Easy mode for non 1337 players

My wife sometimes plays on my account. She has trouble with some of the higher level stuff and I do alot of her missions (this is in normal) She suggested to me and i am bringing it here, that they introduce a easy mode for the noobs. I know that there will be people who would abuse this and get elites easily. Maybe some ideas to combat that. As far as green make them lower level like the ones on shing jea if your in easy mode or make them only drop in normal or higher.

your ideas here __________________________

~the rat~

The only way an easy mode would fly is if...

1. Elites cannot be captured in Easy.
3. Gold items do not drop in Easy.
4. Rare crafting materials do not drop in Easy.
5. Keys do not drop in easy.
6. Scrolls do not drop in easy.
7. Green items do not drop in Easy.
8. Protector titles cannot be gained in Easy.
9. Cartographer titles cannot be gained in Easy.

In other words, she should stick around the training islands and just play the game to get the hang of it, then she shouldn't have trouble in other areas as long as she stays out of elite missions, uw/fow, and hard mode.

so, /notsigned

Normal mode pewpewpew.

Tell her to make her own character. She'll learn how to play the game.

Like normal mode isnt easy enuf :O

I have to agree i don't really want them to add a carebear mode the game is already easy enough in normal mode we don't need the entire game to play like presearing. I think if no one ever is challenged then they won't ever improve but thats my opinion.

I hope this was a joke. I think the problem is you wife didn't start from the very beginning, which is a "very good place to start" as the song goes.

idk... I wouldn't mind an easy mode... sometimes you just don't care and want to just kill stuff without much thought.

However thid would be very low on my wish list, there are much better things they could spend their time doing.

I would sign for easier mode if you couldnt gain any titles from it and the drops were nerfed like someone else suggested. No bosses.

Instead of an entire easy mode, how bout giving characters the option to go back to presearing. A completely different pre-searing, same layout and everything, but maybe not one with all the lvl 1-10 guys running around. A lvl 20 area only. Heh just for craps and giggles.

Sorry, the normal mode in this game is easy enough, it takes like two or three days to learn how to play the game. It doesnt matter how bad a player you are, 7 henchmen will get you through 80% of the game on normal with no problems anyway.

so /notsigned.

You dont need to be 1337 to play the game on normal, this suggestion is ridiculous.

/not signed

Is it really that difficult to learn? Or is it simply a case of not really wanting to learn?

I would have to agree with other posters. In order for an easy mode to work, they would have to put some serious restrictions on the gameplay, such as drops and elite captures.

Plus you couldnt allow an easy player to have "protector" title. The result is that you dont have insentive to play the missions on easy mode.

I agree that some areas on normal mode are hard and I agree some areas are aimed more at l33t players.

But its only about 5% of the entire game (including all 3 campaigns) which are like this. 95% of the game (including all 3 campaigns) is easily completed with henches.

Which campaign is your wife playing? If is NF and the end sections, then my sympathy goes out to her if shes a causal player, and I completely relate. I cant stand some bits in NF and i'm not a casual player.

Assuming shes playing NF....

If shes finding NF hard and she would rather a more casual play, then perhaps try prophercies or factions (assuming she hasnt tried them).

All 3 games vary in terms of play. The first 2 are more aimed at casual players in my view.

Sorry but /not signed on an easy mode, because it wouldnt function well.

There is already an easy mode for noobs. It's called pre-searing. I still think it's the best place to learn to play and I always recommend to new players that they start with Prophecies.

When Hard mode was added, Normal mode became easier.

Your wife should have a walk around the isle of the nameless and talk to them, go to shing jea and read the plaques, and go to the Elonian training ground and learn some more hints.

Almost everything you have to know is there, and the rest is learned by playing.

its not the mechanics. its easy to play. what there needs to be is more lessons in builds and skill synergy. She started her own chars. played from pre and one from NF. She lvl 20 but ends up playing some areas with a 60dp and kills one or two and then dies and gos back. the noob lands dont really teach you to use your skills they just let you kills stuff. I have tried teaching her but i suck as a teacher. as far as drops

no greens fine
no golds...maybe there are still crappy golds
no elites??? no i think there should be elites. alot of those skills would help noobs learn the synergy
cartographer should still be open you did explore the land.

as for learning in presearing. yes it is easy but the skills are useless over all and have no synergy. As a new player you learn how to run up and bash something well. Unless your an ele then you get the stupid stick. In pre firestorm does not cause aoe scatter then you go post and it does. Give people decent skills to learn with and let them have at least some good combos. then maybe noobs could actually learn. Everyone says play in normal its easy enough. Let me ask you this. How long have you gamed? How many RPGs have you played? This is my wifes first real gaming experience.

~the rat~

You have to appreciate though that the difficulty increases from prophercies, to factions and then to Nightfall.

To jump from prophercies to Nightfall in one swoop would be alot to endure. Maybe she should try factions, because its more of a middway point between the two.

But the learning curve between all 3 games is different and they through creatures and mobs at you differently.

I personally like factions the best, because its alot easier to pick up and play. Although its not the best storyline and its very easily completed.

Maybe look upon Factions as her training zone?

Which part of NF is your wife having issues with though. The parts before ROT or during ROT? I'd be surprised if she was finding it too hard before ROT.

There isnt really any way the learning zones/islands can teach you to handle areas like ROT. The idea is you work your way through the game and learn as you go.

If you were taught every last thing in training areas, then there would be no surprise when you reached new things. And when your only lvl1-15, there is limited stuff which they can throw at you as a noob.

Otherwise it would be too intense for newbie players.

Thats kind of a daft statement to make.

We all started somewhere, and we were all new to GWs at one time or another. I may have been playing for 2 years (give or take), but when I first started I had no idea about playing an MMO or RPG like game.

The most I had played, was FPS or RTS games. I had never really played anything like this before, short of Diablo. But thats a completely different thing.

It was the first time I had played something like this, and I found it hard at times. But 2 years later and I'm a dab hand at it.

But you say your wife has already played a character through prophercies and got it to lvl20? So how can you still say shes a newbie?

Tell her to stop Frenzy + Healing Sig and you'll be fine

lol. Or she can just go to the forum for her character type and pick up a decent skill bar from there. It isnt hard at all.

Really though, you cannot be as bad at the game as you state your wife to be, as long as you take the right henchmen you can breeze through the game.

/notsigned

Just because I don't like Hard Mode for being too difficult doesn't mean that I have a major issue with Normal Mode enough for an "easy version" to be made.

I mean if someone as poorly adapted as me can be at the Gate of Madness with an Assassin and the Protector Titles for Cantha and Tyria.... then the normal mode is easy enough.

In fact I will go as far as to say that Normal Mode difficulty is JUST RIGHT.... with the exception of the "elite missions" which are still difficult enough to bug me.

If she is having difficulty then maybe she needs to start a character in factions. The intro area for Factions will pretty much hand-walk her through everything she needs to know.... including basic skill synergies even.
And make sure if she needs to learn how to be better.... Guildwiki is a good resource.


[Correction: Me and my heroes, along with another human with heroes, can survive in the Fissure of Woe quite well as it happens. The Underworld is beyond me though... as are Urgoz's Warren and The Deep.]

I beg to differ. In presearing, you can still collect skills that you can use in synergy with each other. Maybe some of the skills you get aren't that great, but every profession still gets a skill selection that teaches you one of the most important basics of the game - how to combine skills together for greater effect (and you have plenty of easy targets to experiment on). To quote Kai Ying from the training part of Factions:

"It is skill, not skills, that keep you...well...not dead."

In many ways, normal mode has been made somewhat easier by the mob AI changes when Hard Mode was introduced.

I don't play Hard Mode yet, I'm still trying to beat a single campaign out of the 3 I have, ...but, I suspect if some one who had never played the game very much logged onto my character in the Realm of Torment, he or she might get their butts kicked. As well, they should.

It took me time and effort, armor upgrades, Hero skill builds and elite captures to be able for me to reliably survive within the higher end side of the game.

The one thing I like about Guild Wars is that you actually can improve, I remember having great difficulty with some Missions or Quests that I would be embarrassed to admit to now.

Hard mode is truly hard, as in you can't just play through it, it really is a challenge and requires some time.

Normal mode is just the opposite, and quite a bit of it can be PuGged as well. In fact, normal mode should be called easy mode. After hard mode, they did dumb down the normal mode AI a bit by removing all those AoE scattering nerfs, tendency to kite, and stuff like that.

I do agree that normal mode is easy enough, and personally it would require a lot more people with your wife's dilemma for ANet to even consider it.

/notsigned