Guild Wars 2

Well to be blunt, GW2 is not a game that makes people want to keep playing.

I’ll return to that later but first I have to backtrack for a sec. The reason behind this level gating of everything is to slow down the 1-80. It’s not to make the game better for new players. When it comes to new player experience, there’s no right answer. No matter what you do, some people will like the new player experience, and others won’t. And I’d say when you already have a successful model (GW2 had a successful launch, which IMO proves that the new player experience had a successful model) changing things drastically is more likely to hurt the new player experience than improve it.

But again that’s not why they did this.

I’m guessing they looked at their metadata and realized they have no player retention at all.

Most people play through the personal story once, then they get bored and quit.

Anet’s desperate answer is to make the 1-80 drag longer, and hopefully get more gem purchases out of those players who are fated to only play through once.

So anyway about GW2 not holding players… Well it’s an MMO without a real endgame. You just run the same instances over and over, or zerg events.

To be fair, it’s really difficult to make a good endgame in an RPG. But if you want some examples look at Dark Souls, or for a more MMOish example, Warframe. Warframe is really cool because you never really feel like you’ve reached the endgame. That’s the key to making people continue to play a game that’s honestly not challenging like GW2, Warframe, or any other MMO. A player should never feel like they’ve reached the top.

Unfortunately this is just how GW2 is. It cannot retain players and there’s no way to fix that. So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model. You’re not gonna keep this game alive with the current business model because it will never have enough player retention. Changes like this are almost death throes. You can’t keep this up.

Khristophoros.7194:

Unfortunately this is just how GW2 is. It cannot retain players and there’s no way to fix that. So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model. You’re not gonna keep this game alive with the current business model because it will never have enough player retention. Changes like this are almost death throes. You can’t keep this up.

Exactly – as a B2P game should. That way, the people who want changes get it, and those that don’t can opt not to.

Khristophoros.7194:

or for a more MMOish example, Warframe. Warframe is really cool because you never really feel like you’ve reached the endgame.

As a player who has all the prime frames: I disagree with this part of your post. You will feel like you have reached the top for a looooong time, it is just that you never reach the end of the grind where you have/have leveled everything.

That said, I agree with the rest of your post, but I think it is telling that it took Arenanet an entire year to figure out that people don’t like temporary content, and in the span of TWO YEARS they have not added a single dungeon (fractals don’t count as a dungeon) or other piece of permanent, repeatable content besides world bosses and fractals. And even then they mostly codified world bosses, the only real ‘additions’ were Tequatl (just a change to an existing boss) and Triple Trouble.

I swear they would have such a better rate of retention if they made adding a dungeon every other month a goal.

Khristophoros.7194:

Unfortunately this is just how GW2 is. It cannot retain players and there’s no way to fix that. So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model. You’re not gonna keep this game alive with the current business model because it will never have enough player retention. Changes like this are almost death throes. You can’t keep this up.

Most of the players I’ve talked to actually WANT expansion-style content much more than they want Living Story type stuff. People want new zones and new weapon types. They want new professions. They want Tengu as a playable race. Personally, I want skritt as a playable race, but I think it’s safe to say that that’s a longshot, especially with the direction the game is currently going.

OP, you’re forgetting one thing…quite a lot of players actually come back for the Living Story chapters, it’s one of the few things actively retaining players. So they’re retaining ones, albeit by added new content on a bi-monthly basis (whenever LS is up anyway).

But I do agree player retention is one of the problems of the game, though I blame that more towards some questionable class balancing at times (I still haven’t forgiven you for the pet nerfs, Anet), and recent leveling and trait changes that seem to actually make the game feel grindy, tedious, and annoying to play, 3 things they promised this game would never become.

Sokia.3710:

Khristophoros.7194:

Unfortunately this is just how GW2 is. It cannot retain players and there’s no way to fix that. So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model. You’re not gonna keep this game alive with the current business model because it will never have enough player retention. Changes like this are almost death throes. You can’t keep this up.

Most of the players I’ve talked to actually WANT expansion-style content much more than they want Living Story type stuff. People want new zones and new weapon types. They want new professions. They want Tengu as a playable race. Personally, I want skritt as a playable race, but I think it’s safe to say that that’s a longshot, especially with the direction the game is currently going.

While a fair share of people complain about Living Story, I actually liked it a lot because Anet can do some really cool stuff with it like the Battle for Lion’s Arch where you have hundreds of players fighting the Marionette in LA and then Scarlet on the Breachmaker. It adds to the feeling that the world is alive and things are constantly happening and changing the world. You just can’t do things like this as often with expansions.

So what that I might miss some of the story when I am not around? The world around me certainly don’t wait for me to if I decided to lock myself up in my room for 1 week. That is exactly the feel that I get with Living Story.

I stay on GW2 because it has the best pvp I’ve ever seen (engine/technical wise). Not for some worthless Pve events…..

Ergolicious.1507:

I stay on GW2 because it has the best pvp I’ve ever seen (engine/technical wise). Not for some worthless Pve events…..

You’ve never played Dungeon Fighter Online then.

Except that the player retention they’re probably focused on is the player retention from free weekends, which has nothing to do with end game.

I’m sure that you’re right as far as people leaving the game when they run out of stuff to do. But that is a different retention rate then I think Anet was focused on.

I think they weren’t getting enough new players to stay from free weekends, which is possibly why they hardly run them.

Vayne.8563:

Except that the player retention they’re probably focused on is the player retention from free weekends, which has nothing to do with end game.

I’m sure that you’re right as far as people leaving the game when they run out of stuff to do. But that is a different retention rate then I think Anet was focused on.

I think they weren’t getting enough new players to stay from free weekends, which is possibly why they hardly run them.

i dont think the key to player retention is slowing down things, its creating a hook. Something fast and interesting to keep them wanting to go further.
the best part about gw2 is the combat/freedom, they have very poor hooks.

they need work on some hooks, not on gimping the leveling process. Having leveling process inspire you to continue works better when you have extravagant cool things people want to do, or reach. gw2 doesnt really have that type of stuff.

Critwrench.8432:

Khristophoros.7194:

or for a more MMOish example, Warframe. Warframe is really cool because you never really feel like you’ve reached the endgame.

As a player who has all the prime frames: I disagree with this part of your post. You will feel like you have reached the top for a looooong time, it is just that you never reach the end of the grind where you have/have leveled everything.

That said, I agree with the rest of your post, but I think it is telling that it took Arenanet an entire year to figure out that people don’t like temporary content, and in the span of TWO YEARS they have not added a single dungeon (fractals don’t count as a dungeon) or other piece of permanent, repeatable content besides world bosses and fractals. And even then they mostly codified world bosses, the only real ‘additions’ were Tequatl (just a change to an existing boss) and Triple Trouble.

I swear they would have such a better rate of retention if they made adding a dungeon every other month a goal.

ummm, they added atherblade path and reamp ac dungeon.

someone at Anet seems to have decided to u turn compleytely on what GW2 was “supposed” to be about.

Instead of providing new areas, foes, content and allowing people to go and work their characters as they want to, Anet have decided we must be led by the hand and made to jump through hoop A before we are allowed anywhere near hoop B. They would prefer to spend time tweaking (badly) stuff that doesn’t need tweaking, than actually developing the game to provide the MMO that was originally promised and never really delivered!
his was the only game I spent any time in – guess what, like many others I am looking for suitable alternatives unless Anet remove the digit and fix this – fast

keep going Anet and you will have lots and lots of room for the two or three people left to wander about holding your hand

Khristophoros.7194:

Well to be blunt, GW2 is not a game that makes people want to keep playing.

I’ll return to that later but first I have to backtrack for a sec. The reason behind this level gating of everything is to slow down the 1-80. It’s not to make the game better for new players. When it comes to new player experience, there’s no right answer. No matter what you do, some people will like the new player experience, and others won’t. And I’d say when you already have a successful model (GW2 had a successful launch, which IMO proves that the new player experience had a successful model) changing things drastically is more likely to hurt the new player experience than improve it.

But again that’s not why they did this.

I’m guessing they looked at their metadata and realized they have no player retention at all.

Most people play through the personal story once, then they get bored and quit.

Anet’s desperate answer is to make the 1-80 drag longer, and hopefully get more gem purchases out of those players who are fated to only play through once.

So anyway about GW2 not holding players… Well it’s an MMO without a real endgame. You just run the same instances over and over, or zerg events.

To be fair, it’s really difficult to make a good endgame in an RPG. But if you want some examples look at Dark Souls, or for a more MMOish example, Warframe. Warframe is really cool because you never really feel like you’ve reached the endgame. That’s the key to making people continue to play a game that’s honestly not challenging like GW2, Warframe, or any other MMO. A player should never feel like they’ve reached the top.

Unfortunately this is just how GW2 is. It cannot retain players and there’s no way to fix that. So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model. You’re not gonna keep this game alive with the current business model because it will never have enough player retention. Changes like this are almost death throes. You can’t keep this up.

Misconstrued opinions on OP’s part there are plenty of people playing this game for SPvP and WvWvW. No other games offer these functions as fluidly as Guild Wars 2 it was never just about personal story mode.

There are people who enjoy dressing up their avatars as well, while others enjoy alting and exploring each unique dynamic event.

I’m assuming these whole de-evolution of this game is because of not having proper QA team and a series of bad judgements atleast that’s what I’m hoping on.

Honestly I think they’re missing opportunities with simple stuff. Living story is usually cringe worthy but w/e, I can get passed the bad dialogue so long as the over all arc can grasp me.

The problem I have is they’re standing on Laurels of 2 years ago and won’t look forward till an actual competitor comes out. I hear a tone of people saying they want the B2P expansion model but NO. Personal/Living Story has the potential if ANET would do it properly.

Example: Zhaitan was confirmed defeated. For the process of this argument I’ll say defeated means he’s dead, no more. Elder Dragons feed off magical power. Modre was feeding off ley lines and Zhaitan used his undead so transfer magical artifacts and relics of power so he could eat them. When Zhaitan, a creature that is more or less pure magical energy, was CONFIRMED to be destroyed. That should have been the first step for ANET. Stolen magical energy was released back into the stream/ley lines. As a result, our personal magic potential should have grown I.e. a few new skills unlocked.

During Scarlet’s campaign she was working on new forms of magically enhanced steels. She also delved into technologies we don’t have as well as forming alliances into poisons and hallucinogens. During the Flame and Frost expansion: We should have had an ulterior objective. Get the magically enhanced metal Flame/Dredge that you salvage and turn them into the priory for research. As the story continues along, perhaps during Marionette of Seige on Lion’s Arch. The priory should have given us access to stronger/more refined weapons. This could translate to new melee weapon sets or optional/swap access for melee weapon skills.

On the flip side, ranged weapon opportunities would have been the Aetherblades. They relied heavily on grenades, rifles, and pistols so it would only make sense that if you turn in Aetherized metal scraps to the priory, during the same time melee got a new weapon/skill, so would all ranged options.

Again, on the flip side, the priory should have been researching Zhaitan’s corpse during this entire thing which would allow us greater magical understanding. Blah blah, repeat process, new magical weapon/skill.

With that, during the entire Living Story Season 1: Every event happened for a reason. Scarlet wasn’t just beating the tar out of us, we were also usign her advancements for ourselves. This is balance. You look into and research your enemy’s tech for your own usage.

During the hallucinogenic/poison tower arc with the krate we should have researched the poison as well as an antidote. They did this and gave us a subpar heal. Thematically, I can accept a subpar heal because it fit the situation. No complaints there.

With that we gain 1 new weapon set for each class and maybe 1-3 skills per class.

If you wanted to go further, with it, During the siege of Lion’s Arch, we should have had the Tengu help us and after scarlet was defeated, used as a playable race. I understand why this wasn’t done as remodelling and fitting a unique model/stance/animation set for every armor would be a MASSIVE task. No complaints, but still a lost opportunity.

The last opportunity ANET had for “expanding” the characters and in-game mechanics was during OMADDS machine. During the vision every PC as canonically seen, instead of “just” madness and visions, we should have been able to also unlock a portion of our inner potential. Caera gained access to vine powers, I won’t speculate as to if that was enhanced powers or Morde, but it happened. We should have been able to see a latent power within ourselves to, again, gain an extra skill or two.

So as I said before, Living Story isn’t the problem. Living Story is a great idea for an evolving world that changes. The problem lies with ANET not ceasing the proper opportunities in order to give Living Story a rewarding meaning for the players themselves. As we struggle against stronger, more unique, more mysterious foes with magical or technological power beyond our own, we should be evolving using the knowledge we gained from joint forces and unification.

Our victories should advance our standing. There’s no excuse for misappropriating opportunities that they’re giving themselves.

EDIT: Typed a lot more than I thought I did. Sometimes go off on small tangents, I did this when they didn’t give us a proper “memorial” period for the fallen of lion’s arch.

Side Edit: People will happily donate gems to buy in order to just support the game they feel deserves it. People are starting to boycott gems BECAUSE they can’t support what’s happening with the game.

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Let’s be blunt: while the Living Story idea was great on paper and quite an innovative approach, its execution and translation from paper to reality made it arguably one of the worst aspects of the game.

I did admire it at first, ANet, but I think it’s high time you, just like the vast majority of playerbase and magazines/websites/blogs did, realise that a traditional expansion pack is a must if you want to fill the void that the LS created and retain the remainder of the “old players” as well as invite some new ones.

Khristophoros.7194:

A player should never feel like they’ve reached the top.

This is pretty fundamental and a Law of Nature: perpetual struggle. Perpetual struggle is what keeps things going because there is always something to reach for; there is always new challenges to face, etc. and death is the great equalizer, not anything in life but in death. Right now it feels like things are dead – that is to say, plateaued. Of course downtimes here and there are fine; they don’t need to release stuff nonstop and it frees up room to do other things – but this update is going the opposite way. Instead of improving level 80, the level we spend most of our time on, they are focusing way too much attention on the first levels and making wild and brash decisions no one wanted or needed. They also seem to focus way too much on hooking new players of very low quality and mental capacity while disregarding the competent players (which is everyone) that are already here, but I surely wouldn’t have bought this game if it was released in its current state. I would think this is a game for children – a Fischer-Price of MMOs.

They desperately need a test server to get player feedback, one where real players can join in, not “thousands of testers” that tested your China client.

Khristophoros.7194:

Anet’s desperate answer is to make the 1-80 drag longer

There never should have been 80 levels. Not even close. 80 levels is ridiculous – the kind of number you get to after several xpacs…

I never wanted to level an alt because of this – and now I REALLY don’t want to level an alt.

Kamui.4038:

They desperately need a test server to get player feedback, one where real players can join in, not “thousands of testers” that tested your China client.

They get lots of player feedback. Most of it is ignored. A test server or similar thing won’t change that.

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

This is exactly what’s going on, and theres nothing we can do about it other than leave, oh well who says life’s fair.

Khristophoros.7194:

Well to be blunt, GW2 is not a game that makes people want to keep playing.

I’ll return to that later but first I have to backtrack for a sec. The reason behind this level gating of everything is to slow down the 1-80. It’s not to make the game better for new players. When it comes to new player experience, there’s no right answer. No matter what you do, some people will like the new player experience, and others won’t. And I’d say when you already have a successful model (GW2 had a successful launch, which IMO proves that the new player experience had a successful model) changing things drastically is more likely to hurt the new player experience than improve it.

But again that’s not why they did this.

I’m guessing they looked at their metadata and realized they have no player retention at all.

Most people play through the personal story once, then they get bored and quit.

Anet’s desperate answer is to make the 1-80 drag longer, and hopefully get more gem purchases out of those players who are fated to only play through once.

So anyway about GW2 not holding players… Well it’s an MMO without a real endgame. You just run the same instances over and over, or zerg events.

To be fair, it’s really difficult to make a good endgame in an RPG. But if you want some examples look at Dark Souls, or for a more MMOish example, Warframe. Warframe is really cool because you never really feel like you’ve reached the endgame. That’s the key to making people continue to play a game that’s honestly not challenging like GW2, Warframe, or any other MMO. A player should never feel like they’ve reached the top.

Unfortunately this is just how GW2 is. It cannot retain players and there’s no way to fix that. So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model. You’re not gonna keep this game alive with the current business model because it will never have enough player retention. Changes like this are almost death throes. You can’t keep this up.

Actually financial reports prove you wrong.

So yeah.

But would they earn a boatload of (instant) cash by releasing expansion? Sure

Long term revenue? dont think so.

“A player should never feel like they’ve reached the top.”

Really? tell that to all word champions of….anything. I didnt see them quit, lay down and die when theyve earned the title.

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

Wut? Write more coherent as your post makes 0 sense.

MikaHR.1978:

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

Wut? Write more coherent as your post makes 0 sense.

wow, that’s exactly how I feel about everything you’ve said.

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

Wut? Write more coherent as your post makes 0 sense.

wow, that’s exactly how I feel about everything you’ve said.

Well, youre the only one. Have fun.

MikaHR.1978:

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

Wut? Write more coherent as your post makes 0 sense.

wow, that’s exactly how I feel about everything you’ve said.

Well, youre the only one. Have fun.

so on top of not knowing how to type you also like to speak on behalf of everyone, i’m seeing a pattern here.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Honestly I think they’re missing opportunities with simple stuff. (…)

So what about balancing all those new skills/weapon skill?

They’d either be useless, which would grant Anet the classic “bravo well done” slow sarcastic clap, or they’d be op and grant Anet the classic “bravo well done” slow sarcastic clap.

I’m all for evolution but that would just be a disaster.

As for the Tengu I think whats tripping Anet is how to introduce them and give them a story.
Here’s my suggestion, going along with the phasing things in approach.

Tengu as a playable race would only be unlocked in accounts that have at least one level 80, after you select them you get to choose what starting area of the five you want to start at and all done.

Lore wise these Tengu are fed up with their life style and being locked in the Dominion of Winds.

Mechanically these characters don’t have a personal story, they are only introduced to the Living Story season 2, basically instead of people calling them “commander of the pact” they call them “new guy”, other race specific dialog can happen like we already have.

It’s a simple and elegant solution.

Khristophoros.7194:

Well to be blunt, GW2 is not a game that makes people want to keep playing.

End of post. The rest of the text was unnecessary because that’s really all the reason there is. With mostly QoL updates and the amount of “new” content being driven out at a saddening low point, most veteran players will continue to just log in less and less. There will be a lot of people who just log in to do the Living Story or to do dailies at some point, and there’s no way ANet can make a financially feasible effort when most of their players don’t get on enough to want to spend money on the gem store.

Chuo.4238:

Khristophoros.7194:

Anet’s desperate answer is to make the 1-80 drag longer

There never should have been 80 levels. Not even close. 80 levels is ridiculous – the kind of number you get to after several xpacs…

I never wanted to level an alt because of this – and now I REALLY don’t want to level an alt.

^^
This. This this this this THIS!!!!

I was saying that from the beginning. You know how many levels we had in the first Guild Wars? We had twenty levels. Level 20 was the max cap. And you know what? The game worked fine. Sure, there were a lot of issues, but it was due to the design of the stats and the damage formulas and not the level cap itself. The damage ranges and numbers were too small, meaning that even a small increase or decrease in a number made a big difference. This must have been a complete nightmare for the programmers to try to balance the game, and it’s one of the reasons that we have characters with 20,000 hit points in Guild Wars 2 rather than 600 hit points. But, the actual level cap itself wasn’t a problem. It just meant that each level was more significant than gaining a level in GW2

I always thought the level 80 cap was unnecessary. I figured that most of those levels would be filler, which they are, although I guess with this new feature patch they are a little bit less filler since the skill slot unlocks are spread out more. But, a lot of those levels are still essentially filler and they could have been condensed to a similar level cap with similar rewards to the first Guild Wars. Although, it would probably be hard to do that now that the cat is out of the bag and you’d likely have to rebalance a lot of areas of the game, not to mention explain to people why a lower level cap might be better. So, yeah, good luck going down to a level 20 cap (or even a level 60 cap)

Its only anecdotal, but the players (that are left) that I interact with want expansion content as well. We all think the LS methodology is a poor substitution. A paid for, boxed expansion of the world with new races, weapons and skills is what we’ve been wanting. Unfortunately, it seems A-net is betting the bank on their LS model.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Its only anecdotal, but the players (that are left) that I interact with want expansion content as well. We all think the LS methodology is a poor substitution. A paid for, boxed expansion of the world with new races, weapons and skills is what we’ve been wanting. Unfortunately, it seems A-net is betting the bank on their LS model.

I prefer them doing that. As much as people QQ about wanting an expansion, there are players like me that do not want to spend $50 for more content just to hang out with people we know. Because that’s exactly what happens with expansions, you’re locked out of areas that your friends are in just because you can’t afford it, and it leads to you getting depressed and stop playing.

hannah mee.7925:

Khristophoros.7194:

Well to be blunt, GW2 is not a game that makes people want to keep playing.

There will be a lot of people who just log in to do the Living Story or to do dailies at some point, and there’s no way ANet can make a financially feasible effort when most of their players don’t get on enough to want to spend money on the gem store.

This game isn’t about concurrency, it’s about retention. As long as you log in and collect your biweekly updates, you are retained. The danger point to NCSoft is when they see logins drop. At that point, they will either go with an abusive FTP store or shut the NA/EU servers down.

When people begin to realize that MMO games receiving their money from RL money stores makes the game a pure retail operation, they will get their expectations in line with the way the game is designed and will either be happier playing or move on to other games not reliant upon such items.

What does a theme park, sandbox, and sporting arena all have in common? They are all social experiences. They are also the common metaphors used to describe mmos. This is not an accident. To make a successful mmo, you need to make it an engaging social experience first, and in order to do this you need regulars.

So why, I ask, is Anet going out of their way to alienate their regulars? If they really wanted to make the game more friendly to newcomers they could have just expanded their tutorial instance and made it optional for veteran players. I suspect the real reason they made these changes was to make the western and eastern clients easier to maintain at the same time. I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. Please return to making this game appealing to your loyal customers, not a bunch of randoms who will come in and play the game for a few weeks or months and then leave.

[Edit]

Oh, and I also suspect it is the long term players who also spend the most in the gem store.

Fenar.4025:

I suspect the real reason they made these changes was to make the western and eastern clients easier to maintain at the same time. I think they are shooting themselves in the foot.

That may be the underlining reason and I agree.

I knew the announcement of the game going over there would cause problems for us due to lack of manpower or whatever and the ANet team being stretched too tightly, but I wasn’t expecting all of this at the time.

I feel sorry for the devs and others that are forced into decisions like this against their will, including us.

They’re focusing on attracting new players when they should have been focusing on keeping the thousands and thousands of people who already bought the game. That’s where the real profit is. Both through gems and happy players telling others to buy the game. Now we have vets telling new players to not buy it.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Except that the player retention they’re probably focused on is the player retention from free weekends, which has nothing to do with end game.

I’m sure that you’re right as far as people leaving the game when they run out of stuff to do. But that is a different retention rate then I think Anet was focused on.

I think they weren’t getting enough new players to stay from free weekends, which is possibly why they hardly run them.

i dont think the key to player retention is slowing down things, its creating a hook. Something fast and interesting to keep them wanting to go further.
the best part about gw2 is the combat/freedom, they have very poor hooks.

they need work on some hooks, not on gimping the leveling process. Having leveling process inspire you to continue works better when you have extravagant cool things people want to do, or reach. gw2 doesnt really have that type of stuff.

I think you’re spot on with the hook angle – however I am of the opinion that all of these changes are actually intended as more hooks (albeit very cheap ones). Many recent changes seem to play into the psychology of the whole “Hey- ding ding ding- you just got something!” reward feedback loop, similar to how a slot machine lights up and plays noises when you win. Consider the changes to heart rewards, the trait popups, the chests that pop up in the corner from world events, the new level-up screen, etc. – shiny lights and bouncing icons. Nothing that actually made these things more rewarding, just perpetuating the illusion of improved reward. Even worse is the implementation of artificial “rewards” by locking formerly unlocked stuff and then pretending that the unlock is now a reward.

All the while things that could be actual rewards are in a relatively sad state. The loot still sucks, challenging combat is rare and endgame is still wanting.