Guild Wars 2

Crinn.7864:

Ashen.2907:

Crinn.7864:

Ashen.2907:

Crinn.7864:

lukejoe.1592:

Crinn.7864:

Ya’ll do realize that HoT had a prepurchase option available months before HoT launched and the sales from those prepurchases would have been on the pre-HoT quarter.

Nope that is not true. GAAP rules don’t allow companies to recognize revenue at PoS unless it’s also the same date a delivery or the date a customer actually takes possession of the goods.

But the customer did take possession of the goods the day they prepurchased HoT.

Remember that GW2 went f2p before Heart of Thorns, and when it did so, purchasing HoT was how you upgraded from f2p to full account. The day a f2p account purchased HoT they take possession of more character slots, unrestricted trading post, and beta weekend access.

For example I came to this game in august of 2015 as f2p, I bought HoT in September of 2015 in order to gain a full account. I took possession of the full account on that same day. HoT launched in late October of 2015.

Even people that had bought the original game before f2p where still possessing their HoT purchase before HoT launch in the form of incentive items.
From the HoT pre-purchase announcement page: “All virtual items will be delivered to your account immediately for instant enjoyment” https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-is-available-for-pre-purchase/

Did the customer take possession of the HoT expansion at the time of prepurchase?

The took possession of Guild Wars 2. All versions of HoT included vanilla GW2 as part of the purchase.

See the link in previous post. And really HoT pre purchases have to be under the previous quarter since it doesn’t make any sense for the game to have a large revenue spike during a content drought.

But they did not take possession of the highly advertised HoT expansion to GW2. Taking possession of the incentives for prepurchasing HoT is not taking possession of HoT.

They took possession of (most of) the goods because they took possession of a full account.

Please remember that legally and technically Guild Wars 2 is a separate item than Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns However all packages that include Heart of Thorns include Guilds Wars 2.

Besides there is literally no way to make any sense of the quarterly reports if we assume that all HoT purchases including pre purchases where listed in HoT’s release quarter. It would require assuming that players randomly increased their gem purchase by a large amount during the drought, and assuming that of the existing players only a minority bought into HoT, and assuming that the game received little if any new players post HoT, and that gem store purchases dropped to nothing after HoT.

I can honestly say that I dont have sufficient record of what was being offered in the gemstore at the time of the drought in order to state that any spike was random.

I can say that players did not take possession of most of the goods at the time of prepurchase because the expansion itself was most of the goods. Only people who did not previously own GW2 received a full account. Nether of us can prove it, but I hope we both know that the majority, vastly so I am sure, of HoT purchases (pre or post launch) were by existing owners of the core game. ANet (or was it NCSoft?) has even stated that conversions from F2P to HoT were disappointingly low.

I find it very likely that gem store sales would have increased after the expansion was announced as people are excited and wanted to come back and play the game and get everything they want done before the expansion hits.

I know a lot of guildies who’d taken a break in my guild came back after the expansion was announced, far more than came back after the expansion was released.

That could indeed account for an large increase in gem sales.

Edit: Not to mention the core game went on sale for $10 three times and many people bought accounts, or even multiple accounts when that happened. At the time we didn’t know the core game would be included in HoT.

Ashen.2907:

I can honestly say that I dont have sufficient record of what was being offered in the gemstore at the time of the drought in order to state that any spike was random.

I can say that players did not take possession of most of the goods at the time of prepurchase because the expansion itself was most of the goods. Only people who did not previously own GW2 received a full account. Nether of us can prove it, but I hope we both know that the majority, vastly so I am sure, of HoT purchases (pre or post launch) were by existing owners of the core game. ANet (or was it NCSoft?) has even stated that conversions from F2P to HoT were disappointingly low.

I think we are getting away from the original point I was making. I pointed out HoT prepurchases because people where comparing the quarter before HoT to the quarter after HoT and declaring HoT a failure on just that. I was arguing that HoT purchases went into the previous quarter. The “possession of goods” came up after a quote about law as to where a company can record it’s revenue.

The HoT pre-purchase revenue has to be in the quarter before HoT because the quarterly reports make no sense otherwise. Consider: Anet revenue comes from two places, gem sales, and box sales. Now lets assume that gem sales are relatively constant. (there is no real reason to suspect that they aren’t) Now remember that Anet took vanilla gw2 box sales off the market after HoT pre-purchase was started. If the other guy is right and Hot pre-purchase sales where not counted till HoT launch, then we should see a revenue dip once pre-purchase was started, and then a spike went HoT launched. What we instead see is a revenue increase in the quarter before HoT, followed by a dip after HoT which indicates that the pre-purchase sales went into the previous quarter.

Crinn.7864:

Ashen.2907:

I can honestly say that I dont have sufficient record of what was being offered in the gemstore at the time of the drought in order to state that any spike was random.

I can say that players did not take possession of most of the goods at the time of prepurchase because the expansion itself was most of the goods. Only people who did not previously own GW2 received a full account. Nether of us can prove it, but I hope we both know that the majority, vastly so I am sure, of HoT purchases (pre or post launch) were by existing owners of the core game. ANet (or was it NCSoft?) has even stated that conversions from F2P to HoT were disappointingly low.

I think we are getting away from the original point I was making. I pointed out HoT prepurchases because people where comparing the quarter before HoT to the quarter after HoT and declaring HoT a failure on just that. I was arguing that HoT purchases went into the previous quarter. The “possession of goods” came up after a quote about law as to where a company can record it’s revenue.

The HoT pre-purchase revenue has to be in the quarter before HoT because the quarterly reports make no sense otherwise. Consider: Anet revenue comes from two places, gem sales, and box sales. Now lets assume that gem sales are relatively constant. (there is no real reason to suspect that they aren’t) Now remember that Anet took vanilla gw2 box sales off the market after HoT pre-purchase was started. If the other guy is right and Hot pre-purchase sales where not counted till HoT launch, then we should see a revenue dip once pre-purchase was started, and then a spike went HoT launched. What we instead see is a revenue increase in the quarter before HoT, followed by a dip after HoT which indicates that the pre-purchase sales went into the previous quarter.

I disagree. I don’t think anyone was buying boxes in any real quantity at that point. Box sales at that time would have represented the smallest dip. It only probably jumped when Anet offered it for sale for $10 which they did 3 times. Anyone who wanted it would have bought it then.

By the same token, whatever expansion hype there was would have brought returning players back to the game and people who bought the $10 deals would also be buying games and face it, some of those people would be newer to the game, rather than jaded veterans.

So the gem sales could have indeed gone up.

Vayne.8563:

I find it very likely that gem store sales would have increased after the expansion was announced as people are excited and wanted to come back and play the game and get everything they want done before the expansion hits.

Or unlikely if you think that players would hold out their money to buy the expansion rather than gems. I remember at least some people complaining they didn’t think it was fair they needed to pay for an expansion after making gemstore purchases.

It’s not that obvious to make gemstore purchases as you’re waiting to buy the expansion. In fact most people probably have a limited budget.

Also, players coming back doesn’t mean players making gemstore purchases, though yeah, the chance is higher indeed.

Not to say that you’re wrong, I wouldn’t know. Just to provide alternative reasoning that could very well point the other way.

The announcement for HoT brought me back from a break, and the nature of what was announced encouraged me to buy gems for the first time in a while.

I did not prepurchase, and no longer prepurchase games after doing so with GW2.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

I find it very likely that gem store sales would have increased after the expansion was announced as people are excited and wanted to come back and play the game and get everything they want done before the expansion hits.

Or unlikely if you think that players would hold out their money to buy the expansion rather than gems. I remember at least some people complaining they didn’t think it was fair they needed to pay for an expansion after making gemstore purchases.

It’s not that obvious to make gemstore purchases as you’re waiting to buy the expansion. In fact most people probably have a limited budget.

Also, players coming back doesn’t mean players making gemstore purchases, though yeah, the chance is higher indeed.

Not to say that you’re wrong, I wouldn’t know. Just to provide alternative reasoning that could very well point the other way.

You forget the three $10 sales in my argument. A lot of players weren’t returning players but new players. Some of those guys will be buying stuff like bank slots. If you decide to play a game today, you often invest in the game. I have two kids in their 20s and I can’t remember the last time they bought a game that they didn’t spend extra money on the game.

People are being trained to spend more money on games as a default when they buy it. It’s why so many people ask how much they need to buy after they buy the game.

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. I don’t think anyone was buying boxes in any real quantity at that point.

You don’t buy boxes in quantity. You only buy it once for your account. And there is always a buying pike when a pre-purchase is announced from those with high hopes.

The biggest box sales always occur before or on launch, post launch sales spikes don’t exist because the hype that drives sales doesn’t exist post launch and this is true for every game.

Box sales at that time would have represented the smallest dip. It only probably jumped when Anet offered it for sale for $10 which they did 3 times. Anyone who wanted it would have bought it then.

If what the earlier poster stipulated is true – that all HoT prepurchases where rolled into HoT’s quarter – then there would be 0 boxes sales for the previous quarter. That would have been a notable dip.

By the same token, whatever expansion hype there was would have brought returning players back to the game and people who bought the $10 deals would also be buying games and face it, some of those people would be newer to the game, rather than jaded veterans.

You’re putting to much into the $10 sales. Sales are for attracting the extremely skeptical, the less skeptical would have already bought in. Unless you are going to argue that almost everyone both new and veteran players are skeptics the sales aren’t going to be that huge.

So the gem sales could have indeed gone up.

Maybe, but I don’t think that they would have gone up so much as to offset the removal of box sales while also resulting in the massive revenue spike.

The pre-Hot revenue spike is almost certainly the pre-purchases. There has literally never been a case of expacs reducing revenue, which is what you have to argue if you want to keep the all-pre-purchases-went-into-the-HoT-quarter.

The likely cause of the HoT revenue drop is exactly what NCsoft said the cause was. That f2p players aren’t buying into the game, probably because of how extremely generous this game is to f2p players. When you have the entirety of the core game to explore why hurry to buy a expac?

Vayne.8563:

You forget the three $10 sales in my argument. A lot of players weren’t returning players but new players. Some of those guys will be buying stuff like bank slots. If you decide to play a game today, you often invest in the game. I have two kids in their 20s and I can’t remember the last time they bought a game that they didn’t spend extra money on the game.

People are being trained to spend more money on games as a default when they buy it. It’s why so many people ask how much they need to buy after they buy the game.

I read your proposition and simply provided a different look on it. It’s a thought experiment at best without actual numbers. shrug

Crinn.7864:

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. I don’t think anyone was buying boxes in any real quantity at that point.

You don’t buy boxes in quantity. You only buy it once for your account. And there is always a buying pike when a pre-purchase is announced from those with high hopes.

The biggest box sales always occur before or on launch, post launch sales spikes don’t exist because the hype that drives sales doesn’t exist post launch and this is true for every game.

Box sales at that time would have represented the smallest dip. It only probably jumped when Anet offered it for sale for $10 which they did 3 times. Anyone who wanted it would have bought it then.

If what the earlier poster stipulated is true – that all HoT prepurchases where rolled into HoT’s quarter – then there would be 0 boxes sales for the previous quarter. That would have been a notable dip.

By the same token, whatever expansion hype there was would have brought returning players back to the game and people who bought the $10 deals would also be buying games and face it, some of those people would be newer to the game, rather than jaded veterans.

You’re putting to much into the $10 sales. Sales are for attracting the extremely skeptical, the less skeptical would have already bought in. Unless you are going to argue that almost everyone both new and veteran players are skeptics the sales aren’t going to be that huge.

So the gem sales could have indeed gone up.

Maybe, but I don’t think that they would have gone up so much as to offset the removal of box sales while also resulting in the massive revenue spike.

The pre-Hot revenue spike is almost certainly the pre-purchases. There has literally never been a case of expacs reducing revenue, which is what you have to argue if you want to keep the all-pre-purchases-went-into-the-HoT-quarter.

The likely cause of the HoT revenue drop is exactly what NCsoft said the cause was. That f2p players aren’t buying into the game, probably because of how extremely generous this game is to f2p players. When you have the entirety of the core game to explore why hurry to buy a expac?

I know you don’t buy boxes in quantity. That was sort of my point. At the Anet site, the game was $50 for an older game. Virtually every person who wanted to buy it at that price would have already bought it. I’m saying boxed sales make up almost nothing of the profits, compared to gem store sales. I’m saying gem store sales provide the overwhelming profit in my opinion. Whales buying black lion keys etc. So the boxed sales don’t really account for much…again in my opinion.

I’m also saying that when you offer a $10 sale at a show, while making a big announcement it drives sales. People do try it for $10 and there’s an add on affect of people calling friends and telling them it’s $10. People posting on reddit and forums that it’s $10. And for $10 a lot more people would have bought it than normal, because it wasn’t on everyone’s radar. Anyone who talks to other MMO players can tell you that Guild Wars 2 is not really considered a successful MMO even though it’s more successful than most of them.

Which means new players who are going to be playing AND spending money in the gem store, in addition to returning players.

And if you don’t think people excited about a new expansion don’t spend money in the gem store, I’d say that’s not true.

The age of the average gamer right now is 30 not 13. People have jobs, but less time. Want to catch up and get ascended gear? Buy some gems sell them, get the gold and buy the mats. That’s what some people would have done.

It’s simply not that clear cut. And we’ll never know unless Anet tells us, but there’s an argument for the gem store having higher sales.

The transition to HoT was very poorly done. It is hard. you could try to find a guild. but the best thing to do is to stay in the old world until you are very well geared and then try again. Ascended gear and strong famliarity with class make a big difference. Also give yourself sometime to get used to the new zones.

Rather than looking at the last few quarters at a time, here’s the entire thing if anyone wanted a look. I’ve also included the number of unique posters on the English forums per quarter, since I had the data.

And here’s the major events per quarter, based on the wiki releases:

Healix.5819:

Rather than looking at the last few quarters at a time, here’s the entire thing if anyone wanted a look. I’ve also included the number of unique posters on the English forums per quarter, since I had the data.

How do you have unique forum posters data?!

Crinn.7864:

How do you have unique forum posters data?!

Unique by display name to be specific. I started mirroring the forums back when ArenaNet announced they were going to delete some of the sections. With this data, I can tell you for example that there were 164 posts in this thread by 52 accounts, 1 post was deleted and the most posts were by Vayne with 25.

Another user also posts forum statistics once in a while, which you can see here.

Healix.5819:

Crinn.7864:

How do you have unique forum posters data?!

Unique by display name to be specific. I started mirroring the forums back when ArenaNet announced they were going to delete some of the sections. With this data, I can tell you for example that there were 164 posts in this thread by 52 accounts, 1 post was deleted and the most posts were by Vayne with 25.

Another user also posts forum statistics once in a while, which you can see here.

Oh so it’s of the people actually posting on the boards, not the total number of accounts with forum access.

Poisonedpawn.7085:

The SOLO PLAY story line is simply not designed properly. Its garbage. And thats it for me, I was COMPLETELY enjoying the game .. right up until the expansion. Solo play is just not balanced properly.

I am solo playing HoT. I am very glad that is it more challenging, because levelling through Central Tyria was trivially easy and got quite dull. I even resorted to doing it in white gear so that I could learn to play my professions better without killing things so fast.

HoT content is definitely harder, requiring more attention, and a bit more gear. Relish the challenge!

Edit: I am in yellow/orange gear, but mostly orange.

Mabuse.2879:

I am very glad that is it more challenging, because levelling through Central Tyria was trivially easy and got quite dull. I even resorted to doing it in white gear so that I could learn to play my professions better without killing things so fast.

Difference in level is a difficulty modifier. Your target should always be a minimum of 1 level above you, 3 if you actually want to play on normal mode. If you’d prefer hard mode or are simply playing a joke like a necromancer, go up to 10, especially from 1-20 to counteract the nerfs. Gear? Simply equip what’s provided to you, which will likely result in wearing pieces 10-40 levels below. Leveling through core can be far more challenging than HoT if you want it to be.

Healix.5819:

Mabuse.2879:

I am very glad that is it more challenging, because levelling through Central Tyria was trivially easy and got quite dull. I even resorted to doing it in white gear so that I could learn to play my professions better without killing things so fast.

Difference in level is a difficulty modifier. Your target should always be a minimum of 1 level above you, 3 if you actually want to play on normal mode. If you’d prefer hard mode or are simply playing a joke like a necromancer, go up to 10, especially from 1-20 to counteract the nerfs. Gear? Simply equip what’s provided to you, which will likely result in wearing pieces 10-40 levels below. Leveling through core can be far more challenging than HoT if you want it to be.

Yeah, but that’s like telling a mountain climber who lives at sea level to just tie one arm behind his back. People who like HoT want content like HoT, not to be told to handicap themselves so that they can enjoy playing GW2.

AliamRationem.5172:

Healix.5819:

Mabuse.2879:

I am very glad that is it more challenging, because levelling through Central Tyria was trivially easy and got quite dull. I even resorted to doing it in white gear so that I could learn to play my professions better without killing things so fast.

Difference in level is a difficulty modifier. Your target should always be a minimum of 1 level above you, 3 if you actually want to play on normal mode. If you’d prefer hard mode or are simply playing a joke like a necromancer, go up to 10, especially from 1-20 to counteract the nerfs. Gear? Simply equip what’s provided to you, which will likely result in wearing pieces 10-40 levels below. Leveling through core can be far more challenging than HoT if you want it to be.

Yeah, but that’s like telling a mountain climber who lives at sea level to just tie one arm behind his back. People who like HoT want content like HoT, not to be told to handicap themselves so that they can enjoy playing GW2.

Agreed.

Also, someone wanting a challenge may very wish to test his character (and his own ability to play the character) at its best, to see what he can accomplish with the character operating at the very peak of its capability…not to see if he can survive with a handicap.

AliamRationem.5172:

Yeah, but that’s like telling a mountain climber who lives at sea level to just tie one arm behind his back. People who like HoT want content like HoT, not to be told to handicap themselves so that they can enjoy playing GW2.

The problem is that GW2 doesn’t punish you like other games would. Normally, you would be forced forwards as experience from lower level content would be greatly diminished. When you actually level through the core game at the intended level and equipped in what it was originally balanced for (fine and masterwork gear), it can be a much different experience. HoT is simply a wakeup call, because suddenly the game is balanced for maxed out 80s instead of levelers.

Playing in +3 level areas isn’t even challenging, it’s normal, especially compared to how it was at launch.

Healix.5819:

AliamRationem.5172:

Yeah, but that’s like telling a mountain climber who lives at sea level to just tie one arm behind his back. People who like HoT want content like HoT, not to be told to handicap themselves so that they can enjoy playing GW2.

The problem is that GW2 doesn’t punish you like other games would. Normally, you would be forced forwards as experience from lower level content would be greatly diminished. When you actually level through the core game at the intended level and equipped in what it was originally balanced for (fine and masterwork gear), it can be a much different experience. HoT is simply a wakeup call, because suddenly the game is balanced for maxed out 80s instead of levelers.

Playing in +3 level areas isn’t even challenging, it’s normal, especially compared to how it was at launch.

And I mean, not just maxed out 80s like you find in all of the Orr territories, but given and tuned toward players who have played for years before it was installed.

I was one of those who got absolutely kitten d by those bands of raptors thinking it would be no different than being swamped by centaurs, risen, or others and I could just strafe my way around.

Lol nope.

Knowledge I’ve learned the hard way in WvW and PvP became quite mandatory. No more tanking with a zerker staff ele. But to say it’s badly optimized, well I’ll disagree with OP.

HoT was hard and exhausting to master and learn to love (jesus kitten the vertical plane) but once you get your gliding mastery, and a few others like the shrooms, it became a truly needed breath of fresh air. I could do the meta over and over again and I would not be bored. And that’s coming from someone who sticked for more than a year to pvp-only content because PvE was the death of me.

Best advise I would give to anyone entering HoT for the first time is to have alt(s) in core to go to for those ‘stuff this’ moments in HoT.

I actually like gliding, but i definitely don’t like the sheer verticality of HoT maps as much as the older areas. I’m pleasantly surprised by the newest story maps, they are very good and i only wish they could be larger, but since it’s just for a patch… the latest one is still pretty large.

The fact that we still have topics like this 1.5 years after release means that HoT did something very wrong, there’s no point in defending it and trying to find excuses.

Yes, HoT had a very steep difficulty increase to address the vocal minority that was crying that the game is too easy for them. In return that screwed up the majority of the casual players, since ANet decided to treat all players the same instead of focusing and splitting the content to different kinds of player groups.

VaLee.5102:

The fact that we still have topics like this 1.5 years after release means that HoT did something very wrong, there’s no point in defending it and trying to find excuses.

Yes, HoT had a very steep difficulty increase to address the vocal minority that was crying that the game is too easy for them. In return that screwed up the majority of the casual players, since ANet decided to treat all players the same instead of focusing and splitting the content to different kinds of player groups.

Every single game I’ve ever played a year after it’s out has had people complaining about it, including Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. Only that there was no official forum stopped it from being as public.

People complained about the introduction of heroes in Guild Wars 1 for years after, saying how heroes ruined the social aspect of the game and people didn’t have to team any more. That doesn’t mean heroes weren’t well done or that most people didn’t like them.

If you believe, seriously believe, that complains about something a year and a half after it happened is an indication of anything at all, I’m not sure what to tell you. This has not been my experience however.

There will always be a percentage of disenfranchised players in any MMO, and they will often vocally complain.

It doesn’t make them some sort of majority however.

Vayne.8563:

VaLee.5102:

The fact that we still have topics like this 1.5 years after release means that HoT did something very wrong, there’s no point in defending it and trying to find excuses.

Yes, HoT had a very steep difficulty increase to address the vocal minority that was crying that the game is too easy for them. In return that screwed up the majority of the casual players, since ANet decided to treat all players the same instead of focusing and splitting the content to different kinds of player groups.

Every single game I’ve ever played a year after it’s out has had people complaining about it, including Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. Only that there was no official forum stopped it from being as public.

People complained about the introduction of heroes in Guild Wars 1 for years after, saying how heroes ruined the social aspect of the game and people didn’t have to team any more. That doesn’t mean heroes weren’t well done or that most people didn’t like them.

If you believe, seriously believe, that complains about something a year and a half after it happened is an indication of anything at all, I’m not sure what to tell you. This has not been my experience however.

There will always be a percentage of disenfranchised players in any MMO, and they will often vocally complain.

It doesn’t make them some sort of majority however.

You bring up a good point about GW1, I personally loved the addition of Hero’s. Folks can (and will) complain about the “Social Aspect” but truth be known this gave a sector of players who “prefer” to play solo or in smaller groups the ability to still play, still be successful, and to just have fun.

Something else GW1 did I would like to see added would be (as I’m sure you remember) the ability to play a map in Hard Mode once you finished on regular. I think this could possible solve several issues in regards to the “too hard or too easy” argument.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Vayne.8563:

VaLee.5102:

The fact that we still have topics like this 1.5 years after release means that HoT did something very wrong, there’s no point in defending it and trying to find excuses.

Yes, HoT had a very steep difficulty increase to address the vocal minority that was crying that the game is too easy for them. In return that screwed up the majority of the casual players, since ANet decided to treat all players the same instead of focusing and splitting the content to different kinds of player groups.

Every single game I’ve ever played a year after it’s out has had people complaining about it, including Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. Only that there was no official forum stopped it from being as public.

People complained about the introduction of heroes in Guild Wars 1 for years after, saying how heroes ruined the social aspect of the game and people didn’t have to team any more. That doesn’t mean heroes weren’t well done or that most people didn’t like them.

If you believe, seriously believe, that complains about something a year and a half after it happened is an indication of anything at all, I’m not sure what to tell you. This has not been my experience however.

There will always be a percentage of disenfranchised players in any MMO, and they will often vocally complain.

It doesn’t make them some sort of majority however.

You bring up a good point about GW1, I personally loved the addition of Hero’s. Folks can (and will) complain about the “Social Aspect” but truth be known this gave a sector of players who “prefer” to play solo or in smaller groups the ability to still play, still be successful, and to just have fun.

Something else GW1 did I would like to see added would be (as I’m sure you remember) the ability to play a map in Hard Mode once you finished on regular. I think this could possible solve several issues in regards to the “too hard or too easy” argument.

Actually I don’t believe it would solve anything in this game. Just remember Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO. I didn’t need people to do stuff.

People are complaining now about not enough people to do certain events in HoT. They’re not correct, but let’s take it into the future. Hard mode would double the number of zones. You’d halve the player base in each zone. It’s exactly the thing Anet wouldn’t want to do.

I think that the real answer is that you have harder zones and people play the zones to their level of comfort. I don’t believe most people aren’t capable of playing or learning HoT.

I think most people are attached to the way they do things/have always done things, and don’t like change.

But in MMOs changes in inevitable.

There are things I don’t like about HoT as well (raids cough) but you know, I’m not the only one here, and a lot of people do like them.

Vayne.8563:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Vayne.8563:

VaLee.5102:

The fact that we still have topics like this 1.5 years after release means that HoT did something very wrong, there’s no point in defending it and trying to find excuses.

Yes, HoT had a very steep difficulty increase to address the vocal minority that was crying that the game is too easy for them. In return that screwed up the majority of the casual players, since ANet decided to treat all players the same instead of focusing and splitting the content to different kinds of player groups.

Every single game I’ve ever played a year after it’s out has had people complaining about it, including Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. Only that there was no official forum stopped it from being as public.

People complained about the introduction of heroes in Guild Wars 1 for years after, saying how heroes ruined the social aspect of the game and people didn’t have to team any more. That doesn’t mean heroes weren’t well done or that most people didn’t like them.

If you believe, seriously believe, that complains about something a year and a half after it happened is an indication of anything at all, I’m not sure what to tell you. This has not been my experience however.

There will always be a percentage of disenfranchised players in any MMO, and they will often vocally complain.

It doesn’t make them some sort of majority however.

You bring up a good point about GW1, I personally loved the addition of Hero’s. Folks can (and will) complain about the “Social Aspect” but truth be known this gave a sector of players who “prefer” to play solo or in smaller groups the ability to still play, still be successful, and to just have fun.

Something else GW1 did I would like to see added would be (as I’m sure you remember) the ability to play a map in Hard Mode once you finished on regular. I think this could possible solve several issues in regards to the “too hard or too easy” argument.

Actually I don’t believe it would solve anything in this game. Just remember Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO. I didn’t need people to do stuff.

People are complaining now about not enough people to do certain events in HoT. They’re not correct, but let’s take it into the future. Hard mode would double the number of zones. You’d halve the player base in each zone. It’s exactly the thing Anet wouldn’t want to do.

I think that the real answer is that you have harder zones and people play the zones to their level of comfort. I don’t believe most people aren’t capable of playing or learning HoT.

I think most people are attached to the way they do things/have always done things, and don’t like change.

But in MMOs changes in inevitable.

There are things I don’t like about HoT as well (raids cough) but you know, I’m not the only one here, and a lot of people do like them.

I think it would resolve most of the “Too Hard or Too Easy” issues since they could choose the map they wanted, and if you think about it they wouldn’t need addidtional servers because it would be the same number of players just split between hard and normal.

It would also allow players to learn the mechanics better then proceed to more difficult content if they chose.

VaLee.5102:

The fact that we still have topics like this 1.5 years after release means that HoT did something very wrong, there’s no point in defending it and trying to find excuses.

Yes, HoT had a very steep difficulty increase to address the vocal minority that was crying that the game is too easy for them. In return that screwed up the majority of the casual players, since ANet decided to treat all players the same instead of focusing and splitting the content to different kinds of player groups.

We defend it because we enjoy it and we’re not going to sit back and allow the vocal minority (See? I can do it, too!) dictate the moves ANet makes moving forward.

I can agree that HoT content was probably too difficult with the initial release, but they addressed quite a lot of those complaints last April with a patch that made a lot of things in HoT easier. Of course there are still players who dislike the difficulty level and it seems obvious by the sales numbers that there are other factors that players dislike about HoT besides just straight difficulty (pricing, content drought, guild halls, raids, megaserver issues, and so on).

Just because you feel strongly about something doesn’t mean you’re correct or representative of the majority.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

I think it would resolve most of the “Too Hard or Too Easy” issues since they could choose the map they wanted, and if you think about it they wouldn’t need addidtional servers because it would be the same number of players just split between hard and normal.

It would also allow players to learn the mechanics better then proceed to more difficult content if they chose.

FWIW, WoW has been a real world experiment in this area, and has shown that:

If the easier to complete content has competitive rewards, and does not lock out access to the harder content, players complain that they feel “compelled” to complete both in order to keep up.

If the easier content has competitive rewards, and does lock out the harder content, players complain that they are “forced” to do the easier version, and get no reward for the harder one. They also, in volume, do the easier content in preference to the harder content for the same reward.

If the easier content has uncompetitive, but non-zero, rewards, without lockout, we go back to the first — until you get down to the point that it’s so unrewarding that nobody wants to do the easy stuff.

If the easier content is lower reward, and does lockout the higher reward option, or is somehow incompatible with it through metagame mechanics, then players complain about how “easy mode” is toxic to the game … but, ultimately, both of them carry on, with some sniping at each other.

What that also does, though, is show that people simply prefer the easy option, when it’s available. They just don’t “skill up”, “git gud”, or any of those things. It’s a myth that people are going to react to a harder challenge being available by working hard to finally be worthy of it without, in essence, being either bribed or forced to do so.

(All of this, obviously, in sufficient volume as to make a difference. There are always gonna be people who chose to do it the hard way for the intrinsic reward, rather than for any extrinsic reason. They just don’t happen enough to justify building game systems around them.)

ofc the issue with WOW is that it is entirely gear/stat increase orientated, thats the root cause of 99% of its problems. GW2 is not so a raid that offers normal and hard modes with perhaps specific achievements t reward those with the dedication to do hard would be entirely successful with no real drawbacks.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Vayne.8563:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Vayne.8563:

VaLee.5102:

The fact that we still have topics like this 1.5 years after release means that HoT did something very wrong, there’s no point in defending it and trying to find excuses.

Yes, HoT had a very steep difficulty increase to address the vocal minority that was crying that the game is too easy for them. In return that screwed up the majority of the casual players, since ANet decided to treat all players the same instead of focusing and splitting the content to different kinds of player groups.

Every single game I’ve ever played a year after it’s out has had people complaining about it, including Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. Only that there was no official forum stopped it from being as public.

People complained about the introduction of heroes in Guild Wars 1 for years after, saying how heroes ruined the social aspect of the game and people didn’t have to team any more. That doesn’t mean heroes weren’t well done or that most people didn’t like them.

If you believe, seriously believe, that complains about something a year and a half after it happened is an indication of anything at all, I’m not sure what to tell you. This has not been my experience however.

There will always be a percentage of disenfranchised players in any MMO, and they will often vocally complain.

It doesn’t make them some sort of majority however.

You bring up a good point about GW1, I personally loved the addition of Hero’s. Folks can (and will) complain about the “Social Aspect” but truth be known this gave a sector of players who “prefer” to play solo or in smaller groups the ability to still play, still be successful, and to just have fun.

Something else GW1 did I would like to see added would be (as I’m sure you remember) the ability to play a map in Hard Mode once you finished on regular. I think this could possible solve several issues in regards to the “too hard or too easy” argument.

Actually I don’t believe it would solve anything in this game. Just remember Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO. I didn’t need people to do stuff.

People are complaining now about not enough people to do certain events in HoT. They’re not correct, but let’s take it into the future. Hard mode would double the number of zones. You’d halve the player base in each zone. It’s exactly the thing Anet wouldn’t want to do.

I think that the real answer is that you have harder zones and people play the zones to their level of comfort. I don’t believe most people aren’t capable of playing or learning HoT.

I think most people are attached to the way they do things/have always done things, and don’t like change.

But in MMOs changes in inevitable.

There are things I don’t like about HoT as well (raids cough) but you know, I’m not the only one here, and a lot of people do like them.

I think it would resolve most of the “Too Hard or Too Easy” issues since they could choose the map they wanted, and if you think about it they wouldn’t need addidtional servers because it would be the same number of players just split between hard and normal.

It would also allow players to learn the mechanics better then proceed to more difficult content if they chose.

We know most people will gravite toward the easier mode. That wouldn’t leave enough people to do the hard mode. And this game requires numbers for certain things.

Right now I can call out on maps to get hero points. But what if there was an easy mode. It’s not that I can’t do the hard mode, but why would I? What reason? That’s the issue. If the rewards were significantly better, the players who want that easy mode would complain and if the rewards aren’t significantly better, there would be less people doing hard mode, because why would they? |

If you want your hero points fast to unlock your elite spec, you’d do it the easiest way possible.

In a game that requires numbers for meta events, this would not work. This didn’t happen in Guild Wars 1.

Then you’d have people who wanted the more challenging mode being shafted by everyone taking the easy route.

You see this in dungeons all the time when the community does stuff that’s borderline exploit because it’s easy or profitable and people who want to do the content the “real” way, the way it was intended, end up screwed.

vesica tempestas.1563:

ofc the issue with WOW is that it is entirely gear/stat increase orientated, thats the root cause of 99% of its problems. GW2 is not so a raid that offers normal and hard modes with perhaps specific achievements t reward those with the dedication to do hard would be entirely successful with no real drawbacks.

That’s a legitimate argument, and it’s true that WoW is “gear progression” focused. In practice, though, most of the content is essentially a gear “reset” at the start of each xpac, and doesn’t really change fast once you hit max level.

I don’t think it’s different enough to discard, and it’s kind of the best we have in terms of examples of what “sensible and easy” difficulties bring.

(Wildstar, bless their little hearts, serves as the example of what never to do: they listened to the people complaining it wasn’t hard enough and exclusive enough, made raiding super-exclusive, then found that complaining on the forums was really all those folks could actually manage. Ooops.

Not everyone avoids the HoT maps because of difficulty of combat….. Some players(including me) avoid HoT because of the vertical maps… As soon as I got enough HoT experience and my elite specs I haven’t come back…… except for Auric Basin… I do like that map.

You can argue all day long, but in the end it’s all a numbers’ game for ANet, and I think they had their lesson learned for the next expansion.

You can already see that now in LS3. Compare the final fights in HoT or even LS2 episodes to current ones, for example.

VaLee.5102:

You can argue all day long, but in the end it’s all a numbers’ game for ANet, and I think they had their lesson learned for the next expansion.

You can already see that now in LS3. Compare the final fights in HoT or even LS2 episodes to current ones, for example.

It is always a number game for any company. That’s true. The argument is is what the numbers portend. Anet made changes to the living world which didn’t change the numbers at all. They’re not making more money now than they were before the living world came out.

You can argue that it’s too late, and the horse has already left the stable, but that STILL doesn’t really indicate WHY the horse has left the stable. There are only theories here, being stated as facts.

Vayne.8563:

You can argue that it’s too late, and the horse has already left the stable, but that STILL doesn’t really indicate WHY the horse has left the stable. There are only theories here, being stated as facts.

I wouldn’t dignify most of the speculation as theories, nor even hypotheses. More like guesses skewed by Confirmation Bias.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

You can argue that it’s too late, and the horse has already left the stable, but that STILL doesn’t really indicate WHY the horse has left the stable. There are only theories here, being stated as facts.

I wouldn’t dignify most of the speculation as theories, nor even hypotheses. More like guesses skewed by Confirmation Bias.

It’s true, I’m absolutely certain myself that most people who stopped playing, stopped because they can’t bear the loss of Trahearne.

AliamRationem.5172:

Just because you feel strongly about something doesn’t mean you’re correct or representative of the majority.

Noone is really. There has been this focus on there not being a majority or being a minority in pretty much every argument. But it doesn’t really mean anything.
All that really matters is If it is a significant amount of people disliked HoT.
After 4 years, you don’t want to lose/disenfranchise a significant amount of your loyal players.

FrizzFreston.5290:

AliamRationem.5172:

Just because you feel strongly about something doesn’t mean you’re correct or representative of the majority.

Noone is really. There has been this focus on there not being a majority or being a minority in pretty much every argument. But it doesn’t really mean anything.
All that really matters is If it is a significant amount of people disliked HoT.
After 4 years, you don’t want to lose/disenfranchise a significant amount of your loyal players.

Actually it means everything. Saying a lot of people don’t like the expansion isn’t necessarily helpful if you don’t know why they didn’t. That’s the important bit.

If one person says it’s too hard and Anet makes it a lot easier, but more people like it hard, then that’s going to end up being a problem for a larger group of people.

I believe there were a lot of little things that ate away at expansion sales, not the least of which was the bad launch which is always a problem. Everything else just exacerbated the situation.

Did HoT sell less than expected? I believe it did. Does that mean any individual fix would have made it better?

There’s simply no way to know.

Noone is really. There has been this focus on there not being a majority or being a minority in pretty much every argument. But it doesn’t really mean anything.
All that really matters is If it is a significant amount of people disliked HoT.
After 4 years, you don’t want to lose/disenfranchise a significant amount of your loyal players.[/quote]

youv’e just done the exact same thing by using the word ‘significant’ except that’s subjective, where majority is objective. the game prioritizes the majority while supporting the minority (which ofc is the way to maximize popularity). And I would argue that 32 or so zones that are trivial and a couple in HOT that are more challenging means actually its the minority that is getting the best service. Whats the alternative – should those last 3 zones be trivial too?

Not sure what you’re saying Vayne. Even if there’s a majority for something it doesn’t mean everything. What really would anyway. Like you said, there’s alot of things that affected the lesser sale. (Some bigger than others, for example I don’t class a bad launch as a little thing but okay) That means a majority doesn’t mean everything either.

I just proposed that if a significant amount of people would drop the game, lets pick a random number like 20%. That would mean a minority, but it could also mean 20% loss of revenue. Which, while you’re right about it being a minority could very well mean the end of funding for Anet. (In this highly hypothetical case anyway)

Making it sound as simple the majority wanted higher difficulty in your example, and a few wouldnt also says basically nothing. Because how much higher or lower difficulty? How big a minority or majority? Not to mention that difficulty is so subjective, that a simple majority actually doesnt tell you anything. Its not that simple at all.

So yeah any individual majority means about as much as any individual fix.

It is for this reason of not wanting to put off more casual players, that the majority of MMOs introduce content designed to be challenging in a separate way than in the open world (Raids, Dungeons, etc.). Whether you believe that casual players are the majority or the minority (most studies and articles I’ve read say majority), they are still a significant portion of the base.

And specific to GW2 is the emphasis on the story which has been made inaccessible to many players due to difficulty. It makes zero sense to take the part of your game where you offer players lore and give them a sense of immersion in your game and block it off behind difficulty. Players shouldn’t have to try and find a way to experience the story in spite of the game mechanics, the story should be something the developers want everyone to experience easily.

Djinn.9245:

It is for this reason of not wanting to put off more casual players, that the majority of MMOs introduce content designed to be challenging in a separate way than in the open world (Raids, Dungeons, etc.). Whether you believe that casual players are the majority or the minority (most studies and articles I’ve read say majority), they are still a significant portion of the base.

And specific to GW2 is the emphasis on the story which has been made inaccessible to many players due to difficulty. It makes zero sense to take the part of your game where you offer players lore and give them a sense of immersion in your game and block it off behind difficulty. Players shouldn’t have to try and find a way to experience the story in spite of the game mechanics, the story should be something the developers want everyone to experience easily.

If all that a player wants is see the story without doing anything but press 1 they would just watch movies.
Zaithan is a great example that making it really easy to experience make the history really boring and bad.
Stories in video games are nice because you need to overcome difficulty fights not just sit in your couch and watch it

FrizzFreston.5290:

AliamRationem.5172:

Just because you feel strongly about something doesn’t mean you’re correct or representative of the majority.

Noone is really. There has been this focus on there not being a majority or being a minority in pretty much every argument. But it doesn’t really mean anything.
All that really matters is If it is a significant amount of people disliked HoT.
After 4 years, you don’t want to lose/disenfranchise a significant amount of your loyal players.

That’s why I advocate a mix of offerings from the flat, no-meta maps LS3 has mostly consisted of to the sprawling, vertical mazes with meta like Tangled Depths and Verdant Brink. What I am against are people claiming to speak on behalf of a majority, hoping to dictate an end to the sort of map design that drew me into GW2 in the first place.

Given the frequency of this type of debate I don’t think it’s a stretch to observe that plenty of players feel strongly about both types of map design. Regardless of who is technically the majority, I think it’s safe to assume that a large number of players would be disappointed with only one style of map design in the next expansion.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Not sure what you’re saying Vayne. Even if there’s a majority for something it doesn’t mean everything. What really would anyway. Like you said, there’s alot of things that affected the lesser sale. (Some bigger than others, for example I don’t class a bad launch as a little thing but okay) That means a majority doesn’t mean everything either.

I just proposed that if a significant amount of people would drop the game, lets pick a random number like 20%. That would mean a minority, but it could also mean 20% loss of revenue. Which, while you’re right about it being a minority could very well mean the end of funding for Anet. (In this highly hypothetical case anyway)

Making it sound as simple the majority wanted higher difficulty in your example, and a few wouldnt also says basically nothing. Because how much higher or lower difficulty? How big a minority or majority? Not to mention that difficulty is so subjective, that a simple majority actually doesnt tell you anything. Its not that simple at all.

So yeah any individual majority means about as much as any individual fix.

What I’m saying is that if you don’t know why that 20% stopped, you can’t make changes to know you’ve kept them. There’s a concept in this thread that if HoT were easier more people would have stayed. No one knows that.

Djinn.9245:

It is for this reason of not wanting to put off more casual players, that the majority of MMOs introduce content designed to be challenging in a separate way than in the open world (Raids, Dungeons, etc.). Whether you believe that casual players are the majority or the minority (most studies and articles I’ve read say majority), they are still a significant portion of the base.

And specific to GW2 is the emphasis on the story which has been made inaccessible to many players due to difficulty. It makes zero sense to take the part of your game where you offer players lore and give them a sense of immersion in your game and block it off behind difficulty. Players shouldn’t have to try and find a way to experience the story in spite of the game mechanics, the story should be something the developers want everyone to experience easily.

The emphasis on Guild Wars 2 has always been the open world. Some of us, myself included, play this game because of that emphasis. I care less about instances than I care about open world. Therefore, I need open world end game. Without open world end game I wouldn’t personally be satisfied with the product.

Raids don’t do it for me. Dungeons don’t do it for me. So putting challenging content in instances doesn’t do it for me.

This game was advertised as a living breathing world. It centers on the world. I’m here for the world, not to be squirreled away in an instance, story or otherwise.

That’s why end game open world content is important to this game and why it doesn’t matter what other MMOs do. I’m not playing them for a reason.

It took me just 5 secs in VB to generate my opinion of HoT maps, I understand some players like the vertical maps and the mastery system, and personally I don’t care for either. I hear that the newer maps are more to my flavor, but I’ve already given up doing anything but dailies when I’m online. The game is not beyond hope, I was in Silverwastes last night for the daily harvest and an unbound magic creature appeared right dead on top of me. That was fun being in a map I enjoy and watching 25 peeps arrive to take it down. I was glad of the opportunity to earn unbound magic in a map I enjoy. It was frustrating to purchase the deluxe version of HoT and really only want gliding and the Tyrian masteries, so I am glad that anet is expanding the events out to the Tyrian maps i enjoy and still chuckle at when I see 400 people at the daily Golem Mk 2. So stick with the game, ride it out and hope that the next expac has enough for all the players.

You know, a huge problem in HOT was shown to me a few days ago when a bunch of us were talking about it in a map chat after a successful meta. The reliance of the devs on break bars SEVERELY hampers build diversity to the point they really just need to make any/all attacks effect the break bar to bring back some diverse builds. A lot of the problems in soloing things are 100% the break bar and it is a mechanic completely ignored untill HOT with NO EXPLINATION OF IT ANYWHERE.

Seriously, play through the story of HOT without a single skill on your bars that effects a break bar, or only one skill that isn’t spamable that effects it, and you have a lot of weapon/build combinations people enjoy playing (typically these are the medic builds or pure self survival builds). Now try to solo it all. Emphasis on solo, no bringing in anyone else, ever. I’ve been trying this and, frankly, HOT looks like a giant kick tot he nethers if you despize some of the build changes it forces on you.

If you force people to change builds to fit content, you failed at building your content. Every build should be viable, thus the break bar mechanic is a failure that needs retooled. Seeing as an entire map chat on a meta agreed with this, almost all of us having solod the story and most of the maps, there could very well be something here as to why HOT is so hated. As the vast majority of people despize any reason to alter their build. They built it to suit their gameplay style, there should be no reason to alter it just because of a kitten mechanic.

That’s true too Runiir, I run my main build, with maybe one change in skills.. I know the way I like to play and I chose my armor and weapons based upon that.