Guild Wars 2

timmyf.1490:

Harper.4173:

Luckily he got a level 20 exp scroll and fixed the issue that way – but honestly – whoever is giving good feedback on the NPE must be very strange.

My guild has a handful of new players – mostly LOTRO players who were bullied into getting GW2 by old clan-mates. They all have nothing but positive feedback about the systems so far. I haven’t heard a single complaint about leveling taking too long or being boring. They’re just enjoying the game.

You can assume they’re “strange” because you disagree. I prefer to think that veteran players are not the target audience of the NEW player experience.

The person in the example he gave had never played an MMO before GW2, and had only made it to level 10 here. Hardly a veteran.

I just want to add something to this thread. It is relevant since it occurred recently.

A friend of mine picked up the game about a year ago – played it for about 10 levels and had to put it down because of too much work and RL stuff interfering.

Recently ( past 2-3 days) he’s been able to get back into the game and we started playing together.

The NPE thing really threw him off. Skills he previously had access too as well as things he could previously do were gone.

Now this person has had very limited experience with gaming having only played one game prior to GW2 – that game being a MOBA – Dota 2.

GW2 is the first MMO he’s played. He’s not experienced and his biggest gripes with the game came from controlling the camera.

All that aside he couldn’t see how the new NPE system is in any way helpful by restricting and boxing you in.
It wasn’t easier for him, just more frustrating.

Luckily he got a level 20 exp scroll and fixed the issue that way – but honestly – whoever is giving good feedback on the NPE must be very strange.

I agree with 99% of what you said OP. The only point I disagree with you on are the level up, and personal story rewards. I quite like them and think they are great. Since the NEP I’ve stopped leveling alts. Thanks to the daily login rewards I’ll have my 3rd level 80 my the end of this daily reward cycle. The feast of my 5 alts range fom level 21-42, and thanks to the NEP, I’ll probably just tomb my way through my other alts, the ones under level 30 anyway. I would love a way to turn off the NEP level locked weapon skills. It’s the one thing I hate the most. I could live with the rest of it, just not the level locked weapons skills off hand and weapon swap.

And here above, ladies and gentlemen, from CaelumTerra we have the input most of us have been pointing out:

New and old players hate this dumbing down and hand holding (not to mention limiting our choices).

But I’ve read some people that actually like this. No problem. No. Problem. Watch:

(queue character creation screen)

“Would you like to start out playing Guild Wars 2 how it was originally, or would you like us to tell you what and when you can do something? Play it your way? Or ours?”.

(/end character creation)

And here you would put back the code you ripped off the game, so anyone that actually liked what you made so well, can play.

Stop fixing what isn’t broken. There are still bugs in the dungeons that came out with the game.

I decided to make my first post on the forum to agree with the op. I took a break from the game a while back and came back to try to get at least one 80 character(casual player). It has been a really frustrating experience because of everything the op mentioned. I took a break from the game because I couldn’t get my friends to try the game. Now with these changes, I would not want to recommend the game because leveling has become a chore. ArenaNet is insulting players by lvl gating content instead of just making a proper help section built into the game. If you want to hook people into a game you try to give them as much fun as possible as early as possible. Pressing 1 and watching your character auto attack bandits for hours is not fun.

I’m a relatively new player here. I started last August (about a month before NPE was released). I’ve been monitoring this thread ever since the September but I kept quiet about the issue so far because I didn’t want to reiterate things already said. Now, I think it’s about time to speak up in order to pressure Anet to do something about this.

I leveled my main to 60 pre-NPE and maxed him out post-NPE. I also leveled an alt to 50 after NPE’s release. To me, a new player at the time, the experience was horrible.

Things I am annoyed with

• Hiding content from me. One of my best experiences as a new player was finding out what the marks on the map mean. My early discovery of a vista was the reason I felt compelled to explore the world of Guild Wars 2. Personal grievances aside, I can’t see how something so simple needs to be hidden at all.
• Grouping the personal story into chapters. Apparently some people really like abstaining for 10 levels and completing the personal story in chunks but I am not one of those people. I rush into the story as soon as they become available. This change is really annoying because the previous system could have easily catered to both types of players but Anet chose to dictate a norm. I think this is a general problem of the NPE: a disregard of play-style preferences.
• Universal unlock for weapon skills. I loved the previous system. It gave me time to learn each weapon. I do not understand how the new system is more new-player-friendly if you’ll get 5 new unfamiliar skills as soon as you decide to switch weapons.

Things I hate

• Locking skills based on level. Creating a new character has become frighteningly tedious. For the first mission, all I can do is press 1. Please do not underestimate me; it does not take the average person more than a minute to understand AUTO-ATTACK. I guess the problem is that it’s horribly slow. I’ve already done all there is to do with my currently available skills but the system refuses to give me the next thing and forces me to grind.
• Stat Increments. I hate it because it’s very deceptive. As said in previous posts, player level and monster level indicate different things. Someone already said it really convincingly with numbers so I don’t feel the need to elaborate.

Things that are obviously wrong

• The personal story changes. The plot line is obviously messed up. I stopped doing the story when I finished The Source of Orr. I hated it. I didn’t know what the kitten was happening. What other eyes? Who’s Sayeh al’Rajihd? Why does she know me? What Temple of Abaddon?
• Missing fear story arc. I was really looking forward to the effects of my choice in A Light in the Darkness. But I defeated the Sovereign Eye and there was still nothing. Then later, I find out that some of the character references that I wasn’t aware of were pointing to characters found in this arc. It’s horrible. You could’ve at least fixed the text boxes. I seriously doubt that that’s too hard to do.

While I would love for all these issues to be addressed, I think it’s more important to fix the ones that are obviously wrong. If it takes a lot of time and resources as you say, then please tell us what you have so far.

Traits:

Putting this in this thread because I think it was by far the best Traits system: http://web.archive.org/web/20101202160501/http://guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/traits-overview/

Level gated weapon/profession skills:

I agree, the changes to the weapon skills doesn’t make any sense at all. The old system allowed more experimentation and faster unlocks. Their reason for the change was that sometimes you had no skills with a weapon unlocked if you first used a weapon after some levels. But unlocking the skills didn’t take more time than killing a couple of enemies anyway so I can’t understand that change at all.

level up rewards:

You are wrong here. You get way way more (and better) rewards now. You get extra crafting materials, gem store boosters, even high rarity items from the level up rewards (at later levels). The new system offers way more rewards than the old one (because the old one didn’t have any rewards at all)

One more thing to add that the NPE changed is how low level enemies have abilities marked under their names like “Poison” or “Bleeding” yet they inflict no conditions (remnants of their pre-NPE abilities) it’s a minor thing, just a text, but I think it might be even more confusing for new players. “Hey it says that it applies poison, it hit me yet I see no poison effect!”

You too? Man, how many other people are going to make NPE posts today besides myself? I thought it has all already been said lol. I’m glad to know that at least I am not alone in my feelings about the NPE. For a while there I thought it was little old me against the NPE.

afterthoughts:
Yes, I realize that this level gating stuff isn’t so bad since the first few levels are usually achieved rather quickly, but I still feel the level gating after the NPE’s implementation is unnecessary. It might be useful as an option for the first few characters on a new account that does not have an 80. I think it would be wonderful if veteran players like myself were given the option to turn off all or parts of the NPE (really, just the level gating of weapon skills, profession skills, off-hand use, downed state, underwater combat). The level gating of the traits is tolerable as it is now, but I liked it better when I could start tinkering at lvl 11. The original level gating was fine as it was, but I digress. Thank you for bringing back elite skills to a level lower than 40. 31 is still odd to me compared to the original 30, but that’s what tomes are for, right? Thanks for letting us interact with vistas and skill points again.

Yes, I know I’m just repeating what many others have already said, but I’m just doing as Gaile (and other players in map chat) asked.

level up rewards:
The level up rewards are ‘better’, according to some. All I see, though, is a system that was already good being chopped into smaller chunks, separated, and each part locked behind level gating. It’s the same rewards given out differently. Now every few levels you get info about something else in the game. One level mentions crafting, another mentions underwater combat, and another lets you know that PvP exists. While I’m all for receiving new information, I feel it is better if the information is immediately available for reference via the in-game help window (like how we used to have a question mark icon that is now gone). It’s crazy, I know, but a little reading and a little effort to seek out information goes a long way. When I first played the game, 2 minutes of reading that ‘help’ window and I had all the information I needed. Now, a new player has to wait several levels to receive that same information from the game unless they ask in chat how things work. That takes more than 2 minutes. Shoot it takes longer to beat the boss of the introductory level 1 instances.

To summarize: you fixed what wasn’t broken. It was fine as it was before.

off-hand weapon level gating:
So having an off-hand weapon that only offers 2 additional skills is somehow too complex for a low level character? Maybe for a brand new player who is still learning how to use a computer would this make sense, but to the vast majority of people who are quite intelligent, this is nothing more than a needless limitation. I’m pretty sure people understand the concept of a shield and what it does and how it is used. You press a button, you block attacks.

To summarize: the weapon skill level gating really does nothing more than limit gameplay at early levels. Oversimplification in the form of option limiting is not fun.

weapon swap level gating:
I wont repeat myself too much on this one (read: people are intelligent beings). The original requirement of level 7 was fine as it was. Changing the requirement to more than double the level, yeah I don’t understand the reasoning behind it, but what do I know? I’m just a player of the game who now dreads the idea of leveling a new character and the limitations put in place that weren’t there before.

personal story level gating:
This one is actually okay. It’s kind of neat to be able to power through solid ten-level sections to get a story told. I used to do that sort of thing anyway prior to the NPE. I would level up by doing zone completions and mapping out the capitol cities and do personal story in chunks. You guys just took what I already did and made it the default for everyone. It makes the story telling more coherent.

However, after having already leveled up multiple characters and replaying through the personal stories, I ended up using them purely to get chunks of xp every so often to do zone completions more efficiently. Say I was in a level 25-35 zone, and I was lvl 30 with most of the zone finished. I would bounce around between the other 25-35 zones and fill in the level gaps. Personally I preferred to stay in the zones appropriate for my level and do all the hearts and chain events for xp. When I was 1 or 2 levels off from the level cap of the zone, I would do one or two personal story instances to push my xp bar to those last two levels for that zone. I’d rinse and repeat for each zone, leveling up my characters using a combination of zone completions, personal story in small chunks, the occasional dungeon, and nowadays EotM as well.

To summarize: you made doing what I already did mandatory for everyone.

level gated downed state:
This makes a little sense considering no other game that I know of has this feature. Most players are used to just dying when their health reaches 0. I don’t really have any complaints or issues with this one (especially since I know better than to bite more than I can chew as a low level and thus will likely not go down until much later anyway). At least it’s not behind a much higher level gate.

level gated underwater combat:
Considering underwater combat is just a small portion of the game, it kind of makes sense to have it introduced at a later level. At the same time, though, it kind of discourages early exploration. I’m indifferent on this one.

Level gated weapon/profession skills:
This feature… I was trying to like it, I really was. But no matter how much I tried, it always felt the same: needlessly limiting. I had a lot more enjoyment out of killing groups of foes to unlock skills. I also used to get excited when I got a new weapon and had to take the time to get a really good feel for the weapon, which also happened to unlock more skills as I did. By the time I unlocked skill 5, I had enough of an understanding of how the weapon functioned and how to best use it in whatever situation.

“I can stun, bleed, block, bleed, leap, bleed, stab really hard, bleed some more, and slash like crazy and bleed even more. Got it. Now, what stat combination is best for my character’s condition damage?” That was my thought process, not “holy crap 5 skills is too complicated! I can’t handle this! Wait, I have a skill on F1 as well? OMG MY BRAIN IS FRIED!” Now, a new player has to wait several levels before they can even begin to understand what a weapon is capable of. If I can do what I did, so can they. Plus, the starting instances can get really boring when playing as an elementalist with only a dagger and one skill with one simple animation making the exact same sound over and over for about 2 minutes until the boss dies. I could not press 1 fast enough and hard enough to make it end because of the limitations you guys set in place.

The profession skills being locked also feels totally unnecessary. When I first played your game (WAY before release, I might add), the concept of using skills was very easy to understand. The saying was that this NPE was to make the game more user friendly, easier to understand given the (hardly) complex nature of the game, and overall simplified. I really would like to know where you guys got the idea that pressing 1-5 is too complex for people who uses computers on the daily anyway. 12 year old kids can look up pornography on the internet but somehow can’t press 2-3 keys to play a game? Come on.

I jokingly berate people and call them stupid and such, but for the most part the majority of people are intelligent and can figure out “pressing 1 does this, pressing 2 does that. If I press 4 before I press 1 I can get a nice little combo going.” The original Guild Wars even added a feature to make skill descriptions more concise and to the point (it was optional and could be turned on or off in the options window). That meant less words to read and still getting the point across about what a skill did.

To summarize: you ended up treating your players as if reading is such a daunting task whereas your predecessors realized that your players were intelligent people that can read and put 2 and 2 together.

Since Gaile and a few other players in map chat were kind enough to let me know I really have not given enough input for the NPE, allow me to rectify this now. I thought I already had made a post with my input, but I guess I was mistaken. Here is the input you all requested. It is a lot, so it will be spread to multiple posts in this thread.

So the NPE. I once made a character and started leveling it to try things out. For the most part I don’t like it, but it did do some things that I like. To this day I have not tried leveling a new character in order to avoid the NPE. I’ve started farming tomes and now writs of experience as well, in order to circumvent the NPE as much as possible (including the use of scrolls for instant 20). I used to level characters quickly to reach the satisfaction of level 80. Now, I seek to avoid being anything other than level 80 in order to stay as far away from the limitations of the NPE as possible. For me it is mostly bad, but not all bad.

Traits:
I LOVE that it encourages and entices players to explore the world to unlock traits. That is a brilliant way to engage the players. It is even better that you can outright buy the specific traits you want for a small and reasonable fee.

I dislike that you can’t unlock them until a much later level (30 if I remember correctly). It made my character feel a little underpowered considering I couldn’t increase my base power and such a little bit with each level to match the pacing of leveling. Yes, I realize that every few levels you get an even increase to all base stats automatically, but between each increase it left me feeling underpowered. Yes, the large sudden increase is cool and all, but leading up to is feels like an unnecessary chore.

To summarize: the exploration incentive is great. The higher level cap feels more like an annoyance for veteran players than a significant aid to new players. But I am honestly surprised you didn’t also do away with traits all together and just made every class have only one way to play, ‘meta’ or not, since reading to understand how different traits and skills can work together is so difficult (see next point for elaboration on what I mean).

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Keep in mind, World of Warcraft is the first MMO for a lot of players. So they expect something along those lines and mindsets. Vets, or those who played MMOs before WoW, have more experience and know there were games before Warcraft. They tend to be more open-minded because of their experiences with those other games.

We know, if we want a Warcraft experience with a game, we might as well play Warcraft. And, unfortunately, a lot of dead and dying MMOs who tried to copy, found this out the hard way.

Still, I do agree with almost everything you said, OP. +1 to both posts.

I would hardly say that WoW is the first for most MMO players, but Ultima Online’s format (the game WoW copied) has become the “standard” in MMORPG development, so almost everywhere you find the same trinity, the same UI layout, the same gameplay, but that is why GW2 is so great. It breaks the stale mould that MMORPG’s have been stuck in for a decade.

However people in general find change hard to adapt to, which is why there will always be such polarising views on GW2 and it’s casual nature

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

The NPE is a shambles, GW2 needs better in game guidance on it’s more advanced systems, not dumbing down of basic content.

you mention things like “there is no endgame” “stats don’t matter” a lot. Guess what? These are the reasons I came back here. Guild Wars 2 can be played casually. You don’t need to grind to be on par with someone else to be able to see more content that is locked for you until you grind enough. Guild Wars 2 is like a virtual sandbox. You log in, you do whatever activity you want. And that’s one of the reasons why it can stand out from other millions of MMOs on the market. Don’t try to change that.

Arikyali.5804:

End Game
What the newcomers know
There’s no end game. This other game has advanced mechanics that require more than stack in one spot and press a bunch of keys.

As a newcomer: there is endgame but it is different. I was a newcomer who had bad WoWburn from the nasty raiding mentality. No trinity sounded like it might be fun. I liked the thought of deepsing, self healing, and party buffing/healing all at the same time.

Traits
What the newcomers know
The new system sucks. But I’m not rich enough to buy my way out of it. It’s just more grinding.

As a newcomer: if I had seen the trait thread, I would have had to think hard about whether this would keep me from not buying the game. I am pretty sure that I would have paid the money, especially since its on sale all the time. The art alone would be worth $25 (I would have youtubed it). What I know now: I hate the trait system and I might have said eff it and run around, enjoying the art and JPs, then left. Dunno.

Skillfulness
What the newcomers know
There’s no trinity, healers aren’t important since everyone can heal. Tanks are useless since they don’t do enough damage. You’re either damage, damage, damage, or trash. Boring. And I can’t use every skill I have.

As a newcomer: again, I loved the thought of no trinity. Even before launch Anet went into some detail about how it worked. I was fine with their skill acquisition (Anet went into it) and I would have been fine with it now.

Oh, the no monthly fee was a huge selling point. Even as I came to hate whatever game I was in due to that endgame mentality, I felt pushed to play because of the subscription. Horizontal progression was another huge one (Ascended… bah!) There were other misc. goodies I knew about pre purchase like not having to fight over nodes… yet another thing I despise from other games.

TL;DR again: some newbies want what Anet is offering. Or… they just want a change and are willing to try.

TL;DR: some newbies want what Anet is offering. Or… they just want a change and are willing to try.

Here’s my answers to your points from my perspective as a guy thinking about buying it pre-launch and some commentary about post launch changes.

Bear in mind, I did a lot of reading and research before diving in and I would do it if I was new now. The information available to me pre-launch is still easily found and was a fraction of what is available now.

Arikyali.5804:

Play How You Want
_What the newcomers know_
When I get to level 80, there’s no guild raids, there’s no GvG, ascended stats gear is useless, legendary are just for show.

As a newcomer: I came to hate endgame and “have to have BIS now” mentality in other games. I had no interest in legendaries, still don’t. Ascended gear: I would have researched it and found that I can get along without it.

Guild Wars 2 is not grindy
What the newcomers know
No one wants a non 80 in a dungeon. Hearts are converted to quests. Map completion is only effective with going from point A, to point B, to point C. Personal story is just a sidequest.

As a newcomer: I looked forward to the personal story. That my choices impact my personal play was a novel idea. I also loved the idea of dynamic events. I learned that hearts were quests that didn’t need to be done linearly, or picked up, or even turned in… something I hated in other games. Dungeons addressed in later point.

Levels shouldn’t matter
What the newcomers know
No one wants me [in a dungeon].

As a newcomer: yup, for the most part. What I learned from experience: unless I run with guildies, I’m going to play hell getting a group if I am not 80, in exotics. Ascended and zerk help a lot (I rarely run full zerk and caved far enough to make Ascended weapons only because I had sooo many mats). I learned this when trying to unlock story dungeon traits at approx. lvl 60.

Xenesis.6389:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s not smart to try to poach from WoW or other MMOs. Why? They can only play one game, and they’re not going to switch to a game they have to build up from zero when they’re established in the other, maybe having been established for a long time . . .

Players just have a lot of inertia, so to speak. They’re perfectly fine in motion on the one game, why switch to another where they need to put a whole lot of time and effort into “spinning up to speed”? ( . . . even if, with GW2, it’s not about being the best but just being halfway competent enough to get by.)

At least, that’s why I wound up dropping FF14 after a long time staring at how much work I’d need to continue doing daily just to crawl a little slower up progression every level.

Your last sentence explains the exact reasoning for trying to go after those players. You don’t poach the players who are still into wow, you go after the ones who are tiring of it. The one thing GW2 has over WoW is that it’s free and you can play it on your own time, with or in between games. Games like WoW tend to bleed players after the first 3 months or so of an expansion because they start getting to the point of only doing the dailies routine, do a raid once a week thing, a lot of players tend to take off until the end of the expansion when more content is available to them right away.

Yeah, but let’s be honest here – that’s GW2 in a nutshell. No raids to plan for or high end gear to set your sights on in order to top the pile of other warriors/rangers/engineers in the game. Casually just do stuff at your pace and enjoy – it will be there or be back again soon.

(Except SAB, which was such a side-attraction which went nowhere… I almost hope they make a story reason it never gets completed as is and competition springs up thanks to the Consortium creating a knockoff.)

This game is nothing but finding things you want to do, and going for it. It’s not rewarding with gear so much as the “I did that” feeling. Sort of like its predecessor in that respect . . .

People who come here trying to escape the “daily task” sort of thing aren’t going to be satisfied. What they’ll see is the same sort of setup with no shiny carrot at the end, and wonder why a lot of the players seem to enjoy doing this stuff if it doesn’t mean anything.

That’s the deeper reason I think it’s less advisable to poach from other MMOs. The structure of game is both similar and different enough to throw people off-balance and turn them away.

I believe the NPE should be gradually explaining the game to the new players. It, however, should not be locking them out of 80% of the game for 10-20 levels. Most essential functions should also be compressed into the first 5-10 levels – I mean, before he got a trident from a reward, my friend assumed he was defenseless underwater.

Right:
“Hmmm, there’s that weapon I don’t seem to be able to use that dropped from a lvl 2 mob. Oh, a lake! Let’s dive! …OMFG UNDERWATER COMBAT”

Wrong:
“Ok, let’s just stay away from water cause I can’t do crap in there… ding, a new level! …WHAT? I COULD DO THAT ALL ALONG IF I KNEW?”

Hey, to anyone thinking I was only showing things in a negative light, no. I did not introduce him to GW2. I had no influence on what he first perceived. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, and I am not a blind fan. Whatever criticism I established is because I love this game, and do not want to see it become ‘grindy’, nor do I want it to be seen as such by newcomers. My friend saw GW2 as a grindfest with no endgame – that shouldn’t be his first impression.

They did butcher the story, (It’s missing chapters and out of order, for cryin’ out loud), people do dislike the grindy traits, EOTM went from amazing new WvW map with lots of potential, to PvE land karma farm.

I do not disagree: brand new players who never saw an MMO before have no idea what to do. The NPE does an important job of introducing that. But it’s incomplete. It neglects people who know what an MMO is. I don’t know what the statistic of ‘gamer to newbies’ is in GW2. Maybe it’s such a small minority it doesn’t matter. But I don’t think anyone else here but Anet would have an idea.

But NPE shouldn’t be reminiscent of grinding, in a game that is not meant to be grindy. It doesn’t explain the core elements that the vets already know about this game. From gamers that came from elsewhere, NPE is grindy. They see hearts as quests. EOTM is powerleveling. The story and lore are pushed aside and clumped together in haphazard chunks. Only fun stuff is at 80.

World events and living story =/= end game raids, even if both follow the same basic idea of a community of people working together over TS to accomplish a common goal with unique understanding of combat mechanics.

Truthfully OP, if I was that guy I wouldn’t have stayed either. If the person who talked me into trying the game doesn’t have anything good to say about it, why the heck should I hang around. And no, an unsupported statement that it’s better than WoW (coming after statements about how bad the game is) doesn’t count.

No wonder he left.

Actually the wow player pool is exactly where they should be looking for players, where else would you find 10 million players already interested in mmos? I’ve played many mmos and wow for many years, including a one month stint with the latest expansion after a 3 year break from it. I’m back to playing GW2 for wvw, I’m sure there are others like me who can play GW2 without the wow mindset, I also know of a friend who can’t play anything else without the wow mindset. Both types of players exist and it’s really not the best interest of GW2 to ignore wow players entirely.

That doesn’t mean killing the uniqueness of GW2 and dumbing down the systems. I just recently leveled a new thief to 80 through the NPE and I still think the NPE is terrible compared to the old system, the new pacing and rewards did not seem to be better especially with the new trait system. How many actual true newbie mmo players do you really think GW2 will get now? over something else as big as wow? Many of the GW1 players who wanted to try GW2 probably have at this point already too. The NPE systems was a complete waste of dev time, some things needed to changed sure, but not the entire leveling experience.

In the conversation, you were expressing negatives as well as your friend.

• I hate that place
• I wish they didn’t mess up the story
• dumbed it down

Now, it’s also obvious there is history between you, so maybe you “knew” he wouldn’t like those things either. If it were someone for whom you didn’t know that for sure, expressing your own negatives could prejudice them to dislike those things also. Still, it’s pretty clear your friend prefers a game where leveling is something you endure while getting through asap to get to the good stuff. That’s not this game.

As to your suggestions: Sure, Anet could tell people more about the game. That’s kind of what the point was about certain aspects of NPE (i.e., introducing mechanics like salvage, downed state, etc. at different times even though someone could theoretically use them beforehand; the pointer thing). However, I doubt it would have helped in the case of your friend, because the GW2 leveling game and the GW2 endgame are not all that different, and it seems that he wants a game where they are.

End Game
What the vets know
End game is…getting the freedom to do whatever you want. World events like Triple Trouble and Tequatl are the closest we got to raids in that other game. Best part, you’re not obligated to play a specific role, or grind out this event for that specific drop. There’s a lot of other choices to get the gear you want. Sometimes, gear is not even that important – game mechanics matter more than fancy gear.

What the newcomers know
There’s no end game. This other game has advanced mechanics that require more than stack in one spot and press a bunch of keys.

Traits
What the vets know
The new system sucks. But at least I’m rich enough to buy my way out of it.

What the newcomers know
The new system sucks. But I’m not rich enough to buy my way out of it. It’s just more grinding.

(Yeah, sorry. You muddled up this one)

Skillfulness
What the vets know
You got 5 weapon skills, one heal skill, three utility, one elite. BUT, it expands much farther than that. Each skill can have a different cause and effect. Fields and finisher mechanics are a must-know. When to apply boons and condis. When to heal your party. How each class compliments and assists the group, with a ‘soft trinity’ of DPS, support, and damage mitigation. Knowledge of effective gameplay only comes from experience – there is no guide that encompasses every trait, trick, and tip of said class.

What the newcomers know
There’s no trinity, healers aren’t important since everyone can heal. Tanks are useless since they don’t do enough damage. You’re either damage, damage, damage, or trash. Boring. And I can’t use every skill I have.

Devs, you totally missed the chance to showcase your hard work! My friend did mention that one good point GW2 has over other games, is that this was a lot more beautiful. The graphics are stunning, hands down. But the actual mechanics are being overlooked and missed. They are looking at this game through the frames welded by other games, and they don’t see what GW2 has. I really have no advice on how you can take those glasses away.

You gotta think of something, and the NPE didn’t help. All it’s done, is make this game look more grindy. It looks less appealing. And it gives no incentive, no reward, to keep trudging on, jumping from one map completion to the next, to get to 80 for a game with no end content. Or to jump in EOTM and follow a dorito for fast levels, then pop out and not know a single important game mechanic of your class.

Please, change the NPE. It was a good idea, but not that great of an implementation.

(I’ve attached a short discussion of what my friend and I talked about. Red is me, green is my friend.)

Disclaimer: This is just from one incident, and one person’s perspective. What I’m going to say, is probably not the same for every newcomer of GW2. But I think it deserves enough merit to wave this around and say, “Hey, Anet. Look over here.” And above all, I’m not an expert on video game statistics.

I’ll do my best to keep this short and sweet, yet informative.

Let me ask: What is NPE actually supposed to accomplish? Teach newcomers how GW2 is played? Help them learn the mechanics to enjoy the game? Add in rewards and incentive to level to 80? Remove confusing elements so non-gamers are not frustrated?

A friend of mine who played “this other game” Has no incentive to even try GW2 out. He was pretty much a new player, and saw GW2 as grindy, only fun at max level, but no real end-game content. And honestly, as a vet gamer of GW2, it is not my duty to sit down and try and explain what GW2 is. That is the job of the NPE.

Play How You Want
What the vets know
There’s PvP, dungeons, world events, WvW, living story, map exploration, collectables, fractals, guild missions, crafting, TP flipping – plenty choices on what you want to do to kick back and relax. You can go with hardcore elite lvl 50 fractal runs, or be lazy on the world boss train.

What the newcomers know
When I get to level 80, there’s no guild raids, there’s no GvG, ascended stats gear is useless, legendary are just for show.

Guild Wars 2 is not grindy
What the vets know
-Leveling can come from EOTM (bleh. Please, revamp that place), Tomes from pvp or living world. Leveling shouldn’t matter and you should just run out and experience the world of Tyria for what it has to offer. You can join dungeons and learn them. And the personal story (used to) be very helpful in gaining a little bit of exp.

What the newcomers know
No one wants a non 80 in a dungeon. Hearts are converted to quests. Map completion is only effective with going from point A, to point B, to point C. Personal story is just a sidequest.

Levels shouldn’t matter
What the vets know
Well, we want the 80s or your best toon, because what we’re doing matters. We don’t want to carry someone who’s putting in as little effort as possible, and just sits back for the ride. But hey, if we’re in a big group a few underlevels is fine. Just come out and do your best.

What the newcomers know
No one wants me.

Rangelost.4857:

Oh, and did I mention Farmer Eda? I’m sorry, I think I need to mention Farmer Eda. I’m going to mention Farmer Eda.

Alright, so Farmer Eda. We’re all familiar with that one. There used to be this task in Queensdale where you’d collect apples in an orchard, and after you helped her, she’d offer you some apple pie, and you could even purchase her own home recipe.

And somehow, apples being baked into a pie must have been too confusing for new players because they were removed. That’s right, apple pies were removed from the apple pie merchant.

So why am I talking about this? Well, have you even read the dialogue? Here, let me quote every word from the conversation.

• Farmer Eda:
  Like my orchard? The apples we harvest here make for delicious pies. My husband used to harvest the apples, before he passed away.
• Player:
  Pie? I like pie. Can I have one?
• Farmer Eda:
  Of course! You’ve been a great help around here. You’re more than welcome to a slice or two.
• Player:
  Yum. Pie!

And what does she sell?

A MEASURING SPOON.

THAT is IT.

This is December 2014. The change was introduced in September 2014. For 3 months now, players have been deceitfully promised apple pie, which of course they never got.

Can you imagine the confusion on the poor new players’ faces? Freshly starting adventurers, still dreaming to one day become great heroes, now haunted by a void in the pit their stomach, a void which will never truly be filled by the rewarding taste of a well-deserved apple pie…

Actually… she gives you a pie. In the face.

Ask about pie, and when the vendor window opens up, you may hear a ‘splat’ sound effect. That’s her hitting you in the face with a pie, you just don’t see it because it’s covered by the vendor window.

There’s your reward for helping her out. Enjoy.

I would love it if the level cap were reduced to 20, but that might be an unnecessary amount of coding.

The problems currently are that not every level is genuinely rewarding, and we don’t really know when we will get each reward.

Firstly, “unlocking” aspects of the game such as BLTC and vistas should never take up a reward slot. We should never get nothing instead of something.

Secondly, divide up the real rewards in a sensible way. Instead of giving a huge chunk of all primary attributes every few levels, give a moderate bonus to just 1 attribute per level, and throw in skill and trait points in between where appropriate. Make the pattern repeat as neatly as possible, preferably every 10 levels.

Other rewards, unlocks, and reveals should only be stacked on top of these rewards, never replacing them.

Finally, add a tooltip on the experience bar showing the next few levels of rewards.

well not like anybody is going to care bout what my opinion on the NPE is.. but here i go..

The NPE is one of the most foul and wretched things i ever experienced in a game… ESPECIALLY cause i did start my very first char about 1 year ago. I leveled the “classic” way, got my point to spend on each level and if i wanted to change my build i needed to pay a fee to reset it. Alone to be able reset my build was new to me.. cause the last mmo like game i really nerded into was diablo II. Basically if you done goofd with your build over there you got 2 choices… either deal with it or start over but back to the theme. Each level i got a trait point that i freely could assign wherever i please. Basically my char (a charr engineer that i still run as my main) got stronger and stronger each level…and that felt nice. It wasnt a huge power leap..but i did notice it, in addition to that i got (if i wanted to) all 5 levels a trait to choose and with that quite some power increase. I loved it, a lot. Eventually the first feature pack came.. and with that the changes to the trait system…like packing the points into units of 5 and “questing” to get the traits you needed. By that point i was already 80 on my main, it didnt affect me much cept the slight restriction of how i wanna put my points into use. Was it for the better? Maybe…maybe not. Was the questing for traits that where available anytime for free back then a good idea? No.. really wasnt, but either way.. the system worked. Flawed? Yes.. but nothing is perfect. Besides the traits you also had the choice to do your story as you please. Lvl 5 and wanna do a lvl 10 story part? Suit yourself, but dont be surprised if you get rekt…and boy did i get rekt…and that was a good thing. It showed me that i need to man up and that i and my char need to get better. She needs more levels, skills and traits and a working build and i needed more skill to controll her, know the combos i can pull off, appreciate buffs, learning how extreme armor stats, runes and sigils can change the feel of the char even learning how food and stuff like wetstones can make a massive difference…and im glad i learned to play the game this way. There was a…how to put it… a feeling of accomplishment once i was able to do something on a level i shouldnt be able to do just yet…if i could trust the red “thats above your level man” text and man it did feel good as i stood there on the end of the stairs to the arah dungeon…fully maxed out with a build that worked just perfect for me with the hunter rifle in my chars hand that i looted from a risen mage that just didnt understand that we are not buying or selling at this door and i didnt have a clue what treasure it is, wearing my soldier stat armor and (back then) citadel runes. I felt like one of the big ones, ran alone through the deserted orr (was before the mega servers) and it felt like the ultimate test to me back then. I felt like i did it, ready to take on a foe that technically is waaaay above my chars head…and man..it felt so good, all the way through the leveling. The NPE now takes that “magic” away… it really does. It locks down everything. “Want fun? NO! You arent the right level.. oh noes you could get hurt or challenged! Back to doing these hearts and come back when you are lvl 10.”
“No! NO! You cant learn your weapon skills by using the weapon! What are you thinking?! Think that is a joke?! NO! You could get confused and by all means we cant have that” I mean what the hell… Leveling isnt an experience anymore, it is more of a…uhh.. its more like getting bound in a straight jacket that opens one of its countless shackles and locks all few levels, im not gonna lie.. if i had experienced gw2 after the NPE and didnt know how it once was i wouldnt even be there anymore to type this.

To come to a point… IMO the NPE is the darkest, most evil and destructive force in tyria and it did ruin leveling for me.. zhaitan take notes.. thats how you spread terror across the lands. I will make a char soon.. but i wont level it, i gonna use tomes and scrolls and THEN i gonna step out to the world and try to re-life the glory…well minus the leveling cause seriosly… kitten that kitten

I prefer discovering things in my own way and figuring things out for myself preferable to the system that GW2 has recently implemented.

Probably going to get silenced again, as anet hates it when you speak out against them. but allow me to link something from another thread. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Changes-Coming-to-the-NPE/first
Three months ago the NPE was promised some changes, yes some have been committed but the reality of it is this system makes the game generic, nothing about gw2 is very special anymore aside WvW. which personaly even that is old with the repetitive maps and PPT system we have. I propose Anet removes the NPE and instead focuses on adding content instead of this nonsense system that removed the fun that the game originaly was intended to provide, don’t fix things that don’t need to be fixed. seriously, its been long enough and people have infact stated they didnt like alot of the changes anet has made.