Guild Wars 2

Just some concerns I have that were brewed by my experiences in getting some of my friends to play the game.

Granted Gw2 and MMOs are not for everyone. I have tried to pull people from my old games (Aion, RIFT, WoW) with a high rate of failure. I think there are several reasons for this. In my experience Guildwars 2 is not easily accessible to new players.

GUILDWARS 2 IS A COMPLEX GAME WITH LITTLE GUIDANCE:

Most people come from WoW clones and are used to generations of games that have the same systems. Not only is Guildwars 2 different (which can be good) but it offers a relatively miniscule amount of guidance to new players that are trying to understand its systems. There are several factors that compound this problem:

-Tool tips for traits and skills are frequently wrong or omit certain key elements of skills. I understand this is being worked but its the miniscule details about a skill that make it confusing to new players. For example, take a new player trying to use the ranger sword. There is no warning on this weapon about the self-root or that it is an advanced weapon, or that it even operates differently from other melee weapons.

-Stat weight is complex in this game and difficult to understand. Namely, many people do not know that toughness is tied to mob aggro. A player might build with toughness thinking he wants to be more survivable but constantly dies because he is repeatedly being targeted by mobs and has no idea why. Even veteran players struggle with what the perfect stat balance is. Even worse, stat weight is different for every game mode. In PvP you need toughness to survive spikes. In PvE it draws aggro on you and makes you a tank. Players need better guidance on how to gear up.

Tool tips need to be improved to clearly define attributes. Attributes that are more important to certain classes need to be flagged (precision/crit dmg for thieves and rangers, condition damage for engineers, toughness and healing power for guardians, etc.).

-No standard build templates or in-game recommended generic builds to help new players. Build templates helped immensely for new players in Gw1. Players need a starting point to begin so that they can better understand why some trait/gear/skill combos go together and why. Players have to go to third party sites to get this information. There isn’t even anything helpful on the wiki.

CLASS ROLES ARE NOT CLEARLY DEFINED/NOT BALANCED:

While the game has tried to move away from the tank/healer/dps idea, players become confused on what role their class is supposed to play. New players try to do too many things at once and become frustrated with weak builds. Players are omitted from parties because they picked the “wrong class” (IE not a guardian/war/mesmer).

Certain build combinations allow players to do multiple things too well (guardian with tanking and support). New players frequently become frustrated with their class if it is not easy to play (i.e., PVE thief, ranger, engineer). Some classes are too easy to play (faceroll on heavies).

Again, build templates would help with this. Better balance as well (I.E. clearly defined paths to roles for classes such as control, damage, support, healing). While each class does not have to have a clearly defined tank/dps/healer role, the purpose someone is in a party should be made clear (I.E. im here to kill stuff, drop boons like crazy, be a combofield bot).

Maybe skill ratings should be added to classes, such as what was done in TERA (Guardian 1 star, Mesmer 5).

(cont)

GAME CHANGES TOO FREQUENTLY:

The game swings left and right with balance and changes. Players do not have time to adjust to setups, figure out how to gear properly, or learn to play before something huge is changed (such as warrior rebalance) and their world is flipped upside down. This becomes even more frustrating to new players when they are learning when to gear and hit walls when what they are using quickly becomes rendered ineffective overnight.

New players are likely to quit cold turkey over radical changes. There needs to be some semblance of stability in the game.

Instituting PVE only skills (such as breath of the great dwarf) that are not tied to classes and always work as handicaps for new players might help with this.

TOO MUCH TEMPORARY CONTENT:

Living story hurts new players, they miss out on huge events and become frustrated because they are not advanced enough to participate. Most new players are shadowed by zergs and frequently don’t do enough damage to get proper contribution.

Missing out on content because your rushing to level and don’t make it to the content in time does not leave a lasting impression on new players.

I like the idea of a historian or just flat out eliminating living story and adding worthwhile expansive content that stays (like southsun) would be better.

COMMUNITY IS TOXIC:

The community has grown overly toxic, frequently lashing on new players when the mechanics and just starting this game is already difficult enough. Better moderation is needed. ANET needs to show that they are serious about policing the game and issue frequent warnings to abusive players.

A reward system needs to be initiated for helping new players and can easily be tied to achievements to promote mentoring. Players that find a quick friend to teach them are more likely to stick around than someone who asks for help in map chat and gets lynched.

but …

guild wars 2 is already so much more simplified when compared against the original guild wars 1.

I didnt play gw1 and know nothing about the game when I started playing.

How much time did your friends spent on the game?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

but …

guild wars 2 is already so much more simplified when compared against the original guild wars 1.

Honestly, I found GW1 much more new player friendly than this game and a lot of it does stem from ambiguous or flat wrong tool tips. GW1 took a lot of design elements from MtG, or felt like it at least, and one of those was very clear, detailed skill descriptions that left no room for misunderstanding.

I don’t agree. I don’t find GW2 too complex for new players. You’re meant to learn while you play or as most people who have played MMOs will know: If you want to learn a bit about you’re class beforehand, then visit the forum. Before I buy a game I read about it, watch videos etc.

You’re right though that the balance between the classes isn’t good; the balance-patches are quite annoying as they often enough “destroy” builds.

A friend of mine bought GW2, leveled to around 10ish and never came back. His reason was that he prefers a different game (which he had been playing before). He probably doesn’t even know about any of the problems you have listed.

I don’t feel toxic.

I regularly end up walking new players through this or that convoluted by of procedure when I see requests for help in zone chat. We were all newbs once. I have a lot of help that was given to me when I was clueless I need to play forward .

lordhelmos.7623:

-Tool tips for traits and skills are frequently wrong or omit certain key elements of skills. I understand this is being worked but its the miniscule details about a skill that make it confusing to new players. For example, take a new player trying to use the ranger sword. There is no warning on this weapon about the self-root or that it is an advanced weapon, or that it even operates differently from other melee weapons.

Takes less than 10mins to try a sword on a ranger. If you like it, awesome. If you don’t it cuz you can’t control your ckitten’t use a sword on a ranger. That’s how I learn. No big deal.

lordhelmos.7623:

-Stat weight is complex in this game and difficult to understand. Namely, many people do not know that toughness is tied to mob aggro. A player might build with toughness thinking he wants to be more survivable but constantly dies because he is repeatedly being targeted by mobs and has no idea why. Even veteran players struggle with what the perfect stat balance is. Even worse, stat weight is different for every game mode. In PvP you need toughness to survive spikes. In PvE it draws aggro on you and makes you a tank. Players need better guidance on how to gear up.

That doesn’t sound like something new players have to be worried about. Pick a build. Play. See if you like it. Cost so little to re-trait. It’s no big deal.

lordhelmos.7623:

Tool tips need to be improved to clearly define attributes. Attributes that are more important to certain classes need to be flagged (precision/crit dmg for thieves and rangers, condition damage for engineers, toughness and healing power for guardians, etc.).

For build diversified, I suppose. I mean, everyone can use more Power. If your build goes around conditions, well, more condition duration. If you want more Crit, then more Precision. If you want more healing, well, healing power then. It’s almost common sense.

lordhelmos.7623:

-No standard build templates or in-game recommended generic builds to help new players. Build templates helped immensely for new players in Gw1. Players need a starting point to begin so that they can better understand why some trait/gear/skill combos go together and why. Players have to go to third party sites to get this information. There isn’t even anything helpful on the wiki.

Build diversify. Otherwise, Google is a kitten good place to go to. Every gamer should use Google.

lordhelmos.7623:

CLASS ROLES ARE NOT CLEARLY DEFINED/NOT BALANCED:

While the game has tried to move away from the tank/healer/dps idea, players become confused on what role their class is supposed to play. New players try to do too many things at once and become frustrated with weak builds. Players are omitted from parties because they picked the “wrong class” (IE not a guardian/war/mesmer).

There is no holy trinity. Roles are supposed to be blurred. Again, Google will help you here.

lordhelmos.7623:

Certain build combinations allow players to do multiple things too well (guardian with tanking and support). New players frequently become frustrated with their class if it is not easy to play (i.e., PVE thief, ranger, engineer). Some classes are too easy to play (faceroll on heavies).

I agree on Class Imbalance.

lordhelmos.7623:

Again, build templates would help with this. Better balance as well (I.E. clearly defined paths to roles for classes such as control, damage, support, healing). While each class does not have to have a clearly defined tank/dps/healer role, the purpose someone is in a party should be made clear (I.E. im here to kill stuff, drop boons like crazy, be a combofield bot).

Maybe skill ratings should be added to classes, such as what was done in TERA (Guardian 1 star, Mesmer 5).

Eh, just google stuff.

Not bashing you or anything. But the game comes out so long already. A bunch of information is already out there. All it takes is to look it up. Why don’t people look things up ? I started looking the crap out of any game I play, or plan to play. In Ragnarok Online days, I looked up Assassin skills and build. In WoW, I looked up builds for Druids. In XCOM, I look up Let’s Play. In Civ 5, I look up gameplay. Why don’t people look up something they’re interested in ???

Older MMO’s (you know, those games around before WoW and its clones) used to require creativity, exploring, experimenting and thinking.

There was very little to no “lead the player by the nose” directed play, or logging in to the game and within 2 minutes demanding the latest OP FotM class, spec and gear setup. Often rudely, with a sense of entitlement.

Heck, some games didn’t even have zone-wide chat.

Yes, GW2 does not provide pre-set “cookie cutter” builds and I hope it never does.

Got a question, ask in chat. It builds community.

Need specifics? In-game /wiki <topic> will almost always get you what you need. Need walk-throughs? Like every single other MMO since 2004, there are videos easily accessible just one internet search away.

Need a little more than that? Like any other game, check the forums. There are multiple stickies at the top of all the forum subsections. Some of the stickied thread titles include:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OMG-If-you-only-knew-this-tips-for-new-players

which oddly exists in the Players Helping Players forum. Another good place to get information.

I agree the temporary content is the worst addition to an MMO since gear-centric play. Other players love it. The concept is fantastic. The execution has been overly debated here.

You will always find “toxic” players in any MMO community. WoW and RIFT had some of the worse by far. Blizzard developers are responsible for a lot of that, and the blight of those kinds of players on the entire MMO genre. See: Jeff Kaplan, NYT interview for only one example.

Also, overall, communities and their cultures differ from server to server. The server I and my guild play on is one of GW2’s best.

Balance issues occur in every MMO. Especially those that contain both group and 1v1 PvP. WoW and RIFT had horrible issues there, many of which negatively impacted PvE.

As far as roles, there are multiple threads covering this concept, how players view them, how they execute them. If new players to the game are not open to exploring, experimenting, thinking and learning and instead, they are just hoping to find more of the same from WoW, RIFT and other clones, then yes, they may find the game feels “inaccessible”.

The game could do a bit more with guidance but on the other hand everyone was new at some point.

Op while I sympathize with new players to an extent because I know several new people- none of those things you listed is a factor for any of them.
There is a ton of info available on all those things.

When I started in the betas none of those resources existed- it is not really that hard to figure out- in fact we had a lot of fun doing so.

in game there are many people more than willing to help new players- GW2 has one of the best end friendliest communities I have ever seen

Zacchary.6183:

Dear god! OP said something negative about GW2! What is this world coming to!?!

What’s your problem? People are just sharing their opinion and the forum is full of criticism topics.
I don’t understand the goal of your post (except trolling).

Whenever I find a new player, I make a point of trying to help them. But I’m generally the only one who will bother to do so.

From talking with them, I’ve seen some that are discouraged by the lack of help in the early zones, or frustrated by the intrusion of confusing living story content that kicks their butts (because it doesn’t scale properly and is actually designed for visiting level 80’s – example: toxic offshoots). Some are also annoyed by the fact that they’ve missed the previous living story chapters.

I also found a newbie in Metrica province who ran up to me and exclaimed “OH MY GOD ANOTHER PLAYER! YOU’RE THE FIRST ONE I’VE SEEN!” He was like… Level 15 at least. I felt a bit sorry for him.

But some other new players seem fine with the early content because most of it is easily soloable. Or they latch onto a guild early and get shown the ropes, and they end up liking the game a lot. It’s really up to the individual. I’ve seen a mixed bag of reactions.

This is why we need more polls to determine whether players are actually satisfied with the game or not.

Everyone started out new and played the game just fine though. All they need to do is a play more.

starting tutorial shoul be improved to learn the basics.. thats all everyrhing else are jusy excuses..you can do pve in this game going all naked. At lvl 80 you can search for a serious build.

No offense, but if your friends left ‘cause they missed hints or guidance, then it’s maybe your fault too (to a lesser extent).

Why do I say that? I played something else before and almost everyone from my/our old clan we got to play GW2 stayed here – only a few left or aren’t very active, because they like the “WoW-clone” concept more. And yes, they felt a little lost too or weren’t willing to google/read a lot (now they do it to optimize their WvW/PvP builds, but if you start a game, you aren’t willing to read/google for hours).

So I/we helped them, leveled with them, explained them stuff and answered questions in TS. Wasn’t such a big deal, helped them a lot and let them stay here.

I don’t think, GW2 differs a lot from other games that were new at their time. When I started playing MMOs with the usual WoW clone, there weren’t many explanations either. Or big help. You had to learn almost everything on your own, like how the game works and what classes/builds are sh***y and which aren’t. The only MMO that was easy to learn was Ultima Online – and that only, because the game mechanic didn’t differ a lot from the original offline game.

I think, GW2 is quite easy to learn – even without googling – and anything, but not very complex. Maybe some areas and some classes are kinda hard to level or understand (compared to easymode/self explaining classes), sure.

Tooltips are wrong and misleading? Don’t know which, honestly. The main stuff works quite well. And what you describe as a big problem, like the toughness issue or that they don’t get an easymode build template – well, that’s the stuff you discover if you play a lot and isn’t very important while exploring the world and while “learning to play and understand” the game. Later, yes. But then usually people already decided to stay here and start asking questions in their guilds/mapchat like “How can I make more damage/survive – which gear is good for which class and why…”

Personally I completely disagree with the Op about accessibility to new players. I personally feel GW2 is one of the most accessible MMO to new players. The fact that you proclaimed WoW as more accessible makes me question the OPs logic as a whole. WoW takes an extremely longer amount of time to reach the level cap, and exponentially longer to learn the end game mob fights. Aion drove me away as a new player to it very quickly, I thought it was just a horrible experience. Rift isn’t too bad but I felt some of its systems were a bit overwhelming.

The game is unfamiliar to many players. It should be easier to INITIALLY get into and understand. It is the initial hook that determines if a player stays typically as well as the INITIAL experience at end game.

You should require effort after getting over that hurdle.

I agree with the OP in that better understanding of your role would help. Back in the old days of MMOs groups mattered because you simply couldn’t do as many things on a single character. The trend now is to allow characters to have heals, conditions, direct damage, a lil melee, a lil range all on one toon. So, you really MUST do a bit more to get people to understand how to play their class upfront and upfront again when they hit 80.

FateOmega.9601:

Everyone started out new and played the game just fine though. All they need to do is a play more.

The difference between GW2 at launch and now, is that the starting zones are now completely bereft of players.

The one exception is Queensdale, and only due to champion farming. People who build Sylvari or Asura characters basically wander through ghost towns and are unable to complete group events because there isn’t anyone to help.

This isn’t like the first game where you can hire henchmen to help you if you need them. You’re completely reliant on other players to complete many of the events of this game. It gets tougher if you are new, lacking good gear and haven’t nailed down your build yet.

Again, joining a guild or reading forums helps. But the game should provide all the tools and information the players need to figure out how the game works without needing to go to those lengths.

A player who continues to play and learn the game will eventually figure it all out and be OK, but all I’m trying to say is that the game probably isn’t as accessible to new players as it was a year ago.

How do they fix it? I dunno. They’ve obviously tried to help this situation by adding the location-based dailies (maguuman killer, ascalonian events completer, etc) to get people into early zones, and that’s commendable. I’m not sure what else they could really do.

Well, I play on Desolation, and I’ve yet to see anyone lash out at new players, I’ve yet to see deserted beginner areas (Well, it is Desolation after all. Maybe merging the low pop servers would help?)
I’ve yet to see beginners who are having difficulties with understanding the game mechanism… And I just introduced my GF to the game, it’s her first MMO even, and she is doing just fine.
The weapons make your builds for you, nobody is forced to play a certain style so you really can’t go wrong with your decisions (unless ya hang around kittyfolks)
the tooltips are quite accurate, and are not bogged with excess details that you can easily notice when you try the skills for the first time
Can’t really understand where you got that the game is inaccessible to new players.

If anything, it’s a bit too casual, it could be more complex or at least have the possibility for players to play it at higher level.