Guild Wars 2

Miellyn.6847:

Unless you are a tank, this is also not existent in any other game that features easy modes and automated queues. Yet people find time to sit an hour in a queue but can’t be bothered with manual search.

People probably find it hard to watch Netflix on their second monitor if they are actively seeking others. Convenience is the new watchword for games. Everyone wants it, even raiders who set up groups with requirements. It’s just that some people want more convenience than others.

slashlizardy.9167:

mari.6394:

Vayne.8563:

MMOs are like homes. We live in them. We spend hours, days, weeks and months in these places. We adopt them to become ours. This game used to be “my game”. That is, the decisions the devs made in releasing the game on launch was about 90% of everything I wanted in an MMO (with a few small omissions).

But as time goes on and the game starts to drift from that initial game, this game becomes less my home. I’m no longer the guy who does everything in the game, I do less. And as they add more and provide less of the other stuff, I do even less.

As there’s less for me to do, I’ll just move to the next game that comes out,. eventually, when I’ve done everything I want to do. For me that won’t be this year, or next year. Hell it might be never.

But I’ve moved on from MMOs before and I move on from them because their focus changes. What they offer changes.

And I’m a guy that puts up with a lot of change before I move. I promise you there are a lot of people who walked away from the game because it’s become less casual than it was…probably more people than people who are raiding now…in my opinion.

Games like this are a comfort zone for some people. You take them too far out of their comfort zone and you force them to rethink their bound with the game.

This isn’t about raids being too difficult. I CAN do raids. I can join a raiding guild and beat every boss, just like I beat every elite area in Guild Wars 1. Being a raid isn’t my issue.

Not enjoying raids, and seeing rewards I want locked behind them, that’s my issue.

110% this

Yes, so much this! I wrote about a year ago much too succinctly to explain the issues with HoT to as adequately convey this very message. Way to go Vayne!

Agree completely.

Hopefully Anet is paying attention to the community’s concerns and seeing posts like this one. I don’t want to look for a new MMO. My friends and I have put a lot of work into making this one our home.

So the game should stay just as the core game, no added difficulty, no content that requires minimal teamplay in the open world, every reward should be available even to people who just started and every class should be equal on every front.

That… that sounds like a great game, yeah, please do that. Because after all that’s been said in this thread, i actually followed quite some time now, seems to boil down to that.

I’d actually ask: How casual is casual? Not even, what is casual, because apparantely i’m not despite only playing a limited time each day and not raiding, while i’d like to try in the future.
How casual should this game be in the long run, because honestly? I don’t like the core game after what it became with the NPE.

@ Vayne and other people that think raids are a bad direction for the game. That is only true if it’s the only direction it’s taking.

Yup, I also played a lot of MMOs. I also saw some of them focusing on raids, mainly but not only, on of them being Wow. And while it was not the only content released, it was clear that raids were the “ultimate goal” of the PVE experience.

And as someone that did his fair share of raiding, I can assure you that nowadays, I just can’t bring myself to raid again. It was cool when it lasted, but now my goals have changed, my gaming habits have changed…

But, even if I can recognize that there is a “risk” of GW2 taking a turn that I wouldn’t like, especially as a non-raider…I can say that I’m satisfied. Why? Because Living World Season 3. Because non-raid PVE maps were added, and good maps, with diveristy and interesting things to do. They also get released every three month, which is a good speed, in my book.

As long as A-Net keeps this rhythm, I couldn’t care less of what is happening for raids. They get more stuff? Great! Let them have it! They have legendary armor? Okay…well, it already takes quite some time to gear a character in ascended, and you can respec the stats anyway, so…do I really need it? Do I really care, since I’m not doing the only content where it’s the most useful?

Is it okay to express your concerns? Of course, it’s good to remind A-Net that there are a lot of people that do not raid. Is it a reason to not have raids at all? Maybe…but again, only if it’s not detrimental to what you’re doing anyway.

As long as Legendary armors do not give more stats and only give access to some utility and some skin, there is zero problem gating them behind raids.

GW2 is a big game. There is room for different kinds of players in it. Since Season 3, I feel A-Net is doing a great job balancing raids and open-world releases.

Behellagh.1468:

Raids and their release schedule was a planed part of the expansion.

So was the living story.

Behellagh.1468:

The time they took to “fix” some of the issues of HoT with the Spring April 2016 update likely impacted the release of LWS3 by 3 months at least.

They pulled people from other departments like the legendary weapon development to even start on living story in april which then needed 3 months of development. Where was this development after the expansion release if the raid team is only like 5 people? They already had people working on the next expansion instead of working to finish the current one.

Behellagh.1468:

As for WvW they’ve been doing updates to WvW for quite some time. Players keep insisting they want a major revamp to make the game mode all shinny and new again.

Yes because it had been ignored for 3 years before the expansion, then colin comes out and says oh wvw is going to be the focus after the expansion, they’ve been working on it for a year. Then he leaves and we find out it’s backend stuff they were working on for wvw for that year, they had a revamp too but it kept getting stuff added to it, so it kept getting bigger, and getting delayed, ok fine. Only thing major from it was the skirmish scoring, most of the rest was QoL changes, or more siege stuff repair hammers or mobile cannons that players did not want.

Behellagh.1468:

They did get one, with HoT. Gee, that didn’t work out so well did it?

No kidding, automated upgrades where you didn’t need anyone around, repackaged all the wvw guild upgrades into the grindfest of a guildhall, added banners that kitten off players, guild upgrades like smc airship stealth pools, watchtower, that did more damage than good, practically destroying small guilds and groups, yeah great work there. Introduced a kitten map that had most of it’s beta testing messed up and it’s feedback ignored, to this day still not that many want to play on it.

Combat revamp that affected wvw the worse, a mess with condition spams, boon sharing that eventually got fixed, problem builds like ghost thieves that eventually got fixed but only because a precious raid boss got solo’d. Who cares about the condition and boon spam if it happens in pve it only affects npcs, spvp has it’s own balance rules and their fights are shorter. Wvw took the brunt of the problems with that mess.

Behellagh.1468:

And since then they’ve tried to repair the damage done as well as tweaking aspects of scoring and adding new mechanics. But all I see often repeated on the forums is “ANet has ignored WvW”. Same thing can be said about Fractals, easy for some to discount all the work they’ve done because they are revamps and not a steady stream of new ones.

The only major work was the skirmish scoring, but that wasn’t exactly the biggest problem of wvw, just out of control overnight scoring that affect certain servers in certain matchups. PPK had been tested like a year before much to players delight and then was dumped to the side for some reason before being reintroduced again.

Links were the quick fix to making servers populated after they scrapped the big revamp for alliances they had planned, that carried it’s own problems. But didn’t exactly fix the game mode dying, just stopped the mass bleeding of players from HoT changes and having the desert map in as all three homebls.

Not to mention the mode has been dying for quite some time because anet refuses to promote it like they have for pve and spvp, great marketing team btw. Last thing they tried was the golem week, which they ignored all the exploits without a word, would that have happened in pve? nope.

maddoctor.2738:

Well since LS3 started we got 4 new pve maps, 2 new pvp maps (in beta), 2 (+4 with tweaks, total 6) Fractals and 1 Raid Wing. I’m not seeing that “raid focus” direction at all. In fact since LS3 started every type of player got more content than they did at any point in the game’s lifetime. What’s not to like about the new direction?

Why did you start counting from the start of living story and not right after the release of the expansion? where the base of these complaints are born from?

maddoctor.2738:

Funny, those mesmer adjustments happened for WvW and not Raids. Got any actual examples of skill changing due to Raids?

Wasn’t Meteor Shower for elementalist just changed due to hitting big targets aka raid bosses too many times?

LouWolfskin.3492:

So the game should stay just as the core game, no added difficulty, no content that requires minimal teamplay in the open world, every reward should be available even to people who just started and every class should be equal on every front.

That… that sounds like a great game, yeah, please do that. Because after all that’s been said in this thread, i actually followed quite some time now, seems to boil down to that.

I’d actually ask: How casual is casual? Not even, what is casual, because apparantely i’m not despite only playing a limited time each day and not raiding, while i’d like to try in the future.
How casual should this game be in the long run, because honestly? I don’t like the core game after what it became with the NPE.

My definition of casual is the ability to play the game at my own terms and own time without any in-game disadvantage being imposed on me. All PvE, open world, dungeons, gear, and fractals follow this philosophy. For Dungeons and fractals, you can easily jump into one, minutes into logging into the game. Why? because the content can be easily done by a loosely organized group, and focuses mostly on personal ability. Picking up 4 random players and succeeding isn’t a difficult task. Equipment in GW2, is capped at ascended quality, and even then exotic armor isn’t much weaker than ascended. You could go away for a year and your gear is still relevant.

Now that’s look at raids. The majority of the challenge comes from the social component. Can a casual player, get 9 other compatible people to join them within minutes from logging in? You can easily do that in dungeons and fractals. Casual doesn’t mean a avoidance of challenging content or a lack of skill. It means the player wants to play at their own terms, at their own time, not constricted by the rules of other players.

Dark Souls 3 Ringed City just came out 2 days ago. Look up “Dark Souls 3 Ringed City Bosses” on you tube, the content isn’t easy. Notice how whenever you die, you can try again without delay, at your own time, at your own pace.The Dark Souls series is a example of a game which has a fair and challenging difficulty but is friendly to casual players. I consider myself a casual gamer, and I’ve beaten Bloodborne + DLC as well as Dark Souls 3 bosses all at the lowest level. But I cannot even start learning how to raid, without 9 compatible people (barrier of entry). Casual players dislike barriers of entry.

Now look at raids again. The challenge comes from synchronizing a dance between 10 people, it comes from enforcing discipline and roles on 10 people. Those are social challenges, not the technical Dark Souls/Bloodborne challenges that I crave.

To answer your quote “So the game should stay just as the core game, no added difficulty, no content that requires minimal teamplay in the open world, every reward should be available even to people who just started and every class should be equal on every front.”

The game should have added difficulty which stays true to Guildwar’s philosophy going all the way back to GW1 (I’ve soloed all elite content in GW1 with heroes and henchmen). The ability play the game mode, at your own pace, at your own time, at your own terms.

“no content that requires minimal teamplay in the open world”
Dragons stand, Gerent, Triple Trouble among others are content that require minimal teamplay in the open world.

“every reward should be available even to people who just started and every class should be equal on every front.”

Every reward should be available as long as you put in enough dedication into your chosen gameplay. That gameplay should not be gated behind a social challenge like in raids. On the other hand, a purely technical challenge, like in Dark Souls which stays true to the casual philosophy? That in my mind is fair to ask.

On a side note, if raids had heroes that I can personally control and take responsibility over. Then the accessibility of raids will become available to everyone with enough dedication to succeed.

@Chun
At the end there you quite honestly misunderstood what i tried to say.

From what i gather in this thread that’s how the game should be apparently. I know that there is content that requires minimal teamplay and all that stuff, but from what i read here everything that goes into that direction is bad.

Xenesis.6389:

Why did you start counting from the start of living story and not right after the release of the expansion? where the base of these complaints are born from?

Because the expansion was a complete bungle that added a lot to PvE, that players didn’t want (But it still took time and effort to create), and then the developers had to go back to re-do all that work again over the next 6 months or so before they could start moving forward again.

Chun.5827:

Every reward should be available as long as you put in enough dedication into your chosen gameplay. That gameplay should not be gated behind a social challenge like in raids. On the other hand, a purely technical challenge, like in Dark Souls which stays true to the casual philosophy? That in my mind is fair to ask.

On a side note, if raids had heroes that I can personally control and take responsibility over. Then the accessibility of raids will become available to everyone with enough dedication to succeed.

You are complaining that GW2 has content that you need people to complete it?
Of course it has , its a MMO after all, if you want Challenge without getting anyone involved then you play Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Bloodborn as you said. ( i love those games too )
I’m a casual too, and I raid. Its actually easy to get a group together if you make a network of friends.
Everytime i got a nice pug group, i would add the commander, and say to him that he feels free to invite me again anytime he wants. Now its very commom for me to just be playing and get a pm “Hey wanna join a Xera kill” then i just go and get a fast kill.
So raids are really acessibly if you want to play little time, but for this to happen you need to get the social aspect of a MMO and socialize.
You can play a MMO solo, but complaining that something cant be dono solo, then go play single player games.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Chun.5827:

Every reward should be available as long as you put in enough dedication into your chosen gameplay. That gameplay should not be gated behind a social challenge like in raids. On the other hand, a purely technical challenge, like in Dark Souls which stays true to the casual philosophy? That in my mind is fair to ask.

On a side note, if raids had heroes that I can personally control and take responsibility over. Then the accessibility of raids will become available to everyone with enough dedication to succeed.

You are complaining that GW2 has content that you need people to complete it?
Of course it has , its a MMO after all, if you want Challenge without getting anyone involved then you play Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Bloodborn as you said. ( i love those games too )
I’m a casual too, and I raid. Its actually easy to get a group together if you make a network of friends.
Everytime i got a nice pug group, i would add the commander, and say to him that he feels free to invite me again anytime he wants. Now its very commom for me to just be playing and get a pm “Hey wanna join a Xera kill” then i just go and get a fast kill.
So raids are really acessibly if you want to play little time, but for this to happen you need to get the social aspect of a MMO and socialize.
You can play a MMO solo, but complaining that something cant be dono solo, then go play single player games.

He’s not complaining, he was reacting to me and misunderstanding what i said.

maddoctor.2738:

SkyShroud.2865:

No, the fact remains, it is never equivalent to raid.

Only that’s exactly what they said it will be, not Raids, but equivalent to Raids. Content for those who enjoy raiding in other games, so content equal to Raids.

are meant to attract the crowd that would normally be raiding in other MMOs
How can content that is meant to attract crowd that normally is raiding, not in any way similar, or equivalent to Raids?
It’s like opening a restaurant and saying, we’ll offer soup that will attract players that normally eat meat. No, to attract customers who eat meat, you will provide meat, not soup.

There is nothing subjective about it, the dungeons were in fact and beyond any kind of doubt going to be their equivalent to Raids. But they failed as such.

On your argument about difficulty similar to gw1, do kindly note that the second article you have provided is dated in 2011 which is a year different from the first article which is dated 2012 though both are before release, it is only logical to take 2012 article as the more relevant reference.

And your point? That they changed their attitude and decided that their “challenging” content would be a joke that doesn’t require any kind of coordination?.

Shouldn’t difficult contents something more widely available?

No. Both the newer dungeons and the open world events were harder than most content released prior to the game. Them being one-off content is irrelevant.

What a foolish comparison. Equivalent means equal or exactly the same. Like is not equal but similar and not exactly the same. Meat lover will continues to eat meat, the factors are the quality and taste of the meat. Now, to appeal doesn’t necessary means to be using highest quality meat, it can be just average quality and focus on better taste. Again, you are the one that want to believe they said dungeons were equivalent to raid but reality is it never is.

The point is still in development, what they initially planned will not always be so at the release. What was initially very difficulty may not what they wanted, they may want a progressive difficulty and not straight-up difficulty. Regardless, the point is the dates are too far apart to be used as a cross reference. Also, using those dated article as a basis for your raid argument is too far fetched. Raid is introduced not because of anything before but because of popular requests by players and anet desire to have more difficult contents. Also, those claims about contents prior raids are failure in their difficulty designs thus raid is released are baseless.

SkyShroud.2865:

What a foolish comparison.

It’s actually a valid comparison. It’s good that you cant’ find a way around it though.

The point is still in development, what they initially planned will not always be so at the release.

Obviously that’s why they tried to introduce more difficult encounters in nearly every single release. Most of them failed, that’s why they tried Raids and for the first time since release they succeeded.

Xenesis.6389:

Why did you start counting from the start of living story and not right after the release of the expansion? where the base of these complaints are born from?

The first Raid – the entire thing- WAS a part of Heart of Thorns, that was released over multiple months. Either you start counting at the release of LS3, when the actual after-HoT releases started, or you start pre-HoT (and include HoT) because Forsaken Thicket was part of HoT.

Either 8 zones + 6 fractals vs 4 wings, or 4 zones + 6 fractals vs 1 wing. Pick one.

Wasn’t Meteor Shower for elementalist just changed due to hitting big targets aka raid bosses too many times?

The nerf to Meteor Shower could be seen a long time ago, and it was a messed up job anyway since they decided to nerf one skill and leave all others that work the same un-touched.

maddoctor.2738:

SkyShroud.2865:

What a foolish comparison.

It’s actually a valid comparison. It’s good that you cant’ find a way around it though.

The point is still in development, what they initially planned will not always be so at the release.

Obviously that’s why they tried to introduce more difficult encounters in nearly every single release. Most of them failed, that’s why they tried Raids and for the first time since release they succeeded.

Valid comparison when your usage of terminologies are questionable? Fine, believe what you want to believe.

Also, it is natural game development to progressively add more difficult game contents but to relate this natural game development cycle to your point of failures is indeed far fetched.

SkyShroud.2865:

Valid comparison when your usage of terminologies are questionable? Fine, believe what you want to believe.

A “Raid” or “content to attract Raiders” needs to have some very specific aspects. Team work, builds, encounters that make you think, proper team composition and balance. This is the meal that Raiders want, this is what makes Raids, Raids.

There was explicit mention that dungeons would work like GW1 elite instances, which combined most of the above features. There was also stated that their dungeons would appeal to Raiders, which means they would include the above features, otherwise they wouldn’t appeal to Raiders. After all, how can something that doesn’t provide what Raids do, appeal to a Raider? It doesn’t make sense otherwise.

A Raider wants to eat meat, and “meat” is the above aspects that were expected to be in dungeons. Dungeons were supposed to be meat in order to appeal to those who love eating meat.

But in the end, none of the above aspects could be found in dungeons. They were advertised as meat but in the end we found out it was soup. They spiced it up, they used new recipes, but in the end it was still soup. And by offering soup in your restaurant you can’t appeal to someone who wants to eat meat.

Now they added meat, as advertised so many ago to be on their menu, to actually and truthfully this time appeal to that crowd. Will it work? Who knows, maybe the GW2 raids will also end up being well disguised soup in the end. Time will tell

Sartharina.3542:

Xenesis.6389:

Why did you start counting from the start of living story and not right after the release of the expansion? where the base of these complaints are born from?

Because the expansion was a complete bungle that added a lot to PvE, that players didn’t want (But it still took time and effort to create), and then the developers had to go back to re-do all that work again over the next 6 months or so before they could start moving forward again.

What redo? they tweaked maps and encounters, not like they completely revamped any areas of the new maps. That’s to be expected for any new content no matter the game. Maybe if they had stuck with the no grind philosophy and stop trying to screw with players with grinds to extend content, they wouldn’t have had to go back and fix those maps as soon as they were released.

Now people want to count the raid as part of the initial expansion content, well hey living story was planned and sold as part of the expansion, only players with the expansion can access it, it all counts. My other post stated they have worked on both things for both sides of players, but obviously raids will be an important part of gw2 from now on or they wouldn’t be adding something as exclusive as animated legendary armors to that section of the game alone.

My question is why did living story take like 9 months before it came out, they even had to pull developers off other sections to even start it, while they already had devs working on the next expansion as soon as the last one released.

Also raids are 10+ player content, dungeons/fractals are 5 player content. Difficulty has nothing to do with what’s consider raid material and what’s not, it’s the amount of players required to tackle that content.

maddoctor.2738:

Xenesis.6389:

Wasn’t Meteor Shower for elementalist just changed due to hitting big targets aka raid bosses too many times?

The nerf to Meteor Shower could be seen a long time ago, and it was a messed up job anyway since they decided to nerf one skill and leave all others that work the same un-touched.

You asked for a change due to raids, that’s a change and it’s due to raids.

maddoctor.2738:

Fractals were “supported” without adding a single fractal in 3 years.

Fractals were promised to become their endgame PvE content after they dropped dungeons. And that was a lie.

Right, they “switched” their focus by going back to focus on Fractals and actually release some.

They switched it only after their HoT model with “lets throw some grind maps and rehashed fractal system to majority and concentrate on raid endgame” failed spectacularly. Only after that they started to make new fractals and LS3.

Assets were re-used from LS1, just like most of Fractals is based on historical events in Tyrian history. Re-using those old LS1 assets that were removed from the game was an excellent move for content that is all about that.

That’s just a poor excuse and you know it.

Vayne.8563:

The more the game “encourages” people into content that they don’t enjoy, the more chance that people will be dissatisfied with the game. Only a certain number of people are going to keep banging away at stuff they don’t like to get the shiny.

And if you don’t encourage people into content then they never find the content they enjoy.

People have inertia. People do not try new things for the sake of trying new things. If you don’t give people a reward for trying something, then they won’t try it. People would just solo quest until they burn out.

When started playing my first mmorpg, I had zero intention of doing raids, and had zero intention of doing PvP. The entire concept of group content freaked me out. However I ended up getting dragged kicking and screaming through both PvP and raids, and discovered that I liked both of those more than mindless quest grinding.

The idea of equal rewards doesn’t work because such a system provides no motivation.

Crinn.7864:

Vayne.8563:

The more the game “encourages” people into content that they don’t enjoy, the more chance that people will be dissatisfied with the game. Only a certain number of people are going to keep banging away at stuff they don’t like to get the shiny.

And if you don’t encourage people into content then they never find the content they enjoy.

There’s a difference between encouraging people to try out new content, and encouraging them to bang their heads against it.

Crinn.7864:

When started playing my first mmorpg, I had zero intention of doing raids, and had zero intention of doing PvP. The entire concept of group content freaked me out. However I ended up getting dragged kicking and screaming through both PvP and raids, and discovered that I liked both of those more than mindless quest grinding.

What if you ended up not liking those? This approach only works if it’s succesful. If it fails however (and it fails often) it fails hard.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Chun.5827:

Every reward should be available as long as you put in enough dedication into your chosen gameplay. That gameplay should not be gated behind a social challenge like in raids. On the other hand, a purely technical challenge, like in Dark Souls which stays true to the casual philosophy? That in my mind is fair to ask.

On a side note, if raids had heroes that I can personally control and take responsibility over. Then the accessibility of raids will become available to everyone with enough dedication to succeed.

You are complaining that GW2 has content that you need people to complete it?
Of course it has , its a MMO after all, if you want Challenge without getting anyone involved then you play Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Bloodborn as you said. ( i love those games too )
I’m a casual too, and I raid. Its actually easy to get a group together if you make a network of friends.
Everytime i got a nice pug group, i would add the commander, and say to him that he feels free to invite me again anytime he wants. Now its very commom for me to just be playing and get a pm “Hey wanna join a Xera kill” then i just go and get a fast kill.
So raids are really acessibly if you want to play little time, but for this to happen you need to get the social aspect of a MMO and socialize.
You can play a MMO solo, but complaining that something cant be dono solo, then go play single player games.

“You can play a MMO solo, but complaining that something cant be dono solo, then go play single player games.”.

So basically if you don’t have connections or a network of in-game friends, get lost? It’s interesting to see the types of players, who are attracted to GW2 these days. Guild Wars has always accommodated both single players as well as groups in all PvE content. Well… until raids were introduced.

Have you noticed how GW2 tries to promote friendly cooperation and easy content accessibility? No one can steal your loot or rewards, so no gangs of players with “network of friends” can bully and isolate new players. Events are scaled, 1 person can succeed in the same event that 50 people are doing. Even if your a solo player or a player without a group of friends, fractals and dungeons are easily accessible still. You can leave for a year, and come back. All your gear haven’t been devalued by newer stronger equipment.

Raids, are a example of a change in GW2’s philosophy, which in the past caters to it’s casual audience. Instead of inclusive content that is easy to enter and leave, you create groups of “friends” who create exclusive selective clubs from the public. To join, you need to follow their rules or get out. Sounds very inviting. To even learn and get experience (which is needed for PUG runs) you need to join said club.

“Its actually easy to get a group together if you make a network of friends.”

For some people this is major roadblock. For example, someone who works graveyard shifts (i.e plays at irregular times) and can’t meet the schedule of 9 other people. There are other cases of course.

“Now its very commom for me to just be playing and get a pm “Hey wanna join a Xera kill” then i just go and get a fast kill. So raids are really acessibly if you want to play little time, but for this to happen you need to get the social aspect of a MMO and socialize."

Yea, its easy to get in a group and succeed, if your already knowledgeable and experienced. The irony is get that knowledge and experience in the first place, you need to deal with stressful training group situations. Why aren’t you joining training raids only, (no raids with experienced people allowed). Tell me all about how easy and accessible the social aspect of raiding is. Tell me about how it takes “little time”.

Even the simplest tasks with 10 people are difficult. A humorous example: Imagine if you could only take a dump, when 9 other people do. And you have to do it in sync. A lot more difficult than doing it by yourself. I consider the social aspect of raids a unnecessary barrier of entry. That has nothing to do with challenging content. Personally, they should move the challenging social content to guild missions.

TL;DR The spirit of Guild wars philosophy changed with raids. Casual players want to play at their own time, at their own terms, and at their own pace. The barrier of entry into raids, does not allow this.

I’ve always been searching for an MMO to replace City of Heroes, which was near and dear to my heart. Once I saw what gw1 allowed to be done being solo I thought maybe gw2 would implement the same amount of casual and community building guidelines my old MMO created and allowed.

I’m surprised how locked story mode dungeons, explorable dungeon paths, and fractals all are at the moment. If gw2 was truly casual and implementing improvements to fit all walks of life I’d of expected scaleable instanced content already from 1 to 5 players. Look at events they scale to fit the needs of the players in the open world. Why can’t we have this philosophy within the instanced content too? Raids were a total WoW clone step of direction from gw2 initial casual friendly, no grind business representation with advertisement in 2012.

Astralporing.1957:

There’s a difference between encouraging people to try out new content, and encouraging them to bang their heads against it.

That can happen with any reward, not only legendary armor. Even if it’s just a minipet that someone wants badly is gated behind content he doesn’t like. So should we remove all rewards from every gamemode and just add an merchant to LA that sells everything for gold (and gems, because nobody can be bothered with playing the game /s).

You still need to proof how the legendary armor makes raids less optional when legendary items per se are completely optional and not better than other equipment in the game. Unless you want shinies. But that is not ArenaNets fault.

What if you ended up not liking those? This approach only works if it’s succesful. If it fails however (and it fails often) it fails hard.

Thats why ArenaNet implements new story, new open world maps and new fractals, not only new raids. For people that don’t like WvW, sPvP or raids.

Rednik.3809

Fractals were promised to become their endgame PvE content after they dropped dungeons. And that was a lie.

‘Endgame’ as in MMO terms is the content that needs the best available equipment to be completed. Raids have been completed in greens, ascended is not needed. Fractals are more endgame than raids.

Assets were re-used from LS1, just like most of Fractals is based on historical events in Tyrian history. Re-using those old LS1 assets that were removed from the game was an excellent move for content that is all about that.

That’s just a poor excuse and you know it.

VG = thaumanova anomaly
Sabetha, Xera, McLeod, Matthias in human form = generic human model with existing armor
Cairn = jade armor

All content in the game reuses assets. In every game.

Muy.3170

I’m surprised how locked story mode dungeons, explorable dungeon paths, and fractals all are at the moment. If gw2 was truly casual and implementing improvements to fit all walks of life I’d of expected scaleable instanced content already from 1 to 5 players. Look at events they scale to fit the needs of the players in the open world. Why can’t we have this philosophy within the instanced content too? Raids were a total WoW clone step of direction from gw2 initial casual friendly, no grind business representation with advertisement in 2012.

Because scaling content does not allow challenging content as there are always sweet spots where it is easier.

WoW didn’t invent raids. The missing gear threadmill alone is enough that raids in GW2 work completely different.

GW2 was never advertised as a no-grind game. It was advertised with no mandatory grind, which stands still correct.
A MMO without grind will never exist, it can’t work. You will never produce enough content to satisfy your customers. Grind is used to by time for development.

Rednik.3809:

Fractals were promised to become their endgame PvE content after they dropped dungeons. And that was a lie.

That’s what I was saying. They never released any Fractals so it wasn’t their focus, so how did they “change focus to Raids” if Fractals weren’t ever a focus to begin with?

They switched it only after their HoT model with “lets throw some grind maps and rehashed fractal system to majority and concentrate on raid endgame” failed spectacularly. Only after that they started to make new fractals and LS3.

Yes because making all those Fractal changes took only a month or two… How do you know WHEN they started working on Fractals? And any actual proof about “failed spectacularly”?

That’s just a poor excuse and you know it.

The old Fractals were also re-using assets so I don’t know what you are on about. Even the dungeons were re-using open world assets. Only a sad few bosses in Fractals and Dungeons were using new and unique assets.

I believe you are the one looking for a poor excuse here, using “assets” as your argument against Raids.

Gibson.4036:

Vayne.8563:

And I’m a guy that puts up with a lot of change before I move. I promise you there are a lot of people who walked away from the game because it’s become less casual than it was…probably more people than people who are raiding now…in my opinion.

Wow.

It’s been months since I checked in on the GW2 forum. I was a vocal GW2 advocate from before launch through the introduction of ascended gear. I hung on for quite a while after that, playing the game and participating frequently here on the forums. I loved the goals the developers said they had for the game, and the foundation they build in the game’s early months.

Shortly after HoT was released I found myself playing less and less, feeling that the expansion wasn’t really my thing and therefore failing to justify its cost. By the time the cost had dropped down to what I was willing to play, I’d missed logging in for LS updates, which means more cost to catch back up with the story, effectively sealing my departure from GW2.

On a lark, today, I popped back by the forums to see what the community is saying about the game.

To see Vayne, stalwart optimist and long time apologist for ArenaNet, thinking about whether it’s time to move on… I guess it’s something I never thought I’d see.

In my personal opinion, the answer to the thread title is not only, “Yes”, but probably “Repeatedly”. The initial vision presented for this game was bold and clear. I think it could have become a great niche game, the “MMO for people who hate MMOs”. It appeared to me that ArenaNet was surprised by the success of launch, then surprised by the player falloff shortly after. Instead of staying true to the original vision and keeping the core audience that agreed with it, they repeatedly adjusted the vision to try and capture back the rest of that audience that came and tried the game.

My history with GW2 felt like riding a ship with a captain who kept wildly changing destinations every six months or so.

I should point out, I loved the HOT content, besides raids and what has been done with PvP, but the open world HoT content is my favorite open world content in the game. I love the complexity of the zones. I even liked the story (even though I know a lot of people didn’t). But to me, half the stories were in the zones, not just in the instances, and a lot of people didn’t seem to pay attention.

I’m not thinking about leaving the game. I’m not close to leaving the game. I’m saying that I’m not happy with decisions that are being made and that I feel like the game is less mine than it used to be. If it continues long term, I probably will consider leaving, but I’m nowhere near that now.

Vayne.8563:

MMOs are like homes. We live in them. We spend hours, days, weeks and months in these places. We adopt them to become ours. This game used to be “my game”. That is, the decisions the devs made in releasing the game on launch was about 90% of everything I wanted in an MMO (with a few small omissions).

But as time goes on and the game starts to drift from that initial game, this game becomes less my home. I’m no longer the guy who does everything in the game, I do less. And as they add more and provide less of the other stuff, I do even less.

As there’s less for me to do, I’ll just move to the next game that comes out,. eventually, when I’ve done everything I want to do. For me that won’t be this year, or next year. Hell it might be never.

But I’ve moved on from MMOs before and I move on from them because their focus changes. What they offer changes.

And I’m a guy that puts up with a lot of change before I move. I promise you there are a lot of people who walked away from the game because it’s become less casual than it was…probably more people than people who are raiding now…in my opinion.

Games like this are a comfort zone for some people. You take them too far out of their comfort zone and you force them to rethink their bound with the game.

This isn’t about raids being too difficult. I CAN do raids. I can join a raiding guild and beat every boss, just like I beat every elite area in Guild Wars 1. Being a raid isn’t my issue.

Not enjoying raids, and seeing rewards I want locked behind them, that’s my issue.

Exactly this.

I came to GW2 based on three elements:

• Very casual experience. I am a busy working person now, I have very very little time for a MMO since I also want to play some other games, and having one which absolutely doesn’t try to punish me for it was and still is really really cool.
• An exploration driven game. No endless quest chains as a way of handling, things “just happen”. I get to find them. Or not. Wow. This was amazing at launch, sadly the game moved a fair bit away from that by now. Especially with the newbie experience rework.
• WvW. I played DAoC before WoW, and I <3 RvR. And here comes GW2, another game where PvP is all about siege warfare, huge battles, material gain and providing PvE buffs from WvW, drawing everyone into the mode even just to help out. Little did I know that WvW is nothing like RvR was, and not in a positive way.

I stayed because the game has tons of potential. Sadly, “has potential” is still what I’d say about GW2, and 4,5 years in that’s a quite kitten ing statement.

maddoctor.2738

Funny, those mesmer adjustments happened for WvW and not Raids. Got any actual examples of skill changing due to Raids?

See the interview of Mark Katzbach explaining that the Alacrity should be reduced to give a 33% recharge speed instead of 66%. He said the team decided to not reduce the duration of this buff but instead to reduce the intensity because they don’t want to have two mesmers in raid instead of 1. This decision was generated only and only because of the impact the Alacrity had on the raids. Do you still want an example of skill nerfed because of raids? All the skills generating / using / sharing Alacrity. Almost all the Chrono specialization skills.

Cristalyan.5728:

maddoctor.2738

Funny, those mesmer adjustments happened for WvW and not Raids. Got any actual examples of skill changing due to Raids?

See the interview of Mark Katzbach explaining that the Alacrity should be reduced to give a 33% recharge speed instead of 66%. He said the team decided to not reduce the duration of this buff but instead to reduce the intensity because they don’t want to have two mesmers in raid instead of 1. This decision was generated only and only because of the impact the Alacrity had on the raids. Do you still want an example of skill nerfed because of raids? All the skills generating / using / sharing Alacrity. Almost all the Chrono specialization skills.

So because the final decision about a nerf was from a raid perspective it also started the discussion about a nerf? Or was it just a consideration what this nerf will do to other game modes? Alacrity was also pretty strong in sPvP.

The wells got nerfed because of sPvP, not raids.

Cristalyan.5728:

See the interview of Mark Katzbach explaining that the Alacrity should be reduced to give a 33% recharge speed instead of 66%. He said the team decided to not reduce the duration of this buff but instead to reduce the intensity because they don’t want to have two mesmers in raid instead of 1. This decision was generated only and only because of the impact the Alacrity had on the raids. Do you still want an example of skill nerfed because of raids? All the skills generating / using / sharing Alacrity. Almost all the Chrono specialization skills.

Yet, the nerf to the Well was because of PVP and the nerf to Signet of Inspiration was thanks to WvW. Alacrity was really powerful in PVP too, not just in Raids. All game modes provide opportunities for nerfs

maddoctor.2738

Alacrity was really powerful in PVP too, not just in Raids. All game modes provide opportunities for nerfs

It was a request to provide an example of skill nerfed due to raids. By adjusting Alacrity many skills were nerfed. And the only explanation we had from ANet team was the Alacrity should be nerfed because it is not desired (by the devs) in that form in raids. I think this is enough.

Miellyn.6847

So because the final decision about a nerf was from a raid perspective it also started the discussion about a nerf?

Well, the topic is about the GW2 loosing its identity. And one of the factors contributing to this seems to be the raid. We had always nerfs and adjustments to skills. Generated by the need to balance PvP and WwW. But in the raid case, the nerfs and changes seems to fix nothing in the (unbalanced) PvP and WwW world. These changes are done only for the raid sake. That means only for a minor segment of game with not so many players involved. And still the changes affects all the game modes.

Back to topic.
The game I found when I started to play was amazing. Not by graphics or lore or mechanics. For me the surprise was the attitude of the players. No competition. No KS. No abuse of the high lvl players against the low lvl. I found that the guy coming to fight against the veteran I fought is not trying to steal my drop. He in fact left for a few moments his business to help a newbie (me). WHAT? Is this real? This is happening in an online game? YES. This was GW2.

Today, by the intentional decision to segregate the playerbase into “dedicated, skilled players” (with a daily 8-10 hours to spend in game) and “other casual players” (filthy casuals! ) the atmosphere of the game changed. ANet further pushed the toxicity forward by allowing instruments to monitor other players.
ANet’s attitude towards players changed also. From “play how you want and enjoy the game” to “gid gud (remember the Anet worker spitting these words? ) dude. Learn the mechanics, the skills and builds, invest effort and time and then you will be able to play the game”. Nothing about the enjoyment :-((

Cristalyan.5728:

maddoctor.2738

Alacrity was really powerful in PVP too, not just in Raids. All game modes provide opportunities for nerfs

It was a request to provide an example of skill nerfed due to raids. By adjusting Alacrity many skills were nerfed. And the only explanation we had from ANet team was the Alacrity should be nerfed because it is not desired (by the devs) in that form in raids. I think this is enough.

Miellyn.6847

So because the final decision about a nerf was from a raid perspective it also started the discussion about a nerf?

Well, the topic is about the GW2 loosing its identity. And one of the factors contributing to this seems to be the raid. We had always nerfs and adjustments to skills. Generated by the need to balance PvP and WwW. But in the raid case, the nerfs and changes seems to fix nothing in the (unbalanced) PvP and WwW world. These changes are done only for the raid sake. That means only for a minor segment of game with not so many players involved. And still the changes affects all the game modes.

Back to topic.
The game I found when I started to play was amazing. Not by graphics or lore or mechanics. For me the surprise was the attitude of the players. No competition. No KS. No abuse of the high lvl players against the low lvl. I found that the guy coming to fight against the veteran I fought is not trying to steal my drop. He in fact left for a few moments his business to help a newbie (me). WHAT? Is this real? This is happening in an online game? YES. This was GW2.

Today, by the intentional decision to segregate the playerbase into “dedicated, skilled players” (with a daily 8-10 hours to spend in game) and “other casual players” (filthy casuals! ) the atmosphere of the game changed. ANet further pushed the toxicity forward by allowing instruments to monitor other players.
ANet’s attitude towards players changed also. From “play how you want and enjoy the game” to “gid gud (remember the Anet worker spitting these words? ) dude. Learn the mechanics, the skills and builds, invest effort and time and then you will be able to play the game”. Nothing about the enjoyment :-((

Wow the way you envision the game to be feels soooo flawed to me. Even being a casual I see nothing wrong in adjusting builds to complete some specific content, since all it requires is to be out of combat. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong to see and experience (if you choose to do so) how deep the rabid hole goes in terms of skills and mechanics. It is an action based combat system and the game is like more than four years old. Such an amazing system deserves some content that players can’t just complete in one easy way. And that is the great thing about it: you are not required to travel through this rabid hole, you can just stay at the surface because you know, completing hearts in core maps or ls3 maps doesn’t ask to form a 10 party squad. As for toxic elitist players, I am sorry to say that these people already existed when dungeons were far more popular.

Cristalyan.5728:

The game I found when I started to play was amazing. Not by graphics or lore or mechanics. For me the surprise was the attitude of the players. No competition. No KS. No abuse of the high lvl players against the low lvl. I found that the guy coming to fight against the veteran I fought is not trying to steal my drop. He in fact left for a few moments his business to help a newbie (me). WHAT? Is this real? This is happening in an online game? YES. This was GW2.

Today, by the intentional decision to segregate the playerbase into “dedicated, skilled players” (with a daily 8-10 hours to spend in game) and “other casual players” (filthy casuals! ) the atmosphere of the game changed. ANet further pushed the toxicity forward by allowing instruments to monitor other players.
ANet’s attitude towards players changed also. From “play how you want and enjoy the game” to “gid gud (remember the Anet worker spitting these words? ) dude. Learn the mechanics, the skills and builds, invest effort and time and then you will be able to play the game”. Nothing about the enjoyment :-((

I completely agree with you.

Cristalyan.5728:

See the interview of Mark Katzbach explaining that the Alacrity should be reduced to give a 33% recharge speed instead of 66%. He said the team decided to not reduce the duration of this buff but instead to reduce the intensity because they don’t want to have two mesmers in raid instead of 1. This decision was generated only and only because of the impact the Alacrity had on the raids. Do you still want an example of skill nerfed because of raids? All the skills generating / using / sharing Alacrity. Almost all the Chrono specialization skills.

Which is extra hilarious because of everyone running two Chronos. Or well, most of us.

I mean they had the right idea: Make stacking optional, but never require it! (this usually slightly discouraging for stacking then, but that’s still better than the alternatives)
Only instead of then acting upon it they resumed the slow process of minimal balance patches 1-3 times a year with nothing in between, which currently just kitten s GW2’s combat gameplay to mediocrity.

A lot of class potential isn’t realized. I’d go as far as saying that none of the classes’ themes is realized, and even worse, for most I couldn’t even tell you what they are supposed to be from the ingame loadouts and graphics styles!
Right now the game could easily do with getting the balance patches we usually get one~three times a year every month or even more frequently, just because they is so insanely much work to do.

@Chun: For having the same playing background as you i have the same opened eyes on what gw2 designers really are. It is in the nature of the weak to hide behind privileges and to exploit the misunderstandings that led to this social era of “facebook friends” where the notion of friend itself have been devaluated to a merchandise, sold to people who never risk themselves outside of their comfort zone, always playing by the rules they created, never exposing themselves to others rules, like we did countless times, and where they would be revealed for what they are.

We say what we do, and we do what we said. We lived as men. I salute you

Yseron.8613:

@Chun: For having the same playing background as you i have the same opened eyes on what gw2 designers really are. It is in the nature of the weak to hide behind privileges and to exploit the misunderstandings that led to this social era of “facebook friends” where the notion of friend itself have been devaluated to a merchandise, sold to people who never risk themselves outside of their comfort zone, always playing by the rules they created, never exposing themselves to others rules, like we did countless times, and where they would be revealed for what they are.

We say what we do, and we do what we said. We lived as men. I salute you

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Can you clarify your thoughts?

Astralporing.1957:

OniGiri.9461:

Interesting. You and everyone you know stopped playing – but you still care enough to be on the games forums.

Yes, that’s the really sad part of the changes. Among People that left there were many that really cared about the game.

Miellyn.6847:

This got added with the introduction of ascended weapons, you are still four years too late. Switching stats without switching the rune or sigil is worthless most of the time.
This was a non-issue when weapons got it and now with armor it is evil?

Because, as has been alreadymentioned, the problem is not the armor, but it’s acquisition method.

If the problem is not the armor, but rather the acquisition method, then go about acquiring different armor with a method that appeals to you.

Moonyeti.3296:

Yseron.8613:

@Chun: For having the same playing background as you i have the same opened eyes on what gw2 designers really are. It is in the nature of the weak to hide behind privileges and to exploit the misunderstandings that led to this social era of “facebook friends” where the notion of friend itself have been devaluated to a merchandise, sold to people who never risk themselves outside of their comfort zone, always playing by the rules they created, never exposing themselves to others rules, like we did countless times, and where they would be revealed for what they are.

We say what we do, and we do what we said. We lived as men. I salute you

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Can you clarify your thoughts?

That’s why the post is directed @Chun.

Now as for my thoughts, and because i can clarify for everyone that you think i’m affraid to do so, i think that GW2 designers should look at themselves before saying “git gud” to anyone first chance they get, because there are a few among us who can testify first hand what kind of frenzy/healing signet players they have been on the battle field.

Yseron.8613:

Moonyeti.3296:

Yseron.8613:

@Chun: For having the same playing background as you i have the same opened eyes on what gw2 designers really are. It is in the nature of the weak to hide behind privileges and to exploit the misunderstandings that led to this social era of “facebook friends” where the notion of friend itself have been devaluated to a merchandise, sold to people who never risk themselves outside of their comfort zone, always playing by the rules they created, never exposing themselves to others rules, like we did countless times, and where they would be revealed for what they are.

We say what we do, and we do what we said. We lived as men. I salute you

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Can you clarify your thoughts?

That’s why the post is directed @Chun.

Now as for my thoughts, and because i can clarify for everyone that you think i’m affraid to do so, i think that GW2 designers should look at themselves before saying “git gud” to anyone first chance they get, because there are a few among us who can testify first hand what kind of frenzy/healing signet players they have been on the battle field.

I am honestly not trying to be a pain or troll you in any way, I just still don’t really follow what you are trying to say, my apologies.

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

Yay!!! Can’t wait to participate in infantile mode XD

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

they have a superior than thou mode comming as well , killing bosses in less than 2 minutes awards legendary +10 power gems that stack infinitely! (link power over 5000 or you will be kicked)

flog.3485:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

Yay!!! Can’t wait to participate in infantile mode XD

Fantastic, as long as My EXP bar can progress again!!!!! Too bad it’s APril fools and someone cant read a calendar.

Blude.6812:

flog.3485:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

Yay!!! Can’t wait to participate in infantile mode XD

Fantastic, as long as My EXP bar can progress again!!!!! Too bad it’s APril fools and someone cant read a calendar.

It’s almost like time zones aren’t a thing. But hey, at least people whinging over nothing hasn’t changed in four years.

Blude.6812:

flog.3485:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

Yay!!! Can’t wait to participate in infantile mode XD

Fantastic, as long as My EXP bar can progress again!!!!! Too bad it’s APril fools and someone cant read a calendar.

Are you familiar with sarcasm ?

flog.3485:

Blude.6812:

flog.3485:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

Yay!!! Can’t wait to participate in infantile mode XD

Fantastic, as long as My EXP bar can progress again!!!!! Too bad it’s APril fools and someone cant read a calendar.

Are you familiar with sarcasm ?

Yes man most are but its hard to convey throught text hence why people usualy ends with /s to indicate it.

Linken.6345:

flog.3485:

Blude.6812:

flog.3485:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For all those wishing for an ‘easy’ mode for Raids.

From the latest Patch Notes:

Raids
General

Infantile mode is now available for all raids. Bosses have 50% reduced health and outgoing damage. Loot from the boss chests consists of two blues and a green.

Enjoy. ; )

Yay!!! Can’t wait to participate in infantile mode XD

Fantastic, as long as My EXP bar can progress again!!!!! Too bad it’s APril fools and someone cant read a calendar.

Are you familiar with sarcasm ?

Yes man most are but its hard to convey throught text hence why people usualy ends with /s to indicate it.

Yes sorry about that, my bad

They lost me when they ignored the players wish to go to cantha and sent us into the jungle.

For me HoT was a desaster, i liked in GW2 that you had your solo heart quests and such things, but mixed with group based world bosses, dungeons, WvW.

Another thing i have been complaining about since the LS1 is, that most of the new content was for large groups of players (Defending LA for example). The game always treat you like you are the hero of your story and than bang here, be part of a 100 player clusterf***.

Same goes with other aspects of the game, small guilds were able to get some WvW bonuses in no time and for cheap money, now you have a lot to farm and lots of gold to pay to get things you had before HoT came out (looking at you +5).

The whole game content shifted from being for small groups or solo players to large number of players.

That and the fact that after 4 1/2 years we have not been to Cantha ruined my love for this game.

They lost their identity for me (and me as a player) when they stopped focusing on the best parts of this game: WvW, SAB, dungeons, communities etc. and instead tried to imitate other games with eSport PvP, raids, trinity systems, etc.

And yes, HoT being half of a bad expansion didn’t help.

I think there has been some good content developed in the past year, but it just doesn’t fit together the way the game used to – and, even worse in pretty much every area, what we are getting is very “thin” and sporadic.

They need to either bring in new resources to ensure everything is done right or they need to abandon some of their current initiatives, consolidate teams and focus on punching out high quality content on a more consistent basis in fewer areas.

In my opinion, without additional assets, that focus (in PVE) needs to be on four areas – living story (which includes instances and open world), guilds (which includes missions and guild hall assets), fractals and rewards (skins, minis, armor/weapons, etc). Interestingly enough, this pretty much falls in line with the team based approach they talked about pre HOT.

I would love to see all of the things they are doing continued, but they have clearly proven this past year that they just dont have the assets to do it all properly.

I think if there was dedicated leadership at the top (afaik, Colin still hasnt been replaced), they would see this more clearly and realize changes have to be made.

Vayne.8563:

I should point out, I loved the HOT content, besides raids and what has been done with PvP, but the open world HoT content is my favorite open world content in the game. I love the complexity of the zones. I even liked the story (even though I know a lot of people didn’t). But to me, half the stories were in the zones, not just in the instances, and a lot of people didn’t seem to pay attention.

I’m not thinking about leaving the game. I’m not close to leaving the game. I’m saying that I’m not happy with decisions that are being made and that I feel like the game is less mine than it used to be. If it continues long term, I probably will consider leaving, but I’m nowhere near that now.

Sorry, Vayne. Wasn’t intending to put words in your mouth. I think you were pretty clear. From your post I didn’t expect you to be packing up any time soon, but the difference between what I saw you write here, where you talk about how people move on from games, versus what I was used to you writing up until I left the game about a year ago was kind of astonishing to me.

It inspired me to share my story of my relationship with GW2, which I know is different from yours.

But I thought I saw, in what you wrote, a similar dissatisfaction with the way ArenaNet’s goals seem to shift.

I’ve always admired your positive advocacy for the game, even while disagreeing with you.

Blaeys.3102:

I think there has been some good content developed in the past year, but it just doesn’t fit together the way the game used to – and, even worse in pretty much every area, what we are getting is very “thin” and sporadic.

They need to either bring in new resources to ensure everything is done right or they need to abandon some of their current initiatives, consolidate teams and focus on punching out high quality content on a more consistent basis in fewer areas.

In my opinion, without additional assets, that focus (in PVE) needs to be on four areas – living story (which includes instances and open world), guilds (which includes missions and guild hall assets), fractals and rewards (skins, minis, armor/weapons, etc). Interestingly enough, this pretty much falls in line with the team based approach they talked about pre HOT.

I would love to see all of the things they are doing continued, but they have clearly proven this past year that they just dont have the assets to do it all properly.

I think if there was dedicated leadership at the top (afaik, Colin still hasnt been replaced), they would see this more clearly and realize changes have to be made.

Mike O’Brien took Colins job.

If you replace guilds with raids you have the actual teams that exist within the PvE development. They have 3 LS teams, a raid team and a fractals team. Rewards are most likely produced by a team that interact with all 3 areas.

Which area is lacking right now? We have a steady development of LS content and open world maps. With each release we either got a new fractal or reworked fractals.