Too few players wanting difficult content?

Too few players wanting difficult content?

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Posted by: NewTrain.7549

NewTrain.7549

No. You’re talking about elitists. The thread was simply about challenging content. It was the anti-challenging content crowd that introduced the fear of elitism into the discussion. Frankly, it’s misdirection and has no place.

Elitism appeared in this topic the very moment we started discussing rewards. Difficult content that does not offer increased rewards is not so strongly contested, after all, if you haven’t noticed.

Then the discussion you want to have is about exclusive rewards, not about challenging content, since the two subjects are not intrinsically linked. Again, the fear about elitism and exclusive rewards is tangentially and a distraction from the actual topic.

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Posted by: Dalanor.5387

Dalanor.5387

Define difficult and we can move on.
The most recent LS episode was challanging, difficult or outright impossible for some people, meanwhile i would say it’s mediocre at best (no elitism included).
So yeah, where should we draw the fine line where we can speak about “difficult”?

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

No. You’re talking about elitists. The thread was simply about challenging content. It was the anti-challenging content crowd that introduced the fear of elitism into the discussion. Frankly, it’s misdirection and has no place.

Elitism appeared in this topic the very moment we started discussing rewards. Difficult content that does not offer increased rewards is not so strongly contested, after all, if you haven’t noticed.

elitism and rewards is not intrinsicly linked.
I wont deny some elitist types popped in, but the elitism isnt really the point. I am not an elitist, i just like having challenges to meet, and then having worthwhile rewards for the challenge.

Rewards had to be brought in to the discussion, because they tend to reward everything fairly uniformly regardless of how long, difficult, amount of preparation. Doing so is basically guaranteeing no one will run challenging content repeatedly, and will generally have a feeling of being cheated when doing said content.

lets look at dynamic events.
a 2 minute dynamic event gives the same reward as a 8 minute event. kill krait witch essentially same reward as kill corrupted quaggan.

Point is, they kill their own content with a reward structure that does not reward content appropriate to its difficulty/time investment/ knowledge etc. Its not really about me wanting no one to have anything cool. Its about overall making the game more fullfilling by adding various degrees of difficulty (this includes moderate difficulty) and having rewards that fit the content.

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Posted by: VodCom.6924

VodCom.6924

Define difficult and we can move on.
The most recent LS episode was challanging, difficult or outright impossible for some people, meanwhile i would say it’s mediocre at best (no elitism included).
So yeah, where should we draw the fine line where we can speak about “difficult”?

I support this statement. Let us define what “difficult” mean:

Difficulty

1) Something that is hard to do :
- easy (doable by standing still and spamming 1): ranging golem mark II, 80% of the story instances. All of the personnal story. AC P3. All of the world bosses. Karka Queen.
- involving (doable if you are not standing still and spamming 1) : melee-ing the golem mark II. World summit in dragon reach Pt2. Most of the dungeons. Some LW season 2 achiev.
- hard (requires coordination and/or does not forgive mistakes): Sand giant (show me a speed clear video of this guy and I’ll retract this one), TA P3, Liadri, megabosses (except karka queen), Mai Trin.

Note : JP are spread out between the three categories. Skipping stones lies in the hard category, while Urmaug is in easy.

2) An obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal :
- few hindrance : unlocking the meta for wvw season 3 (no obstacle, you just have to cap 5 ruins per week)
- some hindrance : completing the meta achiev for wvw season 2 (the main obstacle is time)
- enormous hindrance : Getting on top of the AP leaderboard (obstacle being other players and time allocation)

With this in mind maybe we can move on.

Known as Reegar Else, Linda Else, Xiana Else and Thorgall Breakstone

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Posted by: moiraine.2753

moiraine.2753

Define difficult and we can move on.
The most recent LS episode was challanging, difficult or outright impossible for some people, meanwhile i would say it’s mediocre at best (no elitism included).
So yeah, where should we draw the fine line where we can speak about “difficult”?

If you have played GW1 you should know what is difficult content.Right now GW2 lacks that part.

And about that so called elitism.It has nothing to do with dificulty.Elitism is existing even now.Just look at the speed clearing the dungeons.You can’t say the dungeons are difficult in this game at all.That didn’t stop elitists to pop-up.

Now lets go talk a little about challenge cna difficult content.Such thing was marionete and Queen’s pavilion gold medals.The wurm.Arah and FotM are chalenging content.The problem with GW2 content is that it’s not rewarding at all.Only 1g for SE P2?Or 2g for TA:A?Or some kitten chests with worthles loot form Tequatl and Wurm.

Dificulty and reward must always be on equal foot.At this moment that is almost non-existent in GW2.

TxS – Tequatl Slayer Alliance (EU)

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Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

To the question in the topic title. I think there’s a lot of people that want more difficult, replayable content, however what content and what you define as “difficult” is different for each individual. I know a lot of people who think the dungeons as we have them today are already difficult (mostly newer players who haven’t been repeating the same content since day 1).

As to what type of content… PvE-wise we have people wanting new world bosses like triple wurm, new dungeons/fractals and with the recent craze over that job application the dream of instanced raids is alive again as well.

PvP & WvW mostly new modes/maps/GvG.

Anet tried building a more solid foundation for new players, whether that succeeded or not is a discussion for a different thread… But now they need to start focusing on new content for the veterans as many of us feel ignored, as if they only care about new players buying the game and don’t give a crap if we stay or not.

As for your other questions:
1. No, I feel like there was enough content like that after fractals came out. But it’s been 2 years, past time to give us something new.

2. Yes! Of course there would be. As long as they don’t exaggerate the difficulty and adjust rewards accordingly.

3. The zerg mentality is only strong in open world. I doubt truely challenging open world content can exist in GW2.

4. If I had a say in it, a dungeon/instanced zone much like FoW/UW in gw1. A non-lineair explorable dungeon where you can actually explore, tackle difficult events/bosses with your party of 5.

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Posted by: FrostSpectre.4198

FrostSpectre.4198

In my opinion, update of stats, abilities and attack speed would be nice.

Well, if included with better mob AI as some already suggested.

Well not talking about difficult content, I’m just talking about having more engaging combat scenarios…

Instead of just DPS for majority of PvE, since mobs die in 1-3 seconds if I do use berserker gear and DPS build…

Since every other game mechanics actually work only on “long duration combat scenarios”, which 1-3 second melting mobs are not…
Not to mention that 1% of PvE, which are boss monsters mostly with mechanics that prevent 1-3 second deaths, this is where 2/3 of builds and combat mechanics have EQUAL chances as DPS.
Except DPS is superior for the 99%, while Support and Control are pretty useless in that 99%…

I’m a casual PvE adventurer, I enjoy combat, adventure and helping, but not farming.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Then the discussion you want to have is about exclusive rewards, not about challenging content, since the two subjects are not intrinsically linked. Again, the fear about elitism and exclusive rewards is tangentially and a distraction from the actual topic.

It’s difficult to separate the idea of content difficulty and reward. They’re linked to each other in the minds of groups on both sides of the issue. In fact, rewards are linked to content in peoples’ minds in MMO’s in general.

As long as some proponents of harder content demand that there be better rewards for harder content, the issue of rewards has to be settled. After all, whether people actually will play the harder content needs to be considered. If they won’t play content in sufficient quantity and over time (repetition), then it might very well not warrant the effort to produce it.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

Then the discussion you want to have is about exclusive rewards, not about challenging content, since the two subjects are not intrinsically linked. Again, the fear about elitism and exclusive rewards is tangentially and a distraction from the actual topic.

It’s difficult to separate the idea of content difficulty and reward. They’re linked to each other in the minds of groups on both sides of the issue. In fact, rewards are linked to content in peoples’ minds in MMO’s in general.

As long as some proponents of harder content demand that there be better rewards for harder content, the issue of rewards has to be settled. After all, whether people actually will play the harder content needs to be considered. If they won’t play content in sufficient quantity and over time (repetition), then it might very well not warrant the effort to produce it.

its not just in the minds, the game is designed such that in order to do whatever type of progress they decided to add, you need rewards.
Want to level crafting? need gold/items
want new special gear? need gold items
want best in slot? need gold/items
want to run a zerg in WvW? need gold/items
want to progress in fractals? need gold/items
want to unlock your traits? need gold/items

this means that people who are trying to achieve most things in the game, will need gold/items to progress, so where you get your rewards/how you get it matters even more.

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Posted by: NewTrain.7549

NewTrain.7549

Then the discussion you want to have is about exclusive rewards, not about challenging content, since the two subjects are not intrinsically linked. Again, the fear about elitism and exclusive rewards is tangentially and a distraction from the actual topic.

It’s difficult to separate the idea of content difficulty and reward. They’re linked to each other in the minds of groups on both sides of the issue. In fact, rewards are linked to content in peoples’ minds in MMO’s in general.

As long as some proponents of harder content demand that there be better rewards for harder content, the issue of rewards has to be settled. After all, whether people actually will play the harder content needs to be considered. If they won’t play content in sufficient quantity and over time (repetition), then it might very well not warrant the effort to produce it.

“Rewards” does not mean “exclusive rewards”. Those who are all up in arms about some huge influx of economy wrecking elitists are trying to claim that challenging content cannot be implemented without exclusive rewards. This is false and spending anymore time even discussing it is a waste.

If we want to talk “rewards” for challenging content, I’ve already made a suggestion earlier about how I think they can be implemented so that everyone feels as if they’ve gained something just by attempting the content. My suggestions also deals with the issue of replayability.

Also: Throwing out an idea for those people who say challenging content causes some players to cry in a corner out of frustration and uninstall the game; why not offer incremental rewards for challenging content. Something like a reward for reaching a certain point within an instance, a new reward for being able to survive against waves of enemies every 2 minutes, rewards for reducing boss health to 75%, 50%, 25%, etc. There are ways to reward players for attempting and improving performance in challenging content without alienating them.

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Posted by: Cuddy.6247

Cuddy.6247

I don’t mind difficult content, so long as that content isn’t a part of the narrative. Guild Wars has the best story and lore of most MMOs out there and the story is a large driving force for a good population of the game. As long as difficult content isn’t obstructing the story (examples are: Tequatl and Triple Wurm), then it’s all okay. I would be disappointed to see difficult content become such an integral part of the game that metagame strategies were required just to complete a Living Story episode or story mode dungeon…

Luckily, that doesn’t seem like an even remote possibility. I would just be disappointed if ANet ever thinks that would be a healthy route.

(edited by Cuddy.6247)

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Posted by: VodCom.6924

VodCom.6924

If you have played GW1 you should know what is difficult content.Right now GW2 lacks that part.

End game content in GW1 was exclusively in the form of 8-man no rez instance (FoW, UW, dungeons). That was because the ENTIRE pve section of the game was instanced.

GW2 is a different game. GW1 end game is not the ONLY possible endgame that an MMO can have. Sometimes I believe that GWEN narrowed the conception of “difficult content” like mad.

Now lets go talk a little about challenge and difficult content.Such thing was marionete and Queen’s pavilion gold medals.The wurm.Arah and FotM are chalenging content.The problem with GW2 content is that it’s not rewarding at all.Only 1g for SE P2?Or 2g for TA:A?Or some kitten chests with worthles loot form Tequatl and Wurm.

You get exclusive skins in both tequatl and the wurm. I admit that it is not enough to convince people to farm this type of content to death though.

Average gold earning rate must always be on equal foot. At this moment that is almost non-existent in GW2.

Agreed. Though it is easier said than done and the measure of the gold/hour rate is debatable.

Known as Reegar Else, Linda Else, Xiana Else and Thorgall Breakstone

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Posted by: tigirius.9014

tigirius.9014

1. Do you think there is already enough challenging content that requires strategy and coordination in this game?

Yes. Plenty. Dungeons and Fractals galore for these player types.

2. If Anet did design more challenging content, would there even be enough players to play it?

No, because these 1%ers are called 1%ers for that very reason. Gone are the days of raiding and they’ll just have to adjust.

3. Is the zerg mentality too strong to even prevent some development?

The zerg mentality hasn’t come about because of the weakness of the content it’s come about because of the weakness of PVE diversity in combat. It’s a product not of the content but of the way they’ve broken PVE diversity and they haven’t followed their own trinity at all. They need to fix Condition stacking, healing builds, power builds so these become more viable than Zerker builds. They need to rebalance classes so that each one has the same choices in their traits so that classes in PVE aren’t weak unless they are not choosing the things that would make them weak.

4. What would more challenging content in GW2 look like?

It would look like 5 mans mostly or scaling skirmishes (which is a new system most games have developed where you can solo the instance or it scales with groups and it can scale to higher than 5 mans but it’s still a dungeon or event within an instance so basically you can have a raid situation with scaling skirmish systems.)

What they shouldn’t do is change any of the bosses of the open world, they’ve done enough damage to Teq already and they don’t need to do anymore to open world bosses. They do need however to add more open world boss events or metas to more zones because originally we were to have that schedule before Fractals were announced we were to expect to see monthly events and new metas every 2-3 months.

Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

“Rewards” does not mean “exclusive rewards”. Those who are all up in arms about some huge influx of economy wrecking elitists are trying to claim that challenging content cannot be implemented without exclusive rewards. This is false and spending anymore time even discussing it is a waste.

If we want to talk “rewards” for challenging content, I’ve already made a suggestion earlier about how I think they can be implemented so that everyone feels as if they’ve gained something just by attempting the content. My suggestions also deals with the issue of replayability.

Also: Throwing out an idea for those people who say challenging content causes some players to cry in a corner out of frustration and uninstall the game; why not offer incremental rewards for challenging content. Something like a reward for reaching a certain point within an instance, a new reward for being able to survive against waves of enemies every 2 minutes, rewards for reducing boss health to 75%, 50%, 25%, etc. There are ways to reward players for attempting and improving performance in challenging content without alienating them.

Do you have any data about how many:

  • Want hard content and don’t care about rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with exclusive rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with the same rewards but with better drop rates?

Unless these values are known, all we’re doing is throwing ideas around. As long as some unknown percentage of players want to link exclusive rewards and hard content, the sub-topic should be fair game.

There’s also the issue of whether GW2 rewards are worth bothering with in the first place. Iirc, your suggestion was already tried in Dry Top, Teq and the 2014 iteration of pavilion (not sure about TT). Also iirc, the “attaboy” rewards in Teq and Pavilion were not well received. Not that “want harder” players would suggest that Dry Top or Pavilion — or maybe even Teq at this point — measure up to their value of hard.

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Posted by: VodCom.6924

VodCom.6924

Do you have any data about how many:

  • Want hard content and don’t care about rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with exclusive rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with the same rewards but with better drop rates?

Speaking about rewards : Should they be tradeable or account bound ? This factor could shift a lot the results of the questions above.

Known as Reegar Else, Linda Else, Xiana Else and Thorgall Breakstone

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Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

1. Do you think there is already enough challenging content that requires strategy and coordination in this game?

Yes. Plenty. Dungeons and Fractals galore for these player types.

2. If Anet did design more challenging content, would there even be enough players to play it?

No, because these 1%ers are called 1%ers for that very reason. Gone are the days of raiding and they’ll just have to adjust.

Dungeon/fractal runners are 1%ers? That’s strange, I’m in a casual guild and nearly everyone has dungeon master/close to it and runs a few paths a week.

You don’t need to do full dungeon tours every day to want a new dungeon path or fractal once in a while.

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Posted by: Torrad.1075

Torrad.1075

As far as I know, the best way to make GW2 more difficult is to limit the number of people who can do certain content at a given time. There’s a lot that’s dumbed down in GW2 not because the mechanics to make it interesting don’t exist, but because after a point finesse doesn’t matter.

My favourite world boss experience came before the megaservers and predictable event scheduling. I heard the Claw of Jormag was beginning and landed in an overflow server when attempting to go to Frostgorge. Normally that meant that you missed the event because the overflow server would have a timer hours different that couldn’t be predicted.

This one time, though, the event went off on both the main server and this specific overflow within minutes. A group of about 12 people were still there when it began. So we said ‘Screw it, let’s have at this anyway’.

New people couldn’t pile in because the time lag between events starting meant that the main server Frostgorge wasn’t overcrowded any more. We accomplished the pre-events with small teams fairly handily. Without the huge blob though, new tactics were required for the Claw. New tactics that involved…actually using all the bundles of gear that are near the cannons and not just sitting in one spot spamming rockets at the wall. With so few people, spam didn’t work.

We discovered that the bomb kits do a huge amount of damage. The canons did more damage than rocket spam if the NPCs were kept alive. With a small crew you could see the dents in the HP bars from the various attacks. The group of 12 broke up with some people running bombs and some on the hill fighting off the spawns around the gunners. It worked. It was a huge amount of fun, too.

We made it all the way through. The final phase was difficult, sure. People actually were up on the ledges keeping the elementals busy and running interference for the golems with the spawns. That only happened because the traditional rocket spam, again, didn’t actually work without the huge blob. We won, and it was glorious.

I loved every minute of it. It seems all my favourite world boss encounters follow the same pattern. Fighting the Golem Mark II with two people, doing the Megadestroyer events with only 5 or 6 people. Fighting unpopular group event champions in ones and twos because nobody else cares.

All ANet has to do to give the hard mode folks something they want is a way to do the existing events with fewer people for greater rewards. What if you could do dungeons with 3 or 4 people instead of 5 for more rewards? That seems like such a simple answer. The content I found the most fun was rewarding to me because I relish difficulty, not because it gave me something worth my time and effort. It’ll never be popular just being hard.

Don’t make more raid content. Events like the Wyrm and the new Teq went undone because they require guild-level organization that most players don’t have. The weakness of your average big group is the ability to communicate and coordinate without practice. Which is why it devolves into a blob as it gets bigger. More mass leads to simplified tactics.

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Posted by: moiraine.2753

moiraine.2753

@VodCom,

I think you didn’t understand me when i made a comparison between GW1 and GW2.I know perfectly that they are two very different games.What i wanted to point at is how higher is the difficulty curve in GW1 end game compared to GW2.

TxS – Tequatl Slayer Alliance (EU)

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Posted by: NoTrigger.8396

NoTrigger.8396

  • The nature of damage mitigation in GW2 works against difficulty. Increasing the damage done by mobs beyond the 1-3 hit downs I see regularly is meaningless if a player can avoid the hit.

avoiding damage or using other active defense besides dodges such as blocks, reflects and other stuff like that is difficult and a challenge.
facetanking stuff is beyond boring and not challenging at all.

[qT] Quantify

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Posted by: NewTrain.7549

NewTrain.7549

Do you have any data about how many:

  • Want hard content and don’t care about rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with exclusive rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with the same rewards but with better drop rates?

Do you? If I claim that there is a large subset of players who want nudity in Guild Wars 2, it’s my duty to prove it; just as its the duty of those claiming the majority of people who want harder content want it tied to exclusive rewards. It’s needless speculation that detracts from the discussion and it creates a false dichotomy that divides people on a topic where there’s no need for binary choices.

No, because these 1%ers are called 1%ers for that very reason. Gone are the days of raiding and they’ll just have to adjust.

No, you call them 1%ers because you want to trivialize their playstyle. They neither compose 1% of the playerbase (most likely much larger) nor pose a threat to your precious casual content. Using the term reflects more poorly on you than it does on “them”.

(edited by NewTrain.7549)

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Do you have any data about how many:

  • Want hard content and don’t care about rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with exclusive rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with the same rewards but with better drop rates?

Do you? If I claim that there is a large subset of players who want nudity in Guild Wars 2, it’s my duty to prove it; just as its the duty of those claiming the majority of people who want harder content want it tied to exclusive rewards. It’s needless speculation that detracts from the discussion and it creates a false dichotomy that divides people on a topic where there’s no need for binary choices.

I’m making no claims to know the size of various demographics, beyond knowing they exist in some numbers. There is also a demographic that does not want to see a ton of rewards exclusive to hard content in thee game, just as there is a demographic that does. Because we don’t know what percentage of the total player base is in either camp, I’m afraid that that discussion is very relevant to the issue of hard content. How do you expect people to make up their minds if they don’t know the whole proposal? I would accept your claim that the issue is not relevant only if there were overwhelming numbers who did not think exclusive rewards were an issue.

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Posted by: NewTrain.7549

NewTrain.7549

Do you have any data about how many:

  • Want hard content and don’t care about rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with exclusive rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with the same rewards but with better drop rates?

Do you? If I claim that there is a large subset of players who want nudity in Guild Wars 2, it’s my duty to prove it; just as its the duty of those claiming the majority of people who want harder content want it tied to exclusive rewards. It’s needless speculation that detracts from the discussion and it creates a false dichotomy that divides people on a topic where there’s no need for binary choices.

I’m making no claims to know the size of various demographics, beyond knowing they exist in some numbers. There is also a demographic that does not want to see a ton of rewards exclusive to hard content in thee game, just as there is a demographic that does. Because we don’t know what percentage of the total player base is in either camp, I’m afraid that that discussion is very relevant to the issue of hard content. How do you expect people to make up their minds if they don’t know the whole proposal? I would accept your claim that the issue is not relevant only if there were overwhelming numbers who did not think exclusive rewards were an issue.

So you claim that if group X is a certain size than the issue is not relevant and in the same post that you admit not knowing the size of group X. And this “issue” is simply speculation at that. Think on that a bit.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Do you have any data about how many:

  • Want hard content and don’t care about rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with exclusive rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with the same rewards but with better drop rates?

Do you? If I claim that there is a large subset of players who want nudity in Guild Wars 2, it’s my duty to prove it; just as its the duty of those claiming the majority of people who want harder content want it tied to exclusive rewards. It’s needless speculation that detracts from the discussion and it creates a false dichotomy that divides people on a topic where there’s no need for binary choices.

I’m making no claims to know the size of various demographics, beyond knowing they exist in some numbers. There is also a demographic that does not want to see a ton of rewards exclusive to hard content in thee game, just as there is a demographic that does. Because we don’t know what percentage of the total player base is in either camp, I’m afraid that that discussion is very relevant to the issue of hard content. How do you expect people to make up their minds if they don’t know the whole proposal? I would accept your claim that the issue is not relevant only if there were overwhelming numbers who did not think exclusive rewards were an issue.

So you claim that if group X is a certain size than the issue is not relevant and in the same post that you admit not knowing the size of group X. And this “issue” is simply speculation at that. Think on that a bit.

You missed the target there. The unknown size of one group would be irrelevant if the size of a group that is also unknown, were both known and large enough that the other groups would no longer matter.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The size of the group that doesn’t want something in the game has to matter. A lot of what we’re talking about here is perception, not reality, because humans are not logical creatures.

There are far less people really affected by the NPE changes at low levels than are currently complaining. They have a perception that Anet thinks they’re stupid. That’s not reality. That’s perception. Anyone who thinks that is probably not who the changes were made at…but many people have said it. If they were a big enough group (and I don’t believe they are), they’d have more power to sway development direction than a smaller group. This is simple logic.

The question is, does Anet know what groups are what size. Maybe not exactly, but they probably have a better idea of it than we do. Anet can probably tell you exactly what percentage of a players have never even attempted a dungeon run. We don’t know that, they do.

Sometimes it really is that simple.

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Posted by: NewTrain.7549

NewTrain.7549

Do you have any data about how many:

  • Want hard content and don’t care about rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with exclusive rewards?
  • Want hard content coupled with the same rewards but with better drop rates?

Do you? If I claim that there is a large subset of players who want nudity in Guild Wars 2, it’s my duty to prove it; just as its the duty of those claiming the majority of people who want harder content want it tied to exclusive rewards. It’s needless speculation that detracts from the discussion and it creates a false dichotomy that divides people on a topic where there’s no need for binary choices.

I’m making no claims to know the size of various demographics, beyond knowing they exist in some numbers. There is also a demographic that does not want to see a ton of rewards exclusive to hard content in thee game, just as there is a demographic that does. Because we don’t know what percentage of the total player base is in either camp, I’m afraid that that discussion is very relevant to the issue of hard content. How do you expect people to make up their minds if they don’t know the whole proposal? I would accept your claim that the issue is not relevant only if there were overwhelming numbers who did not think exclusive rewards were an issue.

So you claim that if group X is a certain size than the issue is not relevant and in the same post that you admit not knowing the size of group X. And this “issue” is simply speculation at that. Think on that a bit.

You missed the target there. The unknown size of one group would be irrelevant if the size of a group that is also unknown, were both known and large enough that the other groups would no longer matter.

I’ll admit, I have no idea what point you’re trying to make here. “The unknown size of one group would be irrelevant if the size of a group that is also unknown…” doesn’t make much sense.

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.

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Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

I don’t see the point in the “exclusive rewards” discussion. If you slap enough gold reward on it to make it worthwhile (unlike eatherblade) and don’t force-feed us story with unskippable cutscenes people will be happy enough to run it a lot.

I’d be happy (and I’m sure I’m not alone in this) if they added another dungeon that’s much like Arah difficulty-wise or maybe a little harder. The only exclusive rewards, if you wanna call em that, would be a new armor/weapon skinset just like all the other dungeons. If they did that and finally add fractal lvl 51-60 with maybe 2 new instances and 1 boss instance, I’d log in a lot more often.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

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.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

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

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: NewTrain.7549

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.

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Posted by: pandas.9450

pandas.9450

Harder content sure more permanent features would be better, basically stopped gw1 just awhile back after playing so many years but even when gw1 was finished with the whole main story they would add more stuff. It kept people busy and probably the best thing for me was Fort aspenwood and Alliance battle and for others jade quarry that let people experience a different form of pvp. Gw2 is lacking content and that defiantly shows in pvp

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

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.

ANet will make whatever design choices it believes are best for its bottom line. All we can do is discuss the topic. Which one of us is trying to restrict the discussion? Oh, that would be you, not me.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

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.

Indigo’s main argument seems to be that, without data to show that those desiring exclusive rewards are an insignificant portion of the player base, it is inappropriate, for the sake of fully exploring the issue, to dismiss their desire as off topic or irrelevant.

He is right.

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Posted by: Eirdyne.9843

Eirdyne.9843

1. Do you think there is already enough challenging content that requires strategy and coordination in this game?

No. I think that the game is barely there. The best content in the ‘gaming’ portion are Jumping Puzzles. The content is more like Zelda. First you learn how to jump. Then you learn how judge distance. Then you learn how to control now to rage quit. Then you learn how to enjoy the scenery (which these have some of the most dense and rich scenery available). Then you learn how to do something clever unique to each one. At last you are done. The only thing these lack is a reward besides the awesome scenery. It’s great for the explorer gamer. What is lacking is something worth the bother at the end. Say… a mini pet ONCE a MONTH (caps for Anet and trolls).

The things that I would add are group oriented PvE maps designed around long-term sieges. First you and a group of 50 people or so join a map. Then you have to clear a place of dragon spawn. Then you have to construct fortifications. This means holding the spot while others go out and farm resources. Then you can upgrade it… say from a camp to an outpost, an outpost to a keep, and then… then you might see a dragon spawn. The dragon doesn’t just stand around waiting to die like the current dragons, endlessly farmed and harmless. No, this dragon spawns and attacks things least you have the fortifications to defend against those assaults. Not just your keep though, but all fortified positions across the map. So we’re talking about holding key locations on a map for weeks. NPCs scale. Once the dragon has been sufficiently injured, within a certain time span, it can be attacked out right as it no longer flies around. Now it’s on the ground, but it roams. Eventually through coordination, effort, defending, and attacking you get to kill it. And THAT unlocks another map where you can do this again… except you start with outposts and are coordinating efforts to take and then hold a keep against serious protracted NPC sieges. Both while you are taking the keep and after. If you manage to take the keep you can claim different portions of it for your guild. Eventually this keep gets attacked by larger and better coordinated attacks. If it is lost you lose the keep. If you lose the keep and have lost against the dragon in the other map you lose the map too. This would be a cross server thing like Edge of the Mists.

2. If Anet did design more challenging content, would there even be enough players to play it?

Yep, because there’s nothing going on at end game.

3. Is the zerg mentality too strong to even prevent some development?

That’s a backward question. Use the zerg mentality to initiate the initial game mechanics behind new content if it is so popular. "Okay, everyone rush this big event. Good now rush this one. Good, now break up and hold two spots. Great! Now hold three. Okay, that’s plenty. Now.. if you really want some fancy new gear and special stuff… see that beautiful keep ruin over there? Well if you can hold these three positions and also coordinate you can get another group together to take that keep. Anyone in one of these four locations (event areas) still there when the event completes gets the rewards.

4. What would more challenging content in GW2 look like?

Reference all of the above.

Basically, Anet needs to show some initiative regarding this. It’s not a matter of having players who would do it so much as having Anet now wimp out.

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Posted by: Eirdyne.9843

Eirdyne.9843

Question one: typo, “now to rage quit” was supposed to be “not to rage quit”

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Question one: typo, “now to rage quit” was supposed to be “not to rage quit”

The pencil icon on your posts allows you to edit them.

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Posted by: Kythan Myr.4719

Kythan Myr.4719

Wow!!

I had no idea a simple question would get such input.

I guess quite a few people would like more difficult content and and have quite a few opinions about what that would look like.

Glad to know we can have an almost civil conversation about it too. Wonder what Anet thinks tho?

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Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

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Posted by: Dalanor.5387

Dalanor.5387

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

Wildstar attracted the wrong audience that they didn’t expected. This happens when you try to make a serious hardcore oriented MMO and it fills up with casuals.

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Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

Wildstar attracted the wrong audience that they didn’t expected. This happens when you try to make a serious hardcore oriented MMO and it fills up with casuals.

While that’s all nice and well, I’m mostly interested in his point regarding this game. I don’t rly give a crap whether wildstar survives or not.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

The point is that this is just another statement from Devs that there are not sooo many
people that really want hardcore content than some people think.

Wildstar was a game that was catered especially to those people that wanted very
hard content .. and this shows for me that all those people that say : we need hardcore
content else GW2 will dye .. are just wrong.

I don’t say we don’t need new content .. and that a little bit hardcore content would be
wrong .. but just that catering especially for hardcore crowd and don’t care about the
casual players wouldn’t “save” the game .. but do maybe more damage than it helps

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

That’s a backward question. Use the zerg mentality to initiate the initial game mechanics behind new content if it is so popular. "Okay, everyone rush this big event. Good now rush this one. Good, now break up and hold two spots. Great! Now hold three. Okay, that’s plenty. Now.. if you really want some fancy new gear and special stuff… see that beautiful keep ruin over there? Well if you can hold these three positions and also coordinate you can get another group together to take that keep. Anyone in one of these four locations (event areas) still there when the event completes gets the rewards.

The problem is, you need to make this all VERY clear via UI. If you just expect players to do this, then they won’t, and the event will fail, and they wil not be happy because they were doing their best. If you split the zerg then the UI needs to make clear how many people are at each location and how many are needed at each, so that any random player can look at his screen and see “I would be most useful over there.”

Wildstar attracted the wrong audience that they didn’t expected. This happens when you try to make a serious hardcore oriented MMO and it fills up with casuals.

Really the problem is more that they did everything they could to attract a serious hardcore audience, and succeeded, but even every serious hardcore player available was not enough to make an MMO successful, and it turns out that even in that game the casuals massively outnumbered the hardcore. There just aren’t enough hardcore players to actually matter to anyone.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

The point is that this is just another statement from Devs that there are not sooo many
people that really want hardcore content than some people think.

Wildstar was a game that was catered especially to those people that wanted very
hard content .. and this shows for me that all those people that say : we need hardcore
content else GW2 will dye .. are just wrong.

I don’t say we don’t need new content .. and that a little bit hardcore content would be
wrong .. but just that catering especially for hardcore crowd and don’t care about the
casual players wouldn’t “save” the game .. but do maybe more damage than it helps

I agree completely. GW2’s playerbase is largely casual and I don’t think it would do the game any good if they started to focus on the hardcore crowd. That being said, imo there should be room for middle ground. It’s now almost 2 years since fractals came out, a year since a dungeon path (which the hardcore crowd loved btw) got swapped out for an imo inferior path and almost a year since fractals got butchered… It’s time to give us something. Hell I’d be glad already if they just added a few new fractals (including a new boss frac) and opened up levels 51 to 60. Why they don’t simply fix TA fw/up and re-add it to the game I’ll never understand either btw.

As for how difficult the new content should be… I think taking a good hard look at arah and fractals would do a lot of good, and then just up that a little. When we’re used to that, up it a little more, etc.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

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

Devs keep saying it, over the years, over and over again, and the hard core crowd keep denying it. Why is it so hard to believe you’re part of a minority?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

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

Devs keep saying it, over the years, over and over again, and the hard core crowd keep denying it. Why is it so hard to believe you’re part of a minority?

Because — on forums — they aren’t…

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

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

Devs keep saying it, over the years, over and over again, and the hard core crowd keep denying it. Why is it so hard to believe you’re part of a minority?

Because — on forums — they aren’t…

That actually makes a lot of sense.

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

Why they don’t simply fix TA fw/up and re-add it to the game I’ll never understand either btw.

They actually covered this at one point. The reason was because all of the TA paths are just way too similar. So one of the paths was going to get replaced regardless. Replacing the buggiest of the 3 was probably an easy choice.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

I never played the originalkitten but having played the other two paths recently, they really did just seem like minor tweaks of each other.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

The point is that this is just another statement from Devs that there are not sooo many
people that really want hardcore content than some people think.

Wildstar was a game that was catered especially to those people that wanted very
hard content .. and this shows for me that all those people that say : we need hardcore
content else GW2 will dye .. are just wrong.

I don’t say we don’t need new content .. and that a little bit hardcore content would be
wrong .. but just that catering especially for hardcore crowd and don’t care about the
casual players wouldn’t “save” the game .. but do maybe more damage than it helps

That is certainly a possibility but it is also possible that it was simply not a very good game. I haven’t played the game but from reading comments from players it seems there were some tedious bits and even some boss camping required before you can even start playing those difficult content.

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Posted by: Nick.6972

Nick.6972

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

The point is that this is just another statement from Devs that there are not sooo many
people that really want hardcore content than some people think.

Wildstar was a game that was catered especially to those people that wanted very
hard content .. and this shows for me that all those people that say : we need hardcore
content else GW2 will dye .. are just wrong.

I don’t say we don’t need new content .. and that a little bit hardcore content would be
wrong .. but just that catering especially for hardcore crowd and don’t care about the
casual players wouldn’t “save” the game .. but do maybe more damage than it helps

How is making 1 elite instance for those who enjoy elite content catering to hardcore crowd when 99.9% of the GW2 is literally “stand afk, use auto attack, watch tv, check facebook, check GW2, click on dungeon reward.”
Please elaborate.

Lets say they introduced ONE extremely hard instance, would it instantaneously somehow stop you from enjoying the rest of the game? Would it stop you from continuing exploring the world? Doing events?
Cosmetic reward aren’t needed to enjoy the game which would most likely be brought with the said instance. You’ve advocated gem store before, so don’t complain about it if you don’t want to sound hypocritical.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

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

That’s quite surprising indeed.

What exactly is your point though? xD

The point is that this is just another statement from Devs that there are not sooo many
people that really want hardcore content than some people think.

Wildstar was a game that was catered especially to those people that wanted very
hard content .. and this shows for me that all those people that say : we need hardcore
content else GW2 will dye .. are just wrong.

I don’t say we don’t need new content .. and that a little bit hardcore content would be
wrong .. but just that catering especially for hardcore crowd and don’t care about the
casual players wouldn’t “save” the game .. but do maybe more damage than it helps

How is making 1 elite instance for those who enjoy elite content catering to hardcore crowd when 99.9% of the GW2 is literally “stand afk, use auto attack, watch tv, check facebook, check GW2, click on dungeon reward.”
Please elaborate.

Lets say they introduced extremely hard instance, would it instantaneously somehow stop you from enjoying the rest of the game? Would it stop you from continuing exploring the world? Doing events?
Cosmetic reward aren’t needed to enjoy the game which would most likely be brought with the said instance. You’ve advocated gem store before, so don’t complain about it if you don’t want to sound hypocritical.

No, it wouldn’t ruin the game. Nor would it save the game for hard core players. You guys say you want one instance, but you always want better rewards. Once you get good at that instance and farm it, you’ll want another and another and another. It becomes a regular drain on the resources of the company.

TA Aetherblade path is harder, but you guys don’t just want harder. You want better rewards.