Guild Wars 2

STIHL.2489:

Ardid.7203:

The OP didn’t used the word “Casual” in the opening post to clarify his point and elaborate a clear question.

Quite the oposite.

He used the word “Casual” to give an artificial weight to his general opinion in the thread through a false sense of representation of a certain “group”. Then left an open ended question to generate debate.

His specific definition of “Casual” came in much later, when the thread had already devolved into a fist salad.

As I am starting to see, so the problem with this topic is that I did not start it with one of those big red Q’s, as such it seems that many of the people coming to this topic can’t seem to figure out that I was asking a question, not making a statement.

I’ll have to keep that in mind in the future, and now it suddenly makes sense why Anet put in the option for those big red Q’s.

Oh, poor you.

You’ve made plenty of statements by now. I’m sorry that your thread didn’t begin and end with “HoT sucks, but I can’t tell if PoF is going to.”

I am another one that is back to try Path of Fire. I like the connection back to GW1. The mount that I got to try was interesting. I like the idea of learning to get better with your mount.

HoT on the other hand was a very anti casual and elitist focused expansion. I have played a lot of different games and Heart of Thorns is easily my most disliked expansion. After how much I liked the base GW2, HoT was truly a disappointment.

Edit: I am a person who does not have a large amount of time to play. Crossing the HoT maps is extremely tedious and not fun. Mastery points were the mobs respawn faster that my under geared character can kill them really irritated me. Heart of Thorns was like Arena Net statement that casual players just do not count.

I am casual, this is due to being a Paramedic and working around 60 hour shifts usually 12 hour days.

I litterally have enough time during the working days to login do dailies then fall to sleep after shift, i then play 4- 6 hours on my rest days.

Now im not complaining, i have no issues taking longer etc.

What does annoy me for example, ive taken over 3 months to aquire a full vipers set of trinkets over 3 LS maps, faming jades/ berries / wood.

To have the goal post now move, so it seems after expansion my Neco Vipers main will not be meta, and i will be forced back down the power ruit, and really the time involved is putting me off… ive become disheartened with all this and not logged in for 5 days

Vayne.8563:

I’m not being wishful. There are maps that have been in development for a short time that are vertical. If the verticality was so universally decried, these maps would have been different. It’s very simple.

Your statement is based on a tiny demo section on an expansion, an expansion that Mo said straight out would have areas with great verticality. He wouldn’t have said/stressed that if it was an issue for most.

What you don’t seem to be understanding is that it’s not the verticality that’s the problem. It’s the almost-complete lack of mapping tools to navigate the verticality.

Why are there five levels to Draconis Mons, but only three show up on the main world map? (I’m being generous with “five”; by some counts it could be seven.) Why is the mini-map frequently dead wrong about where you are (vertically)? Why do hardly any of the vertical “elevators” (for lack of a better word) show up on either map? (Like updrafts)

Dashingsteel.3410:

already been through it???? What did everyone decide the definition of casual is?

Casual is a continuum of combined responses on a number of questions. No single issue defines casual. See the top post on page seven of the thread.

So you’re saying nobody can pinpoint exactly what casual is? This vagueness is exactly why I am complaining about this thread. How are the developers supposed to remember the casuals when they don’t know exactly which combined reponses are "TRUE"casual and other responses are not.

Give the developers specifics to address.

Would the definition not be : “Has enough time to just get the bare minimum done”

Manijin.3428:

STIHL.2489:

You’re about 2 years late for the kind of care to have that discussion anymore, and truth be told, I have zero desire to repeat what others before me already said, since for the most part, they said it better then I could.

I am sure the Topics are still round here someplace, maybe in the HoT sub forums, feel free to peruse them, I am sure there might be still be a dozen or so left that only got locked and not deleted.

So… basically, instead of answering my questions, you claim that I don’t really care?

No. I am claiming that I (me) don’t care enough to rehash old arguments. It was not fun then, I doesn’t feel like fun now.

It was a subject that spanned thousands of posts, I doubt it was an ‘easy answer’. As for HoT, it still feels like the same old Rat-Maze it felt like when I first played it.

STIHL.2489:

Simply put, after a year and giving the HoT maps another go, I can say, these maps will never grow on me.

Actually, they might. To complete the storyline is certainly gated (by masteries/XP/MPs). But, it goes through the zones without tackling much of the maps. I haven’t tested the theory, but my guess is that going through the story reveals only 20-30% of the maps.

My problem is I like to explore, so getting to the other 70% happened early enough to leave a very bad taste in my mouth. Plus, exploring is very different from following the green stars.

Also, the XP piece of the early gating was a major annoyance. You’re forced to get around 200k XP just to continue to in the very early parts of the story.

The trick I learned to help me was to go through it on 2-3 characters simultaneously. The XP from each character applies to the whole mastery process. Plus, I didn’t have to figure out which direction to go nearly as often.

I think it’s straying from the storyline that makes the mapping difficult. Even the storyline has it’s bad places, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. But, mapping the zone is … well best done with a friend. I did it alone most times, but it’s so doggone frustrating that way. (Except on my minion necro, who basically doesn’t die — even in most areas of HoT.)

Ping or email me in-game. I should be on tonight from 7 PM to 9 or 10 (US central time). I’ll cut away from whatever I’m doing. (I’m also interested in seeing how a focused group of two fares, vs. doing the missions solo all the time.)

Flatley.1620:

Wow, the thread lives on!

With regard to HoT and casuality, and I may well be imagining it, but it seems a lot more casual friendly than it did when it first landed. Maybe it was getting certain masteries to enable easier travel and exploration, I dunno.

Mobs feel easier. I certainly haven’t “git bedder” as they say in the vernacular. I even managed to do the vine meta thing a couple of times. Weird.

You are quite right. There was a semi-famous “April patch” where they corrected many of the most egregious sins of HoT. I think they cut the number of mobs and the number of enemies in those mobs. Plus, they did a bunch of other stuff, like the blue and green up/down arrows.

The biggest problem I had was the gating. But, see my previous post for my “solution” to that.

Perhaps the title of your thread should have been "Has Anet remembered their customers who enjoyed the core game and didn’t like HoT?

There are very few things I like about HoT. I have talked to other players who consider themselves casual that do like HoT.

There are so many issues you need to be specific…. for example

- concern that Anet is turning the game into a movement skill game a la Nintendo(memorization and map puzzles instead of clearly defined routes, powerups to reach certain platforms, introducing adventures)
- turning guild halls into cynical gold sinks playing the game in general no longer helps the guild
- repackaging core content and putting it behind paywall(guild boons and fractal rewards)
- increasing the importance of jumping puzzles(making them requirements for collections, skins etc.)

If you don’t specify what you want, everyone is going to draw their own conclusion.

-

It’s quite a surprise that no1 mentioned the big big QoL update anet released last spring. B4 that all the wp in the HoT maps were locked until u did all the events, same went for adventures as most were locked until u did the whole meta and then had mb 10min to do the afdventures and u had the participation system were u had to reach 200% to get the most rewards. U basically had to invest 1+ hour in a single meta while now u can just hop on and reap all the rewards.

No1 also talked about the locked merchants that also got unlocked after the update. I remember having to do a whole cycle of ds just to talk to the merchant to get a gift or a machined sword or an insignia/inscription. Anet does remember the casuals and this was the biggest proof there ever was. And u literally couldnt progress on a map with no 30 people doing all the events so if u were playing on odd hours that was a nightmare.

Mind u that was pretty early and came due to the outcry that everything run on a very strict clock making it feel like a job instead of a game. In OP’s mind HoT might still not be casual friendly, the bigger picture however suggests otherwise.

Adry.7512:

Anet takes both the hardcore and casuals into account. You are very wrong on many points by the way.

How do they do that on either count? I’d be interested in hearing your explanation.

zoomborg.9462:

It’s quite a surprise that no1 mentioned the big big QoL update anet released last spring. B4 that all the wp in the HoT maps were locked until u did all the events, same went for adventures as most were locked until u did the whole meta and then had mb 10min to do the afdventures and u had the participation system were u had to reach 200% to get the most rewards. U basically had to invest 1+ hour in a single meta while now u can just hop on and reap all the rewards.

No1 also talked about the locked merchants that also got unlocked after the update. I remember having to do a whole cycle of ds just to talk to the merchant to get a gift or a machined sword or an insignia/inscription. Anet does remember the casuals and this was the biggest proof there ever was. And u literally couldnt progress on a map with no 30 people doing all the events so if u were playing on odd hours that was a nightmare.

Mind u that was pretty early and came due to the outcry that everything run on a very strict clock making it feel like a job instead of a game. In OP’s mind HoT might still not be casual friendly, the bigger picture however suggests otherwise.

They were not. No waypoints were locked in HoT except for Dragon’s Stand. All others were always available unless they were contested.

GreyWolf.8670:

zoomborg.9462:

It’s quite a surprise that no1 mentioned the big big QoL update anet released last spring. B4 that all the wp in the HoT maps were locked until u did all the events, same went for adventures as most were locked until u did the whole meta and then had mb 10min to do the afdventures and u had the participation system were u had to reach 200% to get the most rewards. U basically had to invest 1+ hour in a single meta while now u can just hop on and reap all the rewards.

No1 also talked about the locked merchants that also got unlocked after the update. I remember having to do a whole cycle of ds just to talk to the merchant to get a gift or a machined sword or an insignia/inscription. Anet does remember the casuals and this was the biggest proof there ever was. And u literally couldnt progress on a map with no 30 people doing all the events so if u were playing on odd hours that was a nightmare.

Mind u that was pretty early and came due to the outcry that everything run on a very strict clock making it feel like a job instead of a game. In OP’s mind HoT might still not be casual friendly, the bigger picture however suggests otherwise.

They were not. No waypoints were locked in HoT except for Dragon’s Stand. All others were always available unless they were contested.

All waypoints were pretty much locked. If u joined a new map in AB for meta u had to travel to every gate cause everything was locked. On VB every waypoint except the start of the map and central pact camp was locked. On TD some waypoints like ogre and scar were almost permanently locked and u had to use nuhoch wallows to get there. Same with Itzel. The only unlocked wp were the starting and Teku Nuhoch.

Contested=Locked, most waypoints had a whole chain of events b4 they stopped being contested. U can unlock scar waypoint by doing 2 events, rata by doing 1 event. Back then u had to do the whole chain to unlock them. Same with AB (fully do pylons) and VB (fully do outposts).

Unless there were 20+ people doing events u basically had to traverse the whole map to get to your destination. And if u joined moments after meta reset u were stuck unless u did the events chains.

GreyWolf.8670:

zoomborg.9462:

It’s quite a surprise that no1 mentioned the big big QoL update anet released last spring. B4 that all the wp in the HoT maps were locked until u did all the events, same went for adventures as most were locked until u did the whole meta and then had mb 10min to do the afdventures and u had the participation system were u had to reach 200% to get the most rewards. U basically had to invest 1+ hour in a single meta while now u can just hop on and reap all the rewards.

No1 also talked about the locked merchants that also got unlocked after the update. I remember having to do a whole cycle of ds just to talk to the merchant to get a gift or a machined sword or an insignia/inscription. Anet does remember the casuals and this was the biggest proof there ever was. And u literally couldnt progress on a map with no 30 people doing all the events so if u were playing on odd hours that was a nightmare.

Mind u that was pretty early and came due to the outcry that everything run on a very strict clock making it feel like a job instead of a game. In OP’s mind HoT might still not be casual friendly, the bigger picture however suggests otherwise.

They were not. No waypoints were locked in HoT except for Dragon’s Stand. All others were always available unless they were contested.

That is what they are were talking about, the Waypoints were contested/locked-up until events were completed, Now they are no longer such.

zoomborg.9462:

It’s quite a surprise that no1 mentioned the big big QoL update anet released last spring.

That would be because I left the game before that came about. I did mention that I have noticed that HoT is easier then I remember, while it still feels like a rat-maze, it’s much easier to just move about, explore and get around it now.

STIHL.2489:

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

This is such a bunch of nonsense. Where has the OP been clear about his definition of casual?

In several posts, including just before your post here.

AliamRationem.5172:

He took his own advice and left, but he never got over it and he’s back to argue the merits of it. Has ANet remembered the casuals? Yes. But that doesn’t mean the OP is going to get what he wants.

If you actually read the OP’s posts, he’s back because of PoF and wants to determine whether Anet has changed direction any from HoT. It’s actually pretty clear.

Well I thought it was pretty clear. which is making me wonder why it is acceptable to say things like “Learn to Play” or “git gud” when a player is struggling, but when people can’t seem to follow a simple point on a forum post, saying “learn to Read” is considered insulting and wrong?

Yep, and no one even said that. They only made a general comment not directed at any specific person. Interesting, huh?

STIHL.2489:

Manijin.3428:

STIHL.2489:

You’re about 2 years late for the kind of care to have that discussion anymore, and truth be told, I have zero desire to repeat what others before me already said, since for the most part, they said it better then I could.

I am sure the Topics are still round here someplace, maybe in the HoT sub forums, feel free to peruse them, I am sure there might be still be a dozen or so left that only got locked and not deleted.

So… basically, instead of answering my questions, you claim that I don’t really care?

No. I am claiming that I (me) don’t care enough to rehash old arguments. It was not fun then, I doesn’t feel like fun now.

It was a subject that spanned thousands of posts, I doubt it was an ‘easy answer’. As for HoT, it still feels like the same old Rat-Maze it felt like when I first played it.

I took a break from HoT and pretty much stuck to Tyria for quite a few months. I was overwhelmed. Slowly, I built up my gear, learned the mob tactics and improved my playstyle. I’ve only finished the maps on one player just recently. I still don’t prefer those maps, opting instead for the LW season 3 maps, which I think are much more fun. My favorites are Ember and Bitterfrost.

I think PoF will still require knowing mob tactics and making your tactics to deal with them. It doesn’t seem so crowded that you get ganked because you can’t find a safe place to think for a minute like HoT was. The sampling of events during the demo weekend was encouraging.

Expecting it to be like Tyria would be wrong, I think. I play solo almost 100%, but I’ve learned to discover or attract groups to get things done. I think that’s the best part of GW2, the casual players can run up to join in open world activities to get things done and then go on their own way. Others can still stay in structured parties and knock down objectives as a team.

I think ‘get gewd’ is annoying and harsh, but there’s a grain of truth in it. Anet is pushing us a bit. It started with Dry Top, Silverwastes and Labyrynthine cliffs. Then HoT dropped a bomb of higher difficulty content. HoT was scaled back a bit and reworked, plus the game stability eventually returned.

In addition, we now are getting regular fresh content. So, stay with us, stand with us and conquer the new stuff. There are so many willing to help with no strings attached.

What casuals want would kill any game immediately. All content eventually becomes old hat, and easy to do as videos come out and people become familiar with what’s new. Making easy to do content in an mmo is just immediate game death with no replayability. For me I played the most casually during my time in HoT, where I took things slow and just explored the maps ignoring meta events for a long time.

And the meta events are fun! It just wasn’t what I wanted to do when experiencing the new lush and beautiful maps.

I was a long time player and supporter of GW2 as long as HoT had not hit the shelves. I surely won´t preorder PoF and I am also not sure if I will order it anyway to give GW2 a try again.

I fought long and valiantly to stay in the game, even made most of the content in HoT. But raids, minigames, gating, platforming and a ls3 story that started strong but later made little sense and even less fun began to whittle at my resolve so I stopped login in at the start of the year.

I have no interest in mounts, but I am not really against them.

I welcome the return of flat maps, nothing except to wipe over and over again at the same mob puts me off from a game more quickly than running around the same terrain for hours to find the one hidden mountain path. My favorite terrains are in a descending ranking temperate plaine, savannah and tundra.

Mobs were not the problem of HoT if you could halfway play your class. A group content was really a group content in GW2 if you were halfway competent, a seasoned pro could also turn group content into solo content.

keenedge.9675:

I think ‘get gewd’ is annoying and harsh, but there’s a grain of truth in it. Anet is pushing us a bit. It started with Dry Top, Silverwastes and Labyrynthine cliffs. Then HoT dropped a bomb of higher difficulty content. HoT was scaled back a bit and reworked, plus the game stability eventually returned.

It started even earlier than that with Southsun and then with the design of LS1 mobs, that sadly disappeared. Also, the Mordrem mobs in Dry Top/Silverwastes were way harder than their Heart of Thorns versions.

I’m just gonna step in and name 3 things that make it kinda difficult for ANet to “remember” casuals while developing new expansions.

1. there is a definition for casual. BUT: it can be interpreted very widely

2. casuals want to stay casuals, but also be able to play all the content, otherwise they feel like ANet doesn’t “remember” them. but where do we have to draw the line? in hindsight of #1 – it is possible for one “casual” to play T4-Fractals, while another “casual” already considers them as too hard.

3. if ANet balances all their content to fit into the “casual needs”, they will lose a very big part of the community that wants more challenging content.

so maybe it’s time for you “casuals” to step up and dedicate yourself a little more to the game, or accept that there is a huuuge playerbase that wants challenging content, and you won’t be able to play it unless you step up and “git gud”.

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.

The new expansion is more about exploring maps and doing story. This is the main points of it. 5 new maps(not 4 like HoT), big maps, with a lot of separate events (not 1 big meta like Dragon Stand), big cities, pve content like bounty hunter contracts, mounts to make the exploration better and, I hope, a very cool story. I can admit that PoF is more like core game than HoT

Hyrai.8720:

I’m just gonna step in and name 3 things that make it kinda difficult for ANet to “remember” casuals while developing new expansions.

1. there is a definition for casual. BUT: it can be interpreted very widely

2. casuals want to stay casuals, but also be able to play all the content, otherwise they feel like ANet doesn’t “remember” them. but where do we have to draw the line? in hindsight of #1 – it is possible for one “casual” to play T4-Fractals, while another “casual” already considers them as too hard.

3. if ANet balances all their content to fit into the “casual needs”, they will lose a very big part of the community that wants more challenging content.

so maybe it’s time for you “casuals” to step up and dedicate yourself a little more to the game, or accept that there is a huuuge playerbase that wants challenging content, and you won’t be able to play it unless you step up and “git gud”.

I find your arguments highly debatable.

I do not know if there are many people that want to have mostly hard content.
You do neither.

The both of us only know for sure that HoT underperformed in certain areas on the income front for Anet, so I am leaning heavily on the assumption that the hardcore playerbase is not as big as you think.
Mind you that I did not say bombed entirely, but it did not fullfil the exceptions.

I also find it disturbing that you ask people to step up their game.
Maybe you should relax a little bit instead?
The Mount Everest of one guy is the Ant Hill of another.

Torolan.5816:

Hyrai.8720:

I’m just gonna step in and name 3 things that make it kinda difficult for ANet to “remember” casuals while developing new expansions.

1. there is a definition for casual. BUT: it can be interpreted very widely

2. casuals want to stay casuals, but also be able to play all the content, otherwise they feel like ANet doesn’t “remember” them. but where do we have to draw the line? in hindsight of #1 – it is possible for one “casual” to play T4-Fractals, while another “casual” already considers them as too hard.

3. if ANet balances all their content to fit into the “casual needs”, they will lose a very big part of the community that wants more challenging content.

so maybe it’s time for you “casuals” to step up and dedicate yourself a little more to the game, or accept that there is a huuuge playerbase that wants challenging content, and you won’t be able to play it unless you step up and “git gud”.

I find your arguments highly debatable.

I do not know if there are many people that want to have mostly hard content.
You do neither.

The both of us only know for sure that HoT underperformed in certain areas on the income front for Anet, so I am leaning heavily on the assumption that the hardcore playerbase is not as big as you think.
Mind you that I did not say bombed entirely, but it did not fullfil the exceptions.

I also find it disturbing that you ask people to step up their game.
Maybe you should relax a little bit instead?
The Mount Everest of one guy is the Ant Hill of another.

Again assumptions. People keep using this word fail when in actuality it didn’t meet predictions. Those are not the same thing. One could not meet a sales prediction several ways one of which includes Over-estimation which is a common place occurrence. That however does not mean the product failed. It could simply mean the product was adequate but there was a market shift(I.E people bored of RPG’s, now playing Moba’s or Shooters).

In fact, it’s pretty safe to say that given the metrics solely displayed by the Quarterly reports that HoT didn’t fail and retained players and kept a stable revenue source throughout its 2 year lifespan.

It’s also safe to say, that people who purchased HoT were not enthralled with some content/models. However, that also is not failing. That’s players overhyping and over estimating their own enjoyment factor.

imo as long as you don’t find a spiral staircase like draconis mons incredibly hard to navigate for some reason, navigation around the new map should be ultra ez.
If you cannot wrap your mind around the spiral staircase, even then the new map(s) are easy to navigate, since they’re one flat huge place, just like the starter zones or any other zone really. The mobs, i can’t really tell how strong they are but if you just stay out of range and use cripples or swiftness and blindness you should have a good time against anything.

TexZero.7910:

Again assumptions. People keep using this word fail when in actuality it didn’t meet predictions.

To be more specific, the expectation that “failed” was the conversion rate from free to play to paid customers. That’s what the official announcement say and what we know for sure, anything else is assumptions by players.

TexZero.7910:

I find your arguments highly debatable.

I do not know if there are many people that want to have mostly hard content.
You do neither.

The both of us only know for sure that HoT underperformed in certain areas on the income front for Anet, so I am leaning heavily on the assumption that the hardcore playerbase is not as big as you think.
Mind you that I did not say bombed entirely, but it did not fullfil the exceptions.

I also find it disturbing that you ask people to step up their game.
Maybe you should relax a little bit instead?
The Mount Everest of one guy is the Ant Hill of another.

Again assumptions. People keep using this word fail when in actuality it didn’t meet predictions. Those are not the same thing. One could not meet a sales prediction several ways one of which includes Over-estimation which is a common place occurrence. That however does not mean the product failed. It could simply mean the product was adequate but there was a market shift(I.E people bored of RPG’s, now playing Moba’s or Shooters).

In fact, it’s pretty safe to say that given the metrics solely displayed by the Quarterly reports that HoT didn’t fail and retained players and kept a stable revenue source throughout its 2 year lifespan.

It’s also safe to say, that people who purchased HoT were not enthralled with some content/models. However, that also is not failing. That’s players overhyping and over estimating their own enjoyment factor. [/quote]

Yeah well, I know that it has for some unethical reason become a practice to not quickly fire a CEO or other type of director who has not done his research and failed to predict a shifting market.

Failing to meet a prediction is indeed a common occurence. Companies who come into trouble at the stock market when this happens are common too. So what does this say about the business then? Market analysis is not an exact science like mathematics.

I am not entirely sure about the sales numbers anymore, my bad. But I pretty much remember that a healthy growth curve looks different.

Torolan.5816:

I find your arguments highly debatable.

I do not know if there are many people that want to have mostly hard content.
You do neither.

Considering the amount of players and guilds who run raids on a daily basis (which I doubt is possible for “casuals” by literal definition), I do know for sure, that there are a lot of people who like to play challenging content.
I’m sure this playerbase is not as big as the “casual” one, but definitely big enough to put resources into developing specific content for them.

Torolan.5816:

The both of us only know for sure that HoT underperformed in certain areas on the income front for Anet, so I am leaning heavily on the assumption that the hardcore playerbase is not as big as you think.
Mind you that I did not say bombed entirely, but it did not fullfil the exceptions.

How do you know for sure that HoT failed? Serious question, I was absent from gw2 for quite a long time, so if there’s an official statement or anything that confirms HoTs/ANets failure, I would be happy to see it.
Also: How do you know that HoT “failed” because it was too “hardcore”, and not because the players simply didn’t like it?

Torolan.5816:

I also find it disturbing that you ask people to step up their game.
Maybe you should relax a little bit instead?

I’m not “asking” people to step up. All I’m saying is: If you can’t play specific content because it’s too hard for you, you have three choices. 1. step up 2. accept it 3. ask ANet to release a slightly easier mode, but if they don’t want to (for whatever reasons): see 2.

Torolan.5816:

The Mount Everest of one guy is the Ant Hill of another.

And yet I have never seen an ant complaining about the Mount Everst being too big

How exactly did HOT move away from casual gameplay? You can kill most of the mobs 1v5 while afk. I can’t do any of the meta events without falling asleep. Spvp sure, wvw and raids just take a little time to learn.

I mean you can get map meta participation by pressing 1 while standing to the side of octovine and going afk for 15 minutes. That’s not exactly hardcore. Have you purchased dps gear? It’s like 30 gold for a whole set.

yea by standing in a corner pressing 1 for 15minutes, you simply abuse the system and rely on others to finish the events for you. thats not an argument against HoT being anti-casual…

Torolan.5816:

Yeah well, I know that it has for some unethical reason become a practice to not quickly fire a CEO or other type of director who has not done his research and failed to predict a shifting market.

Failing to meet a prediction is indeed a common occurence. Companies who come into trouble at the stock market when this happens are common too. So what does this say about the business then? Market analysis is not an exact science like mathematics.

I am not entirely sure about the sales numbers anymore, my bad. But I pretty much remember that a healthy growth curve looks different.

You can keep deluding yourself into thinking Colin was fired for HoT’s issues, but that’s simple not the case. The company and the man themselves have come out and issue individual statements that say otherwise.

Trying to link a false causality to prove a false narrative isn’t healthy for your attempts to prove that HoT failed.

TexZero.7910:

Torolan.5816:

Yeah well, I know that it has for some unethical reason become a practice to not quickly fire a CEO or other type of director who has not done his research and failed to predict a shifting market.

Failing to meet a prediction is indeed a common occurence. Companies who come into trouble at the stock market when this happens are common too. So what does this say about the business then? Market analysis is not an exact science like mathematics.

I am not entirely sure about the sales numbers anymore, my bad. But I pretty much remember that a healthy growth curve looks different.

You can keep deluding yourself into thinking Colin was fired for HoT’s issues, but that’s simple not the case. The company and the man themselves have come out and issue individual statements that say otherwise.

Trying to link a false causality to prove a false narrative isn’t healthy for your attempts to prove that HoT failed.

Statements notwithstanding, after Colin gave notice, he still particpated in a reddit AMA. No company firing someone gives that kind of access to customers. Colin clearly wasn’t fired. Like many other Anet devs, he was hired away by Amazon who set up shop pretty much down the road from Anet

Hyrai.8720:

so maybe it’s time for you “casuals” to step up and dedicate yourself a little more to the game, or accept that there is a huuuge playerbase that wants challenging content,

Can you Validate the Bold? Last I looked before I left, less then 20% of the player base even tried to do raids, They claimed it was as it attracted 20% of the players, as opposed to the typical 3 – 5 % among other games.

STIHL.2489:

Last I looked before I left, less then 20% of the player base even tried to do raids, They claimed it was as it attracted 20% of the players, as opposed to the typical 3 – 5 % among other games.

Where is that 20% coming from?

Djinn.9245:

STIHL.2489:

Has Anet Remembered the Casuals?

No, not even a little bit.

In what way has anet ignored the casuals? GW2 is by far one of the most casual friendly mmos out there. You can still do events in HoT, people will always be doing things in HoT. They will always be doing things in the Silverwastes. And guess what? They’re best completed in groups so not only is your hand held the entire time but you DO NOT have to grind! When players say HoT is not casual friendly it reminds me of someone who wants everything handed to them on a cash shop silver platter.

Is it bc casuals can’t press 1 to kill everything? I don’t get it. I considered myself a casual player & I don’t mind sticking it out for things I want.

These events are not going away, if you want prestigious gear then you have to work for it but it’s not even hard to get. You can get the ingredients to an entire ascended set in a day, minus the laurels… and that doesn’t even include pvp which is kitten due to casuals just wanting ascended gear bc anet made rewards incredibly easy to get. In practically everything in this game your hand is held. You don’t need to farm 1000 lynxs to get that 1 specific rare tanned hide. You don’t need to chop down 100000 trees to make 1 piece of armor. You don’t have to worry about low chance spawn rates of things appearing bc of kill stealing. About 90% of everything you can just buy from the TP. You don’t have to do raids! And if you want to, there is an LFG option about raids where you can input you’re a casual/ new to raids & other players can pick you up! Raids are practically the go to in this game since anet has forgotten dungeons altogether & ignored underwater exploration because it wasn’t “casual friendly”
How did anet forget the casuals?

maddoctor.2738:

STIHL.2489:

Last I looked before I left, less then 20% of the player base even tried to do raids, They claimed it was as it attracted 20% of the players, as opposed to the typical 3 – 5 % among other games.

Where is that 20% coming from?

Yea, I don’t believe it’s even 20%. I’m in 2 major guilds that don’t even have 1 raid team in either.

Djinn.9245:

Yea, I don’t believe it’s even 20%. I’m in 2 major guilds that don’t even have 1 raid team in either.

One of the guilds I’m in has 3 raid teams but that’s irrelevant really. Another poster posted some numbers earlier too, said it was specific to this game too, but he never game his sources. Something like 70% casual, 30% hardcore were his numbers (not only talking about raiders). Maybe the numbers are available only to select few people and are a top secret otherwise.

I never even attempted to prove HoT was a complete failure, but it surely wasn´t the success Anet had hoped for. They stated that themselves with the free to play to paid game conversions. And maybe you will agree with me theat this surely did not look very good on the record sheet of Anet with their expansion not being a big success but just a short term profitable bump.

I don´t know if that is a minor point or not in their calculations. But it was enough for the CEO to get up and write an open letter where he stated that they understood players concerns and would do better in the next expansion. They did not state what they had understood though, so you may be right when you say that accessibility and gating could be as big of a problem as hard content or even worse. I personally had no complains about the density and skill of HoT mobs. I personally found navigation there tedious at best.

HoT obviously managed to keep GW2 in the mix and let people invest in a second expansion, i don´t debate that. But when did underperforming in an area turn into a success either?

I also did not think about Colin getting fired or not when I wrote that with the CEOs, it as more a general observation with people who fail at the highest position of big companies(lots of people getting fired, shareholders loosing big time money etc etc) and still get paid royally for that. I honestly could not care less if the man was fired or if HoT was the reason he left the company because he probably fell very soft.