A Fresh Start: The New Player Experience in Guild Wars 2

[Karizee]

A Fresh Start: The New Player Experience in Guild Wars 2

by Colin Johanson on August 28, 2014


Hey, folks,

As we continue to grow Guild Wars 2 and plan our next steps for the future of the game, it’s important we have a solid foundation for all the new players we plan to welcome in the future as well as players who return after long breaks from our game. The coming feature pack is bringing improvements that were designed to ensure the leveling experience and, most importantly, the learning experience is solid, clearly messaged, easy to follow, and rewarding. These were part of the game when we launched in China, and now they’re making their way back to North America and Europe.





A Clear Sense of Direction

One of our first changes is the content direction system. This system simplifies the UI in the top-right side of the game window, providing one clear suggested location (and an arrow providing general direction) to guide players to exciting content. This system will also help guide players to content areas of appropriate level difficulty, even to the next map so they have a better idea of where to go when advancing their character. Players who don’t need direction can ignore this system and go exploring in any direction they want, do content in any order, and play any content they want exactly as they can currently in Guild Wars 2 as it’s available today.

There are advanced settings in the options menu for more experienced players that will allow you to change the functionality of the content direction system. You can select to disable it if you like the way the game UI functions now, or you can select “world complete” mode, which will focus only on providing direction to areas for world completion.

There are still countless bonus locations that remain hidden in the world, such as jumping puzzles, minidungeons, bears’ picnics, quaggan pipe organs, and legendary llamas, that the content direction system won’t guide you to; the system’s simply there to provide players who need a bit more structure with a guide along their adventure.


Leveling as a Reward

Next up is our new level-up notification, which is a shiny badge that sits down where bouncy chests go now and pops up each time you gain a level. Clicking on this notification will open a brand-new reward screen. There are three major purposes for this level-up screen: to make gaining a level feel truly rewarding, showing you what you’ll get at the next level, and teaching important game systems.

To help ease the learning curve for new players experience when they first load into the game, we’ve simplified the number of systems visible to players early on and layered them all into the level-up guide. When you reach a specific level, any system tied to that level will be presented in the form of a reward. The game will also offer to teach you how to use the new system and will show you what you’ll get the next time you level up.

For experienced players, most systems are still available as they are today; we will simply introduce these systems more gradually to new players and allow them to learn our game at a reasonable pace. For example, WvW and PvP will be messaged to players via the level-up notification system at levels 18 and 22, and the buttons in the top left will be hidden until then, but experienced users can use the portals in Lion’s Arch or use hot keys to access those game modes immediately. Once the buttons are unlocked for one character on your account, they’ll be visible to all future characters as well.





Some systems have been layered further along the leveling progression and will become fully unlocked when you reach those levels to help give players more time to learn the core game systems. For example, rallying from the downed state can be overwhelming to a brand-new Guild Wars 2 player. We’ve moved the downed state to unlock at level five so players have time to learn the basics of combat before they experience this system. We also made the downed state give you additional health early on to help make it easier to learn. As we layered in systems and new rewards across the levels, some other features like weapon swapping and skill slot unlocks have been moved a bit to fill in better with the progression of mechanics we’ve established.

We’ve also taken some of the systems that felt needlessly complicated or obtuse and simplified them to make them consistent, so leveling is the big way you gain new abilities. Our last feature pack also changed traits to no longer require going to a merchant and buying a book at each tier to unlock them; you unlock a tier for free as soon as you reach the appropriate level. Now, new skill slots for weapons will be unlocked for all weapons simultaneously as you level up. This means that if you pick up a new weapon for the first time after already unlocking multiple weapon skill slots, you’ll automatically learn the skills for that weapon, rather than having to learn each weapon’s skills individually.


Stat Gains





To create a better sense of pacing in the progression of the game, we’ve spread out some of the character progression’s statistical rewards to come in chunks. When you gain a level, you’ll know you’re progressing in a way that immediately benefits your character. You’ll be able to experience a clear power difference in your character when you reach these milestones rather than having tiny, hard-to-notice increments with each level. All the stats, skill points, and trait points remain the same by the time you reach level 80; we’re simply changing up the pacing of the levels they’re rewarded at.



Rewards

As part of the addition of the level-up guide, we’ve reevaluated the item rewards you gain for leveling and made them more exciting, relevant, and useful items. We won’t be able to retroactively give these rewards to existing level 80 characters, but all characters under 80 will use this system for their remaining levels between their current level and level 80. All new characters you create after this system will have access to all of these changes from level 1.


Personal Story

As another addition with the level-up guide, we’re updating the personal story steps using our new Story Journal so they come in story chunks that unlock all at once per chapter. When a story chapter is unlocked as a level-up reward, you’ll be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline. In this way, story chapters become another big moment to look forward to earning and unlocking as your character levels up.





We’ve also taken this opportunity to go back and reevaluate the rewards of each of the major story chapters. We’ve done some pretty major overhauls to make the rewards for completing chapters feel much more compelling than they were in the past. Personal story chapters will absolutely be worth completing for your character as you progress. Similar to level-up rewards, we won’t be able to retroactively apply these to current level 80 characters, but all future characters you create or level up to 80 will benefit from this system.


In Closing

That covers all the changes to the teaching and leveling experiences we’ll be making with the September 2014 Feature Pack. Once the feature pack is live, there is no better time for those who haven’t tried Guild Wars 2 to hop in and give it a shot. For those who haven’t played the game in a long time, it’s a perfect time to return, see if the new systems help make your experience better, and explore the world of Tyria anew! Our feature countdown continues next week, so keep an eye on our website for the announcement of the next major feature coming soon to a Guild Wars 2 near you!

[zed zebes]

Not a fan of most of these things. The arrow will become the default way new players play and they'll never learn to ditch the arrow, thus never really learn the nature of the game.

Moving downed state to level 5 makes no sense. It's a basic part of the game's combat and if you don't understand what it obviously is at level 1 then you won't understand at level 5.

And so far they've removed traits and stats from each level up, so that leveling up is just a little prize basket with gear instead of a bit of growth each time. Weird in all honesty.

[zito]

This feature patch has been a haggle of disappointments.

Let's hope week 3 redeems it :l

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Moving downed state to level 5 makes no sense. It's a basic part of the game's combat and if you don't understand what it obviously is at level 1 then you won't understand at level 5.

That and it takes... 2 minutes? To get to level 5, going up 3 levels from the starter zone is hardly enough time to grasp the concept of combat. So much pointless effort.

[rhandric]

Not really thrilled with these changes, most are very hand-holdy, which is antithetical to the (theoretical) nature of the game.

[zito]

Anet has a habit of "fixing" things that are not broken lately. I keep reading this article over and over and just want to face desk.

[rhandric]

Perhaps their metrics show people get to, say, > level 10 and then stop playing the game, period, and so they deem it necessary to "fix" the leveling experience? I can't think of any good reason for these changes.

[zito]

Might as well turn all DE into quests if they are just going to appear at the top right of the screen with a clickable "show me" arrow.

[Valeron]

leveling was never a problem...

I don't understand this

[zito]

leveling was never a problem...

I don't understand this

It is indirectly the players problem for going into GW2 with a traditional theme park mind set, Anet wants to make the leveling feel "closer to home" so to speak. In other words GW2 innovations are going to slowly die out.

Next up mega ascended gear and raids.

[Valeron]

It is indirectly the players problem for going into GW2 with a traditional theme park mind set, Anet wants to make the leveling feel "closer to home" so to speak. In other words GW2 innovations are going to slowly die out.

Next up mega ascended gear and raids.

they are making it closer and closer to a "wow" like experience

and driving me farther and farther away. hell, I only play it about once a week nowadays and these kinds of "improvements" are certainly not making me want to play more

[zito]

First personal story quest will start at lvl 10 now. Down state doesn't work till level 5. Levels telling you exactly how stronger you got.

Like what the hell is the point of this shit?

[Fkiolaris]

So this is all about presentation changes while still ignoring the number 1 problem in levelling: the current trait system. Brilliant!

[Valeron]

Why didn't they just created a better tutorial intro, one that properly introduces all of the new and different mechanics that the game has. And then have the option of opting out of the tutorial for veteran players

[Fencers]

So interesting that Anet would backtrack on their intended design. I think market pressure and player feedback is likely the root cause. If it is not the case than the only alternative is an incomplete initial design.

The aggressive mass marketing is somewhat off-putting. I wonder if the release and marketing of Wildstar changed the view of the GW2 marketing team; which has been through about 3 iterations of communicative throughput and explanation from the original franchise continuation to currently.

Very interesting.

[zito]

All I know is I have the urge to slowly go back to GW1, maybe learn how to play dervish properly for a change.

[Valeron]

All I know is I have the urge to slowly go back to GW1, maybe learn how to play dervish properly for a change.

I'd play GW1 if I could get my account unblocked

[zed zebes]

Players tend to bail early on because A) They are players that need hand holding or B) they don't want to go through 80 levels.

Player A is not your audience. Player B potentially is and should be the one looked at. I think ANet struggles to identify who their audience is and what needs to be done for that audience.

Also, these changes come from China and influenced by that region. The main problem is that the gw2 community rather vocally denounced the changes seen here when spotted in the China client. ANet just ignored that response and went ahead with the changes.

Well, they didn't ignore that response. They probably misunderstood what people disliked because they don't have a target audience anymore. It's not a communication problem. It's an understanding problem.

[lawow74]

Starting to think we should call this the Featureless Pack. Let's get this stupid thing over with so we can get back to the Living Story.

[Fencers]

80 levels is kind of a lot though. And the leveling is not all that fast in solo play really- which I suspect is a manner of play many engage in primarily.

Perhaps speeding up the leveling process would have been a better fix for the "new player". Looking back on leveling various classes in GW I remember that 60-70 range of leveling being very dreary and so seemingly far from the goal of max level as to be depressing.

I believe I leveled relatively quick too on a very easy character class. With a group. Yet the leveling experience of GW2 is something I never want to partake in ever again.

I would and have created new characters from scratch in GW1 simply for the pleasure of the level experience. To the point of buying new copies of the game so I could have fresh accounts to level.

In my opinion the process of gaining character levels and following a line of progression was both clearer and more enjoyable in Arena.net's previous games.

[Svifnymr]

First personal story quest will start at lvl 10 now. Down state doesn't work till level 5. Levels telling you exactly how stronger you got.

Like what the hell is the point of this shit?

Does it say the first story isn't until 10? I don't like that much. I do like that you can play them straight through, but does that mean they simply moved each chapter to unlock at the high-end of the former scale rather than just scaling it?

The downed state change doesn't make sense to me. So before level 5 you just die? Is that more player friendly?

The arrow I'll have to see, I guess. I hope the change also allows you to turn off personal story tracking entirely.

Weapon swapping is moving, but doesn't say to what.

Skill unlocks are moving, but doesn't say to what.

I'm mostly hoping these changes all lead to a vastly reduced xp requirement for 1-80 to give faster overall leveling, but I think they'd mention that if so.

Weapon unlocks is a fine change really, but you already unlocked new weapons pretty quickly at higher levels.

Also, I assume changing rewards for personal story will also be the end of key farming.