Guild Wars 2

In my opinion, the whole personal story is too easy. Boss encounters get devalued a lot because you can just press your auto attack key and the foe is dead within seconds. The old system where story missions were gapped by 1 or 2 levels was much better. Not only you could challenge yourself by entering a mission while being slightly underleveled, but it also offered continuity to the plot.

Oh crap, I missed the date but congratz NPE for 1 year anniversary :P And still with a lot of not addressed issues… :/

And here we are, 2 days from HoT launch and this dumb NPE still around… I’m still in hope that something might change with HoT launch but who knows…

Meanwhile, I gonna share a real case that just confirms what I said a while back: with game going free to play the NPE would be going to be really tested. When core went free to play I told a friend to come and try it, he was interested for some time now but the price was the barrier for him. Anyway, he still didn’t come but he told me that a few friends of him started playing. I went told him to offer my contact to his friends and add me in-game then we could play or I could offer a help if they needed.

Days later, I asked my friend about them and guess what? Ta-da, he told me that his friends stopped playing. :P When I asked my friend why they stopped the simply answer was: they got bored. I asked for a few more details and I was told they thought it boring, with no much to do, with the same things over and over… I even asked my friend to ask them to write down their experience then I could share it here with more details.

Anyway, it just shows that’s how I expected: if new f2p players dislike it they will simply stop and move on, that would really show how successful or not the NPE has been for newcomers. A paid player wouldn’t give up so easily and would stick around a bit more, their money must worth after all.

One year later and I still hope the devs will really evaluate the impact of these ideas to the first impression the game has been giving now.

Just came back after a little over a year of not playing(situation forced me to sell my old gaming pc), and find a new thing on here: NPE. I thought “Hey, nifty, a way for new players to get the feel of the game. Maybe it’s good for returning players, too.”

No. It isn’t. Level one: All you get is a basic attack. You can’t sit in your warm up instance and get the first three weapon skills unlocked right away anymore. What’s more is that I can’t bloody die there, either. What kind of bunk is that?

I can say with honesty that I don’t like it. Not in the “It’s new so must be bad” sense, but in the “This is boring, I’m not having fun” sense. I loved and applauded this game, bought copies for all my friends, and don’t regret that at all. This NPE though, it makes me want to just mark all ANet mail as spam.

I do not like the new style of early game training wheels. The fun and unique flavor and gameplay has been replaced with something dull and droll. I got back into the game as a warmup for HoT. As Long as NPE is a thing, I’d rather play anything else.

Archtus.6971:

Just came back after a little over a year of not playing(situation forced me to sell my old gaming pc), and find a new thing on here: NPE. I thought “Hey, nifty, a way for new players to get the feel of the game. Maybe it’s good for returning players, too.”

No. It isn’t. Level one: All you get is a basic attack. You can’t sit in your warm up instance and get the first three weapon skills unlocked right away anymore. What’s more is that I can’t bloody die there, either. What kind of bunk is that?

I can say with honesty that I don’t like it. Not in the “It’s new so must be bad” sense, but in the “This is boring, I’m not having fun” sense. I loved and applauded this game, bought copies for all my friends, and don’t regret that at all. This NPE though, it makes me want to just mark all ANet mail as spam.

I do not like the new style of early game training wheels. The fun and unique flavor and gameplay has been replaced with something dull and droll. I got back into the game as a warmup for HoT. As Long as NPE is a thing, I’d rather play anything else.

Yeah, I haven’t been lvling up any alt for 1 year now. Not intending to go through this boring process neither skipping stuff just to reach high lvl (using scrolls. What’s the fun in this?).

How about this:

ANet, do away with the NPE, apologize, and promise that you won’t do that again, and I will buy the expansion at full retail from y’all directly. Until then, I don’t plan on playing anymore. Even WoW is more fun than this NPE thing y’all got going.

You took away the fun. You took all of it away. I’m going back to Eve online.

Archtus.6971:

How about this:

ANet, do away with the NPE, apologize, and promise that you won’t do that again, and I will buy the expansion at full retail from y’all directly. Until then, I don’t plan on playing anymore. Even WoW is more fun than this NPE thing y’all got going.

You took away the fun. You took all of it away. I’m going back to Eve online.

Because that would actually make sense, a completely foreign concept to ANet.

They’d much rather just stick their fingers in their ears and scream “LALALALA I can’t hear you!!!!” ad nauseum, no matter what happens to the game as a result.

Well.. it’s nice to read about the future of the game, what’s being planned for it and such, revising old systems…. what about revising this “all smart” NPE? It has been more than 1 year since it went live and we are still to see several promised changes to be implemented. Seriously, I still have been putting alts in hold in hope that something could be improved with this dumb system. I think there are nothing else to be said than what already was in these 36 pages of posts.

Recently I got a friend to finally try the game after trying to grab them for more than 1 year (thanks to the F2P btw). I tried to not making them to have biased opinions by not telling much in depth what I think about the system, I limited myself to cite facts about how things were before and then they would see by themselves how things are now. They kind of liked the game but what was their first complaint? “Skills take too long to unlock, it’s boring”. And then weeks later.. “I have unlocked my whole skill set, what else can I improve?” and it was annoying to tell they that they would have access to more basic stuff at later levels (side note: what’s the point of grabbing hero points if you cannot choose what skill you want, as it must be unlocked linearly?).

Well, generally speaking they thought the early levels were boring. Luckily they didn’t give up the game, however they still prefer to play another game that they played before than this one. It’s sad to see that I couldn’t build on them the same hype I had back at my early days thanks to a dumb and stupid system that was supposed to teach the basics, but instead it makes the learning and early leveling a boring chore. All efforts getting a partner to play for nothing. :/

(And yes, as I said early in this thread [and my signature shows] I’m not going to let it get buried in the depths of the forums :P)

story inconsistency- One in particular that stands out for me is human story line, I’m supposed to go find this guy and ask him about some parchment without letting it be known that I’m working for the queen, as per the dialogue in one scene, when I reach him, I’m telling him all about how I’m working for the seraph and we need this information…Seems to me if I am supposed to be keeping that a secret so the spy won’t find out I’m looking into it, I shouldn’t be telling the guy I’m questioning. There are others of similar vain but I cannot recall them off the top of my head.

The current NPE is absolutely abysmal, because instead of inviting players into the game, it locks them out of it. I think others here have said it far better, but I’m low on time.

The loss of interesting Hearts and Events in Starter Zones drives away the higher-level players who’d normally welcome the new ones, and new players are turned off by the boredom. The tedium of leveling up (Everything you get by level 20 should be gained by level 5 at most. Seriously.) ALSO drives new and returning players away, because why play something that’s boring?

End game used to start at level 1. They should bring that back.

Sartharina.3542:

The current NPE is absolutely abysmal, because instead of inviting players into the game, it locks them out of it. I think others here have said it far better, but I’m low on time.

The loss of interesting Hearts and Events in Starter Zones drives away the higher-level players who’d normally welcome the new ones, and new players are turned off by the boredom. The tedium of leveling up (Everything you get by level 20 should be gained by level 5 at most. Seriously.) ALSO drives new and returning players away, because why play something that’s boring?

End game used to start at level 1. They should bring that back.

Omg let it go and get on with your life.

zenleto.6179:

Sartharina.3542:

The current NPE is absolutely abysmal, because instead of inviting players into the game, it locks them out of it. I think others here have said it far better, but I’m low on time.

The loss of interesting Hearts and Events in Starter Zones drives away the higher-level players who’d normally welcome the new ones, and new players are turned off by the boredom. The tedium of leveling up (Everything you get by level 20 should be gained by level 5 at most. Seriously.) ALSO drives new and returning players away, because why play something that’s boring?

End game used to start at level 1. They should bring that back.

Omg let it go and get on with your life.

I agree. Any faults of the game should just be excused by “OMG GET OVER IT!!!!” Heaven forbid anyone ever wants to improve anything.

The NPE is done and dusted. It’s not going to be changed now, and there’s little reason to change it. Most of the stuff people complained about has been fixed and that stuff that hasn’t been fixed isn’t likely to be fixed.

There’s too much to do to go back and fix every individual thing that a group of people don’t like. This is a ship that has sailed long ago. Hard to believe anyone necroed a thread on an update that most people have since accepted.

And yes, I really do believe most people don’t even think about this anymore.

Vayne.8563:

The NPE is done and dusted. It’s not going to be changed now, and there’s little reason to change it. Most of the stuff people complained about has been fixed and that stuff that hasn’t been fixed isn’t likely to be fixed.

Really? The only things that were changed were traits and the personal story. I don’t think 2 out of 15+ things qualifies as “most.”

Though you may be right that ANet plans to stick their fingers in their ears and scream “LALALALALALALA!!!!” until all the detractors just give up and go away, that’s hardly any points in ANet’s favor. Just shows that pride and stubbornness are just, well, prideful and stubborn-ful.

Vayne.8563:

There’s too much to do to go back and fix every individual thing that a group of people don’t like. This is a ship that has sailed long ago. Hard to believe anyone necroed a thread on an update that most people have since accepted.

Meh, ANet has been spoonfed dozens upon dozens of suggestions on how to address the issues here. If they can’t (or won’t) do it, then that’s not on us.

And when these issues no longer exist, then you can complain about “necroing.”

Vayne.8563:

And yes, I really do believe most people don’t even think about this anymore.

Surely you aren’t of the inclination that, if someone doesn’t go on a huge angry rant against ANet and the NPE here or in-game, (s)he must love it (or at the very least be nonchalant about it)? I’m sure you can see why that doesn’t work.

I like the new NPE. It’s faster and there’s more loot.

Maybe ArenaNet keeps it because metrics show a different outcome than the forums, rather than ‘willfully’ being stubborn (-ful). Only they know what works best.

I remain furious.

I’m watching to see if they throw everything upside down again and change systems randomly, like what happened with traits.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I like the new NPE. It’s faster and there’s more loot.

And several people don’t, mostly due to the NPE having severely genericized the game and making the whole leveling up process a huge Forced Tutorial. So…

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe ArenaNet keeps it because metrics show a different outcome than the forums, rather than ‘willfully’ being stubborn (-ful). Only they know what works best.

Meh, having played SWTOR extensively, where “bbbbbbut metrics!!!!!!” was used to justify everything wrong with that game, I’m sure you understand if I don’t take the “the developers are only doing what’s best for the game” argument with a grain of salt.

The NPE with the bought skills is gone. The 100+(or more) gld for a build is no more, The new system is a pretty big improvenet over the previous 2 systems and HoT introduced another specialisation.

While you might be right in the Story now no longer being as fun with the lvl 10,20,30 segmentation, I can live with it, thouh the original strory line and structure was better. I prefer new content over a 3rd remake of a storyline I did on 23 characters…

In the end some critical things including condition dmg were adressed.

Only old thing I can think of is objects in vanilla still being invulnerable to condi dmg…. thaty includes dungeons… Most notable for me is CoF 2 with the big rock….which is a pain to kill with a full condi group

For the rest, nice necro…. we will be moving on….

I have never used instant leveling tools in other games. In gw2 I level new characters exclusively via tomes. This is, in no small part, due to the effect of the npe. It made the game smaller, for me, by making the leveling process something to skip.