Introduce a tutorial on breakbars in the starter instance.

[Offair.2563]

BLUE>>>>>>CC

 

Ezpz lemonsquishy.

[Devildoc.6721]

Not to shill for another game, but I was playing ESO and had just made a new character and did the tutorial again it'd been some time and thinking of this thread I realized how effective of a tutorial it was as far as teaching the combat basics. The first enemy you face you just hit it a few times with your weapon and it falls over (if you try to kill it with magic skills rather than weapon attacks it's health actually won't go down, it's to teach you the basic weapon swings), the second enemy you face has a power attack that you're instructed to block (with a popup telling you which key to use (default right mouse click) to block the attack, followed by an instruction to use a heavy attack to capitalize on the stagger effect from blocking their heavy attack. You can't kill the enemy until you block his heavy attack then follow with your own heavy counterattack.. This effectively teaches you to look for the telegraphed heavy attacks, and how to most effectively take advantage of them. The next enemy is a caster and will start to cast a an aoe spell with a projected red area of effect, the game tells you to use bash to interrupt it, and gives you the keybind for that action, again, you cannot progress until you interrupt the enemy's spell, which staggers it and you can again follow up with a heavy attack to knock them down.. Intermixed with this you'll level up and it teaches you how to apply your attribute and skill points., next is a semi-open area where you can practice fighting or skip most of it (it prompts you by telling you the bindings to sneak) followed by a tutorial on picking locks to get into the next park. Finally there's a boss fight which has both mechanics, followed by the introduction of a skyshard which you use to get more skill points so it shows you what to look for. It flows with a narrative and introduces combat mechanics one at a time.

 

GW2's tutorial used to be a little more comprehensive. you learned your second skill partway through the instance, and there was a forced down section to teach you about downed state. They stripped that out and basically taught their new players to 111111111111111 their way through a world boss. Good job anet. Maybe it's your fault, because that's what you've taught new players to do.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"PseudoNewb.5468" said:

> Defiance in this game is complicated. If you simply tell people to bring CC, it is possible they will all bring soft CC which will not help map meta events, because of the way soft CC is designed and the defiance bar scaling. Defiance bar damage is also not noted in game, so there is no way to know if people are simply bringing useless CC abilities.

 

Agree 100%. I would love it if defiance bar damage was visible on the tooltips, though I concede that would be a huge amount of work for the development team.

 

Also, they took the time to create a sort of introduction to 'dodging' in each starter area, although you might just run past it if you're not paying attention. Clearly this was to make sure people would be introduced to the dodge, a unique aspect of GW2. I see no reason why a similar tutorial NPC shouldn't be made available to teach about defiance bars. You gotta learn somewhere.

 

[Jarl Petter Hinrik.1409]

Cc, custom content? Lol, just to tell cc is not obvious to everyone. I personally always were intimidated by the big metal bar. I'd like a tutorial anytime. This might be useful to get through story content without dying one zillion times or spending two hours on a boss. I already dodge and use all my skills but that may be just what I'm missing!

[Kalendraf.9521]

How about introducing something similar to the DPS golem that raids have, but make it specifically for teaching bar breaking? Put it in an easily found area (Lions Arch, for example). Then tie a new achievement or even a new mini-game to it to help advertise it. The objective is simple - break it's bar within a certain time limit with gold, silver, bronze level rewards depending on how fast you break it.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> Isn't it strange? Whenever there's a break bar to break people don't know what to do but in situations where it's advantageous not to do it they start spamming their CCs as if their lives depend on it.

 

Likely because the bars you don't want to break are scaled to be easy to break.

[Isidar.4789]

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > I'm quite simply tired of getting the "we didn't know what to do" excuse on breakbars,

> > It's not an excuse. People who don't know something don't know that it's important. It's obvious to you; it's completely opaque to others.

>

> Which makes a tutorial even more important. Also, a tutorial on target calling, because often people ignore called targets completely and the event fails (see false Joko event in the Jahai Bluffs).

>

>

The problem with false joko is not that ppl dont know how to cc but its ridiculous scaling. With 5 ppl one berserker could break his bar with head butt and bulls charge but with 15 ppl same skills give ~10% of the bar. I know most of zerg consist of auto only ppl but events shouldnt be made that all have to equip 3/4 hard cc

 

[battledrone.8315]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > All they need to do is offer some fancy skin to entice players and lock it behind a personal instance that requires players to learn to deal with break bars otherwise it'd be impossible to succeed.

> > >

> > > No because there's still going to be the worst of the worst, the players who literally do not care about anything like that and plague events scaling them up and failing them for the entire map.

> >

> > you wanted this kind of content in open world, now deal with the consequenses

> > and this is the reason why other mmos dont do the same

>

> I never said that, Anet said they wanted that, but Anet doesn't seem to appreciate just how lazy and ignorant their playerbase can be, and how many of them never try to improve themselves, never listen to instructions, and don't give a kitten if they screw over dozens of other players for 2 hours at a time. The only way to make these players learn is to literally force them to do it.

>

> Anet needs to decide, when their playerbase is filled with lazy casuals who won't even pay attention to chat to learn how to deal with a breakbar, to either.. make all the bosses 11111111111 zergfests that don't require any strategy so they can be done with open maps and a bunch of zombies like typically get, make the breakbars not scale so much so that the few people who actually give a kitten and bring CC can successfully do it in the short amount of time given (often I can't get through more than 3, maybe 4 cc's tops personally before the window is gone, so iyou figure if you have 5 people each use 3 CC's that should be enough, don't expect everyone to bring multiple CC's because they quite simply don't. they don't care to learn strategies or improve themselves. You're punishing the people who actually do try by relying on those that don't to step up their game), or, make a tutorial that cannot be skipped, and halts progress until you complete it that everyone is forced to do to learn how to deal with breakbars.. Your choice or serpent's ire will continue to be dead forever and the joko interrupting event will for the most part, be given up on because it attracts too many people who don't bring necessary CC and scale it up.

 

they will never make make that choice, they simply need the casuals to fill up the servers

and the whaling gives prime$$ that they obviously need too

[Devildoc.6721]

> @"Jarl Petter Hinrik.1409" said:

> Cc, custom content? Lol, just to tell cc is not obvious to everyone. I personally always were intimidated by the big metal bar. I'd like a tutorial anytime. This might be useful to get through story content without dying one zillion times or spending two hours on a boss. I already dodge and use all my skills but that may be just what I'm missing!

 

so what I have to ask here is.. if you're on the forums, you care enough to learn and improve, which is great, but how come you don't ask questions in game? Do you read instructions in chat before and during these meta events/world bosses? That's part of my frustration is that many people just tune out chat and won't listen.

 

But as for your questions, CC is MMO lingo for "crowd control" which means methods of reducing an enemy's capability to attack you it refers to things such as stuns and snares, in some games it also refers to methods to knock an enemy out or put it to sleep or in a form of stasis that lasts for a lot longer than standard stuns, effectively removing it from the fight as long as it's undisturbed. That's where the term gets its name because utilizing these longer term sleeps and "mezzes" you can reduce the number of mobs attacking you in a pull significantly., controlling the crowd. In GW2, we don't have long term CC's like that but it's used to refer to shorter term disruptive effects, hard CC refers to stun, daze, launch, push, pull, knockdown, sink, and float (the last 2 being underwater) status effects, soft CC refers to things that don't disable an enemy from attacking but hinder it's ability to move or attack, and this includes chill, blind, cripple, immobilize, weaken and slow effects (fear and taunt also count as soft CC's when it comes to break bars even though they work as hard CC's for enemies without break bars).. Hard CC's tend to do a significant chunk of damage to a breakbar, especially one that's scaled just for one solo player., Soft CC's have a weaker effect and it tends to be over time. If you blind an enemy it's breakbar will drain over a few seconds .

 

You want to break breakbars because it'll stun the enemy and make it take more damage as a base, but it will also interrupt key skills from going off like the shatterer's shard storm attack where it flies into the air and is invulnerable and just starts nuking from orbit.

[Jarl Petter Hinrik.1409]

I usually don't ask questions during fights because I'm too busy targetting the boss (keep targeting other players, lol), dodging, staying alive (that's a big one) and using my skills. How people chat on top of it is a mystery to me, and the screen gets so confusing with all the damage everywhere, it's overwhelming.

 

I was under the impression that all builds had what you call cc, you just have to look on zillions of effects on the boss during fight. I try to find mine in the bunch...

 

I suppose the timing is important too?

 

How do you know which cc to bring? Trial and error? All your utilities should be hard cc? Or the weapons too? Sigils?

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"sigur.9453" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > @"sigur.9453" said:

> > > > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > > Some bars decline with chill. Others don't. Same with cripple, slow, and other conditions.

> > > >

> > > > Some break bars regenerate over time. Others only regenerate after the are broken.

> > > >

> > > > Some break bars, when broken, have an effect that weakens the monster. Others make them more powerful.

> > > >

> > > > Some break bars require a high amount of breaking attacks, while others are relatively easy.

> > > >

> > > > Etc.

> > >

> > > you have a few outliers, (i only know one OW boss that requires chill) but in generall they all work the same.

> > >

> >

> > We're not discussing just bosses; we're discussing break-bars. And, those aren't outliers; there are dozens of exceptions to the main "rules".

>

> Where? I don't think it's intellectually to demanding that people will notice that cc bars are not functioning the same every time. It's about giving a general introduction. Not every mechanic in an instance or ow needs to be explained 100%. And that general intruduction is lacking or better, not there at all. It seams to be very confusing to be honest. I had a talk with 3 25k+ap players that thought you can only cc when the blue bar is gone.

 

Yeah, that would be OK. But, it would still help to distinguish them. As it is, once you've figured out what they are, you have to memorize each creatures non-defaults/regeneration. If they're going to do it, they should explain it. It wouldn't be much more effort in a tutorial.

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > All they need to do is offer some fancy skin to entice players and lock it behind a personal instance that requires players to learn to deal with break bars otherwise it'd be impossible to succeed.

>

> No because there's still going to be the worst of the worst, the players who literally do not care about anything like that and plague events scaling them up and failing them for the entire map.

 

There would be a lot fewer of them if they had a tutorial. Very few people are purposely bad.

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > All they need to do is offer some fancy skin to entice players and lock it behind a personal instance that requires players to learn to deal with break bars otherwise it'd be impossible to succeed.

> > >

> > > No because there's still going to be the worst of the worst, the players who literally do not care about anything like that and plague events scaling them up and failing them for the entire map.

> >

> > you wanted this kind of content in open world, now deal with the consequenses

> > and this is the reason why other mmos dont do the same

>

> I never said that, Anet said they wanted that, but Anet doesn't seem to appreciate just how lazy and ignorant their playerbase can be, and how many of them never try to improve themselves, never listen to instructions, and don't give a kitten if they screw over dozens of other players for 2 hours at a time. The only way to make these players learn is to literally force them to do it.

>

> Anet needs to decide, when their playerbase is filled with lazy casuals who won't even pay attention to chat to learn how to deal with a breakbar, to either.. make all the bosses 11111111111 zergfests that don't require any strategy so they can be done with open maps and a bunch of zombies like typically get, make the breakbars not scale so much so that the few people who actually give a kitten and bring CC can successfully do it in the short amount of time given (often I can't get through more than 3, maybe 4 cc's tops personally before the window is gone, so iyou figure if you have 5 people each use 3 CC's that should be enough, don't expect everyone to bring multiple CC's because they quite simply don't. they don't care to learn strategies or improve themselves. You're punishing the people who actually do try by relying on those that don't to step up their game), or, make a tutorial that cannot be skipped, and halts progress until you complete it that everyone is forced to do to learn how to deal with breakbars.. Your choice or serpent's ire will continue to be dead forever and the joko interrupting event will for the most part, be given up on because it attracts too many people who don't bring necessary CC and scale it up.

 

You have violated the law of the excluded middle. Your argument is invalid. (In addition to purposely insulting.)

[Devildoc.6721]

> @"Jarl Petter Hinrik.1409" said:

> I usually don't ask questions during fights because I'm too busy targetting the boss (keep targeting other players, lol), dodging, staying alive (that's a big one) and using my skills. How people chat on top of it is a mystery to me, and the screen gets so confusing with all the damage everywhere, it's overwhelming.

>

> I was under the impression that all builds had what you call cc, you just have to look on zillions of effects on the boss during fight. I try to find mine in the bunch...

>

> I suppose the timing is important too?

>

> How do you know which cc to bring? Trial and error? All your utilities should be hard cc? Or the weapons too? Sigils?

 

Shouldn't need sigils no sigils or runes do any hard CC's that are reliable, I'd say focus your utilities and possibly elite skill on slotting hard cc's. Like for a berserker you can slot headbutt as your elite, and wild blow and bull's charge or kick as utlities, then also look to your weapons for additional sources of CC, but you don't need to specifically slot weapons just for CC, but if they're available, use them, like if you're a reaper with a greatsword, your 4th greatsword skill blinds and cripples as soft CC and your 5th skill is a hard CC. If you're a longbow ranger, breakbars are one of the only reasons you should ever use point blank shot (otherwise you're just knocking enemies out of melee range and aoes that other players have set down. If you're a thief you have an amazing amount of CC you can apply using basilisk venom while standing near a bunch of other players when the break bar starts, even if those other players are 11111111 zombies the next couple hits will apply petrify/stun for good breakbar damage. Take a look through your utilities and elite skills and see what you have available that might help out in those situations.

[Devildoc.6721]

> @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > All they need to do is offer some fancy skin to entice players and lock it behind a personal instance that requires players to learn to deal with break bars otherwise it'd be impossible to succeed.

> >

> > No because there's still going to be the worst of the worst, the players who literally do not care about anything like that and plague events scaling them up and failing them for the entire map.

>

> There would be a lot fewer of them if they had a tutorial. Very few people are purposely bad.

 

If you make the tutorial optional they'll skip it, and just expect to be carried while they're along for the ride, same as now.

[battledrone.8315]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > All they need to do is offer some fancy skin to entice players and lock it behind a personal instance that requires players to learn to deal with break bars otherwise it'd be impossible to succeed.

> > >

> > > No because there's still going to be the worst of the worst, the players who literally do not care about anything like that and plague events scaling them up and failing them for the entire map.

> >

> > There would be a lot fewer of them if they had a tutorial. Very few people are purposely bad.

>

> If you make the tutorial optional they'll skip it, and just expect to be carried while they're along for the ride, same as now.

 

then stop carrying them, and just do the event with your selected hardcore friends

i hate to say it, but anything with open world and good loot is always going face those issues

and that is why other mmos lock it away in instances, or behind time gating

if it has value, and if it is farmable, you can bet there is a ton of people who will try to get it with as little effort, as possible

[zombyturtle.5980]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > There is no reaching those people

> There are all sorts of ways to reach people.

>

> > unless the game developers literally force it on them, which is what I'm asking.

> You are advocating yelling at people and have since doubled and tripled down on this. If all you were doing is asking for ANet to do something, then I'd be responding to the specifics of your suggestion (which I did in my first response; you only chose to defend your position on yelling). (As a remind, I pointed out that the tutorial is unlikely to be the best place to teach people.)

>

> If your goal is to convince ANet of the incredible value to them of offering better ways for people to learn than on-the-go, focus on that and skip the anecdotes or insistence that somehow ANet is forcing you to be rude. Virtually every veteran would love for more of the game's mechanics to be taught in the game so that they, too, can focus on having fun, instead of feeling like the responsibility to teach is on them. Regardless of our differences on learning methodologies or teaching systems, I think we both agree that the game does a terrible job of exposing players to basic and advanced mechanics. And ANet would draw in more people and retain them longer if folks who wanted to learn had options for learning-by-doing, learning-by-hearing, as well as learning-by-reading external sites.

>

> ****

>

> > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > No, yelling and cursing someone out when they screw up after having not listened to you the first time you tried to politely explain is to get their attention, because sometimes that's what it takes.

> It is almost never what it takes, because it doesn't actually work most of the time.

>

> > Do you think Boot Camp instructors yell and curse at recruits is out of frustration?

> You are (a) not their instructor and (b) they aren't in bootcamp. This method is selectively effective in the armed services because it results in lots of people quitting. Part of the reason it is used that it provides a common enemy, and thus a tool for bonding squadmates together, which is a key requirement for an effective group. It also gets people to stop thinking and follow orders exactly, which is a requirement for staying alive in typical combat situations. And finally, it's used because it's quick & dirty, not because it's proven to be the most efficient for the most people in the long run.

>

> Since this is a game, it's a poor choice for teaching _players_, who are here to have fun, not listen to strangers berate them.

>

> > No they do it because that grabs immediate attention and causes the person to listen.

> What causes those people to listen is that they are stuck in the environment. If they want to be in the military, they have no choice. Players have choices and one of them is to ignore people who don't get that.

>

> > Calm and polite is as far as I've experienced both in games and IRL, about as effective as leaving a pamphlet explaining things in a common area in view.

> I dunno; I have good luck with it in this very game. But then, I don't expect anyone to get it first or even fourth time through.

>

> > Those who are genuinely interested in learning ahead of time will seek out sources of information and ask questions or read things like forums, wiki pages, and other sources of available information,

> _Some_ people learn by seeking outside sources. Lots of people do not, for any of a variety of reasons.

>

> > that's the underwhelming minority of players.

> Yes, there's tons of research that show that some people cannot learn much by reading. Some learn by listening. Some by doing. Some people learn some things best by a combination of all three.

>

> More importantly: it would not occur to a lot of people that there is something that they must learn about how to play the game. For breaking defiance, there's a cognitive dissonance as to why it's a good idea to take time away from inflicting damage.

>

> > The majority of people expect to learn by doing, rather than having an explanation told to them ahead of time.

> Again, you're confusing this game for a learning center. People aren't here to learn; they are here to have fun. You can't assume that folks who don't know mechanics even know that it's important to learn them.

>

> > Some of those, will respond to being yelled at as it grabs attention.

> No, hardly anyone responds well to being yelled at. Do you? If someone yelled at you for misunderstanding a game mechanic, which you (a) believe them and pay more attention to find out what you missed or (b) dismiss them as a know-nothing who doesn't know as much as you or © dismiss them as unworthy of your attention.

>

> > Some it embarasses so they strive to do better to not be yelled at again., then some simply don't care and ignore everything.

> Most people do not do better by being embarrassed. Which is why I don't point out typos made in forum posts, even though everyone's browser comes with a built-in spellchecker to avoid them.

>

>

 

Dunno, maybe it works for you but I have never ever found calm and polite to work ever on getting people to CC. Not once.

Yelling is 100% the only way to make people pay attention enough to actually read chat at all. They will just ignore you if you dont because people just dont care.

 

It took me 20 tries to get the false joko achievement in new map commanding a squad and camping it by map hopping. I was copy pasting an explanation of the fight, with emphasis on focusing the clone and using hard CC before activating it. About 2 people of the zerg of 15-20 actually bothered to use CC.

 

Eventually I gave up and yelled at them telling them to basically fuck off and threatening to kick them out of group if they werent going to bother listening or CCing. Got the achievement next try.

 

[Leablo.2651]

It's not really a tutorial issue. People generally know what a breakbar is and how to cc. But PvE builds outside of raids don't usually include much cc. So when a scaling open world boss requires raid-like cc contribution, the zerg is unprepared. And that's because it's not efficient to be using cc-heavy builds anywhere else. This is just a natural consequence of having inconsistent combat mechanics. One of the real reasons people won't switch out their skills on a per-fight basis is because it's a pain to switch back and forth. This is another reason why build templates should be a priority. I'll bet that if you fix that the breakbar issues will fix themselves pretty quickly.

[Game of Bones.8975]

It's like taking an online college class vs in person; you can read the same text (wiki article) time after time and it will say the same thing. A teacher (mentor) can show and explain in real world terms what it is, what skills are best for your profession, and when to use them.

 

Remember there are new players all the time. Just because you learned 5-6 years ago, the noob that just started a couple months ago doesn't even know what CC means let alone the synchronicity between the Breakbar, CC, weapons, skills, and timing.

 

This is where being able to show and trade Builds would come in very handy.

[Biff.5312]

> @"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:

> The starter instance wouldn’t be a good place for it as you only have skill one autoattack and heal.

>

> It’s best to remember also that the starter instance has players that have never played an mmo before. They are still learning how to move around and attack things. What to do with breakbars is to much information and should be a tutorial on a higher level map.

 

Maybe, although there's no reason the tutorial couldn't involve giving you temporary access to a cc skill.

[Biff.5312]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> I'm quite simply tired of getting the "we didn't know what to do" excuse on breakbars, it's been years since they've been introduced but apparently players will only figure out what to do if you force them to learn through a tutorial. So teach them, they won't listen to other players unless we're extremely rude to them to get their attention. then they complain about people being rude to them, and that only gets the ones who are kind of not paying attention to chat unless you yell at them, there's others that don't pay attention to chat whatsoever.

 

I honestly think the problem is less that people don't know what to do as it is that they don't care. There's a dodge tutorial in the starter areas, yet in any large group event you'll notice at least about 1/3 of the players just stand and attack, and make zero effort to avoid getting hit. They simply ask for rez if downed. It's not that they don't know dodge exists - they just don't care. Same thing would likely be true here.

[DaFishBob.6518]

I envision a tutorial can be done by forcing new characters into a new instance when they try to enter expansion content (besides guild halls). An NPC appears in an arena in the mists, the character speaks to the NPC who will have dialogue options to explain how break bars work and a challenge to break a couple of bars in order to demonstrate mastery of this concept for this character class. Progress of this will be tracked in the story journal as a side story and will reward some heroic notaries for the player's time.

[Trinnitty.8256]

anet could add tooltip to your skills that show break bar damage. even put it in blue color to match the break bars color :)