Elite Specs and the Future of Guild Wars 2's Expansions

[WJHB.8130]

As I am sure everyone has noticed, every expansion we have received an elite spec, some sort of movement ability (glider and mounts), and a new map area. This is fine and it gives a lot of good content, however I feel like we are moving in a direction where new players will not be able to learn the game while having fun. This pertains mainly to elite specs. Most people will join the game and get their free 80 boost, boost up to max, and then have no idea what is going on with all the specs in this game. Yes, I understand that it is recommended that new players level to 80 first then boost another character to max, however (this may just be me) levelling is extremely boring. More so than most MMOs. It is essentially just running around filling up hearts.

 

So what is the problem with the path of elite specs that we are going down? Well, every expansion we receive 9 new specs (1 for each class). There are 9 classes and currently 2 expansions. So in order to just have a chance at PvP or WvW a new player has to learn the basics of 27 new "classes" (because each spec is so different from the core gameplay). Assuming there are 9 more elite specs coming with whatever the next xpac is, that will bump that number up to 36. That's a lot of classes. My question is: Do you think that we are going down the right path for the long term, and if not what could Anet do to continue growing the game and making revenue?

 

EDIT: Since it seems like the conclusion is that elite specs are fine for new players (which I do pretty much agree with but just wanted to see how everyone felt) what do you think the next xpac should be? Should it be the same thing? The most logical xpac if anet follows their pattern would be flight/something extremely close to flight or some other form of movement such as tunneling or swimming, another map (obvs), a new spec for each profession, and a new weapon to accompany the elite spec. Is this an okay path to continue? When do we stop elite specs and start with something new? What should that new thing be?

[Dante.1763]

I mean you dont really need to learn 27 elite specs to play pvp or wvw. Pick one and learn it, if you dont like it, pick another and learn that. its the primary reason i have so many characters, i like setting up one character for one thing, and learning it. It took me forever to be convinced to stop playing BM ranger and i didnt switch that out till the SB was added, though i did always use a condition set up.

[Blocki.4931]

They definitely do NOT have to learn each of the classes. I'm closing in on 6 years since I've started playing and I have never touched Engineer, Rev or Guardian really. All I know about them is what I picked up from seeing them played. The biggest issue for an entirely new person is a different one: No guidance.

 

They don't know what living story is, they don't know where to go the moment their story ends. They get the message to visit the current map release as they unlock it automatically, but they most likely finish that story and depending on when that happens wonder where everybody else is. All of this stuff is something they need to figure out themselves or by finding people actually caring enough to guide them or give them any tips. There aren't any obvious goals in the game beyond "wait for the next release" if they don't actively look for them first. I would have certainly stopped playing after Season 3 of the living story, if I didn't feel motivated to work towards my first legendary, the at that point just recently released Aurora.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"WJHB.8130" said:

> As I am sure everyone has noticed, every expansion we have received an elite spec, some sort of movement ability (glider and mounts), and a new map area. This is fine and it gives a lot of good content, however I feel like we are moving in a direction where new players will not be able to learn the game while having fun. This pertains mainly to elite specs. Most people will join the game and get their free 80 boost, boost up to max, and then have no idea what is going on with all the specs in this game. Yes, I understand that it is recommended that new players level to 80 first then boost another character to max, however (this may just be me) levelling is extremely boring. More so than most MMOs. It is essentially just running around filling up hearts.

>

> So what is the problem with the path of elite specs that we are going down? Well, every expansion we receive 9 new specs (1 for each class). There are 9 classes and currently 2 expansions. So in order to just have a chance at PvP or WvW a new player has to learn the basics of 27 new "classes" (because each spec is so different from the core gameplay). Assuming there are 9 more elite specs coming with whatever the next xpac is, that will bump that number up to 36. That's a lot of classes. My question is: Do you think that we are going down the right path for the long term, and if not what could Anet do to continue growing the game and making revenue?

 

None of that is caused by Especs- Thats just the Learning curve of a complex system in action. IE: You don't understand how it works, so you fumble around to figure out what does. Especs are designed to build ON TOP of the knowledge of its core spec and associated game mechanics. So to fix that you'd have to design the game to never do anything new, lest it pose the player with something they don't immediately recognize or understand. If anything, the lvl 80 boost is whats leading to the issue, and should NEVER give the impression that max level is a substitute for learning the mechanics. There is NO way to fundamentally fix that without forcing the players into a training area until its arbitrarily deemed they "understand the game".

 

Being immensely lenient in definition, the closest approximation to an impact caused by a knowledge deficit in the player, is not having encyclopedic knowledge of raw information to make abstract assumptions and probability assessments. This DOES NOT prevent a player from being able to understand or being able to learn the game's mechanics and interactions, as those follow consistent rules..... more so then most MMOs, since GW2 has been trying to minimize bespoke effects and unify as much of them as possible. In the rare cases where some of these effects are modified, all that I can recall only do so in mathematical potency, and never in its fundamental mechanical nature.

 

And even if we were to assume half of what you're claiming is true, learning the most important forward facing aspect of other classes is merely a function of exposure and time, and NOT any functional impossibility. And like most games that regularly reuse ideas, the learning process rapidly accelerates the more foundational knowledge the player gains. So what might look like a string of 40+ interacting mechanics is still built on some 5 basic ideas that work the same way, but their combinations just result in slightly differing outputs.

 

Now to pint out why thats far less of an issue is in the Nature of the Especs themselves. All their doing is introducing 1 or 2 new mechanics to the existing Core specs, and its through their interaction with the rest of the class's resources that you get these many play style changes. Some overt, others more nuanced, but all the result of their interactions with each other. To learn the one or two most significant changes already gives you 50% of the knowledge you need to counter it.... the remaining 50% is in the play/counterplay dynamic, and is the half thats much more likely to see rapid evolution in all game modes.

 

 

Once that argument is stripped away, then what you're really complaining about is there being a learning curve at all.... and that the game doesn't successfully eliminate it through its design. The solution for this exists, but only as a trade off. You can make the game easier to learn, but often comes at the cost of vectors of interaction. This is compounded further by the nature of the game mixing multiple activity types into its open world format, disallowing the ability to laser focus on selectively iterating specific mechanics to either increase interactions, or amount of content for it to interact with. That type of learning curve has to be extremely well proctored, and almost impossible to do when the player has any real freedom in their actions.

 

So this argument that "just to have a chance at PvP or WvW' that a player would have to understand a large number of interactions that can only be learned through exposure, is kind of obvious when you say it out loud. In order to do well in the game, I have to understand how it works. PvP having a matching make system eases the disparity, but can never eliminate it; because its impossible to balance to two players or groups of players on skill and knowledge. This is even less of concept in WvW, because all players are in the same play space, and there is no illusion of a fair fight. Thus players have to learn how to assess threats and unbalance a fight based on experience, environmental factors, number of enemies, and a general understanding of which classes are prone to be the most aggressive. Much of that has little to do with understand the fine points of a Class or Espec's build concept, and will more typically boil down to how fast a class will drop you once they engage. From that point forward, getting better is just a matter of learning what does and doesn't work through some understanding of the enemy's use of common mechanics, and a lot of trial and error.