quote coming across that we were somehow born with the skills to play MMOs…

what a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE patch this has been.

worst MMO NPE in history

That’s the thing though, every MMO (and everything else) is someone’s first. I can see the logic behind this but I think the execution in of itself is severely flawed.

This was my first MMO. Not because I’m particularly young, but because I’d only ever played other genres. I learned just fine; everything made sense to me. I organically learned to dodge, and how to fight, even how combo fields work (though I had to look up the chart to learn all the combos). Any details I couldn’t figure out or wanted more info on I checked the wiki for. (One of the many hints they could have added but DIDN’T is to use the /wiki <keyword> command to learn more about something)

Had this system been in place when I first tried the game on a friend’s spare character slot, I’d have not even purchased it. This is insulting to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. They locked off a bunch of stuff that made the game cool, and called it a “reward”, and blocked access to useful features in the name of not “confusing” people. And somehow, they DIDN’T add useful hints that people would otherwise likely miss, like a COMBO FIELD tutorial, a /WIKI COMMAND hint, or instructions on JOINING SQUAD- you know, stuff that isn’t easily learned organically.

^ You’re biased. You don’t really know whether you would have liked it or not.

hydeaut.1758:

Vayne.8563:

He wanted to know what he was supposed to be doing and the game doesn’t tell him.

The first important question here is:

if the new system would have been already in place and would have held his hand till 80 – what would he have done after that?

If the leveling process has to be dumbed down so much (which I even doubt) how shall those players be kept ingame at 80? Is the next step dumbing down “endgame”-experience for level 80?

The second important question:

why is there no option to turn the “newb-mode” off for older or more experienced new players?

Another question is how unattracting this system could be for the main-target group. I for example was almost disgusted how simple ESO was, barely a vanilla-UI, no real weapon-skills, pressing 1 ftw.

It’s not that simple. If he had an arrow and nothing else, he’d have followed it. Once that arrow showed him events and hearts, he’d have eventually gotten it. It might have taken him 20 levels, who knows, but there was something guiding him. He wouldn’t have felt lost.

Different people have different needs. Some people really do want to be led around by the nose. I don’t. I hate that. This game does too much of that for me. But I can see both sides. I can see why someone would want direction.

Once you’re used to events and stuff like that, you won’t likely need the arrow as much because you’ll have some idea of what the game is about. In fact, you might even see the arrow when trying to make decisions about what to do. Me, I’ll just turn it off.

If people actually stop hating and start think about the trend of MMO for the past 10 years, they will understand why the test came out the way it is.

Every MMO since WoW are designed for mouth breathers and face rollers, all they ever do in an MMO is run up to the NPCs with the big shiny quest marker on their head, skip every dialog as fast as they can, then expect to auto path to the area where they need to go to complete the quest. Anything outside of that have 0 importance to them, they don’t stop to think about their next step and they definitely don’t stop to admire the great scenery.

The dev could have hid a message in the NPC dialog that tells the players that they have won $5000 just for reading the dialog with detailed steps to claim the prize and they can be assured no one will even claim it.

Okay, lets except that they are right, they researched it, and we are the minority.

Then wouldn’t it be better to make this system as a first-character-progression only? I mean think about it. If you have learnt the mechanics already, why teach it again?

To be fair the solution is very easy: Introduce a consumable that allows players to bypass the very first levels. We already have the level 20 scroll, but since we are getting elites on level 40 only, it would be better to at least have an option to mystic forge a level 40 scroll using the level 20 we get from birthdays and achievement chests and what we should get for finishing story mode too probably.

So the leveling, skill unlocking part would be solved by a simple consumable, all they need to add is fix the trait hunting which could be done by making the unlocking account bound.

This way they would have their new player experience, and everyone would be encouraged to make alternate characters. If we would have the opportunity to start from level 40, bypass all the leveling madness and have all our traits already unlocked, we would buy a lot more character slots. At least I know that I would.

Aicus.3174:

The dev could have hid a message in the NPC dialog that tells the players that they have won $5000 just for reading the dialog with detailed steps to claim the prize and they can be assured no one will even claim it.

I can’t remember the number of times I have gotten furious at my friends, when I’m helping them, because they didn’t listen or read the quest. It’s not fun running around for half hour helping a friend, when he suddenly asks you what he is supposed to be doing as this running around is boring. Then trying to figure what quest he is on and trying to remember what was that quest about, when he can read it on his journal/log book, but you are stuck with your own memory system 1.01 (brain).

It’s sad that there are so many people that just want instant gratification

CyClotroniC.4957:

Then wouldn’t it be better to make this system as a first-character-progression only? I mean think about it. If you have learnt the mechanics already, why teach it again?

This is the one and only issue. This system is meant for new players not alts.

Atm they forced a tutorial experience upon every player. If they can bypass this, all current complaints would go away.

Lv40/60 scrolls have been data-mined before. It would be the easiest solution, though I don’t know if it would be better than letting the two systems coexist.

butch.8136:

CyClotroniC.4957:

Then wouldn’t it be better to make this system as a first-character-progression only? I mean think about it. If you have learnt the mechanics already, why teach it again?

This is the one and only issue. This system is meant for new players not alts.

Atm they forced a tutorial experience upon every player. If they can bypass this, all current complaints would go away.

Lv40/60 scrolls have been data-mined before. It would be the easiest solution, though I don’t know if it would be better than letting the two systems coexist.

They’ve also said they’re working on fixing some issues that causes the new player experience to carry over to alts…not that anyone cares they said it. lol

I just checked out their Facebook page and even users there have commented they are not happy with the changes.

If the forum users are considered in the minority (as in importance and userbase), I suggest everyone go onto social media and voice their concerns.

https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2

Vayne.8563:

Once you’re used to events and stuff like that, you won’t likely need the arrow as much because you’ll have some idea of what the game is about. In fact, you might even see the arrow when trying to make decisions about what to do. Me, I’ll just turn it off.

That´s not really the point. The point is, that you have to find your own “endgame” in GW 2 which will be very different from leveling up to 80. And if he even doesn´t have the iniative to find out how to level up, how can he be expected to change his gameplay at 80 and find himself something to do?

There won´t be ingame-links popping up for an event-timer or for Dulfy when he stands in Lion Arch, wondering what he could do.

In the end there will be another ex-player saying “there´s no endgame in GW2” – while the forced changes have a good chance to disgust old players and new more engaged players.

I don’t accept these reasons at all…

All they needed to do was create a testing area similar to the area that was in GW1 that let you test fighting/defending, dealing with conditions etc.

They could have had a NPC you talk to that puts you in the downed state, where you have an unlimited amount of time to hover your mouse over the downed skills to read them and test them.

TBH the same is needed for transforms and other time based elites as well. I like to play around with builds/skills and when testing these you hardly ever get a chance to read the tooltips let alone test the skills a few times before the transform/elite runs out. Then you have to wait up to 3 mins to try it again and all for the same exact results…sheesh.

If you want people to learn these things give them a chance to play with them in a safe area with NO time limits or other distractions, seriously….

That place in L.A with the training dummies was a semi good place to play around with things, something like those dummies and others that actually took conditions would be a great start. Build it into the pvp area or something, you DON’T take things away from the main game to force it in, that just punishes everyone else who knows what they are doing….

These testers were likely newcomers to the game. Trends in gaming habits show that most people who try a game don’t stay at it. ANet have discovered this trend in their own game and mistakenly attributed the cause to the game itself and not the people. I realise that trying to address potential causality is a worthy endeavour but they have really thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

Just remove downstate completely and it’s solved. I understand why MMO players hate It. I dislike it in PvE and despise It in PvP but don’t break the game to solve an issue people who left disagree with.