the number of participants for DE’s is now starting to dwindle due to the only viable new advancement being the vertical progression from dungeon runs.
Here’s how.
Just logged in and found about 22 people in Orr trying to take back the Arah door.
Apparently people were complaining because there aren’t enough people to take back the door. People aren’t coming to Orr anymore because the higher tier armor with the better stats are all now solely in a single dungeon so that’s the content people are playing.
Seems adding vertical progression to a horizontal progression game has dire consequences. Wonder how long this will go on until A: Anet is forced to make the DE’s weaker and easier for smaller groups to do in open world areas like Orr or B: Anet is forced to remove the higher stats on the gear in the dungeons so that there are more people in open world environments to complete the DE’s.
If anyone was wondering why there was such an enormous outcry against this sort of thing being added to a title like this it wasn’t just because it went against the manifesto, it’s because it has many consequences none of which are positive and all of which will require extra time and resources to try to balance so that the rest of the game can be played normally.
By adding better armor to a dungeon and making that the only means by which people will want to progress, they’ve officially made Orr “older content” thus making it less popular and fewer people will bother since they have better rewards from the Fractals.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!