Guild Wars 2

Jockum.1385:

You can start fractals on a low level and slowly improve step by step – by “succeeding”. Low level fractals were easier than most dungeons btw. You can’t do the same in raids, there is no raid level which you can climb up step by step.

I can easily pick up 4 other random people without knowing anything about them (PUGs) and we can do a dungeon or fractal. Maybe not always, but most of the times. It takes more time, might be slow and painfull – but it works. For raids you have to be way more picky.

You are wrong, plain and simple. Many (or most?) people obviously improve more or less slowly, step by step, in raids. Nail down the mechanics of the boss’s first phase, then the next phase and finally kill it. Repeat at next boss. That’s the essence of MMO raiding, not facerolling through easymodes that could be done by an untrained monkey. By the way, the current raids are anything but hard – if that’s too hard for someone, it’s quite telling about the respective player.

CptAurellian.9537:

You are wrong, plain and simple. Many (or most?) people obviously improve more or less slowly, step by step, in raids. Nail down the mechanics of the boss’s first phase, then the next phase and finally kill it. Repeat at next boss. That’s the essence of MMO raiding, not facerolling through easymodes that could be done by an untrained monkey. By the way, the current raids are anything but hard – if that’s too hard for someone, it’s quite telling about the respective player.

Indeed what many people asking for easy modes do not understand is that Raid encounters are not binary success/failure kind of things. They are more like "beat phase 1, beat phase 2, beat phase 3 kind of things. As an example, Deimos, the last boss of Wing 4, is easier than the average dungeon boss and/or fractal boss until you reach 60% of his health, then he gets progressively harder and harder. I really can’t imagine a team of 10 random pugs not reaching that point, ok they’d need a tank, a healer and a kiter but nothing excessive pugs can’t do. Or reaching the first split phase of Vale Guardian, once again some organisation is needed but I’m sure even the average GW2 player can reach that point because it IS really easier than a dungeon and/or fractal.

That’s why I proposed some time ago to give players the opportunity to move further in the Raid once they beat a specific phase of the encounter, and call that an “easy mode”. No further tweaks to difficulty or mechanics are needed and the reward is there, a few magnetite shards that you also get when you fail the encounter at that same phase.

maddoctor.2738:

I’d love to see those 5 full soldier warriors using only auto attacks defeat Giganticus Lupicus, or any Arah boss for that matter.

That was more to describe the little amount of skill and/or builds required to do fractals and dungeons. You don’t need special builds, equipment or very skilled players.
I did arah the first time with some guildmates in ~2012/early 2013. We ran around ranged like headless chicken with some relativly tanky equipment. When someone was dead we tried to lure Lupi as far away as possible while someone revived him. Yes, we didn’t defeat him on the first try, but we succeeded on that evening.
Now you just need a single experienced player with WoR. There are even players which can solo him “legit”. Soloing a raidboss is probably a bit more difficult.
Fractals are different. You start on a low level and notice which skills might be helpful – and run them the next time on a slightly higher level. You can also keep playing T1 or T2 fractals – enjoy the content on the difficulty you prefer.

CptAurellian.9537:

You are wrong, plain and simple. Many (or most?) people obviously improve more or less slowly, step by step, in raids.

You missed the point. I was speaking about “succeeding”.
To summarize some of the stuff I wrote in this thread:
It is very painfull to fail at a boss. Most PUGs with 10 random builds would enter the first boss (VG) and fail hard. Then they decide the content is too difficult and stay away from raids. That’s ok. Raids are not meant for these players. GW2 also not, obviously.
What else is there for them to do? Low level fractals and dungeons?
These players have run dungeons and fractals for the same time as dungeon sc guilds. And they ran into the same problem as these guilds: lack of content. Anet added raids – which cater to the “hardcore dungeon players”, those “more casual players” got left behind.

Failing repeatedly at the same boss is no fun for most players. For someone who enjoys a challenge it might be. For someone who wants to “farm” the boss each week it might be ok to spend lots of time training the boss. For someone who plays 2 hours a week it’s problematic. How many hours of training does a bad player in a bad group (guildteam) need to succeed at the first boss? Some pages earlier I suggested 10 hours of training (which is probably extremly optimistic), for an “2 hours a week” player this is roughly a month of training. A month without doing nothing else than failing at a single boss.
This requires a pretty hardcore mindset. Most players don’t enjoy it. They also don’t plan to kill the boss each week. So after they killed him, they would maybe kill him a few more times – but not each week. Is it worth to spend a month of training to kill a boss maybe two times? I don’t think so. That’s a really hardcore mindset required here.

Most players are probably dying at like 95-90% boss hp, say “no chance to kill him” and leave the content. Which is ok. Raids were never meant for these players.
But what has GW2 to offer for these players? That’s the problem. And that’s why I say GW2 is in a terrible shape and should have way more casual teamcontent.

Currently (imho) the game is very splitted into an “open world community” and “raids”. That’s not healthy. There should be content in between as dungeons/fractals/teamquests. Some players enjoy these kinds of content optimize their equip and builds step by step and then maybe get into raids. “Improve by succeeding” instead of “improve by failing”. There should be a huge variety of content of different difficulties.
Similar as in GW1 where an expansion had ~20 "storydungeons"+"world maps"+quests+2 raids+hardmode for everything. A HoT with 20 new dungeons (even 10..) and we won’t be talking.

Currently most players have done fractals and dungeons. There is not much motivation to go back into that old content again and again. What has GW2 to offer for teamoriented players which are not raiding? Only old content from 2012/2013. Yes, some reworks, but that can’t replace new content. These players could go back to GW1 and enjoy similar dated content. For these players GW2 is in a terrible shape.
For hardcore teamplayers there are raids. For open world players there is open world.
For casual teamplayers easy teamcontent is required. If done right these content would also be attractive for raid players. Some of them are also doing fractals and dungeons.

I also don’t think fractals and raids are very comparable.
Raids are very structured and organized. In retrospect, fractals are very chaotic and ‘random’. So Raids test your overal prowess and ability to react to a series of mechanisms. Fractals will throw you in a black whirlwind of random unfairness and not test your abilities, but rather, your adaptability to utter and uncontrollable chaos. There’s nothing fair or structured about fractals. When I complete 3 full wings of raids in an evening, I can ragequit on T4 fractals

Jockum.1385:

Currently (imho) the game is very splitted into an “open world community” and “raids”. That’s not healthy. There should be content in between as dungeons/fractals/teamquests. Some players enjoy these kinds of content optimize their equip and builds step by step and then maybe get into raids. “Improve by succeeding” instead of “improve by failing”. There should be a huge variety of content of different difficulties.
Similar as in GW1 where an expansion had ~20 "storydungeons"+"world maps"+quests+2 raids+hardmode for everything. A HoT with 20 new dungeons (even 10..) and we won’t be talking.

Currently most players have done fractals and dungeons. There is not much motivation to go back into that old content again and again. What has GW2 to offer for teamoriented players which are not raiding? Only old content from 2012/2013. Yes, some reworks, but that can’t replace new content. These players could go back to GW1 and enjoy similar dated content. For these players GW2 is in a terrible shape.
For hardcore teamplayers there are raids. For open world players there is open world.
For casual teamplayers easy teamcontent is required. If done right these content would also be attractive for raid players. Some of them are also doing fractals and dungeons.

Your answer is Fractals. You just don’t like the answer. You’ve got 2 new fractals, one even includes a challenge mote with decent repeatable rewards for those people who want 5 man content.

I can only hazard a guess as to why you don’t like them based on your previous statements about failure. It my belief that your masking the chance to fail/difficulty with having played the content (which im suspect that you actually have done all 100 Fractal levels and CM).

Jockum.1385:

Currently (imho) the game is very splitted into an “open world community” and “raids”. That’s not healthy. There should be content in between as dungeons/fractals/teamquests.

First, there IS content in between Raids and open world, and even the open world has encounters of various difficulty levels.
Fractals and dungeons had been abandoned for 2 full years. They restructured and formed a new team to deal with Fractal development, and that team has done a great job since Heart of Thorns release, and we aren’t even at the 2 year point yet. We might get another Fractal before then.

That aside, and to stay on the topic of easy mode raids, do you honestly believe that if we get 12 new Fractals in the next expansion the requests for easy mode raids will stop? Will the need for easy mode Raids disappear from the minds of players if you give them more Fractals?

Jockum.1385:

You missed the point. I was speaking about “succeeding”.
To summarize some of the stuff I wrote in this thread:
It is very painfull to fail at a boss. Most PUGs with 10 random builds would enter the first boss (VG) and fail hard. Then they decide the content is too difficult and stay away from raids.

So it’s all about instant gratification for trivial tasks. To quote some infamous words: SO SAD!

Jockum.1385:

You missed the point. I was speaking about “succeeding”.
To summarize some of the stuff I wrote in this thread:
It is very painfull to fail at a boss. Most PUGs with 10 random builds would enter the first boss (VG) and fail hard. Then they decide the content is too difficult and stay away from raids. That’s ok. Raids are not meant for these players. GW2 also not, obviously.
What else is there for them to do? Low level fractals and dungeons?
These players have run dungeons and fractals for the same time as dungeon sc guilds. And they ran into the same problem as these guilds: lack of content. Anet added raids – which cater to the “hardcore dungeon players”, those “more casual players” got left behind.

Raids were and are marketed as organized group content. You are supposed to fail with random builds, this is the actual difference from the other instanced content. Preplanning before a boss fight.

maddoctor.2738:

First, there IS content in between Raids and open world, and even the open world has encounters of various difficulty levels.

Open world doesn’t require any kind of teamwork. Actually it even punishes teams. Ever tried to explore a map as a team? You are much faster solo, you don’t have to wait for other teammates until they have finished their heart or stopped falling down from a vista. Open world is a very difference “teamexperience” as instanced content.
It’s like fighting with town guards in skyrim against a dragon.

We might get another Fractal before then.

So its three fractals in 2 years. That would require a casual team which does a single 15 min fractal every week to repeat each of those fractals ~30 times. Repeating the same fractal again and again is not fun for everyone.

That aside, and to stay on the topic of easy mode raids, do you honestly believe that if we get 12 new Fractals in the next expansion the requests for easy mode raids will stop?

No. But the amount of players asking for it would shrink + lacking content is a good reason to ask for an easymode. Access to raid exclusive rewards as the armour skin isn’t a good reason.

CptAurellian.9537:

So it’s all about instant gratification for trivial tasks. To quote some infamous words: SO SAD!

To quote some infamous words: wrong. Read it again.

TexZero.7910:

Your answer is Fractals. You just don’t like the answer. You’ve got 2 new fractals, one even includes a challenge mote with decent repeatable rewards for those people who want 5 man content.

So would you be ok with the removal of all raids? Because there are two new fractals which could keep you busy? I think two new fractals is not enough.

Fractals also have several serious problems. One of it is the length of the content, which is limited. You can’t really ad a 1 hour fractal into the existing fractal system.
Another issue are the rewards. Every fractal gives the same rewards, so why bother doing a new fractal when you can also do snowblind? Or if you can’t really use the tokens? So the replay value is zero.
I’m sure my casual guild which already struggles with T2 fractals is not going to do nightmare cm.

For example the aetherpath has a way more attractive reward structure than fractals. Gold, lootbags (ok, dredge fractal), dungeon tokens, guaranteed exo. Actually the exo is a bit much, a lower droprate would also be ok. The pre-HoT rewards were fine imho.

To give you a simple example what I’d like to see:
either a simple editor map (see the meantioned tool some pages ago, a 12 year old can create a map with it in an hour), or reused GW2 maps (existing dungeons, open world turned into instances (see core story arah pale-tree dream), or minidungeons).
Fill those maps up with some trashmobs, ideally stuff as in aetherpath. Add some existing bosses as kholer and adjust their stats. Maybe add some simple mechanics as “at each 25% he spawns adds” similar as volcano fractal.
This would teach players to make use of simple teamskills as stabi, condition removal, reflection etc. And it could easily have a good replay value, if trashmobs drop similar loot as in aetherpath or dredge fractal. You could even add a 1% chance from the final chest to get some old and ugly BL-Skin.
If you look at the volcano fractal: trashmobs, boss, boss. So maybe 4 rooms full of trashmobs, champ ettin from uncategorized, 4 rooms full of trashmobs, malrona which spawns at each 25% lots of small spiders which cause AOE conditions when they die. Final chest with rewards similar as pre-HoT aetherpath. You could also add a leather node after the bossfight.

I am not asking for super complex boss fights. I am also not asking for tarir-like rewards. GW2 has a wide variety of existing bosses (dungeons, open world) which could easily be used. And Anet could also add new aspects as spawning trashmobs at health percentages, or by adding a strong regeneration buff which needs to be outdpsed or removed every 20 seconds. That’s “strategic gameplay”. Casual can deal with it, they can ask or know someone who can give advice. Stuff as thaumanova is a problem, you either fall down or you don’t. You can’t really “buildwars” the boss to prevent platforms from disappearing. But you can buildwars bosses as kholer with stabi/reflec.

Miellyn: you might want to read that again, your response makes no sense. I was the whole time speaking about a lack of casual content, not about a lack of challenging content for highly organised teams. I never have said raids should target casual groups. I always said, even in the part you quoted, that raids are not meant for casual players.
And that’s ok. But the lack of casual content is not ok.

Oh god, I hope we won’t get such a content because it would be trash tier and abandoned by the majority of the player base after some weeks already.

I doubt 11111 content (otherwise also known as open world) is not trash tier content – but there are probably 90% of GW2s playerbase.
You have to compare such content to easier dungeons or fractals (which both have comparable fights, see volcanic fractal). The idea is to adress a similar audience as those easier content – and not the raid players.

Yes, higher quality content would ofc be better.

That’s the point: 90% (insert any high number because we have no data) is playing easy open world content. They have no need for instanced team content that is as easy as there.

Except if they want to play as a team, interact skills and so on. At this point open world sucks. Except if Anet introduces 5-10 player open world maps – which then would be instanced content again.

Jockum.1385:

TexZero.7910:

Your answer is Fractals. You just don’t like the answer. You’ve got 2 new fractals, one even includes a challenge mote with decent repeatable rewards for those people who want 5 man content.

So would you be ok with the removal of all raids? Because there are two new fractals which could keep you busy? I think two new fractals is not enough.

Fractals also have several serious problems. One of it is the length of the content, which is limited. You can’t really ad a 1 hour fractal into the existing fractal system.
Another issue are the rewards. Every fractal gives the same rewards, so why bother doing a new fractal when you can also do snowblind? Or if you can’t really use the tokens? So the replay value is zero.
I’m sure my casual guild which already struggles with T2 fractals is not going to do nightmare cm.

For example the aetherpath has a way more attractive reward structure than fractals. Gold, lootbags (ok, dredge fractal), dungeon tokens, guaranteed exo. Actually the exo is a bit much, a lower droprate would also be ok. The pre-HoT rewards were fine imho.

I’m perfectly content with how the game is currently being run sans release cadences/balance patches.

The fractal and raids team do amazing work and have not failed to make/rebuild the content to be both complex and deep yet not as time consuming as you claim. Not only that they are both uniquely rewarding.

While you don’t like this it’s not a knock on them, its a knock on your personal playstyle that really cannot stand failure and believes the entire game should cater to that. Ironically that is far more likely to lead to the death of the product than them adding content that has specific target audiences.

Also to touch on your last point about content length….Weren’t you just saying that 1hr a day of learning to raid was too much for casuals and here you are asking for 1hr fractals ?

PS – Not all fractals have the same reward, some are way more lucrative than others.

Jockum.1385:

Except if they want to play as a team, interact skills and so on. At this point open world sucks. Except if Anet introduces 5-10 player open world maps – which then would be instanced content again.

Why, is there a rule forbidding casual parties in the open world? Asking because if there is one, I’ve broken it on multiple occasions.

TexZero.7910:

Also to touch on your last point about content length….Weren’t you just saying that 1hr a day of learning to raid was too much for casuals and here you are asking for 1hr fractals ?

There’s a difference between devoting 1h of your time every play session to do something that ends in failure (in hope that a month or two from now you, maybe will be able to succeed), and devoting that same time to 1h of a dungeon or fractal in which you run a really high chances of succeeding.
Most people really don’t like to hit repeatedly with their heads against a wall in hope that someday that wall will crumble. And, considering that nowadays mmo games are for most players a place where they come to unwind and have fun, you can hardly blame them for that.

You’re vastly exaggerating the difficulty of raids. The first completely new group I organized hit their heads in the wall for maybe 2 hrs before killing VG for the first time. And the experience was VERY rewarding, exactly because of the feeling you finally succeeded at something hard. Take that away and it becomes just your average “meh, yet another boss, yawn”.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Also to touch on your last point about content length….Weren’t you just saying that 1hr a day of learning to raid was too much for casuals and here you are asking for 1hr fractals ?

There’s a difference between devoting 1h of your time every play session to do something that ends in failure (in hope that a month or two from now you, maybe will be able to succeed), and devoting that same time to 1h of a dungeon or fractal in which you run a really high chances of succeeding.
Most people really don’t like to hit repeatedly with their heads against a wall in hope that someday that wall will crumble. And, considering that nowadays mmo games are for most players a place where they come to unwind and have fun, you can hardly blame them for that.

The guy literally said 1hr a day made it no longer casual.

Also, what ?

How does someone who can barely do T2 fractals care about difficulty if they aren’t willing to challenge themselves in the first place. That’s literally the last thing that should be on their mind.

And i disagree, that’s not what most MMO’s do. Most facebook games sure, most MMO’s however have targeted content for specific crowds, the clicker game crowd isn’t one of those target audiences though.

Feanor.2358:

You’re vastly exaggerating the difficulty of raids. The first completely new group I organized hit their heads in the wall for maybe 2 hrs before killing VG for the first time.

Lucky you. For me it was 2 months of 2-3 2-hour attempts each week. And the people i was grouped with weren’t below average at all.

Unless there were some experienced people in your group? Getting an experienced tank and healers does make it much easier.

TexZero.7910:

And i disagree, that’s not what most MMO’s do. Most facebook games sure, most MMO’s however have targeted content for specific crowds, the clicker game crowd isn’t one of those target audiences though.

Nowadays yes, they do. You’re probably thinking of the early days of MMOs, but they are long gone. What you speak of started to change the moment first developer saw there’s a lot of money in the casual audience. There’s simply not enough players with the “i want to be challenged” mindset on the market to satisfy even a single major MMO developer now.
Well, perhaps i’m exagerrating. It may be enough for a single developer – if you manage to get all of them (which you won’t), and if that developer is not Blizzard.

Without the players I speak of however, no MMO can make it big nowadays.

Astralporing.1957:

Nowadays yes, they do. You’re probably thinking of the early days of MMOs, but they are long gone. What you speak of started to change the moment first developer saw there’s a lot of money in the casual audience. There’s simply not enough players with the “i want to be challenged” mindset on the market to satisfy even a single major MMO developer now.
Well, perhaps i’m exagerrating. It may be enough for a single developer – if you manage to get all of them (which you won’t), and if that developer is not Blizzard.

Without the players I speak of however, no MMO can make it big nowadays.

Actually, again you’re pulling things from out of nowhere. There’s plenty of games including MMO’s that are built upon for players who want challenge, and no its not just from blizzard.

MMO’s are multifaceted beast aimed at targeting specific audiences. In themepark MMO’s such as this there’s several crowds who have several different niche’s being played to and im sorry for the “casual” crowd but their niche is so saturated with content they refuse to play for some reason. That’s not the game’s fault, its honestly a player problem.

The most casual of content these days LS/OW is apparently hardcore if you are to believe some posters here. So if the core of the game is too “Hardcore” then how much lower of a standard do you want the devs to go to ? Do you really want an afk simulator where rewards just appear in your inventory for sitting with the client open every 5 minutes, because that’s what im gathering the new casual is.

TexZero.7910:

I’m perfectly content with how the game is currently being run sans release cadences/balance patches.

You seem to run raids. I think for people which are more interested in raids or in open world GW2 is in a good shape. So we migth agree here.
The question is: would you think GW2 is in a bad shape if there wouldn’t be raids?
Then you would be in a similar position as more casual teams.

TexZero.7910:

While you don’t like this it’s not a knock on them, its a knock on your personal playstyle that really cannot stand failure and believes the entire game should cater to that. Ironically that is far more likely to lead to the death of the product than them adding content that has specific target audiences.

Then you haven’t read any of my past comments. I don’t think the entire games needs to cater to certain players. I asked for, as you put it “content that has specific target audiences”. I think I stated in like 50% of my posts here that raids are not meant for casual groups – and that’s ok.

Also to touch on your last point about content length….Weren’t you just saying that 1hr a day of learning to raid was too much for casuals and here you are asking for 1hr fractals ?

I think the difference is obvious. 1 hour a day is one hour a day. It requires constant spending of lots of time. 1 hour fractal is a one hour fractal. You can do such a fractal once a year if you want to. Even very casual players have some days each year where they are able or willing to spend more time on a videogame. But you can’t really do raids with “on 26.12.2017 we are going to do VG, who wants to join?. Next try is on 25.4.2018.” That’s not going to work.

Feanor.2358:

Why, is there a rule forbidding casual parties in the open world?

No. But there is no incentive to form a group, you even get punished for forming a team. Forming a team is effort. So it has to pay off. If it doesn’t people don’t form teams. There are not much groups looking for players for map completion. And that’s ok. Many players don’t like playing in teams (see all those requests for singleplayer modes for dungeons). Open world is a good way to adress these players.
But I think it is also important to have a community, players banding together. It helps at content (players helping each other and repeating content they wouldn’t usually repeat.), it keeps player active at content droughts (players log in because of friends, not because of the game) and keeps players at the game instead of leaving.
This gives Anet the chance to release new content. A player which has left the game and started to play another MMO is probably gone forever.

Groups/Communities usually start when people are “forced” to interact with each other. Afaik did a german community website started with tequatl and triple trouble. Guildmissions caused players to join guilds. So there is some group open world content, but you risk to annoy the “singleplayers”. As TexZero also said: content should have specific target audiences. People joined guilds to do dungeons. People interact and talk with each other while doing dungeons, they sometimes add each other to friendlists and join guilds. If you “force” players to form teams for open world content you will annoy the singleplayers. It’s better to have specific content for each group.

There is content which requires more interaction, for example I chat a lot when pugging aetherpath, it helps to succeed. Arah is similar. And I got a lot of positive feedback, people sent me gold in mail as thank you and so on. Content as this helps to generate groups. Other instanced content is only “hi” and “ty”. But even there are people more likely to get into contact than in open world. For a game it is imho healthy when people start to form groups/communities. It keeps players playing.
I might be wrong with this interpretation, its just a opinion. But afaik were there statements which indicated that GW2 has troubles to keep new players active (new player experience and at transforming F2P players). Which I see as partially caused by the lack of motivation by other players. A player which joins a guild while leveling is probably more likely to stay active than a solo player.

TexZero.7910:

How does someone who can barely do T2 fractals care about difficulty if they aren’t willing to challenge themselves in the first place. That’s literally the last thing that should be on their mind.

People who do T2 fractals don’t care about challenging content. These players don’t ask for new raids. I don’t know why you think so. These players care for easy content.
No easy content = they leave the game. GW2 = no easy content.
As explained, people have done dungeons and fractals long ago.
MMOs have to address specific audiences. but you categorize players completly wrong, there is not only casual and hardcore. Then all the hardcore players could play PVP, right? No need for raids.
There are WvW players, PVP players, open world players, instanced content players, singleplayers, teamplayers. And all these different groups exists as hardcoreplayers and also as casual players (and in between). In some content, as WvW and PVP it is possible to addres casual and hardcore at the same time. Raids don’t address T2 fractals players. They are made as challenging content for hardcoreplayers. That’s ok. But there is barely any other instanced teamcontent. And here we are again back on page 1 of this thread.

Jockum.1385:

These players don’t ask for new raids. I don’t know why you think so. These players care for easy content.
No easy content = they leave the game. GW2 = no easy content.
As explained, people have done dungeons and fractals long ago.
MMOs have to address specific audiences. but you categorize players completly wrong, there is not only casual and hardcore.

Removed the bulk of your post.

Right here is your problem, you cannot feasibly claim that the “average” casual (in your mind someone who invest less than 1hr a day) has seen everything and done everything this game has to offer them. To claim they have a lack of content is beyond absurd.

They still have a plethora of content out there for them to do in the so called “casual” bracket at that point. This again ceases to be an issue of lack of content and more a lack of individual interest in that content which is not a developer problem.

You also have to consider just how small your niche is here. You want to
A) Develop easy contest
B) Develop content for people who will play less than 1hr sessions
C) Develop the above with replay value
D) Develop the above with significant rewards
E) and this one im willing to call an assumption Develop all of the above with some form of story

Now then realistically think of all of that, now look inside yourself and ask if that’s reasonable for any studio to do for what is apparently a sub-set of players so small as to be smaller than that of the current raiding community.

It seems quite apparent that the answer here is that it’s not worth it.

TexZero.7910:

Right here is your problem, you cannot feasibly claim that the “average” casual (in your mind someone who invest less than 1hr a day) has seen everything and done everything this game has to offer them. To claim they have a lack of content is beyond absurd.

Have you done everything the game has to offer to you? Have you completed the WvW kill achievements? No? Why do you then want raid content? WvW kill achievement is pretty hardcore.
….

Maybe try to understand that players have different reasons to play a game. There are different groups, as for example players which are interested in teamcontent.

You can’t come up to such a player “butbutbut there is crab toss”.
No, there is no content out there. There is dungeons and fractals. And everyone has done them by now. Yes, a game can’t address everyone. That’s why I initially said that GW2 is for solo open world players and hardcore teamplayers. Casual teamplayers should buy another MMO – and that’s the reason why I have never recommended GW2 and actually discouraged people from buying GW2. Its a okayish single player game, but that’s not the reason people are interested in a MMO.

TexZero.7910:

You also have to consider just how small your niche is here. You want to
A) Develop easy contest
B) Develop content for people who will play less than 1hr sessions
C) Develop the above with replay value
D) Develop the above with significant rewards
E) and this one im willing to call an assumption Develop all of the above with some form of story

Can be summarized as easy teamcontent with replay value.

Idc about story and some of the content can take longer than 1 hour to finish.
That niche is very likely much bigger than the raid niche, there are usually way more casual players than hardcore players.
I wouldn’t be surprised if more players are still doing fractals than there are raid players. Despite the fact, that fractals are outdated content.

TexZero.7910:

It seems quite apparent that the answer here is that it’s not worth it.

If it’s not worth it, then adding raids likely wasn’t worth it either.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

It seems quite apparent that the answer here is that it’s not worth it.

If it’s not worth it, then adding raids likely wasn’t worth it either.

Both assertions depend on how large the two demographics are. The applicability of demographic size is also dependent on ANet’s willingness to make all content appeal to players who only want easy. Based on their performance, they think that the group that wants easy instanced group content needs to be satisfied with story dungeons and lower level fractals, and whatever lesser rewards they offer.

Probably the biggest deterrent as far as ANet is concerned is the failure of said demographic to make more use of story dungeons. This tells them that producing easier instanced content is a waste of resources. Add in their (demonstrated many times) tendency to place better rewards in harder content, and easy mode raids seems vanishingly unlikely.

Jockum.1385:

TexZero.7910:

Right here is your problem, you cannot feasibly claim that the “average” casual (in your mind someone who invest less than 1hr a day) has seen everything and done everything this game has to offer them. To claim they have a lack of content is beyond absurd.

Have you done everything the game has to offer to you? Have you completed the WvW kill achievements? No? Why do you then want raid content? WvW kill achievement is pretty hardcore.
….

Maybe try to understand that players have different reasons to play a game. There are different groups, as for example players which are interested in teamcontent.

You can’t come up to such a player “butbutbut there is crab toss”.
No, there is no content out there. There is dungeons and fractals. And everyone has done them by now. Yes, a game can’t address everyone. That’s why I initially said that GW2 is for solo open world players and hardcore teamplayers. Casual teamplayers should buy another MMO – and that’s the reason why I have never recommended GW2 and actually discouraged people from buying GW2. Its a okayish single player game, but that’s not the reason people are interested in a MMO.

TexZero.7910:

You also have to consider just how small your niche is here. You want to
A) Develop easy contest
B) Develop content for people who will play less than 1hr sessions
C) Develop the above with replay value
D) Develop the above with significant rewards
E) and this one im willing to call an assumption Develop all of the above with some form of story

Can be summarized as easy teamcontent with replay value.

Idc about story and some of the content can take longer than 1 hour to finish.
That niche is very likely much bigger than the raid niche, there are usually way more casual players than hardcore players.
I wouldn’t be surprised if more players are still doing fractals than there are raid players. Despite the fact, that fractals are outdated content.

Yes i’ve completed the WvW kill achievement. I used to WvW quite frequently, thanks for asking!

I never asked for raid content, but im not against having it or playing it either. That’s where you and i diverge greatly. Another reason why, is simply put the game needed more things to challenge its playerbase. The same statement cannot reasonably be said for more casual content as that not only frequently gets added but never contains satisfying replay value, unlike raids which do.

Calling fractals, old content only showcases how foolish you’re being as the “casual demographic” as their changes have only made them better for your niche. They are faster and have more rewards. Not only that they are still busy making and implementing new fractals for you to do (and i don’t just mean at t2 and below).

I’ll respectfully disagree about the size of your casual niche given that raids are successful, still retain players, and have exceeded the projections from anet themselves, which if to be believed puts them above the MMO average of 10% of active playerbase.
Meanwhile your demographic would have to be equal to that at best and yet there’s been 0 done for it meaning, it probably is substantially less and not worth the resources to develop for.

TexZero.7910:

I never asked for raid content, but im not against having it or playing it either. That’s where you and i diverge greatly.

Wrong. I am not against raids.

See:

I agree that content as raids are needed and healthy if done right.
But currently I’m under the impression that raids have replaced new fractals/dungeons or other similar content which adress a wider audience than raids – and I don’t think this is healthy for the game.

or

I prefer the GW1 way: an expansion with ~20 casual storymissions and two raids

TexZero.7910:

Another reason why, is simply put the game needed more things to challenge its playerbase. The same statement cannot reasonably be said for more casual content as that not only frequently gets added but never contains satisfying replay value, unlike raids which do.

Players repeated stuff as tarir or sw hundreds of times. Player also repeated dungeons or fractals.

Not only that they are still busy making and implementing new fractals for you to do (and i don’t just mean at t2 and below).

They added 2 new fractals in 4 years. Do you expect players to play exclusivly a single new fractal for two years? Even with once a week thats quite boring.
You haven’t answered if those 2 fractals would be enough content for you. Would you be ok when Anet would delete all raids from the game? You got new fractals, fractal reworks, enough content, raids are not needed?
I think raids are needed. And I think easier content is also needed.
Those two groups are actually in the same situation – with the huge difference that one group got raids and the other group got nothing. Both groups played the same content before HoT.

I’ll respectfully disagree about the size of your casual niche given that raids are successful, still retain players, and have exceeded the projections from anet themselves, which if to be believed puts them above the MMO average of 10% of active playerbase.
Meanwhile your demographic would have to be equal to that at best and yet there’s been 0 done for it meaning, it probably is substantially less and not worth the resources to develop for.

As said, there are usually more casual players than hardcore players. In every aspect of a game.
There is a reason why most games offer a story, for example. Afaik did Anet only say raids were more often played than expected and more than in other MMOs. Which could also be 0,05% of the players, depening on which games were used as comparision.
Judging by GWefficiency maybe 5% or less are raiding. Roughly 10% of the registered users could be considered active raid players, but the registered users are way more likely hardcoreplayers. So if every second hardcoreplayer is registered and every fourth casual, to make a guess, you would probably end up at 5%.
Afaik has GWefficiency roughly 100.000 users. Maybe that’s every player GW2 got and those numbers are very close to reality. My assumption would result in 400.000 GW2 players, which might be too much. Hard to tell. Anet is not going to give precise numbers.
You can also check dungeons, which seem to be very unpopular. Or fractals, which seem to be relativly popular, but 50% of the players are at level 41 or below.

Jockum.1385:

Judging by GWefficiency maybe 5% or less are raiding. Roughly 10% of the registered users could be considered active raid players, but the registered users are way more likely hardcoreplayers. So if every second hardcoreplayer is registered and every fourth casual, to make a guess, you would probably end up at 5%.

5% of the GW2 efficiency players have over 145 LI that’s a most hardcore raider right there and not one who is simply raiding occasionally.
The same amount of LI (145) is what about 16% of the players with over 4k hours of play time have. I mean players at the lowest bracket of play time (0-500) don’t even count as they are not eligible for raids anyway.
There are a lot more data to get from gw2efficiency though.
You can find out how many players (approximately) own Heart of Thorns. Not owing the expansion means no access to Raids
You can also count currencies to see how many players stopped playing Heart of Thorns before progressing beyond Verdant Brink. Those players who stopped there aren’t likely to be raiders either (and it’s not a fault of Raids either)
Comparing how many players own the LS3 currencies to older HoT currencies gives a rough estimate of how many players are still playing and you can even get more data on how many where still active when Bastion was released.

And finally it would be more interesting to compare content types with content types.
Like how many of the players are actively playing dungeons/fractals compared to Raids. All those would be far more interesting, and in some way valuable, pieces of data, if anyone has the time or the will to compile the data.

maddoctor.2738:

5% of the GW2 efficiency players have over 145 LI that’s a most hardcore raider right there and not one who is simply raiding occasionally.

I was refering to 10% of GW2 efficiency players (50LI). But we can also take 15% (18 LI) or 20% (6 LI). It just gives you a rough estimation of the raid population, no exact data.
My approach was: when X% of GW2 efficiency are raiding, the real raiding population is half the size (because GW2 efficiency is more likely to be used by hardcoreplayers).
If it’s really half the size, less – or nearly identical with real numbers is uncertain. But it seems very reasonable to take these numbers as a maximum.
So: a maximum of 10% of the players are raiding. And probably 5% estimated when considering that hardcoreplayers are overrepresented on communitysites.

And finally it would be more interesting to compare content types with content types.
Like how many of the players are actively playing dungeons/fractals compared to Raids. All those would be far more interesting, and in some way valuable, pieces of data, if anyone has the time or the will to compile the data.

I meantioned that 50% of the efficiency users have reached level 41 fractals or more. 40 successfull fractal runs at least. Only 11% own 40 LI or more. This indicates a much bigger playerbase for fractals than in raids. Dungeons on the other hand seem to perfom not so great: 70% haven’t completed a single dungeon, 20% have completed 60 dungeons or more. A bit better than raids, but not that great.
I personally think low level fractals are much easier than dungeons so this might explain it a bit. It might also use the date from hobby dungeon explorer, which afaik starts counting after dungeon master was reached (people seem to have dungeontokens but no dungeonruns. But could also be caused by PVP/WvW.).

IndigoSundown.5419:

This tells them that producing easier instanced content is a waste of resources.

Well, yeah, that’s the main problem of their “metrics”. They don’t guarantee you won’t get a dumb (and wrong) interpretation out of the data you saw. And Anet’s been known to make such failed interpretations before.

Slightly rephrasing Jockum’s report on data from GW2 Efficiency for players with under 500 hours of game play. I’m using “total tokens”, which are easier to compare than “completed” because you have to complete all dungeon paths for the API to start counting dungeon paths.

• Dungeons: 10% have 455 AC tokens (which doesn’t include how many are spent)
• Fractals: 10% have 26 pristine relics
• Raids: only 1% have any LI (which is >31)

That suggests to me that newer players aren’t strong participants in any of the PvE end-game modes.

For those with 1000-2000 hours, we have

• Dungeons: 10% have 1000 AC tokens
• Fractals: 10% have 218 pristines
• Raids: 10% have 14 LI

That suggests that harder-core veterans favor dungeons over fractals, but not by huge margins. The same group has tried raids, but have started recently, only done escort, or stopped shortly after starting.

I don’t think those numbers have any relevance to us for deciding if the game should have an easy mode for raids. That’s a philosophical, design issue: should the game have content that is designed specifically for harder-core players? If yes, then there’s no need for an easy mode raid. And we’d expect, therefore, that relatively fewer people would participate in it.

Jockum.1385:

I was refering to 10% of GW2 efficiency players (50LI). But we can also take 15% (18 LI) or 20% (6 LI). It just gives you a rough estimation of the raid population, no exact data.

I’m sure the devs use a more appropriate rating than a percentage over the full population of the game. The player population cannot be exact either because there is no monthly fee. How do you figure how many are actual active players of the game?

I meantioned that 50% of the efficiency users have reached level 41 fractals or more. 40 successfull fractal runs at least. Only 11% own 40 LI or more.

How can you even compare 40 Li to fractal level 40? Fractal level 40 is still easy mode Fractals, it’s something you do solo or maybe with one friend. Not to mention Fractals have been out for 3 years before Raids were available, plenty of time to get some levels. 30% of the gw2efficiency players have reached T4 in Fractals and only 18.5% reached level 100. And they had way more time to do so.

Obviously playing Fractals doesn’t require owning the expansion while you cannot even enter the Raid without it.

Anet knows how many players log in daily etc.
But my point wasn’t that there are 10.532 active raid players instead of 20.000.
My point was that casual teamcontent as dungeon, fractals or similar would very likely target a much bigger audience than raids. Therefore it is also important to have easy teamcontent.

There are ofc very good reasons to have raids. I think, similar as teamplayers, that (hard)-coregamers are a very important part of the community. More knowledge about the game, can help casuals with guides, builds, advice or carry. Guildleaders etc. also tend to be on the more hardcore side. I think raids are needed. But I think easier teamcontent is also needed.

maddoctor.2738:

How can you even compare 40 Li to fractal level 40? Fractal level 40 is still easy mode Fractals, it’s something you do solo or maybe with one friend.

The context of the comparision was different. I was not comparing player skill.

I was comparing how many players do fractals and how many do raids. Someone who has reached level 40 fractals has done at least 40 succesfull fractal runs, very likely much more (low level dailies for example) and “explored all the content”. 40 LI are 40 succesfull raid runs. But feel free to pick a different number of LI which you think represent “has seen all raids and repeated some occasional”.
So I’d say 50% of the users of GWefficiency cared about fractals and enjoyed the content.
I took 40 LI as an indication for a raid player, this might indeed be too much. Is 7 LI a player who enjoys raids? 18? Pick a number of your choice. The amount of GWefficiency users with even only a single LI is much smaller than the amount of players which have reached level 40 fractals.
The huge difference gets even more obvious if you compare the charts. LI start late. Roughly 70% don’t have any LI. The amount of players which haven’t at least done a single fractal is 10%. The effort and skill needed is ofc not comparable. But this shows clearly that a much wider audience gets targeted by fractals. Which TexZero claimed to be “equal at best” to raids.

TL;DR: fractals target a wider audience than raids, as GWefficiency shows. Raids are still important to keep the hardcoreplayers busy. Fractals or similar content is also important to keep the casual masses playing.

No, you are overestimating those data.
1. Fractals are older than raids therefore it’s obvious that more people have come in touch with fracs than with raids.
2. Fractals have a different target audience.
3. Fractals – for example T1 – are easy to be completed. You can step into them, succeed and never set a foot into it again. I know and guided many of such players, no wonder it’s only 10% of all registered users that haven’t played fracs at least once.
4. Fractals are needed for several collections, for example many legendaries and even the raid armor. So, funny thing here: You have to do fracs successfully if you want to proceed. ^^

In the end, you have to be careful to use GW2efficiency data. Do me a favour and stop it until you’ve found some really good data points for a valid comparison.

Jockum.1385:

Fractals or similar content is also important to keep the casual masses playing.

And again, this is what you still haven’t understood although some posters have already tried to explain to you:
Fractal development is in the best shape since their release in 2013. After “Fractured” there was 0 profound improvement to them. That has changed in the past (with HoT) and they are continuing to develop and release fractals on a regular time schedule now.

Vinceman.4572:

No, you are overestimating those data.

I am not, ofc these data is bs. I even said so pretty early. Most very casual player are rarely using third party sites and probably don’t even know what an API key is.
We can all agree on “it’s common sense that casual content is played by more players than hardcorecontent”. Most raid players have also done dungeons or fractals, so its no surprise.
We can use stuff as GWefficiency to say “this indicates”. But its no proof.

Vinceman.4572:

1. Fractals are older than raids therefore it’s obvious that more people have come in touch with fracs than with raids.
2. Fractals have a different target audience.
3. Fractals – for example T1 – are easy to be completed. You can step into them, succeed and never set a foot into it again. I know and guided many of such players, no wonder it’s only 10% of all registered users that haven’t played fracs at least once.
4. Fractals are needed for several collections, for example many legendaries and even the raid armor. So, funny thing here: You have to do fracs successfully if you want to proceed. ^^

Can you explain what these 4. points have to do with “more players are playing casual teamcontent than hardcore-only teamcontent”.
1. yes, but most players which will ever get into raids have probably already done so.
2.)yes, that’s the point
3.)yes, that’s why I used as comparision level 41. I used the chart and level 1 comparision to describe that a wide variety has played fractals. Some very casual on low levels, some hundreds of times.The fractal curve is spreaded out across the whole playerbase, LI indicate that there is a small group which plays the content a lot.As you said: fractals target a difference audience. A wider audience. Raids are meant to be very specialised content, they are not meant to be played by everyone.
4.)so what? players play the content, so it gets played?

And again, this is what you still haven’t understood although some posters have already tried to explain to you:
Fractal development is in the best shape since their release in 2013. After “Fractured” there was 0 profound improvement to them. That has changed in the past (with HoT) and they are continuing to develop and release fractals on a regular time schedule now.

I have understood it. But I think i wrote like 200 times that 2 new fractals is not that much content. I wouldn’t be complaining if Anet would release a new fractal every month now.
I have asked if it would be ok to delete all raids. You claim fractal development is in a good shape, so all raids could be deleted right? You would happily be playing T4 fractals instead then and drown in content by the glorious fractal development of the past months and years.
Wasn’t it even you who said GW2 was in a bad shape before raids got released? What has changed since then? 2 new fractals and some reworks? Would this alone keep you playing, without raids?

Jockum.1385:

Can you explain what these 4. points have to do with “more players are playing casual teamcontent than hardcore-only teamcontent”.

Why should I? That was not my intention. I just presented facts that apodicticly show you were using data horribly wrong and therefore cannot be used to keep up your argumentation seriously.

Jockum.1385:

1. yes, but most players which will ever get into raids have probably already done so.

You don’t get the difference, do you? That’s sad! T1 people show up in GW2efficiency because they will get it done even after hours but rather very easily in minutes. Raids will end up with disbanding of the group if you have complete beginners. That alone produces a bias in your comparison of the given data because unsuccessful raiders aren’t showing up in your data but people who ran fractals just a single time do so.

Jockum.1385:

4.)so what? players play the content, so it gets played?

You also don’t get this one? Look, for the raid collection you need to play fractals successfully. For none of the fractal collections you have to do raids. So, for the one thing you have to do the other but not the other way round.
—> Bias in your interpretation of data.

Jockum.1385:

I have understood it. But I think i wrote like 200 times that 2 new fractals is not that much content. I wouldn’t be complaining if Anet would release a new fractal every month now.

Ok, then maybe you start to realize that this isn’t possible at all. Everyone with a little bit of knowledge in software programming knows that.

Jockum.1385:

I have asked if it would be ok to delete all raids. You claim fractal development is in a good shape, so all raids could be deleted right? You would happily be playing T4 fractals instead then and drown in content by the glorious fractal development of the past months and years.

Sry, but I don’t get your weird comparisons. I said fractal development is in the best shape than ever before, I haven’t said this is perfect or a reason to celebrate but it’s a huge step into the right direction after years of failing. Ofc everyone would like to see more but I don’t think it is possible unless they lack in quality. You must not forget that they overhauled the whole fractal system for HoT, rebalanced rewards several times, revamped several fractals and brought in 2 new ones, one with a cm. That took a ton of time and ressources.

And don’t think the raiders are pleased:
- bugfixing takes too long or is non-existent
- a whole raid was promised with the release of HoT but they split it up and it took 9 months till the final release
- the next raid wing will most likely be released with the expansion or again one month after release like with HoT. That’s in november/december at the earliest, so again almost one year – and we all don’t know if there is another one already planned

In the end, I’m playing fractals on a daily basis because it’s fun, even the old ones + a good amount of gold while raids are rewarding every 7 days. So yes, it’s fine for me and a big cohort as well according to the lfg for T4 compared to T1-3.

Jockum.1385:

Wasn’t it even you who said GW2 was in a bad shape before raids got released? What has changed since then? 2 new fractals and some reworks? Would this alone keep you playing, without raids?

See above, the whole fractal system got overhauled. And yes, I would have played less and less like I also do now and play other games until the next LS or expansion will be released. The boredom in this MMO led me straight to try raids and I was happy with it.
If that’s nothing for you, your thing. You weren’t standing up and fighting for your content in the past. The small community that wanted a challenge did so after years of asking. I don’t see your people here or elsewhere (reddit and so on).

Jockum.1385:

Wasn’t it even you who said GW2 was in a bad shape before raids got released? What has changed since then? 2 new fractals and some reworks? Would this alone keep you playing, without raids?

The game was in a bad shape before Raids got released, at least as far as repeatable instanced content is concerned.

From November 2013 (Fractured) to November 2015 (Spirit Vale) we got no new repeatable instanced content at all, that’s 2 full years.
They disbanded the dungeon team early, they disbanded the fractal team later on. They lost all faith in instanced content.

Then after the success of Raids they re-enabled the Fractal team and the team has released more instanced content than at any other point in the game’s history. You are asking for a fractal a month, but based on how much we got at any other time, what we are getting now is more. Some perspective is needed here and a valid comparison, the comparison is what we used to get versus what we get.

Who is to say that without Raids we’d get any new Fractals? Past events say otherwise. Raids restored the faith in repeatable instanced content, without them that part of the game was neglected, dying and in a horrible state.

maddoctor.2738:

Who is to say that without Raids we’d get any new Fractals? Past events say otherwise. Raids restored the faith in repeatable instanced content, without them that part of the game was neglected, dying and in a horrible state.

Nailed it.

Not only was it dead, so was design creativity. Raids injected new life into development with the addition of new mechanics such as fixate and special action. This alone has allowed them to do things they never would have considered possible before.

That’s not a result of “success of raids”. That’s merely a consequence of them having devs now to devote to creating new content that isn’t expac.

Remember, that before the restructuring they did after HoT launch, they didn’t have a separation between expac and current content teams. They were unable to dedicate any effort to fractals, because all the people that could possibly work on them were doing content for the expac. Raids, for example. All they had was the living story team (and even those devs were moved to expac work as soon as LS2 ended). Only after HoT launched they could free up some manpower.

There’s no reason to suspect that things you say happened due to raids wouldn’t have happened without them.

Astralporing.1957:

That’s merely a consequence of them having devs now to devote to creating new content that isn’t expac.

You are saying this as if they didn’t have devs working on non-expac content during the LS development, but they did.

There’s no reason to suspect that things you say happened due to raids wouldn’t have happened without them.

Actually there is, without Raids we wouldn’t have ANY fractals development at all. The content was already dying and on life support, that wasn’t due to working on the expansion but lack of interest.

Aetherpath wasn’t well received, that’s an unfortunate truth.
Thaumanova reactor wasn’t well received either, for some outside reasons too (those who asked for the Fall of Abaddon fractal for example – where is that?)

You cannot deny that the instanced content released wasn’t as well received as was probably expected. The expansion had absolutely nothing to do with it. The devs lost all faith in instanced content due to very low interest. With Raids it’s the complete opposite.

Astralporing.1957:

That’s not a result of “success of raids”. That’s merely a consequence of them having devs now to devote to creating new content that isn’t expac.

Remember, that before the restructuring they did after HoT launch, they didn’t have a separation between expac and current content teams. They were unable to dedicate any effort to fractals, because all the people that could possibly work on them were doing content for the expac. Raids, for example. All they had was the living story team (and even those devs were moved to expac work as soon as LS2 ended). Only after HoT launched they could free up some manpower.

There’s no reason to suspect that things you say happened due to raids wouldn’t have happened without them.

I seem to remember them hiring (a) new developer(s) to work on raids. What are the odds that the new dev(s) did not bring ideas that the dev team would not have otherwise, given that they were hired to make harder instanced content? I’d say there’s every reason to believe there was a connection, and that you’re reaching.

I also seem to remember that a lot of mechanics were brough in with HoT due to tweaks to the engine they introduced there. It’s not like they had no ideas before, it’s just that some required a lot of work before they were even able to implement them. Fixation is possibly the only mechanic that truly came from raids and raids alone, and its because it’s not needed outside raids.

Astralporing.1957:

I also seem to remember that a lot of mechanics were brough in with HoT due to tweaks to the engine they introduced there. It’s not like they had no ideas before, it’s just that some required a lot of work before they were even able to implement them. Fixation is possibly the only mechanic that truly came from raids and raids alone, and its because it’s not needed outside raids.

Fixates not ?

So you loved having unresponsive AI be the target of attacks in say Underground Facility ? How about doing Chaos last boss without it, bet you’d have tons of fun there.

It’s quite sad to see that you don’t believe raids directly had a positive impact on the games design and growth because you have such blinders on connected to the word raid in general.

Vinceman.4572:

That was not my intention. I just presented facts that apodicticly show you were using data horribly wrong and therefore cannot be used to keep up your argumentation seriously.

Context is relevant. Initially I ~ said casual team content gets played by more players than hardcorecontent. Someone disagreed without giving reasons. Now I could have just written “lol”, but I tried to be constructive and give at least some reasons.
Reasons are not proof. You are right that gwefficiencies data is not correct. It just indicates player behaviour, but it’s not correct data.
But when one side gives no reasons and the other side gives at least some crude reasons (raid players also did fractals; more casuals than hardcoreplayers in most games; gwefficiency)…yeah.
Sure, feel free to critize the data. But as I said: I agree. It’s far from precise data. The point the still stands until you are able to give better data which indicates the opposite.

You don’t get the difference, do you? That’s sad! T1 people show up in GW2efficiency because they will get it done even after hours but rather very easily in minutes.

I ~ said more people do easier teamcontent (fractals) than hardcorecontent (raids). You ~ said “but it’s easier”. So what? That’s what I said.

Bias in your interpretation of data.

Not really. I just said easier content gets played by a bigger amount of players. Raids also have achievements or legendary armour. I was only refering to “players playing the content” and not to “players who love the content and would play it even without rewards”.

Ok, then maybe you start to realize that this isn’t possible at all. Everyone with a little bit of knowledge in software programming knows that.

The same company was able to some years ago. I think this proves you wrong.
It’s a design decision. You can create high quality content which gets handpainted by the pope himself or cheap and fast content. Every 12 year old can create a first person shooter level in 2 hours if you give them right tools.

You have to make compromises. Anet is not in the position to create content slowly. Players have already complained in 2013 about lacking content. After the first LS didn’t delivered enough content players startet to beg for a (full) expansion (GW1 style). We got “half” an expansion.
Quality content is nice to have, sure. But did we really needed 4 huge meta event maps but no simple “exploration” maps? Is a new pvp ending screen for pvp, new heart of the mists, new LA, 2 new frog races, the 5ths trait system rework necessary? Is it clever to rework old fractals or wouldn’t it be better to add new ones instead? LS lake doric: the final story in CM could’ve also been a new dungeon path.
Sometimes you have to make compromises. The new open world maps already do so.
You can have some “perfect” content, but a single perfect map is not going to keep players busy for 10 years.

Vinceman.4572:

You weren’t standing up and fighting for your content in the past. The small community that wanted a challenge did so after years of asking. I don’t see your people here or elsewhere (reddit and so on).

Actually I asked since long ago ( a lot) for easier teamcontent (even my first post in the english forums is asking for it). Also for more difficult teamcontent. I think even a question by me got delivered to an interview with Anet. So there’s that. And many others did the same. But more casual players are not that active, they rather leave the game and play WoW or whatever instead.
I think for many years Anet had the idea that everyone should play open world content. But open world content can’t replace instanced content. It’s a difference if you heal your teammate up because he is low hp or if you spam your heals because some zerg-member might be low hp.
Imho this resulted in many players leaving the game. Playing with friends and family is a strong reason to play a game – or to leave it.
Triple trouble can’t replace raids and fireelemental is not going to replace easy teamcontent.

maddoctor.2738:

Some perspective is needed here and a valid comparison, the comparison is what we used to get versus what we get.

I’m not sure if 0 is a good comparision. A company shouldn’t be proud of “we release more content than zero content”.
I think Anet released 9 fractals in 2012. If they would have released a similar amount each year GW2 would be in a much better shape now.
They had the strange concept of temporary content back then (players already said at early LS1 that its going to “add nothing to the game”). Pre HoT there was also only SW, DT and karka isle. Not much open world content, too. So players burned through the old content, played it too often – the lack of content has built up over the years. A single new fractal doesn’t fix this. Actually that was the reason why many players asked for an expansion. In the hope of “lots of content” to solve this issue, after the LS wasn’t able to deliver enough content. Instead Anet released a small amount of high quality content, so not really what was needed. Half a year later people were already speaking of a content drought. Not only some rare hardcore players which rushed the content, even casuals complained. That should not happen. When nightfall hit I wasn’t done with factions. Too much content too fast.

Jockum.1385:

Vinceman.4572:

That was not my intention. I just presented facts that apodicticly show you were using data horribly wrong and therefore cannot be used to keep up your argumentation seriously.

Context is relevant. Initially I ~ said casual team content gets played by more players than hardcorecontent. Someone disagreed without giving reasons. Now I could have just written “lol”, but I tried to be constructive and give at least some reasons.
Reasons are not proof. You are right that gwefficiencies data is not correct. It just indicates player behaviour, but it’s not correct data.
But when one side gives no reasons and the other side gives at least some crude reasons (raid players also did fractals; more casuals than hardcoreplayers in most games; gwefficiency)…yeah.
Sure, feel free to critize the data. But as I said: I agree. It’s far from precise data. The point the still stands until you are able to give better data which indicates the opposite.

You don’t get the difference, do you? That’s sad! T1 people show up in GW2efficiency because they will get it done even after hours but rather very easily in minutes.

I ~ said more people do easier teamcontent (fractals) than hardcorecontent (raids). You ~ said “but it’s easier”. So what? That’s what I said.

Bias in your interpretation of data.

Not really. I just said easier content gets played by a bigger amount of players. Raids also have achievements or legendary armour. I was only refering to “players playing the content” and not to “players who love the content and would play it even without rewards”.

Ok, then maybe you start to realize that this isn’t possible at all. Everyone with a little bit of knowledge in software programming knows that.

The same company was able to some years ago. I think this proves you wrong.
It’s a design decision. You can create high quality content which gets handpainted by the pope himself or cheap and fast content. Every 12 year old can create a first person shooter level in 2 hours if you give them right tools.

You have to make compromises. Anet is not in the position to create content slowly. Players have already complained in 2013 about lacking content. After the first LS didn’t delivered enough content players startet to beg for a (full) expansion (GW1 style). We got “half” an expansion.
Quality content is nice to have, sure. But did we really needed 4 huge meta event maps but no simple “exploration” maps? Is a new pvp ending screen for pvp, new heart of the mists, new LA, 2 new frog races, the 5ths trait system rework necessary? Is it clever to rework old fractals or wouldn’t it be better to add new ones instead? LS lake doric: the final story in CM could’ve also been a new dungeon path.
Sometimes you have to make compromises. The new open world maps already do so.
You can have some “perfect” content, but a single perfect map is not going to keep players busy for 10 years.

Vinceman.4572:

You weren’t standing up and fighting for your content in the past. The small community that wanted a challenge did so after years of asking. I don’t see your people here or elsewhere (reddit and so on).

Actually I asked since long ago ( a lot) for easier teamcontent (even my first post in the english forums is asking for it). Also for more difficult teamcontent. I think even a question by me got delivered to an interview with Anet. So there’s that. And many others did the same. But more casual players are not that active, they rather leave the game and play WoW or whatever instead.
I think for many years Anet had the idea that everyone should play open world content. But open world content can’t replace instanced content. It’s a difference if you heal your teammate up because he is low hp or if you spam your heals because some zerg-member might be low hp.
Imho this resulted in many players leaving the game. Playing with friends and family is a strong reason to play a game – or to leave it.
Triple trouble can’t replace raids and fireelemental is not going to replace easy teamcontent.

maddoctor.2738:

Some perspective is needed here and a valid comparison, the comparison is what we used to get versus what we get.

I’m not sure if 0 is a good comparision. A company shouldn’t be proud of “we release more content than zero content”.
I think Anet released 9 fractals in 2012. If they would have released a similar amount each year GW2 would be in a much better shape now.

This is just an opinion and not one that I share. There are diminishing returns on content like fractal and I personally see absolutely no reason for 45 fractals. There’s no way they could do so with enough unique maps, encounters, etc. Also, the “casual group play” audience really doesn’t need 45 fractals worth of content to memorize. What if there are fewer players playing fractals when there are 45 of them because they are too overwhelming for the casual audience than if there were 15? Still worth it?

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

I also seem to remember that a lot of mechanics were brough in with HoT due to tweaks to the engine they introduced there. It’s not like they had no ideas before, it’s just that some required a lot of work before they were even able to implement them. Fixation is possibly the only mechanic that truly came from raids and raids alone, and its because it’s not needed outside raids.

Fixates not ?

So you loved having unresponsive AI be the target of attacks in say Underground Facility ? How about doing Chaos last boss without it, bet you’d have tons of fun there.

It’s quite sad to see that you don’t believe raids directly had a positive impact on the games design and growth because you have such blinders on connected to the word raid in general.

I totally agree with you man. For a long time, people complained that there wasn’t anything to do once they got their ascended, all characters to level 80, beat all dungeons and fractals. It was high time Anet introduced a gated gear system to match the other competitive MMOs out there to give people things to aim for. So that anyone who was decently geared and knew their characters well enough could aim for the end-game content just like any MMO out there, or any F2P MMO or those Korean MMOs. Now I have so many goals and aims and I spend all my non-working hours in-game in GW2 because this is teh bomb!

Jockum.1385:

I think Anet released 9 fractals in 2012. If they would have released a similar amount each year GW2 would be in a much better shape now.

8 Fractals. Have you ever thought that this instanced content wasn’t as popular as you might believe, especially at that time when most dungeon runs where by people trying to do world best times or solo/duo the content? Remember that this wasn’t supposed to be the game where people hide inside instances, that was GW1, because in GW1 they didn’t have any open world content.

And on that note, imagine what would happen if they released a huge amount of instanced content regularly, that is of same difficulty as the open world. You can go and see how populated the open world of many dungeon-based MMORPGs is and we are talking about games with traditional questing. With group events, event chains and encounters with multiple bosses that require a good amount of players to split on them, having enough players is key.

You are saying if they released a good amount of instanced content the game would be in a better shape. I completely disagree with that, in fact I believe it’s the opposite. If they released what they do now, maybe a bit more, it would be enough.

ButterPeanut.9746:

There’s no way they could do so with enough unique maps, encounters, etc. Also, the “casual group play” audience really doesn’t need 45 fractals worth of content to memorize. What if there are fewer players playing fractals when there are 45 of them because they are too overwhelming for the casual audience than if there were 15? Still worth it?

I don’t think casual content needs to be unique.
After a while players are done with the content a game has to offer. If nothing new is added the game is done for such a player. Casuals do repeat content, but not very often. So GW2 has maybe enough content for 1-2 years, but it’s not 2014 anymore. At this point the game has reached the same status as GW1 or Ultima Online. You did everything, the game is done and starts to become boring.
See the complaints about “content drought”. Adding nothing new is not going to fix the content drought.

You can bundle players with daily activities. See daily fractals.

maddoctor.2738:

Have you ever thought that this instanced content wasn’t as popular as you might believe, especially at that time when most dungeon runs where by people trying to do world best times or solo/duo the content?

I think maybe 80% of GW2s players are soloplayers, play exclusivly open world and story, don’t visit GW2 related website and are not really guild active, maybe in some chat advertising mass guilds or so.
But I think among players which care about instanced content is the majority on the casual end. And I think these (casual and hardcore) teamplayers are very healthy for a game. Bc that’s where guilds starts, websites, commanders for whatever and so on.
These groups “activate” some of the soloplayers, so that they become more active and participate themselfs. Comparable to guilds: there are always maybe 1-2 players which start activities “T4?”. These players cause guildactivities – if they become inactive other guildmembers become inactive too and guilds collapse. I think a MMO community works the same. Without commander in WvW: people leave. No commander on PVE map? People leave. A small guild group which decides to cap some towers in WvW or puts up some tags at TD meta? Suddenly active map.
I think its very important to have these groups. I also think instanced content is very important for groups. Sure, some tequatl guilds or tarir guilds exists. Two years ago my impression was that nearly all guilds were dungeon active. I rarely see chat advertisments without “doing dungeons and fractals”.

With group events, event chains and encounters with multiple bosses that require a good amount of players to split on them, having enough players is key.

I think having more than 1 open world map is the bigger problem here. But it is possible to motivate players to gather together and play at certain maps. See dailies.
I wouldn’t be too worried about a spreaded playerbase. There are enough options to bundle them together for activities.

maddoctor.2738:

Have you ever thought that this instanced content wasn’t as popular as you might believe, especially at that time when most dungeon runs where by people trying to do world best times or solo/duo the content?

Most dungeon runs? Perhaps. Though farming dungeons was a thing almost from the beginning, so even here i’m not sure. Most dungeon-running players? Not likely. Those people you speak of were always in a minority.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Have you ever thought that this instanced content wasn’t as popular as you might believe, especially at that time when most dungeon runs where by people trying to do world best times or solo/duo the content?

Most dungeon runs? Perhaps. Though farming dungeons was a thing almost from the beginning, so even here i’m not sure. Most dungeon-running players? Not likely. Those people you speak of were always in a minority.

You mean at the beginning when the only dungeon path that was being run was CoF P1 while other dungeon paths were collecting dust?