Guild Wars 2

update I see the title is misleading some people. No I don’t want both player groups in a cage. I want both to be happy in their own ways. My proposition would accomplish that. That title is written this way cause of character limits, and the title has to give an clear impression of the subject. But the word ‘split’ is a bad choice. It’s only their for convenience of how short the word is.

It’s time to make a split between veterans and newb players. At character select screen, you choose veteran or easy mode. Easy mode is post-patch, veteran mode everything is pre-patch. That would solve the battle of newb against veterans both wanting what they want. And I think it’s in anet’s best intrest to do this.

Anet, I can understand that you want new players, and some of them won’t play unless you make the game superior easy. That being said, we (the veterans) are still here, some of us purchasing gems, some of us getting reluctant. We have some say in this too, financially wise (wich is why you want the newer players).

First of all, this metrics that are so hyped up by Anet seem to be China only done. I really doubt EU/American has a huge group of players, that would like a dumbed down game. So i have place serious question marks on this metrics system. EU/NA is NOT china, and if Anet realizes that to late, the game will fall into ‘dumb down’-abyss.

The leveling experience (dumbing-down) I can understand partially. It’s somehow a bit more streamlined for new players. What truly makes me sad, however, is destroying existing, fun, well worked on, well accepted, content, in heart quests, diving goggles, etc, because new players ‘might not be able to handle it’. You just removed a lot of metrica province ‘fun to explore’ content. One of the selling points of gw2 (to me) is exploration is fun. Why in God’s name remove that (or dumb is down)? Why make it a grind, instead of a fun exploration run? The logic behind this kills me.

Since Anet is stubborn in their ‘new player acquiring-quest’, there’s no reason to believe they will help veterans. Unless they find the courage for a split like in gw1. Let’s split the game. When you make a character, you choose the option: Newb mode or veteran mode. Newb mode is like now. The implementation stays. Veteran mode, brings mostly everything back to pre-patch state, including heart quests, diving goggles, wood farming, everything. Both parties happy. But something tells me Anet is to stubborn to even implement this. But it’s overdue. If there’s one thing this patch learned, it’s that you cannot with a single game setting, please both veterans and newb players. Choice is everything. Go where you want, play how you want, remember that statement Anet? It’s time to make it true! Split the game on new chars. Newb mode vs Veteran mode. Thanks…

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

First of all, this metrics that are so hyped up by Anet seem to be China only done. I really doubt EU/American has a huge group of players, that would like a dumbed down game. So i have place serious question marks on this metrics system.

You should probably find an understanding of what ‘Metrics’ are before you begin posts like this.

Gnat.9405:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

First of all, this metrics that are so hyped up by Anet seem to be China only done. I really doubt EU/American has a huge group of players, that would like a dumbed down game. So i have place serious question marks on this metrics system.

You should probably find an understanding of what ‘Metrics’ are before you begin posts like this.

lol… pwnt

It’s already been stated that the metrics used were obtained from the West and East and interestingly both sets of metrics pointed out the same thing.

They made it clear it wasn’t only China where the testing took place and that they were surprised by the results.

Gnat.9405:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

First of all, this metrics that are so hyped up by Anet seem to be China only done. I really doubt EU/American has a huge group of players, that would like a dumbed down game. So i have place serious question marks on this metrics system.

You should probably find an understanding of what ‘Metrics’ are before you begin posts like this.

I know what metrics are. There’s no garantee Anet used NA/EU + china for that. They could have used the china ones only, since it’s newer market. Everything in the last months was focus on getting the china release settled. Pretty certain their metrics were more focussed on them, then us, but believe what you want. I’m sure they have NA/EU metrics, since that’s what they are. Question is: did they use them? Nor you or me have prove of this. So nobody is pawned here.

Anyhow the main point of this topic is to split the game in two modes for new players, not discuss metrics, it was merely an introduction to how this opinion found it’s existance.

They told us on these forums that they used data from both regions. If you’re going to be incredulous then what’s the point of making an argument? If you’ve already decided that no matter what ANet says they are lying, and you won’t believe them, then anything you say is immediately invalidated by the fact that you admittedly won’t be satisfied until you, as an individual, get what you want. Which destroys your own argument before it even begins.

Also metrics has nothing to do with your suggestion, especially how you explained it. The entire point of the patch was to build a ramp for new players to become veterans. If you’ve missed that somehow (which I don’t see how you could have possibly misinterpreted their intention), then this patch goes way over your head anyway.

They have the metrics to back up their plans. You have your obstinate opinions about what you think the “new player base” needs.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Anyhow the main point of this topic is to split the game in two modes for new players, not discuss metrics, it was merely an introduction to how this opinion found it’s existance.

I say no. You do not want to divide the playerbase. The last thing we need is a system that would give a false measure of elitism. Plus, the changes that were made affected the maps as well as the characters. Your idea would at least need the 5 starting maps to have separate instances for vets and newbies which is more work for upkeep and more room for errors. To add onto this, if a newbie asked a question in map-chat, the only one people that could respond are other newbies. At best, they likely wouldn’t know the answer. At worst, they would give bad advise and that player would later on have to be retaught something that may be ingrained in them by then.

Any solution has to be one that benefits all players or at least doesn’t alienate those that it wasn’t designed to help.

Maybe a little understanding of what game companies in general, are doing. First a little background for you to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

Here’s the same information written without the mathematics

http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/algtrig/ATS2/NormalLesson.htm

Now, how does this relate to our predicament? It goes like this:

People that are ‘leet’, in forums, ‘from China, but not the US/EU’, by your discussion, live in the 3rd standard deviation of the curve to the right, based on population and proficiency, and are insulted when the game isn’t being created to make you happy. Based on the Normal Distribution, the 3rd percentile makes up less than 1% of the overall gaming market.

Gaming companies have awakened to the idea that there is a market around the median that equates to 70% of the game population. So how do they attract that 70% and retain a higher proportion? The marketing dept. knows how to do this and does it well in any game, thus the huge influx into many games.

The disconnect comes in when that 70% get into the game, many do not know how to play games…WASD is new to them. Think about it this way, PC users are reluctant to play games designed with console players in mind because the interfaces are to simplistic. Console players do not, generally, play PC games, so they buy this great game all their PC friends are playing and struggle because of the ‘complexity’, a complexity PC players love…see the problem?

Now multiply that by the general population and invited non-gamers into a world like Tyria and you see the game companies problems. They want larger profits and want the game to be accessible, but they have always been afraid to anger their top <1% players. In business bypassing so much of a profitable market because you cater to <1% of that market is a problem.

The company wants larger profits, so they want to sell more games and retain buying customers. If you are churning new customers out because of mechanics and confusion, you try to eliminate those from the game and repair it.

The minority of the game do not like it, sorry guys but we need more players or no one will play. The game has to maintain a level of profitability or the servers will close. (BTW if a game profitability is low, but profitable, a company will close the server to bring online a more profitable game..but that is another discussion) To maintain that level of profitability you have to keep the loyal base buying, but as that diminishes over time, you have to bring on more players also. Yes, loyal players will churn, however, if you have two problems, you can only face one at a time, and generally the harder to understand and deal with takes priority. Onboarding and decreasing new player churn is the hardest to get a handle on between the two. Although the argument is made that it’s also way more expensive to do this, in the long run the game becomes healthier and more profitable, with an easier to sustain profitability level.

Anet needs to find a way ..for ‘first character = all these limits’
Second character = less limits. (basically, all vistas, wp’s, skillpoints, nodes show… but the skill unlocks with levels, that would have to stay the same. )

I don’t know why people keep referring to the new system as a “dumbing down” of sorts. Is it so hard to imagine someone completely new to MMO’s to start with GW2 and not know what’s what?

If you’re a veteran of multiple games, MMO’s or otherwise, then yes, it may seem like a “dumbed down” version, but that doesn’t mean anything because this system is not for us. Like someone mentioned above, it will be a worse idea to create a clear boundary between the veterans and the newbies as the newbies couldn’t learn, get help, or perhaps even improve. Learn to look pass your own subjective view and see the bigger picture.

Taygus.4571:

Anet needs to find a way ..for ‘first character = all these limits’
Second character = less limits. (basically, all vistas, wp’s, skillpoints, nodes show… but the skill unlocks with levels, that would have to stay the same. )

CJo has already stated that this was supposed to be the case for many of the gated features.

Gnat.9405:

Taygus.4571:

Anet needs to find a way ..for ‘first character = all these limits’
Second character = less limits. (basically, all vistas, wp’s, skillpoints, nodes show… but the skill unlocks with levels, that would have to stay the same. )

CJo has already stated that this was supposed to be the case for many of the gated features.

but they havent told us what features are account unlocks and whats character based.

It would be ok, if we knew whats what, and that they are working on the bugs, but that “this is how it’s supposed to work”.

As far as splitting the game, this isn’t that type of game. Sorry. That is all the other MMO’s in the world that have a different game when you finish leveling your character, mainly because that brings in QQ for higher level Best In Slot gear, etc.

Bad move. Sorry, that will truly destroy this game. I came here because I love the idea that there is no ‘upper level’ in PvE and I will leave if that content gets added.

If you want to play at a higher level, go sPvP. It is fun and awesome. Srsly.

Part 1:

Everything what ANet just has to do is to revert all this dumbing down of the game and to implement into the game a REAL optional fealing well thought out and designed tutorial place in the game that ist most perfectly fitting for the Character Creation Instance, where new players then can be teached then mostly all important things if they want, before the game puts those players into the normal game with its persistent world at the game’s present time.

Or Anet goes for the serious longer, but much more valuable true solution path and completely redesigns the whole character progression system including the whole personal story system and merges it together with the living story system to turn it into one single “dynamic story system”, where the complete character progression really also feels from its begin to its end on also really rewarding and doesn’t give out just locked mechanics as cheap stupid wannabe pseudo rewards, which are absolutely no rewards at all, because it were all things, we just had already at pre patch and didn’t need that crap to get unlocked first, only because Anet thought, it would feel to a new player like a reward to get something unlocked, that was freely useable at pre patch without any problems, because people would be otherwise overwhelmed by the content of this game >.>

Seriously, all those changes Anet made here, are basically for mentally underdeveloped people with an IQ of a bean and saying that they had like 10000’s of such mental disqualified people as their testers that showed them, that GW2 would need such illogical changes is just nothing else than just a big fat LIE so that Anet just has a cheap reason that explains themself so that they basically lose not their faces by having to admit, that they totally screwed over the whole NPE.
It is totally pathetic and embarassing what Anet did here with their own game, that they enforce upon their whole community those changes for ret peep ed people, only because theres some kind of vocal super minority which seems to be too dumb to play this super easy game just by trial and error, that Anet thought, that they had to go so far to dumb this game so much down, that it basically has now 6 year old niveau. by letting us dance to COWS rather than to actually feed them what would be correct, only because of “some” weird people being too stupid to just make some clicks onto those food bags and actualy feed the freaking cow!!. WTF

Part 2:

This absolutely doesn’t get into my head, how a game developer can ruin so much their own game, without giving AT LEAST their 2 year old and much more advanced (as also likely much more mental healthy) community the simple option to completely turn off those NPE changes for them.

Therefore you don’t need to divide the complete community into like two halves through different game modes at the start.
*It would be just all enough, if a simple NPC at the Character Creation Instance asks you before you start with the game, if you want to have some explanation about Tyria or so and by saying yes to that NPC, the game starts for you some extra Tutorial Renown Hearts in the Character Creation Instance that when you do theem, teach you everything important, unlock for you the most important mechanics and explain them to you and everythign ,what can’t be put there into the totural renowm hearts, should be slowly teached passively to the players within the personal story.

Whats so freakign heard about it to implement some mechanisms of the game into the early personal story, so that players will automatically learn those mechanics while playing on their personal story.
Theres no need to lock every crap behind character levels and lame pseudo rewards from leveling up.

Giving players rewards for their level ups in general is a nice idea, to make the whole process of character progression feel more rewarding, but then at least Anet should give out senseful rewards, which are really useful to the player and their played class and not just cheap junk, that can’t be used and such mentioned pseudo reward mechanic unlocks, that Anet put in there as fillers for the early level rewards.

I find it really shocking, that Anet doesn’t come up yet for a honest conversation about this massive community outrage.
I can’t believe, that they must be so blind to see not whats going on here on the forums, on pc magazines and other fan sites for such a big negative wave of disappointment of the community,

The community clearly says and more than good enoughs shows also to Anet, that WE don’t want a dumbed down version of GW2, that we don’t want this chinafication of the game to the same low stupid niveau and that we were all totally fine with how GW2 was on pre patch in regard of how the character progression played like on low levels in GW2

Yet still, this patch feels like again being forced upon us all, just because of some silly testers being too stupid for this game.
Metrics, seriously, I can’t read this word anymore these days, when I see people talking about it, I could puke, when I just look at it how Anet dumbed this game down due to them.

And if Anet is doing all of this only, so that they have for the future an easier time to keep all versions of the game the same for EU, NA and CH, then I as a veteran player would at least expect of ANet being so honest to say so, than that they come up with such an obvious lie, like that they had tens of thousands of mentally underdeveloped people as their testers all over the world which said to them, that GW2 was too hard for them in the early levels … when against that stand multiple millions of veteran players, which had no problems at all within the last 2 years

Again, it’s not my goal to split the game. The choice at the char screen i’m suggesting ONLY AFFECTS THE PLAYER, not anybody else. And it keeps valuable content in the game for the lore lovers/veterans with experience.

This implementation would not split the player base. It didn’t in gw1 and it will not here. In gw1 you could skip tutorial, or play it. You had a choice, but neither affect your future in gw2. Player who choose ‘easy start mode’, will not have a etiquette on them. Neither will veteran players, because other players DO NOT see the difference in the implementation.

All this suggestion does = appease both newbies and veterans. Wich should be a goal of Anet. Old gw2 = appease veterans but not ultra hardcores (game was often criticized to be to easy). New gw2 = appease newb players, but not veterans. Either way it’s bad evolution.

Player above talking about the ‘median 70%’ population, if they want to hold that 70% they will have to start appeasing veterans, if not, it will drop to 65, 60, 55% cause the vets will leave. This (rather quite simple) proposition would fix that.