Guild Wars 2

Returned to game after a year, and now this I see this ‘new player experience’ – where you can not see vistas on the map, and can not see or interact with early skill point challenges – and it is actually.. less experience than when I played earlier.

How is it ‘experience’ if I can not find all (with map indications) and enjoy vistas in the new area with the new character I made? And why do I need to go back some time later (if I got it right?) to do that lvl5 skill point challenge? Flashy icons ‘oh you gained a new lvl’ is not a new experience, it’s just a flashy icon. And stuffing my face with ‘rewards’ for leveling up is kinda.. bottle feeding, right? Cutting off vistas and skill point challenges from the start – is also not a ‘new player experience’. It is ‘we are limiting content that you can enjoy for no reason’. So now starting anew is actually less fun than it was before.

Not sure if this is part of NPE but I really like the new log-off-box graphic, which appeared shortly after NPE.

To me the rocky texture and charcoal color remind me of a fantasy world of danger in that the color can easily be that of a tome stone. It also reminds me of dignity needed to conquer evil foes, etc. etc. Just the perfect mood-setting piece to get me to want to log back in to experience the world of GW2 again.

I can not say the same about the NPE leveling reward window. To me its flashy colors are somewhat cheap-looking, and remind me of one of those lesser FTP games wanting to “reward” me first so they can sell me junk later. The quality of their presentation of the “reward” is, to me, an indication of the lack of quality to come in the rest of the game.

Suggestion: It may mean more if the newbie reward window leads us into the immersive world that is GW2’s strength.

For example, the humans can get an ivory-stationery letter from the queen along with some rewards encouraging them to keep helping the Divinity endeavors, Chars could get a authoritative letter from their commander, Asuras from their lab research leaders…

Of all MMORPGs atm I’m only playing GW2. For me, GW2 is a cut above the rest of the MMORPGs because it has the best immersion.

That immersion feeling has been diminishing with NPE. The arrow which I turned off quickly. The newbie reward flashy window which I wince at each time. lol I guess I’m silly.

But the “New Dailies”, another hot button with many players, is the players don’t want to be told where to go.

Back in the days of Scarlet invasions, we players happily raced over to Scarlet invaded zones. Hey, no one complained back then about being told where to go.

Reason, difference in immersion. Scarlet events felt like there was a world with events going on. Not just a list like a teacher just gave us homework assignments.

Immersion is GW2’s best strength. It puts GW2 above all other mmorpgs on the market. I haven’t looked at all the other games yet. But lately I’m starting to think maybe I should. Sad to think this way, because I really love GW2 and hope it becomes a great chapter in MMORPG history.

Unfortunately in a gist perhaps to compete with other MMORPGS, I feel some of the best features of GW2 are being changed for “marketing”, for “new player retention in minutes of stay”, etc. This is going by spreadsheet, but ignoring the soul and the real quality of the game. I sincerely hope this will not cause GW2 to fail over time. Thank you.

Obviously this was a very pressing issue lol…. Seriously how many people are jumping around and trying to use illusionary leap at the same time. But yeah sadly I expect something to be broken. Meanwhile I’m sure warden is still broken with illusionary celerity.

The problem is that these players don’t fall into any of the existing report categories.

Reporting players for “Leeching” existed in the original Guild Wars.

Leeching still exists in GW2, but there is no way to report it.

They are not botting, because they are not using any third party software or macros…. they are literally afk farming and using pets/traits to get credit for events.

Anet just needs to up the afk boot timer in silverwastes.

I will get kicked from Divinity’s Reach for afking for one minute…. but I’ve seen AFK SW farmers there for hours and hours.

I was away from the game for a while and recently returned. I guess this so-called NPE is what has got me in a kerfuffle.

Why did you think you needed to change?

I didn’t think there was much wrong with the way things were.
I don’t think it’s necessary to cater to everyone’s whims, or to change to attract new players. People like the game or they don’t.
Stop trying so hard to please everyone. You’re losing players in the process.
Seems like GW2 has low self esteem.
This isn’t the game I paid for. Not sure if I like it anymore.
Old quests that were so much fun are now gone (eg. Danador’s hounds).
I can’t do my story until level 10 (Why not? Sheesh, just to try to foil key farmers? LAME.)
Unlocking skills at levels? Why? If anything, I would have preferred that it took LONGER to unlock each weapon skill as before, when you had to kill mobs to “learn”. That made sense.

Maybe my perception is skewed because I am not a new player and this is after all the New Player Experience.
I just have to say as a returning player, I miss my old game.

ANet… I used to love leveling. Absolutely love it. Leveling my alts was never a chore. It was fun to unlock weapons skills by using the weapons, progress through my personal story as slowly or quickly as I wanted, feel like I was slowly getting better as I got a trait point + skill point + passive stat increase per level…
It was smooth, realistic, polished. It made sense and never broke immersion in your lovely game. It didn’t feel like I was being handed anything (like gear) and I didn’t need to be handed anything. Drops worked fine.

Now… I don’t know whether to smile or grimace when I see that icon on the right side of my screen. I’ll get a spike in stats, or a bundle of trait points, maybe some information on some sort of “new” feature (that’s been there all along, just I’m only now being informed). Or even a non-reward like “You can now go play this dungeon!”
It disturbs my immersion, it’s not any more useful than the previous system, and it feels like someone’s handing stuff to me instead of me earning it, and expecting me to be excited.
Level-gating options as well (weapons skills, traits, WEAPON SWAPPING) is never good. Give the player a set of options at the start, and trust them enough to start experimenting once they feel ready. Trust their intuition. I maybe like to flatter myself that my intelligence is above-average, but I did get the downed state on my own when I saw it, no explanation needed.

Yes, some things like combo fields could have been explained better to me as a new player.
The dodge trainer is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. That is the way to teach players how to do things.
Maybe give them a tooltip or something once they make their first combo, or just set up a “training grounds” area (or instance) in the city where you can try out combos, learn dodging, hit dummies to get a feel for your skills, etc. If you want to you can talk to a trainer there to instantly unlock (aka buy) weapon skills or traits. Doesn’t that make sense? Not this kitten popup dialogue
Yes, some things about the old NPE could have used improvement.
But there were so many things I loved about it, and the new system doesn’t make up for its shortcomings in any tangible way, I feel.

I do like dividing the story into more cohesive “chapters”, but on the other hand, I don’t like the level-gating. Take that as you will, but it’s a more minor issue for me.

Just felt the need to add my voice here. “Please don’t try to fix what’s not broken.”

Torsailr.8456:

You mean like this?

Jaymee.1560:

One thing that always popped out to be by any mail that ArenaNet actually sends its player is… the Arena Logo is also in the letterhead. Nice big red lego right there, always tells me the email is official. It’s actually very hard to miss.
!https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/176799/gw218.jpg!

That does not always work, at least not immediately.

As an ironic case in point, I’ll cite my own experience with this one – been involved with the internet for well over 20 years now (thanks to college), and been a Unix Admin for almost that long too. But my heart still skipped a beat and freaked out a little when I got one of these (censored) emails this morning. :p

Thankfully, the first thing that caught my eye was the yellow text at the bottom, so I eventually deleted it and continued on. It was pretty well done actually (in English at least), and if it weren’t for the horribly mangled URL I probably would have been contacting ArenaNet directly to find out what in Grenth’s name was going on…

@Gaille – again, thanks for the heads-up, and the changes ArenaNet been making in this respect. But I think this highlights a opportunity to expand on the NPE. The old help did some highlighting of the in-game mail system – not always in the best ways, but at least it was covered. We seem to have lost that now. Would it be possible to add a new clickable on one of the early levels, to highlight mail again at least? A summary of your information here could (hopefully) get pushed out more to early players.

I’d also suggest a reminder of some sort – in game, not just here. The frequency for that type of notice is always tricky, but if you’ve got the ‘last login’ info for our accounts, it should not take much work to tailor things for individuals. Use your triggering system involved with logins perhaps? I dunno, but going the extra step could go a long way.

This morning I attained some in-game mail about my account being locked and “shut down.” It’s obviously an attempt to compromise an account but you and both know, some inexperienced user out there will use a link to “protect their account.”

If you get any sort of message like this in-game, remember:

1) Check the notice at the bottom. If it doesn’t have the Arena.net logo and it doesn’t say it’s from Arena.net themselves, it’s fake. Report and delete.

2) Arena.net will never warn you of a ToS breach. If you’re account meets the requirements of a ban, you’ll encounter an error trying to log in. No warning or in-game message attached.

3) Arena.net will never ask you for any kind of account information, such as a password. They don’t need it. If anyone every asks for such information in-game or by email, report it, in game and to Guild Wars 2 Support.

Protect. Your. Account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/66122673-Guild-Wars-2-Account-Security

Sacred Was Eldaron

Well, that’s a kittenty work around. Why not just reduce the duration? Also we don’t have that many movement skills out of combat, every class but necro and mesmer can stack swiftness. What’s the problem?

all I can say is 3 trait points at lvl 42 …. “REALLY” -o- sigh

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Umm… I never said it can’t be the other way around. But what you say is that there is so much wrong with NPE and it has to be fixed now or else you will be sorry!

Can you quote where I specifically stated that?

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

How the fudge do you know that!? Do you have the numbers? Do you know that there has to be a fix and that majority of the playerbase will make Anet disapointed if they do not “fix” this right away? Anet has employes who reeds the forums day and night and they have there eyes on other communites like reddit, Facebook, Twitter and more. I won’t say that they know what they are doing but atleast I beleave that Anet knows what they are doing. So if it takes over 4 months before it is “fixed” maby it means it is a hard nut to crack, or they are working on something different or you could be the minority and there won’t ever be a “fix” to your issues.

Hmm, all the forum posts, reddit posts, and the polls on this issue don’t really agree with you. Of course, you could just pretend that they don’t exist so you don’t have to deal with them.

Also, you’re assuming that Anet does everything 100% competently, which as we have seen since launch, is far from the case.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I have been playing many different MMO’s for many years now and I have had my opinions and suggestions about stuff… I have never had any of my suggestions come true but I know that they do listen to what I have to say and I know that my opinions are notet but it doesn’t mean they have to walk the path I wan’t them to since my opinions may be less good than some other opinions or something. What I mean is that it is good to have your opinions and giving your feedback is important for the gamedevelopers but don’t expect that your opinions and suggestions are always the best way to go. So to me it sounds like you think your opinions are number 1 and they have to listen to you or they are making a big mistake.

I think Palador summed this up better than I could:

Palador.2170:

ANet said that retaining more players was an important issue, and that’s why they made the NPE.

Given that, the lack of support to refine and adjust the NPE is bad, bordering on horrifying. If this is how they deal with a major game development initiative, then there’s something going seriously wrong somewhere.

So it looks like the issue is a but more complex than just “thinking your opinions are number 1.” If that is the case, then a lot of people apparently think that “that opinion is number 1.”

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

So, no fix in 4+ months.
There as been word about a fix to the Personal Story wich is the one that has most bugs and realy needs a fix.
The rest, does it need a fix?

Yes. The reasons why have been stated ad nauseaum. You can read them in this thread.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

A big update does not happen in one day, it needs programing, graphics, Bugtesting, more programing, more bugtesting, maby some more programing, maby more graphics, maby some story or atleast some script, and alot of other stuff I don’t know about, and a clearence from the top that it is ok to be released (I think) and finally it also has to wait until release day for this update.

I’ve seen far more obvious issues in games get fixed far quicker. So like I said, that reflects pretty poorly on Anet.

Vayne.8563:

Now where did I say that the forum people were a loud vocal minority? And why during an argument must you misquote me to try to make it sound like I’m saying something I’m not? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Interesting. So if someone said “It’s freezing outside!” and then I said that (s)he said that it was cold, that would be “misquoting him/her to try to make it sound like (s)he was saying something (s)he wasn’t?” I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Vayne.8563:

I doubt I’ve ever used the words vocal minority when talking about the forums and if I did it was a long time ago. Nor have I ever said the forum opinion doesn’t count. Those words never ever came out of my mouth, nor did I ever imply it.

I simply said that a majority on the forums doesn’t necessarily mean most players want something, which most people would read to be self-evident.

Umm, usually you say that in an attempted to dismiss those who disagree with you as part of the “vocal minority.” I guess it’s not as self-evident as you think.

Vayne.8563:

In fact, I’ve said many times over many posts that I don’t think any group actually has a majority of any size, and that I think most groups are minorities including the section of the fan base I represent. Which means no matter what Anet does, they’re likely to kitten off a percentage of the fan base.

The “any changes made will kitten off someone” argument went out the door since the very first patch.

Vayne.8563:

I do believe (as in this is my belief), that most players log into the game, kill some stuff, farm some stuff and log off, without ever visiting the forums or ever being aware of the deeper issues.

So people who play with the NPE aren’t aware of the NPE? I’m not really buying that.

Vayne.8563:

That doesn’t mean that’s said on the forums has not value. But it doesn’t mean that what’s said on the forums has absolute value either.

False dichotomy. There’s a middle ground between “having no value” and being the absolute authority. And I’d say the opinions of people who make the effort to voice their feedback and concerns hold a bit more weight than those who don’t. Not to mention that we also know what those people actually think (rather than just supposing what they think).

Vayne.8563:

People who speak for other people, they say thinks like “what people want” are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Because they’re implying they know what people want. They’re implying some sort of majority mandate (including the guy you’re agreeing with).

My post is more reasonable, because I’m not assuming I have a majority. I’m just not assuming you have a majority either.

Hmm, all the posts in this very thread, as well as on other threads, reddit posts, and polls disagree with you. Of course you could just keep pretending that they don’t exist (that whole “leading a horse to water thing”). That’s what SWTOR did in its first 1-2 years, and its playerbase and rep really suffered from it.

Vayne.8563:

Logically, however, people who level 1 character and never level a character again (there are many) aren’t likely to be affected by it and people like me, who level many characters aren’t particularly affected by it (at least not in a negative sense). I’m sure there are people who aren’t like me who level characters who are affected by it.

Perhaps, though that’s assuming that the players who leveled just 1 character weren’t disgusted though the post-NPE leveling process.

Vayne.8563:

It’s my belief that it’s not as many as you think, particularly after the first spate of changes.

Ah, but it’s quite possible that it’s not as many as you think, either. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the opposite opinion.

can i atleast have all my downed skills at lv 1 please?

One thing that always popped out to be by any mail that ArenaNet actually sends its player is… the Arena Logo is also in the letterhead. Nice big red lego right there, always tells me the email is official. It’s actually very hard to miss.

It may sound rude or whatever but… I don’t know, to me… when I have read such unbelievable forum posts on various topics regarding people woes about this game, to me, part of me feels that if you do not see the way ArenaNet properly dispenses mail in this game for which one cannot tell the difference between official mail and false player mail, then… to me you’re obviously not paying attention.

To me, the signs are as clear as day, and once I pointed those signs out to my husband, he dawned on him: “Hey, you’re right, it doesn’t have that red logo on it…”

(Beside the point, for those of you noticing and then wondering why, I haven’t decided which character to put the banker golem on yet, that’s why I never took it out.)

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Gaile, is there a reason why you guys can’t just prevent people from writing “Arenanet” in the subject line of in game mail? It seems like that would at least force scammers to write something else, which would in turn stop some slightly more unsuspecting people from accidentally believing the mail to be true.

Filters like this end up creating more work for the company and end up doing little. Say they prevent you from typing “Arenanet” in the subject line. Then:

• Scammers start writing “arenanet” and “arena-net” in the subject line.
• Players who were trying to let friends know that “arenanet is having a sale” get upset that they can’t type out a legit email.

So, the company updates the filter.

• Scammers now write, “arena•net” and “arena.net.”
• More players start getting annoyed and posting on the forums about how the company needs to lighten up on restrictions that hurt their game, too.

The problem is that filters don’t address the root cause, which is that there is easy money to be made from folks who don’t pay attention to the details in posts, emails, etc.

I’m all in favor of using technology to make our lives easier, but in this case, the problem is social, not technical — it cannot be resolved by software alone.

Problem is that the forums were made by contractors, and they’re long gone by now. Which means that (probably) there is nobody at Anet who can fix it currently. They’ll likely need to hire more contractors if they ever want to seriously address the problems with the forums, which, despite all the annoying bugs, still don’t prevent it from normal operation, so I rather doubt it’s high on the priority list.

Though, if you’re looking, Anet, I might be able to hook you up. Just sayin.

In the meantime I guess we can all just use a particular rhyme slang associated with a certain class of Londoners? (Hint: the word I’m looking for gets filtered out)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Charrbeque, you’re right. There are a few irritating glitches in the Word and Name Filter. I use a certain word all the time, but I’ve had to mentally remind myself to use “analyze” instead of a s ess (intentionally misspelled and spaced) because the latter is kittenized.

I’ll see what we can do about this, and I heard there was some progress made on updating the filter.

If anyone else wants to share harmless words that are unnecessarily censored, please add ’em here (but remember they may be filtered so… get creative!)

Haha, permission to intentionally abuse the chat filter! :P

Idk. After all this time I’ve learned to translate kitten.

And learned all sorts of new dirty words from trying to figure out what was kittened in a sentence. It’s been an education. :P

Gaile Gray.6029:

Charrbeque, you’re right. There are a few irritating glitches in the Word and Name Filter. I use a certain word all the time, but I’ve had to mentally remind myself to use “analyze” instead of a s ess (intentionally misspelled and spaced) because the latter is kittenized.

I’ll see what we can do about this, and I heard there was some progress made on updating the filter.

At the end of the day, the problem is the same as some other issues here and an issue that you have stated bugs you personally, the forums really need a change/upgrade.

as a returning player (I kinda stopped playing at the end of the living story season 1, and came back recently), I have to say that I don’t think the NPE was an improvement at all.

I think the upsides would be:
- the loot from level-up rewards is nice
- weapon skills have a lower ceiling (old method could be very grindy on some occasions (looking at you elementalist))

the downsides, which go from disappointing to occasionally enraging:
– the change to stat increases. i know the new way is meant to feel more “rewarding”, but instead, it feel jittery, leaving you under-skilled between skill increase levels. I preferred the older, smoother methods.
– the bottom line for weapon skills has sky rocketed. this is where new players are gonna be, and several levels of monotony in weapon skills isn’t incentive for anyone to keep playing.
– not being able to rally a low levels? that’s just punishing new players. it’s not cool, and it’s not helpful. same with underwater combat and such.
– the way the story now works – ignoring the inconsistencies and plot holes – is just boring. like the stat increases, you took a beautiful, smooth thing and turned it into a spiky mess.
– increased level requirements for traits and other such things. for new players, this probably doesn’t help much. for older players, it’s just irritating.

overall:
- you took a lot of smooth things and made them far less smooth. this is bad.
– for the story, it ruins the flow, ruins the feel, and leaves people less interested. that’s
not what a story should do.
– for stats – what’s the point of levelling up if you’re not a little better?
- you took a lot of content and placed silly restrictions on it. new releases should add
stuff, but you took away what we had. you tried to fix what wasn’t broken.

mostly, I just don’t get why you’d take what was a wonderful and functional part of the game, and make it uninteresting, restrictive, and less fun – especially when there are far more urgent issues with the game – things that need fixed.

First of all I’m not new. I’ve played for over a year and a half.

I made a new character 2 weeks ago-ish. I tried it from scratch and I will actually be constructive.

So without further ado, the pros:

1. Not nearly as much was changed as I expected
2. I actually feel pleased with opening up the levelup rewards, despite whether or not I like them
3. Some of the rewards from levelups are actually good

The cons:

1. A lot of things are level gated for no apparent reason and it seems really pointless. Some of the things are pretty basic too. An example of this is weapon swapping. I couldn’t weapon swap on my guardian until level 27..? Why…?
2. The level at which traits are accessible is kind of ridiculous.
3. Many of the equipment rewards given have horrible stats, like “Shaman’s” that have no purpose in any gamemode. They also cannot be salvaged, so they are useless.
4. I feel discouraged to do the personal story because I feel immediately detached to it knowing that I won’t be able to do it unless I grind map completion or something else for quick levels. By the time I get to the level needed, I’ve lost interest.

Suggestions:

1. Either let us salvage/vendor the items we’re getting from levelups or let us choose relevant stats please. Pretty sure no one needs vitality + healing power when leveling up in open world.
2. Instead of level gating literally everything, why not just take a more reasonable route? Instead of the level gating you could simply learn things from ingame activities/tutorials. Specific ingame activities that are heavily incentivized would be a lot nicer than forcing everyone to spam the first few skills of a weapon over and over again.
3. Allow us to have access to traits earlier please. I’m cool with the way they’re unlocked but maybe add an actual reward per trait unlock? Doesn’t have to be much, but it feels too much like a chore and I can’t imagine many people caring about actually going out into the world and doing everything to unlock them. Most people would probably rather spend the skill points, since so many utilities on all classes are just about useless.

I have nothing to mention about improving the personal story that wouldn’t involve a complete rework which I’m sure they would never bother with, so I’ll refrain from suggesting anything for it.

Anyways, here’s my relatively short post about it.

I really don’t play this game often and when I do, it’s as a stress reliever. Given the huge gaps in my play time, this new update sets me at a disadvantage. The story lines being set every few levels reminded me of what I was supposed to achieve. I would do the other quests just to level up to my story line. Now I don’t even know what level my story line is and now have no goal to work up to because it doesn’t show up. I’m very disappointed with this update and it really makes me consider just removing the game. It wasn’t broken before the update….. please revert to the last update.

Unlocking the skills as you used the weapons made sense and was much more fun than everything being level gated, it followed the players progression.

Bellizare.5816:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

if it helps some new people so be it.

Does it though? Does it really help new players? If it even confuses veteran players like me and make it harder for us then how the heck is this supposed to help new players?

I don’t know many new players, but I know one, and I know he is super confused with the NPE. He just couldn’t understand how/why he had so much trouble defeating a lvl 9 bandit as a level 9 guardian. He started blaming himself. I told him it wasn’t his fault and I told him about the “thresholds” and that at lvl 9 you’re really just lvl 4. Then he was even more confused.

I would really like to hear input from other new players who started playing after the NPE. I don’t think the NPE achieved what Anet hoped it would achieve.

I was just thinking on this. New players can not relate to the changes, as they are new players.

They have no clear idea of how seriously nerfed their gaming experience is. If they did, they would most likely quit in despair.

On the other hand, “vets” know exactly what has been lost in the whole leveling process. Our input here seems to revolve around how to avoid NPE and traits changes, by using our accumulated wealth and privileges. (Which kind of indicates to me that experienced players actually don’t really like the changes).

So, help every new player you find. They really need it.

I’ve been playing for about a month now, so like Bellizare says, this is the only GW2 I’ve ever seen.

For what it’s worth, NPE per se wasn’t that big a deal to me. The first few levels were annoyingly limited (oh, there are things called skill challenges and vistas? Better retrace my steps and do the ones I didn’t know existed when I was near them…). But by the mid to high teens enough of a character is unlocked that it starts to seem like a reasonable game. And for alts, at least those initial annoyingly limited levels pass very quickly, and one can see and do the skill points and vistas on those characters from the start.

The difficulty does feel jumpy sometimes with the concentrated stat increases (I gather it used to be +a little bit every level, instead of the current +a lot every six levels?). It’s no coincidence that level 9 keeps coming up, since there’s a stat increase at level 10 and characters thus may be a bit weaker than they should be at 9. I had the same problem on my mesmer and elementalist, some tough times at 9, come back a level or two later and smoke those same mobs that had been stomping me. But nothing wrong with having a challenge; at worst in cases like that you just come back a bit later.

I’ve read something about the old method of unlocking weapon skills on a per-weapon basis by (shockingly) actually using the weapon. That sounds pretty neat to me; more interesting than the current system. Now by the time I actually have access to multiple weapon choices, I just look over the weapon section of my skills panel, work out which one(s) suit me best, and move on from there. Not having weapon choices is of course another facet of the “very early levels are annoyingly limited” complaint.

On the other hand the trait system is just horrible; a potentially interesting idea with just about the worst possible implementation. Might not be game-breaking, but definitely alt-killing. I consider my alts to have a de facto level cap around 30 – I might make an exception for my guardian since I’m finding I like that class a lot, but the rest will languish around 30ish until/unless Anet fixes the trait system. Which from what I’ve seen in the huge trait thread seems unlikely after this much time.

But April 2014 trait revamp != Sept. 2014 NPE change, so that’s not particularly relevant here.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

if it helps some new people so be it.

Does it though? Does it really help new players? If it even confuses veteran players like me and make it harder for us then how the heck is this supposed to help new players?

I don’t know many new players, but I know one, and I know he is super confused with the NPE. He just couldn’t understand how/why he had so much trouble defeating a lvl 9 bandit as a level 9 guardian. He started blaming himself. I told him it wasn’t his fault and I told him about the “thresholds” and that at lvl 9 you’re really just lvl 4. Then he was even more confused.

I would really like to hear input from other new players who started playing after the NPE. I don’t think the NPE achieved what Anet hoped it would achieve.

I was just thinking on this. New players can not relate to the changes, as they are new players.

They have no clear idea of how seriously nerfed their gaming experience is. If they did, they would most likely quit in despair.

On the other hand, “vets” know exactly what has been lost in the whole leveling process. Our input here seems to revolve around how to avoid NPE and traits changes, by using our accumulated wealth and privileges. (Which kind of indicates to me that experienced players actually don’t really like the changes).

So, help every new player you find. They really need it.

Vayne.8563:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well i died today on my level 9 guardian to two or 3 scale monsters. How is that related to NPE? Well, maybe if I had my virtue of resolve (passive regen), first slot skill (sword of justice for example) and most of all my downed skills fully unlocked it would go differently.

But no, game wants to make this easier on me, but taking away my ability to properly defend myself at earlier levels when i screw up with my first 4 skills (cause 5th is still locked at lvl 9).

How is this better then the old system that gave me freedom far earlier and let me battle with with all my downed skills available from the start? You figure it out, i’m writing this off as abomination of a change that should be removed a.s.a.p.

You’re right. Anet really didn’t think this through. Right now you should always stick to content that’s at least 4 levels below your current level or else it will be much harder.

Before the NPE I could easily finish the starter map (for example Queensdale) on a new character without much trouble. I would usually fight against mobs 1 or 2 levels higher than me but that wasn’t an issue, it was doable. Then at the end of Queensdale I’d be roughly lvl 13, that’s 2 levels below the recommended level for Kessex Hills but again, no biggie, with proper gear, weapon swap and all my class abilities available I could easily handle it.

Now, after the NPE, I struggle going through the content designed for my own level. I can no longer do Queensdale in 1 sitting because right now I can barely kill enemies my own level, nevermind enemies 2 or 3 levels above me. I’m forced to do bits and pieces of the other starter maps to level up more quickly and then stick to content that is below a few levels my character level until I reach lvl 31. Only after lvl 31 does this problem somewhat go away, but the first 30 levels are a pain in the butt to go through now. lvl 1 to 15 are the worst.

I’ve yet to struggle through any content with an NPE profession of any class. I mean people have been complaining for ages that the game is too easy in the open world. Add a modicum of challenge (and that’s all it is) and suddenly people are up in arms.

I’ve leveled 4 characters after the NPE, including a mesmer and necro and had very few problems with any of them. At times it might have seems a bit more challenging, but only a bit…and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

I do dungeon/factals speedruns on a daily basis and I know Arah like the back of my hand. I’m more than familiar with the mechanics of this game and the most difficult PvE content of this game. I’m not a newbie nor am I incompetent by any means.

I agree that GW2 is too easy. But does making the early game content frustratingly limited by removing 90% of all the mechanics from the early game fix that?

I’m all for more difficult content or increasing the difficulty of the game, but not in the (unintentional?) way Anet chose with the NPE. Taking away previously available mechanics and redistributing stat gains to arbitrary and confusing “thresholds” is not challenging or fun in way, it’s simply frustrating and kittening off both new and veteran players.

What’s next? Taking away our number 6 heal skill until you reach a certain level? How about removing the dodging mechanikittenil you reach a certain level? Would you support that? Would that make the game more challenging in a fun way?

You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Considering I get to level 15 in less than an hour and a half, this is just a non-issue. It’s easy and fast to get to level 15 when most of the locked stuff is unlocked.

On top of that, we now get level up scrolls just for logging in, as well as PvP.

Is it a minor inconvenience for many people? I’m sure it is.

But since 1.5 hours is only a tiny percentage of a character’s lifespan, it’s hard to really imagine it being that big a deal. It’s fast, you get through it, if it helps some new people so be it.

Hmm, an hour and a half reading a book is somewhere between 60 and 100 pages for me. If you were reading a book and the first 100 pages, several chapters, were not enjoyable would you honestly keep reading?

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Does it though? Does it really help new players? If it even confuses veteran players like me and make it harder for us then how the heck is this supposed to help new players?

I don’t know many new players, but I know one, and I know he is super confused with the NPE. He just couldn’t understand how/why he had so much trouble defeating a lvl 9 bandit as a level 9 guardian. He started blaming himself. I told him it wasn’t his fault and I told him about the “thresholds” and that at lvl 9 you’re really just lvl 4. Then he was even more confused.

I would really like to hear input from other new players who started playing after the NPE. I don’t think the NPE achieved what Anet hoped it would achieve.

Well I know some people that tried the game before the NPE, tried it after, and found it much easier to figure out the second time. But I also know some people that found it confusing.

The thing was, originally, there was no real guidance of where to go and what to do. The NPE also includes that nifty arrow, and that helps lots of people. Some people really do want to just follow an arrow around it seems.

No real guidance? Are you kidding me?

So scouts and hints and mail notifications about new content you unlocked isn’t real guidance? LOL okay….

I’m by no means an MMO expert (I only really played 2 MMOs, WoW and GW2) yet I thought vanilla GW2 already had too much hand-holding at the start of the game. It most certainly didn’t need even more hand-holding (though the new compass is nice, I’ll give you that).

Besides, you forget to address my biggest complaint, the arbitrary “stat thresholds” and needlessly hiding class mechanics until I reach a certain level. How is this supposed to help anyone?

Yes I would like an answer to this

Vayne.8563:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Does it though? Does it really help new players? If it even confuses veteran players like me and make it harder for us then how the heck is this supposed to help new players?

I don’t know many new players, but I know one, and I know he is super confused with the NPE. He just couldn’t understand how/why he had so much trouble defeating a lvl 9 bandit as a level 9 guardian. He started blaming himself. I told him it wasn’t his fault and I told him about the “thresholds” and that at lvl 9 you’re really just lvl 4. Then he was even more confused.

I would really like to hear input from other new players who started playing after the NPE. I don’t think the NPE achieved what Anet hoped it would achieve.

Well I know some people that tried the game before the NPE, tried it after, and found it much easier to figure out the second time. But I also know some people that found it confusing.

The thing was, originally, there was no real guidance of where to go and what to do. The NPE also includes that nifty arrow, and that helps lots of people. Some people really do want to just follow an arrow around it seems.

No real guidance? Are you kidding me?

So scouts and hints and mail notifications about new content you unlocked isn’t real guidance? LOL okay….

I’m by no means an MMO expert (I only really played 2 MMOs, WoW and GW2) yet I thought vanilla GW2 already had too much hand-holding at the start of the game. It most certainly didn’t need even more hand-holding (though the new compass is nice, I’ll give you that).

Besides, you forget to address my biggest complaint, the arbitrary “stat thresholds” and needlessly hiding class mechanics until I reach a certain level. How is this supposed to help anyone?

Vayne.8563:

if it helps some new people so be it.

Does it though? Does it really help new players? If it even confuses veteran players like me and make it harder for us then how the heck is this supposed to help new players?

I don’t know many new players, but I know one, and I know he is super confused with the NPE. He just couldn’t understand how/why he had so much trouble defeating a lvl 9 bandit as a level 9 guardian. He started blaming himself. I told him it wasn’t his fault and I told him about the “thresholds” and that at lvl 9 you’re really just lvl 4. Then he was even more confused.

I would really like to hear input from other new players who started playing after the NPE. I don’t think the NPE achieved what Anet hoped it would achieve.

Vayne.8563:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well i died today on my level 9 guardian to two or 3 scale monsters. How is that related to NPE? Well, maybe if I had my virtue of resolve (passive regen), first slot skill (sword of justice for example) and most of all my downed skills fully unlocked it would go differently.

But no, game wants to make this easier on me, but taking away my ability to properly defend myself at earlier levels when i screw up with my first 4 skills (cause 5th is still locked at lvl 9).

How is this better then the old system that gave me freedom far earlier and let me battle with with all my downed skills available from the start? You figure it out, i’m writing this off as abomination of a change that should be removed a.s.a.p.

You’re right. Anet really didn’t think this through. Right now you should always stick to content that’s at least 4 levels below your current level or else it will be much harder.

Before the NPE I could easily finish the starter map (for example Queensdale) on a new character without much trouble. I would usually fight against mobs 1 or 2 levels higher than me but that wasn’t an issue, it was doable. Then at the end of Queensdale I’d be roughly lvl 13, that’s 2 levels below the recommended level for Kessex Hills but again, no biggie, with proper gear, weapon swap and all my class abilities available I could easily handle it.

Now, after the NPE, I struggle going through the content designed for my own level. I can no longer do Queensdale in 1 sitting because right now I can barely kill enemies my own level, nevermind enemies 2 or 3 levels above me. I’m forced to do bits and pieces of the other starter maps to level up more quickly and then stick to content that is below a few levels my character level until I reach lvl 31. Only after lvl 31 does this problem somewhat go away, but the first 30 levels are a pain in the butt to go through now. lvl 1 to 15 are the worst.

I’ve yet to struggle through any content with an NPE profession of any class. I mean people have been complaining for ages that the game is too easy in the open world. Add a modicum of challenge (and that’s all it is) and suddenly people are up in arms.

I’ve leveled 4 characters after the NPE, including a mesmer and necro and had very few problems with any of them. At times it might have seems a bit more challenging, but only a bit…and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

I do dungeon/factals speedruns on a daily basis and I know Arah like the back of my hand. I’m more than familiar with the mechanics of this game and the most difficult PvE content of this game. I’m not a newbie nor am I incompetent by any means.

I agree that GW2 is too easy. But does making the early game content frustratingly limited by removing 90% of all the mechanics from the early game fix that?

I’m all for more difficult content or increasing the difficulty of the game, but not in the (unintentional?) way Anet chose with the NPE. Taking away previously available mechanics and redistributing stat gains to arbitrary and confusing “thresholds” is not challenging or fun in way, it’s simply frustrating and confusing both new and veteran players.

What’s next? Taking away our number 6 heal skill until you reach a certain level? How about removing the dodging mechanic ’til you reach a certain level? Would you support that? Would that make the game more challenging in a fun way?