Guild Wars 2

Hey,

After 3 months on rehab from gaming due a way to lengthy RMA proces I was able to experience the huge annoyance which was implemented somewhere last year.
Somewhere around the time the traits were for sale at an NPC

So with the GW2 sale during last weekend I bought another acc for NA and when I started the usual explorationfest it turned out to be less a fest and more a hell-grind. Since it took me quite some time to kill all the monsters with only the basic staff attack/lava font pre lvl 14. It took me that long to reach level 14 that it’s going to be a major pain in the kitten to finish it.

Next to that, what is up with not being able to get the skill point thing on the minimap and the absence of the minimap markers? Every skill point I ran into in Queensdale was blocked for reasons unknown but that I was “too low level for them.”

Third, it’s SUPER annoying annoying to be a seasoned player and get all those tutorials popups on screen ALL the time.

Was it so hard to make an on/off switch for those things and just leave everything in the map collectible so you don’t have to re-visit that specific map again just to get the skill points?

Glad I made most of the characters already on my main account, because this is one thing I’m not looking forward to doing multiple times. Better said, I’d rather take my losses and not play on that account if it’s going to be such a boring hell to do map exploration. It was MUCH more fun before they changed this stuff for new comers as if the rest of the playerbase doesn’t exist and isn’t going to make a new character.

Hope Heart of Thorns does a better job.

MangoMonkey.7582:

Next to that, what is up with not being able to get the skill point thing on the minimap and the absence of the minimap markers? Every skill point I ran into in Queensdale was blocked for reasons unknown but that I was “too low level for them.”

Skill challenges are unlocked at level 13. I understand it can be annoying if you’re the type of player who rushes ahead but leveling is really super-fast since the NPE (new player experience) has been introduced and I think the average player doesn’t have to do any backtracking to previous zones. You’ll reach level 13 in no time, trust me.

MangoMonkey.7582:

Third, it’s SUPER annoying annoying to be a seasoned player and get all those tutorials popups on screen ALL the time.

But there aren’t that many right? There’s two right at the beginning that point out movement and camera control and another one if you die the first time that points you to to the next waypoint. Oh and the one at the dodging tutorial where you have to doge to get to the chest. I honestly can’t remember any other popups. The vast majority of notifications are summed up in the level-up screen and they only pop up when you decide to click in the little level-up button at the bottom of the screen.

MangoMonkey.7582:

It was MUCH more fun before they changed this stuff for new comers as if the rest of the playerbase doesn’t exist and isn’t going to make a new character.Hope Heart of Thorns does a better job.

Well, I do understand it can feel totally unnecessary for veteran players like yourself but as the name suggests the new player experience was made for new players. I found it quite distracting too in the beginning but I now I’m not bothered by it anymore.
I seriously doubt they’re going to change that when Heart of Thorns launches though. I’m sure they expect an influx of new players when their first expansion launches.

@Straylight I think I have gotten over 20-30 popups until hitting lvl 14. 1-3 where the regular ones, but some came back multiple times and the ones for healing when you’re low is super annoying.
They don’t have to do major changes. Just in the options menu to turn off those tutorial stuff.
I really didn’t feel leveling going any faster though that previous times. Took me around 3 hrs to complete Queensdale. :S

MangoMonkey.7582:

@Straylight I think I have gotten over 20-30 popups until hitting lvl 14. 1-3 where the regular ones, but some came back multiple times and the ones for healing when you’re low is super annoying.
They don’t have to do major changes. Just in the options menu to turn off those tutorial stuff.
I really didn’t feel leveling going any faster though that previous times. Took me around 3 hrs to complete Queensdale. :S

I’m just leveling a new Sylvari toon and I got nowhere as near as 20-30 pop-ups. Maybe we don’t talk about the same thing when we refer to popups?

It will always take the same time to finish Queensdale. That’s not the point. The point is you finished Queensdale with a higher level than previously. Therefore leveling is faster.

As for the on/off switch: maybe they’ll introduce this in the future. At least you can switch off the compass if it annoys you. Somewhere in the interface menu.

Welcome to NPE (New Player Experience). And if you hate it, know you’re not alone. There’s an army of us here.

New accounts get more pop ups than older accounts too. WvW and PvP are also limited on the UI until you reach certain levels. As are Vistas and Skill points.

(WvW and PvP can still be access at level 1 on new accounts but you have to travel to LA to get there)

I genuinely feel that the NPE was a good thing for new players. However it doesn’t work well for veterans and really needs a lot of tweaking.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Welcome to NPE (New Player Experience). And if you hate it, know you’re not alone. There’s an army of us here.

^^^ What that guy said.

Many of us are wondering what is going on at Arenanet. It seems like the guy making the decisions doesn’t play the game or just doesn’t play MMO games in general.

Arietta The Broken.1875:

New accounts get more pop ups than older accounts too. WvW and PvP are also limited on the UI until you reach certain levels. As are Vistas and Skill points.

(WvW and PvP can still be access at level 1 on new accounts but you have to travel to LA to get there)

I genuinely feel that the NPE was a good thing for new players. However it doesn’t work well for veterans and really needs a lot of tweaking.

And where is this tweaking since the NPE was launched. Like the OP mentioned, where is the simple button at to turn off popups like they have in every other game on the market. That should have been there when they pushed the NPE on everyone. There are tons of simple little tweaks that could and should have been done since the feature packs launched and they have done very little. It is simply half – assed and arenanet should be ashamed.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Welcome to NPE (New Player Experience). And if you hate it, know you’re not alone. There’s an army of us here.

^^^ What that guy said.

Many of us are wondering what is going on at Arenanet. It seems like the guy making the decisions doesn’t play the game or just doesn’t play MMO games in general.

What’s going on is: NCSoft mismangement. I saw it happen to Aion Online. During the first weeks of Aion launch I was up playing at 3 am and the map chat was full of happy people, and some said, “I never thought a game could be this fun!” And all of us agreed. What happened later was a sheer tragedy. Aion went from 25 servers down to 1 today.

I left during the 3rd month.. Unfortunately, these days I keep getting flashbacks. The days of GW2 launch when at 3 am there were about 45 people in Queensdale ganging up on the troll, and I thought to myself, “I never thought a game could be this fun!”

Now the lands are starting to feel empty. My old friend is choosing EQ2 over GW2 now. Very sad for me. SoE CEO is imho one of the worst. Yet now my best bud chose EQ2 since GW2 since the NPE. He’s not been back lately to GW2 at all.

A part of me is sad, another part is trying to be hopeful. Time will tell. All I got to say is I’m no longer going to sink $ into this game till I am shown some hope.

@BlueOcean
I have had the same feeling multiple times.

HoT is removing most of this and the current fiasco trait system. Its in the webpage for it.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

HoT is removing most of this and the current fiasco trait system. Its in the webpage for it.

It took months already and there is still no date for HoT afaik.

This is still embarrassing for an MMO.

I mean its not hard to fix either.
Some NPE features a single time stuff already, just make all NPE features and the trait unlocks account based so veterans dont have to deal with it in the several months its going to take to actually fix this.

I haven’t seen anywhere on the HoT page that says the NPE is being removed. In fact, the only thing I’ve seen is Colin Johanson’s post in the traits thread that the trait system is being reworked, and we’ll get information sometime between now and the launch of HoT.

Congratulations on being better than the average player, but the system was designed for the majority who happen to be below your skill level. The annoyance shouldn’t last long enough to be a big idea.

You’ll be happy to know that some of the restrictions go away once you’ve earned them once on an account. Skill Points, for example, will be usable from the start (save for the home instance one, locked until level 10 for everyone), as will Vistas.

But yes, many hate these changes and want a way to at least hide their intrusion into our gaming.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Welcome to NPE (New Player Experience). And if you hate it, know you’re not alone. There’s an army of us here.

Truer words have never been typed. The September 2014 “New Player Experience” feature patch was a ruinous pile of additional level gating and screwing up the late game Personal Story. Literally the only good thing that came out of it was the compass(which had its own problems in the beginning), and Trahearne’s speech in “A Light in the Darkness” being improved.

Everything else was just stupid. Newer players being overwhelmed? Then you do better to inform them, not level gate things that didn’t need to be level gated.

I think what’s the most annoying about the New Player Experience is how unpolished it is. It really feels like it was just slapped on at the last second. To this day, most of the bugs related to the NPE remain unfixed, and it continues to treat new characters like new players.

veteran accounts should be able to turn the NPE off

I don’t know what’s worse between the annoying popups and the backwards counter-intuitive change to weapon skills whereas we can no longer unlock skills by using the weapin but instead are forced to wait until we hit a “correct level” to unlock the skills we want to use.

You know what really annoys me? I’ll tell you. The fact that each time I level up I have to click that “see what’s new” button to make it stop blinking in the bottom of the screen.

ANET… I frankly do not care “what’s new”! Why do I have to click this button every time I level? EVERY.. TIME.. I.. LEVEL!!!

It’s one thing to be “over-pedagogical” because I understand and emphatize with new players that may not have previous experience with MMORPGs and might need some guidance and help to get started, but if you are going to implement a “pedagogical” system (lol) into your game then you need to understand how to make one in the first place.

What about actually hire someone who have a uni degree in pedagogy?

I know that this is being changed either somewhere along with the new expac but you know what really baffles me? That this lousy, half excuse of a system made it into the game in the first place.

How can a bunch of ppl, educated ppl at that, sit down at their meeting table in their company and togheter agree and greenlight this “new player experience”?

I’m lost for words… This is really… I mean I feel like AngryJoe.. This is making me so angry that I’m lost for words.

Jesus christ…