Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Well yeah, I did feel that about Zhaitan because I think drama as in book and not boss fight as in game.

I spent ten levels fighting Zhaitan. Cutting off a lot of his power. The last bit was the final cut scene.

When people write endings like that in books, its called anti climactic. Its actually one of the simplest forms of screwing up your story. Now some writers can break the rules and make it interesting even with anti climactic things, but in general its considered a flaw.

Dragons are built up as a primordial force, Zhaitan in particular is built up as a fairly cunning one, who has the entire knowlege of all he has taken over. The climax of the entire story arc, is him getting hit by a laser, shot by side charachters.

Imagine a story about a scrappy young man, seeking to bring down the corrupt overlord of his country, who is a great martial artist, military mind, and he in fact possesses superhuman powers!, Scrappy builds a resistance, he loses his friends. Breaks into his lair, Ready for the final confrontation! He walks in the room ready to try to contend with a man beyond human, smarter faster, and with superhuman abilities. A side charachter shoots him im the back/spine. And The main charachter spends the next two pages kicking his paralyzed body.

Sorry its just as bad if not worse in written form.

i was actually shocked when i saw the trait unlocks, that they seek to force players to do that fight. I would go out of my way not to encourage people to see one of my biggest failures in the game.

Harper.4173:

Second – you got my point – bigger guilds are all around better and a lot of players that roll with bigger guilds know this. Sure there are exceptions (I’m sure you feel your guild is – and it might just well be) but overall if you’re a player that wants stuff and shiny items and buffs – bigger guilds are the place to be.

The best raiding guilds in EQ2, at least on the german servers, had normally not much
more than 24 people afaik (24 was raid size there).

For everyone who only knows the dumbed down raids of WoW .. in EQ2 it was very
common that there was maybe only 1 single guild per server that got the highest raid
down before the next expansion.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Well yeah, I did feel that about Zhaitan because I think drama as in book and not boss fight as in game.

I spent ten levels fighting Zhaitan. Cutting off a lot of his power. The last bit was the final cut scene.

When people write endings like that in books, its called anti climactic.

It would be a bad ending of a book .. since no book ends with a fight against a mob .. at least i don’t know any.

Heck .. does Lord of the Rings end in a 100 page fight against Sauron, where everyone
dies 50 times, and then they have to wait to get revived .. and try again .. and die again
and try again ? Can’t remember every having read something like that.

There is also no 50 pages long fight against the Balrog .. where Gandalf first has to
find 23 other people to form a raid.

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Well yeah, I did feel that about Zhaitan because I think drama as in book and not boss fight as in game.

I spent ten levels fighting Zhaitan. Cutting off a lot of his power. The last bit was the final cut scene.

When people write endings like that in books, its called anti climactic.

It would be a bad ending of a book .. since no book ends with a fight against a mob .. at least i don’t know any.

Heck .. does Lord of the Rings end in a 100 page fight against Sauron, where everyone
dies 50 times, and then they have to wait to get revived .. and try again .. and die again
and try again ? Can’t remember every having read something like that.

There is also no 50 pages long fight against the Balrog .. where Gandalf first has to
find 23 other people to form a raid.

Why are you bringing up page size? its not analgous to anything here. The fight didnt have to be long, it just had to be exciting/signifigant. It was neither. There was no feeling of growth, and no resolution in that fight. In terms of building excitement, it was also poor.

I dont know if you are a writer, or read a lot of adventure based fiction, but no matter how you slice it that was a very poorly executed climax, in almost every way possible.

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Well yeah, I did feel that about Zhaitan because I think drama as in book and not boss fight as in game.

I spent ten levels fighting Zhaitan. Cutting off a lot of his power. The last bit was the final cut scene.

When people write endings like that in books, its called anti climactic.

It would be a bad ending of a book .. since no book ends with a fight against a mob .. at least i don’t know any.

Heck .. does Lord of the Rings end in a 100 page fight against Sauron, where everyone
dies 50 times, and then they have to wait to get revived .. and try again .. and die again
and try again ? Can’t remember every having read something like that.

There is also no 50 pages long fight against the Balrog .. where Gandalf first has to
find 23 other people to form a raid.

Why are you bringing up page size? its not analgous to anything here. The fight didnt have to be long, it just had to be exciting/signifigant. It was neither. There was no feeling of growth, and no resolution in that fight. In terms of building excitement, it was also poor.

I dont know if you are a writer, or read a lot of adventure based fiction, but no matter how you slice it that was a very poorly executed climax, in almost every way possible.

Page size just because the so called “challenging” content for many only seems to
be challenging if they first have to die 100+ times .. so that means it takes forever.

For Drathar in EQ2 for example i spent more than 50 hours until we finally had beaten him.

Else i have maybe 400-500 fantasy books .. and the only one where fights a really
described longer are the books of R.A. Salvatore.

Back to LoTR .. the Balrog Fight is only described later in very short .. and there isn’t
even a big epic fight against Sauron at all.

Look .. this is the end .. very anti climatic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4fYBTa6b54

tigirius.9014:

NewTrain.7549:

IndigoSundown.5419:

NewTrain.7549:

The fact is, if you’re afraid to develop new content because you may anger a small group that possibly doesn’t even exist in significant numbers (players who want hard content but only if it’s tied to exclusive rewards), then you have no business making video games.

It’s your assumption that it’s a small group. However, you have no data to support that assumption. It’s my contention that the small group could well be those who are willing to settle for somewhat better drops. The thing is, you want to use your lack of data to restrict the discussion and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

And it’s your assumption that it’s a significant group. However, you have no data to support that assumption. It’s my contention that the small/nonexistent group could well be those who will only run challenging content for exclusive rewards. The thing is, you want to use fear of a complete unknown quantity to restrict design choices and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Actually every demographic study so far by multiple mmo developers have shown that the number of people who want harder raid like content with exclusive rewards is really just 1% of the population of their games in each and every study.

Thank you. You just completely supported my argument, which was that people who want exclusive rewards from raid-like content are a vast minority.

But, even though you inadvertently supported my argument while trying to disprove it, I’m still going to ask for a link to these myriad so-called “studies”.

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Well yeah, I did feel that about Zhaitan because I think drama as in book and not boss fight as in game.

I spent ten levels fighting Zhaitan. Cutting off a lot of his power. The last bit was the final cut scene.

When people write endings like that in books, its called anti climactic.

It would be a bad ending of a book .. since no book ends with a fight against a mob .. at least i don’t know any.

Heck .. does Lord of the Rings end in a 100 page fight against Sauron, where everyone
dies 50 times, and then they have to wait to get revived .. and try again .. and die again
and try again ? Can’t remember every having read something like that.

There is also no 50 pages long fight against the Balrog .. where Gandalf first has to
find 23 other people to form a raid.

Why are you bringing up page size? its not analgous to anything here. The fight didnt have to be long, it just had to be exciting/signifigant. It was neither. There was no feeling of growth, and no resolution in that fight. In terms of building excitement, it was also poor.

I dont know if you are a writer, or read a lot of adventure based fiction, but no matter how you slice it that was a very poorly executed climax, in almost every way possible.

Page size just because the so called “challenging” content for many only seems to
be challenging if they first have to die 100+ times .. so that means it takes forever.

For Drathar in EQ2 for example i spent more than 50 hours until we finally had beaten him.

Else i have maybe 400-500 fantasy books .. and the only one where fights a really
described longer are the books of R.A. Salvatore.

Back to LoTR .. the Balrog Fight is only described later in very short .. and there isn’t
even a big epic fight against Sauron at all.

Look .. this is the end .. very anti climatic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4fYBTa6b54

A climax is supposed to be the most exciting/interesting part of the story, its also supposed be where things change for the main charachters, the peak of the charachters growth. like i said, it is poor on all fronts

NewTrain.7549:

tigirius.9014:

NewTrain.7549:

IndigoSundown.5419:

NewTrain.7549:

The fact is, if you’re afraid to develop new content because you may anger a small group that possibly doesn’t even exist in significant numbers (players who want hard content but only if it’s tied to exclusive rewards), then you have no business making video games.

It’s your assumption that it’s a small group. However, you have no data to support that assumption. It’s my contention that the small group could well be those who are willing to settle for somewhat better drops. The thing is, you want to use your lack of data to restrict the discussion and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

And it’s your assumption that it’s a significant group. However, you have no data to support that assumption. It’s my contention that the small/nonexistent group could well be those who will only run challenging content for exclusive rewards. The thing is, you want to use fear of a complete unknown quantity to restrict design choices and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Actually every demographic study so far by multiple mmo developers have shown that the number of people who want harder raid like content with exclusive rewards is really just 1% of the population of their games in each and every study.

Thank you. You just completely supported my argument, which was that people who want exclusive rewards from raid-like content are a vast minority.

But, even though you inadvertently supported my argument while trying to disprove it, I’m still going to ask for a link to these myriad so-called “studies”.

It’s been in MMO news for some time now. WoW was one of the first ones but there have been several. WoW, AoC, Rift, SWTOR, LOTRO would be the five I’m speaking about specifically but they aren’t the only ones. These things are mentioned in every forum of every game and at conventions every year when people ask about raiding. The data just doesn’t like and the developers are reacting to that data. Once they’ve done the studies they’ve announced on forums and in convensions that Raiding isn’t what it used to be and that they may indeed change the direction of their development. The most recent announcement came from the developers of LOTRO in which they stated that because this demographic was so low, they couldn’t justify the time it would take to make new raids when the rest of the game needed so much help. In fact, they stopped making expansions altogether for the next year due to this data so they could flesh out and update the rest of the world, something I hope is happening here with GW2.

Frankly I’m surprised you missed the controversy, the 1% were very vocal about being considered a niche community.

Defending Zaithan`s fight really ? are you serious ? I have never seen such a horrible fight in my gaming history . Almost every person which I knew agrees that this fight is just bad , really bad . Epic massive dragon and all you do is spam 111111 on some turret o_0 are you kidding me ? Scarlett fight in LA was much more epic then this borring crap .

With regard to what percentage of players raid in games where raiding is offered, the number is going to vary depending on how difficult the raid content is. Is the raid’s difficulty aimed at those who are above average in skill? If so, it stands to reason that only above average players will complete it. This leaves anyone average and below out. By definition, there are as many below average as above, and the average range is going to be the biggest range on a standard distribution.

The numbers get even smaller if the content is aimed at the top 10% of player skill. Call that group the highly skilled. By definition, that leaves 90% of the total player base out.

Aim the content at the average range of skill and you accommodate larger numbers. LFR attracts larger numbers of players than heroic raids. However, the most highly skilled players are going to find that kind of content too easy.

GW2 explorable dungeons were originally intended for coordinated groups of skilled players. That should have accommodated the highly skilled niche. It did, for a time, and still does to the extent that these players can make their own challenges out of this content. However, at what level of skill were they aimed? I’d say it was considerably lower than just the top 10%. Of course, over time, and with all of the walk throughs on Youtube, I’d venture that even below average skill players can complete some paths.

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Well yeah, I did feel that about Zhaitan because I think drama as in book and not boss fight as in game.

I spent ten levels fighting Zhaitan. Cutting off a lot of his power. The last bit was the final cut scene.

When people write endings like that in books, its called anti climactic.

It would be a bad ending of a book .. since no book ends with a fight against a mob .. at least i don’t know any.

Heck .. does Lord of the Rings end in a 100 page fight against Sauron, where everyone
dies 50 times, and then they have to wait to get revived .. and try again .. and die again
and try again ? Can’t remember every having read something like that.

There is also no 50 pages long fight against the Balrog .. where Gandalf first has to
find 23 other people to form a raid.

Why are you bringing up page size? its not analgous to anything here. The fight didnt have to be long, it just had to be exciting/signifigant. It was neither. There was no feeling of growth, and no resolution in that fight. In terms of building excitement, it was also poor.

I dont know if you are a writer, or read a lot of adventure based fiction, but no matter how you slice it that was a very poorly executed climax, in almost every way possible.

Page size just because the so called “challenging” content for many only seems to
be challenging if they first have to die 100+ times .. so that means it takes forever.

For Drathar in EQ2 for example i spent more than 50 hours until we finally had beaten him.

Else i have maybe 400-500 fantasy books .. and the only one where fights a really
described longer are the books of R.A. Salvatore.

Back to LoTR .. the Balrog Fight is only described later in very short .. and there isn’t
even a big epic fight against Sauron at all.

Look .. this is the end .. very anti climatic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4fYBTa6b54

A climax is supposed to be the most exciting/interesting part of the story, its also supposed be where things change for the main charachters, the peak of the charachters growth. like i said, it is poor on all fronts

I consider the Zhaitan fight to be more of an epilogue than a climax.

Stormcrow.7513:

Well yeah, I did feel that about Zhaitan because I think drama as in book and not boss fight as in game.

I spent ten levels fighting Zhaitan. Cutting off a lot of his power. The last bit was the final cut scene.

Are you seriously defending the Zhaitan fight? SERIOUSLY!!!! If you think of drama as a book then maybe a text adventure game is more akin to your needs.
The Zhaitan fight was by far the worse and most terribly designed, anticlimactic ending to ANY game that I have ever played in 30+odd years. [/quote]

I’m not defending the Zhaitan fight. Your saying so shows a lack of understanding of what I’ve said.

I didn’t see the Zhaitan fight as a boss fight. You started fighting Zhaitan the moment you saw it. I was fighting Zhaitan from level 70.

My Zhaitan fight was everything from level 70 up, because I don’t think in terms of boss fights.

Frodo destroyed Sauran by getting the one ring to the fire. He didn’t have a boss fight. Some of us don’t require a boss fight.

The boss fight could have been better. But the fight against Zhaitan, (which now starts at level 80 story) started back then at level 70.

The boss fight could have been better.

Vayne, could it be that you are finally seeing the light?

Frodo and friends also didn’t throw Gandalf’s fireworks at Sauron’s tower until he finally got so annoyed that he decided to fall to his doom. Just sayin

I might not need a boss fight but you had better have a better conclusion to a story than what GW2’s was.

On a side note I really liked the fight with the eye, that was a good fight and also had some cool music.

Harper.4173:

virtualtourist.6438:

To answer the OP’s fourth question:

I would like to see more content that involves greater elements of mental challenge, in smaller-scale encounters (not zerg-fests).

Mental challenge can include:

• Build preparation (choice of gear, skills, traits, food).
• Maintaining awareness of enemy positions and actions, and formulating responses to the evolving situation.
• Observing patterns in enemy behaviour and preparing for them.
• Making best use of the surrounding terrain (includes jumping puzzles).
• Resisting the urge to scream at the computer when your toon dies (maybe not this one).

It’s not possible to entirely remove the element of physical (reflex) challenge, unless it’s a puzzle similar to the one at the end of Tears of Itlaocol. I’d rather play a single-player puzzle game or turn-based RPG (X-Com, Divinity: Original Sin, Wasteland 2) for that sort of thing.

I liked the LS Season 2 encounters. They tended to build upon earlier encounters and gradually introduced more things to keep track of during the fights. I know these were not everyone’s cup of tea, but since they are designed as Level 80 content it’s not unfair to expect a certain level of familiarity with your profession skills and knowing how to use them in different situations.

Main problem is that it takes time to design, create and test such encounters…and relatively little time for people to play through and eventually master them. Without the artificial time gating shenanigans used by other MMORPGs, this leads to a perceived lack of longevity.

Mental challenges aren’t worth the development time.

One player/one group just has to beat it and upload a guide/video of it and that’s it. Done. Everyone can do it provided they try and copy what the first group has done.

This sort of thing worked back in the day – when there weren’t as many written guilds and content creators invested in creating videos/guides for almost every game.

Every game – from CoD to BF4, Starcraft 2 and GW2 now have youtubers that deal with that game – promote the best strategies and builds and teach you how to master it without you having to strain your mind at all.

I’ll use the Foefire cleansing in Barradin’s Vault as an example:
Anyone who’s rolled a Charr would be familiar with the big bad statue and ghostly mobs, but in addition to different attacks used by the statue, you now have Spectral Flames that remind me of a less extreme version of Liadri’s Visions of Mortality plus Ascalonian Menders that have to be taken out before they heal the statue.

Each element of the fight is like a separate subroutine that does a few specific things (move to statue and heal, move to player and go boom). Taken individually, they’re not much of a problem. Combine them together and suddenly the player is faced with threats from multiple directions and having to prioritise each threat.

This is a more modular approach to creating an encounter, and probably easier since each component can be developed and tested in isolation to make sure it does what its supposed to. Combining them can be done incrementally and involves tweaking the timing and impact of each element until you get the balance you were aiming for.

You could load all the subroutines onto a single boss, but then the boss tends to only perform one attack/subroutine at a time and provides a single consistent target. Seems like how most of the dungeon bosses work.

Sure, you still have guides being posted on how to beat the content almost as soon as it’s released but not everyone looks for a guide immediately if they want to work out how to succeed on their own.

More importantly, a guide only provides an idea of how someone else did it. Actually replicating that success is a different matter…just look at how many failed to beat Liadri even with all the guides out there.

When there are multiple things to focus on and deal with, and making several mistakes in a row equals game over, watching a guide isn’t going to guarantee success, it just helps with preparation. There’s still an element of mental challenge involved during the fight, especially if each time the fight is run the timing of each element is randomised slightly.

Stormcrow.7513:

The boss fight could have been better.

Vayne, could it be that you are finally seeing the light?

Frodo and friends also didn’t throw Gandalf’s fireworks at Sauron’s tower until he finally got so annoyed that he decided to fall to his doom. Just sayin

I might not need a boss fight but you had better have a better conclusion to a story than what GW2’s was.

On a side note I really liked the fight with the eye, that was a good fight and also had some cool music.

It wasn’t a boss fight. That’s my point. It could have been a boss fight. It was essentially a cut scene with a bit of interaction.

There is almost nothing I care less about than boss fights. That’s a personal thing. It’s one of the reasons that Hirathi and Straits of Devastation on my favorite zones. I prefer feeling like I’m in a pitched battle to fighting one big boss.

It’s the reason I don’t really enjoy dungeons.

There could have been a boss fight…but it wouldn’t have made Arah story mode better for me personally. I do acknowledge it would likely have been better for a huge percentage of the playerbase.

But I personally would have liked it less.

Boss fights serve no real purpose in my mind.

Saylu.8271:

The content already exist, adding more content just shift the ratio. The ratio of easy content vs hard content just favor the former. People keep mistaking “moderately challenging” content for difficult content which they aren’t. Moderately challenging content are more in the middle ground. I can understand why people are arguing for more “moderately challenging” content which actually make sense. For the sake of political correctness, I would think people who argue for actual difficult content is but a small vocal minority.

Agreed 100%.

I’d classify more difficult content as “make one or two mistakes and you’re done” (e.g. Liadri), and moderately difficult content as “make a few mistakes in a row and you’re done”.

The first type requires repeating the content enough times (varies for different people) that you no longer make any mistakes. The second allows you some breathing room to correct your mistakes without having to restart. Some moderately difficult content can be pushed over the edge by adding a tight time limit.

Easy content can only be failed if you go AFK, and sometimes not even then.

I doubt the majority of people want to have to beat Liadri as part of the Living Story (maybe as an April Fools’ joke?), but if LS S2 is any indication then there’s certainly more moderately difficult content on its way. This is a good thing…:-)

virtualtourist.6438:

Sure, you still have guides being posted on how to beat the content almost as soon as it’s released but not everyone looks for a guide immediately if they want to work out how to succeed on their own.

More importantly, a guide only provides an idea of how someone else did it. Actually replicating that success is a different matter…just look at how many failed to beat Liadri even with all the guides out there.

When there are multiple things to focus on and deal with, and making several mistakes in a row equals game over, watching a guide isn’t going to guarantee success, it just helps with preparation. There’s still an element of mental challenge involved during the fight, especially if each time the fight is run the timing of each element is randomised slightly.

The majority of players look for a guide as soon as content is released. That’s why youtube channels and sites that deal with this sort of thing are immensely popular.

Replicating a guide is easy. You might say it isn’t but honestly – all the work of discovering how to do it aside you can just do what the video guy did until you get it. There’s no reason not to.

What you’re saying is creating more reflex gameplay – not more mental challenge in the game. We already have that.
I was simply pointing out why you can’t have puzzles and whatnot as a serious thing.

Harper.4173:

The majority of players look for a guide as soon as content is released. That’s why youtube channels and sites that deal with this sort of thing are immensely popular.

Replicating a guide is easy. You might say it isn’t but honestly – all the work of discovering how to do it aside you can just do what the video guy did until you get it. There’s no reason not to.

What you’re saying is creating more reflex gameplay – not more mental challenge in the game. We already have that.
I was simply pointing out why you can’t have puzzles and whatnot as a serious thing.

I think of the mental challenge part of GW2 combat as “what is the sequence of things I need to do to stay alive and beat the encounter”, and the reflex challenge part is “how well can I time the actions (button presses, mouse movements) to perform that sequence of things”. I’m not talking about static puzzles or code cracking here.

You can get the information about what to do from a guide, no arguments there. That diminishes the mental challenge part, but does that mean there’s no point designing content with an element of mental challenge?

The people who enjoy working it out themselves have something to challenge themselves with (and write guides about). Those who prefer to read a guide still face a reflex challenge even though they (theoretically) know what to do.

Aside from that, I’d guess the developers would get pretty bored if they weren’t allowed to design content with some element of mental challenge…

Harper.4173:

That’s why – my personal experience is that bigger guilds are more invested in the game because they attract players that want those benefits of a big guild.

They attract more leeches, you wanted to say. People that are more interested in those benefits than in the guild itself. And it has nothing to do with how much the guild (or its guildmembers) are invested in the game. I have seen small guilds that were very invested in the game, and i have seen big guilds that practically melted overnight (due to people stopping playing completely, not just leaving the guild) over trivial things (or because a new MMO hit the market). Size in no way equals dedication.

Astralporing.1957:

Harper.4173:

That’s why – my personal experience is that bigger guilds are more invested in the game because they attract players that want those benefits of a big guild.

They attract more leeches, you wanted to say. People that are more interested in those benefits than in the guild itself. And it has nothing to do with how much the guild (or its guildmembers) are invested in the game. I have seen small guilds that were very invested in the game, and i have seen big guilds that practically melted overnight (due to people stopping playing completely, not just leaving the guild) over trivial things (or because a new MMO hit the market). Size in no way equals dedication.

I’m not sure you noticed but with GW2’s 5 guild system most of the times guilds aren’t about the community as much as they are about buffs and convenience.

It’s been 2 years – you’d think people have noticed by now.

Beldin.5498:

Btw.:
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/

In the true sense of their motto; “The Devs are Listening” Frost discussed how Carbine is regularly looking at and analyzing gameplay analytics. These analytics are focused on playtime, content and reward loop feedback, all of which have shifted their focus from high end content to solo gameplay. Statistics are showing the majority of Wildstar players enjoy solo play instead of larger raids which really caught Carbine developers off guard

Yes, every MMO reports the same thing, and yet in every MMO forums, tiny fraction of tiny fraction of playerbase spew same nonsense demanding raids, hard conent and “unique” rewards.

Hell, even GW2 will have CDI for raiding? WTF for rofl. Its WASTE of resources. Unless its scalable form 1-x players (x=whatever)

And yes, Carbine just prooves how clueless developers are. WS is pretty much dead in the water. But they listened to “community” before launch, and this is the result.

Hell, it took Turbine 7 years to figure it out rofl. But Turbine actually had balls to say what is what. And guess what? LOTRO isnt doing any worse because of it.

MikaHR.1978:

Beldin.5498:

Btw.:
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/

In the true sense of their motto; “The Devs are Listening” Frost discussed how Carbine is regularly looking at and analyzing gameplay analytics. These analytics are focused on playtime, content and reward loop feedback, all of which have shifted their focus from high end content to solo gameplay. Statistics are showing the majority of Wildstar players enjoy solo play instead of larger raids which really caught Carbine developers off guard

Yes, every MMO reports the same thing, and yet in every MMO forums, tiny fraction of tiny fraction of playerbase spew same nonsense demanding raids, hard conent and “unique” rewards.

Hell, even GW2 will have CDI for raiding? WTF for rofl. Its WASTE of resources. Unless its scalable form 1-x players (x=whatever)

And yes, Carbine just prooves how clueless developers are. WS is pretty much dead in the water. But they listened to “community” before launch, and this is the result.

Hell, it took Turbine 7 years to figure it out rofl. But Turbine actually had balls to say what is what. And guess what? LOTRO isnt doing any worse because of it.

I doubt developers don’t know this. It is more about funneling these causal crowds into their MMO genre to better monetize their player base. The theory is that singleplayer brought people to the table but multiplayer kept them sitting down. Short term single player game simply fail to provide the desired revenue flow, mostly hit or miss, very undependable. It is reflection of reality, compromise had to be made, knowing what you want is probably not what they’re truly building.

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Beldin.5498:

Btw.:
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/

In the true sense of their motto; “The Devs are Listening” Frost discussed how Carbine is regularly looking at and analyzing gameplay analytics. These analytics are focused on playtime, content and reward loop feedback, all of which have shifted their focus from high end content to solo gameplay. Statistics are showing the majority of Wildstar players enjoy solo play instead of larger raids which really caught Carbine developers off guard

Yes, every MMO reports the same thing, and yet in every MMO forums, tiny fraction of tiny fraction of playerbase spew same nonsense demanding raids, hard conent and “unique” rewards.

Hell, even GW2 will have CDI for raiding? WTF for rofl. Its WASTE of resources. Unless its scalable form 1-x players (x=whatever)

And yes, Carbine just prooves how clueless developers are. WS is pretty much dead in the water. But they listened to “community” before launch, and this is the result.

Hell, it took Turbine 7 years to figure it out rofl. But Turbine actually had balls to say what is what. And guess what? LOTRO isnt doing any worse because of it.

I doubt developers don’t know this. It is more about funneling these causal crowds into their MMO genre to better monetize their player base. The theory is that singleplayer brought people to the table but multiplayer kept them sitting down. Short term single player game simply fail to provide the desired revenue flow, mostly hit or miss, very undependable. It is reflection of reality, compromise had to be made, knowing what you want is probably not what they’re truly building.

And, here we go again, you talk like all those who talked about theory, practice has made that theory obsolete long long time ago. And not to mention that that theory was hugly brought up by that same fraction of fraction of players who also proclaimed their “dedication” as proof that game just cannot survive without them.

Hogwash is hogwash.

And yes, building your game on obsolete theories makes you – clueless.

Just look at MMOs released in past few years and how every developer “was taken by surprise/off guard”.

Oh and while youre at it, please provide example of this astonishing elaborate endgame solo content on which developers spent so much resources like they do on raids. Just for clarity on what exactly didnt provide “revenue flow” or some such.

While OTOH, raids/hard content is proven waste of resources.

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Beldin.5498:

Btw.:
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/

In the true sense of their motto; “The Devs are Listening” Frost discussed how Carbine is regularly looking at and analyzing gameplay analytics. These analytics are focused on playtime, content and reward loop feedback, all of which have shifted their focus from high end content to solo gameplay. Statistics are showing the majority of Wildstar players enjoy solo play instead of larger raids which really caught Carbine developers off guard

Yes, every MMO reports the same thing, and yet in every MMO forums, tiny fraction of tiny fraction of playerbase spew same nonsense demanding raids, hard conent and “unique” rewards.

Hell, even GW2 will have CDI for raiding? WTF for rofl. Its WASTE of resources. Unless its scalable form 1-x players (x=whatever)

And yes, Carbine just prooves how clueless developers are. WS is pretty much dead in the water. But they listened to “community” before launch, and this is the result.

Hell, it took Turbine 7 years to figure it out rofl. But Turbine actually had balls to say what is what. And guess what? LOTRO isnt doing any worse because of it.

I doubt developers don’t know this. It is more about funneling these causal crowds into their MMO genre to better monetize their player base. The theory is that singleplayer brought people to the table but multiplayer kept them sitting down. Short term single player game simply fail to provide the desired revenue flow, mostly hit or miss, very undependable. It is reflection of reality, compromise had to be made, knowing what you want is probably not what they’re truly building.

And, here we go again, you talk like all those who talked about theory, practice has made that theory obsolete long long time ago. And not to mention that that theory was hugly brought up by that same fraction of fraction of players who also proclaimed their “dedication” as proof that game just cannot survive without them.

Hogwash is hogwash.

And yes, building your game on obsolete theories makes you – clueless.

Just look at MMOs released in past few years and how every developer “was taken by surprise/off guard”.

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Edit: I don’t see why they are clueless. On the contrary, developers are probably adding more single player game content IN an MMO even as we speak. They had been doing it for a while now.

Saylu.8271:

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Oh, but it IS about multiplayer (what is multiplayer anyway, forced grouping or just people inhabiting/coexisitng in same game world?) because every dev took WoW route (and every one failed). Leveling is pretty much solo affair and bam, you hit endgame and game turns 180 and you cant do crap without raiding and its just gear grind. And then proceded to wonder why game has 10% retention (probably even lower for Wildstar becuse its hard raid content).

Duh-huh, wheres content for those other 90%? How can you claim something that was never even tried failed to provide any results lol

I ask you again, provide example of what content in MMO you speak of failed to provide what you speak of.

Destiny is going through a similar casual vs. hardcore fight at the moment. Destiny employs an RNG loot system, similar to GW2. In order to get the best of the best gear you need to do a 6man raid (or just get a lucky drop) and you have a chance at getting the good stuff.

They anticipated people would get upset about playing and getting no loot, so they have a vendor show up every weekend that can also sell you some of that awesome loot in exchange for currency (similar-ish to dungeon marks).

Now this is where the hard-cores start to lose their kitten. It’s not fair, they say. Why should casuals have access to the best gear when they had to get it the “real” way. In their minds, it is more hard-core to get one lucky drop in one dungeon than for the “casuals” to grind for weeks to get enough currency to get the same item the “hard-core” guy got in a couple hours of playing.

They just can’t wrap around their heads that they aren’t the special little flowers that they used to be and if they actually quit the game, no one would notice.

Most players start out hard-core when they are students/unemployed, since they have the time. Eventually they get lives and then they understand that hard-core is merely a term to describe hours played, not skill. You can be an amazing player and casual, just like you can a hard-core player and bad.

virtualtourist.6438:

I think of the mental challenge part of GW2 combat as “what is the sequence of things I need to do to stay alive and beat the encounter”, and the reflex challenge part is “how well can I time the actions (button presses, mouse movements) to perform that sequence of things”.

There’s also the kitty challenge part which is “no kitty why you jump in front of the screen (quickly remove kitty without harm to kitty or self) that’s a bad kitty”.

Astralporing.1957:

/snip

True, the whole “spamming autoattack while afk” argument is (and has always been) a strawman – but it’s the hardcores, not casuals, that come closest to it in this game.

Incorrect. This is what “casuals” do when they are lucky enough to be in a “hardcore” as you say group, where the important roles, like aegis, might stacking, CCing is already taken care of.

“hardcore” groups when having to post an lfg for a pug, they deliberately make sure the ONLY thing that pug needs to know how to do is dps. This is because pugs are randoms and may not have the foggiest idea how to actually play their class, or know what the boss may do.

edit:
Though casual can be taken to mean “bad” not “limited time to play”
and hardcore can be taken to mean “good” rather than “lots of time to play”
Typically people tend to get better with experience, but talent and ability to learn/improve comes into play here.

I don’t think it’s a case of few people wanting challenging content, it’s a case of how trivial content becomes once a method has been established (stack her, run here, do this to lose aggro, etc)

Most dungeon groups that I have experienced do everything in their power to skip as much dungeon content as possible to get at the rewards.

ANet: please give an incentive for 100% clearing dungeons

rapthorne.7345:

I don’t think it’s a case of few people wanting challenging content, it’s a case of how trivial content becomes once a method has been established (stack her, run here, do this to lose aggro, etc)

Most dungeon groups that I have experienced do everything in their power to skip as much dungeon content as possible to get at the rewards.

ANet: please give an incentive for 100% clearing dungeons

The dungeons are a lot of fun, but get a little stale. Need more to do. It’s purely there isn’t enough to keep things fresh. Add 8 more dungeons with the same depth/difficulty as arah/ta:ae and the high end-ers will be happy for a few months.

Give us new mobs to fight. Like a grawl/ogre/harpie/elemental/destroyer themed dungeons. By which time the existing dungeons wont have been repeated so intensely and will be less boring.

better loot from mobs (with publicity and proof of improvement) would help with incentive to clear. Probably need exp modes to me level 80 so t6 mats drop more. Gotta balance this with the cost of the t2-4 mats for asc gear though.

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Oh, but it IS about multiplayer (what is multiplayer anyway, forced grouping or just people inhabiting/coexisitng in same game world?) because every dev took WoW route (and every one failed). Leveling is pretty much solo affair and bam, you hit endgame and game turns 180 and you cant do crap without raiding and its just gear grind. And then proceded to wonder why game has 10% retention (probably even lower for Wildstar becuse its hard raid content).

Duh-huh, wheres content for those other 90%? How can you claim something that was never even tried failed to provide any results lol

I ask you again, provide example of what content in MMO you speak of failed to provide what you speak of.

It is funny you mention WoW, but simply decided to ignore it. Which single player games clock more game time than Wow? League of legends, Dota2, D3, COD, all these other shooters games, and many more seem to demonstrate people clock alot of time on online gameplay. My point is online gameplay really.

More often than not you can’t really make things everyone like, compromise are fun stuff. If you hate multiplayer, forced grouping, raiding, please tell the developers about it, I can’t help you there really.

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Oh, but it IS about multiplayer (what is multiplayer anyway, forced grouping or just people inhabiting/coexisitng in same game world?) because every dev took WoW route (and every one failed). Leveling is pretty much solo affair and bam, you hit endgame and game turns 180 and you cant do crap without raiding and its just gear grind. And then proceded to wonder why game has 10% retention (probably even lower for Wildstar becuse its hard raid content).

Duh-huh, wheres content for those other 90%? How can you claim something that was never even tried failed to provide any results lol

I ask you again, provide example of what content in MMO you speak of failed to provide what you speak of.

It is funny you mention WoW, but simply decided to ignore it. Which single player games clock more game time than Wow? League of legends, Dota2, D3, COD, all these other shooters games, and many more seem to demonstrate people clock alot of time on online gameplay. My point is online gameplay really.

More often than not you can’t really make things everyone like, compromise are fun stuff. If you hate multiplayer, forced grouping, raiding, please tell the developers about it, I can’t help you there really.

Now please enlighten us all what hard PVE raid content LoL, Dota, D3, CoD, and all these shooters have.

But they DO have something in common. Besides being online.

ES, Fallout, Civ games logged massive amount of hours, more than majority of MMOs (just couple of most popular ones)

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Oh, but it IS about multiplayer (what is multiplayer anyway, forced grouping or just people inhabiting/coexisitng in same game world?) because every dev took WoW route (and every one failed). Leveling is pretty much solo affair and bam, you hit endgame and game turns 180 and you cant do crap without raiding and its just gear grind. And then proceded to wonder why game has 10% retention (probably even lower for Wildstar becuse its hard raid content).

Duh-huh, wheres content for those other 90%? How can you claim something that was never even tried failed to provide any results lol

I ask you again, provide example of what content in MMO you speak of failed to provide what you speak of.

It is funny you mention WoW, but simply decided to ignore it. Which single player games clock more game time than Wow? League of legends, Dota2, D3, COD, all these other shooters games, and many more seem to demonstrate people clock alot of time on online gameplay. My point is online gameplay really.

More often than not you can’t really make things everyone like, compromise are fun stuff. If you hate multiplayer, forced grouping, raiding, please tell the developers about it, I can’t help you there really.

Now please explain what hard PVE raid content LoL, Dota, D3, CoD, and all these shooters have.

But they DO have something in common. Besides being online.

Let’s me guess, you don’t like hybrid? I have no idea what you are arguing about.

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Oh, but it IS about multiplayer (what is multiplayer anyway, forced grouping or just people inhabiting/coexisitng in same game world?) because every dev took WoW route (and every one failed). Leveling is pretty much solo affair and bam, you hit endgame and game turns 180 and you cant do crap without raiding and its just gear grind. And then proceded to wonder why game has 10% retention (probably even lower for Wildstar becuse its hard raid content).

Duh-huh, wheres content for those other 90%? How can you claim something that was never even tried failed to provide any results lol

I ask you again, provide example of what content in MMO you speak of failed to provide what you speak of.

It is funny you mention WoW, but simply decided to ignore it. Which single player games clock more game time than Wow? League of legends, Dota2, D3, COD, all these other shooters games, and many more seem to demonstrate people clock alot of time on online gameplay. My point is online gameplay really.

More often than not you can’t really make things everyone like, compromise are fun stuff. If you hate multiplayer, forced grouping, raiding, please tell the developers about it, I can’t help you there really.

Now please explain what hard PVE raid content LoL, Dota, D3, CoD, and all these shooters have.

But they DO have something in common. Besides being online.

Let’s me guess, you don’t like hybrid? I have no idea what you are arguing about.

What hybrid? Enlighten us all: WHAT HARD PVE RAID CONTENT MOST PLAYED ONLINE GAMES YOU LISTED HAVE.

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Oh, but it IS about multiplayer (what is multiplayer anyway, forced grouping or just people inhabiting/coexisitng in same game world?) because every dev took WoW route (and every one failed). Leveling is pretty much solo affair and bam, you hit endgame and game turns 180 and you cant do crap without raiding and its just gear grind. And then proceded to wonder why game has 10% retention (probably even lower for Wildstar becuse its hard raid content).

Duh-huh, wheres content for those other 90%? How can you claim something that was never even tried failed to provide any results lol

I ask you again, provide example of what content in MMO you speak of failed to provide what you speak of.

It is funny you mention WoW, but simply decided to ignore it. Which single player games clock more game time than Wow? League of legends, Dota2, D3, COD, all these other shooters games, and many more seem to demonstrate people clock alot of time on online gameplay. My point is online gameplay really.

More often than not you can’t really make things everyone like, compromise are fun stuff. If you hate multiplayer, forced grouping, raiding, please tell the developers about it, I can’t help you there really.

Now please explain what hard PVE raid content LoL, Dota, D3, CoD, and all these shooters have.

But they DO have something in common. Besides being online.

Let’s me guess, you don’t like hybrid? I have no idea what you are arguing about.

What hybrid? Enlighten us all: WHAT HARD PVE RAID CONTENT MOST PLAYED ONLINE GAMES YOU LISTED HAVE.

You sound like a mad gorilla. That wasn’t even my topic or what I was talking about just now.

Vayne.8563:

Stormcrow.7513:

The boss fight could have been better.

Vayne, could it be that you are finally seeing the light?

Frodo and friends also didn’t throw Gandalf’s fireworks at Sauron’s tower until he finally got so annoyed that he decided to fall to his doom. Just sayin

I might not need a boss fight but you had better have a better conclusion to a story than what GW2’s was.

On a side note I really liked the fight with the eye, that was a good fight and also had some cool music.

It wasn’t a boss fight. That’s my point. It could have been a boss fight. It was essentially a cut scene with a bit of interaction.

There is almost nothing I care less about than boss fights. That’s a personal thing. It’s one of the reasons that Hirathi and Straits of Devastation on my favorite zones. I prefer feeling like I’m in a pitched battle to fighting one big boss.

It’s the reason I don’t really enjoy dungeons.

There could have been a boss fight…but it wouldn’t have made Arah story mode better for me personally. I do acknowledge it would likely have been better for a huge percentage of the playerbase.

But I personally would have liked it less.

Boss fights serve no real purpose in my mind.

it was also crappy as a cutscene. Who would not have skipped the cutcene after seeing the player shooting fireworks at a lizard stuck on a rock for 4 minutes

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

MikaHR.1978:

Saylu.8271:

My point isn’t about multi-player gaming, but rather online revenue stream for milking the money. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a “single player game” in a MMO world, as long it does the job of keeping them occupied for much longer. Online gaming is more real than ever, seems to be all the rage nowadays.

Oh, but it IS about multiplayer (what is multiplayer anyway, forced grouping or just people inhabiting/coexisitng in same game world?) because every dev took WoW route (and every one failed). Leveling is pretty much solo affair and bam, you hit endgame and game turns 180 and you cant do crap without raiding and its just gear grind. And then proceded to wonder why game has 10% retention (probably even lower for Wildstar becuse its hard raid content).

Duh-huh, wheres content for those other 90%? How can you claim something that was never even tried failed to provide any results lol

I ask you again, provide example of what content in MMO you speak of failed to provide what you speak of.

It is funny you mention WoW, but simply decided to ignore it. Which single player games clock more game time than Wow? League of legends, Dota2, D3, COD, all these other shooters games, and many more seem to demonstrate people clock alot of time on online gameplay. My point is online gameplay really.

More often than not you can’t really make things everyone like, compromise are fun stuff. If you hate multiplayer, forced grouping, raiding, please tell the developers about it, I can’t help you there really.

Now please explain what hard PVE raid content LoL, Dota, D3, CoD, and all these shooters have.

But they DO have something in common. Besides being online.

Let’s me guess, you don’t like hybrid? I have no idea what you are arguing about.

What hybrid? Enlighten us all: WHAT HARD PVE RAID CONTENT MOST PLAYED ONLINE GAMES YOU LISTED HAVE.

You sound like a mad gorilla. That wasn’t even my topic or what I was talking about just now.

Thank you for not providing anything and proving my point and sweeten it all up with an insult.

You have no point, in fact you have obsolete theories that have been spewed by certain group pf people for years now, and developers….well, they proven things again and again. Its not really a surprise MMOs are on decline since they cannot seem to grasp raids, especially hard raids are huge waste. Along with hard content. Took 7 years for Turbine, Bioware is still clueless, ANet seems to go in raid direction, Carbine…. … …

Tachenon.5270:

There’s also the kitty challenge part which is “no kitty why you jump in front of the screen (quickly remove kitty without harm to kitty or self) that’s a bad kitty”.

Reflex challenge: “refill kitty’s plate of munchies before the next Assault on Fort Monitor”

:-)