Guild Wars 2

STIHL.2489:

Which now begs the question, if we always understood that “casual” was a mindset when talking about any other activity, why do we suddenly get so confused when it gets applied to games?

There’s a body of language experts and common usage that helps keep the meaning of words relatively stable. Words that are new and coming from evolving social habits or technology don’t have any “experts” to define them.

“Casual stroll” is a well-defined phrase and has been used in its current form for ages. “Casual gamer” is a new concept and doesn’t have any standardized meaning.

“Tight” is a word that can be good as in “the musicians were really tight tonight” or “I’m in really tight with Kim & Kanye”. It can be bad as in “he got tight tonight and was arrested for driving drunk” or “her parents are too tight; they won’t let her out on dates” (although these days, we tend to call that “uptight”).

Or put another way, there’s no International Association of Casual Gamers that sets standards for what casual means, no “Bureau of Gaming Standards” that can certify your game play as “casual” or “hardcore.”

No hot wasnt hard to both definitions. If yu knew the game enough and were efficient with your time you could do just fine during the hot days. The only ppl that had an issue with hot were the ppl that just didnt know the game.

lol. alright then. your opinion is noted and ignored

I am loving how people who are not even remotely casual gamers at all, and all talking about what was appealing or doable, it’s like reading a recipe written by people who never cooked.

‘Real casuals’? So, a player is only a ‘real casual’ if they agree with you? Does that mean all other players are hardcore?

For me, personally, I think the hardcore groups would laugh at me, and my lack of builds, Mastery Points, and carefree attitude toward gaming.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

‘Real casuals’? So, a player is only a ‘real casual’ if they agree with you? Does that mean all other players are hardcore?

For me, personally, I think the hardcore groups would laugh at me, and my lack of builds, Mastery Points, and carefree attitude toward gaming.

IndigoSundown.5419 has linked the definition, see if that describes you, if not, then.. such is.. what it is.

You are the one that states that only ‘real casuals’ will be able to answer your title question, implying that if the answer doesn’t agree with your OP, they have no business posting in your thread.

I play for fun, I don’t find the content especially stressful or overly difficult to complete, with a few exceptions (usually caused by bugs, or not understanding the mechanic(s) of the encounter). I don’t Raid, I’m L2 in Fractals, haven’t set foot in most of the Dungeons, play solo in almost everything. rarely even use the LFG. Haven’t changed my builds since launch, for the most part, as I just don’t understand buildcrafting. How much more casual can one be?

When an OP shuts down opposing views to their topic, and states those posting have no business posting in the thread, I tend to lose respect. Still, as you wish; the thread is all yours.

Good luck on the Devs considering your suggestions, whatever they may be.

Guild Wars 2 is undoubtedly one of the most casual friendly games out there. Yes, ArenaNet has definitely remembered the casuals.

That being sad, I don’t believe this game is for you. There’s always going to be certain points you won’t be able to reach unless you’ve done something else first (like unlocking a specific mount), there’s always going to be content you won’t be able to complete solo and there are always going to be enemies you won’t be able to kill by simply spamming 1.

Daddicus.6128:

HoT was an appalling disaster for them. They did make some changes to be more casual-friendly. But, there are still major issues outstanding IN HOT, such as way more levels of maps than are actually reflected in the world map view, and trash mobs and individual enemies are still way too difficult.

However, in Living Story Season 3, they have corrected most of those flaws. Only one of the six zones is grossly under-mapped like most of HoT was. And, the enemies are further apart and less instantly killing you, like they were in HoT.

There are still grossly overpowering creatures, but you can mostly avoid them now. (Which makes me wonder why they bothered making them at all. ???)

Agree with this post.

I also quit because of disaster called HoT and only returned week ago to go through LS3 while waiting for PoF. While HoT was, and still is, even after they attempted to “fix” some of the more broken enemies and events, same confusing and annoying mess, I have been surprised how the developers have managed to make LS3 much better.

There are of course similarities between HoT maps and LS3 maps, but in LS3 the maps remain playable even when soloing or running around with some random people ins ame area. I feel the devs looked at what went wrong with HoT, and actually learned from their mistakes.

I also hope they continue to improve for PoF.

STIHL.2489:

How ironic, don’t you think that the “gamer” definition has no relationship to the actual definition . Wonder why that is?

Subcultures rarely form languages of their own. More often, they continue to use the language(s) that their members use for non-subculture interactions, but will adapt the meaning of various terms to better communicate what matters to the subculture’s members. This can result in terms meaning very different things to them than they do to those who are not members. Similar types of language evolution can be seen anywhere subculture slang or regional slang develops, though of course the actual terms that change will be different for different groups.

Gaming is a subculture which consists of millions of people. It stands to reason that gamers were going to develop terms to be able to discuss what they are interested in. Someone standing outside the gaming subculture looking in may find the use of such terms perplexing, but to those inside it’s just how it is.

Good luck with the game. I hope you find PoF to be to your liking. Based on the trends I saw in Living Story Season 3, I think there is at least a chance you will.

Another thread i’ve been following that i feel is troll and decided to comment on….

This game is pretty kitten causal, here is the problem CORE tyria does not teach its players how to do anything besides auto attack and maybe cast heal for the majority of the content. With HoT and a few other parts of the game it expects and hopes that you learned to do more then that. IE learned the really big and basic tells for stuns/aoe damaging moves and dodging.

With what you believe is a “casual” game is what i feel others would considering a “walking-simulator” game as they have NO/little challenge (think Firewatch/Stanly Parable). There are also games like Skyrim/Mass Effect/Witcher/Fallout in which you can set the difficulty/abuse hacks/console to overpower any/all content while living/enjoy a impressive world which seems to be what you want. Look for these games not and MMORPGS.

You want stories not a game/challenge don’t try to dumb down a game because you it does not fit what you want.

Mastermavrick.2439:

You want stories not a game/challenge don’t try to dumb down a game because you it does not fit what you want.

I disagree with most what you wrote, but i think you have one valid point:

There should have been some really dangerous creatures in core-Tyrias open world with possibility to finish players with one hit.

There is no sense in huge monsters like, for example, Ettins too weak to beat you.

If they would able one-hitting everybody, this would force all players, learning some tactics to avoid these hits.

I was free to play player for 1 year or so. When i bought HoT, yes it was huge step forward in both mechanics and build, but i think it was anets intention to drasticaly change playstyle and made it more challenging. Lets be honest, old world exploration is rlly boring since u can and u will faceroll everything there, so it feels more like playing farmville than some mmo.

by definition of ‘casual’ what poster of the thread is reffering people should roll yellow gear zerker scepter necro and be able to solo raids.
thats not being casual, its being hipster, person who thrives to be different and complain about mainstreams or written min-max builds in this case.
open world content is easy to the point u can roll previously mentioned build and.
end game content is about min-maxing as it should be its no meant for hipster-style people who will try to tank red aoes on the ground just cuz everyone else is avoiding them.
PoF will give us another drastic change of playstyle what game is all about, diversity.
the conclusion here is, u can play PoF with hipster style and enjoy it but u cant expect to be able to raid and do endgame content with that.

Daddicus.6128:

STIHL.2489:

Which now begs the question, if we always understood that “casual” was a mindset when talking about any other activity, why do we suddenly get so confused when it gets applied to games?

That’s easy to answer: hardcores didn’t like being grossly outnumbered on the forums and even more-so in-game. So, they artificially broke up the definition of casual so they could argue against specific subsets of casual play. Thus, they “won” the arguments more.

Unfortunately, ANet believed them, and almost destroyed the game trying to cater to them.

But, being crushed in the marketplace caused ANet to reconsider, and they’ve moved back much closer to where they were in the beginning. Except for mapping, and for failing to nerf HoT mobs a little bit more, I think they’ve done well. They can’t go too far in the casual direction, because the game does have many hardcore players. They don’t want to alienate them any more than they did casual players with HoT.

Anet wanted to be more hardcore because they were introducing raiding, and the PvP “esport” idea. “Esports” didn’t work out well either. So now they have driven off many of the casual players that loved GW2 from the beginning. Even if they make PoF more casual friendly, they aren’t going to get all those players back as they have moved on to other things.

Djinn.9245:

Even if they make PoF more casual friendly, they aren’t going to get all those players back as they have moved on to other things.

No, but there is constant stream of new players, because the core game is free. Those, when finsihing free content and reaching HoT, were faced with the decision to pay or not. That also meant relearning how to play, forgetting the good things about core game and paying for things only fraction of players wanted.

Now with PoF it looks like Anet is providing a way to continue playing, and same time, pay for the game, while having same playstyle they all liked in core game.

I have seen many players being confused about this, they think since HoT was released earlie you have to play through HoT before starting up PoF. That is totally untrue, while you can buy HoT in the future too, and play in those maps like some twisted horrific alternative gamemode, the actual path to continue from free core game is to go into PoF areas.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

‘Real casuals’? So, a player is only a ‘real casual’ if they agree with you? Does that mean all other players are hardcore?

For me, personally, I think the hardcore groups would laugh at me, and my lack of builds, Mastery Points, and carefree attitude toward gaming.

I’m concerned that you believe there are only 2 extremes here, no range in the middle?

As for your personal effort while still not finding the game difficult, it happens all the time that people are naturally good at a skill. There are people who just pick up playing an instrument or easily understand math, etc. The fact that some people don’t have to “try” to be good at something doesn’t mean that the thing they are good at is easy. It is easy for them to be sure, but that doesn’t mean it is easy for everyone.

FogLeg.9354:

Djinn.9245:

Even if they make PoF more casual friendly, they aren’t going to get all those players back as they have moved on to other things.

No, but there is constant stream of new players, because the core game is free. Those, when finsihing free content and reaching HoT, were faced with the decision to pay or not. That also meant relearning how to play, forgetting the good things about core game and paying for things only fraction of players wanted.

Now with PoF it looks like Anet is providing a way to continue playing, and same time, pay for the game, while having same playstyle they all liked in core game.

I have seen many players being confused about this, they think since HoT was released earlie you have to play through HoT before starting up PoF. That is totally untrue, while you can buy HoT in the future too, and play in those maps like some twisted horrific alternative gamemode, the actual path to continue from free core game is to go into PoF areas.

This is one of the things that is wrong with GW2 in general. Many people didn’t understand how to get to HoT and now they won’t understand how to get to PoF. So many things in GW2 are not quickly apparent in-game, that you need to look up.

Snowywonders.1378:

Verdant Brink a “ginormous jump puzzles”
Draconis mons “impossible to travel without guides”

The worst part is these things are said as undisputable facts. It’s so sad. Hopefully Anet just ignores these trolls.

Yeah, VB is a “jump puzzle” because gliding into an updraft or jumping on to a bounce mushroom requires a great deal of proficiency, right?

Draconis Mons is “impossible to travel without guides”…despite being basically a big open space that allows you to quickly reach a high point with the spiderman mastery and then glide down to virtually any point on the map.

Clearly, the people saying these things spent more than 5 minutes playing on these maps before reaching their conclusions.

AliamRationem.5172:

Snowywonders.1378:

Verdant Brink a “ginormous jump puzzles”
Draconis mons “impossible to travel without guides”

The worst part is these things are said as undisputable facts. It’s so sad. Hopefully Anet just ignores these trolls.

Yeah, VB is a “jump puzzle” because gliding into an updraft or jumping on to a bounce mushroom requires a great deal of proficiency, right?

Have you considered that players come into Verdant Brink with none of the masteries you are talking about? Clearly you haven’t.

For those mocking this player because he thought the HoT maps were too difficult, there were many people that agreed with him. It was kinda annoying to go from the core game to the HoT maps and find that I couldn’t explore it without encountering things that killed me as soon as I ventured into the map, at least until I had achieved masteries. It would have been one thing if event monsters did this, but things like pocket rapters, etc, killing you before you could outrun them kinda sucked. I enjoy those maps now, rarely die in them, but I found it very frustrating and I regretted buying HoT for quite awhile after I had made the purchase. I still have HoT complete map completion on only my main character. I am not into hero point trains, or running to keep up with other players, or haunting hero points until someone shows up to help me get through it. The only map I really mastered was Verdant Brink. The others I just lost patience with. It isn’t that I couldn’t do it, it is just I didn’t want to do it. And I have Tyrian map completion in over 12 characters.

Mastermavrick.2439:

Another thread i’ve been following that i feel is troll and decided to comment on….

This game is pretty kitten causal, here is the problem CORE tyria does not teach its players how to do anything besides auto attack and maybe cast heal for the majority of the content. With HoT and a few other parts of the game it expects and hopes that you learned to do more then that. IE learned the really big and basic tells for stuns/aoe damaging moves and dodging.

Ok, well lets go with this. As you say, CORE Tyria is totally a face roll, Literally, poorly geared, even badly geared unskilled, players can log in and just enjoy it.

OK, well, it stands to reason, if the game was stupid hard walking in, that would have been an indication as to what demographic that company was looking to attract. Equally so, it boringly easy with a focus on fashion not lateral gear progression, that also should been this massive indication as to who the game is designed for.

So, at this little crossroads, which one of us is really in the person that didn’t get the clue, the one that came to the CORE game, that was painfully easy, a casuals paradise, and cried and whined that the game needed to be made harder to suit their needs, or, the player that simply wanted more of the same that they had already been enjoying?

With what you believe is a “casual” game is what i feel others would considering a “walking-simulator” game as they have NO/little challenge (think Firewatch/Stanly Parable). There are also games like Skyrim/Mass Effect/Witcher/Fallout in which you can set the difficulty/abuse hacks/console to overpower any/all content while living/enjoy a impressive world which seems to be what you want. Look for these games not and MMORPGS.

Ah, the recourse, to go play something else, well, the real question is, why don’t you follow your own advice, and as opposed to fussing at the devs to make what at its’ CORE was a very casual game harder, why didn’t you move on to a harder game, there is no shortage of them out there.

You want stories not a game/challenge don’t try to dumb down a game because you it does not fit what you want.

As you so clearly put, this game was “dumbed down” to start with, which is why us Filthy Casuals came here, the question is, why are you and your ilk here, if you didn’t like the CORE game, and wanted more of the same of it?

Before you ask me to leave to for asking for the game to be changed to suit my flavor, maybe you should have done what you ask others to do, and left before asking for the game to clanged to suit yours .

Or are you that kind of person that dispenses advice that you would never be willing to follow, because you know how bad and insulting it really is.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Good luck on the Devs considering your suggestions, whatever they may be.

I didn’t make any suggestions.

yah.. well.. this is awkward.

STIHL.2489:

But, if you really had not idea of the many thing that were done that made HoT unfriendly towards casual players, so much so that you needed to ask this question, I am going to wager that you are nowhere near close to being a casual player yourself, so, no offence to you in any way, but it would be impossible for you to gauge if PoE was in fact casual friendly or not, thus you really could not answer my question.

I consider myself a casual player – 4000 hours played, 16k AP, 5 legendary weapons + legendary backpack, do T4 fractals almost every day and here and there dabble into raiding. I had some troubles with HoT initially and even posted angry rants about it. But after some time everything became piece of cake. I know all HoT maps like my own backyard, finished all HoT story and maps achievements and now i don’t have any trouble running in the jungle on pure glass builds. So i say its l2p issue and a matter of giving it some time.

mbhalo.1547:

STIHL.2489:

But, if you really had not idea of the many thing that were done that made HoT unfriendly towards casual players, so much so that you needed to ask this question, I am going to wager that you are nowhere near close to being a casual player yourself, so, no offence to you in any way, but it would be impossible for you to gauge if PoE was in fact casual friendly or not, thus you really could not answer my question.

I consider myself a casual player – 4000 hours played, 16k AP, 5 legendary weapons + legendary backpack, do T4 fractals almost every day and here and there dabble into raiding.

With that resume.. you are very much alone in thinking you are a casual player.

mbhalo.1547:

STIHL.2489:

But, if you really had not idea of the many thing that were done that made HoT unfriendly towards casual players, so much so that you needed to ask this question, I am going to wager that you are nowhere near close to being a casual player yourself, so, no offence to you in any way, but it would be impossible for you to gauge if PoE was in fact casual friendly or not, thus you really could not answer my question.

I consider myself a casual player – 4000 hours played, 16k AP, 5 legendary weapons + legendary backpack, do T4 fractals almost every day and here and there dabble into raiding.

I’m honestly curious: why do you list all those things and call yourself “casual”? I mean what version of “casual” allows you to accomplish all that and still think you are “casual”?

Djinn.9245:

I’m honestly curious: why do you list all those things and call yourself “casual”? I mean what version of “casual” allows you to accomplish all that and still think you are “casual”?

Because i don’t tryhard and farm, i play on my own laid-back pace.

mbhalo.1547:

Djinn.9245:

I’m honestly curious: why do you list all those things and call yourself “casual”? I mean what version of “casual” allows you to accomplish all that and still think you are “casual”?

Because i don’t tryhard and farm, i play on my own laid-back pace.

I wish I could accomplish all that by not trying hard :/

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

Snowywonders.1378:

Verdant Brink a “ginormous jump puzzles”
Draconis mons “impossible to travel without guides”

The worst part is these things are said as undisputable facts. It’s so sad. Hopefully Anet just ignores these trolls.

Yeah, VB is a “jump puzzle” because gliding into an updraft or jumping on to a bounce mushroom requires a great deal of proficiency, right?

Have you considered that players come into Verdant Brink with none of the masteries you are talking about? Clearly you haven’t.

Yeah, you’re right. I was one of the anointed few who was given access to all of the HoT masteries from the start. Lucky me!

So what does this have to do with the claim that VB is one gigantic “jump puzzle” exactly? The fact that you have to explore, play, and progress through the jungle was by design and I really don’t see how it precludes casual players at all.

Flatley.1620:

mbhalo.1547:

Djinn.9245:

I’m honestly curious: why do you list all those things and call yourself “casual”? I mean what version of “casual” allows you to accomplish all that and still think you are “casual”?

Because i don’t tryhard and farm, i play on my own laid-back pace.

I wish I could accomplish all that by not trying hard :/

Don’t mind people like them man, I mean think about it, 4000 hours translates to 15 hours a week ,every singe week, without fail, for the last 5 years straight, and that’s just played time, that would not include all the time they spent reading guides, meta build designing, on top of watching vids, and learning how to play.

You can’t take people like that seriously, I mean they even said “it’s a l2p issue” you don’t get any more elitist then that.

STIHL.2489:

Flatley.1620:

mbhalo.1547:

Djinn.9245:

I’m honestly curious: why do you list all those things and call yourself “casual”? I mean what version of “casual” allows you to accomplish all that and still think you are “casual”?

Because i don’t tryhard and farm, i play on my own laid-back pace.

I wish I could accomplish all that by not trying hard :/

Don’t mind people like them man, I mean think about it, 4000 hours translates to 15 hours a week ,every singe week, without fail, for the last 5 years straight, and that’s just played time, that would not include all the time they spent reading guides, meta build designing, on top of watching vids, and learning how to play.

You can’t take people like that seriously, I mean they even said “it’s a l2p issue” you don’t get any more elitist then that.

In fairness, it also includes time spent sitting around AFK in game while reading guides, watching videos, etc. So it probably evens out.

And 15 hours per week is pretty casual, honestly. That translates into a couple of hours per day…less than most people spend watching TV or BS’ing on the internet daily. Maybe you play less than that, but you don’t get to define the casual experience for everyone else any more than that guy does. The point being that speaking for casual players does not validate any of your points, because the fact is casuals are not a uniform group that play the way you do and share your views on the game.

To everyone that asked or called me on using the line “Real casual”

The above is why I do it.. too many posers come in to topics like this, and try to pretend to be something they are not.

But… 16k APs and 5 legendary’s? Casual?

AliamRationem.5172:

The point being that speaking for casual players does not validate any of your points, because the fact is casuals are not a uniform group that play the way you do and share your views on the game.

If you followed the topic, you would see that it’s pretty clear that I do speak for the real casuals, not the wannabes’ that try to pass off as ones, so they can say “l2p” and think anyone will actually listen to them.

AliamRationem.5172:

STIHL.2489:

Flatley.1620:

mbhalo.1547:

Djinn.9245:

I’m honestly curious: why do you list all those things and call yourself “casual”? I mean what version of “casual” allows you to accomplish all that and still think you are “casual”?

Because i don’t tryhard and farm, i play on my own laid-back pace.

I wish I could accomplish all that by not trying hard :/

Don’t mind people like them man, I mean think about it, 4000 hours translates to 15 hours a week ,every singe week, without fail, for the last 5 years straight, and that’s just played time, that would not include all the time they spent reading guides, meta build designing, on top of watching vids, and learning how to play.

You can’t take people like that seriously, I mean they even said “it’s a l2p issue” you don’t get any more elitist then that.

In fairness, it also includes time spent sitting around AFK in game while reading guides, watching videos, etc. So it probably evens out.

And 15 hours per week is pretty casual, honestly. That translates into a couple of hours per day…less than most people spend watching TV or BS’ing on the internet daily. Maybe you play less than that, but you don’t get to define the casual experience for everyone else any more than that guy does. The point being that speaking for casual players does not validate any of your points, because the fact is casuals are not a uniform group that play the way you do and share your views on the game.

Seconding this. Casual means a lot of things to a lot of people.

You can be casual if you only play a couple of hours a week (and 15 hours a week easily translates into like, only doing the dailies and the occasional afternoon during the weekend).

You can be casual if you don’t take part in buildcraft, competitive pvp or actively challenge yourself with things like 5-man raids and speed runs.

You can be casual if you don’t rush to max out a map, maybe you never do, because you take your time wandering around and taking screenshots of the scenery and discovering every nook and cranny.

What none of the complainers in this thread has done is define what you lot consider casual other than “not this”. People who occasionally open a guide or watch a video for a jumping puzzle or even spend a few months gathering the mats for a legendary aren’t hardcore, kitten .

STIHL.2489:

mbhalo.1547:

STIHL.2489:

But, if you really had not idea of the many thing that were done that made HoT unfriendly towards casual players, so much so that you needed to ask this question, I am going to wager that you are nowhere near close to being a casual player yourself, so, no offence to you in any way, but it would be impossible for you to gauge if PoE was in fact casual friendly or not, thus you really could not answer my question.

I consider myself a casual player – 4000 hours played, 16k AP, 5 legendary weapons + legendary backpack, do T4 fractals almost every day and here and there dabble into raiding.

With that resume.. you are very much alone in thinking you are a casual player.

There are all sorts of people who have that sort of resume and consider themselves to be casual.

I don’t know why you keep insisting that there’s some set definition of the term, when clearly this thread (as well as others) show otherwise. More importantly, we can have a perfectly good discussion about what sort of game GW2 was, is, and is becoming, without using the term at all. Instead, we can describe the aspects & gameplay important to us, that might (or might not) be part of our understanding of casual.

The value of words is that they help us communicate with each other. When a word’s meaning is becoming the topic of discussion, it’s time to use different words — “casual” is an impediment to discussing the changes that concern you; try to rephrase, please.

Here’s my definition of casual; yours, undoubtably will differ and this is how I see myself:

Plays perhaps an hour a day
Groups on the rarist of occassions
Will never get a legendary due to time sinks
Will never get all MP’s
Never raids, does fractals
Isn"t concerned about raids, fractals, APs
Has resigned themselves to all of the above but…

… still enjoys playing

STIHL.2489:

Well, it’s been a while since I posted, or played for that matter, I hope things have been going well for all of you , that populations are tip top, pugs for dungeons and meta events are plentiful, and that WvW and sPvP are brimming with players. I know most people would dream that a game would collapse behind them when they left, but, I had no such dream, in fact, I hoped things would go well enough to justify a whole new expansion, and it seems it has. So. ta da.. I’m back to check it out .

Now, I left because I was unhappy with the HoT expansion and as opposed to playing a game past its’ point of fun, I simply took my own advice and moved on to other games.

HoT made it clear that Anet was moving away from it’s casual base to cater to other gamer demographics, which is fine, it’s their game, and they have every right to do whatever they want with it, my only option is play or not play , so I opted out, but, I am piqued about PoF, however before I download the game, I am wondering if PoF is more like the Core game, or is it more like HoT.

Having started in the first beta weekend, I agree at HoT was far more amped up than Siverwastes. You got hit with raw difficulty coming into Verdant brink. I had to change gear for more survival and more cleaving/aoe DMG to solo things. While VB was super cool and artistic in the sense that all of these vines were launching up from the base of the jungle to impale airships, figuring out how to get to HP or Mastery Points was not easy. Some times airships were up to get to the canopy, sometimes not. When you are first working on gliding, you die from dropping because you can’t go unlimited distances.

All that said, I do enjoy HoT. It is doable after it was merged so if you stopped the first three months of release, it has gotten easier.

Comparing what I just played, PoF feels like a really nice balance of the two.

I will be supporting anet and buying the xpac because I think LS3 showed me that they have found a balance that I like for casual with some challenge and exploration, and story telling that makes me want to hear the next part and see where it goes. I like there business model, I like the cap at 80 and gearing tears not changing.

Overall, lookin forward to it. And succinctly, no, the part that we saw of PoF was really horizontal, much more akin to classic zones.

Flatley.1620:

Here’s my definition of casual; yours, undoubtably will differ and this is how I see myself:

Plays perhaps an hour a day
Groups on the rarist of occassions
Will never get a legendary due to time sinks
Will never get all MP’s
Never raids, does fractals
Isn"t concerned about raids, fractals, APs
Has resigned themselves to all of the above but…

… still enjoys playing

I recall in WoW it seemed to suggest the player was not into organized group content (ranked PvP, raids, etc.) that generally required players to plan around their teammates schedule. In other words, “casual” indicates an unwillingness to plan their life around the game.

So maybe they only played an hour per day sometimes, and other times they would play for hours at a time. Sometimes you wouldn’t see them for a week or two, and other times they’d go on a binge all weekend. But what they wouldn’t do was commit to showing up at a scheduled time.

I guess it means different things to different people, but since organized group content is a relatively small part of GW2, I always considered it a “casual” game for that reason.

STIHL.2489:

AliamRationem.5172:

The point being that speaking for casual players does not validate any of your points, because the fact is casuals are not a uniform group that play the way you do and share your views on the game.

If you followed the topic, you would see that it’s pretty clear that I do speak for the real casuals, not the wannabes’ that try to pass off as ones, so they can say “l2p” and think anyone will actually listen to them.

You do not represent the casuals and I am far from being a wannabe. Your experience in game is nothing more than subjective.

Sarpan.9074:

If you don’t like the game, don’t play it. Simple.

Not attacking you personally here, but this attitude is why we’ve bled so many players. Rather than adhering to the promise of their initial offering, Anet gave their devs a free hand to squander funds on tangential and unnecessary experiments.

GW2 was sold as the ‘game for the rest of us.’ And it delivered. Nothing trying on overland maps. Amazing visuals, puzzles and platforms, a bit of crafting, and all of it with the non-gamebreaking, opt in and out flavour coined by Warhammer. Game modes to please everyone that weren’t ‘necessary’ to take part in to ‘succeed.’

There was a personal story arc and a living world element tying it all together(similar to Lotro’s Books- once they’d been made solo friendly.) The story was woven into the dungeons so there was instant familiarity and a sense of purpose when you played. All of these were good.

HoT broke faith. Rather than saying, ‘Play how and wherever you wish,’ there was one path to mastery and elite spec lines. There was WvW for some, but if neither a WvW player, or a jumping enthusiast, or someone who enjoyed the world boss train you were out of luck. As it was HoT meta maps seemed to be a passive aggressive middle finger to world train crowd who cried when rewards were cut. ‘Love trains? Here’s four maps that are endless trains with steep victory conditions tossed in.’

From the beginning devs have talked out of both sides of their mouths, saying, ‘play as you want,’ in order to sucker us in and then afterwards making punitive changes- either to classes, or to the game modes. GW2 has the more the feeling of a behavioural science experiment, one we’ve somehow failed without even knowing it. Why?

Because apparently we weren’t playing how they wanted us to play as we wanted to play. If that was confusing, good, because it was just as confusing whenever the changes were made. Still is.

They made a brand, built expectations, then broke them by trying to be something they weren’t. Rather than letting us play ala cart, gw2 became a study in ala cart games development. Devs expected customers to pre-purchase based on previously established brand identity/expectations, but in truth they ended up subsidising their failed experiments. You want spoiled? You want entitlement? There you have it.

They had one job: stay the course, deliver an ongoing experience consistent to what came before. They didn’t. And not only did they not deliver, but they aggressively ignored their players in doing so.(Go ahead. Drop the mic again- see how that works.)

That consistency equaled:

-A new, easily navigable, overworld map section divided by mini hubs(hearts).

-A new, story-relevant, dungeon hub with attendant cosmetics for weapons and armours.

-A new, story relevant, wvw map consistent thematically to the newly opened zones.

-A new pvp tournament event.

-A new chapter of living story, furthering the story which came before; with the end goal of eventually besting the world dragons as the zones where their respective domains exist were opened up.

-A new fractal.

And they could have added raids to that. There’s your new addition.

That’s right, raids weren’t the problem either. They have a place in GW2 beside dungeons for providing additional story progression. And as such, they could have been one of many reasons to call friends over from other games- so long as Anet kept consistent with the other modes. They didn’t and it’s that simple.

And this is why it’s so grating whenever players, satisfied with their experiences, feel free to tell others to quit playing. The alienated player base is just as invested. Perhaps even more if it comes down to moneys spent.

So that said, I’d probably agree with them, provided Anet refunded them the moneys spent for dyes, toys, cosmetics, pets, and other gems purchases bought with actual world moneys. These were purchased in good faith with the understanding that the GW2 experience going forward would keep consistent. It would be a world they would continue to want to play in. But that wasn’t happening, was it? Nor is it.

Saying, ‘No, you still have them, and you’re free to enjoy them for as long as you stay in Tyria.’ was -and is- a bunch of mealy-mouthed, weasel-worded, coward speak. How does players enjoy themselves if their guild has jumped ship to another game? They don’t.

Anet is irresponsible with the moneys given to them. They need someone more in tune with business and brand consistency riding herd to make certain that what they deliver isn’t going to alienate half or more of a loyal following. Afterwards there needs to be an apology.

And in light of that, the open letter to the community before the preview of PoF was just insulting. Don’t hold a knife to my throat in a blind alley, violate me, then have the gall to paste an open letter on the wall of the alley a year and a half later, whingeing about not having found enough money in my wallet when you’d mugged me afterwards. Telling me not to reflect on the ‘bad times’ but instead to look ahead(possibly to another violation in the making)doesn’t play well. Especially when there wasn’t a sincere apology anywhere within the letter.

Take up painting on your own dime if you want to seek challenge or artistic fulfillment. If your intent is to make money and to have a product that doesn’t end up at the bottom of the heap, then you suck it up, show up every day, leave your ego at the door, and continue to please your customers.

Right now, PoF seems to be another debacle in the making- yet another instance of telling us how to play the way we want. Or rather -‘Play however you want, so long as it’s here and it’s this way.' with nothing but another year or so of silence to follow as the devs go to ground and nurse their wounded egos.

You won’t be able to effortlessly faceroll through content. Some of the mobs are already a step up above HoT in terms of challenge.

‘fraid to tell you this, but you’re gonna have to get your gloves on. Things might get dirty.

Genesis.5169:

This is the most casual MMO on the market, if it gets anymore casual i wouldn’t be able to discern this game from candy crush saga.

This is not a joke, this is the most casual an mmo gets, death has no penalty, you can undo stats on Ascended, everything progresses you in some way even just mindlessly killing things on the map will some what progress you if you salvage, you can play this entire game single player with no issues. You don’t have to talk to anyone ever if you don’t want to. You can spec anyway you want to no matter how bad your build is in 70% of the game, Seriously there are like a billion things that this game forgives you for that games like ff14 don’t and even ff14 is casual compared to things like tera or skyforge.

To the issues of navigation, the only place i have had some difficulty in navigating was tangled depth, which I am pretty kitten sure that was intended just from the name of the map.

Now for my humble opinion i hope i don’t get an infraction for this but i want to be honest, i really don’t want people like you around in this game i honestly do not believe you guys can be satisfied unless the entire game played for you and you got legendaries just for a login, you guy would remove any mechanics for classes of real consequence. We would see the end of condition damage in pvp invuls and dodges that damage. It wouldn’t end there you people would rampage into Raid and fotm and demand that other players cater to your inadequacies for the sake of your fun, kitten the rest of the people there.

I humbly do not want you people to play this game i humble hope the devs ignore this thread and move on and for that i apologize, might i suggest candy crush saga there no pressure and you can play at your own pace.

You’re right: this game IS designed for casuals.

Which is why the vast majority of its players play it. And, it’s how it created that player base in the first place.

And that’s a GOOD thing.

Sarpan.9074:

If you have not played through LWS3 how can you be critical of it?

That’s a good point, but perhaps some background can explain it:

When HoT came out, there were at least four kinds of players.

1. Those who loved it.
2. Those who hated it.
3. Those who liked it.
4. Those who didn’t like it.

Of those, the second group fragmented: many quit the game. Many stayed and stuck it out. STIHL was one of those who left.

So, he wasn’t around when LWS3 came out. But, I was, and I remember being apprehensive about it. ANet had admitted that they had made huge blunders with HoT. But, they only corrected some of them. When LWS3 chapter 1 came out, I didn’t play it for a while. Frankly, I was scared it would be more like HoT than the core game, and if it was, I would have left as well.

STIHL is going through that same apprehension now. I understand the feeling very well.

But, that’s why I’ve been posting positive posts about LWS3: because ANet went at least halfway back to the game that attracted us in the first place. I can only hope PoF does the same, but I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. They need money to stay in business, and the game overall is still darned good. So, they’ll get my money.

However, they’ll get it somewhat reluctantly. If PoF looks closer to LWS3 than HoT, it will be money well-spent. If the reverse, it will be the beginning of the end for players like STIHL and me.

Edited to add: #2 was by far the biggest group on the forums. But, most of #3 and #4 don’t post, so #2 is probably only a plurality of actual players.

I’m basically a retired player, what’s not to like about the new stuff? You can glide pretty much right off the bat, you can ride a raptor mount right off the bat with both new expansions. You don’t have to farm much or do the raids or dungeons if you don’t want to and just chill, socialize, have fun with some group events when you feel like it, run past mobs, just build for a bit of survivability. If you’re skilled, go solo some champs and events, no prob to keep your muscles warm. Have friends port you into new maps and just explore. Some places i can’t reach without certain masteries and im like oh well. I’m too lazy to grind for more ascended gear or max out masteries these days, my intense days are over, but i’m still enjoying myself. I think eventually i’ll complete most of the content over a long time. How is it bad to play casually? You can definitely play casually if you want to

Does not matter what you call them “casual”, low intesnsity", “noob”, etc. What really matters is that HoT was a massive failure. Never before has a AAA MMO had it first xpac fail utterly. EQ, WOW, FFXIV, etc all of these did not see a drop in players/income until they were three or four or more xpacs in.

These are public facts. Any one can look at the financial reports and see how GW2 income plunged. The lead designer was fired because HoT was such a failure.

So for the tens of thousands of ex-GW2 players who left because HoT was annoying (hard or easy is not the question). It failed because people did not like playing the zones. The vast majority of players did not care about hardcore raiding or eSports.

So question is did they learn their lesson. Will we get back to the orginal GW2 that sold by the truck loads. I am still not sure. But so far it seems like they are doing a few things right.

Endest.5729:

Does not matter what you call them “casual”, low intesnsity", “noob”, etc. What really matters is that HoT was a massive failure. Never before has a AAA MMO had it first xpac fail utterly. EQ, WOW, FFXIV, etc all of these did not see a drop in players/income until they were three or four or more xpacs in.

These are public facts. Any one can look at the financial reports and see how GW2 income plunged. The lead designer was fired because HoT was such a failure.

So for the tens of thousands of ex-GW2 players who left because HoT was annoying (hard or easy is not the question). It failed because people did not like playing the zones. The vast majority of players did not care about hardcore raiding or eSports.

So question is did they learn their lesson. Will we get back to the orginal GW2 that sold by the truck loads. I am still not sure. But so far it seems like they are doing a few things right.

Last time I checked I can still log into the game! It’s far from a massive failure.

I get it you feel you got a Pinto instead of a Ferrari. I mean we are talking about a VIDEO GAME!

STIHL.2489:

Thank you very much for your candor, and in the spirit of sharing such open honesty, I can sincerely say, I feel the same way about people such as yourself.

Now the real question is not why a filthy casual such as myself is playing this originally super casual friendly game, I mean lest get real, if this is the most casual game out there, there really is no lower tier games to move to, and viola, a bunch of filthy casuals come to play it. That’s pretty much self explanatory of why I came to GW2 originally.

Which brings us to the real question, if there are already many games out there, like TERA, and Skyforge, etc, that are a higher skill bracket and more a challenge, why are you here?

See the casual player is no out of place playing a casual game, however the player crying for more challenge that came to a casual friendly game is.

This the elephant in the room, when these discussions happen is, Why did you not play those many, many, other games that offer you the challenge you claim you seek, and instead come here to mussy up my filthy super casual game?

Care to field that one?

See, this is the most casual game out there, as such, it is my ONLY option, if I want to play a Casual MMO, but , you.. Oh you’re so much better then me, and thus have all these many other options open to you, games that offer you multitudes of raids, challenging end game content, an all the things you claim you seek.

Yet.. your’re here.. not there. You’re playing what you consider just a step above candy crush saga, when there is a legion of other harder more challenging MMOs out there waiting for you.

Why is that?

See., if we are going to be candid with each other, I belonged here from the start.. You never did.

Not the person you replied to but your question stood out to me.

Why do I play GW2 as a casual who likes some challenge? Because I’ve played many, many other MMO’s and they always end up being a gear slog and a job I’m not getting paid to do (or am paying for the “privilege” to do). Sure they might have some content I like, but that doesn’t change the fact that I had to keep playing and running new content repeatedly ASAP because gear stats were constantly being inflated.

I also was never super into the lore of most other games, and those I did like got retconned to heck and back.

I’ve done the whole hardcore/tryhard thing — I’ve even done competitive gaming in an FPS — and I didn’t actually enjoy a lot of it, and that’s just not me anymore. GW2 is casual with some harder content. Some of it is overtuned (Looking at you, LW2 story), but that’s been getting better and if you were to marathon LW2->HoT->LW3 it would be extremely obvious how they realized the difficulty was too much and have been toning it way down lately, and it’s looking like PoF continues that trend. Same goes with the map design with the exception of Draconis Mons.

Other games also don’t have WvWvW, which is essentially massive casual PvP. WvW can be as hardcore or as casual as you want, which is a good description of GW2 in general. You can do raids and T4 fractals and min-max everything, or you can just stroll around exploring and crafting. The best part? No matter how hardcore or casual people are, everyone has access to essentially the same gear. You can take a break for a few years like I did, come back, and not have to spend days or weeks grinding out gear just so you can play basic PvE without getting one-shot.

It sucks that you don’t really like GW2, but that can just mean it’s not the game for you. Sometimes what sounds good on paper just doesn’t match up with what you like, for whatever reason. The good news with GW2 is you can take a break for however long you need, wait for PoF to come out to see how that goes, check out other MMO’s, etc., and if you decide to come back you’ll be no further behind than you were when you left and be a heck of a lot less stressed.

But for people like me, there’s no alternative, either. Sure we may like some challenging content, but it’s not fun when you’re forced to do it to remain casual. And when lore is taken into account instead of just gameplay… Well, it’s hard to leave a game when you’ve been heavily invested in the lore for 12 years and the gameplay itself is everything you want with just a few hiccups and warts here and there.

Rhanoa.3960:

Last time I checked I can still log into the game! It’s far from a massive failure.

I get it you feel you got a Pinto instead of a Ferrari. I mean we are talking about a VIDEO GAME!

Yea, I can log onto Wildstar too. That is a pretty low bar. Wildstar was a AAA failure just like HoT. GW2 got a second chance. WS did not. But I doubt GW2 will get a third chance…

So question is will they listen to the forums who still defend HoT and want more of the same? Or will they try to win back the fans of the original GW2?

Freaking HOT was bad because of the map navigation. Some people call that challenging others say its annoying. It comes down to what the person thinks it means. I myself like challenging content not bad map design which HOT was to me. I hated the game everytime i went on that map. And it changed the players attitude toward each other to be more selfish. GW2 was a really great game with a equally great community and HOT even changed that.

Endest.5729:

Does not matter what you call them “casual”, low intesnsity", “noob”, etc. What really matters is that HoT was a massive failure. Never before has a AAA MMO had it first xpac fail utterly. EQ, WOW, FFXIV, etc all of these did not see a drop in players/income until they were three or four or more xpacs in.

HoT wasn’t a massive failure. ANet sold a lot of games. They just didn’t sell nearly as many as they (or NCSOFT investors) expected.

Had it been an actual failure (let alone epic), we wouldn’t be seeing a second expac.