Guild Wars 2

I contributed to the gem sales, plan to contribute in future, and will buy 3 expacs when they are ready for our family guild … cause regardless of how many people come and go, this is our primary game to enjoy.

Company likely expected a dive this far after there expac, and running on a constant gem sale income based on active player population. Every time a game is released, you have a huge pop play it, half leave to next shiny. Every time you release a expac, you get a nice bump in that quarter, and the immediate following quarter while players who play slowly jump in a catch their characters up … the low point only provides the running active player base. Looking at this saying lowest quarter= 15 is bad … that means they only make 60 annually … is inaccurate. it’s more like 20 + 37+30+15 = 102 annually (this is example). You then take that annually in comparison to years prior to draw the trend, which even though maybe down year over year … is still likely looking more like 102 this year looking like 92 next year.

Anyways … all games have their own, and i wouldn’t expect far changes from how this game is already been developed. They will add some cool stuff, people will enjoy it …

While i would love to see say the addition of hall of heroes … or similar … i wouldn’t expect any heavy development going into something like that. Rather building a larger story, maybe some more maps … basically expecting a better expac than there first one released. That would be the bar.

ikereid.4637:

Malediktus.9250:

ikereid.4637:

Malediktus.9250:

ikereid.4637:

Malediktus.9250:

Halandir.3609:

So much for “challenging group content” boosting the game – Casuals leaving was expected.
Too bad most “hardcore groupers” seem to spend ingame-gold instead of RL-cash.
Catering to the least profitable group 101?

I never buy gems with gold, I spend 100s of euros per year on gems
buying gems with gold is a bad use of my time

Let me ask, do you feel you get your money’s worth on Gem Purchases?

Not really, considering I could buy at least 10 full AAA games for my gem purchases

yea I kinda thought so.

The last time I bought a series of Gems was on the Heroes weapon sets (Kasmeer’s Staff, Majory’s Daggers…ect) when they were first released.

Since then I have just banked Gold into Gems on a weekly Basis, but I cant bring myself to buy anything on the store anymore. Its all just a bunch of lame stuff that will do nothing for me. Its all Glider Skins and outfits.

They need to change their direction with what they are doing here. and fast.

But what could they sell in shop to make more money without going straight up pay to win? I would like to see armor sets over outfits again, but Anet insists they are too much work

Lots of things, actually. But anything I say on the subject will start a flame war and ruin this thread :-)

But, does not have to be pay to win to be successful.

There are even a few things I would consider buying if they altered them. Bag slots for example- if treated as an account unlock rather than single character. I haven’t been spending nearly as much as I used to on gems, and maybe that’s the same for other veterans of the game. Opening Black Lion Chests disappoints me. I have 11 glider skins and 19 outfits, I don’t care how cool the next one looks. I have so many armor and weapon skins, that one would have to be very special for me to bother buying it.

I would love to support Anet with gem purchases but lately there isn’t anything I want.

Xillllix.3485:

Remember when they presented Stronghold as GvG on the day of HoT’s announcement and the audience cheered?

They know that the competitive community want a GvG mode ever since the game was released but they keep avoiding the topic every time it is brought up as if it is a censored topic.

If they want to make a fortune and see their number go up it’s not complicated:
Add a GvG mode with a guild ladder and complete stats tracking. Let the community build the features with a open beta testing ground in constant evolution.

They can even just add open World PvP/GvG with Guild Alliances so they don’t even have to design new maps.

How it works:
The game randomly choose a region where a “Guild War” occur (like the Scarlett attacks used to work). The map becomes red on the world map and everyone going there is either in open PvP or GvG. Sides appear on different corners of the map. The score of the Guilds/Players from a certain alliance is added to a WvW server alliance made of the same guilds/players.

Simple way to make the game more interesting. What Anet needs right now is just some imagination and the guts to do something new.
All hell will break lose, and it takes a minimum of development time.

No thanks.

Behellagh.1468:

E-Sport is advertising. If it brings in new paying players, it’s a plus.

With those views it’s not, and likely very few. 2Q16 is rather telling since not much else went on. (tho perhaps only correlation not causation.)

Behellagh.1468:

And toxicity in PvP, well that’s PvP. It’s been like that in every game with PvP. It’s been like that since kids first started to play king of the mountain.

In the case of GW2 it’s a problem born from the mentality due to the context of the game.

Overwatch = People don’t get mad or toxic at the Reaper who died to Phara flying high with Reaper on point, nor do they get mad or toxic at the Phara blind sided by S-76.

GW2 = “Ah war died to mes, war should stop queuing, or kill himself.” “Ah mes died to teef gank, mes should uninstall.” It’s not even for legitimate things like failing to rotate, or being bad at peels. Which personally I can understand people throwing shade for.

Know why? Because in most other games nothing can rotate cooldowns and be virtually invincible unless you manage to land a specific type of CC within 1/2 a second between cancel/chain-able animations/cooldowns, and hope they don’t have an answer for it. But when you think of old Chrono bunk, and Scrapper, or old D/D ele, among others this all goes out the window. Sure we balance some, but EVERY new meta there is another apex predator with the same context, just a different build/class and it becomes the status quo everyone has to play by, or follow expectation. Now let’s add new players into the mix and the outcome is very predictable.

Daishi.6027:

Overwatch = People don’t get mad or toxic at the Reaper who died to Phara flying high with Reaper on point, nor do they get mad or toxic at the Phara blind sided by S-76.

Funny thing. RPS is not a great design. Nobody really likes to end up as paper to someone else’s scissors. Besides, it relegates too much importance from skill to vagaries of chance.
You should win because you are a better player, not because you happen to be running Paper against Rock.

BTW: It doesn’t mean the current pvp balance is good. It really isn’t (and Anet’s insistence on doing balance passes only between seasons, or their common approach of balancing classes using a massive hammer as a primary tool do not help here at all).

Astralporing.1957:

Daishi.6027:

Overwatch = People don’t get mad or toxic at the Reaper who died to Phara flying high with Reaper on point, nor do they get mad or toxic at the Phara blind sided by S-76.

Funny thing. RPS is not a great design. Nobody really likes to end up as paper to someone else’s scissors. Besides, it relegates too much importance from skill to vagaries of chance.
You should win because you are a better player, not because you happen to be running Paper against Rock.

BTW: It doesn’t mean the current pvp balance is good. It really isn’t (and Anet’s insistence on doing balance passes only between seasons, or their common approach of balancing classes using a massive hammer as a primary tool do not help here at all).

I agree.

But our game is supposed to be about counters within a 5v5 enviorment, and it makes the toxicity worse when we look at how our balance actually is which is really my problem with it.

Everyone is against it, and it’ll never happen, but it’s why I always advocated for 1v1 balance if we want the game to be objectively: “the better players win.”

Well. Let’s see Guild Wars 2 went free to play, I’m not sure that has helped overall revenue when you give away your product for free. The base game is very dated compared to other free to play games out there.

Black lion keys need to be overhauled and updated, I’m simply not excited when I obtain one. This is due to the average drop being trash, even with 3 drops I’m always starting at a useless booster (yes they are mostly useless to me, outside of WvW reward tracks), a tome of knowledge (10 min of game play, or 30 sec crafting) and unidentified dye (< 1g on the tp). Basically an Azurite orb for mawdrey is more valuable to me, then something you sell for real world money.

Black lion services are out of whack too…. Why on earth would I pay 800 gems to change the name of my character, when I can simply pay 800 gems to make a new one. Even then, nothing on any toon that is soulbound, is even worth that much even if I deleted it. I’m perplexed to how this stays so expensive.

Armor and outfits are absolutely kittened, I understand it takes time to make a quality armor set. However a good chunk of what you sell in the store are incompatible with each other. Scarfs, Glasses, and Hats should have some sort of priority in outfits. I don’t understand why its “Okay” that I can’t mix and match two separate gem store purchases together.

You want my money Arena Net, Give me a reason to hand it over.

Astralporing.1957:

Daishi.6027:

Overwatch = People don’t get mad or toxic at the Reaper who died to Phara flying high with Reaper on point, nor do they get mad or toxic at the Phara blind sided by S-76.

Funny thing. RPS is not a great design. Nobody really likes to end up as paper to someone else’s scissors. Besides, it relegates too much importance from skill to vagaries of chance.
You should win because you are a better player, not because you happen to be running Paper against Rock.

Hence why OW has hero switching on the fly and is heavily team based moreso than GW2.

Hornet.6357:

Well. Let’s see Guild Wars 2 went free to play, I’m not sure that has helped overall revenue when you give away your product for free. The base game is very dated compared to other free to play games out there.

Black lion keys need to be overhauled and updated, I’m simply not excited when I obtain one. This is due to the average drop being trash, even with 3 drops I’m always starting at a useless booster (yes they are mostly useless to me, outside of WvW reward tracks), a tome of knowledge (10 min of game play, or 30 sec crafting) and unidentified dye (< 1g on the tp). Basically an Azurite orb for mawdrey is more valuable to me, then something you sell for real world money.

Black lion services are out of whack too…. Why on earth would I pay 800 gems to change the name of my character, when I can simply pay 800 gems to make a new one. Even then, nothing on any toon that is soulbound, is even worth that much even if I deleted it. I’m perplexed to how this stays so expensive.

Armor and outfits are absolutely kittened, I understand it takes time to make a quality armor set. However a good chunk of what you sell in the store are incompatible with each other. Scarfs, Glasses, and Hats should have some sort of priority in outfits. I don’t understand why its “Okay” that I can’t mix and match two separate gem store purchases together.

You want my money Arena Net, Give me a reason to hand it over.

Core game went F2P because HoT was going to be the new SKU for the game and the core game comes with HoT. Plus after 3 years and numerous permanent discounts and sales, it’s likely their key sales weren’t a major part of their income. Remember the HoT pre-sales became the only way to buy access to the core game months before the core game went F2P. Only a few retailers who had boxes in stock were still selling the core game.

Again, the purpose of BL Chests are to expose players to minor items on the gem store. I’ll say it again, it’s a sampler that include a chance to “win big”. You are suppose to be buying it for the “junk” they contain, not expecting a big prize every 5 keys. And since you are always guaranteed a booster from a chest, you shouldn’t be shocked you get boosters.

Have you bothered to look up the name change cost on other MMO’s with cash shops? Cash shops that you can only access with cash? The prices are pretty much in line with the industry. And in GW1 it was $15 for a name change while here it’s $10 or some amount of in game earned gold.

Well I think character auras should have their own slot(s) rather than take an armor slot with some meh piece of armor. But it makes sense that scarves are shoulder pieces and in a design where there is only a head slot, that you can have either glasses or a hat (without hair). And I find it odd that on one hand you acknowledge that armor is more complicated than outfits but on the other still want to mix them. It’s because you can mix them that armors are more complicated, as well as the total number of variations across profession and race.

Ubik.8315:

kurfu.5623:

Revenue dipped significantly below what it was pre-HoT… that’s not good. Looks like HoT actually did drive away a large portion of players.

I doubt HoT drove people away, more likely the content drought post HoT caused that.

HoT at least drove me away, and nothing since then brought me back. And another
half finished expansion also will not bring me back.

But hey .. in the end i guess ANet knows that all those number don’t count because
each raider counts for 10 players.

For me the first 1.5 years were the best time in the game, when we had updates
ever 2 weeks and new Armor Sets every month in the Store, and we could play
what we wanted and ANet didn’t tried to force us to play content we dislike
just to get some stupid mastery points.

DeceiverX.8361:

Then like I said, you’re in the wrong genre. You’re looking for a single-player experience in an MMO. Communities of players run MMO’s. Ancient games with no new development efforts still get played because of the community backbone (private servers, smaller games, etc.).

Here’s the thing: if communities run MMOs, why is there barely any focus on community? WvW goals are WxP ranks, achievements and reward tracks. Single player goals. When it comes to single player goals, games designed to be single player games should give better experience. Old RTS game Warlords Battlecry II has various difficulty levels where the AI really gives you trouble as you’re conquering the world map. 12 races and 20 hero classes should give something for every playstyle. I annexed this territory, this is the bonus it gives me. I put skill points to craft just the kind of hero strengths I want to have.

Back in GW2 I’m constantly wondering what impact my presence in WvW has on my side. I’d like to see where my side players are going. I’d like to have some kind of “high score” list who has killed most players and defended most towers. Chat is the only social feature they’ve bothered to put there…

Xillllix.3485:

Remember when they presented Stronghold as GvG on the day of HoT’s announcement and the audience cheered?

They know that the competitive community want a GvG mode ever since the game was released but they keep avoiding the topic every time it is brought up as if it is a censored topic.

If they want to make a fortune and see their number go up it’s not complicated:
Add a GvG mode with a guild ladder and complete stats tracking. Let the community build the features with a open beta testing ground in constant evolution.

They can even just add open World PvP/GvG with Guild Alliances so they don’t even have to design new maps.

How it works:
The game randomly choose a region where a “Guild War” occur (like the Scarlett attacks used to work). The map becomes red on the world map and everyone going there is either in open PvP or GvG. Sides appear on different corners of the map. The score of the Guilds/Players from a certain alliance is added to a WvW server alliance made of the same guilds/players.

Simple way to make the game more interesting. What Anet needs right now is just some imagination and the guts to do something new.
All hell will break lose, and it takes a minimum of development time.

No to it being a random region. Then it affects players who do not wish to do PvP or GvG or see it or “listen to it”.

They should make something like that it’s own separate thing so that the maps can be better designed for PvP OR adjusted for primarily PvP purposes. Like a Metrica Province without the Fire Elemental world boss.

Belenwyn.8674:

• They are working on the 2nd expansion.

So we will get 2 expansions at the same time?

Hmpf strange marketing, I would release 1 expansion and work on the 2nd after that.

Teniz.5249:

Belenwyn.8674:

• They are working on the 2nd expansion.

So we will get 2 expansions at the same time?

Hmpf strange marketing, I would release 1 expansion and work on the 2nd after that.

No no no. The 2nd expansion is the 2nd half of the first expansion, which is being released before the 3rd expansion which is billed as the 2nd expansion.

Neural.1824:

Teniz.5249:

Belenwyn.8674:

• They are working on the 2nd expansion.

So we will get 2 expansions at the same time?

Hmpf strange marketing, I would release 1 expansion and work on the 2nd after that.

No no no. The 2nd expansion is the 2nd half of the first expansion, which is being released before the 3rd expansion which is billed as the 2nd expansion.

2nd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and ALL the missing legendary.
3rd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and REALLY all missing legendarys.

Question : what do you think we get in the 4th expansion ???

Beldin.5498:

Neural.1824:

Teniz.5249:

Belenwyn.8674:

• They are working on the 2nd expansion.

So we will get 2 expansions at the same time?

Hmpf strange marketing, I would release 1 expansion and work on the 2nd after that.

No no no. The 2nd expansion is the 2nd half of the first expansion, which is being released before the 3rd expansion which is billed as the 2nd expansion.

2nd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and ALL the missing legendary.
3rd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and REALLY all missing legendarys.

Question : what do you think we get in the 4th expansion ???

A legendary, missing raid zone. Underwater legendary missing raid zone.

Astralporing.1957:

Beldin.5498:

Neural.1824:

Teniz.5249:

Belenwyn.8674:

• They are working on the 2nd expansion.

So we will get 2 expansions at the same time?

Hmpf strange marketing, I would release 1 expansion and work on the 2nd after that.

No no no. The 2nd expansion is the 2nd half of the first expansion, which is being released before the 3rd expansion which is billed as the 2nd expansion.

2nd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and ALL the missing legendary.
3rd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and REALLY all missing legendarys.

Question : what do you think we get in the 4th expansion ???

A legendary, missing raid zone. Underwater legendary missing raid zone.

Underwater legendarys and removal of all underwater zones :p

Considering Q2 is exactly when nothing happened, and right after the game director switched to a job closer to home, I’m really not that surprised.

What is more interesting is what the next quarter will bring since the release of living world story 3. Which hopefully will bring back the sustainability MO was talking about.

I personally wouldn’t really be too optimistic, but I pretty much think from here on, if the sustainability MO is talking about is provided, the only way from Q2 2016 is up.

Then again, I do hope they have some more updates planned for in between episode 1 and episode 2.

Zenith.6403:

DeceiverX.8361:

Then like I said, you’re in the wrong genre. You’re looking for a single-player experience in an MMO. Communities of players run MMO’s. Ancient games with no new development efforts still get played because of the community backbone (private servers, smaller games, etc.).

Here’s the thing: if communities run MMOs, why is there barely any focus on community? WvW goals are WxP ranks, achievements and reward tracks. Single player goals. When it comes to single player goals, games designed to be single player games should give better experience. Old RTS game Warlords Battlecry II has various difficulty levels where the AI really gives you trouble as you’re conquering the world map. 12 races and 20 hero classes should give something for every playstyle. I annexed this territory, this is the bonus it gives me. I put skill points to craft just the kind of hero strengths I want to have.

Back in GW2 I’m constantly wondering what impact my presence in WvW has on my side. I’d like to see where my side players are going. I’d like to have some kind of “high score” list who has killed most players and defended most towers. Chat is the only social feature they’ve bothered to put there…

And I even said it, WvW is poorly-supported by ANet. And yet it lives on because of its community. Literally, it’s gone without getting updates almost as long as many MMO’s stay afloat their entire lifetimes. That’s unheard of. The community has kept it going, and the prospect of organizing, working together, and winning as a community is what keeps it afloat. You can’t win WvW on your own. And that’s why the community in it has been so loyal, but also has been feeling left so slighted when there are clear flaws with its implementation and nothing has yet been done to fix them. It’s not about player visibility or mechanical things to see players. It’s again, about the community. The reliable pugmanders that tag up for seven hours a day to lead their servers. Fun event nights for WvW to de-stress and laugh. GW2 doesn’t need facebook integration to make a community; the GW2 community will make itself, and infrastructure will be established by those who wish to lead. It’s why pretty much every server has a running TS.

WXP decides rewards and is a metric for personal progress. That has to be personal on some level because of its nature. You can be with a group of 30, but non-instanced rewards suck – fighting over WvW rank chests and the like would probably destroy communities from the inside out. The rest of the game abolished them for this very reason.

A high score list would just push for excessive competition within a server. It’d lead to more trouble than it’s worth. Don’t feel like you’re part of the crew? Either try and be helpful in some way, and work to be a part of the community, or simply chose to deal with it. Ask yourself if you actually matter grand-scheme in the MMO. You don’t. That’s the point. This is a community. This is a game of thousands, if not millions, of people having at one point played it, and you’re just another name, like it or not. Giving people a reason to get behind something is entirely different, though, and unifying people into a community is a critical aspect of these games in general, as the communities keep people playing, and playing together.

If the underlying mechanisms that keep the game fun to play start failing, however, then it’s much easier for people to start leaving, and as a consequence, once people start, the rest follow in droves.

I don’t want less time between paying $50. I want the same amount of content for $50 in every package that costs that. HoT did not provide the same quantity for $50 that Core did.

GreyWolf.8670:

I don’t want less time between paying $50. I want the same amount of content for $50 in every package that costs that. HoT did not provide the same quantity for $50 that Core did.

Do you want GW2 to survive for a few more years at least?

They have to get their income somehow and apparently it’s not working that well at the moment.

Gehenna.3625:

GreyWolf.8670:

I don’t want less time between paying $50. I want the same amount of content for $50 in every package that costs that. HoT did not provide the same quantity for $50 that Core did.

Do you want GW2 to survive for a few more years at least?

They have to get their income somehow and apparently it’s not working that well at the moment.

And even despite HoT, the numbers for the period during HoT’s release state that between 67 and 75% of all generated income came from gem purchases, not box copies of HoT.

ANet didn’t need to make an expansion, and actually started losing revenue when they did, and never started making more after they released one.

The frustrating thing is pinpointing where they went wrong. The content in HoT wasn’t all that bad and definitely made up for the drought in terms of story / maps. The legendary weapon scandal, elite specs breaking pvp, and focus on raid content for 5% of the player base probably did most of the damage. but you would think, introducing raids and leagues would have at least leveled sales w/ pre-HoT

Raids and leagues catered to only a very small portion of the player base.

Obviously, general balance means way more.

Tekoneiric.6817:

I’ve tried to get many people I know into the game but haven’t had any takers. Many don’t want to because it’s not on a console. I think ANet complicating things in the game isn’t helping. People usually want a simple distraction from real life not something that is more like work. The complicated crafting and open world meta events requiring LFG isn’t helping. The game doesn’t even allow single players to claim a homestead to mod and build in.

GW2 is complicated? O_o

kurfu.5623:

Revenue dipped significantly below what it was pre-HoT… that’s not good. Looks like HoT actually did drive away a large portion of players.

Looks more like the April patch didn’t deliver the fix people were looking for.

It could be the lack of content post HoT but there was a lack of content pre HoT as well and that did better.

Morte de Angelis.7986:

The kitten considering HoT and the people who had bought the Core game didn’t help.

Pay for Expac, but we’re adding the game free of charge with no discount for people who already bought it! – I know that put me off until I found HoT for really cheap on a keysite and bought it there. I hope they DON’T do that for the next Xpac. Cause you’ll just kitten even MORE people off. I won’t come back a second time if your gona play the same tricks.

The pricing did suck but on the other hand
http://www.dlgamer.us/download-guild_wars_2_heart_of_thorns-pc_games-p-29808.html has it for 25% off extremely often.

Manuhell.2759:

Can’t say i’m particularly surprised. Devs focused their attention for months unto raids, but they’re essentially niche content. And the maps from the expansion being an handful didn’t help either. Sure, they’ve got replayable events, but even those can get boring after a month or two. Many people likely found themselves without something fun to do and just stopped playing, or did that after getting shunned in raid (be it due to their class or something else). And people that don’t play also don’t pay.

I believe the excuse for that is “but there is still the core game!!!!”

Sure, they could try to churn some expansion in a relatively short time, but given what happened with the last one (especially due to the missing legendaries) i doubt that many people will trust them again.

That could be interesting but I am expecting to be disappointed.

Malediktus.9250:

But what could they sell in shop to make more money without going straight up pay to win? I would like to see armor sets over outfits again, but Anet insists they are too much work

There is Path of Exile’s “release very expensive cosmetics” route but I am not sure that could work for GW2. PoE’s supporter packs also get people to essentially re-buy the game for $60+ every 3-4 months which is also pretty impressive.

Daishi.6027:

5. The toxicity. I realize it doesn’t need to be super care-bear. But in a team based game, the players act similar to those in fighting game scenes, lacking the professionalism in public view like most PC E-sports including but not limited to Starcraft as an example. As for new players it doesn’t help, with the mentality of “if you die, you’re bad regardless of context.” as opposed to other games where losing to your counter is considered expected. This is also not helped due to the lack of 1v1 balance, and apex predators who can survive 2-3v1.

Is that really a huge issue? LoL seems to be doing pretty well despite it’s reputation for toxicity.

DeceiverX.8361:

Gehenna.3625:

GreyWolf.8670:

I don’t want less time between paying $50. I want the same amount of content for $50 in every package that costs that. HoT did not provide the same quantity for $50 that Core did.

Do you want GW2 to survive for a few more years at least?

They have to get their income somehow and apparently it’s not working that well at the moment.

And even despite HoT, the numbers for the period during HoT’s release state that between 67 and 75% of all generated income came from gem purchases, not box copies of HoT.

ANet didn’t need to make an expansion, and actually started losing revenue when they did, and never started making more after they released one.

You are incorrect. The fact that gem purchases are double the income of the boxed sales is fine. It’s a known point that cash shops are a great way for generating income. The hilarious thing about people is that they will get upset for having to spend 12 bucks a month on a sub but willingly spend double or more of that in the cash shop without a single moan or complaint. People get what they want.

But you need content to keep people coming and this is why your assessment that they didn’t need to make an expansion is utterly incorrect. Without more content, people would not have stayed. You realise that the core game has been made free. Ask yourself why.

I’ll tell you.

They need more people to play who then will spend cash on gems and keep servers populated. That would not be the case if the core game was doing well. So new content is needed, not because the gems sales are bigger than the box sales but simply because people are leaving feeling bored. If more people bought the game, there would be more people spending cash on gems, so more box sales will also increase gem sales, not make them less.

Before launch Anet swore the gem store wouldn’t interfere with the game, then it did.

Anet spent a year on the China port which failed.

Anet built temporary systems for LS S1 that were discarded wasting resources but they loved those gem sales.

Anet shifted to the expansion model because they wanted more revenue.

(they make less now than they did at any point)

Anet went FREE TO PLAY WITH A BUY TO PLAY GAME.

(they make less now than they did at any point)

Buy HoT we’ll release all stated features later. Then they cancelled legendary weapons and removed the uber WvW maps they claimed were amazing.

(they make less now than they did at any point)

Guild Wars 2 was the un-MMO with a no grind philosophy but HoT was built to bring in players from other MMOs.

(they make less now than they did at any point)

HoT was overpriced and extremely light on content but the usual white knights all claimed that future content which would be unlocked with HoT would more than make up for the lack of content on release. Hey it was 3 years post launch so 3 years of content to come post HoT right? Now we’re getting word that another xpac is coming even sooner making HoT even LESS worth the money. Not to mention that HoT will be given away for free to anyone buying the next xpac.

I haven’t played this game in months but I own it so I’ll speak up. I have played this game since beta and see no reason to give Anet another dollar. White knight all you like but the dark knights were right, jenga.

DeceiverX.8361:

ANet didn’t need to make an expansion, and actually started losing revenue when they did, and never started making more after they released one.

It’s not that. Making an expansion was definitely a good move. It’s just the execution part where they failed. They designed this expac based on the suggestions of vocal minorities, and ended up forgetting about their core player group.

Alex Shatter.7956:

but you would think, introducing raids and leagues would have at least leveled sales w/ pre-HoT

No, i wouldn’t think that. I’d say that both might actually cause the reverse effect. Raids because they were introduced in a game that was actually significantly anti-raid from the start (remember, a lot of people came to GW2 to avoid raids and the effects their existence caused on other MMOs), and they were aimed at a small number of people from the get go (so they couldn’t really offset the losses they caused), while league was really badly done (Anet tried to catch 2 birds with one stone, and managed to scare both of them away).

Khisanth.2948:

Looks more like the April patch didn’t deliver the fix people were looking for.

April patch did a lot of good, but unfortunately lot of things just couldn’t be changed without completely redoing half of the zones. They made doing things solo or outside meta easier, but it didn’t change the maps from being meta-centric and the metas from being on a loong, static schedule.

Khisanth.2948:

It could be the lack of content post HoT but there was a lack of content pre HoT as well and that did better.

Most likely it was lack of content coupled with disappointment caused by HoT not fulfilling expectations.

Manuhell.2759:

Can’t say i’m particularly surprised. Devs focused their attention for months unto raids, but they’re essentially niche content. And the maps from the expansion being an handful didn’t help either. Sure, they’ve got replayable events, but even those can get boring after a month or two. Many people likely found themselves without something fun to do and just stopped playing, or did that after getting shunned in raid (be it due to their class or something else). And people that don’t play also don’t pay.

It was also the feeling of being left out in a game that up until that point wasn’t about catering to a small elite minority.

So placing focus away from casual players looking for an after work entertainment with seasoned MMO veterans who know how to play the TP and how to shake a system on it´s weakest link where all the goodies fall out for free leads to less revenue?
Shocker, who would have thought that.^^

@Astralporing
To you, me and some other guys on the forum it was pretty obvious that Anet would not only miss with the stone, but have one bird return a flying no thank you at their windscreen while flying away to other, much better PvP games after taking a big dip of birdseed out of the bird house, and the other sitting all nice and smug in the backyard while demanding more raid and hardcore content without paying for the birdseed station that is the TP.

Raids as content fared far better than I expected, so I have to give Anet some credit despite my personal aversion to raids. Raids as source of income obviously not so much. It failed to replace people leaving the game with new people.

I guess it slowly gets hard to dispute that HoT at least partly bombed, failing to gather interest in the game for the veteran AND the new player. How anyone can think that placing a supermario arcade element to gate meaningful content in an MMO is absolutely beyond me, despite the many foghorn calls on the forum that they are completely optional. People just don´t want to wander around for hours and look for opportunities to get basic character stuff. The patch fixed some of that issues, but in the first version of HoT, you copuld play for hours and basically still walk out emptyhanded out of the maps.

WvW is a total mess again. It is still fully inconsequential and meaningless, with Anet having not the slightest interest in GvG or heroic action that was DAOC wvw for example.

Pretty much what Aidenwolf said and said well.

Astralporing.1957:

DeceiverX.8361:

ANet didn’t need to make an expansion, and actually started losing revenue when they did, and never started making more after they released one.

It’s not that. Making an expansion was definitely a good move. It’s just the execution part where they failed. They designed this expac based on the suggestions of vocal minorities, and ended up forgetting about their core player group.

I still wonder if ANet devs don’t live in this world, since i just can’t understand why
they seem to believe that the vocal minority in the forums are the same persons
that pay for the game. Did they really believe that 1 hardcore raider spends 10 times
more in the shop than a casual game ? I don’t get it.

On the other hand .. maybe they don’t even exist at all, since in the game i play
now the devs are actually posting in the forum .. telling us what is planed, saying
that they know about bugs and fixing them, or are even just joking.

Meanwhile here .. does John Smith even still live ?

The raid are not hardcore, they are what dungeons are supposed to be difficultyy wise imho. If you consider these raids hardcores already you barely played other games

Malediktus.9250:

The raid are not hardcore, they are what dungeons are supposed to be difficultyy wise imho. If you consider these raids hardcores already you barely played other games

And yet the game is losing revenue. The game shifted away from casual to “challenging group content” in every aspect with HoT. Raids are not dungeons.

No these raids aren’t as hardcore as the other MMOs I raided in but I left all of those to play Guild Wars.

Look at the results of pandering to hardcores.

But you cannot blame the small team of 5-6 people who mainly work in raids for it. It is the other 200+ employes who work at seemingly glacial speeds and prefer making look everything super pretty instead of making more content with more replayability.
Just look at recent LS3 episode. The whole stuff is done after like 3 hours including achievements and then there is no reason to ever visit the instance again although a lot of effort was put into it.

Mirta.5029:

The game is a mess. The game is a pure mess. Promises thrown out of the door, balance kittened, complete difference in direction… It can not go anywhere good. You know what?

Yeah .. i meanwhile also don’t see any chance to return tp the game in any form.
Even if they make a Jormag Expansion with mostly plain maps like the old Shiverpeaks
maps and bring back real costume sets .. i guess i still have to level all those HoT
Masteries, and i will never ever fo that, also will i never ever get all those Mastery Points
i still miss for Tyria Masteries ..

And yes .. i’m also bitter cause i loved the game how it was, especially the first 1.5 years
where we had new stuff every 2 weeks, and new armor sets every month .. and then
they removed the armorsets and pauses between updates got longer and longer
and HoT finally killed it.

The best i can say about HoT : It brought me back to play an ARPG ^^

@DeceiverX

As you say, PvP players don’t need as much development. In fact, too much change often upsets the balance and subsequently the players participating in PvP.

But GW2 is not a PvP-focused game. Approaching development from a PvP perspective would kill the game. Sure, your PvP players might stick around for some time afterward, but who wants to play a dying game? Just look at how many threads exist asking about the state of the game, the population, whether or not the game is “dying”, etc.

I’m not suggesting they should ignore PvP. But again, your suggestion seems to be that they should cut back on development and focus primarily on fine-tuning class balance. That’s all PvP dev right there. It would be a complete disaster for this game.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Sales are down this quarter, but sales will be up next quarter. They’ll be down the following quarter, and back up, then up, then down, then…

You get the idea. This stuff is cyclical, and there are a lot of factors at play. The game isn’t dying, and if you think it is, then by all means go enjoy a different game for a while. You’ll be back, or you won’t, but the community will live on as a whole.

Guild Wars has been around since 2005. It isn’t going anywhere.

Gehenna.3625:

GreyWolf.8670:

I don’t want less time between paying $50. I want the same amount of content for $50 in every package that costs that. HoT did not provide the same quantity for $50 that Core did.

Do you want GW2 to survive for a few more years at least?

Not in the current form no.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Malediktus.9250:

The raid are not hardcore, they are what dungeons are supposed to be difficultyy wise imho. If you consider these raids hardcores already you barely played other games

And yet the game is losing revenue. The game shifted away from casual to “challenging group content” in every aspect with HoT. Raids are not dungeons.

No these raids aren’t as hardcore as the other MMOs I raided in but I left all of those to play Guild Wars.

Look at the results of pandering to hardcores.

There is zero evidence that the game is suffering lower revenue because of raids. The game does not pander to hardcore players.

ANet made a mistake in how they structured the HoT maps, as we can partially see with Bloodstone Fen. It’s more challenging than core, but nothing as crazy to navigate or play as HoT is for those who don’t worry about min-maxing their DPS.

ANet made mistakes in allocating resources to the expac, at the expense of the rest of the game. The were too ambitious in the Legendary collections and couldn’t keep up with QA for the events required to complete them. They didn’t take into account people’s reaction to a dearth of new PvE content. They didn’t change direction fast enough, based on the criticism that HoT was too much new infrastructure and not enough stuff to do. They goofed on the popularity of adventures (and how many people would repeat them).

tl;dr sales went down and to the extent we have any evidence about how or why, raids probably contributed to more income, not less.

They made 99 problems, but challenging group content was not one of them — that was perhaps the only thing they got completely correct. Raiding is incredibly popular among its target audience and some people have tried it and become hooked.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Malediktus.9250:

The raid are not hardcore, they are what dungeons are supposed to be difficultyy wise imho. If you consider these raids hardcores already you barely played other games

And yet the game is losing revenue. The game shifted away from casual to “challenging group content” in every aspect with HoT. Raids are not dungeons.

No these raids aren’t as hardcore as the other MMOs I raided in but I left all of those to play Guild Wars.

Look at the results of pandering to hardcores.

There is zero evidence that the game is suffering lower revenue because of raids. The game does not pander to hardcore players.

ANet made a mistake in how they structured the HoT maps, as we can partially see with Bloodstone Fen. It’s more challenging than core, but nothing as crazy to navigate or play as HoT is for those who don’t worry about min-maxing their DPS.

ANet made mistakes in allocating resources to the expac, at the expense of the rest of the game. The were too ambitious in the Legendary collections and couldn’t keep up with QA for the events required to complete them. They didn’t take into account people’s reaction to a dearth of new PvE content. They didn’t change direction fast enough, based on the criticism that HoT was too much new infrastructure and not enough stuff to do. They goofed on the popularity of adventures (and how many people would repeat them).

tl;dr sales went down and to the extent we have any evidence about how or why, raids probably contributed to more income, not less.

They made 99 problems, but challenging group content was not one of them — that was perhaps the only thing they got completely correct. Raiding is incredibly popular among its target audience and some people have tried it and become hooked.

They pandered to a more “hardcore” gamer and they make less money than they did pandering to casuals, this is fact.

The complete and total focus of the xpac was on challenging group content. They are bleeding money because of it. I said that raids aren’t dungeons that is a fact. “Some people have tried it and become hooked” is accurate I’m sure but the game’s losing income and that’s fact as well.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Malediktus.9250:

The raid are not hardcore, they are what dungeons are supposed to be difficultyy wise imho. If you consider these raids hardcores already you barely played other games

And yet the game is losing revenue. The game shifted away from casual to “challenging group content” in every aspect with HoT. Raids are not dungeons.

No these raids aren’t as hardcore as the other MMOs I raided in but I left all of those to play Guild Wars.

Look at the results of pandering to hardcores.

There is zero evidence that the game is suffering lower revenue because of raids. The game does not pander to hardcore players.

ANet made a mistake in how they structured the HoT maps, as we can partially see with Bloodstone Fen. It’s more challenging than core, but nothing as crazy to navigate or play as HoT is for those who don’t worry about min-maxing their DPS.

ANet made mistakes in allocating resources to the expac, at the expense of the rest of the game. The were too ambitious in the Legendary collections and couldn’t keep up with QA for the events required to complete them. They didn’t take into account people’s reaction to a dearth of new PvE content. They didn’t change direction fast enough, based on the criticism that HoT was too much new infrastructure and not enough stuff to do. They goofed on the popularity of adventures (and how many people would repeat them).

tl;dr sales went down and to the extent we have any evidence about how or why, raids probably contributed to more income, not less.

They made 99 problems, but challenging group content was not one of them — that was perhaps the only thing they got completely correct. Raiding is incredibly popular among its target audience and some people have tried it and become hooked.

I took some business courses over the time of my career, but I am always willing to learn(no sarcasm here).

I want to start with the premise that product advertisment and product planing are very fickle lovers at best and angry mothers of law at worst.
*Products are aimed at a demographic group of people most of the time if they are not crucial to survival (like penicilin or bread). GW2 was arguably targeting people that did not want to raid and play relaced, were looking for a novel MMO as alternative to WOW or who liked GW1 when it was introduced. The new target audience is not that kind of people. Why would you want to change your audience without a cause? The only solutions for that are either ego problems of the management(there are plenty of examples where giants have been toppled by stupid managers), or missing income.
*The success of a product can not be seriously predicted in advance. Good products fail and bad products prevail sometimes. HoT was in many ways a bad product, so bad that Anet actually had to alter it quickly, but it managed to gather some money for the company in my guess. Not as much as they wanted, but it was not a total bomb either.
*Products have life cycles, and old products usually don´t sell or just draw attention that good. Core vanilla is still there is therefore not a good argument to sooth the former target audience of GW2, the casual or inexperienced gamer who likes to play then and when for quick entertainment.
*If the break even point is not reached, you can either try to add stuff to your product or scrap it if you are not looking to cut taxes with it. Happened with HoT and the core game as Anet adds stuff. Anet does many things right here in my opinion, but the content vs. convenience is lacking here. It is of no use to me that my new car is very comfy if it has no motor to drive me around.
*If the number of people buying or supporting your product hass decreased, you lost market share. A loss of market share also means a loss of confidence from share holders.

So in my assumption, raids have surely done nothing to raise the income of Anet to a level higher than before their introduction. You can argue that they have stabilized Anet, and I can´t seriously debunk that theory but reasonably doubt it becaue of the controversial nature of raids where the question remains if the people who were driven away by them are more than the people it attracted or kept in the game.

When you see threads where players lament about how easy world bosses are, about only needing to auto attack, how face roll the content is, how event scaling is only about making bosses bigger bags of HPs, how some wish for more content like the marionette battle, it’s easy too see why the devs thought more mechanic oriented encounters, more intelligent critter AI. The issue is they went from 1st gear to 6th in one shift.

This isn’t the first MMO where I’ve seen devs swing the difficulty pendulum all the way to the other side in their first box expansion. There is a thin line between challenging and frustrating. And if you are too close to the game, playing it constantly while developing it, you may not be able to see it.

I think the worst part of raids was just that they gated legendary armor behind them.

The whole discussion about raids was like always that first the raiders said : Noooo we
don’t want exclusive stuff .. just the challenge .. blabla .. and then in the raid-thread
each second or third post was about exclusive rewards.

In Marvel Heroes they stated a while ago that only a very small part (2%) of the players
have ever used the raids and then decided to make every raid only item craftable for
other players. So people can earn some stuff maybe faster in raids, but players who
don’t like raids can over time also get all the goodies.

It was just too little content and too hard for casual combined with too high price tag. Also the game has almost no public recognition. Look at twitch, it barely is known by anyone.

The only popularity it gained was back in 2012 through Angry Joe’s review. And that is fading constantly.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Malediktus.9250:

The raid are not hardcore, they are what dungeons are supposed to be difficultyy wise imho. If you consider these raids hardcores already you barely played other games

And yet the game is losing revenue. The game shifted away from casual to “challenging group content” in every aspect with HoT. Raids are not dungeons.

No these raids aren’t as hardcore as the other MMOs I raided in but I left all of those to play Guild Wars.

Look at the results of pandering to hardcores.

There is zero evidence that the game is suffering lower revenue because of raids. The game does not pander to hardcore players.

ANet made a mistake in how they structured the HoT maps, as we can partially see with Bloodstone Fen. It’s more challenging than core, but nothing as crazy to navigate or play as HoT is for those who don’t worry about min-maxing their DPS.

ANet made mistakes in allocating resources to the expac, at the expense of the rest of the game. The were too ambitious in the Legendary collections and couldn’t keep up with QA for the events required to complete them. They didn’t take into account people’s reaction to a dearth of new PvE content. They didn’t change direction fast enough, based on the criticism that HoT was too much new infrastructure and not enough stuff to do. They goofed on the popularity of adventures (and how many people would repeat them).

tl;dr sales went down and to the extent we have any evidence about how or why, raids probably contributed to more income, not less.

They made 99 problems, but challenging group content was not one of them — that was perhaps the only thing they got completely correct. Raiding is incredibly popular among its target audience and some people have tried it and become hooked.

They pandered to a more “hardcore” gamer and they make less money than they did pandering to casuals, this is fact.

The complete and total focus of the xpac was on challenging group content. They are bleeding money because of it. I said that raids aren’t dungeons that is a fact. “Some people have tried it and become hooked” is accurate I’m sure but the game’s losing income and that’s fact as well.

Nope, not a fact at all. You’re assuming 2 things.

1. The expansion panders to hard core gamers. That’s just opinion. It’s not fact. Raids pander to hard core players, not the entire expansion.

2. The reason they did less had more to do with pandering to hard core players than it did with a broad spectrum content drought, something I think you’d have trouble proving.

It is entirely possible that you’re correct, but it’s not a fact. It’s not provable, it’s based on opinion in the first place.

I really wish people would stop using the word fact when they mean they feel strongly about something.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Malediktus.9250:

The raid are not hardcore, they are what dungeons are supposed to be difficultyy wise imho. If you consider these raids hardcores already you barely played other games

And yet the game is losing revenue. The game shifted away from casual to “challenging group content” in every aspect with HoT. Raids are not dungeons.

No these raids aren’t as hardcore as the other MMOs I raided in but I left all of those to play Guild Wars.

Look at the results of pandering to hardcores.

There is zero evidence that the game is suffering lower revenue because of raids. The game does not pander to hardcore players.

ANet made a mistake in how they structured the HoT maps, as we can partially see with Bloodstone Fen. It’s more challenging than core, but nothing as crazy to navigate or play as HoT is for those who don’t worry about min-maxing their DPS.

ANet made mistakes in allocating resources to the expac, at the expense of the rest of the game. The were too ambitious in the Legendary collections and couldn’t keep up with QA for the events required to complete them. They didn’t take into account people’s reaction to a dearth of new PvE content. They didn’t change direction fast enough, based on the criticism that HoT was too much new infrastructure and not enough stuff to do. They goofed on the popularity of adventures (and how many people would repeat them).

tl;dr sales went down and to the extent we have any evidence about how or why, raids probably contributed to more income, not less.

They made 99 problems, but challenging group content was not one of them — that was perhaps the only thing they got completely correct. Raiding is incredibly popular among its target audience and some people have tried it and become hooked.

They pandered to a more “hardcore” gamer and they make less money than they did pandering to casuals, this is fact.

The complete and total focus of the xpac was on challenging group content. They are bleeding money because of it. I said that raids aren’t dungeons that is a fact. “Some people have tried it and become hooked” is accurate I’m sure but the game’s losing income and that’s fact as well.

So True Aidan, and it shows, this is the worst quarter yet…

DeceiverX.8361:

Raids and leagues catered to only a very small portion of the player base.

Obviously, general balance means way more.

Only in PvP, bud. We’ve been through this already. PvE players only complain about balance when their class has no group support (and thus has a hard time justifying a spot in group PvE dungeons, raids, fractals) or gets nerfed due to PvP balance concerns.

Raids and leagues may cater to a small portion of the player base, but that does not indicate that general balance should be the primary concern. It should be the primary concern in PvP, specifically. But PvE players don’t care a bit about that. They want content.

It’s really not too surprising. People assumed HoT didn’t do very well, but the latest ncsoft conference call all but confirms it. Revenue for the two quarters during HoT presales and release were generated mostly by gem sales. That’s telling.

My old guild basically died leading up to HoT release. Most of them left the game once pricing for HoT was announced. The rest were waiting on reviews after release, and most of those people never came back.

2nd Q 16 won’t include the 50% sale. That got my friends and I back into the game after a long time off. We’d always been wondering about HoT but the $50 price tag kept us away. We’re having fun with it for now, but we’ll see how long it will keep.

Not saying the sale will provide a huge boost (perhaps none) but it was a better move than nothing.

Torolan.5816:

Raids as content fared far better than I expected, so I have to give Anet some credit despite my personal aversion to raids. Raids as source of income obviously not so much. It failed to replace people leaving the game with new people.

There is a good reason for this.

In order to be truly enticing to the raiding crowd, they would have to compete with MMOs whose primary end game focus is raiding – meaning Anet would have to start pushing out 3-4 full raids a year.

That is something they obviously cannot – and should not – do. It would take too much away from the rest of the game and only further divide the playerbase.

What they need to do now is get back to basics, catering to the more casual – mom and dad getting off work and wanting to unwind with friends – crowd again. Keep 10 player instancing in, but stop with the “this content is for group A and this content is for group B” mentality. Add in difficulty tiers (across multiple content types), but stop with the over segmentation of the game population.

In their effort to add a few terms to their press releases, they lost focus on what this game is really about. Until they get that back, I’m afraid the bad revenues will just continue to worse.