What is the barrier to entry for this game?

What is the barrier to entry for this game?

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Posted by: Thor.9056

Thor.9056

Hi guys, I bought this game a couple of years ago and played for a little while before deciding it wasn’t really for me. At the time I just kinda wanted a more traditional ‘WoW clone’ with new races/classes to play. I wasn’t in the mood for a new learning curve.

However recently I’ve been thinking about giving it another try, and before doing so I usually have a quick browse of the forums just to try and get a gist of what the game’s about and I tend to get the impression that the game has quite a high barrier to entry.

On the one hand I often see people praise the fact that you can play any profession any way you like. But then I see a lot of posts that say certain profs or builds are undesirable or downright useless at parts of the game. Are these just the general min-maxers or do you really have to alter your (possibly preferred) playstyle to be useful at endgame? Is it okay to play how you want and have fun or will it hold you back when you try to do group content/WvW/PvP?

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

If you’re playing open world content or doing dungeons casually with friends or a casual guild, you can pretty much do anything. PvP is a bit less forgiving. For that you do need some decent build.

However, making those builds and getting the gear you need isn’t really that hard.

Of every MMO Ive played, this is the only one I know you can leave for a year, come back and play content with the guild without upgrading at all.

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Posted by: Tom Gore.4035

Tom Gore.4035

Every profession is viable in endgame, be it PvP, WvW or PvE. Certain builds might not be viable, but you can switch between builds quite easily. In PvP, switching between builds needs only a few clicks of a mouse. In WvW or PvE, you might have to swap around equipment a bit, but getting multiple sets of Exotic equipment is not very time consuming.

In short: You can pick whatever profession you like, but you might be expected to switch to one of a few certain builds/playstyles when doing some of the more difficult PvE content, or PvP/WvW.

First thing you want to learn is how to move in combat and how to dodge. GW2 combat is very mobile compared to traditional MMOs like WoW.

One – Piken Square

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Posted by: Danikat.8537

Danikat.8537

I haven’t played WoW (beyond a free trial) but from what I’ve heard about it the barrier to entry is much lower in GW2.

If you’re a serious min-maxer you will be much more limited in what professions and builds you play, but there’s still some variety and getting to level 80 and getting max gear is fairly straight forward.

If you’re just interested in completing content and don’t want to have the absolute best build or the fastest time or whatever there’s a lot more variety.

For example my main character for PvE and occasional WvW is a ranger using a condition/criticial hit build with added toughness. It’s not a popular build, it’s not optimal for anything but it’s what I find fun and I’ve always been able to find groups and complete content.

Sure it might take us 30 minutes to do a dungeon other people can do in 10 (although some of that is watching cut scenes) but I’m ok with that, I’d rather take longer and play a fun build and I’ve never felt like it was a barrier to playing.

Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).

“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”

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Posted by: Hayashi.3416

Hayashi.3416

Some builds are flat-out inferior to others (ahem, Cleric P/P thieves), but given that most dungeons can be completed either solo or two-manned, and that it’s hard for even the worst build to be worse than 40% lower relative to the optimal build for that class, even 5 players with the worst builds you can possibly imagine in the worst possible situation have a relative effectiveness of 3.0 players – aka, you can clear the dungeon with one person to spare.

Between comparing the worst-suited weapon combinations of a given profession versus its most suited (say, mace/shield+staff guard versus greatsword/sword+focus) for raw dps, the difference isn’t much greater than 20%.

And between comparing the best-suited builds of the most optimal (thief) and least optimal (necromancer) classes for personal dps in a dungeon, the difference isn’t much greater than 10%.

Being ‘suboptimal’ isn’t the end of the world. A dungeon may take twice as long, but it’ll still be completable. Given how even cleric guards could solo Scarlet’s watchwork boss phase with time to spare, I’d say I’ve only felt compelled to use specific builds twice – one is soloing t3 waves of saboteurs during the Lion’s Arch elections, and the other is killing Liadri the Concealing Dark, neither of which are content you can access at the moment.

Nothing in the game is remotely difficult enough to present a barrier of entry per se. It’s perfectly fine to play whatever you like, in whatever way you like – just be aware that you’re not going to be optimal if it’s mathematically impossible for you to be. If you don’t care about being fully optimal in everything, you can have a great deal of fun anyway. One might say that it’s even more fun, since using suboptimal builds increases any encounter’s relative difficulty, while facerolling dungeons all day long can get to be a bit boring after a while. Couple of people I know started making joke builds in pink/purple light armor charrs after getting sick of speedclearing too much.

(edited by Hayashi.3416)

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Posted by: Nick.6972

Nick.6972

If you can locate your AWSD, F, Space bar and Enter, and have the basic reading comprehension skills, you’re ready for GW2.

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

If you can locate your AWSD, F, Space bar and Enter, and have the basic reading comprehension skills, you’re ready for GW2.

Sounds about right. The only entry barrier is buying the game.

With the new NPE, even Forrest Gump would make it to 80 and beyond…

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Posted by: Hayashi.3416

Hayashi.3416

Frankly, the NPE made things more problematic IMO, if only because of the traits.

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

Frankly, the NPE made things more problematic IMO, if only because of the traits.

Less choice less confusion.

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Posted by: Sogradde.8016

Sogradde.8016

This game is as casual as possible so you shouldn’t have any problems getting into it. However, please note that there is no such thing as endgame and the developers like to lock up existing content instead of making new stuff. I wouldn’t reccomend spending any more money in form of gems on this.

Midnight Mayhem [MM]
Gunnar’s Hold

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Posted by: Turtle Dragon.9241

Turtle Dragon.9241

On the one hand I often see people praise the fact that you can play any profession any way you like. But then I see a lot of posts that say certain profs or builds are undesirable or downright useless at parts of the game. Are these just the general min-maxers or do you really have to alter your (possibly preferred) playstyle to be useful at endgame? Is it okay to play how you want and have fun or will it hold you back when you try to do group content/WvW/PvP?

You can play any profession any way you like, nobody can ever stop you from making and running even a very bad build. For a pretty large portion of the game, you do whatever you want. It really depends how you define FUN.
Is getting lots of Loot fun?
Is being useful fun?

Just Loot
For example, you can definitely do things such as Tequatl(big raid boss) and Silverwastes(end-game open world content) on a NAKED Guardian with a Staff, and only spamming auto-attack. You still get credit for kills, you still get loot(and often more loot than any other player), and those content have a lot of rewards.
Is it helping the other players around you who are doing the same content though? Absolutely not. But nobody can do anything about how you play for this type of content, nor will anyone really notice what you are doing(nobody has the time to pay attention to you, they are all concentrating on the task at hand). Additionally, nobody will even notice that you have no armor on(naked) if you are wearing an outfit.
You can easily get away with all of this, for this type of content.

Being Useful
Play how you want is also somewhat valid for WvW, provided you follow and remain among the large group of players(the zerg). Building Siege and placing Traps/Disablers has absolutely nothing to do with the armor you wear or skills you have, and you are doing something very useful for your team.

Max Damage
However, for other small group contents such as Dungeons, people have the right to kick you out of the party, and they definitely will when they see that you are not pulling your weight. Therefore, for dungeons, you have to build around for maximum damage.

PvP Builds
For PvP, running the meta builds is definitely the better choice when you start. Meta builds are optimized for the purpose they serve. Just think about it for a second. You are pitting yourself(inexperienced player) with a subpar build against another player(possibly experienced) with an optimized build. The winner should be obvious. You would stand a better chance at running the meta build, and try to compensate for the inexperience. So unless you really know what you are doing, learn and run meta build until you are pro, then do whatever you want.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

But then I see a lot of posts that say certain profs or builds are undesirable or downright useless at parts of the game. Are these just the general min-maxers or do you really have to alter your (possibly preferred) playstyle to be useful at endgame?

Just the general min-maxers .. they are named “speedrunners” here.
If you don’t care about “speedruns” you can play mostly like you want.

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: Baldrick.8967

Baldrick.8967

Roll warrior, faceroll through all pve content and map completion..heal signet is overpowered as a passive heal.

Or roll a ranger and pew pew through the pve content (you’ll probably be kicked in dungeons though).

For wvw, roll a staff/x guard and spam 1 whilst spamming F to collect all the lootbags.

Barrier to entry is low to non-existent. Some builds, classes, and situations have a much higher skill barrier (decent wvw, roaming, etc) but you can roll those as second toons.

WvW player. Doing another world completion for my next Legendary. Hater of mini-games.

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Posted by: DanteZero.9736

DanteZero.9736

If you can locate your AWSD, F, Space bar and Enter, and have the basic reading comprehension skills, you’re ready for GW2.

Sounds about right. The only entry barrier is buying the game.

With the new NPE, even Forrest Gump would make it to 80 and beyond…

Having some semblance of reflex also helps. Dodging is still important and dodging at the right moment helps out tremendously.

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Posted by: Kal Spiro.9745

Kal Spiro.9745

The barrier for entry is minimal. Equipment is easy to come by. Leveling is extremely simple. Builds are easily altered on the fly.

The biggest barrier is the trait system since you will have to unlock traits. That will involve either making the money to buy the traits you want which may not be straight forward for a new player. Or actually following the unforgiving system that will almost certainly put you up against level inappropriate challenges for most of the traits.

Other than that, though, the game is very easy to pick up and play.

Tarnished Coast Kal Spiro – Ranger (80), LB/S-D, Eagle/Wolf, Signet, M/S/WS #SABorRiot
|Daredevil|Ranger|Guardian|Scrapper|Necromancer|Berserker|Dragonhunter|Mesmer|Elementalist
|Deadeye|Warrior|Herald|Daredevil|Reaper|Spellbreaker

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

If you can locate your AWSD, F, Space bar and Enter, and have the basic reading comprehension skills, you’re ready for GW2.

Sounds about right. The only entry barrier is buying the game.

With the new NPE, even Forrest Gump would make it to 80 and beyond…

Having some semblance of reflex also helps. Dodging is still important and dodging at the right moment helps out tremendously.

Nah, dodging is for fancy people, but not needed.

All you need to play GW2 is a hand with two fingers and one additional bodypart.
The trick is to choose the right profession.

How to succeed in GW2:

1. Roll a warrior or a guardian.
2. Use the hand with at least two fingers and push both mouse buttons to move in any direction.
3. Keybind all weapon skills randomly on all keys of your keyboard.
4. If you get close to an enemy, smash whatever bodypart you have chosen (not the hand with the two or more fingers you need for the mouse) on your keyboard (I prefer the head).
5. Loot.

It is pretty much as simple as that.

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Posted by: dace.8019

dace.8019

There is no real barrier to entry beyond learning everything – that is to be expected and the wiki/google is probably all the help you’ll need.

A more interesting question might have been “What is the barrier to staying invested?” but you will have plenty of fun before you find yourself wondering about that.

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Posted by: Karizee.8076

Karizee.8076

The gear is super easy to get, no RNG involved at all. You can craft, use tokens or badges or w/e.

Now you can grind your fanny off for super shiny stuff, but you’ll never be locked out of content for item levels. But there’s tons of easy to obtain good looking armor and weapons as well so that’s ok.

As far as PvP you don’t even have to level. Take a brand new character in, boosted to 80 with all the traits/skills and your choice of stats that can be instantly swapped out.

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Posted by: pdavis.8031

pdavis.8031

Hi guys, I bought this game a couple of years ago and played for a little while before deciding it wasn’t really for me. At the time I just kinda wanted a more traditional ‘WoW clone’ with new races/classes to play. I wasn’t in the mood for a new learning curve.

However recently I’ve been thinking about giving it another try, and before doing so I usually have a quick browse of the forums just to try and get a gist of what the game’s about and I tend to get the impression that the game has quite a high barrier to entry.

On the one hand I often see people praise the fact that you can play any profession any way you like. But then I see a lot of posts that say certain profs or builds are undesirable or downright useless at parts of the game. Are these just the general min-maxers or do you really have to alter your (possibly preferred) playstyle to be useful at endgame? Is it okay to play how you want and have fun or will it hold you back when you try to do group content/WvW/PvP?

As others have said, every profession is valuable and brings something to the table. Certain builds are better then others, and only those who care about “speed runs” are picky about what they bring in a dungeon. However, browsing the forums is where you went wrong. While there are many people who can give great advice, and know what they are talking about, the forums in general tend to have a negative view point of the game. Anywhere from “X class is way OP!!” to “The game is on it’s last legs and dying!!” So I would say keep that in mind when looking for advice.

One of your best bets would be to check out each of the professions sub forums. There is less QQ there about a specific profession, and you’ll find the experts in those classes willing to offer a helping hand to get you started.

Good luck!

“You know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

First up, if you still have your characters from a year ago, do not delete them. They are grandfathered in to the trait unlock and you will be able to gather your traits via skill points.

Second, the main barrier is getting past preconceptions from other games (as you learned on your first attempt). ANet’s turned a lot of things upside down. There is no kill stealing (other than killing something before someone else can get to it, but the only time I ever saw that being an issue of contention was when Queensdale had champion mobs and one camp wanted to kill them in a particular order and others wanted to stop that so they went and killed them before the large group could get there), no node stealing, no required gear grind.

You do need to be active in combat, there is no purely stationary ranged, and support is aimed at buffing and cc, not healing. Don’t only do heart quests, those are a guide to areas but not the primary way to get xp. What is the primary way? Everything. Do it all. Hit up events, do hearts, explore zones completely, gather all the nodes. If you can do a daily task, you get bonus xp for that.

And make sure to explore. Let your O’Shinies dominate. See what’s in caves, up cliffs. Never think it’s impossible to get to a spot that catches your fancy. There just might be a (minor) chest when you get to it.

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Posted by: kuittaa.7360

kuittaa.7360

All you need to play GW2 is a hand with two fingers and one additional bodypart.
The trick is to choose the right profession.

How to succeed in GW2:

1. Roll a warrior or a guardian.
2. Use the hand with at least two fingers and push both mouse buttons to move in any direction.
3. Keybind all weapon skills randomly on all keys of your keyboard.
4. If you get close to an enemy, smash whatever bodypart you have chosen (not the hand with the two or more fingers you need for the mouse) on your keyboard (I prefer the head).
5. Loot.

It is pretty much as simple as that.

I followed these instructions and suggestions to the letter, and while the success was immense, I got stuck on 5. I can’t loot anymore, since all my keys are bind on random weapon skills. This is so confusing and I have sent support tickets too, but they have gone unanswered. I also reported this as a game-breaking bug.

Please help.

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Posted by: Hayashi.3416

Hayashi.3416

Frankly there’s QQ about professions even in subforums, and the experts are usually too sick arguing with people who think they know what they’re doing to spend any more time on the forums itself.

Every profession subforum has stickied threads. Read those for basic advice. I mean, really basic. Anything above that, either learn it yourself by doing slightly harder content, or join guilds – even though not every guild leader is necessarily an expert, most of the core members of guilds tend to be relatively good – and more willing to teach people. By this I mean the general PvE guilds, mind, not the elite speed-record types, because you won’t qualify to get into those in the first place. Nowadays you might be as likely to find advice that is in the opposite direction of what you should be doing on the profession subforums… depending on the subforum.

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

All you need to play GW2 is a hand with two fingers and one additional bodypart.
The trick is to choose the right profession.

How to succeed in GW2:

1. Roll a warrior or a guardian.
2. Use the hand with at least two fingers and push both mouse buttons to move in any direction.
3. Keybind all weapon skills randomly on all keys of your keyboard.
4. If you get close to an enemy, smash whatever bodypart you have chosen (not the hand with the two or more fingers you need for the mouse) on your keyboard (I prefer the head).
5. Loot.

It is pretty much as simple as that.

I followed these instructions and suggestions to the letter, and while the success was immense, I got stuck on 5. I can’t loot anymore, since all my keys are bind on random weapon skills. This is so confusing and I have sent support tickets too, but they have gone unanswered. I also reported this as a game-breaking bug.

Please help.

I am sorry, this needs clarification. There will be loot when you kill stuff, I never recommended to pick it up.

Looting is sort of irrelevant, as you only receive major crap from drops. In theory, it works very well with just using the left mouse button instead of both. Remember you have to have two fingers – you can now loot by pressing the left mouse button, and actually use all the funky stuff like inventory and equipment panel (who needs that anyway).

Though, looting will only fill your inventory, which is a major annoyance. Skip looting.
When you are 80, come back on the forum and learn how to use the TP, buying everything you want with just a small piece of plastic.

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Posted by: Thor.9056

Thor.9056

Thanks everyone for the replies. It’s definitely helped ease some of my concerns. I guess I should just jump in and try an enjoy the single-player and levelling experience before worrying about the other stuff.

I suppose my worry was that because some of the professions play styles can differ quite drastically based on which weapon you use, I didn’t want to say, make a Ranger with the intent to play an archer archetype only to find that I have to go melee to be taken seriously. (‘Cause there seems to be a lot of hate towards something referred to as ’bearbow’ to be honest.)

When I last played there was something called a ‘signet warrior’ which was pretty hated too, and shamefully that’s what I played ‘cause I’m a sucker for passives and it seemed really effective.

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Posted by: Kal Spiro.9745

Kal Spiro.9745

Thanks everyone for the replies. It’s definitely helped ease some of my concerns. I guess I should just jump in and try an enjoy the single-player and levelling experience before worrying about the other stuff.

I suppose my worry was that because some of the professions play styles can differ quite drastically based on which weapon you use, I didn’t want to say, make a Ranger with the intent to play an archer archetype only to find that I have to go melee to be taken seriously. (‘Cause there seems to be a lot of hate towards something referred to as ’bearbow’ to be honest.)

When I last played there was something called a ‘signet warrior’ which was pretty hated too, and shamefully that’s what I played ‘cause I’m a sucker for passives and it seemed really effective.

That used to be the case, but it seems bow might have gotten some buffs and now Power Rangers aren’t laughed at like they were. As for bears, whatever, haters gonna hate. They have their uses. If you prove an ability to use the 2 key and occasionally 5 key you’ll be fine.

Tarnished Coast Kal Spiro – Ranger (80), LB/S-D, Eagle/Wolf, Signet, M/S/WS #SABorRiot
|Daredevil|Ranger|Guardian|Scrapper|Necromancer|Berserker|Dragonhunter|Mesmer|Elementalist
|Deadeye|Warrior|Herald|Daredevil|Reaper|Spellbreaker

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Posted by: Hayashi.3416

Hayashi.3416

Unless you use the 5 key when your targets have retaliation, in which case you’ll be anything but fine, of course. 20880 armor-ignoring damage to yourself in a single skill with no way of stopping it once it starts is a glory to behold.

(edited by Hayashi.3416)

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Posted by: Kal Spiro.9745

Kal Spiro.9745

Meh, just hit troll’s unguent, it’s hard to kill a ranger, even when they’re killing themselves.

Tarnished Coast Kal Spiro – Ranger (80), LB/S-D, Eagle/Wolf, Signet, M/S/WS #SABorRiot
|Daredevil|Ranger|Guardian|Scrapper|Necromancer|Berserker|Dragonhunter|Mesmer|Elementalist
|Deadeye|Warrior|Herald|Daredevil|Reaper|Spellbreaker

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Jerks waxing way overdramatic about their requirements for specific builds and gear in world/dungeon content are my idea of the biggest barrier to entry on much.

So, stupid people. The game itself is pretty forgiving, barrier-wise. Tryhard supahleets are not.

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

I never said it was a hard task to do either of those things. Moreover, neither of those statements even remotely address my core assertion that those sorts of people are likely to be the biggest barrier to entry a new player is likely to encounter.

Whomever you were addressing, it wasn’t me or anything I said.

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

I never said it was a hard task to do either of those things. Moreover, neither of those statements even remotely address my core assertion that those sorts of people are likely to be the biggest barrier to entry a new player is likely to encounter.

Whomever you were addressing, it wasn’t me or anything I said.

It’s the assertion that those people are a barrier that’s the problem. The whole notion that someone else is impacting you ability to start a game is comical.

If “tryhards” are restricting you from “starting a game” you have other issues than the game itself.

As is the barrier to entry in this game is solely buying the game. After that it is entirely upto the player what barriers they self impose.

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

I never said it was a hard task to do either of those things. Moreover, neither of those statements even remotely address my core assertion that those sorts of people are likely to be the biggest barrier to entry a new player is likely to encounter.

Whomever you were addressing, it wasn’t me or anything I said.

It’s the assertion that those people are a barrier that’s the problem. The whole notion that someone else is impacting you ability to start a game is comical.

If “tryhards” are restricting you from “starting a game” you have other issues than the game itself.

As is the barrier to entry in this game is solely buying the game. After that it is entirely upto the player what barriers they self impose.

Well, you go right ahead and take a fresh level 35 character into AC exploration then. I reckon you could start your own team and eventually get enough people to give it a whack, and it might not be terribly hard to do so at the right times of day either.

But if you bring that probably trait-less minimum-leveled sad sack into the group finding tool? Skin all your gear to make yourself look like an 80 and hope nobody looks too hard at your portrait, or you’re likely to find out just how much a barrier to entry other people can be to various aspects of the game.

Dungeons, for example. 80+zerk heavies only LINK OR I KICK

But no, that’s nothing like a barrier to entry, is it? its just…y’know…people, right?

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

I never said it was a hard task to do either of those things. Moreover, neither of those statements even remotely address my core assertion that those sorts of people are likely to be the biggest barrier to entry a new player is likely to encounter.

Whomever you were addressing, it wasn’t me or anything I said.

It’s the assertion that those people are a barrier that’s the problem. The whole notion that someone else is impacting you ability to start a game is comical.

If “tryhards” are restricting you from “starting a game” you have other issues than the game itself.

As is the barrier to entry in this game is solely buying the game. After that it is entirely upto the player what barriers they self impose.

Well, you go right ahead and take a fresh level 35 character into AC exploration then. I reckon you could start your own team and eventually get enough people to give it a whack, and it might not be terribly hard to do so at the right times of day either.

But if you bring that probably trait-less minimum-leveled sad sack into the group finding tool? Skin all your gear to make yourself look like an 80 and hope nobody looks too hard at your portrait, or you’re likely to find out just how much a barrier to entry other people can be to various aspects of the game.

Dungeons, for example. 80+zerk heavies only LINK OR I KICK

But no, that’s nothing like a barrier to entry, is it? its just…y’know…people, right?

It’s the person behind in the chair imposing that barrier. I’ve run every dungeon at the minimal level. You know what it took ? Patience and time. Was it a leet speed run, no. Was it fun and enjoyable absolutely.

You’re projecting a non-issue and an artificial barrier. It’s ultimately up to the person playing. Assuming the OP is actually not antisocial and a lone wolf they should have no problem picking up the game, chatting making friends and doing content without the issues you’ve experienced.

So having a moderate ability to be social on an MMO game, if you call that a barrier sure that’s one but its an MMO if you cannot be social, why would you even pick one up.

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Posted by: Sube Dai.8496

Sube Dai.8496

Thanks everyone for the replies. It’s definitely helped ease some of my concerns. I guess I should just jump in and try an enjoy the single-player and levelling experience before worrying about the other stuff.

I suppose my worry was that because some of the professions play styles can differ quite drastically based on which weapon you use, I didn’t want to say, make a Ranger with the intent to play an archer archetype only to find that I have to go melee to be taken seriously. (‘Cause there seems to be a lot of hate towards something referred to as ’bearbow’ to be honest.)

When I last played there was something called a ‘signet warrior’ which was pretty hated too, and shamefully that’s what I played ‘cause I’m a sucker for passives and it seemed really effective.

For open world content, ie. Running around doing quests, killing bosses, etc – no one cares what your build or gear is.

For wvw, again no one cares but you will die a lot and have a hard time killing other people if you aren’t running the best gear/build combo for your class. And some classes are definitely better than others for wvw…

For PvP you absolutely need to be running certain gear/builds or you will be totally useless to your team.

For dungeons, this goes both ways. There are guilds who are happy to let you wear what you want, but if you are in a pug group the expectation is that you will be specced for full glass/damage. If not you will probably get kicked.

So it really depends on what you are doing. Sounds like you just want to level up and do open world for the moment, so just use whatever you want and have fun.

If you want to start wvw/PvP/dungeons you should look into the right builds for those.

John Snowman [GLTY]
Space Marine Z [GLTY]

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Posted by: juno.1840

juno.1840

There is no real barrier to entry beyond learning everything…

Thx, u made me laugh.

Part of me thinks that someone in ANet was thinking “hey, wanna see something funny? Watch this…”

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

I never said it was a hard task to do either of those things. Moreover, neither of those statements even remotely address my core assertion that those sorts of people are likely to be the biggest barrier to entry a new player is likely to encounter.

Whomever you were addressing, it wasn’t me or anything I said.

It’s the assertion that those people are a barrier that’s the problem. The whole notion that someone else is impacting you ability to start a game is comical.

If “tryhards” are restricting you from “starting a game” you have other issues than the game itself.

As is the barrier to entry in this game is solely buying the game. After that it is entirely upto the player what barriers they self impose.

Well, you go right ahead and take a fresh level 35 character into AC exploration then. I reckon you could start your own team and eventually get enough people to give it a whack, and it might not be terribly hard to do so at the right times of day either.

But if you bring that probably trait-less minimum-leveled sad sack into the group finding tool? Skin all your gear to make yourself look like an 80 and hope nobody looks too hard at your portrait, or you’re likely to find out just how much a barrier to entry other people can be to various aspects of the game.

Dungeons, for example. 80+zerk heavies only LINK OR I KICK

But no, that’s nothing like a barrier to entry, is it? its just…y’know…people, right?

It’s the person behind in the chair imposing that barrier. I’ve run every dungeon at the minimal level. You know what it took ? Patience and time. Was it a leet speed run, no. Was it fun and enjoyable absolutely.

You’re projecting a non-issue and an artificial barrier. It’s ultimately up to the person playing. Assuming the OP is actually not antisocial and a lone wolf they should have no problem picking up the game, chatting making friends and doing content without the issues you’ve experienced.

So having a moderate ability to be social on an MMO game, if you call that a barrier sure that’s one but its an MMO if you cannot be social, why would you even pick one up.

Some of the less sharp spoons in the drawer of life are quite keen to handwaving entire problem sets with dismissive allegations and denigrating insinuations. Good to see the practice of ‘If I don’t admit its a problem, there is no problem’ is still the crown-wearing monarch over in your camp.

In the meantime, in the rest of the reality of MMO gaming, the OP would be well advised to take the time to be aware of the metas and to apprise him/herself of what activities there are and which they want to do, in order to prepare for the actual realities of the situations that will; not may, will; sit before them.

They’ll do well to know that if they intend to groupfinder pug dungeons, they should get used to using Berserker meta builds and practicing with those, not for any actual need the game imposes, but because its a rather common (if largely pointless) demand made by many pug’ing dungeons at all.

Everything doesn’t have to be a speed clear, no. When you’ve successfully informed everyone of that and they’ve said anything other than ‘lol gdiaf skrub’, you might have a salient point.

As it is, you’re speaking towards an ideal that reality has never, in any MMO with which I’m familiar, supported. The reality is quite simple – other people are the only real barriers to entry for much here in GW2.

That isn’t to say they’re always steep or that anyone alleged they were insurmountable – not at all. But it exists.

Try to say it doesn’t and you’ll just continue to look silly and weird.

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: Lifestealer.4910

Lifestealer.4910

Personally when i first started playing, i jumped straight into ac story and explorable dungeon when i met the min level requirement and found little to no trouble finding groups to complete the dungeon with, sure sometimes i would wander into a party and be immediately kicked but it didn’t really matter much. At that character level, even if you have to slog thru an ac explorable path for half anhour, that is still more reward than an multiple hours of wandering in the open world on a low level.

(edited by Lifestealer.4910)

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Posted by: Aenesthesia.1697

Aenesthesia.1697

Hi guys, I bought this game a couple of years ago and played for a little while before deciding it wasn’t really for me. At the time I just kinda wanted a more traditional ‘WoW clone’ with new races/classes to play. I wasn’t in the mood for a new learning curve.

However recently I’ve been thinking about giving it another try, and before doing so I usually have a quick browse of the forums just to try and get a gist of what the game’s about and I tend to get the impression that the game has quite a high barrier to entry.

On the one hand I often see people praise the fact that you can play any profession any way you like. But then I see a lot of posts that say certain profs or builds are undesirable or downright useless at parts of the game. Are these just the general min-maxers or do you really have to alter your (possibly preferred) playstyle to be useful at endgame? Is it okay to play how you want and have fun or will it hold you back when you try to do group content/WvW/PvP?

just to give you an idea, a couple of months after the game came out i got my first exotic armor from farming Citadel of Arah, which is arguably the most difficult dungeon, and by that time i was running a condition spec, which is now considered rubbish in pve (even by me)

So, there you go: you can farm the most difficult content with far from optimal gear and far from optimal build. That’s your barrier of entry.

For pvp it’s nonexistant, you can pick whatever gear/stat combination you want and find at least 2 working builds for each class.

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Posted by: Kupper.8074

Kupper.8074

Technically there is no barrier to entry since you have already bought the game.

JQ – The ‘veggie’ Knight
Berserker = Skilled http://i.imgur.com/g1rkIub.jpg
Never forget – http://i.imgur.com/Oxra9sj.jpg

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Posted by: TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

I never said it was a hard task to do either of those things. Moreover, neither of those statements even remotely address my core assertion that those sorts of people are likely to be the biggest barrier to entry a new player is likely to encounter.

Whomever you were addressing, it wasn’t me or anything I said.

It’s the assertion that those people are a barrier that’s the problem. The whole notion that someone else is impacting you ability to start a game is comical.

If “tryhards” are restricting you from “starting a game” you have other issues than the game itself.

As is the barrier to entry in this game is solely buying the game. After that it is entirely upto the player what barriers they self impose.

Well, you go right ahead and take a fresh level 35 character into AC exploration then. I reckon you could start your own team and eventually get enough people to give it a whack, and it might not be terribly hard to do so at the right times of day either.

But if you bring that probably trait-less minimum-leveled sad sack into the group finding tool? Skin all your gear to make yourself look like an 80 and hope nobody looks too hard at your portrait, or you’re likely to find out just how much a barrier to entry other people can be to various aspects of the game.

Dungeons, for example. 80+zerk heavies only LINK OR I KICK

But no, that’s nothing like a barrier to entry, is it? its just…y’know…people, right?

It’s the person behind in the chair imposing that barrier. I’ve run every dungeon at the minimal level. You know what it took ? Patience and time. Was it a leet speed run, no. Was it fun and enjoyable absolutely.

You’re projecting a non-issue and an artificial barrier. It’s ultimately up to the person playing. Assuming the OP is actually not antisocial and a lone wolf they should have no problem picking up the game, chatting making friends and doing content without the issues you’ve experienced.

So having a moderate ability to be social on an MMO game, if you call that a barrier sure that’s one but its an MMO if you cannot be social, why would you even pick one up.

Some of the less sharp spoons in the drawer of life are quite keen to handwaving entire problem sets with dismissive allegations and denigrating insinuations. Good to see the practice of ‘If I don’t admit its a problem, there is no problem’ is still the crown-wearing monarch over in your camp.

In the meantime, in the rest of the reality of MMO gaming, the OP would be well advised to take the time to be aware of the metas and to apprise him/herself of what activities there are and which they want to do, in order to prepare for the actual realities of the situations that will; not may, will; sit before them.

They’ll do well to know that if they intend to groupfinder pug dungeons, they should get used to using Berserker meta builds and practicing with those, not for any actual need the game imposes, but because its a rather common (if largely pointless) demand made by many pug’ing dungeons at all.

Everything doesn’t have to be a speed clear, no. When you’ve successfully informed everyone of that and they’ve said anything other than ‘lol gdiaf skrub’, you might have a salient point.

As it is, you’re speaking towards an ideal that reality has never, in any MMO with which I’m familiar, supported. The reality is quite simple – other people are the only real barriers to entry for much here in GW2.

That isn’t to say they’re always steep or that anyone alleged they were insurmountable – not at all. But it exists.

Try to say it doesn’t and you’ll just continue to look silly and weird.

So show me again where the big bad LFG tool and meta freaks touched you on this doll.

Seriously, you are transposing your own non-issue into this thread. Other people are not a barrier to entry. If you honestly think that in a MMO as social as this one that you are forced to conform to the meta, you’re delusional and living the most sheltered gaming experience ever.

Either that or you have deeper issues that involve not being able to be your own person or knowing how to take the lead.

Just sayin’ if you’re going to play the ignorance is bliss card it works both ways.

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Tryhard supahleets are not.

You don’t have to play with them….it’s not hard task to create your own party or join a casual guild.

I never said it was a hard task to do either of those things. Moreover, neither of those statements even remotely address my core assertion that those sorts of people are likely to be the biggest barrier to entry a new player is likely to encounter.

Whomever you were addressing, it wasn’t me or anything I said.

It’s the assertion that those people are a barrier that’s the problem. The whole notion that someone else is impacting you ability to start a game is comical.

If “tryhards” are restricting you from “starting a game” you have other issues than the game itself.

As is the barrier to entry in this game is solely buying the game. After that it is entirely upto the player what barriers they self impose.

Well, you go right ahead and take a fresh level 35 character into AC exploration then. I reckon you could start your own team and eventually get enough people to give it a whack, and it might not be terribly hard to do so at the right times of day either.

But if you bring that probably trait-less minimum-leveled sad sack into the group finding tool? Skin all your gear to make yourself look like an 80 and hope nobody looks too hard at your portrait, or you’re likely to find out just how much a barrier to entry other people can be to various aspects of the game.

Dungeons, for example. 80+zerk heavies only LINK OR I KICK

But no, that’s nothing like a barrier to entry, is it? its just…y’know…people, right?

It’s the person behind in the chair imposing that barrier. I’ve run every dungeon at the minimal level. You know what it took ? Patience and time. Was it a leet speed run, no. Was it fun and enjoyable absolutely.

You’re projecting a non-issue and an artificial barrier. It’s ultimately up to the person playing. Assuming the OP is actually not antisocial and a lone wolf they should have no problem picking up the game, chatting making friends and doing content without the issues you’ve experienced.

So having a moderate ability to be social on an MMO game, if you call that a barrier sure that’s one but its an MMO if you cannot be social, why would you even pick one up.

Some of the less sharp spoons in the drawer of life are quite keen to handwaving entire problem sets with dismissive allegations and denigrating insinuations. Good to see the practice of ‘If I don’t admit its a problem, there is no problem’ is still the crown-wearing monarch over in your camp.

In the meantime, in the rest of the reality of MMO gaming, the OP would be well advised to take the time to be aware of the metas and to apprise him/herself of what activities there are and which they want to do, in order to prepare for the actual realities of the situations that will; not may, will; sit before them.

They’ll do well to know that if they intend to groupfinder pug dungeons, they should get used to using Berserker meta builds and practicing with those, not for any actual need the game imposes, but because its a rather common (if largely pointless) demand made by many pug’ing dungeons at all.

Everything doesn’t have to be a speed clear, no. When you’ve successfully informed everyone of that and they’ve said anything other than ‘lol gdiaf skrub’, you might have a salient point.

As it is, you’re speaking towards an ideal that reality has never, in any MMO with which I’m familiar, supported. The reality is quite simple – other people are the only real barriers to entry for much here in GW2.

That isn’t to say they’re always steep or that anyone alleged they were insurmountable – not at all. But it exists.

Try to say it doesn’t and you’ll just continue to look silly and weird.

So show me again where the big bad LFG tool and meta freaks touched you on this doll.

Seriously, you are transposing your own non-issue into this thread. Other people are not a barrier to entry. If you honestly think that in a MMO as social as this one that you are forced to conform to the meta, you’re delusional and living the most sheltered gaming experience ever.

Either that or you have deeper issues that involve not being able to be your own person or knowing how to take the lead.

Just sayin’ if you’re going to play the ignorance is bliss card it works both ways.

Nothing ‘touched’ me anywhere. Did you seriously just pull the armchair psychoanalytics card though?

Seriously?

People still do that?

‘Kay. Enjoy being wrong, Sigmund. I’m out.

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.