Guild Wars 2

Let’s be absolutely frank here:

The Tutorial in GW2 isn’t all that good. Not because it’s boring and strikes me as an afterthought (Which it does, don’t get me wrong) but because it really doesn’t Teach players much about the game or about the most important aspects of combat in GW2:
The Soft Trinity of Damage, Support and Control

Earlier in the game, when Weapon Skills were unlocked by simply fighting and defeating enemies, the Tutorial served a purpose in that you got to try out fighting against nearby enemies. Nowadays, when Weapon Skills are level-bound, there really is not point in doing anything but rushing the boss.

So what can be done about this? I suggest the following changes to be done to Tutorials over all:

First Step: The Basics
Teaching the basics of Damage, Support and Control to new players
Player starts without a Weapon. When talking to the first NPC, instead of merely proceeding ahead they’re given the following choices:

• NPC: We need your help! Pick up a weapon and Help out!
  • Player: Give me a Melee Weapon! I’ll take them on up close and personal!
  • Player: Give me a Ranged Weapon! I’ll cull their numbers from a distance!
  • Player: I want to change Weapons!

At this point, the player is given to choice to try out either a Melee Weapon or a Ranged weapon, familiarizing themselves with both for their profession. The weapons available I’d imagine being the following:

• Warrior: Axe, Rifle
• Guardian: Mace, Scepter
• Revenant: Sword, Hammer
• Thief: Dagger, Pistol
• Ranger: Greatsword, Longbow
• Engineer: Pistol, Rifle
• Elementalist: Dagger, Staff
• Necromancer: Dagger, Scepter
• Mesmer: Sword, Staff

Objective
Defeat Attacking Enemies and Destroy the empowered Enemy!

• First order of bussiness is Damage, where the Player uses their weapon and 1st Weapon Skill to defeat a few enemies around them.
• When the Enemies number has thinned, a message will appear over the screen and a voiceover will play: The Enemy has brought in an empowered Monster! Quick, Rally this NPC and they will give you a means to defeat the empowered monster!
  • The player will now be pointed to a Downed NPC that they need to Rally by interacting with them, teaching them to Support allies by reviving them should they be downed.
  • The Empowered Monster has a Defiance Bar and a specific Buff that causes it to be invulnerable as long as the bar isn’t Broken, making it impossible to kill without reviving the downed NPC.
• Once the NPC has been rallied, he will grant the Player a temporary first Utility Skill, which is always a CC move that can be used to break the Empowered Monster’s Defiance Bar. The strength of this Defiance bar scaled up in accordance with nearby Players. This teaches players the basics of Control.

The Utility Skill granted to Players temporarily are the following:

• Warrior: Kick
• Guardian: Hammer of Justice
• Revenant: Forced Engagement (Dwarf Stance)
• Thief: Scorpion Wire
• Ranger: Spike Trap
• Engineer: Throw Mine
• Elementalist: Signet of Earth
• Necromancer: Spectral Grasp
• Mesmer: Mantra of Distraction

Once the Empowered Enemy has been defeated, the player can proceed onwards to the next step: Namely, fighting the Tutorial Boss.

Second Step: A Taste of the Game
In this Revamped Boss Fight, the present Destiny’s Edge Member will be there to temporarily strengthen the Player by giving them a Full Skill Bar to use against the Boss.

• Destiny’s Edge Member: Here, take this. You’re gonna need it if you want to make it through this.
• Message: You’ve been temporarily empowered by your mentor! Use this power to drive back the enemy!

Each Profession now gets kitted out with a Preset Build worthy of a Lvl 31 character, excluding Specializations. They gain access to all Weapon Skills, Weapon Swap (if they have it), a Healing Skill, 3 Utility Skills and even an Elite Skill. They do not get access to Profession Mechanic, however. This boost is only temporary and goes away once the player exits the Tutorial.

Warrior:

• Gains Axe/Shield and Rifle
• Gains Mending, Kick, “For Great Justice!”, Dolyak Signet and Battle Standard.

Guardian:

• Gains Mace/Shield and Scepter/Focus
• Gains Shelter, Hammer of Justice, “Stand Your Ground!”, Smite Conditions and Signet of Courage.

Revenant:

• Gains Sword/Sword and Hammer
• Gains the Legendary Dwarf Stance and all related Skills.

Thief:

• Gains Dagger/Dagger and Pistol/Pistol
• Gains Hide in Shadows, Scorpion Wire, Ambush, Signet of Infiltration and Basilisk Venom.

Ranger:

• Gains Greatsword and Longbow
• Gains “We Heal as One!”, Spike Trap, Signet of the Wild, Frost Spirit and Entangle.

Engineer:

• Gains Pistol/Shield or Rifle, depending on which weapon the player choose during the first part.
• Gains Elixir H, Throw Mine, Rifle Turret, Tool Kit and Supply Drop.

Elementalist:

• Gains Dagger/Dagger or Staff, depending on which weapon the player choose during the first part. Also gains Fire and Water Attunement.
• Gains Glyph of Renewal, Signet of Earth, Arcane Shield, Conjure Lightning Hammer and Tornado.

Necromancer:

• Gains Dagger/Warhorn and Scepter/Dagger.
• Gains Consume Conditions, Spectral Grasp, Signet of Spite, Well of Suffering and Summon Flesh Golem.

Mesmer:

• Gains Sword/Focus and Staff.
• Gains Mirror, Mantra of Distraction, Null Field, Phantasmal Defender, Blink and Signet of Humility.

To compensate for the fact that players are now much more powerful, so will the final Boss be. The boss will additionally be throwing out special moves that all have different call-outs, shown as On-screen messages to the players:

Boss Mechanics

• Heavy Strike (Orange Circles. Deals heavy Damage and possibly CC’s)
  • Message: The Boss is launching a devastating attack! Dodge it by clicking V!
• Charged Strike (Grants the Boss a Defiance Bar. Results in a Strong Attack if not broken)
  • Message: The Boss is charging up a powerful attack! Break its Defiance Bar to stop it!
• Boon Distribution (Destiny’s Edge NPC grants Protection, Regen and Stability to nearby allies)
  • Message: NPC is preparing to aid you with Boons! Rally to their position to recieve them!

And that’s the general gist of my idea. Any thoughts or comments are welcome, and don’t peer too sideways on my choices for Weapons and Skills, tried to keep it relatively diverse and give one skill for each Utility Category.

Addendum:

Also add the Option to Skip Tutorial once the Player has 3 or more characters on his Account, which can be reached by choosing it as an option from the first NPC available. Skipping the Tutorial will immedietally take the player to the Starting Zone.

I didn’t really read the whole thing, but I say maybe. Maybe some time in the far future.

Right now I would prefer the Devs’ time and resources be spent on creating new content, rather than re-iterating content, yet again.

Good luck.

And I would be opposed to limiting weapons choice and choice of skills to arbitrary premades.

I absolutely hated those missions in gw that dropped an unfamiliar set of skills and weapons on you and said.. go fight, NOW.

Tutorials should be completely optional.

They also should stay available for later time, permanently. People can do them in their own time. Could throw some AP in there.

Bear in mind, I designed this idea with people entirely new to GW2 in mind, as they’re pretty much the only people in -need- of a tutorial.

Perhaps a better limit for skipping the tutorial would be having a certain amount of Gametime played, rather than character limit? Probably.

Predetermined weapons are already a thing in the tutorial, as for the utility skills they’re mostly there, again, for completely new players who have no idea how GW2 works, what the description on each Skill translates to in-game and what to do with them. Once they’ve learned how the game works, it’s free for everyone to experiment as they wish. But when you’re new, you don’t wanna sit forever thinking about stuff, you just want to try out what’s on the table.

I was kind of with you up until you said “Boost them to level 30 and give them a full bar”. Dumping that sort of kitten on a new player does nothing but overwhelm them.

I do like your idea for making the boss more complex, and spending more time in the starting zone to learn the basics of all the game’s mechanics (Add kits! And give us back our downed condition!)

Frankly, I wish we bring back the old leveling system – Unlocking all weapon skills by using them, instead of gating them behind levels. I liked that method better than the current one because it let you get a feel for all the weapon’s skills at a reasonable pace, instead of dumping them all on you at once while also forcing you to use the same attack over and over throughout the tutorial area. Have utility skills unlock at level 5.

They should also re-add kits/environmental weapons to the tutorial zones and starting mission. Have the bosses have Breakbars (That can be solo-broken), and give Boulders/Rubble to throw at them to learn CC. And bring back the downed condition (And have the DE member at boss revive us quickly after we get downed, to avoid being ‘defeated’ in the starting zone)

And I also wish they’d reduce Personal Story by 5 levels (So the chapters start at levels 5, 15, 25, etc.), so that we start it as soon as we’re done with “Newbie Zone”.