Guild Wars 2

There’s a lot of discussion about ways to increase the player base for the PvP side of the game. There was a post in another topic about the tutorial being poor and trying to improve it, but a Dev said that, while they are looking to do that, it makes sense to improve rewards/everything else to keep people involved once they join, which is fair enough. Personally, I think the Devs need to either make Pvp a completely free part of the game with the cash shop still or do trial weekends once a month, with just the mists open to trial players. Give them there own servers for games, but that would really only work if the tutorials improved

This thread though is about what could be done to improve the tutorial. I would personally love to see role specific tutorials. When they enter, there would be a video, just showcasing a tour of a map. So you’d show the bases where the players are, then youre taken to the home point and are told that its the closest point to your base, normally one player from your team will go to cap it and try to keep it from enemy players, known as the “home bunker”. Then you get to mid and it says the bunker and roamers go here. I would stick to having bunkers and roamers when explaining it, but you get the general gist.

After that, based on their profession you give them a choice of what they want to do. So if youre a thief, they say thieves are best at roaming. If youre a guardian they say guardians can be bunkers or roamers, which of these most appeals to you? Or something similar.

At that point you give them a build from the meta that suits that role, one that is known to be effective, and then have a guide that briefly talks them through why different weapons/utilities and traits have been chosen. Perhaps by using tooltips on mouseovers or perhaps with a video.

Then, a game would start, with AI as the other players. You would get arrows on the floor like you do in the personal story telling you which way to go, and the fight starts. If youre a bunker, then you make it so that one of your team goes down near you first, and you res them, and then you get one of the other guys down, and you stomp them.

A home bunker might have one guy come to him at the start of the game, and he’d be told to try to keep him off the point, or possibly have a button that will allow him to call for help from the AI. Then if that was won, you’d show him where the other players are on the map and he’d see that no one was going to home point, and move to mid. Then as soon as they got one guy killed fully at mid, a quest would come up again to go back to home, etc.

If you want players to learn sPvP I think you actually need to get them into the game environment. Obviously this is massively ambitious for a tutorial and there’s a lot going on, but perhaps a few years down the line we might get something like this.

Slightly less ambitious would be to send them into a 5v5 hotjoin and give them lots of hints and tips about where to go, that they can stomp people, etc.

Have you guys got any thoughts?

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the post, Jonnis.

Imagine you just made it out of the introductory tutorial – in your opinion, what’s the most confusing thing for a new player, right off the bat? Traits, builds, items, conquest? How to get into PvP? Feel free to mention whatever.

I had several friends play with me and quit over the past months, the most, the one thing they had the most trouble understanding were traits, and finding the more optimal builds on their own.

Before there were tons of guides, and build generators, and the players willing to tell their builds, I didn’t really know what to tell them, other than google build editors for gw2.

Trait setups for the first characters should definitely be the most popular build at the moment.

Thief for example: 10/30/0/0/30 with a brief one time explanation on what every trait does, and your skills do. Or 25/30/0/0/15, this is till a very popular trait setup for thieves. Utilities remain the same for both of these trait setups normally, with Shadow Refuge, Infiltrators’ Signet, and Shadowstep.

This is just my opinion Grouch, and I feel the current way of players learning how to play their class is very rigid and crude.

Edit1: Something I completely blanked on. Using an or multiple instant skills while using one with a cast time. This should common knowledge to every beginner player, as well would only be just a tip of the iceberg of what Guild Wars 2 combat is capable of.

I’m sure this differs from people, but for me, there were two big challenges around release that come to mind: how the conquest gametype works, and how classes and builds fill the roles of bunker, roamer or support. I’m sure there were other questions as well, right down to battling the clunky UI (I have to actually walk to an NPC to access games, whaaat), but those two were the main ones.

Teaching stuff like positioning, map control and rotations is very difficult in a tutorial, and mostly it’s going to be a “learning by doing” type of a deal. Still, I’m sure there’s stuff that can be done to introduce the basics. Most MOBAs force players to battle the AI before letting you square off against live players, and there’s a certain wisdom in that approach.

I image professions, builds and team roles to be easier to explain through a tutorial. Having a few basic build templates for each role would be a big help for new players, instead of the one, mostly non-functional template per profession we have now. Want to play a bunker Guard? Here’s a functional build. Want to roam as a Guard? Here’s another build. (Begin unsubtle hint) All of this would of course be easier if we actually had the ability to switch between build templates with traits, amulets, weapons, runes and the whole shebang (end unsubtle hint).

i think most complicated thing is rotation and what roles NEEDED

Ostricheggs did month ago some rly rly good explanations on stream about this why it is bad to go to farpoint when dont have close or why have to go far when 3 are mid and 1 close … such things

i see very often in soloQ everyone thinks he is imba soloroamer and just run around to kill things and fight openmap for nothing

there have to be a closedefender, closedefender have to go mid when mid bunker die in teamfight so mid bunker go close when spawn

such things

i saw even a rank 40 necro asking in mapchat 5 min ingame “what i have to do now? where to go?”

edit: @Justin when need to do this guides you guys should really ask Ostricheggs – hes very good in explaining things

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the post, Jonnis.

Imagine you just made it out of the introductory tutorial – in your opinion, what’s the most confusing thing for a new player, right off the bat? Traits, builds, items, conquest? How to get into PvP? Feel free to mention whatever.

Actually Grouch I’ve got over a thousand tourney games under my belt, I’m just really keen to make it more popular given how much I enjoy it! I think for a new player, the actual game type is relatively simply explained, though how to be effective in it is less clear. Stomps, ressing and dodging are quite unique to this game, so its good that there are explanations for that. I think the different roles and what they should be doing is more complex, but actually that builds and traits to fulfill those roles is by far the most complicated thing.

There are 60 major traits and 15 minor traits on each class. There are then 3 heals to pick from, 3 elites to pick from and 20 slot skills to pick from. Then you have to choose your weapons to be appropriate to your build set, sigils for those weapons, runes for your armor. Then you have to choose your amulet which has a massive effect on the way the class plays. Sometimes people complain that there’s not enough build diversity or enough choice, and thats simply because some traits aren’t viable, but to a new player that doesnt really matter, its much harder to know which traits are useful.

There are a lot of excellent guides out there for various builds, on youtube especially, that go into the builds in depth and explain the details of them in full. I’d say once you’d picked what role you wanted to be, a mail could be sent to the account of the player linking them to a general youtube tutorial for PvP (Woodenpotatoes started a PvP for dummies series, its not been finished yet but something along those lines), and also a tutorial for the build that they specifically requested.

I imagine this would be easier to implement than anything in game.

I got to say making builds is extremely confusing for new players. I even c wvw’rs ( so called pros) enter hotjoin with a build to terribad makes me want to cry. I mean I’ve seen engis running p/p full condi traits+ utils and running berzerker amulet. I try to help but honestly you need a tutorial explaining stats and maybe even demonstrating what a good build is.

I will sit together with some other guys and start working on a video series on how to guild wars 2 pvp

Senso with the save once again :P

Nice work man.

By far the biggest thing I’ve noticed is that very new players have trouble understanding whether they are contributing or not (or whether their build can or not). I am honestly at a loss of how to teach new players that running pistol/pistol thief and ending up in 4v1 or 1v4 situations is poor play, but I think part of the problem is the difficulty in communication.

There is no easy way to talk about builds… none of them have meaningful names beyond vague and hazy “role” labels (unless you know what 0/0/20/30/20 or w/e does already), and there is no common resource to reference. Even coming to the forums it is next to impossible to find a “real” build, or a simple explanation on how to use it.

TL;DR
Create an “official” build resource.
Name the builds.
Include short tips about build goals (attempts to overwhelm opponents with conditions, attempts to outlast with healing)
Include short tips about key aspects (eg. uses weapon switching and sigils to replenish endurance and continue dodging).
Make sure players going into pvp can find it.

https://forum-en.com/forum/pvp/pvp/A-short-list-of-common-builds-in-PvP/first#post3166012

Best we got atm.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the post, Jonnis.

Imagine you just made it out of the introductory tutorial – in your opinion, what’s the most confusing thing for a new player, right off the bat? Traits, builds, items, conquest? How to get into PvP? Feel free to mention whatever.

Im not speaking out of experience here, so I could be wrong:

• The most confusing to me would be jumping in game and not having a clue how combat works. Capping circles is pretty easy to understand, but people using meta or otherwise optimal builds would destroy me.

• the other confusing thing I can think of: I notice gear and traits are free, so I experiment and having fun making builds. Then I get destroyed by meta builds from other people.

A possible solution: list the meta builds in the trait panel, so new players can click them and see a brief dewcription.
For example, with Mesmer we have shatter, phantasm, condition and lockdown as meta builds. Each one of the 4 gets their own gear + traits preset and a brief description.

detailed example for shatter

• Traits: 0/20/0/0/30 (so the new player can also pick the last 20 trait points themselves)
• Gear: /the player can click on power-based amulets, berserker and knight etc./. They can also pick a fitting runeset (divinity, speed, etc)
• Shatter builds focus on doing high burst damage by Mind Wracking illusions. Your defense comes from mobility and evasion, rather than passive tanking or spamming evades.
• difficulty: hard (relative to others)

Additionally, there could be links to profession forums or guides, if the player doesnt want to experiment, but rather start out with enough knowledge. On the Mesmer forum, we have an in-game guild of experienced Mesmers who you can whisper for advice etc.

The most common question Mesmers ask is for me to give them a build that fits them (adding the descriptions ingame will help them look for themselves), and how to counter meta builds like stunlock warrior. (Thats a quite afvanced question, so it doesnt nescesarily have to be in game.)

Thanks for listening.

I think there should be more motivation besides the usual rewards. This also goes for WvW. If WvW your server is outnumbered on certain maps maybe there should be some indicator at the WvW icon in the top menu bar(also maybe some free MF buff if you join while this – additonal to the outnumbered buff there).

Same for sPvP. If there is long queue time and people around with same rating as you ar queing but still not enough it should somehow encourage you while outside doing other stuff you might just click there and queue while more players are needed. Also somehow it should be tied to rewards.

Tutorial… I don’t know. I don’t think there needs to be a special tutorial. There is already a lot of stuff at heart of the mists to train against NPCs from some maps and use sieges.

Maybe there should be some training map where you just could walk around the map without other players(like in tournamend then it is in warmup mode) to get to know the map. Tournament warmup might not be enough… and hotjoin I think there is not enough time between matches and the zergy match won’t give you time to look at the map. Only option is to buy Custom Arena and only join yourself and walk slowly and look at the map.

For some maps like temple the buff timers should be explained in explanation text.

Edit: And I don’ think there should be preset builds – will only get players to just use these builds instead of trying on their own(which is more fun and helps you understanding how the game works).

I agree – some stuff like conditions and stats is hard to understand if you are completely new(and never tried any other game mode) and never read the wiki since there is no real manual that lists all the formulas. Only Wiki info made by players that changes a lot with patches.

JinDaVikk.7291:

https://forum-en.com/forum/pvp/pvp/A-short-list-of-common-builds-in-PvP/first#post3166012

Best we got atm.

Yea, this was a nice attempt but it is very biased and lacks many common builds, both optimal and suboptimal.

I’m pretty sure anet knows what builds are running around and could make a fairly decent list. It is not necessary to use only “premiere” builds, but rather give individual builds a ranking based on their potentials.

ens.9854:

JinDaVikk.7291:

https://forum-en.com/forum/pvp/pvp/A-short-list-of-common-builds-in-PvP/first#post3166012

Best we got atm.

Yea, this was a nice attempt but it is very biased and lacks many common builds, both optimal and suboptimal.

I’m pretty sure anet knows what builds are running around and could make a fairly decent list. It is not necessary to use only “premiere” builds, but rather give individual builds a ranking based on their potentials.

I’m actually a bit less sure.

Why would Anet be collecting statistics on the specific builds running around? That seems like a waste of server resources. Additionally, as the meta changes, the meta builds change too, sometimes substantially.

Whatever form this guide or tutorial takes, it needs to be general enough that a meta change doesn’t completely invalidate it. It needs to be either pointing players in the general direction to find help and resources, or be restricted to teaching things that do not depend on the meta.

It REALLY isn’t about optimal builds guys, people know the internet exists. The majority of sensible players will look-up popular PvP builds for their class , but they will have absolutely no kittening clue how to play those builds due to lacking overall knowledge and experience. Speaking as an Ele who immediately dug-up popular builds before entering PvP and then proceeded to get his face smashed in for the first ~10-20 hours…yeah, it’s not about builds.

GW2 is simply one of those games where there’s no shortcut or easy way around learning PvP other than diving into it head-first and learning through experience.

One tip for newbies would be to discourage them from joining 8v8 hotjoin matches. That’s where some people get “shocked” and run away from PvP because that mode revolves so heavily around positioning and awareness, neither of which newbies have any clue about. Include somewhere that 5v5 is the best environment for learning how to play.
Maybe have a mode where only rank 1-10 players are pitted against each other (but that’s more of a case of matchmaking)…anyway that would be difficult to do given that PvP isn’t exactly overflowing with huge numbers of players.

dont wanna watch videos or twitch channels and MOST players dont care bout outgame resources

we need ingame tutorials

Yeah right, finding a build when you begin is hard!
In RIFT, there are template by default so it’s easier for a beginner

I really like Alissah’s idea: ‘Easy’ Meta builds with a short description that we could pick and load into.

And I’m sure that Sensotix and others can come up with some nice videos that describe sort of what is going on. (As a PvP newbie I’m watching the video’s more than playing, since I still can’t seem to make sense of all that’s going on without someone explaining)

That leads me to what is most confusing to me as a new player in PvP (coming from a PvE veteran with quite a bit of WvW experience):

Combat goes very fast. I can’t follow even half of what my opponents are doing. I am just dodging every time I see an attack coming, no matter what attack. I don’t know what the attack will do. Maybe it is a harmless auto-attack, maybe it has a massive stack of conditions attached to it, maybe it launches me, I don’t know!

I run around sometimes winning fights, sometimes losing them. I make sure not to double cap points or fight off-point (because I watched Sensotix’s videos) but I still don’t know why I lost a fight or won one.

Don’t get me wrong: I did learn to bring condition removal and stunbreakers, but I never quite understood how he managed to chain those stuns, or stack all those conditions. Or where he found all those heals out of nowhere…

Some suggestions:

• Make good practice NPC’s with metagame-builds that we can fight. We can discover what build they’re using by clicking on them.

• Let us watch matches that we’ve played from the other perspective.

• Introduce cast-bars. So I can see what skills the enemy is using.

• Add skill facts to the combat log.

• Add more player skills and builds to PvE monsters all over Tyria so we learn the tells more easily.

Those are my wishes as an eager PvP newbie

The Lost Witch.7601:

• Make good practice NPC’s that we can fight with metagame-builds that we can discover by clicking on them.

Hey, that would work great for learning animations!

I’d imagine a private instance, with wome hostile npcs that you can ’activate by pressing F, and it says a short text of what it will do.

For example a rifle warrior npc:
The player can change ‘difficulty’ to test and improve their reaction time.
The player is equipped with a shield that can block a single attack, and then it breaks.

• the warrior will just autoattack, which does 0 damage.
• occasionally it will volley, which are 5 fast shots. 0 damage.
• occasionally it will throw a bolas, which deals 0 damage but immoilizes for 5 seconds.
• at the end of the training, the warrior will charge a kill shot for 3/1.5/0.5 (changes with difficulty) seconds, if it hits, it does 100000 damage.
• if the player blocks the kill shot with their single use block, the kill shot is reflected and the warrior explodes :)
• The player also has the option to add additional rules: all warrior attacks do damage, except auto attack.The volley deals high damage and should be dodged. The bolas flies at lower velocity. Kill shot is still instant kill and can only be blocked.

Same can be done with for example hundred blades:
The player is equipped with a sword that does damage with the autoattack, and has a very quick hilt bash that dazes.

• warrior with a greatsword auto attacks, doing 200 damage per hit (player has 20K hp).
• occasionally it will use hundred blades, which will do 4k/10k/20k (depending on difficulty) damage over the whole attack.
• the warrior has 20k hp, the player does 1000/850/700 (difficulty) damage per attack.
• the player cant dodge, but has to use the hilt bash (CD 6S) skill to interupt hundred blades (CD 6S). Hundred blade usage is random, so you cant spam hilt bash and win ;).
  Maybe add in the option for the warrior to use bull’s charge before it uses hundred blades, and give the player the option to dodge.

And a training where you have to interupt an npc that heals:
The player is equipped with a pistol and power lock, an instant cast that instantly dazes your target.

• an elementalist random throws fire, ice, lightning and stone at you.
• the player stands at range and shoots the elementalist with their pistol, doing 250-1000 damage.
• when the elementalist is below 50% (total 10K) health, it will randomly use the healing skill that takes 4 sexonds to cast.
• if the player interupts it, the elementalist explodes :)
• if they dont interupt it, the player explodes :(

On higher difficulties, the elementalist will use the shorter healing skills, and sometimes use blue spells that may look like heals.

Not sure if it would actually interest new players, but I had fun making it up anyway :P

@Alissah

Haha, well I’d go with realistic builds instead. With the real cast times & damage values. After all, those are the ones I’m having trouble with!

Perhaps a personal instance would be good. (To prevent other players from screwing up our training sessions)

@ Josh

I think the tutorial is allright. It shows us the mechanics of PvP (capturing points). The problem comes with what comes next: losing our first game (most likely) and learning from it.

If I were to get loads and loads of information first, then the tutorial might just overwhelm me. I think it would be best to stick with a short & easy tutorial similar to what we have now. And increase the educational purpose of the training grounds.

About builds, i think this game needs desperately a template pannel to save own builds and select meta builds for every classes (updated by anet every time there is a big change).

Be cool if new players have to play a game against BOTS and win.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the responses!

Most of the responses here seem to revolve around actual combat, builds, and lastly conquest.

With these three things in mind…how would you redesign the tutorial to cover all of these points? (As a thought, when we introduce new game modes our current tutorial is going to seem fairly of outdated, considering it only shows you how to cap points.)

Thanks guys. Hope you’re having a good weekend!

With new game modes in mind, I would more emphasize players learning the basics of their builds/classes. If you enter sPvP for the first time, it opens the traits tab with a commonly known build for any class, and briefly explains what the traits do in this build.

As for new game modes tutorial, having the new players capture a orb from spirit watch, (e.g. depending on what new game modes are released) or a hill for king of the hill, and fight a NPC for it.

Small hints that should be given to these players are things like, combo fields, and using instant skills while using one with a cast time. This should be taken into thought when they are fighting an NPC. In the tutorial there could be another NPC that is lying down a combo field, most weapons players have either have combo: projectile, blast, or leap, and if one of these are in that players UI, a hint could pop up acknowledging to them, that they can do a combo at this time.

Other than some of the other issues of conquest, that come with playing the game mode, and cannot be taught, I think this would really get peoples feet wet and slightly more interested, as far as a tutorial goes.

just my 0.02 $

1. Basic tutorial
When you first arrive in the mist you are posted in a istanced version of a PvP map, and you have a “personal story like” mission with objectives listed in the right side of the screen and the annuncer NPC shouting you what to do next with some tactical insights. (Playable area shoul be limithed at the start).
“Mach start in 10 seconds newbie, prepare at the gates”
“Run to the Henge point! it’s near and we need it to gain points!” (green star appears on the Henge)
“Ok now stand on it to capture it, check the circle on the ground to see how much time you need.” (progress bar appears on the interface).
“Good, time to go on the offensive, move to the keep” (green star appears on the keep and the playable area extend to the middle)
“kitten , they got the keep before us! Check how many of them are there. They are 3, dont get killed, wait your team for support”
etc

After this tutorial the player should know the basic of the conquest mode. If more modes are released extra tutorial should be made for those mecanics. The tutorials need to be replayable.

2.Gearing tutorial
An NPC shows what we can find in the mist hub, this tutorial should be istanced so we can have a list of objective on the right and some “trials” to pass.
“Here you can take what you need for the mach, it’s all free… they just look ugly …”
“This is the training golem, try to blow it up as faste as you can”
etc

3. Modes tutorial
Just to tell the difference between hotjoin, soloQ and teamQ.

4. Build tutorial
This is triky to do, builds became outdated or fall out of the FoTM, I think that the only real solution is the fan based “build library” like Dota2. You can search builds and have some description on the use.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the post, Jonnis.

Imagine you just made it out of the introductory tutorial – in your opinion, what’s the most confusing thing for a new player, right off the bat? Traits, builds, items, conquest? How to get into PvP? Feel free to mention whatever.

honestly, there really isn’t anything “confusing” for players of any experience level. across the various game play areas (spvp, wvw, pve, dungeons…), i would say there is frustration because of the “gimmicky”, unbalanced and over limited profession designs. basically, profession development here revolves around shuffling trait numbers and tossing new gear (outside of spvp, but im sure that more gear will be one of your spvp “fixes” soon too) at the problems. there is much more potential, but currently the individual profession designs are extremely poor and that’s clearly evident outside of the zerg for loot meta gameplay (very noticeable in dungeons/fractals though). until you seriously improve professions, thus making combat for the sake of combat more interesting and fun, you will never have a respectable amount of spvp involvement by players of any skill level. if you all seriously reinvest in making a much bigger and better profession “tool box” for players, you will have a healthier and more interesting meta throughout the entire game.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the responses!

Most of the responses here seem to revolve around actual combat, builds, and lastly conquest.

With these three things in mind…how would you redesign the tutorial to cover all of these points? (As a thought, when we introduce new game modes our current tutorial is going to seem fairly of outdated, considering it only shows you how to cap points.)

Thanks guys. Hope you’re having a good weekend!

missed this post somehow.

with all due respect, clearly profession designs and builds that affect the way combat unfolds should be the main priority. until you have a strong foundation for players competing against other players, game modes and tutorials will be meaningless fluff that don’t address the core issues.

some Tip of the day when join a match in the first minute can help too
like:
“one is enough to cap a point”
“leaving lost fights is not losing”
“dont make your team fight outnumbered”
“dont go svanir while your team is heading mid”
“dont fight your own team – be nice in chat”
“nice to be important but its more important to be nice”

something like this

when see often enough it can teach ppl^^

And a little round based boardgame can teach ppl the tactic and how to win and how to rotate^^

roundbased, 5 stones per side and 3 points to cap,

game would be
Round 1 – i can send my 5 stones to A B or C
i send 2 to A and 3 to B non to C
Round 2 – PC show me what enemy would do
he send 1 C and 4 B
- mid lost all my stones dead and respawn
Round 3 – i now from respawn
1 to A and 2 to C
Round 4 – PC have 1 C 4 mid
he send 3 from mid to A and let 1 B and 1 C
now pc fight outnumbered A and C and i win this round

something like this

Romek.4201:

And a little round based boardgame can teach ppl the tactic and how to win and how to rotate^^

roundbased, 5 stones per side and 3 points to cap,

I really like this as an idea in the beginning tutorial. Just something that explains how people should be rotating. I think this would be excellent as a beginner game, and then I’d love to see a more advanced version that has a Bunker, homepoint defender and roamers (possibly some that are faster than others). The advanced version would be realtime rather than turn based and would allow you to respond to what the enemy are doing, seeing if you can do it quickly enough.

This would help players to see why the aim is (in general) to hold close and mid rather than going close and far, as even though that can work in the beginning it often won’t work long term as far is so close to spawn.

Then once that’s done, I’d show it in a real game situation, using personal story like icons as others and myself suggested to instruct the player on where to go, while giving them lots of information about how many of their teammates and enemies are at each point, without necessarily introducing full combat mechanics (possibly just stomping and ressing for bunkers? showing off ways to interupt stomps/resses etc).

This should be one of a series of arenas available from the training NPC. I’d also love to see the AI dueling server that has a series of popular builds you can play against. It would be good to see Bunkers and Homepoint defenders standing on points and trying to defend them as much as possible and also Roamers and Teamfight support classes duelling. Perhaps they could say what they have, ie you walk up to a Condi Necro and it says I have a lot of Conditions and I Fear, be sure to bring Condi cleanses and maybe a stun breaker, etc. It would also be great to have a look at the build and amulet of the class that you were facing.

There are duelling servers out there at the moment, but I find them pretty useless for facing meta specs. They are full of cloaking phantasm mesmers and dps guards. You do get s/d thieves in there and some spirit rangers, but in general they’re pretty obsolete for actually learning your class.

Another option from this NPC would be beginner match servers. Only people below a certain rank can join (15?) and they do nothing for any kind of rating. The matches would have to have a bunker, a homepoint defender and three roamers. Perhaps they would have to try out one of the builds from the AI duelling server?

I think with these three tutorial areas, most of the game could be picked up, and you can then suggest once theyve won some games in the beginner match servers that they try hotjoin/soloq/teamq and explain what these game types are. You could also recommend the forums/youtube as a source for build guides and tell them that if they post to them theyre likely to get a friendly response.

• an interactive tutorial like the on one Guild Wars. Make them face NPC as the game mechanics/objectives are explained to them.

• Also a r1-20 Arena where players can face players with similar abilities. stomping or getting stomped isn’t fun, even if it hurts Q times by a bit. it will make the game much more enjoyable.

• Making r1-20 more visually accessible to players, right now it feels TQ and SoloQ are hidden compared to Hotjoins. and can easily confuse players into thinking Hotjoins is the real PvP of this game, letting them pick up bad habits as ignoring objectives, zergin and 5 man capping points

When I first entered the mists:

• I did not know how to reset my traits.
• I did not know where to get trinkets. Once I figured out how to get amulets I could not find the other trinkets (still haven’t found them).
• I did not know what tournament queues were or that I should’ve been doing them from the beginning and not in hot joins till rank 15 or so if I wanted to really learn how to play.

Tutorial issue 1, builds:

• The starter builds are awful, trap ranger with a soldier amulet?
• Giving builds “rolls” similar to dota might be nice.
• When the game first came out everyone was using everything until the meta settled and the starter builds need to be adjusted accordingly.

Tutorial issue 2, positioning (I don’t really know how to make this clear but even top players have problems with this).

• Only need 1 person on node.
• Careful on overextending.
• Be in the back when you’re glass.

Tutorial issue 3, combat strategy:

• Know when to stomp and rez is a huge priority.
• Know when to not stomp/rez.
• Know that CC overwrites other CC so don’t interrupt a skull crack with a pistol whip.

Tutorial issue 4, rotations:

• Players don’t know where to go.
• Players will trickle into a 1 v 4.
• Players often need to regroup.
• Players need to not push into outnumbered fights.
• Players need to pull out of losing fights.

I feel that most of these can be either changed (like the builds). I feel the rest can be taught by videos. Especially the rotations which I believe would be hardest to learn. Someone could make video of a player in spectator mode commenting on where a certain respawn should go according to how the fights were going at the other nodes based on numbers/kill feed/teammate health pools, etc. It would probably have to be a top player with amazing map awareness though.

As for positioning and build roles I believe that could affect a lot of things. If I am something like a DPS, support, priority target (like a necro) then I need to be in the back line and rarely be on the node unless rezzing/stomping. I feel like a video could be made for that. Same as things like warrior/guardian/spirit ranger. Those are all support, durable builds that can be on the node except when they get low and need to heal up in which case they should come off the node and someone could go on. This could also be made into a video. “As the fight draws on and the frontline members are getting low it may be a good strategy to have their frontline supporters fall back to be protected by their teammates while they heal up. A teammate can see from the health bars circle health bars that their frontline is low and steps onto the node allowing for their guardian/whatever to back off for a bit.” Something that shows exactly how to read the situation.

I believe A LOT of these videos could be done by top players commenting on their rotations/play. However, I think they need to be done with anet and given a reward of like gems or something and then get their video like hyperlinked to a mail sent to a player that first enters the mists, etc. Like I just made a thief and I enter the mists and I get a mail from Anet saying, “Hey, I see you like them deeps, here is a hyperlink to Caed’s tutorial video about positioning, when to burst, where/when to rotate.” Etc. If certain players don’t want to be endorsed which is totally understandable I don’t think it would be that hard for anet to make a decent basic tutorial about positioning and rotations (which would probably be ideal).

Eurantien.4632:

When I first entered the mists:

• I did not know how to reset my traits.
• I did not know where to get trinkets. Once I figured out how to get amulets I could not find the other trinkets (still haven’t found them).
• I did not know what tournament queues were or that I should’ve been doing them from the beginning and not in hot joins till rank 15 or so if I wanted to really learn how to play.

Just to clarify a few points, there are only amulets in sPvP, there are no other trinkets or anything else (other than traits) that affects your stats. This could be more clearly communicated though.

I’d also say that you should always start in 5v5 hotjoin matches. Even if the people in those matches arent playing the game “properly” as you would in a tournament, you won’t get overwhelmed and will still learn the basics in this game mode, provided it is supplemented with other tutorials.

Before I even read the thread, as a brand new PvPer myself I’ll tell you that you need to start by making clear that there even is a tutorial! I went into the mists and when the guy showed me the map and started yammering I assumed it was the same as the map guys in PvE and just closed it. I then started trying to figure out gear and arenas and stuff and it was rather confusing.

The guy doesn’t even mention a tutorial. And there’s not much on the map to look at.

It was quite confusing figuring out why my gear had no stats, etc.

ETA: Okay, walked the island, found some sparring NPCs but nothing resembling a tutorial. You guys must be talking about something else.

Qaelyn.7612:

ETA: Okay, walked the island, found some sparring NPCs but nothing resembling a tutorial. You guys must be talking about something else.

There is a girl called the Master of Travel on your right next to the portal as you enter the mists. She will take you back to the current tutorial which consists of three heart quests, to stomp enemies, res allies, and capture a point. You should automatically go through this tutorial when you enter the mists but its likely you may have done that a long time ago and forgotten?

Nope. I’ve only been playing a month. Never did that, and in my casual stroll through the Heart of the Mists I never even saw this NPC.

Any revamp of the tutorial system should start by fixing that! I’ll look for her. Thanks.

You know what.. it’s possible that I did get put in that area the very first time I entered the mists if I went there for some reason in my first few days and forgot about it.

Thereafter, I always enter the mists with her behind me, so I never noticed her again. She’s right next to me when I go in, but she’s off to the side and slightly behind. And what’s worse — she’s wearing gear similar to mine, and has no icon either over her head or on the map. I never moused over her and so I thought she was another player or just a mundane NPC of some sort.

Well, that was hardly a tutorial. It’s just basic principles: “This is how you finish, this is how you capture, this is how you revive”.

To get a real tutorial, players should be taught about the quirks of their professions, some hints about combos, positioning and the like.

Remember Factions bonus training quests? Those in which you are given a skill and are taught how to snare, interrupt heal, and the like?

Those were decent tutorials.

The Zaishen masters should come back too.
Having troubles with conditions? Try different things against the Master of Conditions.
Talk with him, and you are sent a small instance in which you can freely switch traits and skills between waves of enemies spamming conditions.
Get interrupted to often? Talk with the Master of Control, and train yourself again enemies with lots of CC.

Reducing the distance between pve and pvp:
You have already done a gread job with introducing pve mobs in the living story which needed to be stomped, and attempt to rez themselves. Maybe introducing a boss encounter who also trys to stomp the players?

First Steps
To ease up the first steps, I’d introduce a personal story like quest, which you can follow through.
1.) It leads you to a reworked pvp scout, explaining every area of the game.
=> “Here you can find the three pvp vendors selling amulet and juwels, runes and here you get weapons and sigils.”
=> “You want new, better looking armor? Buy them via glory from these vendors. Rank up to gain access to different vendors.”
=> “You can store your armor inside the pvp locker.”
=> “Start playing games via the pvp browser npc. You can also join games using the pvp interface.”
=> “Time for some ranked gameplay? Talk to the tournament master for more information.”
2.) You have talked about the option to save the whole build including weapons, runes, sigils and amulets. Once this is available the story should lead you to a kind of “traits master”, where you can choose between different roles, you want to fill in. This npc can also explain how to modify the build at the same time, and telling you, that you are not bound to the standard build choices, the provides.
3.) Next step of the questline is playing a hot-join game. Only once you have completed this story step, the tournament master gets unlocked.

Tooltip adjustment
When you look at the Arena page, you don’t find any information at all, that you are about to play a ranked game.

PvP Browser rework
1.) Three standard filter beside “All”. There should be the option to show “8vs8” “5vs5” and “Custom Server”.
2.) You should be able to see if there is room left for an actuall player to join, and not for a spectator.

Adjusting the tipps, the npc provide themselves
Every npc in the mists should get an additional option, you can choose from, to explain what he is doing.
1.) PvP Browser NPC: “Help” Will open the pvp browser with green circels explaining “Play now” “Join game” “different standard filter available” It does not have to explain how to create a new filter.
2.) PvP Items Weaponsmith: He should also tell you that the sigils trigger a global cooldown. Edit: I tried to be helpful and tell people that their sigils do not work together, but half of the time I just get ignored or insulted.

Instruction
You are now in a game, but there should not only be the instruction what to do inside the game, it should also provide some sort of daily tipps (maybe at the loadingscreen?) For possible tipps, see the thread “Basic Tips for tPvP” from “infantrydiv.1620”

In my opinion a 3v3 death match would be better than a conquest tutorial. New players are not stupid, they just need a place to learn how to play their build and how to make better builds.

The play now button has so many matches that start out as 2v2 or 3v3 which makes for a horrible learning experience on a conquest map that as a player I ask myself why there isn’t just a small death match map for this.

A tutorial that tells you where everything is is different. A tutorial on how to play conquest is a waste since if the player likes conquest they will figure it out. Please don’t waste resources trying to educate players on how to play conquest instead of developing a death match.

If you could get bots to play conquest that would be the best tutorial IMO. You + 4 friendly and 5 enemy bots play a game on Forest

jonnis.2946:

After that, based on their profession you give them a choice of what they want to do. So if youre a thief, they say thieves are best at roaming. If youre a guardian they say guardians can be bunkers or roamers, which of these most appeals to you?

It could be interesting if you were a ranger or elementalist. Like “Rangers can be…well…here, that pet buddy may help you sometimes if heavens are in a good mood, with elementalist you can have a lot of skills…..Have you considered rolling a Warrior?”

Above all, explain general roles, and what is needed to achieve these roles well. The rest should be left to the player to experiment. So many bad plays are made because people just don’t know, or are oblivious to, the role they are playing. Or people create some weird build that just doesn’t do anything particularly good. As someone said, soldiers ammy on a trap ranger, really? C’mon! In my opinion, all other information can be gathered from playing the game, if people know the role they are playing as.

I think areanet needs to spend some time in making a better tutorial for spvp because the one they have right now is just lame(sorry arenanet).. and doesn’t really show anyone how a match is suppose to be played and what you need to do to win. They basically go into an spvp blind and unaware of whats really going on. They need to give people actual builds to start off with and not those rubbish ones…

Or they need to have someone that will make a nice video explaining that capturing and holding points is very important and you need to beware of your enemys position to better position yourself within the match. Also explain some roles people can take within the match Bunker, roamer, home point defender, Burst, Condition pressure.

They need to post this video in spvp thread and maybe even post it on their front page of gw2 website or even better post it within gw2 when a new player enters the mists so people can see it and hopefully learn something from it.
They want spvp to be a success i think one of the major issues of gw2 is new people are never really playing the game on how it was intended. Instead they just run around looking for kills.
They need to do something to push the spvp community in the right direction and help it grow. Not to make new players think spvp is just a zerg fest they can go to wvw for that.

Maybe this is asking for to much but it would hopefully help new players understand spvp to a greater degree and have more enjoyable matches.
[Only time this isn’t the case is High MMR matches(but sometimes it still happens sadly…)]
If you have any thoughts or ideas to improve upon the tutorial please post them

Agreed. A short, maybe cartoonish or using a match example, video implemented in-game would be great, better than what is on right now for the new players: having to speak to npcs and going on forums. And, yah, anet applying to the community for the video making could be interesting.

And another point: Anet put some good, original stuff for training in The Mists, but it should maybe be rethought a bit: The Mists map is so big, but there are so much empty spaces between different training posts, the nps bots, the golems,… It might just make a new player feel more lost than anything else unfortunately, a solution would be to rearrange a bit the lay-out, I’m aware it will take time though… and ofc the mists can give that emptiness feeling also cause there are just not a lot of pvp players around (besides afking), I kinda miss all the talks (between newbies and higher players) we could see in map chat before, in AR for example . Vicious circle.
( + My personal opinion: I didn’t really agree with the change of being able to go in pvp matches browser and join tourneys from outside The Mists, thus decreasing that pvp community feeling)

Coming from PVE, the PvP experience is seriously weird. The barrier to get to your first battle is higher than if you are a total newbie I think. At least for me.

So, I finally managed to understand how to outfit a character. This can create a lot of problems for people from PVE, just because we keep looking for things that are not there and is afraid of consequences that do not exist. For example:

I was looking for ages for a trait reset guy like in PVE, but then found out that there is a little button on your character. Very handy, but if you come from PVE it is very hard to find. Why looking for something you don’t even know might be there?

I also spent forever trying to figure out how to get the runes out of my ‘starting’ armor, I could equip new things from my locker alright, but how to transfer the runes? I was petrified that I might accidentally destroy something that I needed later, only to find out that you can get all sigils and runes for free from a vendor. Also something that is completely weird for someone from PVE. The same goes for the ‘standard’ armour, I ended up having to destroy it because it didn’t want to go into the PvP locker. Very counterintuitive.

In fact, this is the third time I have gone in to try to outfit a character, the other two times I gave up. SO yes, this process could be clearer.

And then I figured I should fight a battle. Having read the forums, I realized that the tournament was not for me. But there was this other guy. It was solo queue, team queue and something weird that I assume might be custom arenas?

However, I was earlier given the advice not to do solo queue but hotjoins. Where do I find the hotjoins? I feel like I have looked everywhere.

Coming from PVE, it feels like the process of fighting here might be clearer. We don’t need to be taught how to use siege or cap points, we need to be taught how to equip our characters and where you should begin to fight if you are new.

And yes, I asked in mapchat, however, not a single reply.

this is why we should merge the mists from different servers.

Yeah, better streamlining for new players is a topic that’s being discussed a lot right now.

“Hotjoins” are both custom arenas and regular quick-join matches. They are the third tab in the PvP window, and are accessed by clicking “Play now.” You will have a chance to spectate before being thrown into a fight. You can also scroll through a list of rooms and manually select one if you want, but clicking “play now” will make the game attempt to place you with other new players. (Experienced players can still manually join the room you’re in, so it doesn’t always work).

Solo and team arenas are the second tab on the PvP window. Yes, you should feel comfortable with the maps and some other basics before trying these.

Mapchat is tough on some servers because PvP is cross-server, and not every server has a very active PvP population. Even if there are a lot of PvPers on your server, it’s likely they don’t go to the heart of the mists very often, since you can join a PvP match from anywhere in the game. So a lot of people only go to the HotM when they want to try a new build. And of course, even those that do go to the HotM will only be there in between matches, so it may appear empty.