Guild Wars 2

Samhaim.8956:

You do realize that it has nothing to do with anet the fact that you gave your friend wrong information because you were not aware of the changes and that if you had decided to just follow him around and kept on your way none of that would’ve happened right?

No I do not realize that because that’s not true. I was following my friend and while doing to I took that skillpoint outside of the garrison, which started the confusion because my friend couldn’t do it and neither of us knew why.

Same thing with Vistas. He asked me: “What is this?” when he saw the actual vista-flag in the physical space, but nothing on the map and no way to interact with it. I told him it was Vista which would trigger a panoramic cutscene and give you some exp. afterwards. I also told him that like the skillpoint he first had to be a high-enough level before he could see it. To which he asked: “Then how come YOU are interacting with it? Aren’t we the same level?” To which I replied: "Yes we are, but you are a new player and I’m not, that’s why you have some restrictions that I don’t have. To which he replied: “That’s stupid. Does Anet think I’m a moron or something?”

So yeah, go figure. Even after we both understood why he couldn’t get skillpoints/vistas yet I could we still thought it was ridiculously stupid and absolutely unnecessary.

Samhaim.8956:

A week to level 20 is like way over exaggerating, every new account gets exp boosters and it takes around an hour to reach lv 10 if you follow the hearts and do events normally, from there on you can the first PS chapter, which shouldn’t take too long and it leaves you at ~13/15 and from then on you can finish your first map and move to the second one and by then you’ll be 20 or really close to it. All of that can be done in 2-3 days if you play a couple or hours daily.

For us experienced players maybe. But not for actual new players such as my friend. We played for almost 5 hours today at his pace and we just reached lvl 10.

Samhaim.8956:

Though if you’re really not enjoying the game on your first hours in, i doubt it has to do with anything NPE related and i’m inclined to think you wouldn’t enjoy it back at launch either, where it took way longer to level/unlock skills/unlock all of the weapon skills.

And why do you think that? The only frustrations my friend experienced were NPE related. So that quite contracts your opinion.

The statement that it supposedly took longer to reach lvl 20 and unlock your weapon skills before the NPE is also factually not true. Before the NPE we could do the Personal Story right away. The Personal Story used to give you the biggest bulk of exp while leveling and by the time I completed my first map (Queensdale) I was already lvl 26. I’ve leveled 2 new characters after the NPE introduction and neither where higher than lvl 20 when I completed the first map. I believe both where around lvl 15 when I completed the first map on them.

The reason why leveling in the NPE isn’t faster is because of the gating of the Personal Story.

Samhaim.8956:

New players don’t need to hear about veterans biased comments about the NPE, all they need is the occasional steering in the right direction, and after that whether they’ll enjoy the game or not is purely a matter of personal taste.

I agree. Which is why I didn’t say anything about the NPE to my friend on purpose when we were playing. Only after we ran into confusion and frustration did I tell him about the NPE to which his only reaction was: “that’s stupid, they didn’t do that nonsense in GW1” (my friend was a hardcore GW1 player btw).

Samhaim.8956:

You do realize that it has nothing to do with anet the fact that you gave your friend wrong information because you were not aware of the changes and that if you had decided to just follow him around and kept on your way none of that would’ve happened right?

Except he didn’t give his friend the wrong information, he gave him the right information as presented to him by ANet. The official announcement never stated that skill challenges were account unlocks, just that WvW and PvP buttons were hidden for an account until it was unlocked; it doesn’t even explain that environmental weapons (and diving goggles) are account unlocks as well, which is bound to create similar confusion.

You shouldn’t blame him for ANet’s miscommunication and certainly not for trying to help a friend by explaining what he just did. Not all of us were raised in Sparta and throw friends off cliffs as soon as they have questions about something we introduced them to.

I don’t know I think it is silly to get upset about the change myself. So wait you could not figure it out for a second, you had to look it up…

I mean is that such a big deal? Live and learn…I don’t know it, it just seems to be a very strange thing to be up in arms about.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

My best friend bought GW2 this weekend. He created his first character and I decided to join his adventure by making a new character as well.

We happily started completing Queensdale until we ran into the first skillpoint in front of the garrison. I communed with the place of power to get my first skillpoint while my friend was just standing there. He was confused and asked me what I just did. I explained to him that he had to stand in the glowing beam of light, press ‘F’ and that would give him a skillpoint for later use. He was just standing there, nothing happened. So I asked him why he wasn’t pressing ‘F’. He said “I am pressing ‘F’ but nothing is happening!”. I got really confused and asked him if he was lagging. He said he wasn’t. He then tried logging out and logging back in. Nothing changed. I told him to send a support ticket to notify Anet of a bug.

It took us literally 20 minutes of fooling around at the skillpoint before I finally found through using Google that the skillpoints are now locked for new players until level 10.

So far this NPE has caused both me and my friend nothing but frustration and it almost made my friend rage-quit on several occasions. But this super confusing moment at the garrison skillpoint was probably the worst NPE moment for both of us.

What the hell Anet?

Cazamar.7148:

I don’t get all the hate. It takes like a week to get level 20 and that’s taking your time and being a completionist. A little patience would have served you and your friend well. It is a great game.

A week is too much if you don’t actually enjoy yourself, way too much.

Guess your friend didn’t bother to tell you what the text said when he hit F because you do get a window and it does have text and the text tells you you can’t do it right now.

I wonder why that would have been omitted from your description. Because I’ve been with people who tried to get a skill point and didn’t have to explain anything to them.

Vayne.8563:

Guess your friend didn’t bother to tell you what the text said when he hit F because you do get a window and it does have text and the text tells you you can’t do it right now.

I wonder why that would have been omitted from your description. Because I’ve been with people who tried to get a skill point and didn’t have to explain anything to them.

I don’t know. I guess he was just confused because he saw me do it but he couldn’t do it despite being the same level as me. That’s what confused both of us.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

Guess your friend didn’t bother to tell you what the text said when he hit F because you do get a window and it does have text and the text tells you you can’t do it right now.

I wonder why that would have been omitted from your description. Because I’ve been with people who tried to get a skill point and didn’t have to explain anything to them.

I don’t know. I guess he was just confused because he saw me do it but he couldn’t do it despite being the same level as me. That’s what confused both of us.

But it gives him a pop up message every single time he attempts it. Every time. If he was too confused to read you the message, or read the message at all, he might very well be the type of player the NPE was designed for.

Doesn’t the text say something like “It’s to difficult for me, I should come back later”?

Personally Id be even more insulted. Friend tells me all he did is hit “f” I do it and it tells me that? lol.

I agree with this. As someone who has played this game for a very long time and still only have like 17 % MC I was pretty annoyed to find that I had to level in PvE to actually do stuff on my new account.

The PvE in this game is really awful and I wouldn’t force even people I hate to do it.

Phosphia.7813:

I agree with this. As someone who has played this game for a very long time and still only have like 17 % MC I was pretty annoyed to find that I had to level in PvE to actually do stuff on my new account.

The PvE in this game is really awful and I wouldn’t force even people I hate to do it.

There is a grand total of nothing that forces you to level in PvE.
You can go straight for PvP or WvW after leaving the intro-instance. Simply go to your capital, take Asura Gate to Lion’s Arch and from there take Asura Gate to Heart of the Mists or one of the WvW maps.

DonQuack.9025:

Personally Id be even more insulted. Friend tells me all he did is hit “f” I do it and it tells me that? lol.

Whoa there i dont know what it says exactly, i’m only asking.

Someone is wondering why the confusion happend when there was a pop up text. Well, if this was to happen to me where a friend can use it but i cannot i’d be left with two burning questions.

Why can my friend use it, but i cannot?
When can i use it?

Does the text that pops up answer these questions? If not i’d be confused as well.

So… … …

Tutorials must be a real problem for you?

Getting to level 20 takes a few days at the most, much of which be accomplished by simply learning how combat, quests, gathering & even PvPing or WvWing works.

If you don’t have patience for that, don’t know what to tell you.

Considering how quickly levels 1 through 15 go now (with the NPE change), I can’t really see the gripe. Doing the first 4 (or is it 5) hearts in the NW corner of QD will get you to level 6 or 7. I’ve had that take as little as 10 minutes (I was in hurry) or as much as half an hour (was goofing off with friends).

OP grinding mobs is not the way to go. No wonder you were bored senseless. GW2 is not that game, mob killing is not the ideal means of leveling.

I’m not even going to get into it regarding other components of the NPE. Not all of it is horrible, but I’ve expressed my 2c on it many times before.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

OP grinding mobs is not the way to go. No wonder you were bored senseless. GW2 is not that game, mob killing is not the ideal means of leveling.

Yeah, I had one of my friends gripe about that too. Then I compared how much XP I got from that game and GW2. Proportionally, GW2 is actually much more generous with XP per kill ratios. And if you go to places that people don’t farm frequently, it’s a huge XP bonus because of the extra XP a monster earns by sitting around too long.

I dunno, it’s weird, it’s like the devs designed it so that people should be encouraged to roam and explore.

Totally honest, I don’t listen/read tutorials. They are commonly not paced at the level interaction that I like.

Side story but associated, learning varries between individuals. Some learn by Seeing, Listening , and Doing (in general).

So those that are good at learning via being shown what to do or listen to instructions probably cope well with the NPE to some degree.

For some of us that learn by dumping all the parts on the floor and discovering how they fit together for ourselves, the NPE is constricting and confusing.

IN every game I don’t read instruction books and look at guides and walkthroughs before i play them. I jump in and “see what I can do”.

So, when the NPE first came out there were some serious issues with gating and how it affected Vet players.

Once those were fixed I didn’t have any issues with the NPE. Granted, I couldn’t actually experience it AS a new player. Then they did the “free weekend” thing and I made another account specifically to get a feel for how someone coming into the game saw it with none of the perks I’d had on my main account. (Granted, I still had knowledge of the game that new players didn’t have, but I tried to experience it as best as I could as a new player.)

The NPE wasn’t that bad. Sure it felt kind of hand-holdy but that is the point of it. Did I feel it taught the things it set out to teach new players? no, not really. It tries, but its not quite there yet. Should there be a toggle for people that don’t want any part of it? Sure. Leveling from 1-10 though, even if brand new to the game, really shouldn’t take very long though. There needs to be some better direction on maps like Queensdale that have that odd 7-9 level jump in there on two opposite sides of the map, but that is something that can be tweaked. Overall the NPE is not that bad. I’d say its about 65-70% good, 20% meh either way, and 10% needs work.

Samhaim.8956:

…

You do realize that it has nothing to do with anet the fact that you gave your friend wrong information because you were not aware of the changes and that if you had decided to just follow him around and kept on your way none of that would’ve happened right?…

And that is the problem with the NPE and the nerfing of starter mobs (that was actually introduced with the traits mangle). It is no longer any fun for a more experienced player to show a friend the ropes of the game. It is no longer fun to use a higher level character when accompanying a friend with a low level character in the lower leveled zones because the mobs are too easy to kill or the down-leveling hasn’t been adjusted for these easier mobs. The finely balanced game play of the original game in these starter zones has been tinkered with until it is now out of balance.

I’ve been wondering why Anet thought the original game was too hard for beginners. In Sept ’12 I had never played an MMO before GW2 and I had no problem with it being too hard. But I realize I had someone with more experience show me around in the very beginning and it was fun. I also bought the guide and read much of it so had learned a lot on my own.

But thinking about it, without that initial guidance it could have been a lot more confusing because Anet didn’t, and still doesn’t, have a series of tutorials to provide basic game play info. Instead of providing those optional tutorials they have sacrificed playability of those starter zones and crippled the leveling experience to try to support the solo beginning player. But in the process they have ruined one of the things that was so appealing about the initial game – the mentoring from a higher leveled friend when starting out.

Rauderi.8706:

I dunno, it’s weird, it’s like the devs designed it so that people should be encouraged to roam and explore.

I know, right? It’s such a travesty.

I certainly don’t know what kind of game this people is talking about, i just bought the game the last month and i have to say, i dont experience any problem, in fact i found this game as the best thing i have ever play on my entire life, the very first map is very self explanatory, search for the scouts, do the hearst, random events and so, i dont fell lose in any moment, i just want to see more of the world;
i can’t believe people get bored after lv 5 or don’t know what to, is because they dont read or they dont give a crap, in both scenarios you should be not playing this game with that mentality at all.

now im lv 80 and im feeling like the king of the world after defeat Zhaitan, now i just want to explore the whole world and see what i miss

certainly this is not a game for people that like to rush to max lv in 5 hours dont giving a crap about the lore or anything, just being op and kill other people, for me that is not what this awesome game is about, is about exploring, taking your time, enjoy the experience, if you dont have time to appreciate this game, well suck to be you :/

as a friend say to me, This is the best purchase of my life, and he was kitten right.

Sorry to hear this, but bored at lvl 7? like really?!
What did you make him expect?
I’m not saying the npe has done the game much good, but come on just lvl 7 has not even completed one single map in the game, what harm could have been done by the npe in such a small time, maybe your friend just isn’t into this kind of game.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

No I do not realize that because that’s not true. I was following my friend and while doing to I took that skillpoint outside of the garrison, which started the confusion because my friend couldn’t do it and neither of us knew why.

Same thing with Vistas. He asked me: “What is this?” when he saw the actual vista-flag in the physical space, but nothing on the map and no way to interact with it. I told him it was Vista which would trigger a panoramic cutscene and give you some exp. afterwards. I also told him that like the skillpoint he first had to be a high-enough level before he could see it. To which he asked: “Then how come YOU are interacting with it? Aren’t we the same level?” To which I replied: "Yes we are, but you are a new player and I’m not, that’s why you have some restrictions that I don’t have. To which he replied: “That’s stupid. Does Anet think I’m a moron or something?”

So yeah, go figure. Even after we both understood why he couldn’t get skillpoints/vistas yet I could we still thought it was ridiculously stupid and absolutely unnecessary.

You can interact with vistas at any level, they just won’t show in your map until you reach a certain level. I’m not gonna contest the skill point thing, i find it a non-issue as long you’re aware of the changes or able to figure them out easily, happened to me when i was first running around with my gf, we didn’t know why she couldn’t commune with the sp place but we just assumed it would be unlocked later, but i can see how it could be confusing if you’re distressed over it and/or not paying that much attention.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

And why do you think that? The only frustrations my friend experienced were NPE related. So that quite contracts your opinion.

The statement that it supposedly took longer to reach lvl 20 and unlock your weapon skills before the NPE is also factually not true. Before the NPE we could do the Personal Story right away. The Personal Story used to give you the biggest bulk of exp while leveling and by the time I completed my first map (Queensdale) I was already lvl 26. I’ve leveled 2 new characters after the NPE introduction and neither where higher than lvl 20 when I completed the first map. I believe both where around lvl 15 when I completed the first map on them.

The reason why leveling in the NPE isn’t faster is because of the gating of the Personal Story.

Even with the PS gating, i still believe that the NPE is faster when it comes to unlocking your weapon skills, if you had an necro pre-NPE, the effort to unlock all your skills and things like death shroud were pretty annoying and took quite a while. Still if they could unlock all profession mechanics within the first 5 levels, or not lock it at all, it would be a lot better than it is right now.
And you don’t need to be an experienced player to be able to level faster, the game basically tells you where to go, guiding you from heart to heart and then pointing out events, i know this because like i said the only guiding i did to my friends was showing them stuff like jumping puzzles and world bosses whenever we were in the area and it was about to spawn.

Aside from the Lion’s Arch portals, don’t the hotkeys still work for new players to enter PvP and WvW?

Being honest here, I encouraged a friend to join up when game was full price. He stopped playing after first day because the hand holding and crap from levelling up was awful, patronising and time wasting. I decided to try help him so I logged onto the account and found that I too couldn’t stand it. Thankful I joined this game from the start before these changes.

So, when the NPE first came out there were some serious issues with gating and how it affected Vet players.

curious to know what those changes were/when they were. Was a couple months ago with my experience and it was pretty horrible. Would be nice if there’s been some changes.

Samhaim.8956:

Even with the PS gating, i still believe that the NPE is faster when it comes to unlocking your weapon skills, if you had an necro pre-NPE, the effort to unlock all your skills and things like death shroud were pretty annoying and took quite a while. Still if they could unlock all profession mechanics within the first 5 levels, or not lock it at all, it would be a lot better than it is right now.

You’re joking right? Back in the day you’d unlock your first weapon just by doing the tutorial, then all it took was the purchase of a bunch of white weapons and a minute or two on each.

Gulesave.5073:

Aside from the Lion’s Arch portals, don’t the hotkeys still work for new players to enter PvP and WvW?

For your first character, I believe you cannot interact with the hotkeys for sPvP and wvw until you reach their unlock levels, even if you go into wvw/pvp through the gates to play. After you’ve unlocked them on your first character (by getting to the right levels), they’re automatically unlocked for any new characters you make.