Guild Wars 2

ANet, I love you guys, I’ve always supported you non-stop, and been with you since the start, but please hear me out!
To start off I’d like to say that the new Leveling System is great for someone who has never played an MMO before. Period.
However, now I’m going to talk about my personal experience as an MMO player, and how this System may “scare off” new players.

I’ve been playing MMO’s for the past 10 years. However, until GW1 I was never able to really get into one, as in, reach end-game. As interesting and unique and entertaining “end-game” may be considered, what actually made me decide between sticking to a game or not was the early game.
As someone who aspires to become a Game Dev someday, I feel the early game needs to reach out to people and pull them in, it needs to be friendly, but it needs to be interesting and show right off the bat what the game is about!
Before this new Leveling-System, GW2 was about “Playing how you want”. It was about “Feeling immersed”. It was about having a great Gaming Experience right from the start. And in my opinion, although throughout the leveling some things should’ve been adjusted, GW2 did that quite well. It gave me an incredible gaming experience from the start, it let me play how I want, and it made me feel immersed.

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Continuation

Now I’d like to give quick examples on how this new leveling-system fails to deliver those things.
Playing how you want: The majority of things that make GW2 UNIQUE, have been Level-Gated. ANet, you are hiding GW2 behind a dark curtain for new players. It was great to go into the downed system right from the start, and experience something I hadn’t experienced in other games. It was NOT confusing, it was ENGAGING. The first time I went down I laid back thinking I was going to have to revive at a waypoint and suddenly I get back to the edge of my chair thinking “What????”. After a bit, I got up. And I felt achieved. I did not feel confused. It was not overwhelming. It was DIFFERENT. I know people who have bought GW2 specifically for WvW and the competitive side of GW2 – Now they are forced to play PvE until a certain level.

Feeling Immersed: I have a lot of examples for this, but I’ll just give a couple. As a player who has always felt intrigued by the nature of the Sylvari, I only find myself playing Sylvari characters. It felt immersive to enter Tyria, out of the pod, without any clothing on. It felt natural, and it showed me right from the very start a little about how the Sylvari are as a race. With the new System I know longer have to talk to an NPC to get some clothes, I exit the pod “fully” clothed. This just doesn’t work.
Also, waking up from the dream and immediately starting my Personal Story gave me a sense of Urgency towards Tyria’s safety. Now you are forced to wait 10 Levels to continue after whichever chapter you left off. It’s the same as saying “Don’t worry, Tyria can wait 10 levels, it’s not important, the Elder Dragon’s aren’t that big of a threat”.

GW2 showed me how it was different from the get go, and I, as a player that has played from launch feel LUCKY to have started playing before this new System, otherwise I probably would have left GW2, as how it currently stands, itstarts off as any other traditional sort of MMO.
Even new players could understand that to feed a cow, they’d have to pick up the food first. Or to water plants they’d have to pick up a bucket, go to the well and fill it with water. These small things made it immersive, it made it engaging, it made it a great gaming experience.

To finish off, I’d like to say that what I most liked about GW2 was the fact that it didn’t hold your hand. It let you free. To explore, play, live in Tyria the way you wanted.

My suggestion
Considering how GW2 is so different from other MMO’s I could discuss how it may seem more confusing to players who HAVE played MMO’s before than people who have never played them, but I’m not going to go there.
What was it again, on ANet’s GW2 Manifesto?? “If you Like MMO’s you’ll wanna check GW2 out. If you don’t like MMO’s you’ll REALLY want to check out GW2” – Something along those lines.
Anyway, my suggestion: In the beginning of the game, Ask Players if they prefer to be guided or not. Just like sometimes in other games we are asked if we’ve played a game of that type to choose the Controls Layout. It would appeal to people who feel they need to be guided, and it would appeal to people who feel they’ll be fine, and prefer a FREE experience. Both these experiences would be quite different from eachother, true(this just shows how different the experience is pre-update compared to post-update, but unfortunately not for the best), but it would give CHOICE right form the start, something GW2 did so well.

I really hope this is changed, because I’d much rather fight a few enemies learning a skill at a time, feeling a evolved, than having to spam keys 1 and 2 for a certain amount of levels until the game decided that it was time for me to move on, by holding my hand(both scenarios have the game choose or you of course, but one is more immersive and less present than the other).

TL;DR What made me stick to GW2 after 10 years of not being able to fully get to “the fun part” of MMO’s, is gone. If I started playing now, it would remind me of the early-game formula of all the traditional MMO’s – something I can’t play.

Many games have a “noob island” where players can learn the ropes right the start. GW2 also had one with a little boss fight at the end of it. All of this update’s NPE problems could be rectified by simply placing everything in the noob island. Put your dodge trainer in there; your cow dancing in there; just leave the open world alone for many of the reasons OP already listed. It was already a good start, it was different, and it was free.

I’m reminded of Tera right now and their noob island (which is completely optional). You actually start at a HIGHER level than 1 (I think level 30) and are introduced to several skills right away. Why? So the player now has something to look forward to and so the player knows what he is even getting himself into. He’s going to want to earn all that cool stuff and he is going to work at it. Now I’m not proposing ANet does this but I’m giving an example of a game that went the other way and enticed the player with decent gear and several abilities so that they have a frame of reference; an impression. And you know what? It wasn’t confusing. An NPC guide followed you around, talked with you, helped you get through, and then even this game’s tutorial zone had its own little boss battle with several NPCs with you to give that feeling of importance. GW2 could easily have something like this – they have done it before in the personal story, namely the Tree’s vision of your Assault on Arah.

Instead of changing everything in the open world, confine the tutorial elements to the zone designed to be a tutorial… when I play a game I want to get in there and play it, not suffer through a tutorial for hours or dance for cows. Those that need the tutorial can have it, but it shouldn’t be forced on anyone. Tutorials are almost always optional. This is probably the first game I’ve ever seen where a tutorial extends so deep into the levelling process that it actually becomes the levelling process, but with all this extra baggage which just trigger’s a person’s claustrophobia.

The idea was fine, the execution wasn’t.

Best post I have read on the subject thus far. Kudos to you OP, good job there.

I did not come to this game because I wanted just another MMO, I came to this game because it is DIFFERENT!

I just hope ANet realizes the actual bigger picture here, and what’s going on.. :/

I just want to comment on the part of urgency. I always sort of hoped that the story would be delivered in chapters where one could play the entire chapter without leveling in between.

I always had the issue of urgency as you described with the old system. Example: oh no the nightmare court is assaulting this village, we must stop them… oh wait I’m gonna get 2 levels first, the village can wait.

Otherwise I haven’t rolled any new characters under the new system so can’t really comment that much on it.

What’s different about Guild Wars 2? After this new update, that’s an easy question to answer. Here’s what’s different:

1) Jumping Puzzles

2) Dynamic Events

3) World Vs. World mode

-High production look
-“Second life” experience,no comparative gameplay
-“Barbie dress up” endgame
…

At this point, they say they have tested this with new players and it works. Let’s see. That’s all we can do. The downed state to you was engaging, to a new MMO player it might have been confusing the first time, frustrating the second time, and ‘flip table’ stupid the third time. At which point this sucks, walk away, uninstall.

We do not know. The company is not sharing, nor should they. They have made a change. Let’s see how it goes. If it fails, won’t it be great to say ‘We told you so!’

Roybe.5896:

At this point, they say they have tested this with new players and it works. Let’s see. That’s all we can do. The downed state to you was engaging, to a new MMO player it might have been confusing the first time, frustrating the second time, and ‘flip table’ stupid the third time. At which point this sucks, walk away, uninstall.

We do not know. The company is not sharing, nor should they. They have made a change. Let’s see how it goes. If it fails, won’t it be great to say ‘We told you so!’

I understand each person is a case on their own, however, there are certain things that were simply unnecessary, especially the things killing immersion or throwing away the “Play how you want” Philosophy – It has taken a turn, making GW2 more like any otehr MMO, something I wouldn’t have classed it as before.

“The downed state to you was engaging, to a new MMO player it might have been confusing the first time, frustrating the second time, and ‘flip table’ stupid the third time. At which point this sucks, walk away, uninstall.” – People aren’t stupid, people like challenges and strive to overcome them, call it resilience of Humankind if you will. A person may die in downed state 2 or 3 times, but any common.sensed person would TRY to understand it.

Game’s aren’t supposed to be easy, even for casual players. They’re supposed to give us a challenge, give us feedback when we achieve something, and then the desire to continue comes from there. But anyway, moving the downed state to level 5 isn’t the worst problem anyway, I’d say that’s not even a problem, as you said, some people may find it confusing(although I still disagree). The actual problem is level-gating content, and options.

I guess all we can do really, is wait.. and hope.