Guild Wars 2

A few weeks back when extra character slots were on sale, I purchased one for a potential project and to putter around with the character creator and also in case I could refer a few friends to the game as new players. This has afforded me the option to test out the New Player Experience. Upon release of the patch, what I read was not heartening, and obviously the discussion(s) here on the forum have left a distinct negative impression among what appears to be a significant amount of players. However it is fair to note that to better judge something one should experience it, so to that end I created a new character to give the new system a spin.

I created a sylvari guardian and decided to make notes as I played for a little over an hour. I recognize the following two facts: i) I am a population of 1 and, therefore, not statistically powerful, and ii) I have been playing GW2 since headstart/launch and as a veteran player am inherently biased toward comparing the new system with the old. That said, my goal was to approach this with a focus on what the new player might feel, trying to fairly evaluate what was presented to me. Unfortunately elements of the system clash so with the previous system that I found myself unable to avoid comparisons. Therefore, I have tried to offer constructive criticism rather than just note displeasure.

The Dream and Early Levels in Caledon
First off, the intro cinematics still put a smile on my face. They were superbly done, and I am glad the style has continued throughout many of the LS sections.

Due to the way weapon skills work now, I was only able to spam 1 all over the place. There is insufficient XP off the nightmare hounds here in the Dream to level up to unlock the next skill, so unlike prior experiences in the Dream wherein I was able to enter the end fight of the Dream with a few skills I just auto-attacked to victory all the way through. Not really a big deal, however; very similar to the “kill X of this baddie” quests every MMO gives you at level 1 with just one skill. The dialogue with Caithe was fine, as she pops up multiple places to keep the player moving forward (I believe this has always been the case, anyway).

On a side note, I was saddened to note that I could not see any trace of the two asura who used to be milling about on the way to the bridge to the final fight. They had some dialogue about experimenting on sylvari, giving a taste of the early (and perhaps still present in some forms) relationship between the asura and the sylvari. This meshes well with some of the young sylvaris’ dialogue when you first pop out of the dream (wondering about how to relate to the other races, being different from them; the player character offers assurance, such as noting that “we feel the same as them” and that’s enough). These bits may seem insignificant, but elements like this scattered throughout the world give Tyria more depth and realism, and we are all worse off for their absence.

After exiting the Dream, I noted that I was still in my gear. For a new player, this is probably a good thing — the sylvari are (were) the only race to NOT appear geared for players, so it could have served as a point of confusion. I, personally, really liked that element and the fact that you could talk to a nearby NPC after taking a mere handful of steps to get the gear that you Dreamed you had to start you off on your Hunt. And if you failed to talk to her, walking past her granted you the gear all the same. Now, however, you already have your gear without this interaction, and if you talk to her she will still say something about how the gear should do for now as if the first half of the conversation, which is now gone, still occurred.

As you exit that starting area, one of the first NPCs is still the scout, which is great. I have always felt that the scouts are an excellent means of both introducing the concept of exploring a map and aiding NPCs as well as giving a player direction when they are wondering where to head next (especially when a scout can point you to part of the map you haven’t explored for more hearts).

Due to the personal story not beginning until level 10, I could not follow up on the visions I had in The Dream. What seemed like an urgent calling is put on hold. Also, the personal story used to require the player to complete at least one heart before progressing at this point, providing a very helpful heart tutorial in the form of a heart icon, an objective like, "X people helped", and directly pointing the player to the scout initially. Immediately, the relationship between exploring the map and completing hearts was presented. Currently, I was directed to explore the map but did not have the experience directly linked to hearts and player progression. It is my opinion that the tutorial-like nature of the previous system should be shifted off of the personal story (I assume it was actually cut form the initial stages of the personal story, as the latter is moved to level 10) and inserted here, right after the completion of the tutorial boss fight and initial NPC cutscene setting you on your path.

At this point in my early exploration, I had looted a focus. However, red/pink text on the item’s tooltip informed me that I could not access off-hand weapons until level 7. So not only was I prevented from pursuing my personal story and forced into exploring the world, doing what comes naturally in the latter faces arbitrary limitations.

Early fights are underwhelming. This is likely great for new players, as it keeps the amount of difficulty down as they ease into the fluid nature of GW2 combat. While I found it boring, I’ve known people who needed easing in to MMO combat, things like more than one enemy attacking at a time causing stress. Not having to deal with conditions is probably a boon for this kind of player, and it’s no big deal for the rest of us. I did chuckle at the enemy descriptions, with text like, "frenzies, poisons" under their health bars, having no actual weight anymore. The enemies basically spam 1, just like the players, at these levels.

That new icon on some maps, I finally went to check one out to see that it represents dodge "tutorials". The icon is not straightforward nor are we directed to it in any way, so it’s just this thing that MIGHT motivate a player to check it out if he or she HAPPENs to wander over to it -- at least PoIs, Skill Points, and Vistas have a legend for them on the main map view. Granted, a new player will most likely complete it when reaching one, but I can’t help but feel that dodging would be better served with a more explicit tutorial. For example, consider the intro section of the Mists, where players are introduced to downstate, reviving, stomping downed enemies, and capture points. These are very straightforward, clear, and helpful in explaining the game mechanics. Why not have one of the first objectives of PvE exploration be this kind of tutorial, including the use of dodge, the heal skill, and getting downed? In another thread, danakin.3294 had suggested forcing the player into the down state during the tutorial but letting them get out of it without danger of death, affording an immediate understanding of the system and example of how it works. This is a GREAT idea -- if the aim is to reveal mechanics and make them readily understood by players from the get-go, using the slow, introductory pace of the tutorial to present these kinds of situations could be an ideal solution. It would capitalize on the openness and eagerness of new players, and it wouldn’t feel like a chore to veteran players who might be waiting around for the final fight of their race’s tutorial to open up and let them in anyway (i.e. how if you don’t get there when someone else heads in you have to wait for them to finish the fight).

In Caledon, the dodge "tutorial" is just rolling through two areas of effect to open a chest. This introduces the danger of red circles, but it does nothing for the visual cues of enemies about to strike or toss weapons/magic at players. Why not have a friendly NPC offer to train the player, or a captive enemy fight you in a controlled environment? Remember the Township of Claypool in Queensdale? That is actually a great example of PvE tutorials. Here, the heart-related activities include learning how to wait for an opening to strike a shielded opponent, how to block attacks, and waiting for the right opportunity to fire a rifle. The latter might not carry over to anything, but the others are fairly relevant to GW2’s combat system. An interaction like this would be a fantastic way to introduce dodging and healing for new players.

Level 5
I can finally use a guardian virtue! It’s about time -- the weapon skill unlocks have been slow but steady, but now I can finally get a taste for what the guardian’s unique ability is. Unfortunately, it’s only the first of three -- while a new player would not know that, it’s kind of limiting. I would assume here warriors, necros, and thieves are good to go having just the one thing to unlock, rangers can finally direct their pet to a target but can do nothing else with them, mesmers get just their DPS shatter, and elementalists maybe get nothing (I had read their third and fourth attunements come much later)? And do engineers only get their toolbelt skills once the utility slots are unlocked, or does something appear here? Confusing and inconsistent, it seems, across the classes. It feels like another arbitrary wait.

NOW I can rally. If I was not a veteran player, would I have any idea what that even means? Presumably if I had taken enough damage prior to this point I would have just died and had to waypoint. Now suddenly I sit on the ground and have new skills to look at in a system not mentioned to me before. Again, the tutorials in the Mists handle this far better and could be looked to for adoption within the PvE environment.

At this point I had wandered into Morgan’s Spiral, completing events with my fellow adventurers. I discovered the Skill Point challenge at the center only to find that while I can see and interact with it I can do nothing but select, "I’ll come back later." Why? As a new player, do I know what this means? Why can I interact with it and see it but not do anything with it yet? Also, it shares the same icon as the "Slot skills" tab of the hero panel, so the connection is easy to make. And yet it suggests that I, the player, have maybe missed some action or process in order to make this object available to me. While this is technically true (I have not leveled sufficiently), this seems rather arbitrary. Even though I haven’t been told about PoIs, waypoints, or vistas, I can use those.

The jumping puzzle here works as usual -- we never were told when we found one until we got to the chest at the end, and that makes total sense given that it’s a self-guided exploration activity. So other elements of the game are being hand-fed but these remain fun and rewarding activities unrelated to leveling and story. It was upon entering the Dark Enclave and fighting things a couple levels higher that I finally went down. So at this point I saw that I can only use down skill 1 and 4. Limiting, but at least it’s consistent with how skills are unlocked in this system.

I remain ambivalent about the lack of conditions from enemy attacks. I cannot truely say if it feels appropriate for a new player or not, or if it will have any impact on how much more difficult combat seems to a new player once conditions are inflicted upon them later.

Level 6
At this point, dyes and the wardrobe are shown to me. I’m guessing this wasn’t an actual unlock so much as it was just pointed out to me explicitly? I honestly did not attempt to use dyes or the wardrobe before. Given that, it might be good that these elements are directly noted for the player -- character customization is a big draw in GW2. I also had seen that I could already use the BLTC, which is why I assume that these were not "unlocked" here but are just mentioned. (since BLTC is a "reward" for level 8 ).

This was not introduced with the September patch, but I did note here that I really, really like how the heart system was updated from a mail message to a direct UI notification to deliver some cash as a reward, the NPC’s thanks, and explicitly noting the vendor unlock. That was a good change, in my opinion, and a good example of the UI clearly pairing with game activity.

Level 7
Offhand slot is finally unlocked.
I took the greatsword that was offered as a level-up reward and swapped to it. Suddenly the center of the screen filled with notifications about skills 2-4 of the greatsword being unlocked, to bring it up to par with the weapon set I had and the unlocks appropriate for level 7. So that’s 3 new skills (4 if you count the first skill, which all weapons start with unlocked) that I might have no clue about that I have access to immediately. This presents an interesting trade-off: there is no learning-via-use anymore that encourages exploration and learning of new weapons via use, but at the same time there’s no need to go through a slow process of fighting with multiple weapons to ensure that all skills get unlocked. I can see arguments for either. However I still feel that the former system awarded player-driven character progression while the new one promotes game-dictated progression.

I also noted that I have to wait until level 15 to unlock my second weapon set. Talk about boring.

I still cannot do that skill point challenge, and at this point I have run past it a few times.

Harvesting nodes have been all over on the map and in the world, but I have had no direction about them at all. This is not new, but why are the skillpoints and vistas hidden from new players while these remain wholly visible and available for interaction? This appears to be more arbitrary execution of what is presented.

Level 8
Sweet, underwater gear. There’s underwater combat in this game? I actually had forgotten that we wouldn’t have been able to do anything underwater before. Fortunately Caledon is laid out in such a way that it’s easy to get to this level before hitting any of the water-heavy areas of the map. I wonder what new players in Metrica Province’s southern areas or who go poking around in the lake in Wayfarer Foothills think about this level requirement. Perhaps there should be a means of introducing water mechanics, and maybe this unlock/gear reward is a first step -- a bad first step, but a first step in the right direction nonetheless.

I noted that I was told about the BLTC here, but I had already used it on this character. So this is an example of how this system doesn’t always "lock" elements behind levels, but it hides them or doesn’t mention them until later. I don’t get this mentality, though I think it’s silly to quibble about it -- all it does is ensure new players are made aware of things at a slower pace and has no ill effects on veteran players. HOWEVER I can’t help but wish the skill slots and things like weapon swapping and skill point challenges were likewise just mentioned at level-ups rather than truly unlocked.

I see that it tells me Level 9 will bring about banking and gathering. I can already see nodes on the map and interact with them, as I noted, so why the wait until level 9 to even mention them to a new player? ESPECIALLY considering that, at this point, new players haven’t been able to do any story and have been forced to wander around their starting area map to level, likely coming across various resource nodes already. This is an illogical hesitation on introducing a game feature accessible from the beginning. Gathering is even a great activity to encourage, as it awards XP to a character and highlights how GW2 does not treat resources on a first-come-first-serve basis, a fantastic fact about how the game world operates.

I still can’t even access the story. Those visions I had sure seemed important, and Caithe mentioned that there was a lot to do to safeguard the lands. But I guess wandering around the forest is a lot more important for now. If I progress on this character to continue exploring the NPE, I am apprehensive about the personal story’s pacing and its logic, especially given how later elements have been re-ordered (with some content even cut, based on what I’ve read here on the forum).

I shudder to think what would have happened in this hour if I had taken this guardian into WvW. Would I have been able to do anything other than spam 1 for a while? I doubt it.

Some Conclusions
The use of level-gating for some activities doesn’t seem to follow a logical pattern. The use of level-ups to discuss features available from character creation makes even less sense, though I wouldn’t be surprised if a user experience study provided evidence of overload if the elements were all introduced at once upon tutorial completion. In any case, there are aspects of this that I think reveal the good intentions behind the new system’s implementation, but it falls short of being a powerful tool for learning the game. Control of character progression is taken away from the players -- rather than a player progressing a character at his or her own pace, engendering an environment of exploration and evolution, the game arbitrarily decides when he or she is ready to advance, imposing a more draconian, static leveling path (worse if a player prefers WvW and wishes to level up in that area).

Ultimately, awareness of what the game mechanics are and how the UI operates are probably the primary goals in helping new players. To that end, I would encourage continuing to work this system into one that adopts the characteristics of the Mists introductory area and explicit tutorials. Instead of hiding the downstate and its skills behind later and later levels, for example, have the players enter combat and get downed in a controlled way. Direct players to a resource node as one of their first activities in the open world, perhaps with a temporary harvesting item, to get a feel for gathering (and this can be used as a natural segue into crafting AND the bank!!). Use more than some red circles on the ground to encourage the use of dodges -- start with a single strike, chain it into two with pop-up text to note the endurance meter and its recharging nature and speed. Doing these things un-muddies the UI and eases players into the game world. I know, this game hates the idea of quests, but that’s what hearts are, so it shouldn’t be the end of the world if a couple brief introductory activities like these are introduced.

As I couldn’t divorce myself from my dislike of this new system as a returning player, I also remain very eager to see how much of this will NOT apply to veteran accounts (which I think has been mentioned a few times by ANET folks). Ideally, none of this would apply to my alts, but I suspect the skill slot, weapon swapping, and profession-unique skill unlocks are here to stay for everyone. This on top of the awful trait system (level 30, really? Almost halfway through the game we finally get to experiment and customize builds? And we have to go to specific areas of Tyria to unlock them?) does not encourage alt creation and leveling, and I can only offer my condolences to new players.

----

Edit: I would like to note that I believe I had accidentally left the new compass feature on "off". I had meant to re-activate it for this process, so as a result I might have missed when it would have directed me to the dodge tutorial, for example.

A very informative thread. Thanks

Don’t forget, you can not speed level with crafting and EotM anymore.

You’ve gotta stick to map completion in PvE to level up. When you finish your level 20 story, let us know what you got. I got a Tier 1 Cultural chest armor (Masterwork) for my Norn after finishing the level 20 PS.

Decent review, one that hopefully the Devs read.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Don’t forget, you can not speed level with crafting and EotM anymore.

You’ve gotta stick to map completion in PvE to level up. When you finish your level 20 story, let us know what you got. I got a Tier 1 Cultural chest armor (Masterwork) for my Norn after finishing the level 20 PS.

Not true. That is unless the comment was more in evaluating the NPE should not be speed leveling with crafting or EotM