Guild Wars 2

I’m not a raider and I’m not going to pretend that I know everything about the game mode, but here is what I think about these current criticisms.

Blaeys.3102:

Where the issue started

Attempting to expand your playerbase is a good idea, as long as it doesn’t significantly impact the game for the core audience. However, the major shift in HoT was not that raids were implemented, it was the open world HoT maps themselves. Raids are meant to be side-content for a minority. The problem is that the new maps had many drawbacks, like enormous initial HP requirements, timegated metas and many areas that are outright inaccessible during specific times. All of these elements made the new maps anti-casual.

Blaeys.3102:

Playstyle diversity and the road to boring play

Raids simply exposed the balance issues that were there in the first place. Balance in this game is pretty bad, and the the primary problem in raids seem to be the profession specific buffs. Druid, Berserker and Chronomancer not only have the best unique buffs, but they also have the highest amount of unique buffs as well. Build diversity has suffered in all game modes because elite specs shoehorned professions into specific builds. As more elite specs are added it is possible that more professions will get desirable buffs for raids. However, the system that Anet created is incredibly inflexible at the moment

Blaeys.3102:

Broken storylines

I watched the recap of the raid and I didn’t feel like I missed much. Sure, I wouldn’t mind experiencing the story in some way, but it seems to be an insignificant storyline that was only made so that a raid can exist.

Blaeys.3102:

Watering down non-raid content

They haven’t watered down non-raid content as far as I can tell. Yes, the sloth boss is very undertuned but I don’t think that every single boss that gets introduced should have the same difficulty. As far as I remember the fights of the first to LW2 episodes were pretty easy, so having easy fights in the first two LW3 episodes doesn’t seem out of the ordinary for me. Also that final blob fight’s difficulty is highly dependant on your profession.

As for guild missions, it is true that they stopped working on them, but I doubt that it had anything to do with raids. They probably thought that making more of those is a bit redundant due to their reward structure. They were also working on other guild-related content instead, like guild halls and decorations.

Blaeys.3102:

Fracturing the playerbase

Raids were inevitably going to fracture the community no matter how they were implemented. When you introduce what is essentially a new game mode, some players will play it and some won’t. If Anet introduced a GvG mode, it is likely that there would be fractures in the PvP community. Some people would refurse to play the mode, while others will play it and possibly abandon some of the content they used to do.

Basically, I believe that the issues with raids stem from Anet’s general design of the HoT expansion, rather than the design of the raids themselves. An example that is very relevant to me is legendary armor. I feel dissatisfied that legendary armor is raid-only, but what is it that makes me feel that way? Is it jealousy because raiders get a shiny? I would say that it is not.

I simply feel like Anet is wasting resources on this project. They may have a small team working on raids, but how much armor development is being wasted on raids when HoT barely added to the variety of armor sets? Oh, but you see the problem is that Anet barely added any armor sets, not that raids are getting an armor set. Even if non-raiders got 1 more armor set, it still would be small amount for an expansion. The same logic also applies to the content drought, when players were complaining about the lack of content. An easy mode of raids simply wouldn’t add much content, because the raid maps themselves don’t seem to have much in them.
People need to keep in mind that when compared to other games, the raid release schedule is kinda slow. They are definitely not focusing on raids. Anet needs to make sure that the next expansion has the correct amount of content, or raids will continue to be the scapegoat. After all, it is easy to blame a game mode that minority plays and label it as a worthless addition that drained too many resources. Though in my opinion, the true pointless resource drain the WvW desert maps. Almost no WvWer liked them, and Anet had to spend a bunch of dev time on fixing all the WvW stuff that they broke. I hope that Anet has been organized properly this time, and are ready to make a good expansion that hasn’t been rushed.

Sadly this thread is in danger of going down the “not staying on point” disease so guys, bring it back to all the GOOD points and ideas you all were making. There is a lot of really good discussion and ideas in here and if it stays positive then mayhaps ANET will give a look into.
If all they see is the same ol crying over “I cant get into a raid” kind of topics they will just close it like the others.
Raids don’t need to be made “easy”, god no, then they wouldn’t be what they were intended to be, harder. But making them more accessible to the player base is where the disconnect seems to be. It is for me on the most part, and many others from what I have read.
Don’t get me wrong, I can raid, have done so with my guild and pugs and have been successful and it was fun. What sucked the fun out of was being told what toon I HAD to come on. I would really much prefer to be able to do ANY content with what I would call my “main”, and I think that’s the core of all these posts. Fix that and we rockin!
But, great discussions on the most part and yea all, keep it positive like many have mentioned and maybe make a difference, it could happen? I mean trump just might win so crazier stuff does happen! :P
Cheers.

People drop games when they feel they have no means of progressing their goals. When you set in things like Legendary armor, and people want that, but the only way to get it is through content that they will not do, then they get disgruntled. And they may not ragequit on the forums, but they do play less, and less, and eventually stop. You can’t tell people in a game “that’s not for you,” and expect them to like it.

So all this discussion because of that…you’re just not happy because you want legendary armors but don’t want to raid. Pls, be honest, you don’t care about raid, all you care about is reward. You’re just looking for any illogical argument that can make you have easier legendary armors at this point.
Again, i know no one that stopped the game because of this reason, except you and some others here on forum.

People who would only play because of raids already wouldn’t be playing the game

Wrong again, my guild for example only plays because of raids (and i know several others guilds in the same boat). But i don’t know a guild that disbanded because of raids. Because of lack of content yes, but that is another story that has nothing to do with raids…

Ohoni.6057:

People drop games when they feel they have no means of progressing their goals. When you set in things like Legendary armor, and people want that, but the only way to get it is through content that they will not do, then they get disgruntled. And they may not ragequit on the forums, but they do play less, and less, and eventually stop. You can’t tell people in a game “that’s not for you,” and expect them to like it.

That’s not a problem of raids, that’s a problem of nearly all rewards in GW2. Many rewards are bound to special content and if you don’t do that content you don’t get that reward. You can’t get any of the new Legendaries without doing much PvE, which excludes PvP and WvW Players. You can’t get old Legendaries without doing WvW, which some PvE players don’t like. You can’t get HoT Armour Sets (Bladed, Leystone …) or Weapon Sets (Auric, Chak …) without playing much HoT which some people don’t like. This list goes on and on. If you want to have every reward accessible for everyone you don’t need to change raids, you need to change the whole game.

Shylock.4653:

That’s not a problem of raids, that’s a problem of nearly all rewards in GW2. Many rewards are bound to special content and if you don’t do that content you don’t get that reward. You can’t get any of the new Legendaries without doing much PvE, which excludes PvP and WvW Players. You can’t get old Legendaries without doing WvW, which some PvE players don’t like.

This list goes on and on.

ther, corrected that for yeh.. also what’s point of buy HoT if u not gonna explore new maps. u technically need to for new legendaries but it’s not more time intensive than world completion. meaning, wvw players get to mix it up with new things while PvE killing time doing same old things in WvW as ever.

So all this discussion because of that…you’re just not happy because you want legendary armors but don’t want to raid. Pls, be honest, you don’t care about raid, all you care about is reward.

Why do you keep saying this over and over and over as if you’re making a cogent point? Do you think it would somehow be less of an issue if people did just want the Legendary Armor? That this would somehow be less worthy of resolution? I strongly disagree with that. People wanting the Legendary armor is a perfectly valid reason to be upset, and to push for some change to make that a more pursuable goal.

But the fact remains, and will continue to remain, that while I’ve always been up front about wanting Envoy armor as one of my goals, it has never been my only goal in this discussion. Sorry to disappoint you with the facts.

That’s not a problem of raids, that’s a problem of nearly all rewards in GW2. Many rewards are bound to special content and if you don’t do that content you don’t get that reward. You can’t get any of the new Legendaries without doing much PvE, which excludes PvP and WvW Players.

And that would be a valid argument, if acquiring a Legendary weapon were anywhere near the burden that acquiring the armor is. But of course it’s not. Any player who is capable of getting Legendary Armor is also capable of getting a Legendary weapon in 1/10th the time and effort. The requirements involved are fairly minimal relative to clearing dozens of raids. It’s not even comparable. And conversely, plenty of people who can get Legendary weapons in many cases completely lack the means to get Legendary armor under the current systems.

So there’s just no basis for comparison, no justification for saying “well it’s just like this other part of the game.” No, it’s NOT like any other part of the game.

Legendary weapons have nothing of legendary, they are just a really boring gold sink. So now that we have the first legendary item that isnt locked behind a gold wall, and is at least a bit “legendary” you want it handed by only doing AB multiloot for hours.
And A-Net never said that the legendary armor from raids would be the only legendary armor in the game. I think its high probably that the next expansion will have a legendary armor outside of it.
And what next, you will want the legendary backpack from PvP or Fractals given by gold too?

Legendary weapons have nothing of legendary, they are just a really boring gold sink. So now that we have the first legendary item that isnt locked behind a gold wall, and is at least a bit “legendary” you want it handed by only doing AB multiloot for hours.

Nobody said anything about that. Personally I hope that they have methods that include LESS gold than the current version, because I think the gold economy is the most corrupt and uneven portion of this game. Basically exploiters and market manipulators are fabulously wealthy while people playing the game as intended typically have much less to work with.

I want them to be earned through hard work, like what the raiders are doing, just not inside raid content, because not everyone enjoys raids, and people who don’t enjoy raids shouldn’t have to raid (and YES, that argument does also apply to every other content/reward in the game, so everyone can stop casting strawmen).

And A-Net never said that the legendary armor from raids would be the only legendary armor in the game. I think its high probably that the next expansion will have a legendary armor outside of it.

Possible, but 1. The problem is not access to [any Legendary Armor], the problem is access to [envoy armor]. A different set of Legendary armor would do nothing to solve that. And 2. Even if what you say is true, that’s many years down the road, and non-raiders should not have to wait many years for a solution. They should be working to get a solution out as soon as they possibly can, ideally before the raid armor is even released (not that everyone would be able to immediately get it, but they would at least have a reasonable path that they could start on, rather than a vague hope for a future plan).

And what next, you will want the legendary backpack from PvP or Fractals given by gold too?

Again, not gold, but I was pushing for an alternate method of earning the Ascension since day one, and even though I already have mine, after spending four torturous seasons on the PvP ladders, I would still like to see them open up alternate methods for other players to earn them, because I’m not a little kitten.

Well, as predicted, revenue drop continued in Q3. LS3 and new fractal managed to compensate a lot and even almost stopped revenue fall, but that was not enough to make them grow. Obviously players need something more that that.

Rednik.3809:

Well, as predicted, revenue drop continued in Q3. LS3 and new fractal managed to compensate a lot and even almost stopped revenue fall, but that was not enough to make them grow. Obviously players need something more that that.

And that as nothing to do with raids, unlike what you believe. Plenty of people told you that already.

Rednik.3809:

Well, as predicted, revenue drop continued in Q3. LS3 and new fractal managed to compensate a lot and even almost stopped revenue fall, but that was not enough to make them grow. Obviously players need something more that that.

Wow stop the presses….

An almost 5 year old game not seeing big returns! Must be a symptom of the features they added. Couldn’t possibly be the story being short, a bad launch followed by a poor reception to general gameplay that require the better part of 5 months to address, or the WvW fiasco that disenfranchised that part of the player base. Must have been that filthy raid which is actively retaining people as its one of the few group based activities that people log-in and do.

Also, lets just point out….really ? You show me a game who has consistent and sustained revenue growth, not even WoW or FFXIV do this.

An almost 5 year old game not seeing big returns! Must be a symptom of the features they added. Couldn’t possibly be the story being short, a bad launch followed by a poor reception to general gameplay that require the better part of 5 months to address, or the WvW fiasco that disenfranchised that part of the player base. Must have been that filthy raid which is actively retaining people as its one of the few group based activities that people log-in and do.

Poe’s Law?

I don’t know, I don’t think it’s unusual for the game to settle a bit after HoT, but seeing as how the biggest drop-offs came when raids were added, and this drop-off leveled out a bit after LSs3 was added, I think that at the very least the claims that the raids were good for the game are well exaggerated.

Drop started after the last wing was released tho. Also note how op post has nothing to do with earning reports.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Drop started after the last wing was released tho. Also note how op post has nothing to do with earning reports.

Amen! back on topic people. We don’t work for ANET so who gives a rats fart as to their earnings? I don’t play a game for the company’s earnings or whatever, I play for fun.
Lots of great ideas were brought up but then someone goes and get kitten or something silly and derails the whole thread. I see yet another closure coming. No wonder we don’t ever see any positive feedback from ANET…..

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Drop started after the last wing was released tho. Also note how op post has nothing to do with earning reports.

Emm… no? Last wing was released June 14 and revenue already started to fall during Q1, which is like 6 months earlier.

We are experiencing another big content draught at the moment. People go crazy, people start pointing fingers. Nothing new.
Besides, the 3rd quarter is always an issue in the US/EU – sandwiched right between people going back to work / school after the summer and lucrative events such as Halloween and Christmas.
Although, the degree of demonization towards raids is rather amusing. Opinions seem to range from ‘why raids are not a good idea’ to ‘how raids destroyed this game’. Almost like they are the root of all evil.

When in my opinion raids are the only reason why thousands of players even continued to play this game anymore after HoT.
Why a huge amount of players had to socialize, to form new guilds, found friends, gain experience together and make the game a bit more active and lively.
Why people like me continued to support the game with a few hundred euros over the past year while raids kept them interested. But maybe that is just me.

3.6% is not a ‘drop’, that’s keeping it relatively even on a statistical level.

Furthermore earnings on that report can never pin down the exact root of why changes happened. Speculating that it was due to raids specifically is foolish and wrong.

Henry.5713:

Although, the degree of demonization towards raids is rather amusing. Opinions seem to range from ‘why raids are not a good idea’ to ‘how raids destroyed this game’. Almost like they are the root of all evil.

When in my opinion raids are the only reason why thousands of players even continued to play this game anymore after HoT.
Why a huge amount of players had to socialize, to form new guilds, found friends, gain experience together and make the game a bit more active and lively.
Why people like me continued to support the game with a few hundred euros over the past year while raids kept them interested. But maybe that is just me.

Raids were successful for their audience. Focusing on raids, however, was made in very wrong way and turned out as complete disaster.

Rednik.3809:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Drop started after the last wing was released tho. Also note how op post has nothing to do with earning reports.

Emm… no? Last wing was released June 14 and revenue already started to fall during Q1, which is like 6 months earlier.

“The Drop” happened in Q2. Q1 is normal post release drop in sales.

Rednik.3809:

Henry.5713:

Although, the degree of demonization towards raids is rather amusing. Opinions seem to range from ‘why raids are not a good idea’ to ‘how raids destroyed this game’. Almost like they are the root of all evil.

When in my opinion raids are the only reason why thousands of players even continued to play this game anymore after HoT.
Why a huge amount of players had to socialize, to form new guilds, found friends, gain experience together and make the game a bit more active and lively.
Why people like me continued to support the game with a few hundred euros over the past year while raids kept them interested. But maybe that is just me.

Raids were successful for their audience. Focusing on raids, however, was made in very wrong way and turned out as complete disaster.

hmm, there was no focusing on raids. You’re just over reacting. Do you forget that raid just had 3 wings in 1 year? And how was it a disaster?

Rednik.3809:

Henry.5713:

Although, the degree of demonization towards raids is rather amusing. Opinions seem to range from ‘why raids are not a good idea’ to ‘how raids destroyed this game’. Almost like they are the root of all evil.

When in my opinion raids are the only reason why thousands of players even continued to play this game anymore after HoT.
Why a huge amount of players had to socialize, to form new guilds, found friends, gain experience together and make the game a bit more active and lively.
Why people like me continued to support the game with a few hundred euros over the past year while raids kept them interested. But maybe that is just me.

Raids were successful for their audience. Focusing on raids, however, was made in very wrong way and turned out as complete disaster.

This is another thing I disagree with. As I would hardly call the use of a small amount of their resources a focus of any kind.

The not even half finished state they were in must have taken less than 5% of the overall effort compared to everything else that came with HoT.
Their incomplete state is the actual reason why we got hardly any new content apart from raid related stuff for months after the release of the expansion. They were finishing the raid while the majority worked on the Living Story and legendaries as well as (possibly) the next expansion already.

We would have gotten 10 raid wings by now if there had been a focus on them.

Hypairion.9210:

hmm, there was no focusing on raids. You’re just over reacting. Do you forget that raid just had 3 wings in 1 year? And how was it a disaster?

While everyone else got… what, 1 hastily made fractal after NCsoft published worst financial result since game launch? They even postponed LS3 again, and again, and again. And at the same time, making exited reddit posts about how much they love raids and how much they are successful, and how their team is ready to make more of them, while completely ignoring everyone else who asking about something new for non-raiders. Afaik there was even some “l2p” posts.

Rednik.3809:

Hypairion.9210:

hmm, there was no focusing on raids. You’re just over reacting. Do you forget that raid just had 3 wings in 1 year? And how was it a disaster?

While everyone else got… what, 1 hastily made fractal after NCsoft published worst financial result since game launch? They even postponed LS3 again, and again, and again. And at the same time, making exited reddit posts about how much they love raids and how much they are successful, and how their team is ready to make more of them, while completely ignoring everyone else who asking about something new for non-raiders. Afaik there was even some “l2p” posts.

there were some works on wvw (but i’m not a wvw player so…), new pvp map, completly revamp of the hot maps (and THAT took a lot of times), 2 maps for LS3, some revamp of fractal..
and yes, some reddit post about raids, because, unlike you’re claiming, for people aimed at them, raids are a success, and Anet know it (so it’s nice sometimes to make posts about successfull things with so many people criticizing the rest…)

Rednik.3809:

Hypairion.9210:

hmm, there was no focusing on raids. You’re just over reacting. Do you forget that raid just had 3 wings in 1 year? And how was it a disaster?

While everyone else got… what, 1 hastily made fractal after NCsoft published worst financial result since game launch? They even postponed LS3 again, and again, and again. And at the same time, making exited reddit posts about how much they love raids and how much they are successful, and how their team is ready to make more of them, while completely ignoring everyone else who asking about something new for non-raiders. Afaik there was even some “l2p” posts.

The point is that you have zero proof that raids were responsible for any of that. If there were 0 raids in the game, you still may have only gotten one fractal. LS3 may still have been delayed just as long. We don’t know the reason for those things happening. People could have left the company while working on them. Things may have gone wrong in their development cycle for those projects. This list goes on and we will never know. Since that world doesn’t exist, using raids as your scapegoat is foolish.

On the sales front…Really? How is there enough evidence that raids are responsible for sales? There are way to many factors both inside and outside of the game to pin point any of them as a single culprit. Raids, LS3 delays, open world problems, WvW maps and dysfunction, a shrinking PvP community, WoW legion expansion sales and hype, Overwatch, the release date around a holiday season, just to name a few. You cannot pinpoint any one of them as the main culprit. You can only say that the state of the game as a whole, and the environment surrounding it was not enough to continue to drive increasing sales. Anything more specific than that…I’m sorry is just plain wrong.

Unless ANET specifically says “We are sorry we lied to you. Instead of having 6 people on raids and a handful more from each team when necessary (lets say maybe 20-30 total), but instead we had our entire LS and expansion 2 team working on raids, and we find that responsible for our drop in revenue”, then you have 0 argument.

Many folks on this forum use the word “opinion” as if it shelters them from needing any kind of proof behind their argument. Just because something is your “opinion”, doesn’t mean it cannot be 100% incorrect.

I think were getting a little off topic.

Of course raids aren’t the reason for the reduced revenue reporting. The game’s age, perceived content drought, pressure from other games, perceived lack of innovation, etc – all of these and a lot more that we don’t known (and will never know) are the likely culprits for that. And, for all we know, those numbers might be right in line with NCSoft’s internal projections. It literally could be a non issue for them.

This thread isn’t about whether or not raids are good or bad – or whether or not they caused 100 puppies to join a vegan cult. It should be about what we think needs to be changed (or shouldn’t be changed, if that is your opinion) and how we see that change. potentially taking place.

I see a lot of people ask for a nerf to PS. While I’m all for creating options and I don’t think there should be just one master class at stacking might I sincerely doubt it’s going to solve anything.

“A single class should not be able to stack 25 might.”

Well think about it, how else are we going to get that might? Do this and the meta next balance patch will be 2 PS 2 Druid 2 Chrono 2 DPS and 2 Rev. Note that in this meta there’s even less diversity and more class discrimination since you’ll be required to take revs as the secondary might stackers.

cranos.5913:

I see a lot of people ask for a nerf to PS. While I’m all for creating options and I don’t think there should be just one master class at stacking might I sincerely doubt it’s going to solve anything.

“A single class should not be able to stack 25 might.”

Well think about it, how else are we going to get that might? Do this and the meta next balance patch will be 2 PS 2 Druid 2 Chrono 2 DPS and 2 Rev. Note that in this meta there’s even less diversity and more class discrimination since you’ll be required to take revs as the secondary might stackers.

You’re absolutely correct but you see most people don’t have the capability to see what the result of things like that.

Most people thought soi nerf = chrono dead. WRONG it made chrono twice as popular. People who don’t understand how things work just don’t get it.

cranos.5913:

I see a lot of people ask for a nerf to PS. While I’m all for creating options and I don’t think there should be just one master class at stacking might I sincerely doubt it’s going to solve anything.

“A single class should not be able to stack 25 might.”

Well think about it, how else are we going to get that might? Do this and the meta next balance patch will be 2 PS 2 Druid 2 Chrono 2 DPS and 2 Rev. Note that in this meta there’s even less diversity and more class discrimination since you’ll be required to take revs as the secondary might stackers.

Just give us finally combo-field priority and suddenly those people who actually understand their classes will still be able to maintain perma might. Those who don’t might stack revenants.
Phalanx Strength was the worst trait ever added to the game because after it got patched into the game the metagame got far more boring than it used to be.

cranos.5913:

Well think about it, how else are we going to get that might? Do this and the meta next balance patch will be 2 PS 2 Druid 2 Chrono 2 DPS and 2 Rev. Note that in this meta there’s even less diversity and more class discrimination since you’ll be required to take revs as the secondary might stackers.

The argument ditching PS might gen is that classes are (roughly) balanced based on their own boon generation. Classes that can self-stack might are balanced around having that might, while classes that can’t self-stack might are balanced around not-having might.

When classes with zero might generation are given a free 25 stack of might they end up significantly outperforming classes that natively generate might.
If you parse all of the classes on the raid golem without using any of the boons you’ll notice that the performance gap between classes is massively reduced.

Lendruil.9061:

Just give us finally combo-field priority and suddenly those people who actually understand their classes will still be able to maintain perma might.

I definitely agree with this. The way combo fields work and are prioritized could use looking at – and this is one that that transcends raids.

cranos.5913:

I see a lot of people ask for a nerf to PS. While I’m all for creating options and I don’t think there should be just one master class at stacking might I sincerely doubt it’s going to solve anything.

“A single class should not be able to stack 25 might.”

To be fair, the true strength of a Warrior isn’t PS, it’s EA and Banners. The fact that the Warrior also generates all might for the team is just icing, really. If we didn’t have that, it’d revert a lot of stuff to the old dungeon style where all fields but fire are banished and Eles are generating might via blast finishers. Either way, Warrior won’t stop being mandatory.

If they want to make other classes relevant, they need strong DPS boosting utility traits like Spotter/EA/GotL on other classes that compete in efficacy with a Warrior and a Druid and a Mesmer. Only then will you see some interchangeability.

Rising Dusk.2408:

cranos.5913:

I see a lot of people ask for a nerf to PS. While I’m all for creating options and I don’t think there should be just one master class at stacking might I sincerely doubt it’s going to solve anything.

“A single class should not be able to stack 25 might.”

To be fair, the true strength of a Warrior isn’t PS, it’s EA and Banners. The fact that the Warrior also generates all might for the team is just icing, really. If we didn’t have that, it’d revert a lot of stuff to the old dungeon style where all fields but fire are banished and Eles are generating might via blast finishers. Either way, Warrior won’t stop being mandatory.

If they want to make other classes relevant, they need strong DPS boosting utility traits like Spotter/EA/GotL on other classes that compete in efficacy with a Warrior and a Druid and a Mesmer. Only then will you see some interchangeability.

Alternatively you could just remove the BS no-effort support skills and traits from raids or from the game as a whole. You could also make it more difficult to max crit chance and / or change crit multi so that precision isn’t just an equivalent stat to power in raids.

As far as the OP goes, some people like raids and some don’t. That’s no different from any other content. People can say raids divided the community or whatever crap they want but the reality is that HoT pve was in general a huge letdown and did not meet the anticipation built around it in any game mode. Promised content was cancelled or substantially delayed, and was lackluster and buggy otherwise. It’s ridiculous that people would blame gw2’s financial disappointments on raids in that context – it’s pretty obviously a result of players’ general disappointment with HoT as a whole and the lack of playable content since its release. It’s equally ridiculous to suggest that the 6 or 7 or whatever person raid team pushing out content is related in any way to the lack of production from a company with 100+ people working on the game.

As an avid raider I can tell you there are plenty of problems with raids, but blaming raids for the problems in the rest of the game is beyond stupid. Blaming raids for players being kittens to each other is even more stupid. I’ve known plenty of kittens in gw2 but I’ve yet to find someone that magically became an kitten because raids were released rather than just already being a crappy person.

Rising Dusk.2408:

cranos.5913:

I see a lot of people ask for a nerf to PS. While I’m all for creating options and I don’t think there should be just one master class at stacking might I sincerely doubt it’s going to solve anything.

“A single class should not be able to stack 25 might.”

To be fair, the true strength of a Warrior isn’t PS, it’s EA and Banners. The fact that the Warrior also generates all might for the team is just icing, really. If we didn’t have that, it’d revert a lot of stuff to the old dungeon style where all fields but fire are banished and Eles are generating might via blast finishers. Either way, Warrior won’t stop being mandatory.

If they want to make other classes relevant, they need strong DPS boosting utility traits like Spotter/EA/GotL on other classes that compete in efficacy with a Warrior and a Druid and a Mesmer. Only then will you see some interchangeability.

I know this and I wasn’t arguing against any of that. Limiting might on warrior will reduce diversity overall. Whether it’s by blasting (not gonna happen guys come on be real) or by getting a secondary might stacker or some other special snowflake way.

I don’t know, I don’t think it’s unusual for the game to settle a bit after HoT, but seeing as how the biggest drop-offs came when raids were added, and this drop-off leveled out a bit after LSs3 was added, I think that at the very least the claims that the raids were good for the game are well exaggerated.

Not correct. The drop happened in Q2 2016. This was after the initial two quarters of increased revenue likely due to sales of HoT. Some of those HoT sales were to players who wanted to raid. In fact, anyone who wanted to raid had to buy HoT.

The fact is that HoT in general did not appeal to as broad a group of players as ANet might have liked. The expressed reasons included: linked core/no discount for vets; timers on meta events; HoT mob difficulty; verticality/difficult-to-navigate maps; perceived grind; no free character slot; and not enough content for the price. In all of that dissatisfaction, there were few if any statements that someone wasn’t buying HoT because it introduced a raid.

Then there was the lengthy content drought. Some people want to blame that on raids, but that’s ludicrous. A small fraction of the live team worked on the raid full time. A similar number of devs were moved to LS production from LW 2.0 production in March, and their inclusion did not advance the timetable for LS3 at all. Much more likely was that the effort needed to revamp HoT to address some of the complaints was to blame for the drought.

Your confirmation bias is showing again.

Lendruil.9061:

cranos.5913:

I see a lot of people ask for a nerf to PS. While I’m all for creating options and I don’t think there should be just one master class at stacking might I sincerely doubt it’s going to solve anything.

“A single class should not be able to stack 25 might.”

Well think about it, how else are we going to get that might? Do this and the meta next balance patch will be 2 PS 2 Druid 2 Chrono 2 DPS and 2 Rev. Note that in this meta there’s even less diversity and more class discrimination since you’ll be required to take revs as the secondary might stackers.

Just give us finally combo-field priority and suddenly those people who actually understand their classes will still be able to maintain perma might. Those who don’t might stack revenants.
Phalanx Strength was the worst trait ever added to the game because after it got patched into the game the metagame got far more boring than it used to be.

All that would change in reality is having 2 might stack eles and 2 dps eles. “Meta change got far more boring” only thing that changed was warriors stacking might instead of being required to run double ele.

You’re still going to bring warriors for banners in this meta so my original point stands just the 2 revs might, maybe change to eles. IDK what the dps on a might stack ele is nowadays. Either way diversity is lessened.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t know, I don’t think it’s unusual for the game to settle a bit after HoT, but seeing as how the biggest drop-offs came when raids were added, and this drop-off leveled out a bit after LSs3 was added, I think that at the very least the claims that the raids were good for the game are well exaggerated.

Not correct. The drop happened in Q2 2016. This was after the initial two quarters of increased revenue likely due to sales of HoT. Some of those HoT sales were to players who wanted to raid. In fact, anyone who wanted to raid had to buy HoT.

The fact is that HoT in general did not appeal to as broad a group of players as ANet might have liked. The expressed reasons included: linked core/no discount for vets; timers on meta events; HoT mob difficulty; verticality/difficult-to-navigate maps; perceived grind; no free character slot; and not enough content for the price. In all of that dissatisfaction, there were few if any statements that someone wasn’t buying HoT because it introduced a raid.

Then there was the lengthy content drought. Some people want to blame that on raids, but that’s ludicrous. A small fraction of the live team worked on the raid full time. A similar number of devs were moved to LS production from LW 2.0 production in March, and their inclusion did not advance the timetable for LS3 at all. Much more likely was that the effort needed to revamp HoT to address some of the complaints was to blame for the drought.

Your confirmation bias is showing again.

Although what you say is largely true (especially HoT being light on content, a plattformer and rushed out of the door), the part where you write that raids were only met with hoorays and cannon salut is certainly not(exaggeration of course^^) . Numerous people wrote in several hotly contested topics back then that they fled from other games to escape raids and will leave again. Wvw and PvP both tanked significantly after HoT too, as did revenue in general.

You are also right when you say that you can´t attribute the drop of revenue on raids only for the reasons you stated. But I am curious how you explain how visibly(I don´t know what happened behind the curtain of Anet of course) designing largely around content for a minority of players and only threw some morsels for all the other game modes except another minority content, ESport PvP, can lead to a growing player base? I am seriously curious about that.
Please refrain from using the many people raid approach, even the large number you can assume from Anet saying raids did well makes them not a majority of players.

Torolan.5816:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t know, I don’t think it’s unusual for the game to settle a bit after HoT, but seeing as how the biggest drop-offs came when raids were added, and this drop-off leveled out a bit after LSs3 was added, I think that at the very least the claims that the raids were good for the game are well exaggerated.

Not correct. The drop happened in Q2 2016. This was after the initial two quarters of increased revenue likely due to sales of HoT. Some of those HoT sales were to players who wanted to raid. In fact, anyone who wanted to raid had to buy HoT.

The fact is that HoT in general did not appeal to as broad a group of players as ANet might have liked. The expressed reasons included: linked core/no discount for vets; timers on meta events; HoT mob difficulty; verticality/difficult-to-navigate maps; perceived grind; no free character slot; and not enough content for the price. In all of that dissatisfaction, there were few if any statements that someone wasn’t buying HoT because it introduced a raid.

Then there was the lengthy content drought. Some people want to blame that on raids, but that’s ludicrous. A small fraction of the live team worked on the raid full time. A similar number of devs were moved to LS production from LW 2.0 production in March, and their inclusion did not advance the timetable for LS3 at all. Much more likely was that the effort needed to revamp HoT to address some of the complaints was to blame for the drought.

Your confirmation bias is showing again.

Although what you say is largely true (especially HoT being light on content, a plattformer and rushed out of the door), the part where you write that raids were only met with hoorays and cannon salut is certainly not. Numerous people wrote in several hotly contested topics back then that they fled from other games to escape raids and will leave again. Wvw and PvP both tanked significantly after HoT too, as did revenue in general.

You are also right when you say that you can´t attribute the drop of revenue on raids only for the reasons you stated. But I am curious how you explain how visibly(I don´t know what happened behind the curtain of Anet of course) designing largely around content for a minority of players and only threw some morsels for all the other game modes except another minority content, ESport PvP, can lead to a growing player base? I am seriously curious about that.
Please refrain from using the many people raid approach, even the large number you can assume from Anet saying raids did well makes them not a majority of players.

The complaint at launch and beyond for gw2 in the greater mmo community was that it had no real end game.

I am 100% sure that pre launch anet figured pve end game would be wvw. You’d go do dungeons and stuff to gear your character and then go into serious wvw. but that’s not how it worked out for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that dungeons weren’t as challenging as they thought they would be.

Simply put gw2 needed challenging instanced pve content. Call it raids or whatever or make it new hard mode dungeons or fractals whatever. It could have been done 1000 different ways. But it was a real need.

You might think it’s trivial but when someone with no gw2 experience asKS me “does it have a legit pve end game” I can happily answer that yes it does. UNLIKE most posters I have an anet partnership affiliate link so I can see how many free to play accounts and hot box sales I get through my account and I can assure you that raids have definitely helped sell the game.

if you want to look for causes of falling revenue look no further than the steady erosion of the middle tier pvp community and the death of WvW. Earlier in the games life the’s were huge masses of players,especially in wvw and they are gone for good. RAIDS had nothing to do with wvw losing 80% of its population.

@NikeEU
Thank you for your input. I did not assume that raids did not bring in new players. I agree with you when you say that they brought in people who formerly did want nothing to do with GW2.

I rather make the assumption that the number of incoming raiders is smaller than the number of casual players who left because they did not like the new direction of GW2. Anet already heavily backpeddaled with Hot and both of the new maps.
I am a veteran of the first week of GW2, played GW1 too and even I felt alienated from the raids. So when I am not so webbed to the game anyway and I ain´t a raider, I surely would not have continued playing it if I had arrived at the game in the last year with all the drama involved if i were a new casual player.

All they had to do is just not pushing raids at expense of everyone else. Raid wing – fractal/dungeon, LS chapter, pvp/wvw update – raid wing, fractal/dungeon, LS chapter…
Bam, everyone is happy, no one is dying from content drought, sales remain strong. But hey, lets listen loud minority and push content for them above all.
There was also an excellent post about same situation on reddit today.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5c4qjy/ncsofts_earnings_report_stagnating_sales_for_gw2/d9u2svk/

Rednik.3809:

All they had to do is just not pushing raids at expense of everyone else.

Your insistence on that nonsensical claim is almost impressive. But it’s getting old, so you should try something else. Stuff like Earth is flat, for example …

CptAurellian.9537:

Your insistence on that nonsensical claim is almost impressive. But it’s getting old, so you should try something else. Stuff like Earth is flat, for example …

Ofc. I’m wrong, everything is fine, there was a tons of new content for everyone to enjoy, and these NCsoft numbers are just statistical error.

Trying to find the Illusion-Shatter Skill for Rednik so he can see that Anet didn’t focus on Raids at the Expense of everything else.

Rednik.3809:

All they had to do is just not pushing raids at expense of everyone else. Raid wing – fractal/dungeon, LS chapter, pvp/wvw update – raid wing, fractal/dungeon, LS chapter…

I’m trying to remember when they did this pre-Heart of Thorns but I can’t find any time in the game’s history where they did fractal/dungeon, LS Chapter, pvp/wvw update, fractal/dungeon and so on. Point us at some time in the game’s where they did this.

maddoctor.2738:

I’m trying to remember when they did this pre-Heart of Thorns but I can’t find any time in the game’s history where they did fractal/dungeon, LS Chapter, pvp/wvw update, fractal/dungeon and so on. Point us at some time in the game’s where they did this.

Pre-HoT there was more content for wide audience actually. Like, you know, alive dungeons before famous HoT nerf. It’s pretty funny how Anet killed them and gave only grindy zerg maps, slightly reworked fractal system and raids for small minority.

NikeEU.7690:

The complaint at launch and beyond for gw2 in the greater mmo community was that it had no real end game.

I am 100% sure that pre launch anet figured pve end game would be wvw. You’d go do dungeons and stuff to gear your character and then go into serious wvw. but that’s not how it worked out for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that dungeons weren’t as challenging as they thought they would be.

Simply put gw2 needed challenging instanced pve content. Call it raids or whatever or make it new hard mode dungeons or fractals whatever. It could have been done 1000 different ways. But it was a real need.

Seems their numbers were better without this real end game and all the challanging content …

Rednik.3809:

Pre-HoT there was more content for wide audience actually. Like, you know, alive dungeons before famous HoT nerf. It’s pretty funny how Anet killed them and gave only grindy zerg maps, slightly reworked fractal system and raids for small minority.

We haven’t had a fractal since November 2013 (Thaumanova Reactor Fractal), last time we got a dungeon was even further back in October 2013 (Aetherpath) so your claim of “content for wide audience” is a real joke. That’s 2 full years (HoT was released October 2015) of absolutely no instanced content released in the game.

Further, 10 months of those 2 years had absolutely no content released at all on ALL game modes! And yet you are saying how awesome it used to be and how Anet gave us content for a wide audience, when they gave content for NOBODY! I guess you blame Raids for all that too? The sole reason we didn’t get anything for 10 months, and no instanced content for 24 months is because of Raids.

You have a very weird memory of how the game used to be before Heart of Thorns.

maddoctor.2738:

We haven’t had a fractal since November 2013 (Thaumanova Reactor Fractal), last time we got a dungeon was even further back in October 2013 (Aetherpath) so your claim of “content for wide audience” is a real joke. That’s 2 full years (HoT was released October 2015) of absolutely no instanced content released in the game.

Further, 10 months of those 2 years had absolutely no content released at all on ALL game modes! And yet you are saying how awesome it used to be and how Anet gave us content for a wide audience, when they gave content for NOBODY! I guess you blame Raids for all that too? The sole reason we didn’t get anything for 10 months, and no instanced content for 24 months is because of Raids.

You have a very weird memory of how the game used to be before Heart of Thorns.

And yet population was actually higher than now, with HoT stuff and raids.

Thao.3947:

NikeEU.7690:

The complaint at launch and beyond for gw2 in the greater mmo community was that it had no real end game.

I am 100% sure that pre launch anet figured pve end game would be wvw. You’d go do dungeons and stuff to gear your character and then go into serious wvw. but that’s not how it worked out for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that dungeons weren’t as challenging as they thought they would be.

Simply put gw2 needed challenging instanced pve content. Call it raids or whatever or make it new hard mode dungeons or fractals whatever. It could have been done 1000 different ways. But it was a real need.

Seems their numbers were better without this real end game and all the challanging content …

Oh look causation without correlation again.

TexZero.7910:

Thao.3947:

NikeEU.7690:

The complaint at launch and beyond for gw2 in the greater mmo community was that it had no real end game.

I am 100% sure that pre launch anet figured pve end game would be wvw. You’d go do dungeons and stuff to gear your character and then go into serious wvw. but that’s not how it worked out for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that dungeons weren’t as challenging as they thought they would be.

Simply put gw2 needed challenging instanced pve content. Call it raids or whatever or make it new hard mode dungeons or fractals whatever. It could have been done 1000 different ways. But it was a real need.

Seems their numbers were better without this real end game and all the challanging content …

Oh look causation without correlation again.

Don’t forget the rapid drop-off of players once PvE End-Game was discovered to not exist a bit after launch.

Now we can push for a reasonable set of PvE End-game, such as Fractals, Raids, and hopefully more Legendary Weapons which require Open World.

Neat!

Rednik.3809:

And yet population was actually higher than now, with HoT stuff and raids.

Fun fact: During the 10 month period of nothing you can see a short spike in revenue. If someone can explain why we got that revenue spike during that time (some gem store sale or something???) it might shed some extra light on what causes more income in this game.

But that doesn’t change what was flawed since long ago. You are calling the new maps grindy zerg maps, but I don’t because I like those maps each for different reasons. But I can’t see any difference between HoT maps, BSF, EB and Dry Top/Silverwastes.

Are Raids a problem? Maybe, but even if you consider them a problem, Raids are the least of the problems that the game had for years. Recently, we’ve seen a change, new open world maps, a “new” fractal, new WvW updates (and some communication with the community), new PvP maps and so on.

It appears that they are going back to providing content for a wider audience like in that first year of the game. Will they keep it up? Will it be enough? We’ll see in the next few months.