Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, let’s try to not derail from the subject and avoid direct conflicts between each other. Let’s keep it constructive and nice for both or all sides.

MikaHR.1978:

HandOfKane.5409:

MikaHR.1978:

HandOfKane.5409:

MikaHR.1978:

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

MikaHR.1978:

This is why someone not very well versed in the game should not “explain” things to noobs.

1. i guess he feels exponentionally dumber playing WoW if thats the case. have you xplained him that in the old system it was actually much worse and that he had to unlock EACH skill on EACH weapon individually AND that he probably wouldnt have those skills anyway?

2. how is feeding the cow makes you feel any more or less stupid than dancing for a cow? Also look at 1, he had same skills as he would have had before.

3. Since the game showers you with gear now i bet you what you want that most people will have avrage bigger stats than they had before, AND you can play naked….if youre skilled. have you “explained” that to him too?

4. What does story starting at lvl 10 has to do with 3 or 4 or any year olds? So if exact same story starts at level 5 it would be awesomly mature now? Does it maybe have anything to do with your “explanation”…yeah

5. If he didnt have anything to do at lvl 6 then im afaraid hes a lost cause becuse thats how GW2 plays you go look out for stuff. If anything (and your frind proved it) it seems that avid WoW players need even MORE hand holding than NPE brought (not really surprising considering how WoW is)

snip

High horse? rofl My beloved system? Where do you get these gems?

Next time be objective about changes, and yes, “avid WoW players” wont have a good time in GW2. With or without your “explanations”

Translation: I can’t respond to any of your arguments, so you’re just a loser!

There was some kind of argument there?

I rest my case.

You had some kind of case?

http://www.threadbombing.com/details.php?image_id=5333

Translation: You were right about me not having any good retorts, so now I’m just going to pretend that your arguments don’t exist!

phys.7689:

See personal story isnt great, but its actually generally better in the first 20 levels, (depending on your race/choices) But it does provide a backdrop or narrative.

It also differs the most in the first 3 chapters, so there’s more replayability there.

From the looks of the Personal Story issue, while it wasn’t written on the patch notes, it looks like it’s being fixed.

WRT to the personal story, I actually have a different issue concerning the character I have that’s most recently finished it (my Norn female engineer). Since I started her a couple of weeks before the NPE went live, by the time of the 9/9 patch she’d already gotten through the “My Greatest Fear” part of the storyline, so that wasn’t the problem. The actual problem is that the “cleansing of Orr” part seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle somehow for at least that character. After I completed the chain ov events involving the invasion of Cursed Shore, I got moved forward directly to “Victory or Death” without an intervening segment involving the cleansing of Orr. Based on what I’d heard elsewhere, I assumed that it had gotten moved forward to after “Victory Or Death”. However, I did the Arah dungeon story mode last night, thus completing “Victory or Death”, and that’s it. No cleansing of Orr. But I got “My Greatest Fear” earlier on.

Something is way off here.

Vayne.8563:

There was misinformation. It was coming from players.

Players claimed you couldn’t dodge, or used the TP, or use an Asuran gate even at level 2. They were wrong to say it, because when tested it was obvious you could. People were confusing what you could do and when you were told about it.

People said you couldn’t get vistas, when what was true was they didn’t appear on your map. That’s the misinformation being referred to.

Since I’m sure that changes are being made to both a roadmap and player feedback I’m not sure how the original plan is going to help you much.

But that is part of my point. Why not just flat out state what is actually supposed to happen and when it is supposed to occur? No one from Anet has clarified anything other than to say ‘misinformation, bugs, incorrect implementation’. If we don’t know how it is supposed to work how do we know that what we have now is correct? Just because you logged in and did some stuff? They have made changes since the original patch. Are they done? Is the current state the intended state?

The original roadmap is what they wanted to be in the game. There has been a ton of feedback regarding what actually made it into the game. What made it into the game, the original roadmap and what we have not do not match each other.

All I’m trying to get is a simple list from an official source that says ‘X’ is correct and how we wanted it and we still plan on tweaking ‘Y’ etc. It can’t really be that hard.

Gaile Gray.6029:

JackDaniels.1697:

Everybody that hates the NPE is going to take over the discussion after all the fixes have been released I believe. You’re going to see multiple posts by the same people that hate it, and it’s going to seem like a lot more people dislike the new changes, when in reality, it’s just those same people that really want to make their point across. And not that there is anything wrong with posting more than once, it is a discussion after all, but you get my point.

I mean you can see the evidence of it now, with people complaining in one thread over the subject, and then having some of those same people from that thread start up new threads on pretty much the same topic.

I do agree that some minor changes need to happen, but hopefully Anet doesn’t give in to the pressure and make a complete 180 to the NPE, because I believe some of these changes are good for the game.

So I can’t wait to chime in when all the fixes are done. Should be interesting.

I agree with you about this. I think it’s premature to gauge how NPE will play at the current time, because we do know changes are coming.

And yes, you do see some forum members making the same points again and again. That truly is not helpful to the review and discussion, in that the devs would prefer a focused, clear, concise statement rather than realizing “Wait, it’s that same person, saying the same thing for the 19th time.”

well i have to tella kid ,who doesn´t listen, also several times NOT to hit the dog with a stick.

anyway i find it funny that some if not several constructiv suggestions are not even looked upon by some of the devs or a totaly ignored. mostly since vayne showed up and does his usual vayne thing but whatever.
several people allready gave a good idea what a much much muhc better NPE could be. but it seem with comments from gaile andchris that anets stance is: we did no wrong.
and thats sad. and vayne´s gonna defend it.

OK, so, after some of the more recent updates to the NPE: Does the NPE really affect me as a vet poorly? Nope. not at all. I can disable the infernal compass and go about my leveling as i always have on my main account. Do I think the weapon skill gating is dumb? Yup. Why? Because it went from people learning and getting familiar with what a skill did and how it might be used with the prior skill and having to do that with each weapon set to, you have 5 skills on this weapon by level 10 and ZOMGYOUHAVEALLTHESEOTHERSKILLS on your weapons that if you are new won’t have any clue what they do. have fun learning them all now. While doing your personal story. After vaguely being told about dodges. And nothing about combo fields and finishers. Hope you also enjoy that heal skill you’ll have for a bit. But don’t worry, they levels come hard and fast and soon you will be level 15 and can take on the world. So no, the NPE doesn’t hurt vets in any way. It just doesn’t really help new players much when it comes to learning anything either. (Kudos on the rewards though. They are pretty neat for starting toons.) Sadly the NPE also hurts every new player/alt when it comes to traits and the getting thereof. So, in essence, you’ve made the act of leveling up a touch more engaging (ignoring the power spikes and valleys issue for now), but have further crippled the ability to buy traits and instead force exploration and group play just to have a well rounded character.

Ok, so now that the free trial and a sale are ongoing, would be nice to hear from a dev or anyone with access to how this new NPE has affected actual new players. Especially, since we have heard nothing about this for a little while. I don’t think it is unreasonable to want an update once the trial winds down this weekend.

Likewise, more discussion on any potential plans to address the plot holes you introduced would be nice, even if only on a very high level. In part because one of the more popular theories about the recent Living Story closing cinematic just so happens to do with what some of the removed stuff pertains to.

If it turns out to be an orb, a la the deep sea orb in Fort Trinity… I have to say I fail to see what the logic behind them removing the very step of personal story where you retrieve said Orb.

It just feels strange to remove in-game exposition about these orbs just as you might be preparing to pursue another one of them. Especially when lore represented in-game has been one of the more popular criticism of GW2, in particular post launch content.? Are we to take this to mean that the lore about these Orbs is no longer important enough to warrant that exposition.

Why couldn’t there be two chapters of personal story at either 70 or 80? Why do every chapter have to have its own level range? It certainly is not a technical limitation that is for sure.

Crise.9401:

I have to say I fail to see what the logic behind them removing the very step of personal story where you retrieve said Orb.

And I fail to see why messing up with something that wasn’t broken after all. I can’t see what was wrong with the story before, but I can see a lot of wrong stuff with how it is now…

Another interesting fact: have devs and everyone noted the amount of thread complaining about a “map completion bug” where people thinks the lack of map completion info is a bug? Doesn’t it sound that something isn’t working well? Lack of information or preventing people to get that info is totally opposite to learning.

MikaHR.1978:

felessan.9587:

Vayne.8563:

XarOneZeroNine.2374:

We are now up to 3 weeks.

Can someone from Anet point me to the official ‘what happens at every level’ guide please?

Up to now, we can only assume that what hasn’t been changed yet is exactly as it is meant to be. If that is the case there are still issues with what is left and the messaging is all over the place about it. There are also still some bugs that need to be worked out.

We were told that there were bugs, misinformation and that somethings were not implemented correctly. We were never told what exactly fell into each of those categories. I feel that a map of the new leveling system along with what exactly the NPE is supposed to contain will help drive feedback in a constructive direction.

Please may I have this ‘road map’. Surely constructive, informed feedback is the goal. If it is not implemented as intended then feedback on it is virtually worthless. Surely you can tell us what it is supposed to be right? I mean it’s live, it’s not like I am asking about future development.

There was misinformation. It was coming from players.

Players claimed you couldn’t dodge, or used the TP, or use an Asuran gate even at level 2. They were wrong to say it, because when tested it was obvious you could. People were confusing what you could do and when you were told about it.

People said you couldn’t get vistas, when what was true was they didn’t appear on your map. That’s the misinformation being referred to.

Since I’m sure that changes are being made to both a roadmap and player feedback I’m not sure how the original plan is going to help you much.

There was also some misinformation in the patch notes, caused by ambiguity like the phrase “starting zone,” which didn’t actually mean an entire level 1-15 map, just the small area immediately around where you load into the game.

It’s clear things have already changed. From Mark Katzbach:

• Skill challenges now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis as originally intended.
• Skill Challenges are now visible at level 13 instead of level 15.

These are specific changes they made in regard to our feedback. The original plan isn’t going to help much now.

There was no missinformation on Anets part, there was no “low level zone” it was low level area, all missinformation was brought on by “community”

My point is that zone and area are basically interchangeable. The words are ambiguous because under any reasonable circumstance they could mean the same thing. There was no specification on what qualified as “low level” or “area,” so from the patch notes alone one could reasonably assume they meant the entire 1-15 map. Once Anet announced there were bugs, one could reasonably assume that anything contrary to the 1-15 map believe was a bug, not working as intended because there was no clarification.

shadow.6174:

I can’t see what was wrong with the story before

Subjectively unless you either went through at least two different paths at the end or happened to go through one very specific set of choices, or better yet both, in particular the end of the story was rather badly represented in-game (and I am not talking about Arah story mode obviously, as that is not personal story technically).

In any case, the changes they made fail to address either of these problems in terms of the narrative leading up to Arah story mode while they do add new ones and objectively make it worse.

Splitting the story into chapters is a logical follow up to the introduction of the story journal and the current form of living story I assume the reason they did it was for the sake of consistency going forward (or maybe they have plans to allow replaying personal story chapters, it could be done if they simply prevent you from making conflicting choices on replays, how much added value that would be beats me though). The needless juggling and removal of story instances, however, makes no sense whatsoever beyond having a single focus per chapter but to remove content to achieve that makes no sense either.

I had a friend play during the free trial weekend and I was there to help him out with stuff. The problem? I very rapidly ran out of things to show him, because it was all blocked off for low level characters.

I wanted to introduce him to a great game, but I just couldn’t. There wasn’t anything interesting I could show him because he was only level 2.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I had a friend play during the free trial weekend and I was there to help him out with stuff. The problem? I very rapidly ran out of things to show him, because it was all blocked off for low level characters.

I wanted to introduce him to a great game, but I just couldn’t. There wasn’t anything interesting I could show him because he was only level 2.

So let him alone to explore the game for an hour until he reaches level 10? I really don’t understand posts like this. How is showing your friend a bunch of stuff he could discover helpful anyway?

Vayne.8563:

So let him alone to explore the game for an hour —- How is showing your friend a bunch of stuff he could discover helpful anyway?

Why should two friends have to feel like they have to wait an hour to play together when they didn’t have to do so before the last feature pack.

As for how is showing a friend bunch of stuff helpful, well it is about playing together in the end. Maybe he could discover all of it on his own as well but this is an MMO and playing with friends is always more fun.

Mind you, there are also things in this game that a player coming for example from a different MMO wouldn’t even know to look for.

Crise.9401:

Vayne.8563:

So let him alone to explore the game for an hour —- How is showing your friend a bunch of stuff he could discover helpful anyway?

Why should two friends have to feel like they have to wait an hour to play together when they didn’t have to do so before the last feature pack.

As for how is showing a friend bunch of stuff helpful, well it is about playing together in the end. Maybe he could discover all of it on his own as well but this is an MMO and playing with friends is always more fun.

Mind you, there are also things in this game that a player coming for example from a different MMO wouldn’t even know to look for.

I played with my friend. I just didn’t feel the need to preempt the game for him. I hung out, let him take the lead and explore. I didn’t say you should wait. But trying to show him a bunch of stuff he doesn’t have access to, doesn’t help him or you. It’s not giving the NPE a chance even.

Vayne.8563:

I played with my friend. I just didn’t feel the need to preempt the game for him. I hung out, let him take the lead and explore. I didn’t say you should wait. But trying to show him a bunch of stuff he doesn’t have access to, doesn’t help him or you. It’s not giving the NPE a chance even.

Fair points, however, is there a reason to so heavily restrict access in the first place. I mean they take away access to PS for the first 10 levels all the while making that first 10 levels lack in variety.

I mean the idea should be to get people away from the heart to heart to heart checklist mindset and get them into the whole events thing, but right now with these changes the first 10 levels do the exact opposite (because you have nothing to do but hearts that give you almost a level per heart, if anything I’d call that misleading).

Right now, the first 10-15 levels feel like they exist in a vacuum, the focus changes so drastically after the starting zones.

Edit: hiding stuff on the minimap makes sense to me, weapon skills too (even if it makes initial combat dull), but this whole oversimplification of the initial 15 levels as a whole combined with the lack of personal story for the first 10 doesn’t because it results in play style that is counterproductive later on.

Crise.9401:

Vayne.8563:

I played with my friend. I just didn’t feel the need to preempt the game for him. I hung out, let him take the lead and explore. I didn’t say you should wait. But trying to show him a bunch of stuff he doesn’t have access to, doesn’t help him or you. It’s not giving the NPE a chance even.

Fair points, however, is there a reason to so heavily restrict access in the first place. I mean they take away access to PS for the first 10 levels all the while making that first 10 levels lack in variety.

I mean the idea should be to get people away from the heart to heart to heart checklist mindset and get them into the whole events thing, but right now with these changes the first 10 levels do the exact opposite (because you have nothing to do but hearts that give you almost a level per heart, if anything I’d call that misleading).

Right now, the first 10-15 levels feel like they exist in a vacuum, the focus changes so drastically after the starting zones.

Edit: hiding stuff on the minimap makes sense to me, weapon skills too (even if it makes initial combat dull), but this whole oversimplification of the initial 15 levels as a whole combined with the lack of personal story for the first 10 doesn’t because it results in play style that is counterproductive later on.

First of all, it’s not just hearts…because events exist and events are an important part of this game. And I believe Anet wants people to think that events are an important part of the game.

All along, I’ve seen posts from people in Players Helping Players and on Reddit, who were concerned that they didn’t level fast enough to keep up with the “main quest line”. That was the issue with how it was. There was this pressure thing to get to the next star, because everyone has been trained by every game to go to stars. This game isn’t about that, and Anet wants people to know that. So they give people an arrow now to follow, instead of stars, during which they learn the game. You get to level 10, even relatively casually in an hour and a half (it was much much faster for me) and sudden you have a new type of content. Just like in the old days you couldn’t do your first dungeon until level 30 (and still can’t).

You’re right that the personal story gave you variety for leveling, and when leveling those levels was much slower, that was important. Now, I’m not thinking it is. Keep in mind, I tried to enter the NPE experience with a completely blank mind (which given my age and insomnia is probably easier for me than most lol).

Story Instances Level lock:
I personally found the story instances to be incredibly easy now. Too easy and really not very fun to play. You have to be over leveled in order to play the instances. When I first played through I would try to get as far in the story as I could because I enjoyed the challenge of enemies being a higher level then me. Now you’re forced to play as a higher level then the enemies. Why not make the story 1-10 unlock at level 1, then story instance 10-20 unlock at level 10? The way it is now just seems silly to me (Is this a bug?).

Story instance Bug:
I would also like to mention that if you do the level 20 story with a friend and accept the advance you will not get your rewards if you are under level 30. It’s happened to me twice now since the patch. I don’t know if it will give me the rewards when I hit 30 on those characters or not but really I should get them right away. I mean my friend did.

Crise.9401:

is there a reason to so heavily restrict access in the first place.

Vayne.8563:

First of all, it’s not just hearts…because events exist and events are an important part of this game. And I believe Anet wants people to think that events are an important part of the game.

Yeah but their changes at least for the first 15 levels with their new accelerated leveling seems to contradict that when each heart gives almost a full level. In other words until you reach level 15 under the new system the effective way to level directly contradicts with their goal of familiarizing users with the concept of events.

Then the XP gain normalizes and hearts give the usual amount of XP as far as I know. So the shift in focus on what a player should actually be doing or what appears intuitive to them is more jarring than it ever was under the old system.

Vayne.8563:

You’re right that the personal story gave you variety for leveling, and when leveling those levels was much slower, that was important. Now, I’m not thinking it is.

For the first 15 levels maybe but after that you’ll still have stretches with no personal story that I would guess are far longer than they would be under the old story delivery.

Something should be done with the trait system because the current system that was implemented really discourages new players from trying out different builds. For new players sinking gold just to unlock a trait they may or may not want or being forced to do content that they don’t want to do is a really stupid way to set it up.

Maybe have a few locked like all of the grandmaster traits but having all of the traits locked is just ridiculous and promotes people just finding one build and not experimenting with it.

Crise.9401:

Vayne.8563:

First of all, it’s not just hearts…because events exist and events are an important part of this game. And I believe Anet wants people to think that events are an important part of the game.

Yeah but their changes at least for the first 15 levels with their new accelerated leveling seems to contradict that when each heart gives almost a full level. In other words until you reach level 15 under the new system the effective way to level directly contradicts with their goal of familiarizing users with the concept of events.

Then the XP gain normalizes and hearts give the usual amount of XP as far as I know. So the shift in focus on what a player should actually be doing or what appears intuitive to them is more jarring than it ever was under the old system.

Vayne.8563:

You’re right that the personal story gave you variety for leveling, and when leveling those levels was much slower, that was important. Now, I’m not thinking it is.

For the first 15 levels maybe but after that you’ll still have stretches with no personal story that I would guess are far longer than they would be under the old story delivery.

Hearts are not the fastest way to level…dynamic events are faster. Because events fill hearts associated with them and you get credit for an event and a heart at the same time. And events do chain, so you get more than one in a row. Having played a new character from scratch, I can safely say I leveled faster looking for events then just going to hearts.

The stretches with no personal story fit in with what I said. The story wasn’t supposed to be the “main quest line”. Events were supposed to be the main offering. Anet said more than once leading up to the launch of the game.

But also the story got lost in the way it was broken up. Story arcs couldn’t be completed in short succession and if you didn’t have a memory for that type of thing, plot and character got lost as well.

I personally prefer doing all the stories together and often did on characters before the change. The only problem was by doing it that way, every reward was worthless because I was doing them from ten levels higher. I found this much better…but that’s just a preference.

Much better up until level 70, anyway. I’m almost done with the character I started leveling on 9/9 and then I have some comments I’ll make in another thread about the personal story. However, I think the change is right for the game. I think it’s better to stop people from thinking of the story as the main quest line…because in doing so, once someone finishes it, they’ve beaten the game and they can leave. That’s the habit many of us have from single player games.

While you are correct regarding dynamic events filling hearts that is only if a dynamic event that adds contribution happens to be ongoing while you are doing said heart. All I am saying is what they did to earlier zones in fact does not encourage doing dynamic events when it comes to someone who has no idea what a dynamic event is.

I know you level faster doing events, at least after level 15 that is, but based on my rather limited experience with the new low level zones if they are unlucky or simply coming from another more traditional MMO a new player likely has less chance to realize that before he reaches level 15 because of the accelerated leveling.

I said earlier in this topic that it seems strange they would postpone personal story until level 10 and then make the content before it is available wholly insignificant because it is over so fast. I am not saying they don’t have the right idea here, just that the execution is not very good.

I think dividing up the story is the logical conclusion of the story journal being added anyways and besides the personal story was episodic from the get go, so in that respect highlighting the fact can’t hurt. I still think there is absolutely no reason for them to not figure out a way to put the removed content back in, the story does suffer for those bits not being their (albeit I am slightly bitter in part because I had yet to experience 2 of the 3 fears available and now I can no longer do that).

Crise.9401:

While you are correct regarding dynamic events filling hearts that is only if a dynamic event that adds contribution happens to be ongoing while you are doing said heart. All I am saying is what they did to earlier zones in fact does not encourage doing dynamic events when it comes to someone who has no idea what a dynamic event is.

I know you level faster doing events, at least after level 15 that is, but based on my rather limited experience with the new low level zones if they are unlucky or simply coming from another more traditional MMO a new player likely has less chance to realize that before he reaches level 15 because of the accelerated leveling.

I said earlier in this topic that it seems strange they would postpone personal story until level 10 and then make the content before it is available wholly insignificant because it is over so fast. I am not saying they don’t have the right idea here, just that the execution is not very good.

I think dividing up the story is the logical conclusion of the story journal being added anyways and besides the personal story was episodic from the get go, so in that respect highlighting the fact can’t hurt. I still think there is absolutely no reason for them to not figure out a way to put the removed content back in, the story does suffer for those bits not being their (albeit I am slightly bitter in part because I had yet to experience 2 of the 3 fears available and now I can no longer do that).

I’m not sure what Anet can do better to “sell” DE’s over hearts to new players but I feel it’s important. Hearts were only put in to keep people in the areas DE’s spawn.

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what Anet can do better to “sell” DE’s over hearts to new players but I feel it’s important. Hearts were only put in to keep people in the areas DE’s spawn.

I’ve come to believe that DEs are a terrible way to deliver content. They require either luck (running into them) or standing around waiting for them to happen. I’ve been playing a new character since the latest FP, and the amount of events I’ve never ran into while in the areas I know them to be in is staggering.

DEs seem like a good idea, until you realize that with little else to do in zones, they lead to dead zones where people only pass through once, because very few people enjoy wandering around aimlessly or standing around occasionally killing a respawned mob, waiting for an event to happen. It doesn’t help that the vast majority of events are trivial, unchallenging affairs with little reward.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what Anet can do better to “sell” DE’s over hearts to new players but I feel it’s important. Hearts were only put in to keep people in the areas DE’s spawn.

I’ve come to believe that DEs are a terrible way to deliver content. They require either luck (running into them) or standing around waiting for them to happen. I’ve been playing a new character since the latest FP, and the amount of events I’ve never ran into while in the areas I know them to be in is staggering.

DEs seem like a good idea, until you realize that with little else to do in zones, they lead to dead zones where people only pass through once, because very few people enjoy wandering around aimlessly or standing around occasionally killing a respawned mob, waiting for an event to happen.

Champ Trains were DEs, world boss events are DE’s, Dry Top is DE’s, the Marionette was a DE, Escape from Lion’s Arch was a series of DE’s. The game is, like it or not, based around DEs.

The random ones you’re talking about are not the “main” DE’s. But they’re still important while leveling and people need to know about them.

All those DEs you mention are exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Awkwardly delivered content. I don’t do any of them anymore and when I did, I felt like I was wasting most of my time waiting for the right thing to happen. What is your point, except proving mine?

This game needs more “on-demand” content. Much, much more.

Manasa Devi.7958:

All those DEs you mention are exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Awkwardly delivered content. I don’t do any of them anymore and when I did, I felt like I was wasting most of my time waiting for the right thing to happen. What is your point, except proving mine?

This game needs more “on-demand” content. Much, much more.

Okay my experience is exactly the opposite of yours. On demand content does nothing for me. Nothing at all. I think the play base may be more split on this than you think. It seems that plenty of people follow champ trains, world boss trains, farm Drytop or Orr. It’s clearly popular content.

What you’re saying is you personally don’t like that content. And I’m sure you’re not alone. But the stuff I listed might well be popular, because a lot of people do it and seem to enjoy it. Obviously it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.

But it is what the game is based around. I suspect the more you like the stuff, the more you’ll end up liking the game.

Vayne.8563:

Manasa Devi.7958:

All those DEs you mention are exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Awkwardly delivered content. I don’t do any of them anymore and when I did, I felt like I was wasting most of my time waiting for the right thing to happen. What is your point, except proving mine?

This game needs more “on-demand” content. Much, much more.

Okay my experience is exactly the opposite of yours. On demand content does nothing for me. Nothing at all. I think the play base may be more split on this than you think. It seems that plenty of people follow champ trains, world boss trains, farm Drytop or Orr. It’s clearly popular content.

What you’re saying is you personally don’t like that content. And I’m sure you’re not alone. But the stuff I listed might well be popular, because a lot of people do it and seem to enjoy it. Obviously it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.

But it is what the game is based around. I suspect the more you like the stuff, the more you’ll end up liking the game.

Don’t get me wrong. I like most of the content we’re talking about. I just don’t like standing around waiting for it to happen. So I don’t do that anymore. (Except for maybe a dozen times when something new arrives, which doesn’t happen all that often.) And it leaves the game severely lacking.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Vayne.8563:

Manasa Devi.7958:

All those DEs you mention are exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Awkwardly delivered content. I don’t do any of them anymore and when I did, I felt like I was wasting most of my time waiting for the right thing to happen. What is your point, except proving mine?

This game needs more “on-demand” content. Much, much more.

Okay my experience is exactly the opposite of yours. On demand content does nothing for me. Nothing at all. I think the play base may be more split on this than you think. It seems that plenty of people follow champ trains, world boss trains, farm Drytop or Orr. It’s clearly popular content.

What you’re saying is you personally don’t like that content. And I’m sure you’re not alone. But the stuff I listed might well be popular, because a lot of people do it and seem to enjoy it. Obviously it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.

But it is what the game is based around. I suspect the more you like the stuff, the more you’ll end up liking the game.

Don’t get me wrong. I like most of the content we’re talking about. I just don’t like standing around waiting for it to happen. So I don’t do that anymore. And it leaves the game severely lacking.

I don’t find myself waiting too much. World events I do when people call them out in guild chat and I feel like it, or I’m not doing anything else. I seldom do Tequatl or the wurm.

I don’t find myself waiting a lot for trains, say in Dry Top. I didn’t find much waiting at all. There was almost always an event up in Dry Top, so no waiting.

Same with events that unlock temples in Orr. there’ almost always something up somewhere.

The only events I’ve really had to wait for were Tequatl and the Wurm, and those are more like raiding anyway….which is not my preference.

In the past, there was a lot more waiting the way the living story was laid out, but it was worth it for that content…to me anyway.

Dynamic Events are fairly ingenious way to deliver content, sadly what makes them good also makes them bad. My all time favorite dynamic events are the Fort Salma chain, as it appeared originally, or the setup going on in Bloodtide Coast dealing with pirates, booze and some down on their luck Priory researcher.

The reasons why I like these two is because while one of them is easy to follow and grasp it is a nice example what what a DE is in simple terms. Meanwhile the one in Blootide Coast is a fairly complex setup that few ever see as a whole but if they do it can really show what Dynamic Events can be when they play to their strengths.

For those who don’t know what I am referring to below is a short summary. It has been a while since I played all the events though

If we start with the Priory group who, as one might expect, go looking for some artifacts and eventually end up finding some rare beverages in crates, they bring it all back to their camp decide to sample their find (though the decision is not entirely unanimous) get drunk and as they sleep it off get attacked by bandits. Fairly standard affair nothing out of ordinary here yet.

However, lets look at things from a different direction, what happened before Priory made their remarkable find. Well, in an entirely different part of the map there are events tied to a bunch of Pirates who also at one point happen upon a selection of rare beverages (there is probably an event that deals with their origin as well but sadly my memory fails me here). However, this kind of treasure is not to the liking of our good pirate captain (who is an excellent performer btw.) so he orders it to be disposed of, cue your average escort event to a site to dump this “treasure” this site just so happens to be where the Priory will in time come to make their remarkable find.

These events that appear at glance to be two simple chains consisting of couple of events each. Yet, when looked at a bit closer the connection can be made. There is no meta event shouting that there is a small story here as a matter of fact, unless you actually look really closely at the world around you and listen to what the people say there is no way you could ever make the connection between the two events because they never happen close enough together to make the link obvious.

This is only one of the many examples where seemingly random events end up being connected, if you run from event marker to event marker or don’t pay attention to what is actually happening and instead just read the UI you will miss out on so much.

The kid with his snow Norn army in one early Norn zones is another good example, follow the kid into an opposite direction of some often active nearby dynamic events and you see connections between events that you can’t see if you just follow your map blindly.

Compare this to Dry Top, while it is a fun map with nice gameplay elements there is nothing to it like any of the above examples. It is merely an area stuck in a loop void of any deeper meaning to what is going on. Outside of its living world tie ins the zone is void of any personality. It is endgame content so I can forgive it for that, however, to be honest I miss events with these fun little hidden stories to discover and all the flavor that they bring.

It is truly unfortunate that most of the well known events such as world bosses do not have the events surrounding them crafted with the same level of attention to detail as some of the examples I have given here. I guess the logic is because they want to cut downtime because world bosses are sort of repeatable content, however, they really do not do right by the Dynamic Event system at all, yet they are the stuff that most people see and gravitate towards.

anet put a lot of level barrier for new players in the last patch but trial account and new players can instantly go in ranked match in soloqueue/teamqueue.

And it’ sa major problem because is not fun for them because they don’t know what to do and it’s not fun for their team mates.

It’s necessary a little level barrier for ranked matches, it’s a contraddiction with the new npe system.

Vayne.8563:

The story wasn’t supposed to be the “main quest line”. Events were supposed to be the main offering. Anet said more than once leading up to the launch of the game.

But also the story got lost in the way it was broken up. Story arcs couldn’t be completed in short succession and if you didn’t have a memory for that type of thing, plot and character got lost as well.

Oh yeah? I tell you that one of the things that got me hooked in this game was more the personal story than the events. If they weren’t meant to be the “main” quest line, what’s the purpose then? What would the game be without story?

I can see what you mean with what happens when story ends, but this wouldn’t be a reason to leave. There are a lot of other things to do beside personal story. If one has ended their story, they can go and try to explore areas they haven’t gone yet. There are a lot of “corners” in the game that more than half of the players haven’t seen yet. I tell it based on my own, I have found some interesting areas while seeking for explorer achievements that I wouldn’t never imagine they exist, and I did that months after I got my char to lvl 80 and with personal story almost done.

Fact is: no matter what they do to try getting people hooked and to stay long, they won’t stay “forever”. At a point people will leave, as well others will come. Saying that personal story or events or whatever were meant to get people to stay longer is useless. People are different and what could keep me playing for years couldn’t keep you for a few hours, per example.

And a main thing is: people want to play games as they want, forcing players to do things the way they do think to be better isn’t going to work. Thing is: give player a choice, let they play the game as they want.

Even though the way it was before was faulty and couldn’t work in some aspects it gave players more freedom of choice than it gives now.

shadow.6174:

Oh yeah? I tell you that one of the things that got me hooked in this game was more the personal story than the events. If they weren’t meant to be the “main” quest line, what’s the purpose then? What would the game be without story?

Apparently, it would be much better.

Also, what’s the purpose? Surveys say it’s to introduce Trahearne so we can see him killed him off later.

I disagree. The Personal Story was a selling point for me as it helped give me a reason to give a kitten about this game out of all the MMOs in existence. I will acknowledge that PS isn’t the best in terms of writing and implementation, but it at least kept me interested in playing.

Perhaps you guys haven’t noticed the numerous threads posted by people who didn’t like the personal story or never did the personal story.

You know, I am one of those story people and the personal story is important to me. But I’m pretty sure I’m not a majority.

I’d guess that more people are attracted to this game by the smoothness of the combat than the personal story.

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what Anet can do better to “sell” DE’s over hearts to new players but I feel it’s important. Hearts were only put in to keep people in the areas DE’s spawn.

I’ve come to believe that DEs are a terrible way to deliver content. They require either luck (running into them) or standing around waiting for them to happen. I’ve been playing a new character since the latest FP, and the amount of events I’ve never ran into while in the areas I know them to be in is staggering.

DEs seem like a good idea, until you realize that with little else to do in zones, they lead to dead zones where people only pass through once, because very few people enjoy wandering around aimlessly or standing around occasionally killing a respawned mob, waiting for an event to happen. It doesn’t help that the vast majority of events are trivial, unchallenging affairs with little reward.

they have fairly on demand DEs, and you dont have to do every DE. That said, i think they need some DEs that are almost always going on in some step or another. Some that are often started. They actually reduced the occurence of many DEs early in the game so that the DEs didnt seem to be on as much of a loop.

I have done quest hub games recently, it is in no way better than DE. In fact it is way worse.

So yeah, i agree they could iterate and improve the way DEs go immensely, but i disagree they are inherently poor at delivering content. They just havent refined them much.
Back when they had event tracker api working you could see the large potential of DEs in terms of always having something going on.

to be honest i think orr is a better experience content wise than heart areas, and definately more fun than quest hub narratives

Avinz.2456:

Story Instances Level lock:
I personally found the story instances to be incredibly easy now. Too easy and really not very fun to play. You have to be over leveled in order to play the instances. When I first played through I would try to get as far in the story as I could because I enjoyed the challenge of enemies being a higher level then me. Now you’re forced to play as a higher level then the enemies. Why not make the story 1-10 unlock at level 1, then story instance 10-20 unlock at level 10? The way it is now just seems silly to me (Is this a bug?).

This is also how I thought they would do it. Now the stories are auto-attack only easy. It’s to the point where why they even need to worry about how they introduce new skills if there is never a need to use them.

Vayne.8563:

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

You may get it an hour later, but many players don’t. It’s reasonable to say that new players will take significantly longer to reach the next part of the story.

Vayne.8563:

Perhaps you guys haven’t noticed the numerous threads posted by people who didn’t like the personal story or never did the personal story.

You know, I am one of those story people and the personal story is important to me. But I’m pretty sure I’m not a majority.

I’d guess that more people are attracted to this game by the smoothness of the combat than the personal story.

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

Yeah, I got no problem with that myself. Which leaves the fixing of the story chapters to be done which from the looks of the last patch seems like they are working on it. Though judging from Chapter 8, there is still some stuff that needs serious fixing.

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

You may get it an hour later, but many players don’t. It’s reasonable to say that new players will take significantly longer to reach the next part of the story.

Not if they’re following the arrow they won’t. It really is that fast. I can get to level 10 much faster than an hour. An hour isn’t an unreasonable time frame for a new person to get to the story.

Malkavian.4516:

Vayne.8563:

Perhaps you guys haven’t noticed the numerous threads posted by people who didn’t like the personal story or never did the personal story.

You know, I am one of those story people and the personal story is important to me. But I’m pretty sure I’m not a majority.

I’d guess that more people are attracted to this game by the smoothness of the combat than the personal story.

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

Yeah, I got no problem with that myself. Which leaves the fixing of the story chapters to be done which from the looks of the last patch seems like they are working on it. Though judging from Chapter 8, there is still some stuff that needs serious fixing.

Yeah, you just can’t make changes like that, without going back and redoing other scenes that refer to missing scenes. It’s a mess.

You should have the option at character creation to play the new way or the old way.
New Player Experience / Veteran curve option

OR make the NPE for your 1-2 characters only then it resets to the old way on your account.

I think it’s a good idea and I understand what you are trying to do here. Naturally this will upset veteran players though.

Yea, someone pointed out to me today that my post on the NPE was already made by someone else. In fact there’s apparently a whole series of post going about it. New information to me. I won’t be writing about it anymore. However, I have to say it is REALLY hard to find information on the forums. They’re well organized on the outset. That is if I log in to the forum from the pathing Guild Wars 2 > Forums the information there is great! I know exactly where I want to go… but once I get into discussions… it’s just whoever posts first. I really think 90% of the ‘rage’ Anet gets directed at it is because everyone is getting different information, piecemeal even at that, and out of order chronologically (as was said here). A dedicated website like Mythic Entertainment had with Sonya Tomas would be really helpful to keep players up to date. It would probably cut down on so much confusion that just seems to be everywhere.

Vayne.8563:

Malkavian.4516:

Vayne.8563:

Perhaps you guys haven’t noticed the numerous threads posted by people who didn’t like the personal story or never did the personal story.

You know, I am one of those story people and the personal story is important to me. But I’m pretty sure I’m not a majority

I’d guess that more people are attracted to this game by the smoothness of the combat than the personal story.

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

Yeah, I got no problem with that myself. Which leaves the fixing of the story chapters to be done which from the looks of the last patch seems like they are working on it. Though judging from Chapter 8, there is still some stuff that needs serious fixing.

Yeah, you just can’t make changes like that, without going back and redoing other scenes that refer to missing scenes. It’s a mess.

I agree. Unless you found a way to tie them together, then rearranging the story chapters is just gonna make the game feel more confusing. I got 2 other characters waiting to have their PS finished and the last thing I want from them is to experience a broken story.

I am curious though, assuming PS has been fixed, is there a way for Customer Service or a GM to have a character do back a chapter or two and do the quests again? Because I’d like to have my Ele go back in time a bit and do my quests all over again. :/

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

You may get it an hour later, but many players don’t. It’s reasonable to say that new players will take significantly longer to reach the next part of the story.

Not if they’re following the arrow they won’t. It really is that fast. I can get to level 10 much faster than an hour. An hour isn’t an unreasonable time frame for a new person to get to the story.

As an experienced player, following the arrow took me 1 hour and 30 minutes to reach level 9. I then gave up on the arrow entirely.

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

You may get it an hour later, but many players don’t. It’s reasonable to say that new players will take significantly longer to reach the next part of the story.

Not if they’re following the arrow they won’t. It really is that fast. I can get to level 10 much faster than an hour. An hour isn’t an unreasonable time frame for a new person to get to the story.

New Players aren’t going to hit level 10 in under an hour because they don’t really understand what they are doing. Even experienced players aren’t going to hit level 10 in under an hour. Only those who 100% know what they are doing will ever level that fast, and even then, you’re probably skipping a lot of stuff in order to get there, stuff that a new/mildly experienced player isn’t going to skip over.

Vayne, I know you like defending Anet. 99.9% of your posts do only that, but, giving out misinformation isn’t the best way to go about it.

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

You may get it an hour later, but many players don’t. It’s reasonable to say that new players will take significantly longer to reach the next part of the story.

Not if they’re following the arrow they won’t. It really is that fast. I can get to level 10 much faster than an hour. An hour isn’t an unreasonable time frame for a new person to get to the story.

New Players aren’t going to hit level 10 in under an hour because they don’t really understand what they are doing. Even experienced players aren’t going to hit level 10 in under an hour. Only those who 100% know what they are doing will ever level that fast, and even then, you’re probably skipping a lot of stuff in order to get there, stuff that a new/mildly experienced player isn’t going to skip over.

Vayne, I know you like defending Anet. 99.9% of your posts do only that, but, giving out misinformation isn’t the best way to go about it.

I’ve tested it on two professions so far and hit level ten in under an hour on both of them. That’s not misinformation, that’s a fact.

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

And since the personal story technically begins in the introduction and then you get it again an hour later, it should work for most people.

You may get it an hour later, but many players don’t. It’s reasonable to say that new players will take significantly longer to reach the next part of the story.

Not if they’re following the arrow they won’t. It really is that fast. I can get to level 10 much faster than an hour. An hour isn’t an unreasonable time frame for a new person to get to the story.

New Players aren’t going to hit level 10 in under an hour because they don’t really understand what they are doing. Even experienced players aren’t going to hit level 10 in under an hour. Only those who 100% know what they are doing will ever level that fast, and even then, you’re probably skipping a lot of stuff in order to get there, stuff that a new/mildly experienced player isn’t going to skip over.

Vayne, I know you like defending Anet. 99.9% of your posts do only that, but, giving out misinformation isn’t the best way to go about it.

I’ve tested it on two professions so far and hit level ten in under an hour on both of them. That’s not misinformation, that’s a fact.

And are you a new player? Try reading what I wrote.