Guild Wars 2

We have seen that players are unable or unwilling to learn fight mechanics. Even events that have existed since the games release are full of players that cannot or will not learn mechanics.

Players all through their entire leveling time learned that the only way to fight things is to stand in one spot and press 1. No need to dodge, no need to position, no need to attune, no need to use certain types of skills at certain times and avoid in other situation. No mechanics at all.

How can guild wars 2 give incentive to players to learn mechanics? How can they do this without resorting to removing the “Kiddy Pool” level of skilled players enjoyment of the game?

Is it even possible?

I suggest that the personal story should include mini versions of temple of lyssa fights where they are taught positional awareness as a mechanic. They need mini warden 2 fights with specific requirements to actually harm the opponent. They need mini assault knights to learn the importance of dodging highly telegraphed attacks.

In an environment where a player can be forced to have to start over if they cannot learn the mechanic instead of being resurrected by a zerg. They actually learn to start paying attention to these types of details.

As it is currently the game never teaches these mechanics and the outcome is that you can see half of the 50 people at an assault knight get hoovered every single time.

Anyone else have other options for guild wars 2 to give incentive to players to actually learn mechanics instead of bad habits from over simplified PvE gameplay?

It’d help if we could tone down or turn off particle effects. Not sure how things run on you guys’ systems, but for me 3 outta 4 boss fights just go like ‘flash flash sparkle flash sparkle ZAP! – downed’. And of course, it’s running at minus 10 fps for every 50 other people present. I honestly think most players are just overwhelmed by all the stuff happening on-screen.

There are 2 problems:
-If people don’t want to learn or improve, you cannot make them. You can only drive them away. That incentive dark area you are talking about varies from player to player. Some will adapt, some will quit.
-Making a significant amount of those people quit is not part of anets payment model.

I cant’ speak for other players, but I can say this. The few times I’ve fought the knights, I failed to even see those “tell-tale” signs that I was about to be pulled in. Between lag and the particle effects, it is simply impossible for me to know what’s coming. There is way too much going on to be able to see much of anything. That’s my experience anyway. And as a result, I have given up on the event. It’s a bummer, but it’s necessary.

We had this before, the answer is simple:

The players get neither properly rewarded for good gameplay (better loot and I am not talking about a 0.01% higher chance for better gear from boxes) nor punished for bad gameplay (death penalty? lolwut).

Why would they even try?

I think the above posters are correct to a point. It can be very difficult to see stuff when there are 100 players all using skills at the same time. Frame rate loss and lag can also play a large part as well. I think a large part of the problem is that all content is zerg content. If you want players to learn better, make the content for smaller groups.

On the other hand, people still are unable/unwilling to learn very simple and easily telegraphed boss fights in dungeons.

Conclusion: It’s partly caused by the sheer amount of people at the event and partly by people just not willing to learn/wanting to learn.

I don’t think willingness is the problem.

There is just no motivation to do so.

No positive motivation → rewards
No negative motivation → punishment

And in a zerg, it is always the fault of the others anyway.

Easy: make it so that if you don’t use the mechanics, you (individual) die. Don’t penalize the entire zerg by killing everyone just because a few people screw up, and don’t put big events on a timer. Instead, punish individuals for failing to learn and utilize the mechanics created for that event. If you want to make people dodge, kill them until they learn how to dodge. I disagree with the way the assault knights have been handled by hotfixes, but the fact that they are now only damageable if you have the right attunement is a good step in the right direction—if you aren’t attuned and therefore aren’t paying attention to the mechanics, you do NO damage.

I think that something that might help is if contextual hints pop up when you keep trying to do something contrary to the way a fight was designed. If people are supposed to be dodging, a message should alert them to the fact that they’ve died several times due to failure to dodge. If they’re doing no damage to an assault knight because they don’t have the right attunement, they should be notified that they’re accomplishing absolutely nothing, and that they need to take steps in order to help the event progress. Anet should make it blatantly clear to people who ignore mechanics that they aren’t paying attention and aren’t doing what they’re supposed to, so that the only person a mindless zerger can blame is himself.

Sun Tzu famously said that if a general gives orders, and his soldiers fail to carry out the orders because it is unclear what they’re supposed to do, then it’s the soldiers’ fault. But if a general gives clear and unequivocal orders, and yet the soldiers fail to follow them, the soldiers must be disciplined. Anet hasn’t always been the best at giving clear orders, but much of the blame does lie with players ignoring mechanics. Making them personally responsible for their own success or failure, and leaving no doubt as to what the individual is required to do, will force people to learn mechanics the way they should. I understand that this is a game, and that people can “play how they want,” but people shouldn’t be allowed to be willfully blind or ignorant insofar as they impede the success and enjoyment of others.

You’re assuming all players are new to MMO’s or video games in general. I’m quite sure most of the playerbase has played action games or MMO’s in the past, and aren’t just walking around going “kitten kitten I don’t know what to do!”

Equinox.4968:

Sun Tzu famously said that if a general gives orders, and his soldiers fail to carry out the orders because it is unclear what they’re supposed to do, then it’s the soldiers’ fault. But if a general gives clear and unequivocal orders, and yet the soldiers fail to follow them, the soldiers must be disciplined.

A leader with bad communications skills is a terrible leader and should be removed from his position. That is hardly the soldier’s fault.

In all fairness, GW2’s foe mechanics are a bit on the vague side. I’m definitely not someone who chooses to ignore these mechanics but often times they can be ignored. Other times it may be difficult in the heat of a battle to get my mouse cursor over an enemy’s status icon in order to read the tool-tip so I know what it does. I may have to wing at this point.

In my opinion this game just doesn’t offer much in the way of “mechanics” to keep PvE boss and trash fights interesting. That has carried over to the attitude of our player base where they don’t expect much, don’t get much and ultimately don’t do much. We’ve been reduced to a bunch of players circling a foe and spamming 1 until their health runs out(which takes a long time).

HolySylent.8160:

A leader with bad communications skills is a terrible leader and should be removed from his position. That is hardly the soldier’s fault.

Correct. Anet is in the position to tell us what we need to do. They haven’t exactly given us clear orders all the time. In fact, they have given us rather mixed signals at times, and often haven’t provided us with the guidance we need to get things done. We shouldn’t have to rely on Dulfy to figure everything out; hand-holding is certainly not the answer, but we need more and better guidance and feedback from Anet. It’s partially players’ fault when people don’t read enemy descriptions for hints on how to win an event, but Anet needs to make sure that when people fail because they don’t read, they are made aware that they’ve messed up, so that the only way a person could possibly fail the event after that point is willful ignorance. Anet is the general, and the orders we’ve been given haven’t been too clear, so it’s at least partially their fault.

Players aren’t penalized for anything.
In fact, they still get rewarded for not even trying. Run in, tag boss, lay dead for remainder of fight. They still get a reward.
Why would anyone care to know what to do or learn when they get the exact same reward laying dead and going afk?
There is zero incentive to want to improve beyond the people who have the natural incentive to do so.

MrRuin.9740:

Players aren’t penalized for anything.
In fact, they still get rewarded for not even trying. Run in, tag boss, lay dead for remainder of fight. They still get a reward.
Why would anyone care to know what to do or learn when they get the exact same reward laying dead and going afk?
There is zero incentive to want to improve beyond the people who have the natural incentive to do so.

This guy knows what he is talking about, why even break a sweat if EVERYONE gets the same reward(usually complete and utter garbage) whether they did their part or not. Make rewards reflect the level of work done.

Perhaps they should introduce new “mini-achievements”. Getting the mini-achievement gives you bonus loot from an event on a sliding scale.

For example:

On the knight – Winning the event gives you 6 chests and cores. If you also managed to avoid getting caught in the hoover the entire fight you get an additional 2 chests. If you got caught 1-2 times you get 1 bonus chest. 3 or more and you only get the basic reward.

Something like that.

So everyone gets the basic reward, and those who actually play and play well are rewarded for doing so…

They could also put in a tutorial. This is a combo field. This is what you can do with it. This is an example of a telegraphed boss move. This is how you dodge roll away.

They should at least have a tutorial in a game where people different skills interact.

tbh, I think most people who are still getting pulled by knights at this point are getting pulled because they are lagging/ have very low fps.

Yes. I, unfortunately, have FPS of about 5 during the Knight events. I am able to dodge the pulls most of the time, but, invariably, one or more times, I seem to be pulled in with no ‘orange circle’ warning.

Much as I would like a more capable computer, it is not financially feasible, at this time.

Equinox.4968:

Correct. Anet is in the position to tell us what we need to do. They haven’t exactly given us clear orders all the time. In fact, they have given us rather mixed signals at times, and often haven’t provided us with the guidance we need to get things done. We shouldn’t have to rely on Dulfy to figure everything out; hand-holding is certainly not the answer, but we need more and better guidance and feedback from Anet. It’s partially players’ fault when people don’t read enemy descriptions for hints on how to win an event, but Anet needs to make sure that when people fail because they don’t read, they are made aware that they’ve messed up, so that the only way a person could possibly fail the event after that point is willful ignorance. Anet is the general, and the orders we’ve been given haven’t been too clear, so it’s at least partially their fault.

I like this point. but let me also add, I do not have time in my day to take a class on how to play guild wars 2 from a 3rd party website. I do want to be capable of completing the so called ‘harder’ content. It is not that I am unwilling to learn game mechanics, it’s that there is no good place to learn the game mechanics. If I am fighting within a zerg, I am either more concerned about getting a tag in before the foe dies so I can get credit, or the fight is so long it doesn’t matter what skills I use as long as I don’t stand in one place too long, the end result of this kind of fight is the same whether I use the most damaging combination of my skills or I don’kittens
just a worthless green weapon anyway.
I also would like more content for smaller groups, and foes that I can 1v1 in PVE that I can match myself up against. The wind up attack of an ettin is a good example. I can see the attack coming and I have learned to time my dodge. The problem is, why bother dodging, if when I get hit I don’t take any damage?
It would help if there were more converse skill sets and attacks from enemies that I can evaluate as I fight them, instead of swinging my hammer 3 times killing them without taking any damage.(without hardly looking to see what foe I am even killing)
I think this would make the game more fun also.

It would help if ANet didn’t make counterintuitive mechanics.

For instance with the knights — and its not the first, you find the same with the blocking trainer in Queensdale — you have to dodge when the circle vanishes, not when it appears. But that is the same as holding your hand above the fire after your instincts are screaming that it is too hot.

And we find something similar with the “dodge” daily. In truth it should have been called the “evade” daily, as to get things to count you have to get the evade popup. And to do that with the dodge mechanic you have to wait until the very second an attack about to hit the character.

I just wish there were some way to exclude the bads who always foul up the world events. Put it in an instance or something. Punish them somehow otherwise they will never learn.

@Dark Catalyst – I bet you believe in spanking children too huh?

Nope. Consequences needn’t include physical violence in order to properly motivate.

They need to add skill challenges to the game that test the player’s competency to play their class as well as understanding of basic mechanics and to teach more complex ones. Some people don’t even know about rallying for example.

The game needs more solo challenges that are required in some way. If it’s not solo, people will just get carried.