Guild Wars 2

Just curious about this, since it came up in another thread. How many people here ran dungeons to get the achievements for those dungeons, even though they don’t like running dungeons or don’t care about dungeons all that much.

I know I run dungeons sometimes, because other people need help with them or to fill in when the guild can’t find a fifth. Anyone else?

I did Arah for the Dungeon Master title way back when it drew a lot of water around here. Hardly been back since.

Most of the others are enjoyable in their own right.

The only dungeon paths I don’t enjoy are SE p2 and Arah p2 and p4. I did SE 2 and Arah 4 one time each for dungeon master way back when and haven’t touched either path since then. I do still do the other Arah paths on occasion, but it’s not a frequent thing at all. Oh, and I think I did the Aetherpath three times; I got all but two of the achievements, but I haven’t felt like going back to get them.

Not big on dungeons personally. I’d like to do each path at least once so I can experience all the stories, and I do CM on occasion for leveling purposes, but that’s about the extent of my dungeon interest.

Didnt really fully enjoy the game until i started trying dungeons with guild members. Its not just about the content. Its the enclosed environment of a small group of friends in a social gametype. Theres nothing social about being in a 100 man zerg.

Then fractals introduced some really good content to add to the social small group experience. Shame the rewards make it hard to justify playing if you actually want to work towards cosmetic stuff. And a shame they havent actually added much to them.

Question. Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?

I’m in the other camp. I run (ran?) dungeons for fun, though the set they put in at launch are no longer interesting to me after three years later.

They aren’t perfect, but they really didn’t do much to improve them after launch. They just nerfed them repeatedly, rather than iterate and improve them.

I wonder how many more people would enjoy them if they’d taken care of them.

Oh well. That horse has been beaten into a fine goo at this point.

spoj.9672:

Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?

^I’d be quite interested in hearing the answer to this. Obviously a lot of people do, since GW2 caters to them, but I really don’t understand why people enjoy it. Is getting virtual rewards for zero effort really how people want to spend their freetime?

I do AC purely because I need the tokens in high volume but also just because elementalist is so good there that it makes it so ridiculously fast gold.

Arah is the one dungeon I care about.

The main reason I do not like non-Arah dungeons much at all anymore is because of the ferocity implementation from April 2014. It is my opinion that this game has been downhill since that update, and part of the reason for it is ArenaNet’s awful job on scaling in downleveled areas.

The dungeons and combat in general was just more fun pre-ferocity imo. It’s way too late to go back, but now I only do non-Arah dungeons on rare occasions. I would rather repeat Arah dailies than do for example SE and Hotw xD

I like the social aspects of dungeons. I couldn’t count the amount of people I’ve helped through their first dungeon. I don’t get the same kind of interaction in the open world. In the open world others might as well be npcs. The open world does not require the communication and coordination that I sometimes get from dungeons.

I’ve never even taken a look at the achievements given from doing dungeons.

I don’t have the Achievements, nor have I run many dungeons. Maybe 3 or 4 paths total. I much prefer the open world. But, that’s just me. =)

spoj.9672:

Didnt really fully enjoy the game until i started trying dungeons with guild members. Its not just about the content. Its the enclosed environment of a small group of friends in a social gametype. Theres nothing social about being in a 100 man zerg.

Then fractals introduced some really good content to add to the social small group experience. Shame the rewards make it hard to justify playing if you actually want to work towards cosmetic stuff. And a shame they havent actually added much to them.

Question. Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?

^^

I always run dungeons with my guild and/or other friends. I used to run Fractals with a close group of friends/guildies, we went from level 1 to level 49 (pre-fractured) by playing nearly daily. I won’t forget that experience for like ever. We were a group of nobodies, just simple guild mates before we started our runs and we became closer friends soon thereafter. Running content with the same people, is one of the key factors that lead to friendship, community, and strong bonds between players in an online setting. Running around in a nameless blob does not. Only players who actually get known and communicate are the poor commanders who have to do all the hard work for the masses.

I’ve made lots of friends running instanced content since I first started playing MMORPGs, I’ve made very few (if any) while running around in the grey/nameless open world.

The dungeon community is full of very good players who are willing to teach others how to do the runs. The dungeon community has lots of players who are making guides, builds, and in general make the life of everyone running those dungeons easier. Unfortunately, the instanced side of the game is way too easy, which means there are tons of wannabes. Those are the toxic ones, those are the bad apples but for some reason the behavior of those players allows others to label the entire dungeon/instance community as bad.

So 8 responses. Typical. Doesn’t really say much. Of my guild of 200, probably 10% like dungeons at all. Maybe 15% though I think that’s stretching it. Most people in my guild either don’t run dungeons, or ran them once to get their achievements. However, since that’s annecdotal and since the mods have now moved this to the dungeon forums, where no dungeon people will ever look, the mods might as well close the thread. Any additional posts from now on in are probably going to be fans of dungeons. No reason for a non fan to come to this forum.

It would be interesting if we could see the dev’s data on how many people ran dungeons after they got their achievement, though. I suspect it’s not as much as people think.

I dont know why you keep using your guild as an example. Its obvious its a certain type of guild that has a much more casual playerbase. Which are the sort of players that try things once then move on to the next thing.

Personally, I wanted to see each dungeon path at least once. Happens that I ended up mostly doing dungeons, but that’s just coincidence. I have put a similar effort of exploring content into all aspects of the game, even those I don’t overly like or play much (like PvP).

spoj.9672:

Didnt really fully enjoy the game until i started trying dungeons with guild members. Its not just about the content. Its the enclosed environment of a small group of friends in a social gametype. Theres nothing social about being in a 100 man zerg.

…

Question. Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?

No idea what kind of zergs you had in mind there, but touring world bosses for example is what I consider a very social experience. You have the regulars (though to be fair, this was much much better before the megaservers), you can go with guildies/friends and there is always plenty of chatter going on. Personally, I also like going there to look at other players characters and armor combinations.

Back when I did my share of WvW, it was a similar kind of experience: You got the regulars, you got server affiliation, you can go with your guildies/friends and so on.

As to your actual question: You can contribute to any kind of content no matter its scale. As I’m assuming you are referring to the higher potential impact the individual has on a smaller group, I’m going to answer with this: If you are playing dungeons, you are one group out of many doing the same content. As an individual player, you can always be replaced by someone else.

As such, I don’t let the scale of something decide whether I’m supposed to enjoy it or not. If I like it, I play it, otherwise I won’t.

I have done every achievement associated with every dungeon, including Dungeoneer. At this point I’ve done them so many times that I only go when friends/guildies ask me to go, and that’s because I enjoy the social experience of small-group content in good company. I do not pub dungeons at all anymore, but I did for a fair bit after I finished my achievements. What I really hate is the lack of anything new to do. It’s all so old to me now.

Among my most recent dungeon runs of note was an Arah p4 that I ran with [DnT] which was super casual.. and yet only like 4 minutes off from the record. Felt great, would do again.

I…I still do dungeon tours every day. All paths all dungeons, except Arah P3 (bugs out, low gold reward), P4 (don’t like the time gates), SE P2 (need I explain this?) and Aetherpath (reward vs time is not really worth it).

That said, on good days I will run the paths mentioned above as well, they just aren’t on my daily tour, unlike others.

Personally, I like 5 man HotW runs the most out of all dungeons. It’s not an elegant design (HP sponges), but it sort of, kind of works. If I don’t have friends online, I will solo/duo AC full / CM full / Arah P2* until people come.

Also, daily F50 hype for the elusive fractal tonic, of course.

I’ve got my dungeoneer / dungeon master a while ago. There just isn’t anything else in this game I enjoy – I like dungeons and I like my ele, so I don’t even bother playing other classes unless my party needs it and I don’t bother doing other game modes.

*fix Lupi pls

Satenia.9025:

As to your actual question: You can contribute to any kind of content no matter its scale. As I’m assuming you are referring to the higher potential impact the individual has on a smaller group, I’m going to answer with this: If you are playing dungeons, you are one group out of many doing the same content. As an individual player, you can always be replaced by someone else.

What? Are you trolling?

Wait, there are achievements for dungeons? I know Aetherpath has some, but the others too? If they have, then I did them a long time ago. If you mean collections, then yes, I do those. The only dungeons I don’t like to run for the collection is HotW, and that is mostly due to the PuGs I’m running with.

spoj.9672:

Question. Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?

I do sometimes. Stomping zerks, picking up stragglers, laughing about teammates when they run into obvious AoE spikes. All that stuff. WvW that is. In PvE I only do it when I need the loot.

spoj.9672:

Question. Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?

A lot of people. Here’s one major reason:

You feel accomplishment when you succeed because you were part of the group that did it! And when you fail, you don’t need to take any blame: after all, you were just one person in the zerg, it can’t really be your fault, right?

It’s very safe for your ego. This particularly applies to WvW.

Also, the grind. Oh the grind. You want that one ascended sinister trinket that can’t be gotten from the LS? Or a second set of sinister trinkets? You gotta grind thousands of bandit crests from SW. That’s not fun. So you take the easy way: zerg the breach and VW while watching TV, or listening to podcasts, or starting flamewars in mapchat.

Besides, even if the number of people who enjoy zerging is not big in the general gaming population, we see a lot of them in GW2 because thesea are the kind of people Anet selects for by not releasing any small man instanced content in years.

spoj.9672:

Satenia.9025:

As to your actual question: You can contribute to any kind of content no matter its scale. As I’m assuming you are referring to the higher potential impact the individual has on a smaller group, I’m going to answer with this: If you are playing dungeons, you are one group out of many doing the same content. As an individual player, you can always be replaced by someone else.

What? Are you trolling?

No, but I am curious as to why you would think so.

Satenia.9025:

If you are playing dungeons, you are one group out of many doing the same content. As an individual player, you can always be replaced by someone else.

This makes literally no sense. You are one out of five in a dungeon so of course you have a bigger impact on the success of the group. On the other hand in a zerg you can just AFK and they will still succeed without your contribution.

Pretty sure im being baited. But meh.

I’m pretty sure he knows you play necromancer.

kitten :<

With the current state of dungeons *, you can also just AFK and they will still succeed without your contribution?

But nah, my point is that you are always replaceable. It’s more obvious the higher the encounter scales, but I just don’t see why you would make such a fuss over it that it somehow affects your enjoyment.

Edit: lol @ Wethospu, maybe I should have written “current state of necromancers in dungeons”.

spoj.9672:

Satenia.9025:

If you are playing dungeons, you are one group out of many doing the same content. As an individual player, you can always be replaced by someone else.

This makes literally no sense. You are one out of five in a dungeon so of course you have a bigger impact on the success of the group. On the other hand in a zerg you can just AFK and they will still succeed without your contribution.

Pretty sure im being baited. But meh.

Lol, the forum necro becoming a sparkly, colourful fish and being bated like it’s nothing.
Amateur.

Vayne.8563:

So 8 responses. Typical. Doesn’t really say much. Of my guild of 200, probably 10% like dungeons at all. Maybe 15% though I think that’s stretching it. Most people in my guild either don’t run dungeons, or ran them once to get their achievements. However, since that’s annecdotal and since the mods have now moved this to the dungeon forums, where no dungeon people will ever look, the mods might as well close the thread. Any additional posts from now on in are probably going to be fans of dungeons. No reason for a non fan to come to this forum.

It would be interesting if we could see the dev’s data on how many people ran dungeons after they got their achievement, though. I suspect it’s not as much as people think.

I’ve been guilded/friended by hundreds of people who focused on dungeons. Most of them are long gone… I wonder why…

The only thing your post might actually show is how much the dungeon community has dwindled thanks to ANet’s approach or lack there of.

Vayne.8563:

So 8 responses. Typical. Doesn’t really say much. Of my guild of 200, probably 10% like dungeons at all. Maybe 15% though I think that’s stretching it.

Same with my guild.

Although, I can tell you that it was quite a different story two years ago before we realized the original dungeons were a bait-and-switch.

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

So 8 responses. Typical. Doesn’t really say much. Of my guild of 200, probably 10% like dungeons at all. Maybe 15% though I think that’s stretching it. Most people in my guild either don’t run dungeons, or ran them once to get their achievements. However, since that’s annecdotal and since the mods have now moved this to the dungeon forums, where no dungeon people will ever look, the mods might as well close the thread. Any additional posts from now on in are probably going to be fans of dungeons. No reason for a non fan to come to this forum.

It would be interesting if we could see the dev’s data on how many people ran dungeons after they got their achievement, though. I suspect it’s not as much as people think.

I’ve been guilded/friended by hundreds of people who focused on dungeons. Most of them are long gone… I wonder why…

The only thing your post might actually show is how much the dungeon community has dwindled thanks to ANet’s approach or lack there of.

Jesus, don’t crush his delusions. Oh, I forgot. You can’t crush delusions. They crush you.

Yeah, I was certainly crushed by my delusions about this game. Thinking it was a progressive game based on active play with fun challenging content and on top of that regularly added content thinking that the added content would span the diverse areas of the game. Then utterly destroyed by my hope and longing for what this game could be after realizing my delusions were just that.

I’d also note that I speak as a guy who came to the game late, I’ve only been playing for a bit over a year (maybe closer to a 1.5 years now) so these hundreds of friends/acquaintances were all from within that timespan. The dungeon community was still quite lively 6 months ago, last I played, not so much. Surely people are still playing them regularly, but finding people with my same play style simply became too hard. I’m not the gold farming dungeon grinder, I’m much more focused on having fun. Hell most of my gold has vanished into more social investments than into virtual pixels for myself.

But, bleh, here I am longing for what could have been again, kitten you ANet for laying the groundwork for such an amazing game and failing to follow through.

But, but, open world challenging content.

deSade.9437:

But, but, open world challenging content.

Are you trying to make me si…. blerrrgghhh… now see what you just did!

Jerus.4350:

deSade.9437:

But, but, open world challenging content.

Are you trying to make me si…. blerrrgghhh… now see what you just did!

Woops. .. but I can’t be sorry
/justpsychothings

Either way, I believe the new glider thingy will keep me busy for 1-2 weeks or so. It’s a very childish type of fun, but I enjoy gliding around like a monstrous, overgrown bird.
inb4 glider skins on the gemstore for a modicum of gems… only 800!

I’ve always done dungeons purely for fun, I never have and likely never will care about gold or achievement points. Provided there’s still something for me to learn or optimize within a certain path, I’m more than happy to run it multiple times a day.

If this thread is in response to recent topics regarding instanced content in Heart of Thorns then I’d imagine it’s pointless to try and gauge the general interest of dungeons. Arenanet likely has the numbers and will design content that suits their vision of the game. If the expansion rolls out with nothing new for me to enjoy then I’ll happily switch to a game that’s more in line with my interests.

deSade.9437:

Jerus.4350:

deSade.9437:

But, but, open world challenging content.

Are you trying to make me si…. blerrrgghhh… now see what you just did!

Woops. .. but I can’t be sorry
/justpsychothings

Either way, I believe the new glider thingy will keep me busy for 1-2 weeks or so. It’s a very childish type of fun, but I enjoy gliding around like a monstrous, overgrown bird.
inb4 glider skins on the gemstore for a modicum of gems… only 800!

I suddenly wish I still had my n64 with Pilotwings

hands deSade a towel

You know, after playing WS for a couple weeks, it’s not the content that will keep me there…

It’s double jump. Seriously. I logged into GW2 to flip some crap this weekend and it was sorely missed.

Jerus, I just have to quote this:

Jerus.4350:

Yeah, I was certainly crushed by my delusions about this game. Thinking it was a progressive game based on active play with fun challenging content and on top of that regularly added content thinking that the added content would span the diverse areas of the game. Then utterly destroyed by my hope and longing for what this game could be after realizing my delusions were just that. […]
But, bleh, here I am longing for what could have been again, kitten you ANet for laying the groundwork for such an amazing game and failing to follow through.

I know the feeling well, you’ve summarized it all very nicely.

Oh well. Onward and upward. This game will never be what it could have been, nor will it return to what it once was. Unless you want to run in circles and get shinies for nothing — then it’s great!

Yeah, I need to log into whiteside server. Just 2 more days then work will get back to normal. . . I hope. The double jump is a lot of fun, especially since you can attack in it. The only thing I’m not really liking about that game so far is the prioritizing of attacks, in that I mean that I can’t cancel my auto with a skill, I have to wait for the “auto” to finish then activate the skill, or just spam it. Well, I also am not a big fan of returning to the trinity, but it is what it is there.

There are tricks you can do with the global cooldown that let you nest attacks inside each other, but I’ve not gotten the hang of it yet. I’ll ask about it in the whiteside thread, but I think it can be done.

There’s also an option to just hold a key to spam an attack. Saves you from destroying your autoattack key and ensures that they fire ASAP

I can see the appeal of being 1 in hundreds… little risk, decent reward, accomplishment of higher end goals. Look, there are alot of casual gamers here. most only have a few hours or less to play a day, and some people want to relax and play, not get caught up in elitism and hardcore tactics. for some folk they like doing it this way cuz they dont have to invest alot of critical thinking and stress on their downtime. Some folks prefer the challenge, some just want to escape into another world for a few hours and just run around… where as its easy to accomplish goals at the same time, just makes it all the more appealing to those players.

Jerus.4350:

Yeah, I need to log into whiteside server. Just 2 more days then work will get back to normal. . . I hope. The double jump is a lot of fun, especially since you can attack in it. The only thing I’m not really liking about that game so far is the prioritizing of attacks, in that I mean that I can’t cancel my auto with a skill, I have to wait for the “auto” to finish then activate the skill, or just spam it. Well, I also am not a big fan of returning to the trinity, but it is what it is there.

Now you feel how it is to use sword as Ranger.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

I can see the appeal of being 1 in hundreds… little risk, decent reward, accomplishment of higher end goals. Look, there are alot of casual gamers here. most only have a few hours or less to play a day, and some people want to relax and play, not get caught up in elitism and hardcore tactics. for some folk they like doing it this way cuz they dont have to invest alot of critical thinking and stress on their downtime. Some folks prefer the challenge, some just want to escape into another world for a few hours and just run around… where as its easy to accomplish goals at the same time, just makes it all the more appealing to those players.

Mhm. Though just to comment, I find it quite funny that a VW kill is a larger time investment than a dungeon run Heck even fractals can go quicker than a VW kill.

I find it amusing when the dps of 25 ppl has trouble going past 70k on the bosses, and I’m sitting on staff ele dps at around 10% of the groups total dmg.

SlyDevil.3952:

I find it amusing when the dps of 25 ppl has trouble going past 70k on the bosses, and I’m sitting on staff ele dps at around 10% of the groups total dmg.

you couldnt know that without cheating

You couldn’t know I’m cheating without cheating, ha, checkmate pvf-er!!!

When everything else is stale…

…PvF is all that remains.

I’ll run dungeons or fractals with friends/guildies that ask, even if I’ve already run the path(s)/reward level(s) that day, because they’re about the only things I still enjoy doing in this game outside of sPvP.

I run fractals/dungeons every day and generally with a full (or mostly) guild group. I used to run them with pugs before i joined my guild but i figure, if you can do things with your guild, why pug?

spoj.9672:

I dont know why you keep using your guild as an example. Its obvious its a certain type of guild that has a much more casual playerbase. Which are the sort of players that try things once then move on to the next thing.

Actually I’m willing to wager that most of the playerbase is even more casual than my guild. They log in, kill a few things and log out. Some players probably never set a trait.

Do you have any clue how many people solo and never join a guild. Most of those people don’t do dungeons either and they usually make up a bigger percentage of the player base than we expect.

When you add up all the people who don’t do dungeons, soloers, casual people, people who only WvW or SPvP, RPers, I’m guessing it is a significant percentage of the playerbase.

Vayne.8563:

spoj.9672:

I dont know why you keep using your guild as an example. Its obvious its a certain type of guild that has a much more casual playerbase. Which are the sort of players that try things once then move on to the next thing.

Actually I’m willing to wager that most of the playerbase is even more casual than my guild. They log in, kill a few things and log out. Some players probably never set a trait.

Do you have any clue how many people solo and never join a guild. Most of those people don’t do dungeons either and they usually make up a bigger percentage of the player base than we expect.

When you add up all the people who don’t do dungeons, soloers, casual people, people who only WvW or SPvP, RPers, I’m guessing it is a significant percentage of the playerbase.

Asking someone if they know, and using a generalization more sweeping than the VW troll boss’ beam attack. 13/10

When you say these people do things solo and never join a guild, are you saying they are soloing everything, or they are just avoiding interacting with other people in any way other than being nearby the same event?

When you add up every demographic except one I hope you’re reaching a ‘significant’ percentage. It’s like, lets add up the number of people who don’t play MM necro in pvp, well kitten, it appears we have a majority.

Vayne.8563:

Just curious about this, since it came up in another thread. How many people here ran dungeons to get the achievements for those dungeons, even though they don’t like running dungeons or don’t care about dungeons all that much.

I know I run dungeons sometimes, because other people need help with them or to fill in when the guild can’t find a fifth. Anyone else?

I will redirect you to the most widely successful instanced content in the game: SAB

SAB appealed to a vast number of players, making it one of the most successful releases of the game (the first SAB) Did players just run their achievements there then run away? I don’t think so. Players were engaged in SAB for days and days.

It shows clearly that instanced content CAN be fun and engaging for a great deal of the playerbase (casual and hardcore) if done right. I’ll admit current dungeons/fractals aren’t the best instances but that’s why players are asking for more of them, not more of the same, but different/unique ones.

I will repost this from the other thread on instanced content, 7 things from SAB that can be applied to all instanced content to make it more appealing to the playerbase:

a) It was fun. This is a hard thing to measure, because even for SAB itself it wasn’t fun for everyone, but “fun” is the most important thing. I think an important part of SAB was that each part of the instances had some unique feeling to it, unlike some dungeons who feel exactly the same throughout
b) It had difficulty levels, to satisfy a diverse range of skill levels, Infantile, Normal and Tribulation mode. Unlike the Story – Explorable modes in Dungeons, the difficulty levels of SAB did NOT affect the story or the overall content, map design etc, someone who never played Tribulation did NOT lose important parts of the game
c) It has scaling. You could play SAB solo or in a group of up to 5 players. The content inside SAB was doable with any number of players, unlike current dungeons which are not designed to scale
d) Progression. SAB has a progression system, you feel like you are moving towards a goal. Fractals also have progression in levels, but it’s not the same, SAB urges you to play more to see what’s next, in Fractals you just get more and more mob hit points
e) Unique rewards. SAB has rewards that cannot be found anywhere else, giving an extra incentive to try it. The different difficulties offer the same skins but with different colors, so it’s not an amazing deal if you miss the higher difficulty skins
f) Reward for exploration. SAB rewards exploration and finding those extra baubles, instead of focusing on finishing the run as fast as possible. This means the entire map of SAB is a playground, and players don’t just run and skip everything. Also, SAB has loads of secrets with interesting rewards to find. Imagine if they added hidden secret “shops” in Fractals that allowed you to buy items that let you skip instabilities (or change them) using currency found inside fractals. Rough example but you get the idea
g) Checkpoints. There are a lot of good things about SAB checkpoints, first they are more frequent than dungeon waypoints, second in order to activate them you need the entire team to get to them, a single player can’t just rush through then port everyone there. Also, checkpoints are used to measure your progress, there is no way to port to them, but it’s hardly needed in SAB because the paths are more defined

Apply some of these to dungeons and judging by the success of SAB even the more casual players will start running them. AND the hardcore players will have higher difficulties to finish.

Vayne.8563:

spoj.9672:

I dont know why you keep using your guild as an example. Its obvious its a certain type of guild that has a much more casual playerbase. Which are the sort of players that try things once then move on to the next thing.

Actually I’m willing to wager that most of the playerbase is even more casual than my guild. They log in, kill a few things and log out. Some players probably never set a trait.

Do you have any clue how many people solo and never join a guild. Most of those people don’t do dungeons either and they usually make up a bigger percentage of the player base than we expect.

When you add up all the people who don’t do dungeons, soloers, casual people, people who only WvW or SPvP, RPers, I’m guessing it is a significant percentage of the playerbase.

And why would the developers build content tailored to these people? They would try it once (maybe) and then move on. These players arent fully invested so its a risky move to tailor content to them. Im sorry but i dont think you understand how groups are prioritised for targeted development. Its not just about numbers.

A game would live a very short life if devs made decisions purely based on population numbers. Anet finally started to see a decline and many complaints right before the HoT announcement as a result of the lack of content aimed at veterans. Do you think veterans and the people making those complaints are the majority? Nope. They arent but there are enough of them for anet to be concerned.

The last comment you made is completely moronic. Of course if you add all demographics up except for one its going to be a huge majority compared to the one you excluded. Thats not an arguement.

There is something that developers and people advocating no instances should consider. While it is probably true that more people fall into the casual category and they probably spend more real money in the gemstore than veterans who can afford gold > gem conversions… veterans are a very important part of the community, the core actually.

In my opinion it is a terrible idea to focus exclusively on either group, since if you neglect content that casuals can complete, you lose a paying customer base. But if you neglect veterans, you will lose those players who would keep your game alive when the casuals have logged off. They provide really important promotional work by building communities (guilds, ts communities), creating content (youtube videos, drawings, paintings, fan fictions). They draw people in by spreading the word how great the game is. They provide feedback that the developers can rely on because let’s be honest, sometimes they understand the game better than the devs.

Veteran players in my book are not only dungeon runners, they can be anything from open world boss event farmers (the ones carrying the press 1 and i win crowd) through dungeon speedrunners, pvpers all the way to RP-ers (yes even they are important while anet seems to think otherwise).

In a game like this where you have so many different ways to play and be a veteran, we should respect the other veterans instead of trying to make them “wisen up” and play our kind of content.