Guild Wars 2

I will start by saying that I have thoroughly enjoyed Guild Wars 2 since its launch. This game was a breath of fresh air in a genre that is overrun with WoW clones, each throwing story and community aside in favor of rushing to the end to grind “endgame”. When ANet told us “Endgame starts at level 1” they really meant it. I can honestly say I had an AMAZING time leveling up, I made a lot of really great friends, enjoyed a really awesome and friendly community and even better there was literally always something to do even at the level cap.

Flash forward to the launch of Heart of Thorns.

What has put me off is not the bugs, nor is it the poorly planned out mastery system, or some of the exploits that needed to be addressed. It is the fundamental change of direction that ANet has taken with Guild Wars 2. I loved this game so much because I didn’t need to be a hardcore anything in order to take part and enjoy. World bosses were something you showed up for and had fun with along with countless others and not once did I hear people saying “Wow this is a terrible way of doing things!”. Ascended Gear could be crafted so again, something that folks can enjoy and work on at their own pace. Nothing at all about what we were sold on this game about made it into Heart of Thorns for some reason. What Heart of Thorns DID give the community:

-A new metric for weeding out players from even being allowed into raid groups
-A new metric for telling players what gear to wear
-A new metric for telling players what build to use
-Bringing in long-time hardcore guilds as testers and then having it backfire when they throw out the good old “world first” crap, which has really helped create a divide between the elitist and casual players

See where I am going here? ANet, I am not even sure you guys know where you are trying to take this game right now. Its very clear you have abandoned your longtime supporters who have stayed with the game in favor of this new crowd that you think is going to come rushing in because of raids.

In my opinion, raids in Guild Wars 2 should have been done like how Dragon’s Stand works. Massive map with multiple objectives, tons of players take part, everyone gets rewards and has fun. Yes, I said it, everyone gets rewarded who takes part. I know thats some sort of crime these days to say on here but I’m saying it.

So for now I simply refuse to spend any more money on anything for this game. I already own the base game and HoT, if I truly want to play I guess I will be confined to playing new alts through the Central Tyria content as I do not wish to be part of the absolute mess that Heart of Thorns has introduced into this game. I would encourage any others who feel this way as well to do the same. ANet may not care what we say on the forums, but they will definitely care about what we do with our money.

Sad to see you go. Personally, I love raids and this was one of the best additions to the game since release for me.

Funny, because I pretty much left for the exact opposite reason, Anet is making the game into a casualfest and ignoring “hardcore” players.
I guess everyone has their own opinion on it, but compared to other MMO’s Anet sure isn’t trying to keep things challenging for their players.

I appreciate your opinion, OP, but I strongly disagree with it and think it’s rife with unfounded hyperbole. Raids have been spectacular so far, have been a welcome injection of new instanced PvE content, and have been both invigorating and challenging. They’ve revitalized my guild and my interest in instanced PvE in a game with a combat system we love, and that’s great. Designing your builds and gear around what the team needs to succeed at the raid is wonderful, and something we’ve wanted for a long time. Finally, we have content where the reward is simply in winning and not necessarily in winning fast like it is for easy content such as Dungeons and Fractals. The nice thing about this is that it means you can take whatever builds you want or are familiar with so long as it gets the job done, and that’s great.

Also have to disagree with the OP, and I’m also the polar opposite on most of the things you enjoyed.

World bosses to me are the gimmick not raids. You run into an instance with 100 other players that you don’t care about to auto-attack a giant target that uses mechanics that most people don’t understand and completely ignore to get some RNG chest with nothing in it. A raid is a raid because it forces co-ordination, to make you feel like your part of team effort.

Your dragon stand idea i didn’t flatout dislike, but the thing is it already exists…as dragon’s stand.

No, basically all PvE in this game has been less about being part of a team and simply being a DPS bot that happens to be either in a party or zerg with other dps bots.

With raids you have a job, you have a purpose, your team relies on you for more than just increased dps output. You are important to the effort in multiple ways and you feel like that when your team does well.

If it wasn’t for raids, I’d never have bought HoT.

World bosses are even worse than raids, and raids have been awful, the only reason world bosses seem fine is because they’re tuned to be easily completable.

What they should have done is made more challenging solo content. When you start forcing groups just to get through things, it turns into a lottery of whether or not you happen to get other people that can manage the encounters.

Every group I found ended up with issues where people were having difficulty avoiding mechanics, and, unlike dungeons, I couldn’t just do everything for them with a single build. If I stopped healing, and let the other two healers handle it alone, people started dying to orbs and green circles that they either all moved in to, or only one other person moved into, if I started healing, we ended up with no condition damage and got killed by the timer, etc.

It’s hard to feel as though you have any influence over the outcome when no matter how you adjust things to try and fix shortcomings, the biggest impact on your success or failure is going to be the other members of the group.

The worst part is, there are already guides that people keep referring to, the raids were supposed to be described as puzzles, but you can’t walk into one of them without someone just telling you how it works. So much for the puzzle.

Eponet.4829:

World bosses are even worse than raids, and raids have been awful, the only reason world bosses seem fine is because they’re tuned to be easily completable.

What they should have done is made more challenging solo content. When you start forcing groups just to get through things, it turns into a lottery of whether or not you happen to get other people that can manage the encounters.

Every group I found ended up with issues where people were having difficulty avoiding mechanics, and, unlike dungeons, I couldn’t just do everything for them with a single build. If I stopped healing, and let the other two healers handle it alone, people started dying to orbs and green circles that they either all moved in to, or only one other person moved into, if I started healing, we ended up with no condition damage and got killed by the timer, etc.

It’s hard to feel as though you have any influence over the outcome when no matter how you adjust things to try and fix shortcomings, the biggest impact on your success or failure is going to be the other members of the group.

Because raids were supposed to be winnable with groups of randoms….

I really enjoy the raids, I’m casual and usually never PvE, the rest is fine it’s just not my cup of tea, not because I think it’s poorly done, it’s just not what I enjoy.

Now if they could just find a way to allow stat changing on gear to be less expensive (shard wise) and more convenient, I’d have next to nothing to gripe about other then WvW but thats for a different forum.

The biggest chunk of their resources is being focused on the casual PvE. It is also the most rewarding type of content by far. The only competitor to those rewards has even been nerfed into the ground now. Our raids aren’t even close to the raids in WoW one just has to rush to.

If raids had been designed like you suggest then they wouldn’t be raids. They would be yet another easy PvE mass event. If that is what you enjoy then that’s fine. HoT includes a ton of content like that.

Some of us do not like it, though. I get bored after only doing it once or twice.
There is this idea of working together while still being an anonymous apart of a mass of players. People hardly interract with eachother. Nobody talks apart from a few guys making jokes on the map chat. You can be fully awake or half asleep, it won’t make a difference. You get full rewards by simply showing up. Again, if that is what you like then that’s fine.

However, many of us enjoy the total opposite of those events:
We like to be challenged and to be shown our current limits.
We like to be rewarded based on our achievements.
We do not feel entitled to rewards or an inclusion in a group if we do not pull our weight.
We are not shocked that we will not be able to ever get certain rewards in this game.
We even deal with having to do content like open world PvE we don’t much like to actually get the gear we need to do content we enjoy.

Your dislike seems to come from not being able to participate in a tiny part of the game without a big effort. Something that only really rewards you with the accomplishment you feel. Both high level PvE and PvP work that way.
Seems to be a bit of a silly reason to “give up” on the game or at least to stop your support.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out…

There’s plenty of content ingame already for people like you that aren’t willing to dedicate the time, effort, or skill to mastering it. Raids aren’t for everyone, and I guarantee you that Anet is well aware of that fact, and is ok with it.

If you want to complete raids, you’re simply going to have to step up your game. If you’re unwilling to do that, too bad, so sad.

bladex.9502:

Anet is making the game into a casualfest and ignoring “hardcore” players.

Since August 28, 2012 you mean?

Completely disagree with the OP here.

It’s about time we got something that requires actual skill to beat.

oshilator.4681:

Completely disagree with the OP here.

It’s about time we got something that requires actual skill to beat.

Exactly. With respect to the OP, what I essentially took away from his long post was: you can no longer just have a bunch of people pile on the dps till everything dies. Sorry.

saeleth.3915:

I will start by saying that I have thoroughly enjoyed Guild Wars 2 since its launch. This game was a breath of fresh air in a genre that is overrun with WoW clones, each throwing story and community aside in favor of rushing to the end to grind “endgame”. When ANet told us “Endgame starts at level 1” they really meant it. I can honestly say I had an AMAZING time leveling up, I made a lot of really great friends, enjoyed a really awesome and friendly community and even better there was literally always something to do even at the level cap.

Flash forward to the launch of Heart of Thorns.

What has put me off is not the bugs, nor is it the poorly planned out mastery system, or some of the exploits that needed to be addressed. It is the fundamental change of direction that ANet has taken with Guild Wars 2. I loved this game so much because I didn’t need to be a hardcore anything in order to take part and enjoy. World bosses were something you showed up for and had fun with along with countless others and not once did I hear people saying “Wow this is a terrible way of doing things!”. Ascended Gear could be crafted so again, something that folks can enjoy and work on at their own pace. Nothing at all about what we were sold on this game about made it into Heart of Thorns for some reason. What Heart of Thorns DID give the community:

-A new metric for weeding out players from even being allowed into raid groups
-A new metric for telling players what gear to wear
-A new metric for telling players what build to use
-Bringing in long-time hardcore guilds as testers and then having it backfire when they throw out the good old “world first” crap, which has really helped create a divide between the elitist and casual players

See where I am going here? ANet, I am not even sure you guys know where you are trying to take this game right now. Its very clear you have abandoned your longtime supporters who have stayed with the game in favor of this new crowd that you think is going to come rushing in because of raids.

In my opinion, raids in Guild Wars 2 should have been done like how Dragon’s Stand works. Massive map with multiple objectives, tons of players take part, everyone gets rewards and has fun. Yes, I said it, everyone gets rewarded who takes part. I know thats some sort of crime these days to say on here but I’m saying it.

So for now I simply refuse to spend any more money on anything for this game. I already own the base game and HoT, if I truly want to play I guess I will be confined to playing new alts through the Central Tyria content as I do not wish to be part of the absolute mess that Heart of Thorns has introduced into this game. I would encourage any others who feel this way as well to do the same. ANet may not care what we say on the forums, but they will definitely care about what we do with our money.

You obviously do not know what they created 90% of the content in HoT. Seems you are only talk about raids, so we will talk about raids.

Raids were created for End-Game, high end content. For the hardcore players. You can not gear EVERY single content in the game towards Casuals. If you want that, go play Maple Story.

Seriously, Nobody is “requiring” a certain gear set. Sure, certain stats and certain levels of gear are going to be much more effective, but they aren’t “required”.

All I’m hearing from you, “WhaAAAA!!! They game got hard, I got faceroll my keyboard anymore”

HoT isn’t hard. It’s easy. I even ran it in full zerk. As far as DnT being kicked as you stated in your last point, DnT was invited (to my knowledge) along with ATT to give feedback on what the hardcore pve player would want. DnT abused said system. Gurantee they will no longer be invited back to anything.

I don’t see a divide between Casual PvE and Hardcore PvE. If there is, it’s a very soft line.

I primaraly play alone. I have my one solo guild, cus reasons, I rarely group, and the last time I did a dungeon? Hell if I remember.

I can say that I do feel that most of the HoT content is focused on groups, which is fine. I will often join in on the event mobs, no biggie. However, my main gripe is how some things like map completions are tied to group content, and if there are no people in the area, well Im SOL. I have to hope some people come around.

For me, Id like if there were more solo content that actually had meaning and reward. Don’t get me wrong though. There is still a lot to do as a solo player, and I enjoy it, however, I just feel kinda excluded from some things because of how I play.

That’s just me. I enjoy HoT thus far, and I know more content is to come. I still have a lot of things to do too.

I sympathize with OP. I shouldn’t be left feeling that my class is worthless for raid, I shouldn’t be forced to make second set of heavy ascended armor, I shouldn’t be forced to Revenant zerk raid while i Guard zerk fractal.

Their statements of no gear grind are very false now because ascended has a locked stats you can’t swap on fly, and they just keep adding those stat sets. What they should have done to keep this accessible to casuals is give us a way to craft legendary armor outside of raids. Then you go into raid, and stat swap all you like.

And apparently gw2 being balanced around pvp made thieves useless in raids? tough luck.

Sooo yeah. Meh. I’ll try doing raids with my main, if it doesn’t work, whatever. I think I’ll also try tanking in exotics on a guardian and see how that goes.

But my overall playtime will be reduced because of raids simply because it puts things in perspective. I can’t be good at the game anymore unless I’m hardcore. Well I liked being good. But I don’ thave hours to put in. So I’ll go put the hours I do have somewhere else. Some place that doesn’t make me feel inadequate.

OP is right in that casuals who don’t have a group to do this with/time to do this will start feeling like they are left out and start leaving. Some of them at least.

The only reason they put raids in is because they’ve botched up the existing game so much. Clearly LS isn’t cutting it financially, and they’ve turned to old school ideas – raiding, etc.

I suspect this won’t work either. As we saw in Wildstar, and any other number of games, this type of content doesn’t make you money. Its a resource sink that returns little profit.

And it alienates the people that actually generate cash. When they leave…. Oh well.

GW used to be unique. Now it’s just like every other mmo.

MashMash.1645:

The only reason they put raids in is because they’ve botched up the existing game so much. Clearly LS isn’t cutting it financially, and they’ve turned to old school ideas – raiding, etc.

I suspect this won’t work either. As we saw in Wildstar, and any other number of games, this type of content doesn’t make you money. Its a resource sink that returns little profit.

And it alienates the people that actually generate cash. When they leave…. Oh well.

GW used to be unique. Now it’s just like every other mmo.

Yes, Anet is obviously failing miserably, and losing money just like Wildstar! That’s clearly why they had 17.68 million dollars of sales in 2015 Q3, just like Wildstar’s 1.47 million dollars of sales!

Oh, hold on. GW2 has actually more than an order of magnitude higher sales, and the launch of HoT isn’t even included in 2015 Q3.

In other words, you’re just moaning because raids are too hard for you to beat by drooling on your keyboard, so you’re lying to try and convince people that Anet is doing a poor job, when the reality is exactly the opposite.

MashMash.1645:

The only reason they put raids in is because they’ve botched up the existing game so much. Clearly LS isn’t cutting it financially, and they’ve turned to old school ideas – raiding, etc.

I suspect this won’t work either. As we saw in Wildstar, and any other number of games, this type of content doesn’t make you money. Its a resource sink that returns little profit.

And it alienates the people that actually generate cash. When they leave…. Oh well.

GW used to be unique. Now it’s just like every other mmo.

Casual players will continue playing casual content, and casual content is continually created by ANet for them. Nearly 90% of the game is designed for those players. GW2 is incredibly successful, has won numerous prestigious accolades, and has a very high concurrency for players three years after initial release; for all intents and purposes it’s faring splendidly.

Challenging content has been something that the hardcore player base has requested for years, and ANet really delivered on it here. This is meant to give PvE a breadth of difficulty scales that players can progress through as they get better at the game, with no compulsion to participate if they don’t want to. It’s exactly what GW2 needed.

OP, you’re justifying your frustration from getting massacrated in the Raid in writing down lines of extremely exaggerated hyperbole(yes screw redundancy), and ultimately wanting to stick the final nail in the coffin by saying you’re gonna “speak with your wallet”

— But wait, you already bought HoT, with your wallet. Ops!

The game has been out for three. Whole. Years. And for those three years those who have been absolutely /craving/ for genuinely challenging PvE-wise content have finally gotten their wish, and you’re complaining for not being part of that demographic. Talk about blatant hypocrisy and sheer need to throw a tantrums in the forums with your patronizing speech of “THE GAME’S CHANGED WTH ANET”.

Everything changes, some things require change more than others. If it weren’t for HoT’s new mastery system, map metas(that actually make people want to DO the map events, unlike Southsun Cove) and now the only actual HARD & CORE PvE content in Gw2, the game would suffer from stagnation. And ultimately die out.

So to ensure the kitten game would survive, Anet opted to change their directions with Raids, in comparison to how they started the game.

Also: You have the rest of the whole freaking game to play, and you’re leaving the game for a piece of content that was NEVER meant for the demographic you’re in; the casual playerbase.

“Gorsh this insignificantly small piece of content in comparison to the 99% remaining game is 2 hard, game isn’t 4 me anet hates their players game sux.”

Hypocrisy was strong with the OP.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Nearly 90% of the game is designed for those players. GW2 is incredibly successful, has won numerous prestigious accolades, and has a very high concurrency for players three years after initial release; for all intents and purposes it’s faring splendidly.

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

The general statements against the OP are pretty ignorant. By and large most of this community is probably too young to remember what it was like to play games like EQ in 1999. In that era everything the OP is writing about actually was the mainstay experience of the MMO.

That being said when we see posts like this we ought to understand them as Orwellian Concerns. That is, you’re being told here there’s a real danger that:
- Raids have the potential to turn this game into a gear-treadmill
- Legendary armor may only come from raids making an elite class of players that firmly divide the game between the ‘have’ and ‘have nots’: something that per-dominates all other MMOs, but which Guild Wars 2 was known for not involving itself with.

These two small factors in the concerns which the OP is trying to voice leave good reason to watch very carefully where this goes. Already we’re seeing the injection in a item acquisition through trophies which are actually the same old mechanic as Dragon Kill Points (DKP) that in newer MMOs and later years of WoW are various types of tokens.

This is called an “edge” or “ledge”. If we tip a bit further into this the firm divide between those with Legendary Armor and allowed access to it isn’t going to be about how good you are as a player, but simply how old you are. If you’re above 21 you may want to seriously consider these concerns because you’re going to have a job, a family, and college that will be eating up your time. 6 hours a night to be jerked around with a raid to have a chance at Legendary Component 6 of 19 should really be taken for what it is: the end of your access to Guild Wars 2.

Why? Because once it becomes pre-supposed that a sufficient minority of the population has Legendary Gear that the Devs can swap over to making Legendary armor the new required armor to play every one of us that doesn’t have it which is all of us at the moment are out. We’re not longer the company’s demographic.

So, despite how you might thing “oh they’d never do that” keep in mind this has been the only game design running since the very first MMO.

Halvorn.9831:

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

Sure, it’s doing well in major part because it caters to casual players. Does that mean it should never in its entire lifetime do anything for any other kind of player? Of course not.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Halvorn.9831:

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

Sure, it’s doing well in major part because it caters to casual players. Does that mean it should never in its entire lifetime do anything for any other kind of player? Of course not.

But it does mean that putting out a first expansion that turns away from casual players is a very questionable idea, at best.

Palador.2170:

But it does mean that putting out a first expansion that turns away from casual players is a very questionable idea, at best.

Are you suggesting that the new maps and new story content are not casual? A marginal increase in general PvE difficulty doesn’t scare away the casual players; there’s tons of new content for them.

i’m sorry you’re unhappy, but I see several contradictions in your posts, as well as things that seem selfish, TBH.
“World bosses were something you showed up for and had fun with along with countless others "
“like how Dragon’s Stand works. Massive map with multiple objectives, tons of players take part, everyone gets rewards and has fun.”

So which is it for HOT then?

Also:
“In my opinion, raids in Guild Wars 2 should have been done like how Dragon’s Stand works.”
Why not do Dragon’s Stand? Do you think having content for different types of players is a bad thing for the game? Don’t do raids then. You don’t have to. All you’ll be missing out on is some minis and legendary armor? You’ll be saving yourself lots of pain.

I’m sure you want MORE content like the stuff you like, we all do. There are players who want more robust systems in WvW, more PvP maps, more fractals (more dungeons…), more maps, you get the idea. If Anet isn’t doing enough for you, you’re totally in the right to let them know. Just know that all of us have the same right to do the same.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Palador.2170:

But it does mean that putting out a first expansion that turns away from casual players is a very questionable idea, at best.

Are you suggesting that the new maps and new story content are not casual? A marginal increase in general PvE difficulty doesn’t scare away the casual players; there’s tons of new content for them.

Are you suggesting that a two-hour cycle, zone-wide meta event with above average difficulty and requiring multiple points of coordination is casual? Or Hero Challenges with champions on timers?

I feel I should point out that something can be non-casual friendly and still not be hard core friendly or even difficult. A lot of HoT is not built for casual players, but it’s also not enough of a challenge for hard core players that are looking for things like raids. The end result is something that I don’t even know the proper name for, but it’s not in step with what made base GW2 popular.

Halvorn.9831:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Nearly 90% of the game is designed for those players. GW2 is incredibly successful, has won numerous prestigious accolades, and has a very high concurrency for players three years after initial release; for all intents and purposes it’s faring splendidly.

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

Or.. You know, because of the business model?

Do you really think GW2 would be alive right now with a subscription fee like Wildstar did?

People who say W* died because it was hardcore are clueless. The game wasnt worth a sub fee.

Guild Wars 2 would be dead on the ground for a long time ago if it had a subscription fee. Would you say it failed because it was too much casual then?

Same bullkitten logic.

cant make everyone happy

Palador.2170:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Palador.2170:

But it does mean that putting out a first expansion that turns away from casual players is a very questionable idea, at best.

Are you suggesting that the new maps and new story content are not casual? A marginal increase in general PvE difficulty doesn’t scare away the casual players; there’s tons of new content for them.

Are you suggesting that a two-hour cycle, zone-wide meta event with above average difficulty and requiring multiple points of coordination is casual? Or Hero Challenges with champions on timers?

Given that these cycles are being completed by players just tagging up after learning the strategies and figuring out how breakbars work, just because it is a great way to earn experience? Yes, the content in HoT became the new casual. That’s a good thing, that was the intent.

There was a lot of resistance early on, but people are catching onto the content and doing better with each time they make a mistake and remedy it, that’s healthy and natural. It’s much better than releasing ‘the same-old’ and bleeding out veterans who want something more.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Halvorn.9831:

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

Sure, it’s doing well in major part because it caters to casual players. Does that mean it should never in its entire lifetime do anything for any other kind of player? Of course not.

The game is littered with content that was supposed to be “challenging”. Dungeons, fractals, Tequatl, the Triple Wurms. The content locust crowd devoured each in turn and then came crying to Anet for more when they got bored with them. What happens when you get bored with this, too? Anet’s resources aren’t infinite, if they start focusing on raids to the exclusion of actually accessible content, people are going to get angry (and rightfully so).

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Halvorn.9831:

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

Sure, it’s doing well in major part because it caters to casual players. Does that mean it should never in its entire lifetime do anything for any other kind of player? Of course not.

The game is littered with content that was supposed to be “challenging”. Dungeons, fractals, Tequatl, the Triple Wurms. The content locust crowd devoured each in turn and then came crying to Anet for more when they got bored with them. What happens when you get bored with this, too? Anet’s resources aren’t infinite, if they start focusing on raids to the exclusion of actually accessible content, people are going to get angry (and rightfully so).

People are going to get angry regardless, what even is your point?

I don’t understand why it’s an impossible notion to accept that literally ONE TIME in the history of this game they decide to release something that actually requires effort exerted to succeed, it does NOT mean that they have suddenly decided to cater to hardcore players rather than casuals.

It is also frustrating seeing other players making excuses for the company’s resources. It’s not just you that does this, it’s all over the forums and reddit too and it’s just ridiculous to shut down suggestions/content requests from other players because “it’s too much work,” when they have nothing to do with the company that works on it to begin with.

Purple Miku.7032:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Halvorn.9831:

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

Sure, it’s doing well in major part because it caters to casual players. Does that mean it should never in its entire lifetime do anything for any other kind of player? Of course not.

The game is littered with content that was supposed to be “challenging”. Dungeons, fractals, Tequatl, the Triple Wurms. The content locust crowd devoured each in turn and then came crying to Anet for more when they got bored with them. What happens when you get bored with this, too? Anet’s resources aren’t infinite, if they start focusing on raids to the exclusion of actually accessible content, people are going to get angry (and rightfully so).

People are going to get angry regardless, what even is your point?

I don’t understand why it’s an impossible notion to accept that literally ONE TIME in the history of this game they decide to release something that actually requires effort exerted to succeed, it does NOT mean that they have suddenly decided to cater to hardcore players rather than casuals.

It is also frustrating seeing other players making excuses for the company’s resources. It’s not just you that does this, it’s all over the forums and reddit too and it’s just ridiculous to shut down suggestions/content requests from other players because “it’s too much work,” when they have nothing to do with the company that works on it to begin with.

Sure thing. I tnink the problem is that there’s legendary armor which gives you some really good benefits. Which you can obtain only if you do AND finish raids. So, I think most of casuals don’t mind adding new hardcore content for you guys, but without rewards that gives you something that can’t be obtained in other aspects of the game and gives benefits at the same time. You can have some exclusive minis and skins. After all, you’re doing challenge content for challenge, not to get stuff to discriminate people, right?

Fay.2357:

MashMash.1645:

The only reason they put raids in is because they’ve botched up the existing game so much. Clearly LS isn’t cutting it financially, and they’ve turned to old school ideas – raiding, etc.

I suspect this won’t work either. As we saw in Wildstar, and any other number of games, this type of content doesn’t make you money. Its a resource sink that returns little profit.

And it alienates the people that actually generate cash. When they leave…. Oh well.

GW used to be unique. Now it’s just like every other mmo.

Yes, Anet is obviously failing miserably, and losing money just like Wildstar! That’s clearly why they had 17.68 million dollars of sales in 2015 Q3, just like Wildstar’s 1.47 million dollars of sales!

Oh, hold on. GW2 has actually more than an order of magnitude higher sales, and the launch of HoT isn’t even included in 2015 Q3.

In other words, you’re just moaning because raids are too hard for you to beat by drooling on your keyboard, so you’re lying to try and convince people that Anet is doing a poor job, when the reality is exactly the opposite.

Just because someone failed harder than you did doesn’t mean you didn’t fail also.

Eirdyne.9843:

The general statements against the OP are pretty ignorant. By and large most of this community is probably too young to remember what it was like to play games like EQ in 1999. In that era everything the OP is writing about actually was the mainstay experience of the MMO.

That being said when we see posts like this we ought to understand them as Orwellian Concerns. That is, you’re being told here there’s a real danger that:
- Raids have the potential to turn this game into a gear-treadmill
- Legendary armor may only come from raids making an elite class of players that firmly divide the game between the ‘have’ and ‘have nots’: something that per-dominates all other MMOs, but which Guild Wars 2 was known for not involving itself with.

These two small factors in the concerns which the OP is trying to voice leave good reason to watch very carefully where this goes. Already we’re seeing the injection in a item acquisition through trophies which are actually the same old mechanic as Dragon Kill Points (DKP) that in newer MMOs and later years of WoW are various types of tokens.

This is called an “edge” or “ledge”. If we tip a bit further into this the firm divide between those with Legendary Armor and allowed access to it isn’t going to be about how good you are as a player, but simply how old you are. If you’re above 21 you may want to seriously consider these concerns because you’re going to have a job, a family, and college that will be eating up your time. 6 hours a night to be jerked around with a raid to have a chance at Legendary Component 6 of 19 should really be taken for what it is: the end of your access to Guild Wars 2.

Why? Because once it becomes pre-supposed that a sufficient minority of the population has Legendary Gear that the Devs can swap over to making Legendary armor the new required armor to play every one of us that doesn’t have it which is all of us at the moment are out. We’re not longer the company’s demographic.

So, despite how you might thing “oh they’d never do that” keep in mind this has been the only game design running since the very first MMO.

+1000 to you sir. While your writing will probably be incomprehensible to a certain percentage of readers, very nicely explained, I’d never be able to explain the issues troubling me half so well

Eirdyne.9843:

The general statements against the OP are pretty ignorant. By and large most of this community is probably too young to remember what it was like to play games like EQ in 1999. In that era everything the OP is writing about actually was the mainstay experience of the MMO.

That being said when we see posts like this we ought to understand them as Orwellian Concerns. That is, you’re being told here there’s a real danger that:
- Raids have the potential to turn this game into a gear-treadmill
- Legendary armor may only come from raids making an elite class of players that firmly divide the game between the ‘have’ and ‘have nots’: something that per-dominates all other MMOs, but which Guild Wars 2 was known for not involving itself with.

These two small factors in the concerns which the OP is trying to voice leave good reason to watch very carefully where this goes. Already we’re seeing the injection in a item acquisition through trophies which are actually the same old mechanic as Dragon Kill Points (DKP) that in newer MMOs and later years of WoW are various types of tokens.

This is called an “edge” or “ledge”. If we tip a bit further into this the firm divide between those with Legendary Armor and allowed access to it isn’t going to be about how good you are as a player, but simply how old you are. If you’re above 21 you may want to seriously consider these concerns because you’re going to have a job, a family, and college that will be eating up your time. 6 hours a night to be jerked around with a raid to have a chance at Legendary Component 6 of 19 should really be taken for what it is: the end of your access to Guild Wars 2.

Why? Because once it becomes pre-supposed that a sufficient minority of the population has Legendary Gear that the Devs can swap over to making Legendary armor the new required armor to play every one of us that doesn’t have it which is all of us at the moment are out. We’re not longer the company’s demographic.

So, despite how you might thing “oh they’d never do that” keep in mind this has been the only game design running since the very first MMO.

I actually appreciate pointing out the concerns in this manner. I personally could understand the concerns of players who might see things in a different light, and of course it is natural for them to respond in such a manner to prevent what they perceive as a possible outcome in the direction GW2 is going.

However I do not think anyone, even the players fully enjoying the content that many cannot get into easily, want those Orwellian Concerns to come to fruition either.

If I may, I vastly support what has come out with HoT in terms of difficulty and content, albeit there are some changes…that could have been handled far better. I however do not want a Gear Treadmill, I don’t believe in a gear treadmill, there should never be a gear treadmill. I know an overwhelming amount of us do not want to have our gear invalidated by something above ascended, and I want to believe contrary to what some individuals are thinking is that Arenanet knows this as well, and never adds to Vertical Progression ever again. It would be a terrible betrayal.

The Legendary Armor argument I have strongly opposed as well, and although I don’t have proof in my previous argument against the Gear Treadmill that Arenanet won’t go back on their word, the Legendary Armor discussion can be relieved a bit just because Legendary Backpieces can exist in two different mediums. The fact that there was not just one source for a Legendary Backpiece indicates to me that the possibility of Legendary Armor being obtainable by more than just raids is high as well, my rationale why Legendary Armor is in this Raid right now, is purely to promote the first ever Raid of GW2. It is a terrific carrot for content worthy of players who perform excellently in PvE content. It’s an appropriate award, but I do not think Raid content will be the only content in the future with the Armor, that would disappoint me.

The legendary armor argument is sort of moot as it is equivalent in power to Ascended which in turn, is only about a 2% increase in effective power over exotic (just the 6 total armor pieces). As long as Anet keeps the stat distributions the same and doesn’t power creep with either a level increase or decide to make legendaries more powerful, the players will be saved from being excluded by not having that armor. I’d wager that every encounter in these raids could be done just as well in exotic armor with ascend trinks/weapons versus full ascended.

OP – I think what you are feeling is valid. GW2 has indeed changed directions. It was what the vocal population wanted and, most likely, what Anet themselves wanted. Is it hard to imagine the developers being bored with their own game?

Unfortunately, it isn’t what you wanted. That doesn’t make it wrong does it? Surely you can see the game needs Hearts and World bosses as well as Raids and Group Based Meta Events? Is it less for providing content you don’t feel comfortable playing?

I can tell you loved the game as it was. I encourage you to vote with your wallet, if that is what you wish to do, but it seems unnecessary. Despite the obvious changes to content presentation, for now, I do not believe GW2 will abandon its core mechanics. There will be more content, and I bet some of it will even have you doing a 180 on your current post.

Some elitist posters can be harsh but their message is valid just the same. Lots of people wanted raids, and we will vote with our wallets too.

cenobite.1506:

Sure thing. I tnink the problem is that there’s legendary armor which gives you some really good benefits. Which you can obtain only if you do AND finish raids. So, I think most of casuals don’t mind adding new hardcore content for you guys, but without rewards that gives you something that can’t be obtained in other aspects of the game and gives benefits at the same time. You can have some exclusive minis and skins. After all, you’re doing challenge content for challenge, not to get stuff to discriminate people, right?

Nope, I’ve never ever ever agreed with the mentality that rewards should be homogenized across all gamemodes. I was one of the strong opposers to the PvP reward tracks because I find it stupid for dungeon skins to be obtained without having to actually do the dungeons themselves.

Just like that, I’d find it stupid to get legendary armor with a theme derived from raids anywhere besides from raids.

Besides, actually doing something worth a kitten should mean you get something worth a kitten .

If a player isn’t willing or capable to put forth the time investment and effort needed to succeed, they shouldn’t. That is my philosophy and I think that for the game integrity itself, there needs to be greater emphasis on this. I don’t give a kitten if casual players yield the most profits.