Guild Wars 2

Devata.6589:

Slowpokeking.8720:

I think the problem was the direction, hardcore and raid should never be the focus of this game.

But is it the focus of this game? I don’t think it is. Yes there where more raid patches in the first period after HoT then other type of patches, but that might simply be because it’s from another team who might be able to release it faster.

The HoT maps are harder for solo-players but that has imho more to do with the fact that they wanted to make group-content then because they wanted to make it more hardcore.

I can not say the game as total now suddenly has a focus on HC content. You do think that is the case? And what do you base that on?

It may not have deliberately been the focus, but it was the end result. The raids were pretty much ALL we saw in the way of new content for quite a while after HoT, and the raids were… well, let’s just say that ArenaNet themselves only expected that 1% of the player base would do them. So the rest of the player base had basically nothing in the better part of a year between HoT and LS3 proper starting.

The balance has readjusted since, but the period after HoT released was the time to strike while the proverbial iron was hot, and the only people who got anything in that period were the hardcores, and a lot of people who left then are probably gone for good.

A ‘normal mode’ and ‘hard mode’ split for the raids would probably have helped a bit there: ArenaNet has shot it down every time it’s come up, but it would have gone a long way to retaining non-hardcore players during the time when the raids were everything, I think. I’ve seen a bit of hate for how the dailies were treated with Heart of Thorns, which even lead some people to revert back to regular GW2 so they still had full access to core dailies – personally, I don’t think core dailies are worth giving up HoT for, but they’d probably have done better to make HoT PvE dailies a seperate tab rather than having them replace core dailies. With the limited PvE options each day, people who are PvE-only players really do end up feeling like they’re having what they do prescribed to them rather than having any real choice.

^It was one poster. It seems the thread responses offered a different point of view, and after a few days, he re-enabled Heart of Thorns on his account.

Is it too late to say that this is just another really bad attempt to come to a cherry-pciked conclusion with too little data? I can’t imagine how badly someone wants the game to fail to make such a weak argument with so little information.

draxynnic.3719:

Devata.6589:

Slowpokeking.8720:

I think the problem was the direction, hardcore and raid should never be the focus of this game.

A ‘normal mode’ and ‘hard mode’ split for the raids would probably have helped a bit there:

There is already normal modes for most of them. Raids are not hard and the difficulty is not the issue anyway.

The issue is the accessibility for new players. We need a better LFG tool that can help new players to know what they need in raids to be a proper dps, tank, healer or buffer.

We should also remove the possibility to link LI and any items from raids, also remove the possibility to use minis. I personally have more than 120LI and don’t have any issue to find a proper group (did new wing, still learning last boss) but I think it’s bad design, even if it’s not the game fault. Never seen a game where you need to link an items only accessible from the content you want to do. It’s awful. You should just link gear and maybe show you’re doing good, now that dps meter are a thing.

We need a LFG tool with jobs restrictions for raid too so we don’t have to change the announce everytime (something like most of the mmo do now, such as ffxiv).

The game let too much liberty to players and I don’t think it’s a good thing for content like raids. It should have more restrictions and quality of life tools.

The game is not fun. This is the main reason.
My PVP friends all leave this game because that brainless skill spam.
HoT is a totally fail patch.

Skill and Class balance are broken from HoT. This is a basal system of the game. They design many absurd skills and haven’t assessed the result. Then PVP and WVW are decline. In other side, PVE become a hard core game to get rid of the new player and normal player. They said they had learned from HoT. However, after 10 months later, Skill and class still ridiculous. PVE still for Hard Core. What have they learned? What have they seen?

xeonage.1253:

PVE still for Hard Core. What have they learned? What have they seen?

yay LS3 is too hardcore, lac doric is impossible omg omg.

fractals? only hardcore players can do them.

….Seriously? You shouldn’t touch others MMO then. Even raids in GW2 are casual friendly.

If the game is not fun for you it’s fine. But at least do some efforts with your criticism. GW2 is probably still the more casual friendly mmo available on the market as far as I know, and I played numerous others mmos (TESO/FFXIV/Aion/Tera/Rappelz/Jade Dynasty/Perfect World/WoW).

Khyan.7039:

xeonage.1253:

PVE still for Hard Core. What have they learned? What have they seen?

yay LS3 is too hardcore, lac doric is impossible omg omg.

fractals? only hardcore players can do them.

….Seriously? You shouldn’t touch others MMO then. Even raids in GW2 are casual friendly.

If the game is not fun for you it’s fine. But at least do some efforts with your criticism. GW2 is probably still the more casual friendly mmo available on the market as far as I know, and I played numerous others mmos (TESO/FFXIV/Aion/Tera/Rappelz/Jade Dynasty/Perfect World/WoW).

YA! LS is good for play and make me login 2 hours then afk or don’t touch PVE for 2-3 month again.
fractals??
what? fractals?? If you still play it day by day. I admire your perseverance very much.

Vayne.8563:

No, income didn’t in fact get a huge boost, and it was a far smaller boost than one would expect with an expansion. What’s your definition of a “huge” boost?

Let me answer that by 2 pure facts.
1. HoT sales resulted in the highest sales since the initial two (release) quarter results.
2. Q4 2015 where almost double the results from before HoT was announced (Q4 2014).

Based on that I say it’s a huge boost. Sure, it was really low compaired to the initial sale, but results where only so big in one quarter, and the first expansion came way to late. So everything considered I think the sale was pretty good and you can talk about a boost. If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income.

Vayne.8563:

Yes, they sold boxes, but they stated directly that sales didn’t meet expectations. The expansion itself didn’t do well.

You made this claim multiple times in the past, but the quote you came with as proof, was that sales coming out of the F2P players where lower as expected. That is something else.

Also in that other maddoctor used https://gw2efficiency.com/ to try and find out how many of the playerbase (at least, those who use gw2efficiency did get intop HoT and then continued in HoT. Here is a link to his comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/page/4#post6427844

So we know that at least 90% of the gw2efficiency users who did play Gw2 did buy HoT.

You can repeat your claims, but the information we have simply says those claims are most likely wrong.

Vayne.8563:

HoT didn’t do well, so of course, less people are playing now than would have been.

Then would have been if there was not HoT? Again, the information we have suggest else. Results where dropping before HoT announcement and if we followed that downtrend we would now be at a similar place, but likely without the (sadly) temporary bump we had.

But I agree that in the end HoT was a problem, but imho the problem was that HoT did not fix what was wrong, and it should have done that.

Anyway, now we are redoing the other thread. Let’s keep it at where we are now (with the results of Q4 2016.
I would love to know from people why they left, what people think should change to get the game ‘fixed’ and what should happen to get people back. Because honestly just an expansion is will not get as many people back as HoT did imho. Simply because many people gave up faith after HoT did not fix their issues.

zealex.9410:

theres honeslty a little replayability value to most content pve wise the endgame is basically dailies and weeklys this and the fact that the cash shop in gw2 is very very playe firendly to the point that you can farmt he gems for what ever you like.

You want little replayability in PvE, try Blade & Soul. It’s an MMO on rails.

Obtena.7952:

Is it too late to say that this is just another really bad attempt to come to a cherry-pciked conclusion with too little data? I can’t imagine how badly someone wants the game to fail to make such a weak argument with so little information.

You really think that is the case?

Back when I was very active here, I was so because I very badly did NOT want the game to fall and I did see (in my idea) things going in a wrong way. So I did try to maybe change some ideas and prevent the game to fail.

Now I just find it interesting to follow these results and see how changes do work out. I would still love to see this game to make a come-back. While I am not anymore trying to make a change.

oow, and I am also not trying to come to a conclusion. Were in this thread do you see me do that?

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

No, income didn’t in fact get a huge boost, and it was a far smaller boost than one would expect with an expansion. What’s your definition of a “huge” boost?

Let me answer that by 2 pure facts.
1. HoT sales resulted in the highest sales since the initial two (release) quarter results.
2. Q4 2015 where almost double the results from before HoT was announced (Q4 2014).

Based on that I say it’s a huge boost. Sure, it was really low compaired to the initial sale, but results where only so big in one quarter, and the first expansion came way to late. So everything considered I think the sale was pretty good and you can talk about a boost. If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income.

Vayne.8563:

Yes, they sold boxes, but they stated directly that sales didn’t meet expectations. The expansion itself didn’t do well.

You made this claim multiple times in the past, but the quote you came with as proof, was that sales coming out of the F2P players where lower as expected. That is something else.

Also in that other maddoctor used https://gw2efficiency.com/ to try and find out how many of the playerbase (at least, those who use gw2efficiency did get intop HoT and then continued in HoT. Here is a link to his comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/page/4#post6427844

So we know that at least 90% of the gw2efficiency users who did play Gw2 did buy HoT.

You can repeat your claims, but the information we have simply says those claims are most likely wrong.

Vayne.8563:

HoT didn’t do well, so of course, less people are playing now than would have been.

Then would have been if there was not HoT? Again, the information we have suggest else. Results where dropping before HoT announcement and if we followed that downtrend we would now be at a similar place, but likely without the (sadly) temporary bump we had.

But I agree that in the end HoT was a problem, but imho the problem was that HoT did not fix what was wrong, and it should have done that.

Anyway, now we are redoing the other thread. Let’s keep it at where we are now (with the results of Q4 2016.
I would love to know from people why they left, what people think should change to get the game ‘fixed’ and what should happen to get people back. Because honestly just an expansion is will not get as many people back as HoT did imho. Simply because many people gave up faith after HoT did not fix their issues.

But GW2 efficiency pretty much became a thing after HOT came out. Most of the people most into the game are going to have it. It portends almost nothing.

We know from experience a huge majority of players never go to a website or visit a forum and those are the people most likely not to buy HoT.

Anet themselves said (and I’m paraphrasing here because I don’t remember the exact word) that sales were lacklustre.

Pretty sure they know better than you do.

Devata.6589:

HoT sales were not lackluster (F2P people buying GW2/HoT was lackluster), income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost. Looking at the results from pre-HoT, it’s safe to say the total income would have been lower without HoT, so it’s a strange conclusion you make.

Do the math. Extrapolate roughly how many copies of HoT sold in Q4 15 based on the statement in the Q4 15 report that Gem store sales were “stable.” Compare to the reported 1.5M distinct accounts logging in at least once monthly from an article in Fortune published a couple of months before HoT dropped.

By the way, saying, “… income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost.” betrays a lack of understanding of how an XPac business model works.

A couple of things.
First, when I did that post and analysis using GW2efficiency I wasn’t counting how many of the GW2 players bought HoT, it was used to establish how many of that website’s players bought HoT and then compare those with how many players were still playing months after the expansion was released. As Vayne pointed out GW2efficiency started counting shortly before HoT, and became more popular AFTER HoT so it’s normal for the vast majority of accounts to own it.

The problem I illustrated in that post still exist today. While 91% of the gw2eff players bought HoT (judging by the 91% of players having Airship Parts), only 65.5% have Unbound Magic. The game “lost” a LOT of players from the release of HoT to the release of LS3, that was my conclusion and it still stands, that period was a disaster.
And HoT itself had multiple retention issues, 91% of players started HoT but “only” 82% went to Tangled Depths, which means quite a few stopped playing along the way.

This shows that the regardless of what you think, if the expansion sold well or didn’t sell well, a lot of the players either stopped playing mid-expansion or shortly after. In my opinion solving this retention problem is more important than releasing new expansions.

I call tell you the reason what can anet do to solve this retention problem.

Balance finally properly their game and with balance properly the Game I mean – do more than just only some number changes on skills and traits.

The moment when people realized that HoT put just only much more oil into the fire and made the already totally out of control game balance just alot more horrible, that is the moment where tons of players shortly after release decided to quit the game…

Alot of people hoped, that HoT would be the Expansion with the included Balance Patch, that would bring the game back onto the right track after the horrible balance changs that came with the 23rd June patch of 2015 which changed so massively the game to the worse
Once people realized, that HoT made everything just only incredibly worser in regard of balance (Rev is crap, no acces to racial skills), together with the bad map design (Tangled Depths), together with the tons of bugs (Hearts & Minds) and the massive disappointment that HoT as a half baked half hearted half complete expansion was, where great parts that should have been part of it, aren’t in the game until today (Legendary armors, complete set of 2nd legendary weapons) lead simply quickly to the point that people shortly after release quit with the game again….because alot of people that did, already quit with the game a long time ago before the release of HoT and hoped, that HoT would make them play actively again.

Someone who has quit the game already or made a longer break from it, will quicker quit it again, if an expansion just is unable to DELIVER, or in fact just disappoints on the whole line from begin on and ends up as something, that isn’t absolutely worth its money as product or in its way it got release to be worthy to be called an expansion at all (my opinion)

There had Anet made already much better “Feature Packs” before HoT, that if they would have had new story content with some new maps, would have been much worthier to be called an expansion, than HoT.

They have changed multiple times the trait system, they showed us that they also don’t fear to change the conditions.
So whats the problem for them to make finally the needed next step to look over for once not only just skill and trait numbers but to make a proper actualization of the whole cobmat system, so that all smaller parts of its and their mechanics will harmonize again better with each other, because the game is still using 90% of the outdated 2012er game design combat system, which doesn’t fitanymore to all the changes to the skills and the trait system ANet did over the years plus the fact that we have now Elite Specs, that were never considered to exist in the 2012er combat system design.

A proper complete game Balance Redesign, that includes:

• All Conditions & Boons with the goal to reduce them as much as possible
• All Upgrades with the goal to reduce them as much as possible (some would make sense better as Masteries, because they are useless as Upgrades)
• Change of the Health System to a Class Individual System, with the goal to individually balance each Class for itself better, instead of pidgeonholing them all into 3 bad outdated Class Types
• Removal of Gear Stats, change to Leveling based Character Progression, this will massively help in making Balance alot easier and would remove also tons of unneccessary Stat Grind, so that GW2 would return again to its old former spirit that GW1 had, where not the Gear counts that you use, but your Player Skills!!!
• Attribute Redesign to Dual Effects, with the goal to equalize them, so that offensive, defensive and supportive Attributs are all equally effective. No playstyle should have advantages over others, because one playstyle has better Attribute Synergies, than the others – somethign that can be solved only with an Attribute Redesign to Dual Effects, which can be used to implement so new useful defensive and supportive Attribute Effects that would make the Combat System also more interesting and could also help to balance Classes better and certain Builds of them

Yes, these points require alot of time and ressources, but so longer Anet waits on it to actualize their combat system to make its mechanics harmonize with each other better again, so worser will become the overall game balance and just only permanently changing skill and trait numbers here and there alone won’t solve anything!!
It will just postpone maybe the problems only, or shifts the problem over from one class to an other one and people talk again about “the flavor of the month class”, but not that the game gets finally again overall better balanced to the point, that the game makes again more fun in all Game Modes, so that people who quit GW2 feel incentivized to return again and stay actively.

Orpheal.8263:

Balance finally properly their game and with balance properly the Game I mean – do more than just only some number changes on skills and traits.

The problem with balance is that it’s not content. While many players will be happy with the game if it’s well balanced, others will leave because of the lack of content. That’s why a constant re-design of existing mechanics can be a bad thing.

While the re-design of Thaumanova Fractal is great and makes that Fractal so much better, it’s not as good as creating a brand new Fractal.

While re-designing existing traits and skills is great, it’s not the same as adding new skills and traits in the game, even if they cause MORE imbalance or power creep.

And so on. We are already at a point where some players complain that we get less content than we used to, a massive re-balancing effort would make it even slower. Is it worth it?

With the current, limited, resources of the LS teams I don’t think asking them to do such a redesign would be a good idea. Their job is to release content, and they are doing a rather good job at that. My personal solution is to scrap the next expansion completely which can free up manpower and resources for those re-balancing efforts, without affecting the release schedule of LS3. Keep the releases coming at this pace, while also doing a lot of balancing to old content, stabilize the game, then and only then move to something like an expansion.

Well I wouldn’t use the presence of unbound magic as an indicator. I haven’t stopped playing it’s just I take my sweet time before I get around to do story and in this case LWS3 maps require doing the story to get in them unlike LWS2 or owning HoT. I finally got around finishing LWS2 episodes last summer and haven’t done any of the story chapters in HoT that I didn’t need to do to unlock the mastery system.

I’m just not a story person.

maddoctor.2738:

While the re-design of Thaumanova Fractal is great and makes that Fractal so much better, it’s not as good as creating a brand new Fractal.

Abaddon fractal. It’s crazy that they seem to have thrown that out never to be revisited, when everything else from that election has been normalised out (Evon Gnashblade is a Captain now, and the waypoint discount expired a long time ago).

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

Is it too late to say that this is just another really bad attempt to come to a cherry-pciked conclusion with too little data? I can’t imagine how badly someone wants the game to fail to make such a weak argument with so little information.

You really think that is the case?

Back when I was very active here, I was so because I very badly did NOT want the game to fall and I did see (in my idea) things going in a wrong way. So I did try to maybe change some ideas and prevent the game to fail.

Now I just find it interesting to follow these results and see how changes do work out. I would still love to see this game to make a come-back. While I am not anymore trying to make a change.

oow, and I am also not trying to come to a conclusion. Were in this thread do you see me do that?

I think that’s exactly the case … this thread is no more value than the last one you made, shut down by the mods, explaining clearly what made that thread so ridiculous in the first place. you’re view of what ails the game and it’s current state are skewed to your personal belief that the game is prematurely doomed to failure, all with the motive to get Anet to turn the ship around and do what you think should be done to the game. Well Nostradamus, if that’s the case, us left here are going to enjoy it to it’s fullest until the end. The fact is that it’s Anet’s prerogative to run this game into the ground if they see fit and little you say or anyone else says will change that because the reality is you are just as uninformed as the rest of us about whats going on at Anet. if anyone is most qualified to run this ship into the rocks, it’s Anet. It’s a consumer product; money will do the talking, not so speculative forum threads.

The mods shut the last one down because it became an infinite loop of the same binary discussion where both sides simply restated their OPINION at the other. All we can do, and could ever do, is supply theories as to why there was a drop in income in 2015 before HoT to income in 2016 after HoT.

It’s all reading tea leaves, entrails and runes to determine reasons since ALL we have as fact is the INCOME numbers from the quarterly statements.

@ maddoctor:

Sure, you may have right with that. It wouldn’t be a wise decision to stop all story content updates for Living World to rebalance the games outdated combat system mechanics that aren’t in harmony with each other right now.

Thats why I say it would be better for Expansions to remove Story Progression from them completely, so that new story content will be added to the game only via Living World Patches, so that xpansions can be 100% focused on adding new Features, Balance and reworking old content, that needs improvements as also adding more quality of life to the game where needed to make GW2 more comfortable again.

Anet absolutely shouldn’t rush it with the second expansion, so I agree with you that it would be at the current state of the game the very best and most wisest ddecision to put the works on the second expansion for a longer while on ice.

This would allow the dev teams to focus then their man power onto 2 big projects:

Project Team 1 = Living Story = Ensures, that the Story progression doesn’t stop and that the current Livign Story Season finds its end without any big story droughts in between

Project Team 2 = Game Rebalance & Gemstore

This team, which would consist then out of the peopel who are currently responsible for the gemstore and those that worked so far on the next expansion concentrate themself then first to bring the needed Game Balance changes and rework the neccessary combat system mechanics that I have listed up here step by step, as that will make sure, that the combat in GW2 will make more fun again, that will lead to many playrs who quitted coming back again, from what the gemstore will also profitate again, because people become most likely again willing to spent money in it so that the weak gemstore will revitalize too and can make sure to better finance the game again, eventualy even so good again, that changing to a hybrid payment model with optional premium accounts can be totally wiped off of the table as possible solution to stop the permanent fall of GW2.

And once they have given this game after some long time its neccessary proper rebalances and updated all of its neccessary for that combat system mechanics so that they harmonize again with each other – then and only then is this game ready for it’s next expansion that will add more new elite specs.

HoT got released way too early, when the game was totally unprepared and still under chaos from the condition changes.
This must not happen again with the next expansion!! Ever
Thats like going into the bath tube, without having let in the water for bathing first…

Now they are in the situation, where they can make first the neccessary preparations for the game, before they release the next expansion and they wait with it “until it’s ready”™

Rushed expansions help nobody and just create only more problems, than they solve!!

Orpheal.8263:

Rushed expansions help nobody and just create only more problems, than they solve!!

Agreed. Even if an expansion sells well and revenue is increased temporarily it doesn’t mean it’s good for a game, if after the expansion release month is over, the revenue is going back to “normal”.

Project Team 1 = Living Story = Ensures, that the Story progression doesn’t stop and that the current Livign Story Season finds its end without any big story droughts in between

Yeah. No more content droughts EVER, no matter what it takes. Even if it means delaying the next expansion for 2 more years, content droughts need to disappear and never come back.

Fix the core game and make it rewarding and fun to play before going into an expansion.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

No, income didn’t in fact get a huge boost, and it was a far smaller boost than one would expect with an expansion. What’s your definition of a “huge” boost?

Let me answer that by 2 pure facts.
1. HoT sales resulted in the highest sales since the initial two (release) quarter results.
2. Q4 2015 where almost double the results from before HoT was announced (Q4 2014).

Based on that I say it’s a huge boost. Sure, it was really low compaired to the initial sale, but results where only so big in one quarter, and the first expansion came way to late. So everything considered I think the sale was pretty good and you can talk about a boost. If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income.

Vayne.8563:

Yes, they sold boxes, but they stated directly that sales didn’t meet expectations. The expansion itself didn’t do well.

You made this claim multiple times in the past, but the quote you came with as proof, was that sales coming out of the F2P players where lower as expected. That is something else.

Also in that other maddoctor used https://gw2efficiency.com/ to try and find out how many of the playerbase (at least, those who use gw2efficiency did get intop HoT and then continued in HoT. Here is a link to his comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/page/4#post6427844

So we know that at least 90% of the gw2efficiency users who did play Gw2 did buy HoT.

You can repeat your claims, but the information we have simply says those claims are most likely wrong.

Vayne.8563:

HoT didn’t do well, so of course, less people are playing now than would have been.

Then would have been if there was not HoT? Again, the information we have suggest else. Results where dropping before HoT announcement and if we followed that downtrend we would now be at a similar place, but likely without the (sadly) temporary bump we had.

But I agree that in the end HoT was a problem, but imho the problem was that HoT did not fix what was wrong, and it should have done that.

Anyway, now we are redoing the other thread. Let’s keep it at where we are now (with the results of Q4 2016.
I would love to know from people why they left, what people think should change to get the game ‘fixed’ and what should happen to get people back. Because honestly just an expansion is will not get as many people back as HoT did imho. Simply because many people gave up faith after HoT did not fix their issues.

But GW2 efficiency pretty much became a thing after HOT came out. Most of the people most into the game are going to have it. It portends almost nothing.

We know from experience a huge majority of players never go to a website or visit a forum and those are the people most likely not to buy HoT.

Anet themselves said (and I’m paraphrasing here because I don’t remember the exact word) that sales were lacklustre.

Pretty sure they know better than you do.

Look up that quote. You claim they said that, please proof it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

By the way, saying, “… income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost.” betrays a lack of understanding of how an XPac business model works.

That sentence was not about the XPac business model. It was about Vaynes claim that HoT sold badly.

The fact that it would not be a problem with an XPac business model is shown by another comment of me. " If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income." (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Quarterly-reports-Q4-2016/page/3#post6492217)

So before you try to say people have the lack of understanding of something based on a sentence, first make sure you understand the context of that sentence.

And yes, when Anet would apply a true xpac based model (what I am / was all i favor of) then low results in-between expansions are just fine.

But then you should have close to no cash-shop and periods in-between xpacs should be short. This seems not to be the case, Anet does not seem to aim for a true xpac model. If they did, things would have looked different. Who knows, maybe for the good. Results might then still have been low but feedback maybe more positive. A new xpac was then likely already announced and released or just around the corner and expected sales of that Xpac would be higher. But that’s where the problem is in my eyes. Because they did not satisfy people with HoT, I am afraid sales for the next xpac will be considerately lower.

Devata.6589:

Look up that quote. You claim they said that, please proof it.

About HoT doing poorly? I’m going to guess this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/455vxo/ncsofts_earning_report_4q_2015_disillusioning/

In short, F2P failed to sell the game, HoT didn’t meet predictions.

… or this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4j3ntv/ncsofts_earnings_report_1q16_strong_performance/

In short, HoT didn’t meet expectations and they’ll try better next expansion.

About most people not seeing this? Only a small percentage use the forums. On one of the non-English forums they said something like less than 10%, but that’s also a general statement you can find for any MMO. Fun fact, ~184,978 accounts have posted here (forum-en) in the last ~3 years.

Behellagh.1468:

The mods shut the last one down because it became an infinite loop of the same binary discussion where both sides simply restated their OPINION at the other. All we can do, and could ever do, is supply theories as to why there was a drop in income in 2015 before HoT to income in 2016 after HoT.

It’s all reading tea leaves, entrails and runes to determine reasons since ALL we have as fact is the INCOME numbers from the quarterly statements.

While that was happening, it’s not complely true. New information did come in that thread overtime. Like the https://gw2efficiency.com/
analysis of maddoctor and the more detailed reports that another person found, and somebody was just to do a more detailed analysis before that thread was close. So while some discussions where going in a loop, there was also overall progression.

Anyway, lets not go back to that thread. I linked it here simply because it showed the data from pre Q4 2016. But this thread is not supposed to be an extension of that thread so please lets just talk about Q4 2016 again. Why people think they are what they are and what has to be done to get them higher.. if anything needs to be done. Maybe people think it’s fine like this.

That is what this thread is about.

Healix.5819:

Devata.6589:

Look up that quote. You claim they said that, please proof it.

About HoT doing poorly? I’m going to guess this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/455vxo/ncsofts_earning_report_4q_2015_disillusioning/

In short, F2P failed to sell the game, HoT didn’t meet predictions.

… or this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4j3ntv/ncsofts_earnings_report_1q16_strong_performance/

In short, HoT didn’t meet expectations and they’ll try better next expansion.

About most people not seeing this? Only a small percentage use the forums. On one of the non-English forums they said something like less than 10%, but that’s also a general statement you can find for any MMO. Fun fact, ~184,978 accounts have posted here (forum-en) in the last ~3 years.

Then I wonder what their expectations where. I think most active players at the time did buy HoT, and ‘many’ old GW2 players did come back to buy HoT.

However, I also said a long long time ago that some irreversible damage had already been done. First I was like.. Go work on the next expansion (from like half a year after release of GW2), but when we where at about 2 years I started to make that claim. They simply waited to long with the expansion, while going for another approach / business-model.

I really wonder what their expectations where. For where GW2 was at that time, sales of HoT where good. If they expected something closer to initial sales their expectations where very unrealistic. Not that the first expansion could not have had sales coming closer to initial sales. But then things in-game should have been different and that expansion should be released like 1,5 year after GW2 was released.

That is at least what I believed and why I always was so actively advocating for that on the forums.

Looking at where we are now with the numbers of Q4 2016 expectations for the next expansion should be lower as those of HoT. If the correct changes had been made with HoT and the period just after it expectations could be at the same level as those of HoT.

The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.

Devata.6589:

Then I wonder what their expectations where.

Consider that on average, they were making $18.95 million per quarter before HoT. Subtracting that, HoT bumped them up $13.57 million. Less than half of the usual sales was likely disappointing by itself. If we assume that ArenaNet was only making half the price, $25 on average per box, that’s 543,800 boxes sold (and another 307,600 the next quarter). Keep in mind it could be half that. SuperData Research estimated GW2 to have around 3.1 million active players in 2015, up from 1.5 million prior to the free client.

For comparison, post-HoT, they are making $13.39 million on average per quarter, down $5.56 million. Consider that sales are stable now with season 3, but they were also stable in the year prior to HoT when only hype was being offered.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

No, income didn’t in fact get a huge boost, and it was a far smaller boost than one would expect with an expansion. What’s your definition of a “huge” boost?

Let me answer that by 2 pure facts.
1. HoT sales resulted in the highest sales since the initial two (release) quarter results.
2. Q4 2015 where almost double the results from before HoT was announced (Q4 2014).

Based on that I say it’s a huge boost. Sure, it was really low compaired to the initial sale, but results where only so big in one quarter, and the first expansion came way to late. So everything considered I think the sale was pretty good and you can talk about a boost. If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income.

Vayne.8563:

Yes, they sold boxes, but they stated directly that sales didn’t meet expectations. The expansion itself didn’t do well.

You made this claim multiple times in the past, but the quote you came with as proof, was that sales coming out of the F2P players where lower as expected. That is something else.

Also in that other maddoctor used https://gw2efficiency.com/ to try and find out how many of the playerbase (at least, those who use gw2efficiency did get intop HoT and then continued in HoT. Here is a link to his comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/page/4#post6427844

So we know that at least 90% of the gw2efficiency users who did play Gw2 did buy HoT.

You can repeat your claims, but the information we have simply says those claims are most likely wrong.

Vayne.8563:

HoT didn’t do well, so of course, less people are playing now than would have been.

Then would have been if there was not HoT? Again, the information we have suggest else. Results where dropping before HoT announcement and if we followed that downtrend we would now be at a similar place, but likely without the (sadly) temporary bump we had.

But I agree that in the end HoT was a problem, but imho the problem was that HoT did not fix what was wrong, and it should have done that.

Anyway, now we are redoing the other thread. Let’s keep it at where we are now (with the results of Q4 2016.
I would love to know from people why they left, what people think should change to get the game ‘fixed’ and what should happen to get people back. Because honestly just an expansion is will not get as many people back as HoT did imho. Simply because many people gave up faith after HoT did not fix their issues.

But GW2 efficiency pretty much became a thing after HOT came out. Most of the people most into the game are going to have it. It portends almost nothing.

We know from experience a huge majority of players never go to a website or visit a forum and those are the people most likely not to buy HoT.

Anet themselves said (and I’m paraphrasing here because I don’t remember the exact word) that sales were lacklustre.

Pretty sure they know better than you do.

Look up that quote. You claim they said that, please proof it.

I’m not interested in spending the time to do so. I remember it being said, just as NcSoft at their stock call said mistakes were made. Surely if the sale met expectations they would have had no reason to say that.

You’re the only person I can remember on this forum who believes HoT sold well. I haven’t even seen one of the so-called “white knights” saying it.

Devata.6589:

The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.

I’m sorry can you offer evidence for this, because this isn’t my experience. Some people will always buy the expansion no matter what. Some people will wait to see what the first people say.

In this case the publicity long before launch due to the price and not saying how many zones would be in the expansion and also, due to the character slot not being included even though a new profession was. Those two things took a lot of the wind out of the expansion’s sales.

This statement, as far as I can tell, is just your opinion.

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

Is it too late to say that this is just another really bad attempt to come to a cherry-pciked conclusion with too little data? I can’t imagine how badly someone wants the game to fail to make such a weak argument with so little information.

You really think that is the case?

Back when I was very active here, I was so because I very badly did NOT want the game to fall and I did see (in my idea) things going in a wrong way. So I did try to maybe change some ideas and prevent the game to fail.

Now I just find it interesting to follow these results and see how changes do work out. I would still love to see this game to make a come-back. While I am not anymore trying to make a change.

oow, and I am also not trying to come to a conclusion. Were in this thread do you see me do that?

I think that’s exactly the case … this thread is no more value than the last one you made, shut down by the mods, explaining clearly what made that thread so ridiculous in the first place. you’re view of what ails the game and it’s current state are skewed to your personal belief that the game is prematurely doomed to failure, all with the motive to get Anet to turn the ship around and do what you think should be done to the game. Well Nostradamus, if that’s the case, us left here are going to enjoy it to it’s fullest until the end. The fact is that it’s Anet’s prerogative to run this game into the ground if they see fit and little you say or anyone else says will change that because the reality is you are just as uninformed as the rest of us about whats going on at Anet. if anyone is most qualified to run this ship into the rocks, it’s Anet. It’s a consumer product; money will do the talking, not so speculative forum threads.

All threads are about ideas.

“you’re view of what ails the game and it’s current state” But that is not what this thread is about, and in fact it is not what that thread was about. It was what the threads over a year ago where about.

Clearly many people here know my ideas and come here debating that instead of the subject of the thread. Including you. This thread is about Q4 2016 results. Say what you want to say about that. Give your idea for the results and your ideas how to get them higher. No need to talk about my vision about how to solve it. In fact, my vision always was about how to prevent something, not how to solve it from where we are now!
“It’s a consumer product; money will do the talking, not so speculative forum threads.” Maybe that has been the core of the problem? They where so busy with making money, that they forgot what the players would like and how their process of making money interfered with that?

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.

I’m sorry can you offer evidence for this, because this isn’t my experience. Some people will always buy the expansion no matter what. Some people will wait to see what the first people say.

In this case the publicity long before launch due to the price and not saying how many zones would be in the expansion and also, due to the character slot not being included even though a new profession was. Those two things took a lot of the wind out of the expansion’s sales.

This statement, as far as I can tell, is just your opinion.

It´s my experience. GW2 sold good, not because it was good (And it was good) but also because Guild Wars and ArenaNet did get a good name with Guild Wars 1. Once a game is well received an expansion is likely to sell well, but if the expansion itself then turns out to be bad, the next expansion will not sell so well.

You talk a lot about the negative feedback of HoT and how that resulted in ‘lackluster sales’. I think HoT not fixing the issues many people had is more likely to have an effect on the next expansion.

It’s not so much my opinion. If it works like that is true or false, it’s not an opinion. When you look at game-sales it seems to be how it works. This is also exactly where many inverters go wrong. They look at the sales of the last game and based on that they invest in a sequel.

That does not mean a bad game or expansion is the end. Especially when the game has a long positive history people are more forgiving. If the next game or expansion gets positive reviews people might buy it after-all, while not on release day.

Devata.6589:

IndigoSundown.5419:

By the way, saying, “… income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost.” betrays a lack of understanding of how an XPac business model works.

That sentence was not about the XPac business model. It was about Vaynes claim that HoT sold badly.

Did you do the math? No? I didn’t think so.

Devata.6589:

All threads are about ideas. The reason given for it being closed could be used for any thread, and the true reason could be found in the first statement “This started out, a month ago”.

Except the mods don’t close just any thread because of the reason given, even if it’s applicable to many of them that exists. Think about that.

Healix.5819:

Devata.6589:

Then I wonder what their expectations where.

Consider that on average, they were making $18.95 million per quarter before HoT. Subtracting that, HoT bumped them up $13.57 million. Less than half of the usual sales was likely disappointing by itself. If we assume that ArenaNet was only making half the price, $25 on average per box, that’s 543,800 boxes sold (and another 307,600 the next quarter). Keep in mind it could be half that. SuperData Research estimated GW2 to have around 3.1 million active players in 2015, up from 1.5 million prior to the free client.

For comparison, post-HoT, they are making $13.39 million on average per quarter, down $5.56 million. Consider that sales are stable now with season 3, but they were also stable in the year prior to HoT when only hype was being offered.

But it was not stable until HoT was announced. They where dropping. It’s likely that HoT was the reason for the drop to stop and create a temporary stable situation. If you would have continued the drop from before HoT was announced I think you get a more honest idea of the state and that state should be compared to what HoT sales managed to do. Then I think HoT did not do bad. So I wonder what their expectations where. Maybe they expected it to do a little better, that is possible. But it just makes me wonder what they expected.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.

I’m sorry can you offer evidence for this, because this isn’t my experience. Some people will always buy the expansion no matter what. Some people will wait to see what the first people say.

In this case the publicity long before launch due to the price and not saying how many zones would be in the expansion and also, due to the character slot not being included even though a new profession was. Those two things took a lot of the wind out of the expansion’s sales.

This statement, as far as I can tell, is just your opinion.

It´s my experience. GW2 sold good, not because it was good (And it was good) but also because Guild Wars and ArenaNet did get a good name with Guild Wars 1. Once a game is well received an expansion is likely to sell well, but if the expansion itself then turns out to be bad, the next expansion will not sell so well.

You talk a lot about the negative feedback of HoT and how that resulted in ‘lackluster sales’. I think HoT not fixing the issues many people had is more likely to have an effect on the next expansion.

It’s not so much my opinion. If it works like that is true or false, it’s not an opinion. When you look at game-sales it seems to be how it works. This is also exactly where many inverters go wrong. They look at the sales of the last game and based on that they invest in a sequel.

That does not mean a bad game or expansion is the end. Especially when the game has a long positive history people are more forgiving. If the next game or expansion gets positive reviews people might buy it after-all, while not on release day.

There’s faulty logic here. Even if Guild Wars 2 sold originally because of the good name of Guild Wars 1, you’re talking about a sequel game and not an expansion. Sequel games have a ton of hype around them. There was huge hype for the original game. It was plugged for well over a year before it every came out. There were playable demos at shows. It was talked about infinity in great detail. It was advertised more strongly.

HoT on the other hand, came out when the game had no momentum. The playerbase was already unsettled. Some left early on when ascended gear was introduced because they felt it was a betrayal.

Also the HoT launch was drawn out. There was very little to say but a lot of time to say it (unlike the core game). So I’m not so sure you can draw a parelel between a new game and an expansion.

And the original launch didn’t have the misteps that the HoT announcement did on top of that.

It’s just, in my opinion, an unwarranted assumption.

You can say that if a game is popular it’s likely it’s expansion will sell more than it would have if it weren’t popular.

But Guild Wars 2 has found a loyal core base of players that was considerably lower than it’s launch numbers. There are enough people who enjoy this game for what it is to keep the game going indefinitely.

But that doesn’t necessarily bring automatic sales to the expansion.

Those like me were always going to buy it, no matter what, because I want to continue moving forward in the game. I want the story and the new zones. I want access to everything.

There are also plenty of people who play casually who haven’t even done all the dungeons yet, or who have ever set foot in a fractal. Those casual players might not even be aware the expansion is coming until the expansion hits. And some of those people won’t buy the expansion without looking at what’s being said about it.

Clearly, from looking at what was being said about the game, prelaunch and what was being said about the expansion prelaunch, we have a different situation. I wouldn’t try to relate them at all.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.

I’m sorry can you offer evidence for this, because this isn’t my experience. Some people will always buy the expansion no matter what. Some people will wait to see what the first people say.

In this case the publicity long before launch due to the price and not saying how many zones would be in the expansion and also, due to the character slot not being included even though a new profession was. Those two things took a lot of the wind out of the expansion’s sales.

This statement, as far as I can tell, is just your opinion.

It´s my experience. GW2 sold good, not because it was good (And it was good) but also because Guild Wars and ArenaNet did get a good name with Guild Wars 1. Once a game is well received an expansion is likely to sell well, but if the expansion itself then turns out to be bad, the next expansion will not sell so well.

You talk a lot about the negative feedback of HoT and how that resulted in ‘lackluster sales’. I think HoT not fixing the issues many people had is more likely to have an effect on the next expansion.

It’s not so much my opinion. If it works like that is true or false, it’s not an opinion. When you look at game-sales it seems to be how it works. This is also exactly where many inverters go wrong. They look at the sales of the last game and based on that they invest in a sequel.

That does not mean a bad game or expansion is the end. Especially when the game has a long positive history people are more forgiving. If the next game or expansion gets positive reviews people might buy it after-all, while not on release day.

There’s faulty logic here. Even if Guild Wars 2 sold originally because of the good name of Guild Wars 1, you’re talking about a sequel game and not an expansion. Sequel games have a ton of hype around them. There was huge hype for the original game. It was plugged for well over a year before it every came out. There were playable demos at shows. It was talked about infinity in great detail. It was advertised more strongly.

HoT on the other hand, came out when the game had no momentum. The playerbase was already unsettled. Some left early on when ascended gear was introduced because they felt it was a betrayal.

Also the HoT launch was drawn out. There was very little to say but a lot of time to say it (unlike the core game). So I’m not so sure you can draw a parelel between a new game and an expansion.

And the original launch didn’t have the misteps that the HoT announcement did on top of that.

It’s just, in my opinion, an unwarranted assumption.

You can say that if a game is popular it’s likely it’s expansion will sell more than it would have if it weren’t popular.

But Guild Wars 2 has found a loyal core base of players that was considerably lower than it’s launch numbers. There are enough people who enjoy this game for what it is to keep the game going indefinitely.

But that doesn’t necessarily bring automatic sales to the expansion.

Those like me were always going to buy it, no matter what, because I want to continue moving forward in the game. I want the story and the new zones. I want access to everything.

There are also plenty of people who play casually who haven’t even done all the dungeons yet, or who have ever set foot in a fractal. Those casual players might not even be aware the expansion is coming until the expansion hits. And some of those people won’t buy the expansion without looking at what’s being said about it.

Clearly, from looking at what was being said about the game, prelaunch and what was being said about the expansion prelaunch, we have a different situation. I wouldn’t try to relate them at all.

Believe that it works like that, don’t believe it. I don’t care.

At the very least it’s something people should consider. Based on what I see I think it is how it works. Like I said before, obviously a bad expansion does not mean by definition that the next expansion also sells bad, multiple factors apply. But I do think it is a very important element / indicator.

It just boils down to deciding your purchase on past experience.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

IndigoSundown.5419:

By the way, saying, “… income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost.” betrays a lack of understanding of how an XPac business model works.

That sentence was not about the XPac business model. It was about Vaynes claim that HoT sold badly.

Did you do the math? No? I didn’t think so.

Math about what? Vaynes claim?

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

All threads are about ideas. The reason given for it being closed could be used for any thread, and the true reason could be found in the first statement “This started out, a month ago”.

Except the mods don’t close just any thread because of the reason given, even if it’s applicable to many of them that exists. Think about that.

Indeed, they will not say “I did not like it” even if that is the reason. (just as one example ; ) But what is your point?

Devata.6589:

Behellagh.1468:

The mods shut the last one down because it became an infinite loop of the same binary discussion where both sides simply restated their OPINION at the other. All we can do, and could ever do, is supply theories as to why there was a drop in income in 2015 before HoT to income in 2016 after HoT.

It’s all reading tea leaves, entrails and runes to determine reasons since ALL we have as fact is the INCOME numbers from the quarterly statements.

While that was happening, it’s not complely true. New information did come in that thread overtime. Like the https://gw2efficiency.com/
analysis of maddoctor and the more detailed reports that another person found, and somebody was just to do a more detailed analysis before that thread was close. So while some discussions where going in a loop, there was also overall progression.

Anyway, lets not go back to that thread. I linked it here simply because it showed the data from pre Q4 2016. But this thread is not supposed to be an extension of that thread so please lets just talk about Q4 2016 again. Why people think they are what they are and what has to be done to get them higher.. if anything needs to be done. Maybe people think it’s fine like this.

That is what this thread is about.

That analysis has at least two problems. First it requires self reporting. Players sign up to use that site, it doesn’t represent a balanced sampling of the player base.

Second just because players have item A and not B doesn’t mean they stopped playing altogether. It just means they haven’t bothered playing on those maps that drop B. They may have left, they may now be busy with real life so they don’t play as frequently as they once had or they rather play in core Tyria because VB put them off HoT when it first dropped.

Devata.6589:

Afther the thread looking at GW2 results over a longer period ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/first that is now closed so save to link), I did want to have a look at the results for Q4 2016 and Q1 of 2017.

In that thread some people though it was too much of an ‘I told you so’ statement, well sadly this time I have to say ‘I was wrong’.

The results of Q4 did just get released, you can find them here: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/prfile.aspx?ID=9DE70054-C1F4-43C2-842B-8A228757B8D6
I expected Q4 to go up with it being Q4, shorter days, more vacation, Halloween, Wintersday and a lot of the season 3 release. Sadly I was wrong, Q4 2016 had even lower results the the two before.

At least the ‘It’s because the lack of content’ argument as reason for lower results can now be completely shredded.

It’s really sad because the core of the game is really good.

Other than the ‘problem’ that the game has, there is an addition problem now, its how do you get the people back.

For example, the upcoming patch is really something we should have had much sooner, simply because of the location of the map, that is something that interests people. But those that left will not be likely to come back to see it at this point.

I always did think that HoT and the first half year after it was basically when Anet had to solve the problem because even if they fixed it now, people are just not here / coming back to see it. The only way I could see many people coming back if is the next expansion would be marketed as GW3 but that would be really bad if the next expansion is nothing like a GW3.

Edit: Clarification about the ‘lack of content, shredder’ comment in my first post\/.

I guess the main reason why i will mostly never come back is that it seems in all
new content i have to use those gliding stuff and that means i first am forced to
grind in HoT .. and i simply don’t want to go there.

Oh .. and still no new armor sets .. just boring outfits.

Behellagh.1468:

First it requires self reporting. Players sign up to use that site, it doesn’t represent a balanced sampling of the player base.

That’s why I compared how many of those who signed up played in VB with how many of those who signed up played in the new LS zones. Accurate or not, for that sample we see a decrease in activity (a big one)

Second just because players have item A and not B doesn’t mean they stopped playing altogether.

That’s true. However, it’s the only kind of statistic we can get and besides the difference is rather high (almost 30% reduction), it’s much more unlikely for players not to play altogether than playing but not visiting the new zones, it’s been quite a few months since the LS3 started and I only count players who have at least 1 unbound magic, that takes less than a couple of minutes in ANY of the new zones.

And regardless of all that, are you going to say that there is no population drop in the game and all the players (or most) who bought the expansion continue to play to this day? All is fine?

Oh no, there is a population drop, that’s obvious. I’m simply just saying lack unbound magic when having airship parts doesn’t mean all of those players have quit outright, that’s all.

It simply reaffirms what we see with income. Three quarters before HoT launch (Q1-Q3 2015) total income was 63,195 million KrW, the three quarters after HoT launch (Q2-Q4 2016) total income was 46,079. 27% drop.

So yes, an casual observer could draw a conclusion that HoT drove away players. Another is that the hype before HoT’s release kept players who would have left anyways around longer, simply delaying the turnover. And of course that ignores other games as a reason for the loss, since there is only so many gaming hours in a day.

Now what’s reported as GW2 income is NA+EU income only, since China is lumped in with royalties. Looking at regional income, NA+EU income dropped 4.4% from the previous quarter. GW2 only dropped 2.9%. So the game is beating the regional income drop.

I’d like to some examples of MMOs that can generate content so quickly that it can keep you hooked to it forever, without Grind ou TimeGates….
There isn’t! Wow has been surviving of returning players to expansions for years!

I know we should always demand more and better, and that’s right, but there are things that are almost impossible to keep popping out constantly, mainly in a game as big as GW2.

Lordareon.6851:

I’d like to some examples of MMOs that can generate content so quickly that it can keep you hooked to it forever, without Grind ou TimeGates….
There isn’t! Wow has been surviving of returning players to expansions for years!

I know we should always demand more and better, and that’s right, but there are things that are almost impossible to keep popping out constantly, mainly in a game as big as GW2.

Four years after release they also had 2 of their best expansions out and their numbers were still climbing, expansions mind you that were like 4x bigger than HoT. The bulk of the content was given up front, with a couple dungeons/raids/end zones added after release. WoW also has a ton of content for most players to do (hell some players felt overwhelmed with the new expansion and how much there was to do).

Also WoW tends to generate all their content for most of their player base these days, which can be seen with the different difficulty levels in dungeons and raids, lfr normal heroic mythic+, their arena/bg pvp operates on seasons which they implemented early on. So from the casual to the hardcores have something to do, the ones that tended to take a break were the hardcores that beat the raids early and then took a break for the next raid or end of expansion.

This is why I think gw2 will always be 10 years behind wow on how they’ve developed pve and pvp in the game. If gw2 had a lfr for raiding (but not as dumb down as wow does it) they probably would see a lot more players in raids. If they had developed wvw with spvp maybe things would be different there.

No question blizzard development is like molasses, and there’s big break in between content patches. But anet is also like molasses and haven’t been able to deliver the wide range of content to keep their playerbase interested. Mind you the living story is now part of the expansion, raids, legendary armor and weapons, not fully released almost a year and half after the expansion came out.

Anet did a shift in content development, in both type and timing, and not everyone is following along with it.

maddoctor.2738:

Orpheal.8263:

Balance finally properly their game and with balance properly the Game I mean – do more than just only some number changes on skills and traits.

The problem with balance is that it’s not content. While many players will be happy with the game if it’s well balanced, others will leave because of the lack of content. That’s why a constant re-design of existing mechanics can be a bad thing.

While the re-design of Thaumanova Fractal is great and makes that Fractal so much better, it’s not as good as creating a brand new Fractal.

While re-designing existing traits and skills is great, it’s not the same as adding new skills and traits in the game, even if they cause MORE imbalance or power creep.

And so on. We are already at a point where some players complain that we get less content than we used to, a massive re-balancing effort would make it even slower. Is it worth it?

With the current, limited, resources of the LS teams I don’t think asking them to do such a redesign would be a good idea. Their job is to release content, and they are doing a rather good job at that. My personal solution is to scrap the next expansion completely which can free up manpower and resources for those re-balancing efforts, without affecting the release schedule of LS3. Keep the releases coming at this pace, while also doing a lot of balancing to old content, stabilize the game, then and only then move to something like an expansion.

They need both new content and a serious re-balancing of all skills, mechanics and classes.

For content they need to add difficulty settings (for everything) and variety, because right now the raid formula isn’t working and a majority of players that have lost interest in frustration.

You can’t just abandon dungeon and expect your MMO to be as successful as other MMO that keep adding multiple new dungeons with every new DLC.

For balance, clearly they have the dedicated team, but that team just can’t see how bad their game balance is and how they keep making the gameplay worse with terrible decisions. It’s pretty hopeless I think unless they get a new balance team.

Guild Wars 2 had so much potential at launch to become the best MMO, but they made many mistakes specially by removing content and not refreshing the gameplay. Turning the living story into a single player experience with weeks of group farming afterward to unlock skins isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either. Ignoring the MANY players wanting GvG was a disastrous decision.

Meanwhile other initially-worse MMO have worked hard on game-changing improvements, features, etc and they have taken the lead.

Good thing is the game is F2P and it’s not the only game with this business model either. It’s still a great time for MMOs.

Devata.6589:

Slowpokeking.8720:

I think the problem was the direction, hardcore and raid should never be the focus of this game.

But is it the focus of this game? I don’t think it is. Yes there where more raid patches in the first period after HoT then other type of patches, but that might simply be because it’s from another team who might be able to release it faster.

The HoT maps are harder for solo-players but that has imho more to do with the fact that they wanted to make group-content then because they wanted to make it more hardcore.

I can not say the game as total now suddenly has a focus on HC content. You do think that is the case? And what do you base that on?

Yes, the new content is mostly about raids, they even have elusive stories, backpacks and minis.

Behellagh.1468:

zealex.9410:

theres honeslty a little replayability value to most content pve wise the endgame is basically dailies and weeklys this and the fact that the cash shop in gw2 is very very playe firendly to the point that you can farmt he gems for what ever you like.

You want little replayability in PvE, try Blade & Soul. It’s an MMO on rails.

no, not really i like my self replayability

I think you’re mixing two different things up and keep going on about bringing back people. This game’s population feels to be growing but the gemstore is the problem when it comes to revenue. Veteran players have no use for the gemstore because gold is so easy to come by in this game and all the incentives to buy, they already own or just exchange for gems. They have a major currency issue and not enough satisfying gold sinks. They have too many other currencies doing (golds job) which provides that surplus of gold to sync into the gemstore which..loses them money as a company. The mass majority of my guild rarely buys gems because they just exchange their gold that has been accumulating and no real sink to go into anymore. How can they fix this problem? I’m not sure, they feel like they’re already too deep in the water when it comes to commitment for cash flow systems (other than making a expansion) The retention of selling LS3 might have gain them more money than making it free. $10 dollars a episode every 2-3 months would have been reasonable but they give too much away for free. This game has the best user friendly experience I’ve ever witness in a MMO but whoever handles financial obligations for generating revenue has been doing a very poor job for the company and could do be doing so much better to generate revenue as a whole. Can you imagine if they even sold each episode for even $5 dollars not even $10. Lets just say 50,000 users buy it (if that many still exist) that would net them a very sustainable profit form just that.

I almost feel like they could have started Living World off with being paid content, even if it was a smaller fee but it could have generated more money to make each episode even bigger or just that extra revenue made. Its just a shame the gemstore is failing them hard.

Bruno.3812:

Yet there were still lots of complaints about it and people who hate those maps and refuse to go there, even now. So maybe it did hurt the game even if they’re not so bad once you learn the mechanics.

The problem as I see it was how there wasn’t a true learning curve in vanilla Tyria. It went from “auto attack playing” in core maps to “need to learn the mechanics” without warning. In other words it was a change in the games playing philosophy from core maps to HoT maps that the casual players neither expected nor had been taught to play.

I can do T4 fractals no problem, I can PVP no problem. It has nothing to do with mechanics, I just friggin hate those maps. They are annoying. Half the time I am trying to get somewhere I end up being incredibly frustrated. By the time i finally arrive where I’m going I don’t think “wow what a fun and challenging experience!” instead i think “omfg, about time”. And this is having put 3 players up to elite spec and having basically every strongbox and mastery point. I just hate the maps, they are awful, and without a doubt have driven people away.

I think your first point hit it right on the head, people don’t like the maps for whatever their personal reason (difficulty, confusing nature, lack of other players, annoying content, etc…) and people still complain about them today.