Guild Wars 2

I understand you get these posts a lot (I have in the past), but Colin Johanson, I’m directly calling you out regarding your post for the misconceptions regarding level gating. I’m not insulting you are anyone at ANet. No, this is not a hate thread. This is a true feedback and theory thread designed to help you understand the systems created in GW2 regarding the new player experience. Be warned: This is a long one, because it’s more than an a mere complaint.

With that out of the way, I’d like to introduce myself, currently just a mere player under the account name DeceiverX.

I’ve worked in the MMO industry for several years and have worked in the MMO industry on the basis that my contributions to player retention and resolving community problems as a player – not even as an employee – warranted me joining the force as a staff member for another publisher with unrestricted privileges to community resources to help improve the player experience. I have watched this mentioned game fail on the basis of poor development handling and poor leadership by the executives micromanaging such decisions. I care about your game as a player just as much as the above since I have put in a considerable amount of my time here and wish for that investment to yield a positive experience in return. Do not believe me? I more than welcome you to send me a PM and I will include my game alias/studio name and credentials. I’m absolutely serious in this post.

What you have done is actually manage to create an environment that is in fact so “easy” so to speak that players simply don’t actually enjoy playing early on or even consider it any kind of experience, nor do they actually learn anything from it.

By a system explaining what to do in such explicit detail, with the attitude being that players thus following the instructions will therefore succeed, all that is achieved is helping a player move from point A to point B. You know the saying, “give a man a fish (or in this case, instructions on how to play), and he can eat for a day (or in this case, succeed in a fight); teach a man to fish (or in this case, giving him the resources needed to experiment and learn firsthand), and he can eat for a lifetime (or in this case, understand the ins and outs of combat and menu/game navigation).” Simply put, this kind of attitude does not retain new players. Everyone learns at different paces. Seemingly “forcing” them into a standardized pace designed to keep the slowest players successful will just make things boring, and frankly, very standardized.

The MMO genre of games succeeds on the basis that there is nothing restricting players, and that the community is the driving force in what makes the world thrive. The world is truly open; there is little “waiting” period before people can just dive in, and subsequently, new players feel like content is constantly fresh and can consume it at whatever rate they wish to in whatever order they please, and veterans can skip by all of the frills to get to their goals faster. Simply, gating content – aside from general experience restrictions (levels) on competitive and/or difficult content (GvG/WvW, Dungeons, Fractals, etc.) – is a terrible philosophy to abide by when trying to resolve player retention issues in hopes it simplifies the process and prevents new players from being overwhelmed.

With those veterans’ goals in mind, I would like to discuss the topic of goals further. Goals are what define games and keep players engaged and coming back. As it stands, GW2 does not provide enough meaningful, motivating goals. Goals for a massive percentage of the game consist of unlocking new mechanisms essential to even playing the game on fundamental levels at the high levels. Yes, skill unlocks are a way to keep players motivated in leveling in traditional MMO’s – more powerful skills become unlocked and usable over time – but GW2 does not abide by unlocking these truly “additional” features; things like utility skills, traits, and the capacity to utilize class mechanic abilities are not unlockable power-ups to keep the player constantly getting stronger and keeping the gameplay fresh; GW2’s unlocks consist of fundamental basics of the game, and tightly restrict player options and incentives and ultimately cause a very slow and unrewarding feeling of progression.

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It’s like asking people to wait in line in order to wait in line again before they’re allowed to do something. Lines suck. Waiting sucks. Players want to play and experience what the game has to offer RIGHT NOW. You even said this yourself. So why are players denied the ability to do so? Is it truly the fear of overwhelming players with too much information early on? Many other successful games in the industry could argue otherwise. Look at League of Legends’ success; even World of Warcraft’s. High-level strategies are apparent in even the lowest level tiers of play for brand new players. in League, and the tutorial for WoW throws the player right into the world with minimal tutorial interfaces or restrictions. Yet the retention rates in both games are incredibly high.

Why is this? Because players get the full experience of the game right then and there, with the permission to innovate and experiment from the get-go. As one so involved in game design/theory and the new player experience, I like to perform my own tests as well. So far, in every single case of a player I have recruited to the game, every single one has dropped out before unlocking all of the game’s core features. Not one player stayed. None of them felt inherently overwhelmed or felt as though things needed to slow down. Actually, a lot of them were confused and disoriented BECAUSE things were locked and they didn’t know why. It doesn’t matter if numbers tick by faster or loot gets better. They want to PLAY THE GAME – THEIR WAY – and making them wait to do so is just insulting to them as players and makes the entirety of the early game just feel like a waste of time. Instead of having them focused on actually leveling up or looking at longer-term goals like better gear, stat improvements, clearing content and learning how to fight better, they currently are just merely waiting to unlock features that every veteran considers essential or core mechanics. Making the leveling process feel like a blur and having each level feel unimportant and the rewards of each level feeling insignificant (dead levels, lack of emphasis on stat points from traits, unpredictable trait point acquisition rates, traits themselves being too far set back into the leveling process/speed, etc.), ultimately gives players no goal – they don’t know when they’re going to see any improvements and don’t even know when they’ll be eligible to improve (especially traits, where they are unlocked from clearing content they do not know how to complete or where to complete it, and the target level is totally unknown without doing research/knowing the progression formula in advance).

The bottom line is that retention IS based off of time spent playing versus what the game has to offer and that players wish to set their mind on clear, identifiable goals to make them keep playing. Deadlocking players out of elite skills, class mechanics, underwater combat, dungeons, and so on based upon what is arguably an arbitrary period of expected play time is simply too restrictive and this period of time is indeed way too slow. What’s more is that abiding to the same play time requirements from an admittedly failed system (otherwise it would not have needed addressing/needed a rework) solves absolutely nothing regarding the problem at hand but just pushes the requirements to such systems only further back numerically and makes the entire game less appealing to new players, who get further daunted by the fact they cannot gain access to a skill until halfway to the level cap, or a trait which makes their entire class/build functional until they’ve reached said level cap.

Continued below…

Further, with no freshened gameplay for the veteran players and a lack of meaningful contributions to endgame aside from a few token bosses/new dress-up items since release, the lategame has gotten stale, and thus many more players have deterred new ones from playing since the content doesn’t feel fresh nor does any effort appear to have been made in making the endgame experience fresh. By depleting resources for LS content which applies to neither group of players (it does not freshen gameplay, just introduces some new shinies), retaining old players remains difficult while new ones have no new content goals to aspire to as LS content is not marketable as a reason to sign up for the game and play due to its lack of permanence, especially for new players.

Colin, I understand this is a business, and I am well-aware of the importance of player retention (ultimately the game I worked on failed/is failing because management denied my requests to make the game’s new-player retention strategies on the basis said requests may not guarantee an income spike for the next month). That said, I suspect your retention strategies are off from what they need to be, and that these need to be looked at holistically with the concept of permanence in mind. Player retention = money under the assumption that a large player-base is marketable and therefore creates an incentive for people to join playing since so many already do. These gating systems intended on making the new player experience easier do not address the problems with making the game more enjoyable for new players, and ultimately will not create the result you’re pursuing.

I hope you at some point take the time to read this, and if you have, thank you for taking the time to do so.

-DeceiverX

I’d like to reiterate for the thousandth time that this is not the way to go about giving feedback. Telling someone how to do their job is so condescending.

I do not believe I am telling him how to do his job. I am giving a suggestion on my studies of player retention and why the current/previous systems are failing to achieve their intended results, and why such new implementations will continue to do so based upon the results of my studies and experience working directly on this issue. I do not take the liberty to say I could do his job better, and frankly, I do not believe I could. I’m trying to point out the inherent problems with the system so that it can be better fixed in a timely manner to help bolster sales and improve the experience for everyone. Ultimately, if one would believe that attempting to address a problem and come to a better conclusion is considered “condescending” then what are so many of the responses in that same thread, or really, any suggestion ever made? What’s the purpose of a CDI or any company asking for feedback if they would interpret such response as insulting?

I’m responding directly to him because he responded directly to the issue. Making a general forum post about the manner implies that it should be read by and discussed by the players almost exclusively of ANet or anyone involved in the actual production of the game/involved in the new player environment.

Iason Evan.3806:

I’d like to reiterate for the thousandth time that this is not the way to go about giving feedback. Telling someone how to do their job is so condescending.

I don’t think his tone came off as condescending. I think it hit a balance of respectful, criticizing, and professional.

The only thing missing is a proposed solution. And, let’s be honest with ourselves, I find it hard to believe any one person could come up with a solution to a player retention issue. It’s just . . . too complex.

As someone who “works in the industry” it’s pretty amazing to me that you think three massive walls of text are even going to be read. There are very clear explanations of how to give feedback on these forums and I think you are disregarding all of them

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Iason Evan.3806:

I’d like to reiterate for the thousandth time that this is not the way to go about giving feedback. Telling someone how to do their job is so condescending.

I don’t think his tone came off as condescending. I think it hit a balance of respectful, criticizing, and professional.

The only thing missing is a proposed solution. And, let’s be honest with ourselves, I find it hard to believe any one person could come up with a solution to a player retention issue. It’s just . . . too complex.

Thank you. I try to be formal in these types of dissertations because strictly speaking, as mentioned above, any suggestion to improve the state of the game could be taken as condescending by the sheer implications a player has a better solution to a problem than the developers and/or designers and/or game leads themselves, regardless of how much formal testing was performed by either party.

I cannot provide an ultimate solution to the problem because I lack the data to give concrete number suggestions on exactly what should be done for exactly which levels and when, or how long non-retained players last in terms of game time before they leave. Without this kind of raw data, I cannot provide a solution which would be more valuable than what someone working for ArenaNet could devise.

What I hinted at, however, is to push forward the level gates and/or simply remove some of them while paired with implementing some new content designed to integrate these new players into what the rest of the game has to offer. On one extreme, too much front-loading may leave a select few overwhelmed (as in everything available at level 1 with no tutorials), and would also likely create a vast dead-zone between the level 10-40 gap, however I firmly believe the current system gates too much content too far back to keep players both interested in the game and experimenting.

Gnat.9405:

As someone who “works in the industry” it’s pretty amazing to me that you think three massive walls of text are even going to be read. There are very clear explanations of how to give feedback on these forums and I think you are disregarding all of them

Sadly I lack a direct connection to those associated with content creation and design, and based upon the direct responses made on the forums by ArenaNet, it is only my hope this thread gets mentioned. My experience in working in support and feedback as a side-job dictates this would definitely go nowhere, otherwise, whereas there is some chance it may attract attention on the boards. The length is unavoidable when explaining in full my reasoning and properly conveying my statements. I understand the chances are still small, however the forums attract a surprising amount of attention internally even if they are not often responded to. I do not wish for a response as much as I wish for it to be seen so that down the road the state of the game can continue to improve.

“Look at League of Legends’ success; even World of Warcraft’s. High-level strategies are apparent in even the lowest level tiers of play for brand new players. in League, and the tutorial for WoW throws the player right into the world with minimal tutorial interfaces or restrictions. Yet the retention rates in both games are incredibly high.”

Im sorry, but you say you “work in the industry”?

please provide some backup on this, because its simply…..not true.

stopped reading after that

MikaHR.1978:

“Look at League of Legends’ success; even World of Warcraft’s. High-level strategies are apparent in even the lowest level tiers of play for brand new players. in League, and the tutorial for WoW throws the player right into the world with minimal tutorial interfaces or restrictions. Yet the retention rates in both games are incredibly high.”

Im sorry, but you say you “work in the industry”?

please provide some backup on this, because its simply…..not true.

stopped reading after that

League is the most-played game in the world. With a DAILY retention rate of over 33%. DAILY. That’s a HUGE figure in games, and their success is entirely dependent on non-monetization.
Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/223071/Dont_monetize_like_League_of_Legends_consultant_says.php

WoW is still the most-played MMORPG in the western market by an extremely large margin. Clearly, people are sticking around for that one to such extents that it dwarfs others. There has also been extensive research done on the subject.
http://www.artifex.org/~bonnie/WoW_retention_04_24_11.pdf

Now, what’s more intriguing is where your evidence is that states that these games do not have high retention rates, since you claim that this is not at all true?

Deceiver, what’s your proof that WoW has high retention rates? The reason I ask is because recently, according to an article in time magazine, the CEO of Blizzard said WoW was bleeding subscriptions. The problem is, even people in the industry can get it wrong sometimes.

Simply put, WoW launched at a time with very very little competition. They had a boatload of money coming off the wild success of previous titles and put a huge amount of that money into advertising.

Even more simply put, during my time in WoW, Blizzard did what Anet recently did and changed all the starting zones to make them more rewarding and contiguous. So, yeah, if WoW does have a high retention rate (and I think that it is definitely an addictive game, but not necessary a good one) and Anet is doing something similar to what WoW did, and it is similar, then in fact, you should be applauding Anet, not pointing out they’re wrong for doing this.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You’re entitled to your opinion. But working in the industry doesn’t necessarily get you any votes. Want to know why?

Because many of us are here because we don’t like WoW and games based around the WoW play style. And I don’t like mobas either. So the kinds of games those players retain are the exact type of game that lose me.

It is entirely possible that Anet set out to make a game for the rest of us, and that they are continuing to make a game for the rest of us. And that other games do, with or without retention might very well apply to those games.

WoW failed to retain me.

DeceiverX.8361:

MikaHR.1978:

“Look at League of Legends’ success; even World of Warcraft’s. High-level strategies are apparent in even the lowest level tiers of play for brand new players. in League, and the tutorial for WoW throws the player right into the world with minimal tutorial interfaces or restrictions. Yet the retention rates in both games are incredibly high.”

Im sorry, but you say you “work in the industry”?

please provide some backup on this, because its simply…..not true.

stopped reading after that

League is the most-played game in the world. With a DAILY retention rate of over 33%. DAILY. That’s a HUGE figure in games, and their success is entirely dependent on non-monetization.
Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/223071/Dont_monetize_like_League_of_Legends_consultant_says.php

WoW is still the most-played MMORPG in the western market by an extremely large margin. Clearly, people are sticking around for that one to such extents that it dwarfs others. There has also been extensive research done on the subject.
http://www.artifex.org/~bonnie/WoW_retention_04_24_11.pdf

Now, what’s more intriguing is where your evidence is that states that these games do not have high retention rates, since you claim that this is not at all true?

“As of 2013, League of Legends had earned: 70 million registrations since 2009, 32 million MAU, 12 million DAU, 3 million PCU”

You didnt read your own article. Its still nice, and by the looks of new MMO releases…very good. But its not MMO.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.174642-Only-30-Percent-of-WoW-Players-Get-Past-Level-10

And thats only past level 10, many more get lost on the way.

And its a nice read concerning NPE ina way.

The article about league claims 27 million DAU in 2014, as does Riot themselves. I believe the 12m was referring to the 2013 statistic.

With WoW, there was quite a bit of competition, albeit less-marketed. Is it safe to analyze current retention statistics or previous ones from when the game was still dominating the market due to a lack of modernized competition? It’s also rather irrelevant in the scope of things: the TIME article mentions that sales are still up despite the falter, and that seasonal shifts and declines were expected. The article also mentions that statistically the retention rates are no different than in previous years due to a lack of new content, and that significantly more return for the content updates, even if the numbers end up leveling off later. WoW has lost almost 50% of its active playerbase since it’s peak in 2010 at 12 million, but one has to question whether or not the same people playing it at release are still playing now, and if gaining or losing players 10 years deep is considered normal. Frankly, it’s an enigma, but overall a successful game nonetheless, with so far no other studio boasting long-term retention rates any higher. Further, the 30% statistic is invalid. That 30% figure is entirely trial users. That means less than 30% of people testing the game think it’s worth buying/staying on. Even for the F2P market, that’s not too bad of a number.

We also need to consider the reason for such media coverage: This is a giant in the industry taking hits. Consider how much news coverage there is when a major company reports a loss. Look at how much buzz Microsoft has attracted. It’s still dominating computing, though. In the MMO world, WoW losing population is news-worthy, just because the game itself has become synonymous with MMO’s in general. Dropout rates might on on the rise, sure, but for how long could we argue the retention rate was far above normal in its earlier years?

What can mostly be said is that the overall retention of WoW was extremely high, and yes, while GW2 is different and designed to be a bit different, ANet is making this game, like it or not, to pay the bills. The same goes for the investors funding them. If player retention is an addressed problem, and an investor looks that it was attempted to be resolved and nothing changes, the investor becomes a lot more skeptical. And skeptical investors mean less funding, which means less good stuff for everyone. I referenced those games because what I am conveying is that those games are successful without needing to hold the player’s hand through content and gate off other aspects and options of the game. The gameplay design in starting areas can be reworked to make the process more contiguous, however gated unlocks on essential game features keeping time as a constant when it’s already a problem only perpetuates the issue. If they made the first 40 levels take as long as 1-15 but made all of the gated content come in between 41-80 and kept the amount of time between 41-80 and all of its subsequent content the same as 15-80 currently is, I don’t think the issue would be resolved to a very good extent; it might help in that the goals are compressed and feel more tangible each level, but are those first 40 levels really significant? Would players stay before this period even ends under the assumption the content never really improves? Would they stop after hitting the wall? There’s a lot to consider there. Frankly, moving the content back doesn’t solve the issue properly. Adding content to make the process contiguous and smooth but keeping the essentials accessible to allow for better/more skilled play and experimentation/learning is the best alternative that resolves this issue.

It’s not that the efforts aren’t appreciated. I just do not suspect that these changes are going to have any major impacts on player retention and the new player experience; if anything, it might make alt-loving veterans less-inclined to play new characters, which usually comes from the player being bored, which may also drive veterans away.

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

It’s not that the efforts aren’t appreciated. I just do not suspect that these changes are going to have any major impacts on player retention and the new player experience; if anything, it might make alt-loving veterans less-inclined to play new characters, which usually comes from the player being bored, which may also drive veterans away.

I’m seriously concerned that you, as an industry professional, would think that a CEO of a company would ever say their company was bleeding subs if it wasn’t absolutely obvious and serious. That they follow that up with sales are still strong, well yeah, of course that’s what they’re going to say. What would you say. The real story here is that those leaving the game are so great in number that a CEO had to come out and say that pubicly. That shows something very different than what the rest of what they’re saying is saying. If it weren’t true, there would be no reason at all to say that ever.

Your suspicions about player retention are an opinion, perhaps an educated one. I have another opinion.

The MMO space is very very crowded and most of the new MMOs seem to be targeting raiders, hard core PvPers specific groups…and they still dont’ seem to be doing very well. Anet knows it’s a crowded market, but it doesn’t seem most big MMOs are trying to get new players into MMOs.

I’m sure there are tons of people who hear about MMOs, would like to try them, but feel they’re too complicated. Anet isn’t a stupid company. They’re not likely to steal hard core dungeon runners from Wildstar or even people who want open world PvP from other games that specialize in it. They’re not going to hold onto sandbox gamers either, if a good sandbox ever comes out that’s set in a fantasy setting.

Guild Wars 2 is a theme park MMO and they’re appealing to people who want/like a thempark MMO. That means Guild Wars 2 is perfectly positioned to bring new people into the fold and there’s no better way, in my opinion, to do it than the way they’re trying to do it, though as said in my places, it definitely needs tweaking.

For all your experience in other games, you forgot the golden rule of expertise. The more of an expert you are in one thing, the more you think that gives you insight into other related things. Most people do that.

But Guild Wars 2 really isn’t like other MMOs, testified to by the fact that I can actually play it for two years. No other MMO has made that kind of mark on me. Therefore for my demographic, they’re doing it right.

The question then becomes how many people in my demographic are there.

My question really is about market. Has Arenanet actually tried to fix something for a non-existent market? Your issues with the new content is basically, that by attempting to include a wider market, the game becomes standardized and boring.

My concern is that the ‘wider market’ does not truly exist. Yes, people buy things because they think they are a good idea, but once they get into the details of the purchase, they realize that it was a bad decision. In discussing a problem with these folks I wonder if this is ever asked of them. I can ‘cert ainly’ ask anyone that uses my product and stops, what would you change to make it better? However, the proper question that should be asked is, ‘Are you planning on using any product similar to mine, at any time?’ Most people are happy to tell you why they stopped using your product, but what’s not obvious is that no matter how you change the product, if they are not interested in your product at all, nothing you do to add to their entertainment value is going to bring them back…nor retain like minded people.

Can someone check why ‘cert ainly’ is a modded ’kitten word?"

And as you state my own research as my “opinion” your disagreements stem entirely off of your personal opinion.

Data tracking from sources like raptr and xfire dictate that for the most part, despite the negative publicity that WoW has gotten recently, its market presence remains almost unchanged. Actually, the only statistic that’s really improved the last few years is League, which also has run no promotions for either of them and doesn’t install any of the software. What this means is that those games have remained at the top despite signups being entirely voluntary, making their statistics possibly deceitfully low. While you can argue all you want that these statistics aren’t genuine in terms of the number of hours played/determining the absolute popularity of the game (relative to other games), they work extremely well as methods of comparing retention to their previous years. GW2 has been hovering in the same position for the past year, and I don’t think its player base has dropped substantially since. Obviously there was a massive fallout after the first few months/year of release, but this is expected in the modern MMO/PC game market.

While it’s good to try and get new players into the genre, and ANet is attempting to create a new-player-friendly environment that coerces players into the mechanics of the game, the gating is still too slow and pushed back. People are smart. It doesn’t take hours and hours of playing and grinding mobs to understand the difference between weapon skills, utilities, and one’s elite. A few well-designed dialog menus and pointers can teach a newbie the difference, and so far, the UI design for the core game has worked wonderously in this regard. The content difficulty has been down-scaled in open world to account for the trait movements, too, so it’s not like the difficulty is there too early on, either, especially since early mobs are intentionally made easier relative to player stats. Unlock a utility skill slot, and just by clicking the box for the first time the skills window opens up with the tree and all. It matters not what level you are when this opens up, or how far into the game you are. You recognize that it’s a different feature, notice the skill point icons on the map are the same as the icon in your menu, and make the connection. MMO’s offer a lot, and there’s no denying simplifying the experience makes retention rates increase. Gating the content to such an extent however, does nothing to actually simplify the experience. The hand-holding element with the UI overlays and notifications, quest indicators, etc. isn’t so much a problem as the gating is. The “experience” if you want to call it that, of acquiring new knowledge/progressive access to some game mechanics doesn’t feel any more fluid. It just feels unnecessarily longer than it has to be.

And it has nothing to do with your specific demographic. As you just said, games with targeted audiences have had very little success. The key is widespread appeal. It allows for better marketing, and ultimately, creates a diverse community where anyone can sign up and enjoy it. This is why the content-gating is bad design and inhibits player retention: it only seems to cater to players who are not at all familiar with the entire genre. This is especially apparent when there isn’t a lot of fluid filler like there is now. Like I said, through better content implementation, the gating can be negated to an extent so that players can play at their own pace, in the way they want, at all levels of experience/familiarity, but nobody’s experience is hurt in the meantime. An easy dungeon with a predefined minimum completion time integrated into starter zones for low level players could allow them to get familiar with forming parties, combo fields, communication, and simply play the game in a group environment without having to worry about wiping, and other players can help them learn the game through tips and guidance, and new players can thus also be integrated into guilds and groups better. The minimum timer also prevents speedrun toxicity from getting involved in the new player experience as well.

This game was so successful at launch and got so much hype because of the mass appeal it generated: Hardcore tight sPvP tied with eSports, massive 24/7 large-scale battles for the GvG-oriented, extensive PvE content and dungeons for the raiders, incredible character customization through dyes and weapon/armor skins for those who care about style and roleplayers. The list goes on. All of this available early. It generated this appeal because of the lack of level gates on all of this content – the game was created on the basis of playing how you want to. Fundamentals to combat and the process of meaningful character progression shouldn’t be blocked off. More solutions for integrating them into the flow of content for new players smoothly is what needs to be done instead.

DeceiverX.8361:

And as you state my own research as my “opinion” your disagreements stem entirely off of your personal opinion.

snip

And it has nothing to do with your specific demographic. As you just said, games with targeted audiences have had very little success. The key is widespread appeal. It allows for better marketing, and ultimately, creates a diverse community where anyone can sign up and enjoy it. This is why the content-gating is bad design and inhibits player retention: it only seems to cater to players who are not at all familiar with the entire genre. This is especially apparent when there isn’t a lot of fluid filler like there is now. Like I said, through better content implementation, the gating can be negated to an extent so that players can play at their own pace, in the way they want, at all levels of experience/familiarity, but nobody’s experience is hurt in the meantime. An easy dungeon with a predefined minimum completion time integrated into starter zones for low level players could allow them to get familiar with forming parties, combo fields, communication, and simply play the game in a group environment without having to worry about wiping, and other players can help them learn the game through tips and guidance, and new players can thus also be integrated into guilds and groups better. The minimum timer also prevents speedrun toxicity from getting involved in the new player experience as well.

This game was so successful at launch and got so much hype because of the mass appeal it generated: Hardcore tight sPvP tied with eSports, massive 24/7 large-scale battles for the GvG-oriented, extensive PvE content and dungeons for the raiders, incredible character customization through dyes and weapon/armor skins for those who care about style and roleplayers. The list goes on. All of this available early. It generated this appeal because of the lack of level gates on all of this content – the game was created on the basis of playing how you want to. Fundamentals to combat and the process of meaningful character progression shouldn’t be blocked off. More solutions for integrating them into the flow of content for new players smoothly is what needs to be done instead.

I disagree. But we’ll have to call it there, because nothing I say will convince you that even smart people need help in new environments, if they’re out of their comfort zone and that’s all this new intro really does.

I can’t imagine that 1 hour of a character’s life is so significant to veteran MMOers that it’ll make or break the game for them.

To me it’s a vast over-reaction that will die down. The game will get new players. Some people may leave. I think the new players will outnumber the leveling players and time will march on.

I’m not disagreeing with giving them help to learn. Good UI design and menu assistance early on is fantastic and the folks at ArenaNet have done a great job at implementing those.

I just believe the level gating was/is overdone and possibly costing them business and that the change initially was senseless in many regards. The amendments are a step in the right direction, but far from what’s necessary to truly provide a better new player experience for both veterans and newbies alike.

DeceiverX.8361:

I’m not disagreeing with giving them help to learn. Good UI design and menu assistance early on is fantastic and the folks at ArenaNet have done a great job at implementing those.

I just believe the level gating was/is overdone and possibly costing them business and that the change initially was senseless in many regards. The amendments are a step in the right direction, but far from what’s necessary to truly provide a better new player experience for both veterans and newbies alike.

I see it as a package thing. It wasn’t just done for tutorial purposes, it was also done for pacing. That’s what Colin said, and I believe it.

It changed the pacing of the game. From your point of a view a veteran player it was fine before, but I saw problems with the pacing. Particularly in middle levels.

Anyway, the recent changes changed some stuff and maybe a few more changes will happen, but I don’t expect the system to be greatly altered from this point forward.

Anet’s compromised on some of the worst offenders, and the guy who left in my guild came back, and he can live with it. No one else in my guild was particularly perturbed in the first place.

Could it be better? Sure. Everything can always be better in a game. But I with the current changes it’s a compromise I feel most can live with. If it really does retain players (and I think it will) it’s well done from a business standpoint.

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

So CEO of Blizzard doesnt know what hes talking about, and now you are here to write some stuff because you “work in the industry”

You may have your opnion, but opinions can be wrong too. And yours is in this matter.

WoW had/has TERRIBLE retention. What it DID have was crapzillion of people trying it. Same goes for LoL in a bit milder edition. And thats one luxury only a select games have (you can count those on fingers of one hand)

One of the things that drew a subset of WoW players to GW2 was the fact that it wasn’t WoW. Blizzard has made some real hamfisted moves, and each time, it drives off a subset of players that start looking for something new.

That said; having come from a large raiding guild in WoW, the most hardcore of players aren’t going to stay playing gw2 for very long, it’s just too easy. To be honest, one of the things I loved about GW2 was that I could wander around, help people, have people help me, do events, not do events, whatever…it’s just a mellow, cool way to spend an hour or two, but I burned out hard raiding in other games, and I wanted a game where I wouldn’t have to study spreadsheets to make sure everything would go to plan.

But leveling a new alt through the current system…is mind-numbingly dull. And the realization that I’ll be leveling over and over as an 80 before I ever have even close to half my traits has made me resistant to playing.

Seriously, I’ve spent more time reading and commenting on the forums than I have playing since I started the new alt. Most of my friends have wandered off to other games; either back to WoW or off to AA or whatever.

I can’t find the post, but IIRC, one of the devs said something about how the testers went through the opening scene, and then refused to touch anything because they “didn’t know what to do”, so they sat quietly with their hands in their laps until someone told them what to do. (Where they could find a western game audience that sat quietly for anything….I don’t even know.)

If those are the gamers that Anet is trying to attract and retain, then it is no wonder GW2 is turning into Baby’s First MMO.

Vayne.8563:

I can’t imagine that 1 hour of a character’s life is so significant to veteran MMOers that it’ll make or break the game for them.

To me it’s a vast over-reaction that will die down. The game will get new players. Some people may leave. I think the new players will outnumber the leveling players and time will march on.

By itself, maybe not, even though I believe NPE needlessly made GW2 a smaller, less fun, worse game than it was before, but NPE coming on the heels of the trait system revamp, along with the persistent adherence to Living Story as a means of delivering new content, seems to me to be yet another strong indication that anet is determined to change GW2 into a game I don’t want to play.

Thus, the future of GW2 is not looking good (to me). Disclaimer: as always, your mileage may vary.

It’s implementation at fault imo.

If your going to retroactively change the core leveling mechanic why not make it an optional choice at character creation?

MikaHR.1978:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.174642-Only-30-Percent-of-WoW-Players-Get-Past-Level-10

I think i tried it 3 times .. the third time at least i managed to bring a ranger to 14 or 15.
However first i wanted to try a paladin, and when i saw that i had to level to 20+
or whatever to get at least some decent looking skills i wanted again to leave after level 3 or 4.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

I can’t imagine that 1 hour of a character’s life is so significant to veteran MMOers that it’ll make or break the game for them.

To me it’s a vast over-reaction that will die down. The game will get new players. Some people may leave. I think the new players will outnumber the leveling players and time will march on.

By itself, maybe not, even though I believe NPE needlessly made GW2 a smaller, less fun, worse game than it was before, but NPE coming on the heels of the trait system revamp, along with the persistent adherence to Living Story as a means of delivering new content, seems to me to be yet another strong indication that anet is determined to change GW2 into a game I don’t want to play.

Thus, the future of GW2 is not looking good (to me). Disclaimer: as always, your mileage may vary.

Right, so leave the NPE and redo the trait system. I’m on board with that.

fireflyry.7023:

It’s implementation at fault imo.

If your going to retroactively change the core leveling mechanic why not make it an optional choice at character creation?

No company in their right mind would create two complex systems, both of which need bug fixing and changes and maintains and perhaps updates later when more things change. I’m not sure in this case that situation would be sustainable.

I don’t see why the two couldn’t be made to be symbiotic. All we are talking is differing access paths to exactly the same mechanics and rewards.

In saying I don’t know the reality, maybe it is too much of a logistical nightmare?But maybe not….

fireflyry.7023:

I don’t see why the two couldn’t be made to be symbiotic. All we are talking is differing access paths to exactly the same mechanics and rewards.

In saying I don’t know the reality, maybe it is too much of a logistical nightmare?But maybe not….

The simplest difference between them is the levels at which personal stories unlock. One way allows key farming, one way really doesn’t. Not with the same efficiency anyway. So Anet could make changes to black lion chests. They made drop rates for scraps better. Now they’d have to undo that change, because the key farmers would all choose the old way.

So you and me now start characters together as friends. Maybe you choose one way and I choose the other. Now we can’t do personal stories together, because yours are unlocked earlier than mine. We say screw this game, and find a game where we can be on the same page. It’s not unreasonable to think some people will do this, without even realizing.

And every time the game changes as a whole, devs would then have to redo two systems, which makes making future changes much much harder. Let’s say they decide to add 20 levels to the game in an expansion a year from now. That means updating two different systems, if the systems run through the entire game. That’s got to be more work.

I fully agree but they could have been designed and reworked to be symbiotic. I’m talking hypothetically from inception. Comparing one to the other as they were and are now raises obvious conflict as they are clearly separate entities in no way made to co-exist, but in theory I don’t see having two parallel leveling modes in an MMO, one for new players to learn the ropes with, and one for vets to bypass hand-holding, as an impossibility or something that couldn’t have been considered and implemented.

Akin to skipping the tutorial zones in many other MMO’s, all be it vastly more complex and complicated, but surely doable, at the least a possibility, at worst a fantasy I’m free to indulge in :P

Would have been awesome.

fireflyry.7023:

I fully agree but they could have been designed and reworked to be symbiotic. I’m talking hypothetically from inception. Comparing one to the other as they were and are now raises obvious conflict as they are clearly separate entities in no way made to co-exist, but in theory I don’t see having two parallel leveling modes in an MMO, one for new players to learn the ropes with, and one for vets to bypass hand-holding, as an impossibility or something that couldn’t have been considered and implemented.

Akin to skipping the tutorial zones in many other MMO’s, all be it vastly more complex and complicated, but surely doable, at the least a possibility, at worst a fantasy I’m free to indulge in :P

Would have been awesome.

Well this is already happening here. You have to unlock skill points only once and future characters will have them unlocked immediately. You don’t even have to make a choice.

duckideva.6358:

One of the things that drew a subset of WoW players to GW2 was the fact that it wasn’t WoW. Blizzard has made some real hamfisted moves, and each time, it drives off a subset of players that start looking for something new.

That said; having come from a large raiding guild in WoW, the most hardcore of players aren’t going to stay playing gw2 for very long, it’s just too easy. To be honest, one of the things I loved about GW2 was that I could wander around, help people, have people help me, do events, not do events, whatever…it’s just a mellow, cool way to spend an hour or two, but I burned out hard raiding in other games, and I wanted a game where I wouldn’t have to study spreadsheets to make sure everything would go to plan.

But leveling a new alt through the current system…is mind-numbingly dull. And the realization that I’ll be leveling over and over as an 80 before I ever have even close to half my traits has made me resistant to playing.

Seriously, I’ve spent more time reading and commenting on the forums than I have playing since I started the new alt. Most of my friends have wandered off to other games; either back to WoW or off to AA or whatever.

I can’t find the post, but IIRC, one of the devs said something about how the testers went through the opening scene, and then refused to touch anything because they “didn’t know what to do”, so they sat quietly with their hands in their laps until someone told them what to do. (Where they could find a western game audience that sat quietly for anything….I don’t even know.)

If those are the gamers that Anet is trying to attract and retain, then it is no wonder GW2 is turning into Baby’s First MMO.

And now we have it: GW2 isnt even trying to dip into hardcore WoW players, but seems YOU want them to.

Trait system is bad, but NPE really is not that significant.

MikaHR.1978:

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

So CEO of Blizzard doesnt know what hes talking about, and now you are here to write some stuff because you “work in the industry”

You may have your opnion, but opinions can be wrong too. And yours is in this matter.

WoW had/has TERRIBLE retention. What it DID have was crapzillion of people trying it. Same goes for LoL in a bit milder edition. And thats one luxury only a select games have (you can count those on fingers of one hand)

Again, we have more assertions without any real evidence supporting your claims aside from an article posted about a 30% rate which was only performed on trial users. You discredit my so-called “opinion” despite what my research has indicated (as with the research of others) on the basis of personal opinion and news media coverage. You’re not providing any counterexamples or any real methods of properly denying my claims aside from “Because I say so.” That study on the pre-10 dropouts would be like if college admissions’ retention rates were reported based upon the number of applications versus the number of expected graduates of that year. That statistic is totally useless seeing as applicants have made no commitment and the ratio of applications : students is not 1 – or even close to it.

And it doesn’t matter if GW2 is catering to new players or not. What matters is not only gaining new players but retaining both old and new ones; the whole mass appeal thing all over again. WoW is/has been “bleeding” exhausted veteran subscribers and simply not gaining new ones at a rapid enough pace. ANet is attempting to try and succeed in performing the opposite by making new players join faster and veterans churn slower, which should be the intent by any intelligent studio. The content gating however will simply not achieve this.

I don’t understand why you’re senselessly denying my evidence as valid or discrediting my experience because you simply do not believe it. I get that people claim to be in the industry to try and give their statements a sense of validity in hopes it garners more attention. The reality of the matter is that I actually have worked in this environment. That’s why I openly invited Colin to PM me if he didn’t believe me – I actually have those credentials at my disposal – and frankly, if he never PM’s me, it either just means he never saw the thread, doesn’t care, or considers the feedback useful whether or not I need to prove said research efforts. I have those references a cell phone dial away. I’m not, however, going to just post my identity willy-nilly to a few million strangers on discussion boards. That’s just stupid.

So if you have nothing more to say than “you’re wrong” with no justification, I am showing you the door to this thread.