Guild Wars 2

Full title: what is the advantage of gating content rather than adding additional tutorials and more forgiving level upscaling?

Short introduction for those that feel it is necessary: I started playing a couple of months ago, my first and still only character is a Rabid 3-kit Engineer, and I spent most of my time exploring the PvE overworld (unlocked 100% map completion w/ all Explorer cheevos last night!). I was very happy with my experience as a new player at the time, and although some aspects were confusing (needing consumable gathering tools before I could gather nodes; learning of the Deposit All Collectibles function; combining Combo Fields + Blasts for extra effects) I caught on to most game mechanics without much stress or wiki-sifting.
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I don’t have a problem with the new Trading Post and Hero layouts, or extra achievement categories, or the Crazy Taxi arrow, or multi-color Doritos™, and if anything I’m extremely happy with the majority of the class balance changes and added PvP visual cue options. Overall, the Feature Pack added a lot of small changes that don’t hurt the game much at all… however:

I worry that the new player simplifications are too aggressive, and could have been implemented in ways that were beneficial to new players without mandating the indiscriminate hamstringing and gating of options.

A large appeal of the Guild Wars 2 early game was the myriad ways of leveling; if I didn’t want to kill 10 boars (or the Heart equivalent), I didn’t have to. Whether it was focusing on my Personal Story, diving head-first into EotM or SPvP or even living the life of a gatherer/craftsman, I could attack the grind however I pleased. Even something as basic as equipping a different weapon had a secondary layer to it: players could develop weapon expertise in a direct and visual way on the HUD, unlocking abilities for those weapons through use rather than strict leveling. In short, much of GW2’s appeal and breadth of options has, as of today, been removed.

If left oblivious to prior designs, the current iteration of the game is plenty serviceable… but regrettably, even someone as new as I has seen the alternative, and the alternative simply offered more engaging and enjoyable experience. If features such as the Personal Story, skill unlock pacing, combo functionality, dodging and general progression guidance were not adequately explained, what part of delaying these portions of the game is teaching new players how to utilize them?

Pacing the Personal Story in chunks is fine, but why is the first chunk offered at Level 10 instead of Level 1? Would it not make more sense to offer the first chunk at 1 and level upscale players in these instances instead?

Teaching players how to dodge through a veiled tutorial is more than acceptable, and I found the fairy ring in Caledon Forest to adequately communicate the mechanic to new players; what prevented this same approach from being applied to conditions, combos, bundles, skill challenges and vistas? What is the advantage of delaying exposure to mechanics that are still as nebulous as they were pre-patch due to the lack of a tutorial?

Are combinations really completely inaccessible prior to Level 52? This strikes me kitten bizarre that I’ll never believe it until I see it first-hand. What’s the advantage of gating it for so long rather than explaining it up-front within the first 10~25 levels?

Most importantly, why is the implementation of these changes so draconian? Why are we completely denied the option to pursue bundle Hearts, gathering nodes, skill challenges, vistas and more not only the first time around, but every time around no matter how experienced we become as GW2 players? Wouldn’t reactivating these features after the first shoehorn increase the replayability of the game?
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While the cynic in me expects absolutely no adjustments to this “improved” new player experience, I would like to think that ANet is willing to compromise and undo/polish some of these restrictive changes. A repair half-completed is often worse than a repair never attempted at all.

Thank you for reading, and thanks twice to those that respond constructively.

Akira.5746:

I don’t have a problem with the new Trading Post and Hero layouts, or extra achievement categories, or the Crazy Taxi arrow, or multi-color Doritos™, and if anything I’m extremely happy with the majority of the class balance changes and added PvP visual cue options.

No one is complaining about that part. People are complaining because they are being treated like 5 year olds with an IQ below 10 and the fact our levelling process has been severly hindered by it.

Allowing people to upscale in the personal story would have had an even worse result. Certain people were trying to quest their way through the game, which meant they were practically only doing the personal story and hearts. It’s not possible to keep up with the personal story like that and as a result, they complained about the need to grind to catch up. If they could do the instances upscaled, not only would they complain about having to be in a high level zone to do it, they also would complain that they finished the game and now had to grind from X to 80.

With the increase in experience to hearts, the game can basically be quested through now. The personal story should start at 5 though, imo.

I recently played 1-10 to see what key farming is now like and the unlocks truly didn’t matter to me or affect my gameplay. It feels like there’s been a little progression lost however, since you no longer learn weapon skills and instead suddenly have a complete weapon when changing for the first time.

Healix.5819:

Allowing people to upscale in the personal story would have had an even worse result.

The current system still has this issue. You can’t run solely the Personal Story from 10 to 80 no matter how much you’d like to. So, instead of having the chunks start at 10 and end at 80, why not have them start at 1 and end at 79? They’d still be chunked, but the latter option at least gives you the option to choose the route you prefer.

Clearly ANet saw some sort of benefit to these restrictions, but I can’t fathom what it is. It’s as if they’ve adopted the policies of the College of Statics, but that’s not quite it either; even Stat-skulls aim to improve existing products rather than cutting and diluting them.