Guild Wars 2

I don’t speak German, but just look at the skillbar and the numbers.

This is what anet thinks of its playerbase’s intelligence? That we can’t handle having 5 skills at once before level 10? That 3 utilities by level 20 is just too complicated so they have to push it back to level 35? That an elite skill is just “too much to figure out” at 30 so they push it back to level 40?

I have never (AND THE ROCK MEANS NEVER!) met a person who has quit playing an MMO because of getting too many skills at once. I have on the other hand, played with a lot of people, who have quit MMO’s because they walled off too many core features to higher level gates. “Just keep playing, it gets better later I promise!” hardly ever works. You gate CONTENT behind levels and gear, you don’t gate core features and their skillbar behind high levels and gear.

I can’t believe I was thinking about leveling up a new character under this system as of yesterday since my keyfarming slot won’t be viable anymore. Forget that, I’m glad all my current characters are at least level 30.. as it is I’m just hoping current level 30 characters are grandfathered in to having 3 utility slots and an elite slot available.

it really is insulting to your fans intelligence Arenanet.

This is already a fairly simplified skillbar, I can understand putting weapon swapping behind a few levels (7 originally, now it’s higher) since that’s a relatively new mechanic for MMO’s, but keep those level gates rather low. These are core functions of the game. I know that if I’d started playing this game and was forced to have nothing but autoattacks and 1 other skill for several levels, I don’t think I’d continue playing, I’d be contacting support about a refund.

They what!? Why would they do something like this….
Levelling alts keeps getting more and more annoying.. First making traits expensive as hell now this.

I’ve been playing since the 3-day headstart. And I love making alts, I got 20 already. It’s really the only way to keep the game fun for me. This change compared to the changes they made to traits makes levelling alts a lot more tedious and less fun.

Thanks for taking the only part of the game I still love and completely butcher it.

This guy was level 2 at the beginning of the vid and level 3 by the end, so not sure where you get level 10 from. Also, since day 1 we’ve started with only 1 skill, then as we use skill 1 to kill things, skill 2 would come in, then skill 3, etc. So not sure what the problem is, unless I’m missing something.

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

Official point of view:

Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.

Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.

This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2etzxq/a_fresh_start_the_new_player_experience_in_guild/ck35771

My point of view: while I agree that gating such things behind levels implies thinking of your players as Facebook Farmer clickers, I also agree that there is an overwhelmingly surprising amount of people who just can’t handle the simplest things without being spoonfed – globally, outside gaming as well. I don’t like it and don’t think the game should be adapted to the lowest common denominator, but oh well… maybe if they do speed up the 1-15 leveling as I’ve heard in the preview, they’ll find a balance between ultra casual people who pay for the game and still let us play without a sub, and the amount of frustration such things bring to veteran players leveling alts.

The Spiral King.2483:

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

My German is not perfect but yes the OP is correct.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Official point of view:

Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.

Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.

This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2etzxq/a_fresh_start_the_new_player_experience_in_guild/ck35771

My point of view: while I agree that gating such things behind levels implies thinking of your players as Facebook Farmer clickers, I also agree that there is an overwhelmingly surprising amount of people who just can’t handle the simplest things without being spoonfed. I don’t like it and don’t think the game should be adapted to the lowest common denominator, but oh well… maybe if they do speed up the 1-15 leveling as I’ve heard in the preview, maybe they’ll find a balance between ultra casual people who pay for the game and still let us play without a sub, and the amount of frustration such things bring to veteran players leveling alts.

So our levelling process has to be handicapped for the “less gifted”?

Yes, the skilled player is the smallest minority of the population, and thus cannot be catered to in order to maintain a healthy game population. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is.

Dumbing down. Unfortunately it is a bit like real life.

I’m on close to the same page as Bird. For those of us that have played through since launch, this does seem insulting, because we obviously did figure the stuff out. We populated the wiki so that other people would have an easier time. People have written all sorts of guides for the various components of the game. Etc. However, there are a lot of people that really don’t have a clue.

Look at the questions being asked in game, on here, in the player helping player forum, etc. They don’t understand down state, they don’t know what wvw is, they don’t get how pvp works, they don’t know what a combo field is, what blasting is, what might stacking is, etc. The game needs a better tutorial for those types of people. People have posted that they don’t understand, that they feel just thrown into the game with no direction, that they are overwhelmed, and many vets have stated that they understand that feeling.

So anet built a tutorial…of sorts. I don’t agree with the implementation of all the various things, but I agree with the general concept. Considering there are people playing this game and it is their first MMO, they need something to help them along. Something to help educate beginners, which might help the player base in general when they get to trying things like dungeons. Sadly, I don’t think that even with our feedback that this implementation will change because it apparently does seem to be working (at least in China).

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

So our levelling process has to be handicapped for the “less gifted”?

Something has to be sacrificed, either on the “casual” side of the game, or the “pro” side of the game.

GW2, unlike many “serious” sub-based MMOs, is focused on the B2P model which, obviously, attracts many fairly casual people who are not ready to pay a sub but want to play a true non-free non-junk MMO (like me, yes). So obviously, unleashing full potential at early levels for pro players has to be sacrificed. Am I happy with it? Not really. But am I happy that it still lets me play an MMO after a year for free because other people pay for it? Yes.

Melanie.1240:

The Spiral King.2483:

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

My German is not perfect but yes the OP is correct.

Well, thank you for confirming. Glad to know they still rely on their precious metrics instead of common sense when redesigning things.

I’ll wait until I try the experience to judge the experience.

Vayne.8563:

I’ll wait until I try the experience to judge the experience.

I’m trying not to judge until I try it as well, but it’s hard. I’ll be making a new ele tonight (without using an exp scroll lol) to see how it goes.

Where’s Sulu!

I have a new character waiting in the wings to try these new things.

Alienmuppet.1942:

This guy was level 2 at the beginning of the vid and level 3 by the end, so not sure where you get level 10 from. Also, since day 1 we’ve started with only 1 skill, then as we use skill 1 to kill things, skill 2 would come in, then skill 3, etc. So not sure what the problem is, unless I’m missing something.

watch her mouse over the skills, you’ll see the levels they’re unlocked at. Skill 3 is unlocked at level 4, skill 4 is unlocked at level 7, skill 5 unlocked at level 10. Utility skill 1 is unlocked at level 13, Utility skill 2 is unlocked at level 24, Utility skill slot 3 is unlocked at level 35, and the Elite slot is unlocked at level 40. They removed the arrow for swapping weapons completely (must be too confusing) so I didn’t see what level they bumped weapon swapping up to.

Point is they’re unnecessarily gating CORE FEATURES OF THE GAMES COMBAT SYSTEM behind higher and higher levels.

I’m saying that’s backwards, as I’ve never known anyone who got overwhelmed by game systems early on, I have however known people who quit games because they were doling out skills and systems too slowly at too high of levels and they actually got bored.

I know I’d have gotten bored by level 10 of only being able to use 4 skills and a self heal, no weapon swap.

The problem with the downed system is simple.

Downed changes your skill bar in a time when you don’t have time to mouse over each skill and try them out and LEARN your downed skills. You’re dying, you’re under pressure. Not the time to learn a new system.

Downed system is flawed as it gets.

To effectively tutorial the downed system you have to have a controlled setting where your character is in a downed state but not being actively attacked and their life isn’t ticking over time, so that pressure is removed and you have time to look at your skills, see what they do, test their ranges, and experiment, the way you can with other skills.

It’s like getting Moa’ed by a mesmer in PVP. What makes that polymorph so effective against inexperienced players is you’re throwing an unfamilliar skillset on someone in a time of pressure where they don’t have time to experiment with the skills and see how to use them.

The Spiral King.2483:

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

one moment, ill look into it …

I agree this gating is completely unnecessary. I’m happy all my characters are already levelled up so this won’t affect them.

Don’t worry guys…u will be able to unlock all slots and elites with gems in the cash shop soon.

Well…this confirms it. I’ll make another alt until it’s a human female warrior or ranger that I want.

I remember reading reviews at launch of people criticizing the need to unlock weapon skills because we would be too “dumb” to read a whole 5 skill descriptions at once.

I guess all these game reviewers that didnt play more than a month were just too dumb to understand how a real mmo should function.

Haha, oh boy, yes this is stupid, unlocking the weapon skills only by level 10. (edit: to clarify, skill 5 is unlocked at 10)

On the bright side I’m now more happy than ever for the lvl 20 scrolls. Just wow.

welcome to today´s gaming audience. Living story bosses are too hard bordering on the unbeatable, people are scared and confused – one might even say traumatized – by downed state. They just deliver what the majority of people apparently want and need, like every business has to.

I reeeeeeeeeeaaaaally hope existing characters won’t have this changed on them as this would be downright annoying on level 30ish characters.

Relying on metrics is like viewing a single photo taken out of context.
Sometimes it shows an excellent overview of what is happening and other times it completely misses.

It’s a shame they couldn’t code a check box after character creation for additional alts:

• I got this, I know what to do, no hand-holding please
• I’m still fuzzy please help

They could have done this like a tutorial, turn it off and progress as you’ve always had.

Rouven.7409:

Haha, oh boy, yes this is stupid, unlocking the weapon skills only by level 10. (edit: to clarify, skill 5 is unlocked at 10)

On the bright side I’m now more happy than ever for the lvl 20 scrolls. Just wow.

This. Though I still believe that for the second birthday present we should have gotten lvl 40 scrolls.
I have 20 characters, 16 of which are 80 and fully geared, I think I proved I know what I’m doing..

I really would like to know how this patch is supposedly favoring new players over veterans (as some have argued), because it looks like the newbies are getting set back in a whoooooole lot of ways (this after already having been trait-locked a while back).

I mean, I can ALMOST see the sense to all of this skill-gating for a fresh, brand-spanking-new player. One should not have to put up with all of these restrictions while leveling their umpteenth alt, however. How about this: once a player brings a character to max level, all or most of the skill slots (except maybe elite, I guess) are automatically unlocked for subsequent characters?

Devildoc.6721:

Point is they’re unnecessarily gating CORE FEATURES OF THE GAMES COMBAT SYSTEM behind higher and higher levels.

I’m saying that’s backwards, as I’ve never known anyone who got overwhelmed by game systems early on, I have however known people who quit games because they were doling out skills and systems too slowly at too high of levels and they actually got bored.

I know I’d have gotten bored by level 10 of only being able to use 4 skills and a self heal, no weapon swap.

Exactly this. I’ll just out and say it. WildStar. I hit 13 in the beta and was bored, bored, BORED with my character. I had all of 5, maybe 6 skills, the bullkitten amp system which had hidden item locks, and a wide swath of nothing to do.
The most boring part was the limited skill bar, though.

I was actually proud of the fact that GW2 had a fair amount of flexibility by the same point. By level 10, I had two weapon bars full of skills, a self-heal, and two utility traits. Thirteen skills available, with additional swaps for utilities. That was actually empowering.

This late-gating garbage has got to go. -_-#

they’ve ;engthened the leveling process?

Here was me hoping it would be easier As a nub to the game, this is disheartening, especially as I was actually saving making all my alts until this update hit.

HAHAHAHAAHA….imagine leveling a mesmer now. I’ll quit the game before I have to do it again.

Rofl, this isn’t just insulting. It’s boring.
I was bored as hell with the 5 weapon skills and first utility from lvl 5 i think.
Now they made it worse.

Not to mention the traits…

To be honest, I am quite surprised by the amount of mentally challenged people that are playing Guild Wars 2. Appearantly it is such a big group that a relatively simple system has to be changed and locked further. I thought this crap would end after the trait system was changed.

The trait system is good, at the core. Chasing down certain things to get traits is a good feature, one we all loved in Guild Wars 1 where we had to hunt down our elite skills. The downside is that they locked it away at almost halfway through the leveling process. I would rather have more trait stuff unlocking at level 10, to gather some novice traits and continue from there…Oh well.

Sad day for alts! :P

The Spiral King.2483:

Can someone who speaks German verify any of this? Because if true, absolutely hilarious that they think their entire playerbase consists of monkeys with brain damage.

- when you’ve had guardians who have played this game for two years full on “hardcore” and have yet to unlock the skills on their sword, only to discover that zealot’s defense has a block projectile mechanic
- when you’ve had people with multiple legendaries, 12k cheevos, who still don’t know how to effectively stack might or use light projectile finishers to clear condis quickly, or blast anything else other than might
- when you’ve had people who think dealing with any sort of mechanics or bosses who have mechanics are too hard and annoying
- when you’ve had a full group of “elite” full ascended zerkers take more than 40 minutes in a single path in CM that have been playing this game since beta who are self proclaimed “speed runners”

It makes it extremely hard to not sympathize with their decision, albeit probably not the best way to go about things.

As far as I’ve seen, you can have a boss hold up a giant red sign that covers 90% of the players screen to “press X to win” for 5 whole minutes before the QTE fails and it still wouldn’t even register with people. My problem is that this occurs way too often.

Rauderi.8706:

Devildoc.6721:

Point is they’re unnecessarily gating CORE FEATURES OF THE GAMES COMBAT SYSTEM behind higher and higher levels.

I’m saying that’s backwards, as I’ve never known anyone who got overwhelmed by game systems early on, I have however known people who quit games because they were doling out skills and systems too slowly at too high of levels and they actually got bored.

I know I’d have gotten bored by level 10 of only being able to use 4 skills and a self heal, no weapon swap.

Exactly this. I’ll just out and say it. WildStar. I hit 13 in the beta and was bored, bored, BORED with my character. I had all of 5, maybe 6 skills, the bullkitten amp system which had hidden item locks, and a wide swath of nothing to do.
The most boring part was the limited skill bar, though.

I was actually proud of the fact that GW2 had a fair amount of flexibility by the same point. By level 10, I had two weapon bars full of skills, a self-heal, and two utility traits. Thirteen skills available, with additional swaps for utilities. That was actually empowering.

This late-gating garbage has got to go. -_-#

That’s about how far I got in wildstar as well, it was a really boring game, all I could do in the world was quest, kill, and vistas basically since I picked explorer. I don’t understand the thought process with dividing up your extra landscape content into different “paths”.. in GW2 terms imagine you chose your order at level 1. Priory characters could do vistas and points of interest, whispers characters could do jumping puzzles and mini dungeons/hidden chests, and Vigil characters could do meta events and skill challenges.

If you were priory or whispers, you couldn’t get skillpoints. if you were Vigil or Priory, you couldn’t do jumping puzzles. It’s restrictive and makes the game boring.

I hear Wildstar is down to 4 servers already.

Not at all surprised.

At the risk of getting ate alive by saying this…I kinda like this change. : |

I’ve always felt that gw2 front loads you with everything a class has to offer and there’s no anticipation for that next great skill/trait. And no real chance for you to really learn all the pros and cons of the ones you currently have.

That being said this does suck for those of you who level a lot and are adept at getting into a new class. Maybe anet will come out with a middle ground to help ease the burden on your guys side of the things.

Coolio, so now not only will players unlock Ascalonian Catacombs before getting traits, they’ll unlock it before having a full skill bar. This. is. stupid.

So crappy! I was looking forward to trying this new system and making classes I’d never made before. Now I know that the game has been redesigned for people who have never played in their life. I wish they’d been honest with this, I’d have started way earlier. Maybe if I create new characters now, I won’t have to deal with it.

and i was actually thinking about inviting more friends over since the ones that started with me (than 20, a whole guild) all left… meh, I thought they were actually going to revert the disaster they did patches ago, not to mess it up even more..

Shen Slayer.3058:

HAHAHAHAAHA….imagine leveling a mesmer now. I’ll quit the game before I have to do it again.

oh god, mesmer at low levels was torture. I ended up just grinding crafting up to level 40, suddenly it became fun and is one of my favorite classes.

I can’t imagine trying to play mesmer now with only skills 1 and 2, I don’t think I’d make it to level 4 before I was bored out of my skull and deleted.

So I’ll translate step by step:

• Weapon Skills won’t get unlocked anymore through using your Weapon, but now instead through Character Level Ups.
  Means you must be now Level X to become able to use Skill Y
  Skills unlock at Level 4, 7 and 10
  Utility’s will get unlocked from now on on Level 13, 24 and 35!!
  Elite will get unlocked now first at Level 40!

The Video Maker says after that, that it will become much more likely now, that Newbies won’t find anymore Groups for Dungeon Parties, like Ascalon due to having the massive disadvantage now of having 1 Utitility lesser and no Elite Skill anymore

• Next point that gets explained is the new Compass Needle, that guides you to spots that you still have to explore or in general to do, like Renowm Hearts, Personal Story Spots, Living Story Spots and so on…
  That needle functionizes also with Events

He shows then in the Options Menu, that you can customize that Compass Needle, what kind of information it should show you, or not.

• After that he talks about the new Level Up Rewards. These rewards should give you the feeling, that getting a Level Up should be more rewarding and feel more like a progress with your Character

• Next he shows the changes on the Hero panel, where the new sections have been added, nothign special, except the mention, that this “feature” will get unlocked first from Lvl 6 lol (the wardrobe)

• He mentions then that you unlock first with Lvl 5 the Downed State.

• The Ranger Pet Skill Bar also get unlocked first later from now on, but you start naturally directly with your Pet. He believes, this unlocks with Level 7.
  But he’s unsure, because he has these infos from the Chinese Client, if he remembers on them right.

• World Map UI gets reduced by not showing you instantly anymore how much % you already explored of the game from begin on. POI’s won’t be shown to you directly as like also the Vistas won’t be shown to you directly, stuff that will get unlocked later so that players shouldn’t get “overwhelmed” cough too early with too many information that they maybe may not understand directly.
  howver, you can still directly interact with them, you just don’t see them directly as a Newbie on the World Map (whatever a sense this should make at all)

• Material Nodes also won’t be shown anymore directly on the Map. All Low Level Areas have no Material Nodes anymore directly!! He believes, from Level 9 on that your character “learns” then to gather materials first…

• Traps get now telegraphed better in the Low Level Areas for Newbies to let then learn how to dodge to get onto the Treasure Chest

• Then he talks about the Personal Story and how it also unlocks now step by step through Level Ups in the Menu, however, the Personal Story starts now first with Lvl 10!
  So everythign what we would have doen so far with earlier levels under the old system, got now merged together as 1 story part.
  Black Lion Key Farm Lvl 10 over, now you have to Level your Character to 20 to get a Key!!!

• Traits stay at Lvl 30 getting unlocked

• PvP/ WvW Buttons unlock now just also after you reach a certain Level, but still enterable from Lions Arch normally
  ——-

All in all, brief said:

ANet turns all the Low level Areas now into basically “Tutorial Zones” that are dumbed down versions now of being “idiot sure maps”, which slowly let you use now all of the things now first, once you reach a certain Level with your Character first, because, you know, otherwise it could be too much for us players to understand … lol

I don’t really care how insulting this is. Doesn’t this just really break weapon sets until the all the skills are unlocked? It might be alright for warriors to bash things with auto-attack but thieves need skills 4 and 5 to make their weapon sets work!

One of the better design features of the game was that the weapon sets worked from level 1, without utilities , without traits. Now they don’t work.

Who exactly decided that the key to the early game is to make it as boring as possible? Is this a sabotage?

Each has their own take on mesmer at low level for me it was smooth and very very easy under the old system. You op are not the focus of the change you have done it already, the focus is people coming into the game and they will not know the difference since it will be their normal.

Rofl.

Current gamer generation can’t handle Gw2, too hard pls nerf

jweez.7214:

At the risk of getting ate alive by saying this…I kinda like this change. : |

I’ve always felt that gw2 front loads you with everything a class has to offer and there’s no anticipation for that next great skill/trait. And no real chance for you to really learn all the pros and cons of the ones you currently have.

You call the small amount of skills characters have in this game “loads”?
And there is plenty of chance to learn everything, I really can’t comprehend how people could have been overwhelmed by the current system or have so much difficulty understanding the downed system..

Yargesh.4965:

You op are not the focus of the change you have done it already, the focus is people coming into the game and they will not know the difference since it will be their normal.

Yes that is it right there.
‘Who cares about the veteran players? Screw them. All hail to the new players.’ -anet

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Yargesh.4965:

You op are not the focus of the change you have done it already, the focus is people coming into the game and they will not know the difference since it will be their normal.

Yes that is it right there.
‘Who cares about the veteran players? Screw them. All hail to the new players.’ -anet

Yes, drama is so interesting.

Infernia.9847:

It’s a shame they couldn’t code a check box after character creation for additional alts:

• I got this, I know what to do, no hand-holding please
• I’m still fuzzy please help

Most software miss this good ol’ approach nowadays unfortunately. You have to deal with the simplest version of UI whether you like it or not. I guess it’s the image of the epoch.

To anyone who support this ballkitten and justify by saying the majority is stupid:
HAHAHAHAHAH!! You’re so funny.
This game is already hardest at its low level and you want to make those dumb people have a even harder time and more frustration from taking away all their skills lol…
From now on any class that doesn’t has a strong AA chain will be useless before lv10, and classes that need utilities so bad will be useless until lv35.
No down at low level is even funnier since lowbies will have higher chance to be downed, and they’ll just die immediately and no chance to kill the foes and rally.

See how many newbies will stay by being useless for this long.
It is because of these crappy changes that Anet keeps on imposing, that they’re losing players at an alarming rate and push away newcomers, that Anet has no choice but to pushing harder for people to spend Gem. You guys ruin your own games.

“Weapon Skills won’t get unlocked anymore through using your Weapon, but now instead through Character Level Ups.
Means you must be now Level X to become able to use Skill Y
Skills unlock at Level 4, 7 and 10
Utility’s will get unlocked from now on on Level 13, 24 and 35!!
Elite will get unlocked now first at Level 40!”

I think this is probably my biggest gripe about the new system. Weapon skills unlocking with use via kills was sufficient. Pop ups to explain this process would have been fine. Pushing skill unlocks further down the leveling process doesn’t make them more exciting or make a person more aware of their functionality (unless its specially called out and explained), it just makes them feel kitten. Especially moving the elite to level 40. I do agree that this will likely have a significant impact on players trying to find people to do AC at 30 and 35.