New player retention is bad, ArenaNet!

[AuldWolf]

If you look at both estimations of ArenaNet's own servers, and the very clear evidence presented by Steam charts[steamcharts.com]? Guild Wars 2 is suffering.

I think this is due to how bad the new player experience is. If the new player experience is bad, new player retention will be equally so. Your new player experience is what you use to draw them in, to sell them on the concept.

"Guild Wars 2 doesn't have a subscription!"

That doesn't matter. Guild Wars 2 is funded by the purchase of not just content, but the cash shop. If no one is there to buy future expansions and cash shop items, how is the game going to survive? New player retention is vital to the survival of the game.

So what's the problem?

The new player experience has barely been touched since 2013. It's had a couple of incredibly minor additions to tutorialising, but that's it. There are long-standing bugs and issues that go unfixed. There are instances that crash, hearts and content that can't always be completed properly. And even when the it isn't down to bugs, it's due to the lack of players in old zones.

The same issues have been longstanding because ArenaNet's approach is to rush to develop new content without thinking about what content their new players (and the alts they inevitably make) will be playing. And that isn't the latest expansion.

Even if you ignore the bugs, and the lack of players? The new content just isn't as fun. It's very grindy. Most MMOs greatly reduce the grind of older content so that new players can catch up with what the rest of the playerbase is doing. If ArenaNet did that more, the sheer lack of population in earlier zones wouldn't be a problem.

Summing Up

The new player experience is bad because:

* It starts in content that hasn't been changed since 2013, and depending on the race, this can be some of the least fun content in the game;

* Their focus is on rushing to develop new content, which means everything other than the latest darling is falling into an increasing state of disrepair harming the new player experience;

* The old content hasn't been sped up at all, the grind is as bad as it ever was, and this exacerbates the above issues by keeping the players in disconnected and isolated groups.

The result: New players come away from Guild Wars 2 frustrated, not knowing what all the fuss was about.

[Blurey]

So a 10 year old game was launched on Steam 8 months ago (while most of the player base is hanging outside of Steam metrics) since then it lost 1/5 of active users and you say this is bad? "DOOM" ..hm not really but thank you for providing me with an easy link. <3

[Triassic Wee Woo Wagonsaurus]

"please waste time and money on the content that wont matter once the noobs learn how to play" "this is also only a 2023 issue"

[Xeph The Tamagotchi]

tathen の投稿を引用：

only thing wrong with this game so far is the fact they designed this game around selling basic quality of life game features and locking weapons behind other class's (rangers cant use rifles lolwtf)

That's always been how it was. Rangers are not sharpshooters, they are now users lol.

[Tasha Vulpine]

Ifeelsane の投稿を引用：

tathen の投稿を引用：

only thing wrong with this game so far is the fact they designed this game around selling basic quality of life game features and locking weapons behind other class's (rangers cant use rifles lolwtf)

Ranger is all about nature
Rifles for engineers and thieves

Enough creative writing and they would come up with an excuse.

[amarrminer]

Triassic Wee Woo Wagonsaurus の投稿を引用：

"please waste time and money on the content that wont matter once the noobs learn how to play" "this is also only a 2023 issue"

its even more irrelevant if you dont learn how to play. in a gear grinder i could just outlevel the content and do it later. here, you basically have to become a hardcore player.
not gonna happen.

[ah_puch]

It's funny the game keeps getting "balanced" every few months based on devs favorite classes and not on player feedback. Max level players are infamous for gatekeeping new players from playing hard content as well because they are "bad dps". Not a good impression for an mmo player.

[Tuathaqin]

ah_puch の投稿を引用：

It's funny the game keeps getting "balanced" every few months based on devs favorite classes and not on player feedback. Max level players are infamous for gatekeeping new players from playing hard content as well because they are "bad dps". Not a good impression for an mmo player.

You seem to know an awful lot for someone who doesn't play the game.

[ah_puch]

Considering the 28 page feedback to the upcoming balance patch, I'd be way more worried about losing the current playerbase rather than retaining new ones.

[Tuathaqin]

ah_puch の投稿を引用：

Considering the 28 page feedback to the upcoming balance patch, I'd be way more worried about losing the current playerbase rather than retaining new ones.

Why are you reading the official forum of a game you don't play, don't plan to play, and, based on your posts, hate with a vengeance?

[ah_puch]

Recent reddit mod fiasco has soured the community even more when they admitted they were censoring people based on hate speech which turned out even disagreeing about the bad balance changes were considered hate speech. They got called out, sub got closed but players are still leaving in droves.

[Cozma]

ah_puch の投稿を引用：

It's funny the game keeps getting "balanced" every few months based on devs favorite classes and not on player feedback. Max level players are infamous for gatekeeping new players from playing hard content as well because they are "bad dps". Not a good impression for an mmo player.

Yep, "balancing" is based on the dev's favorite classes with leaked discord group discussions where CNC talks about how much he hates scourge and how it should get deleted. Then boom, months later, scourge is getting nuked to oblivion while the core identity of several classes is being homogenized to fit into a forced alac / quickness dichotomy. Me and somebody else banned on the forums for "hate speech" ROFL for pointing CNC's biases out.

About the playerbase, yeah they may be "chill" during super casual PVE content but as soon as you get into any sort of end-game content you encounter some of the worst players. People randomly afking (in ALL game modes, but especially PvP), the extreme corruption of the PVP scene, a lot of older players having tons of alts which gives the illusion of a high game population, people ragequitting for no reason, people with high AP/high kps but troll mechs for the lulz, ect, ect. Of course, reports go vastly ignored but your account gets banned if you criticize the game or piss of an ArenaNet employee or partner. They used to ban people for complaining about EoD's story in mapchat, lmao.

So you have a shady playerbase and an even shadier team, no wonder people are running from this games in droves. They can't even deliver with (recent) good content so it's just crap surrounded by crap. I plan on completing the IBS and EOD expansions then heading out to FFXIV because unlike this game, the devs care about the playerbase instead of bragging about revlishing in their anger (what are the odds ArenaNet hires THREE employees like this over the years?!) and don't have an unhinged PVP scene with constant LFG griefers for end-game content.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

ah_puch の投稿を引用：

Recent reddit mod fiasco has soured the community even more when they admitted they were censoring people based on hate speech which turned out even disagreeing about the bad balance changes were considered hate speech.

Reddit moderators being unhinged, biased, ban-happy snowflakes incapable of tolerating any opinion that doesn't 100% align with their own? Oh no! I am utterly shocked and appalled! Who ever could possibly have foreseen such a thing!?

[ah_puch]

Hologram の投稿を引用：

Yep, "balancing" is based on the dev's favorite classes with leaked discord group discussions where CNC talks about how much he hates scourge and how it should get deleted. Then boom, months later, scourge is getting nuked to oblivion while the core identity of several classes is being homogenized to fit into a forced alac / quickness dichotomy. Me and somebody else banned on the forums for "hate speech" ROFL for pointing CNC's biases out.

Yeah, what a disaster that was. A dev liked Engineer the most so Mechanist got more love than other specs. He was even exposed for not knowing much about other classes and had to use wiki. Players complained their mains were getting unnecessarily nerfed and he told them to "get over it". Epic fail.

Hologram の投稿を引用：

About the playerbase, yeah they may be "chill" during super casual PVE content but as soon as you get into any sort of end-game content you encounter some of the worst players. People randomly afking (in ALL game modes, but especially PvP), the extreme corruption of the PVP scene, a lot of older players having tons of alts which gives the illusion of a high game population, people ragequitting for no reason, people with high AP/high kps but troll mechs for the lulz, ect, ect. Of course, reports go vastly ignored but your account gets banned if you criticize the game or piss of an ArenaNet employee or partner. They used to ban people for complaining about EoD's story in mapchat, lmao.

Playerbase being "chill" is just a myth. Of course people would be chill on brainless open world content where you autoattack world bosses around 50 people who you don't even talk to. The instanced PVE community is a several notches below compared to other mmos as well. No wonder no one plays them and they keep abandoning the "new systems". The playerbase behavior especially outside of the game is filled with several complexes to the point where they can't even form long sentences anymore. Sad.

Hologram の投稿を引用：

So you have a shady playerbase and an even shadier team, no wonder people are running from this games in droves. They can't even deliver with (recent) good content so it's just crap surrounded by crap. I plan on completing the IBS and EOD expansions then heading out to FFXIV because unlike this game, the devs care about the playerbase instead of bragging about revlishing in their anger (what are the odds ArenaNet hires THREE employees like this over the years?!) and don't have an unhinged PVP scene with constant LFG griefers for end-game content.

It's a lost cause. Can't even attract 2k players for free on the biggest gaming platform on PC. Filled with people who hate the platform whilst spending 24/7 time on the platform talking about how bad the platform is. A sad way to spend time tbh. Understandable though since the community is so small and subreddit is gone, they needed a home.

[Underprivileged White Male]

As a new player myself I had the opposite experience. The "new player experience" was the best part. The moment I hit 80, bought the first 2 expansions and tried to play them I was extremely disappointed. It all just felt pointless, I could just buy a set of exotic stuff off the AH for like 3 gold, and the only reason I felt there was to play was to unlock the mastery of my choice.

After that was done, it was just a big.. why even bother? Way too much effort to take the next step for 7% more stats, and outside of PvP everything else just felt like grind for the sake of grind with no real reward.

The story just didn't interest me, the characters weren't remotely likable, and other than these fractals I keep hearing about... I just didn't see the point.

TBH the content just wasn't fun post 80. Personally I blame it on the lack of the holy trinity. It just can't get any harder than one shotting you lol. As at that point it just comes down to popping defensives when you're out of endurance, and timing rolls.

[likous]

Underprivileged White Male の投稿を引用：

As a new player myself I had the opposite experience. The "new player experience" was the best part. The moment I hit 80, bought the first 2 expansions and tried to play them I was extremely disappointed. It all just felt pointless, I could just buy a set of exotic stuff off the AH for like 3 gold, and the only reason I felt there was to play was to unlock the mastery of my choice.

After that was done, it was just a big.. why even bother? Way too much effort to take the next step for 7% more stats, and outside of PvP everything else just felt like grind for the sake of grind with no real reward.

The story just didn't interest me, the characters weren't remotely likable, and other than these fractals I keep hearing about... I just didn't see the point.

TBH the content just wasn't fun post 80. Personally I blame it on the lack of the holy trinity. It just can't get any harder than one shotting you lol. As at that point it just comes down to popping defensives when you're out of endurance, and timing rolls.

Sorry if you don't like the game. But that's how GW2 is, there is no goal of constantly looking for the famous carrot. GW2 breaks the common things that MMOs have. To me personally the golden hearts seem bad design.
The strength of GW2 is the dynamic events, from simple to 50 people fighting a boss.
The game is horizontal and that's why the armor is not important but knowing the attacks of the enemies and the rotation.
I've read some players who were looking for more and more weapon power and I'm sorry but that's not the philosophy of GW2.