Why does ANet have to cater to the "inexperienced?"

Okay, yes. This is going to be somewhat of a GW vs. WoW thread, but in a very concerning and interesting regard. I know it'll be hard to swallow since many here know that I'm a very active WoW player, but bear with me!

There have been a few recent changes and updates to the game that have undeniably made it "easier". Whether or not you like it, it's hard to deny that the skill Ursan Blessing makes the game a bit easier to grasp. Same goes for the 22 update, providing nothing but a myriad of buffs to the PvE side of the game.

I've been in somewhat heated discussions regarding these few things, being confused at why Anet has to make their game easier, and easier, and easier. One of the most logical points has been that "the newbies pay the bills". In a more appropriate wording and reasoning, there are many more inexperienced players than experienced ones, so "catering" to them will most likely net you more moolah.

Now this is where I'm a bit confused: they don't really do this in the World of Warcraft. Granted, they've made areas a bit more accessible for raiders, but things are still very far from being "handed to you". The % of people who have seen SSC/TK is still very small, and the % of people who have even looked at Illidan is even smaller. Point being, a very large majority of the playerbase in the World of Warcraft has not seen most of the end-game content.

You'd think that WoW would be doing poorly because of this, but just the opposite is true: with a huge 10 million active accounts, it's hard to deny WoW's success. This brings me to the meat of my point: If catering to the "newbie" is supposed to give you the most financial success, why is WoW doing so good, and why has ANet had to do this with Guild Wars? Why has ANet had to essentially "dumb down" the difficulty of their game? Why does ANet has to cater to the inexperienced and not Blizzard?

So to set up the boundaries: this is not about WoW being a more quality game than GW or GW being a more quality game than WoW. It's not talking about the pros/cons of each. It's about one going in the opposite direction of another. So, why is this?

Thanks for comments, and any feedback is appreciated : )

If you find WoW more challenging than GW, play WoW.

I believe it's because the people who bought this game earlier had already payed their money for the privelidge to play.

If they bring in new customers, they get more money via the amount of people buying.

This may be obvious but...

they don't want to be Blizzard?

That's why they're offering a different type of MMO/CORPG experience. Hence marketing to the casual player.

Most people are newbies as well (read: very few people here). I'm sure Loviatar will show up with the quote from Jeff Strain here in a few minutes.

Honestly I don't have any idea why Anet does what it does. I don't really think it's trying to cater to noobies because it was easier before these buffs too. Now it's just easier to farm in certain places and easier to beat titles..maybe they were trying to make them more accessible for the people who didn't want to dedicate time? I've got no clue.

I'm waiting for them to just start giving money to people and titles being so easy to max that you don't have to dedicate even a week to hit GWAMM.

It could also have something to do with GW 2 and the HoM. *shrug*

exactly. wow is fee based, they get money from 10 million account every month. gw gets money once. (well 4 times, and more if you buy stuff from the igs)
and some of the things they're doing can improve the game, yes making it easier, but they also "nerf" skills too, making it more difficult

and whats with the ursan hate....ah nvm another topic i suppose

What I'm talking about is ANet's current direction of making Guild Wars easier. I'm just confused of why this is so, since the PvE in Guild Wars used to have a handful of merit.

(And as you already may know, I *do* play WoW, extensively).

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense: make Hard Mode so people can have a challenge, then they add a whole bunch of stuff to make Hard Mode easier. Couldn't people just lower the difficulty level?

wow, epic post lol

Now back to your question ... I don't have the answer at hand but the first thing that comes to mind is the difference in the business strategy aka. monthly fee vs. buying new campaigns.

However, I am still as puzzeled as you are about the HUGE power creep with the introduction of pve skills, consumables and recent pve updates ... made me leave PvE for good and focus again on what GW excels at ... PvP.

Why do people use the “overpowered” skills and full H/H parties then complain about wanting a challenge? I don’t use UB and I don’t care about the people who do because they don’t affect my play.

Now, this is why I'm confused. Blizzard isn't just selling the game to those "newbies", they're *keeping* them. And they're not really dumbing down they're game in the process.

So why does ANet have to do this, or are you implying that they don't have to care about getting people to stay playing their game (which makes all these updates all the more confusing??)

I'm actually more about deeper character development. DnD 3rd edition rules had 20 levels, and I loved it to death. Guild Wars could have a level cap of 10 as far as I'm concerned, just as long as it's a bit complex and enjoyable. It's just that with a higher level cap you're given a bit more flexibilty in terms of what to allow for characters.

I guess since more and more people (not just the hardcore) are getting into Hardmode, the nerfs are sure to follow.

I dunno, I think it'd be great if GW2 featured some sort of "short-term success" or completion around campaign-length now as well as "long-term success" where it really takes a good many hours of actual playing to get to a location and to complete a whole new longer, more difficult set of objectives. This would be similar to the elite areas of today except with cinematic and storyline content.

Both the Factions elite areas and DoA in Nightfall could have been made into much much more than "there's a wicked sub-boss sitting in the dark over here. Get your friends together and go kill him" despite the fact that they're intended to be more difficult than the normal campaign mode and end-boss.

While I partially agree with you, I do enjoy the format of Guild Wars' short campaigns and being able to finish the game in a rather short period of time. However, I believe that ANet could cater to new and experienced players by making the "secondary" or "elite" campaign both much longer and much more difficult. To encourage PUGing, even, divert the storyline to include something regarding an "Ascended Leader" -- ie a non-ai player who has completed the shorter campaign -- being a requirement to continue on the path. This will really slow things down but would in my opinion add to the role-playing feel that the hardcore players entering these areas are going to want.

I think people give GW too much crap. DoA and the elite areas were fantastic ideas with soooo much more potential than they actually came with. But through these I think ANet has the right idea. These harder areas give better weapons, more money, and require more of a challenge. Even think - adding a whole storyline around the realms of the 5 gods for a "core" "Ascended Campaign." They're on the right path, and if they can grasp some of these things and up the game level and completion time around them, GW2 could have some excellent new player retention and veteran gameplay options.

Epic post is epic.

I really wanna know the answer to this...

But why introduce skills like UB in the first place? I can understand if the game was difficult, but all that you'd have to do in that case is just lower the difficulty to normal mode. Why do people *have* to play it in Hard Mode?

I sure hope so. I haven't seen a "nerf" to PvE in a very long time.

@Below: Ahhhh, I see whatcha mean..

Heh, I meant nerfs to make it easier. Personally, I'm looking to GW2 for these types of things from now on.

Agreed with oracle (below me) as well. I think if GW was setup more like WoW (paying for char slots {not like Gw anyway} and to have them moved from server to server) things would be more than a little different.

they HAVE to have new players to make money, it's a reality, and one way is making things mroe accesable to new players. And they do care about people after they stay, hence the updates and weekends and events. WOW, without making this a "why gw is better than wow" or vice versa thread is kind of intimidating. I like GW, you can spend months getting through all the games, and still have stuff to do, on one character. Then you can play a new one. I know, i've been playing less than a year. I still have stuff to do on my first char, my ele. But i made a monk, and a rit too..haven't done much with them, but i can. And this allows me to play different characters, thus experiencing the game in new ways. (playing a monk waaaaay different then an ele)
and..as i said before..they do make things more difficult as well. and they have elite areas and PVP which is an ever evolving challenge as people get better at using the skills and discover new skills

If you look at AN @ Prophecies and AN now then it looks like we're dealing with 2 different companies
Proph AN "if you can't do this mission you should improve your build"
GWEN+ AN "if you can't do this mission just take our new masterpiece- ursan".

I may've forgot the emphasis on WoW's most polished content: Raids. The reason that raids are so important is because they're laregly challenging and require a lot of time, and are arguably the most "epic" content in the game - and they are *very* hard to get into, requiring a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of teamwork. Very few people have seen some of this endgame content, even after they (Blizzard) have increased the accessibility. If so few people have seen the endgame, if so few have even *touched* the raids, than how is Blizz able to keep all these people contented?

So in other words, why hasn't WoW "opened up" their raids to be accessed by more people? How have they been able to keep this content so rarely seen and yet still be successful?

One reason I would attribute to WoW's success is Blizzard's history. They have long been known for making amazing games, and one of the best online RPGs of all time, Diablo II. Blizzard already had a huge pseudo-player base with Warcraft III, which is a good enough game that it would not take much to move them from War3 to WoW. As for NCSoft what did they have? Lineage? CoH? CoV? No thanks.
I could probably think of many reasons that one would initially look to WoW before GW. One reason being the level cap, alot of people seem to think that because the level cap in GW is 20 there isn't much to the game, beat it and be done. Whereas the WoW levelcap is 70 (soon to be 80) people initially think that there will be alot more to the game. All of us I'm sure know this to be false.
A second reason I have encountered is some people have the obvious (and quite ignorate) misconception that if you don't have to pay per month for an RPG then it is a bad game. I was hanging out with my friend in the library while he was playing GW on his laptop and some guy came to us, the conversation went something like this:
The guy: What are you playing, WoW?
My friend: Guild Wars.
The guy: Oh... is that like WoW?
Me: Kind of.
The guy: How much is it?
Me: Fifty bucks.
The guy: I mean per month.
Me: You don't have to pay each month, you buy the game and you have it.
The guy: Oh... must suck then.

One thing you have to consider is that a lot of skills were nerfed because of PvP. They were perfectly fine in PvE, but were nerfed because they could be exploited and gimmicked in PvP. Quite a few of the new skill changes were to revert them to their original form so PvE wouldn't be punished because of PvP balance. I won't deny that GW sometimes seems to move towards new players, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Edit: As for UB it could use a good nerf. A couple time lately I broke from tradition and went with some PUGs instead of H/H. I noticed a monk had a sword and shield and wondered why, but just went with it. Then I noticed he was at melee range with my assassin and thought "What the hell is he doing?" I clicked on him and he was using ursan... I felt dirty after that. I see ursan as being acceptable in elite areas like DoA or UW or what have you, but if you're doing Oola's lab you don't need ursan.

I think issue are not inexperienced people. It is experienced people who are bad players (majority).

With WoW you can eventually reach any content. Carrot always seems somehow close. You CAN kill Illidian if you play a bit more. You CAN do any imba dungeon if you out level it. Hell, you wait for next expansion and and you get better items from quests than from any raid you could do before and you get 10 levels so you can kick some Onyxia ass with 5 people..

In GW's you cant do it. One your character is maxed you cant just outwait or outlevel or play harder. You have to get better as player. That is hard. It requires learning, swallowing ego, listening to more experienced people, stop acting childish and all that stuff. In GW you have people who played for years and would be unable to clear UW without imba skills. In WoW same people would clear UW equivalent sooner or later. GWs version of those people would never, ever clear it.

But they fell damn well entitled to be able to do so, even if they have whole lot of content they never touched they want to do elite stuff because after 2+ years they feel elite. I have seem people to follow this train to eventually quit of gw to never return because "only no life kids can do highend stuff in gw" (they cant be any wronger, but thats what you get if rest of game can be well conquered with heal other spamming monks in your backline ... people dont have to improve so they fail at challenge, which make them quit because noone plays to fail ... so they added easymode stuff).

I told one very bad explayer who quit for lotro to never return about Ursan ... once he learned there is skill that allows him to do anything regardless of skill he bought GWEN and farmed to r10. He is happy because he can now attain all those HM titles and stuff. I am not so happy because i created another ursanwayer x.x however it illustrated perfectly what dumbing down PvE is supposed to do: sell more GW. Any anti ursan rant can be considered GWEN advertisement.

I don't see how A (more new players) follows out of B (easier PvE). To notice the PvE got easier, you have to be around before it got easier. And if you didn't have the game yet, you can't know the game got made easier. Or that the game was too hard before.
You don't get new players (=new money) by making your game easier. You can make your new players happier maybe, but that is about it.

I think it's the endless strive for perfection Bryant. That's the reason things are so sought after - they're so rare.

GW is a dead product line.

To complain about Ursan is kinda silly at this juncture.

The PvE/PvP skills are nothing more than a piece of code to test for GW2.

Is this really that hard to comprehend?

-ANoid

It's a good idea, when you're not max level. While "outleveling" can be used in the context of being under max level, that strategy is no longer applicable once you reach the max level raids. At that point, you can only complete the dungeons through 1. Skill, and 2. Gear (which is obtained through skill).

If you can just wait until the expansion to outlevel the content, then why are people bothering to enter the raids now? Reasons for that include self-accomplishment and egotism, not to mention that people aren't too impressed with you being able to clear a 2 year old dungeon. This point, however, can be heightened up a bit, and I'll be thinking more in-depth about it.

(And that isn't always applicable. I've seen 30 man raids at lvl 70 wipe in Naxx.)

Hopefully, this strive isn't so "dumbed down" in GW2. Right now, that's my largest concern.

No complaints about Ursan in this thread (for once), just concerned and confused about ANet's current direction. And I'd much rather ANet choose a different testing ground for GW2 other than GW1 >: ( People are still playing this game, ya know!

It's quite simple. It's the philosophy that If more can comprehend the game the more will play. It's not rocket science here.

Well do have Slaver's, Urgoz, Deep, etc. though. Most people don't do those. Most average people anyway.

But yeah, it's not the same as raiding. It's close, but not so much.

The big question is how will Blizzard react once they announce WoW2.
Then we might do a reasonable comparison.

My guess is that A.net is just trying to squeeze out the last buck that they can from a game that IS dying. I mean seriously - does one buy a MMO KNOWING that they will only play it for a year?

Wait, wait. You are telling me that the more players, the better? So Quantity > Quality? Then... WoW IS better than GW, you admit it. Because if Quan > Qual, then WoW is 10 times better. Right?

The word hypocrisy is thrown around a lot these days...

Rewards are crap. No point in doing when you have the statue.

Not to be nasty or anything, but that's absolute true not just in GW, but any MMO.

"Successful" MMO players seem to have this notion that they've managed to accomplish something special, but the fact remains that in all popular MMOs to date, the only measure of success is:

1. Patience.
2. The spare time to apply it.

The reason instances and leveling in WoW were simplified and imba added to the skills in GW is quite straightforward: the majority of people play games for fun and we're not going to sit and stare at a damn computer screen for hours each time we hit some obscenely challenging new roadblock. If I have to obligate more than a half hour block of my spare time to a video game, chances are I'm not going to finish it because I have real responsibilities.

Like it or not, the majority are not on your side. Most people are not going to sit and click away for hours to figure out some challenging new task put before them when the only reward is winning a video game, so the game has to simplify to open up content for everyone else at some point. It happened in EQ, EQ2, WoW, Guild Wars - it will happen to AoC some day too. But, hey, if all this bothers you, jump ship to AoC or wait for WH40K. Get in while everything is still fresh and new if being at the top of video game pile is so important to you. There's no shortage of new video games around to "prove" yourself on.

Firtsly Blizzard misrepresents the number of paying accounts. I'd wager many of the ten million "active" accounts are trial accounts.

GW is in it's EOL period. A replacement has been anounced and is in development, which means A-Net isn't really concerned if people still want to play this game in a year or so. They are Noobing it up to court new players and grab some fast cash,

The original stated intend of skill over time played or money spent was perverted long ago. Proof is that A-net sells PVP skill packs and pre-order special items. It's like an item mall disguised.

The original game(prophecies) had a tutorial(presearing) and various trials(ascension infusion) which separated nooblets from advanced players by confining them to different worlds. Now everything in the house is for sale.

Like it or not this is A-nets test ground for GW2 ideas. Notice the massive lag spikes lately?

Time and time again the 'newbies bring in the cash, newbies should be the focus' argument is raised - whenever ANet makes a change that upsets the veterans but pleases the majority, the conclusion always seems to be 'that's business for you'. But what, exactly, does making the game easier have to do with attracting new players?

The whole 'dumb down the game' philosophy for Guild Wars is flawed. People are attracted to MMOs by content - and to some extent grind - not low difficulty. If a game is easy, you'll get bored of it quickly, so it's less value for money. When a person buys a Guild Wars title for the first time, do they think "Yay, this game has Ursan Blessing, it's going to be so easy!"? No, they probably don't even have a clue what it is. And once they've bought the game, they've handed over their money just like the veteran has, so what's the point of catering to one more than the other at that point? Who cares if they quit? With a business model that focuses on making money from new releases and not through regular payments, clearly the optimum strategy would be to be effectively market each new game, and not care about players quitting in between.

Whereas in WoW's case, making changes that benefit the new player would arguably be more important, because if the new player finds the game too hard or repetitive, he'll quit, and no more money will come from his pocket. Yet WoW employs the opposite strategy to Guild Wars. One could say, however, that WoW's vast amount of content counterbalances any need to appease new players, because the game is designed in a way that sucks players in whatever their gameplay preferences may be.

Perhaps we overstate the extent to which ANet has made the game easier. If the game had had a monthly fee, we'd probably see far more frequent examples of 'catering to the masses'. With the current business model, ANet has to walk a tightrope between what makes the money (content-filled new releases), and what I see as a genuine desire to improve the game and maintain interest through free updates, while trying somewhat to stick by their original visions. They do seem to have focused a lot more on the latter than other companies, which could be seen as either a lack of business sense, or a unique and admirable attachment to their game, or both.

O.P. - I think that you are mixing apples and oranges there. Explorable content is different from character abilities.

Having been around since the original BWE's I can say that GW has certainly gotten easier in many regards. But not in regards to builds. If anything it has gotten more complex. What skills like ursan do is remedy that - cheaply.

Honestly, I hate ursan and I think it is bad for the game inthe long run. However, at the same point I understand why it is so appealing. I know several people who have tried GW and been daunted by skills and eventually quit because of them (and a few other issues like the linear gameplay).

So yes it is true that they are catering to newer players. The PvE/PvP skill thing kind of does the same thing. (Speaking of which, I really worry that they are going to open a can of whoopass on PvP skills sometime soon.)

As for the difference between WoW and GW... Skills in WoW are infantile when compared to GW. They don't need to cater to new players by dumbing it down. If they dumbed it down any more the game would play itself.

As far as raids go, the reason that so few people do raids is because after a couple runs they get old. And by the time you get to that point in WoW you are already so bored with the game you'd rather go play something else... like GW. (Not that the same sort of thing doesn't happen in GW mind you.)

They are announcing Wrath of the Lich King, though, which is also announcing "hey all of your gear is about to be obsolete in a couple months". Granted, they have removed attunements from a lot of the dungeons, but I don't see people "rushing in" to see them, not to mention the Sunwell raid.

No, in fact I state that a couple times in the OP. I'm asking why has WoW been able to hold onto and acquire so many players without dumbing their game down drastically?

But you know what you could've used in Guild Wars besides imba-skills? Having actual skill and individual knowledge of what to do. I've beaten every single campaign in Guild Wars not through overpowered skill bars, but through knowing my shit.

Time isn't the only factor when it comes to a raid or instance. It could take time if you haven't had much experience with it, sure, but if you know what to expect and what to do at each encounter, then time is likely to become a non-issue. It's how my casual raiding guild (quite an oxymoron, no?) was able to reach BT without pointing dents in our schedules.

Leveling was eased in WoW because with a level 80 cap on the way, it'll start to feel a bit burdensome to go through all that content. The length of leveling from 1-70 was good before, it's just been optimized for 80. And raids and instances have, at most, seen slight overhauls. Nothing to the extent of "handing it" to the players.

Edit: Okay, linking to that made me feel a bit like an ass for some reason, so I'll just quote the definition:

I'll read the rest when I get home, thanks for the replies Zonzai and King.

1- Because people might find WoW more challenging.

Easy things ( Ursan, Save yourselves motherf%&ers) are funny, but, as the time pass, you start to find them boring, you want to prove your skill, but then you realise that you have nothing but overpowered stuff. So you move to PvP, but you start being tired at this, and you want to quit to a more relaxing enviromment, like PvE...but you want moar challenges.

And then, you find WoW where, according to your information, there are some raids very challenging, that require skill.

I dont play WoW, but I have a friend that plays it, and he tell me beautiful things about the game, especially regarding to the PvP part

O______________O
2-The Global Association of Parents ( GAP) and Anet have a secret complot, in which Anet make a game with retarded players and a retarded difficulty for slaving the minds of the childs, so parents can find more time for doing certain stuff that only parents do.


3- Well, Anet is relatively new to the videdogame merchandising, so they are testing new tipes of merchandise.

Also, I have a feeling about this. Is the game easy because Anet had took the relevant information for develope GW2? Is PvE overpowered because they have seen everything about doing a good PvE game and decide to stop the process, inserting OP stuff? Are they still testing PvP?

PD: I luv cospirantions

Some people have a life, and don't or can't spend hours on end completing a dungeon/quest etc. GW is perfect for those people. Like some one else posted, if its too easy for you then don't use the buffed skills, the other point about setting your own skill levels was a good idea.

I occasionally play WoW, too...

I think the main difference is that GW has primary class + secondary class plus lots of build choices, and very flexible team build options.

Yet people still try to look for archetypes and "traditional" style tank-healer-nuker parties that do not really excel or work in GW at all.


In WoW, I am a Warlock - I can play Affliction, Demonology, SL/SL, Destruction. My roles are clearly defined, banish elementals and nuke mobs. Rather limited compared to GW, but you automatically get some training and experience in your role .

People get to know their class while levelling up. In GW, people have potentially more variety and choices, even if they do not make use of it. But people never really learn how to make use of the options GW offers them, especially if some skills outshine others a lot.

WoW has definitely more challenging PvE areas, only EOTN areas come close in terms of challenge. OK, some older areas were dumbed down and you can easily solopwn former elite mobs... but they greatly improved the formerly dull Duskwallow Marshes, they now give great XP and close a small gap in the levelling progress from 40-50, as an alternative to Stranglethorn.

But they did not add ursan blessing to the game, no company giving a shit about their game would do. ANet did it. We can also notice that some EOTN quests feature huge crowds of enemy mobs of level 8 and a few level 20s, maybe to give us the feeling of plowing through an army.

I think they are on the right way, if they would just tune down many easy button skills. Too many useless skills, but too many of the few skills that can break the game by making it too easy to be enjoyable.

The worst thing they did was turning into just another mmo - time spent equals more and more progress and power, skill is no longer necessary. It never really was, but now it became really pathetic.


I can only say if they think they can entice people with this for long, they will fail miserably. It does not keep people interested for too long if everything is just time consuming easy grind.

But I just cannot stand playing WoW again on the other hand, at its very heart it is still nothing else but the same stone old levelquest formula of EverQuest. Highly polished, but still not really my favorite kind of game.


Edit: And yeah, raids are very time consuming. Assembling a raid can often take longer than I wanted to play actually, so I am glad that there is GW. Especially hardcore raid guilds demand a lot of online time, and I do not want to raid on a fixed schedule. My friend Steve does so in Addicted, and not everyone can enjoy spending so much time to get an item or the DKP for it.

WoW earns money from retaining customers (aka the more experienced). GW can only earn money by getting new customers, and to do so needs to cater to the noobs.

this is looking at it from only a pve standpoint.


WoW pvp is pretty much AB, or TA. GW pvp is hardcore (emphisis on hard) compared to WoW.

Skill+ Builds > Gear+ Time

Maybe not intently, perhaps I read too much into your OP.

I agree to an extent regarding the testing ground...but how many folks will whine about not getting into beta. FWIW, this is pre-alpha and ANet is still 'technically' adding to the game.

I really wouldn't read too much into the current state of GW unless you're interested in GW2. There are many lessons I believed learned re: GW1. I am looking forward to GW2 whilst biding my time in game.

I would suggest this, however. What if the HoM was miscalculated and thru datamining the dev's determined it was taking too long to fill.
They could A: lower the requirements and piss off a boat load who put in alot of work, or B: ease up PvE play and allow the left-behinds a chance to catch-up.

Seems plausable. Dunno.

-ANoid

Yes, this is only from a PvE standpoint. It's hard to beat the level of polish ANet has reached with GW GvG. I also bolded that last point because in GW it's no longer entirely applicable...

@A. Noid: Some people see the words "Blessing" and "Ursan" and red flags immediately go off, so np : P But as bitter as I am about them "using GW1 as a testing ground", I know that it's only going to make GW2 that much more awesome.

Assembling a raid? You don't pug them, do you?? I will add that I'm in a *very* laidback guild: things are done on a "who needs this?" basis, we've not been a huge fan of DKP.

Glad to see the discussion isn't as heated as I feared. I hope I don't come off as a prick to anyone here...?