Guild Wars 2

maddoctor.2738:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’ve learned to judge ANet on what they do, not what they say. I no longer trust what they say. If there was ever an advertisement for a game being for the so-called casual, then the New Player Experience was it. THE NPE reduced hearts that required players to click on more than one thing and reduced them to click on one thing.

But the OP said the game was advertised as “casual”, which means he must’ve seen an ad about it, or a dev mentioning it somewhere. So where are they exactly? When did they say that? I think the OP simply doesn’t know what he posted about and is just typing non-sense.

And to quote the OP:

A long time ago, there was an MMO that advertised itself out there to be “the” casual player mmo.

Isn’t it normal to expect a source when someone posts something like that?

Harper.4173:

Honestly I consider the NPE more of a making the game “game-impaired people proof” more than anything else.

You can be casual – as in not have a lot of time to play – or casual in the way you approach games and still have a level of competence and intelligence that put you way above what the NPE was targeting.

The NPE in my opinion was them trying to make the game accessible and fail-proof to the worst of players.

The OP is basically a rant against "1%ers) in both PvP and PvE — as if an ESport PvP League and raids were all that Anet has provided lately. I tend to take anything in rants with a grain of salt, including obscure references to things the poster believes ANet to have said. “Casual player” has been used to mean a great many things to a great many posters. In the OP, given the context within his rant, it seems to mean “doesn’t care for raids or top tier PvP.”

That aside, the NPE was aimed at players who are most definitely not in the raider or top-tier PvP demographics. So, was the NPE an advertisement? Not technically. However, it was an invitation to players that fit the OP’s idea of casual.

Nitpicking the use of ’advertisement" is nothing more than forum lawyering about the post, rather than attacking the substance — which is a claim that ANet has turned its collective back on whatever demographic the OP is in. This is patently ridiculous. At most, HoT offers less for “those people” than prior releases. Challenging that claim ought to be the tack counter-posts take, not obsessing over the use of a word.

Letting personal preferences aside as good as i can here:

I agree with you when you say that there is indeed stuff to do for the casual veteran player in HoT. After entering HoT, I was showered with AP and made some very easy AP in the next hours. Of course i play since release and had some time to make AP and gather stuff, so I guess this is not the rule for an average gamer. But the content is there, no questions asked.

Do you on the other hand agree with me that a majority of the stuff of HoT is (partly heavily) guarded and walled behind actual walls, meta events, daytimes, mazes, raids, coordinated movements and grinds and this is very uncommon for GW2 expect for the grind part?
Emphasis on jumps was uncommon at best in GW2 up to HoT. Can you also understand that people are salty when the game they supported churns out an expansion that plays heavily with the remnants but lets them so intact that you can still touch it but it feels different?

Harper.4173:

Halandir.3609:

Wolfey.3407:

I’m still waiting on people who claim anet advertised this game as a casual friendly game to post their official sources.

Where’s the you tube videos of the game advertisement?
Where’s the official web images?
Where’s the official box art showing it?

Only thing i’m seeing is a friend of a friend of a friend who knew an anet employee said it was. Or some guy who worked at anet a long time ago said it was on an off hand conversation.

OK. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBeXr9iC4qU&feature=youtu.be&t=618

You’re welcome…

That’s from 2013 – the core game was already launched so it’s not part of the advertisement for core GW2 before release.
It’s also before HoT was even announced – so exactly how does this make a difference?

Also I don’t believe a developer interview should be considered “advertisement”.

It may not be (paid) advertizing but it IS the Game Director, who sits on relevant metrics, directly acknowledging a certain group of players when he says:
“… that’s something really aimed at our core base which is a group of players that really only has X amount of time each day they can play the game. And I think for us (for guildwars) we really want those people to be able to feel like, in an hour they can log in and they can really accomplish something…”

After a statement like that I would LOVE to see a PR-person saying: “Yeah this group of casuals appeared out of nowhere – Certainly not the group of players we targeted with our marketing…”

HoT was advertised as challanging content. I don’t see the issue here. The core game didn’t get more challanging, it’s still the same.

It did indeed not get more challenging. But it´s rewards got nerfed in many ways, probably to keep players in HoT. And logically along with that, accomplishments were also nerfed because according to the logic of both pro gamers and average gamers effort = reward.

In response to the thread title:

It still is.

Astralporing.1957:

ODB.6891:

There were many us making a huge stink on the forums, before launch, specifically because they were being excessively vague about what the expansion would contain. They eventually gave up the goods and made posts detailing what it would be like. They told us it would be more challenging.

They still were really vague on that point. That might have meant a multitude of things. It definitely didn’t have to mean maps where everything is part of a meta on a timer, and most things are made for groups. It didn’t have to mean guildhalls, legendary crafting and many other things hidden beyond massive material and gold sinks. It didn’t have to mean nerfing dungeons into the ground (which, btw, happened for the players that didn’t buy expac too). They also didn’t say that all of the expac would be for hardcores.

I’ll give you that much, that they didn’t reveal the map metas. Its a bit much to expect every detail of the expansion to be given before it is launched. They did go into significant details though…granted not until very close to launch…which is when I held out to to make my purchase. I’m really not seeing what your problem is with the map meta though…its not like you are forced into participating in any part of it that you don’t want to. There is literally no downside to participating in the map meta. As far as them not explicitly telling us about these map metas…they sure left some huge breadcrumbs to let us know they were coming. Hello Dry Top and Silver Wastes.

As far as the group content…that was definitely advertised. They didn’t specifically say that they were not going to have an abundance of solo content though…so I’ll give you that. I spend the majority of my game time solo….I’ll group up or follow a zerg if it benefits me…but that’s entirely at my discretion…just like its at yours. I’m really not seeing the reason for this aversion to being in a group…in a MMO.

I’ll agree with you completely on the gold sink issue. I think that was an attempt at a gem store cash grab…fortunately they have backed off of that a bit with the fractal rewards. I’m not the guy to farm anything…and I’m also working towards my legendary items at my own pace. I’m not having any trouble with acquiring the funds or the items now…so long as I don’t mind doing it at a casual pace. I think you may need to re-evaluate your definition of hard core.

ODB.6891:

Why would you buy something that you know in advance, that you don’t want to play? That isn’t ANET’s mistake…

Astralporing.1957:

Of course it isn’t Anet’s mistake. They intentionally marketed the expac to players it was not meant for. They had to, because the number of players it was meant for was too small to support that expac on their own. Which is why they haven’t given me enough info to realize the expac wasn’t for me. On the contrary, the whole time what they were saying was that i’d better buy HoT because core will be left forgotten. Guildhalls? Need HoT. New specializations? Need HoT. Masteries? need HoT. Precursor crafting? Need HoT. Participation in all future Living Story chapters? Definitely need HoT. Any changes and improvements for the game? Need HoT.
They kept repeating that day after day – this was their message. Not “buy HoT only if you want challenging group content” as you claim.

Of course they are going to advertise the game to everyone….they are a for profit company. Its up to customers to have enough intelligence to read between the lines. Of course they are going to reserve their product for those that pay for it….what do you expect? Core content has not been forgotten btw. Seems like they are going out of their way to get players back into forgotten map areas. I just ended up in the forsaken halls jp/mini dungeon in the course of my legendary weapon crafting yesterday. I haven’t been there in years until yesterday. I think you are just confusing them continuing to let you know about not supporting dungeons…with forgetting about core content. How many games continue to update 3 year old content….especially a b2p/f2p game.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Adding difficult content isn’t the issue…adding that content constrained by timers is a problem for many. I have no problem at all with challenging content but gating and locking stuff behind timers is just a pathetic way of trying to stretch content out, simple as that.
As far as grinding, even though as of today it is not forced, the acceptance of this behavior could and very likely will lead to forced grind as time goes on, because it is the cheapest and easiest way to make content. Once again it’s a sad and simplistic way of trying to stretch out content value and nobody is fooled by that, you’ve only replaced the carrot with the need for 10,000 carrots.

Not everything needs to be group oriented, even in MMO’s the most successful have had a balanced approach. Throw in more solo content with each expansion and stuff that actually is fun to repeat, believe me when I say that adventures is not it for many, many players. It needs to be linked to story and lore.

If they want to be honest with themselves all they need to do is look at their numbers and the drop in active players being logged into the game that pretty much spells it out. Not every complaint is baseless and trying to make them seem that way is not a healthy approach to the games success either, nor is burying your head in the sand or trying to protect yourself through some absurd pretense of an information embargo policy. That is a cop out pure and simple and it only breeds contempt. Like I’ve been saying for a very long time address the concerns honestly and openly, dismiss those that are not reality and make plans to fix those that are. Instead they choose to wear rose colored glasses and pretend everything is all right, well we will see how successful that approach is long term.

If there were/is a stand and applaud icon you my friend deserves many.

I’d love to see demographics on who spends how much real money in the Trading Post, casuals, raiders, WvWers? What content drives income?

But I doubt we’ll ever see such data, even very generally.

— Scott

Wolfey.3407:

Here’s a box image for the pre-order….

Can anyone show me where on the official preorder box where it says or advertises casual?

Or do you guys mean that you were duped by a streamer or your best friend because THEY said it was for casuals?

If you pre-ordered there was no box, and to plays devils advocate it also doesn’t say we are ramping things up to be harder.

Also anyone that participated in the BETA had full Masteries opened, where does it say they will be closed and you will play heck opening them?

I honestly don’t care what they choose to do, I have played since early GW1 through the beta and start of GW2 and was an early pre-order for HoT, and if actions say anything I haven’t been in Hot in over 2 weeks.

I play daily always do dailies and mapping. I have 22 Characters counting my new Rev all level 80 and the Rev will be my 15 with map completion in a week to few more days.

I will say I personally (not speaking for all) enjoyed the environment where I can get to everything solo or with a group. I have primarily solo’d all 14 soon to be 15 toons.

Not sure if it is the vocal minority who prefer laid back look at the scenery or not, but personally I do.

Just as a closer I am not making threats that I will “take my ball and go home” but if I had known what little I would get from HoT (yes I finished HoT personal story on my main toon a Mesmer) I would not have purchased the expansion. I just can’t see dealing with the “environment” of HoT to do map completion there or finish Personal Story on any other toon.

Again just my 2 cents

Torolan.5816:

Harper.4173:

Torolan.5816:

Or Marionette, which took positve critiques all over the game and even in the whole industry because it was fresh and novel. Except of course by pro gamers, who were suddenly forced to play with average people if they wanted something. That was also the point where I finally realized that these people don´t want to have anything to do with common players who do not follow battleplans and metas. Either you meet their expectations, or you´re wortless to them.

That’s pretty much it – to very high-end players other players are generally a resource – your performance matters above everything else and that’s just how things are.

I liked the Marionette fight – but like you said I disliked it meant you had to organize all sorts of players that didn’t particularly want to be organized in order to succeed.

It is a necessity to follow a plan (a plan, neither a build or a meta) in an event like this, I am not even disagreeing with pro gamers in that question. That is a level of cooperation and environmental understanding I also expect from an average player in an open world event that has made the event a few times.
The magic of these events was that you could make mistakes because you were anonymus and there could be a guy or a girl on your plattform that was so pro that he managed to down it all by himself together with you so that you still managed to beat it in time when the three other people were dead.
You could just also just quit it without consequences to anyone if you ran out of time or motivation unlike a raid.
Marionette was in itself a pretty easy fight if you made it a few times. And yes, it was quite frustating when 4/5 plattforms downed their enemy and one with bearbows or zerker warriors could not. But it still was good for some laughs because of accusations in map chat nobody cared for because it was just in map chat and not on TS.

Things begin to turn wrong when you need equipment or a special skill to be useful. From there on a game turns into a specialist job, and I personally dislike that so much that I refuse to be part of a meta raid group despite having the necessary ascended equipment for it.

So then how do you make content harder without it being harder?

If they tuned raids so that people didn’t need specific gear, builds and strats to beat them then raids would be dungeons 2.0.

What’s your proposed solution for difficult instanced content? How do you make fights hard without requiring specialized comps and tactics, skills and rotations?

I mean hell – even in PvP where the opponents are human( assuming Anet could massively buff up the AI) you have metas, rotations, roles and whatnot.

In a way – Raids brought the PvE encounters closer to PvP ones – with much stricter necessities in order to succeed.

How do you make the raid hard without forcing people to specialize? Do you balance around the fact that an unspecialized group must be able to succeed? And if that’s the case doesn’t this mean a highly specialized group will breeze through the content on easy mode?

I am a casual player and really enjoyed most of the core game, I’m also a rather unskilled player as my real life job is “challenging” enough for me and I prefer playing games to just “relax”. I have been playing the game since launch and have yet to even complete everything in core game as I don’t play for more than an hour or two after login.
I have map completion and completed the living/personal story in the core game, although I never did any of the LS achievements because I considered them too difficult and time consuming.
I do participate in special events like Halloween and Wintersday although I can’t do the timed jumping puzzles. I do enjoy most of the other events offered.
I really really really loved doing the hearts in the core game. I was so disappointed when they dropped them. I thoroughly enjoyed leveling my characters and exploring all of the different areas (except orr because it was such a depressing looking area).
I didn’t care for Dry Top because of those aspect things and different level terrain, so after story and map completion I never went back. I never cared for SW because of the constant enemy attacks, although I did grind it out for the lumi gear when it was quite popular, then never went back.
Unfortunately. HoT is just very difficult for me. I don’t play during “prime time” so maps are pretty much empty. I absolutely abhor this mastery system and that story and mapping areas seem to be locked behind it. I have yet to get map completion in VB, I’ve only gotten into AB for the guild hall capturing event. I’m sure I will get it eventually, but it sure isn’t the most enjoyable experience for me.
I’ve enjoyed the GW franchise but I can honestly say, that if Anet continues on this path I doubt I will purchase any future expacs.

Halandir.3609:

Harper.4173:

Halandir.3609:

Wolfey.3407:

I’m still waiting on people who claim anet advertised this game as a casual friendly game to post their official sources.

Where’s the you tube videos of the game advertisement?
Where’s the official web images?
Where’s the official box art showing it?

Only thing i’m seeing is a friend of a friend of a friend who knew an anet employee said it was. Or some guy who worked at anet a long time ago said it was on an off hand conversation.

OK. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBeXr9iC4qU&feature=youtu.be&t=618

You’re welcome…

That’s from 2013 – the core game was already launched so it’s not part of the advertisement for core GW2 before release.
It’s also before HoT was even announced – so exactly how does this make a difference?

Also I don’t believe a developer interview should be considered “advertisement”.

It may not be (paid) advertizing but it IS the Game Director, who sits on relevant metrics, directly acknowledging a certain group of players when he says:
“… that’s something really aimed at our core base which is a group of players that really only has X amount of time each day they can play the game. And I think for us (for guildwars) we really want those people to be able to feel like, in an hour they can log in and they can really accomplish something…”

After a statement like that I would LOVE to see a PR-person saying: “Yeah this group of casuals appeared out of nowhere – Certainly not the group of players we targeted with our marketing…”

And can you not accomplish something in GW2 in an hour?
His wording is vague – as is all PR talk – but even in or out of context it is still true. Within one hour of playing Core GW2 or HoT you can accomplish a lot.

Now can you beat raids in one hour? No – not before you’ve done raids for a couple more hours beforehand. Why? Because it’s not the type of content the developers intended for you to beat in one hour and go home on your first tries.

I’m raiding not very hard with a group and I’m sure that in a month or so we’ll have the whole wing one of the raid down to 1 hour.

The only HoT content you can’t really touch in 1 hour of play regardless of skill( because of the way its built-in time constraint works) is Dragon’s Stand – which takes about 1 and a half hours no matter how good your map is.

Again – some areas of the game aren’t accessible to players with 1 hour per day to spend – most are however open to that time frame.

Also a developers acknowledging a group doesn’t mean he intends that group to be his game’s main demographic, nor that he marketed his game to and for that group only. His quote at best can be seen as him wanting those people that only have one hour to have a chance to do something in the game too. And they do.

We’re not debating who GW2 was advertised for – it was advertised for everybody since that’s the best way to go – we’re debating whether or not it was advertised as the “super easy MMO where you don’t have to put effort into any area of the game and still do great no matter how little time you have to play per day”.

Yes it was implied it would be a more laid-back and casual MMO but nowhere did it say all content would be faceroll easy and require no commitment from the players.

Let’s put it this way:

If GW2 was advertised for casuals( which I don’t believe it was) I disagree that it was advertised for casuals only and that it was designed to appeal to casuals only – with all areas and aspects of the game being 100% accessible to casuals.

Game is 99.9% casual friendly, it is also .1% hardcore friendly.

Therefore, game must hate casual players.

Ok.

As much as I’ve been a veteran – wait it’s “faithful” now – in the past year I have been a very casual casual player – just health issues.
Nevertheless, I still find the game a lot of fun. I still am able to enjoy a lot my 1-2-3 hours every 2 or 3 days or so.
Yes, HoT is harder than core. As I was only able to get HoT in the beginning of December, I didn’t have time to do much. I didn’t even uncover the whole map. Most of the time I have no idea where I’m going. If there’s an event (map event or otherwise) I join, if not, I just run around to discover things and do PS (LS?). I do that alone most of the time (being a reaper helps when it comes to solo), of course I’ll die now and then, but the sky doesn’t fall because of that.
I managed to craft a few ascended, I’m working on a legendary, and even with playing so little I still make enough gold a month to purchase at least a couple thousand gems.
Didn’t do raids yet, true.
I think I’m a fairly skilled player, got good gear, but – most importantly – I play Guild Wars not Fashion Wars and I guess that is the main reason why I am still fully enjoying the game even being a casual player. I don’t care about PvP rank, Masteries rank, yes, I do fractals, not yet to top, but the thing is – I play to relax and have fun. I don’t see the game as some kind of competition and virtual life in which I HAVE to have all the perks that I don’t have IRL. The only thing that irritates me is sometimes there are things that are behind JP achievements – as I can’t do JPs very well due to said medical conditions. But then I turn around and say “you know, I don’t really NEED that” and off I go to have fun somewhere else.
Maybe that’s the secret of the casual player? I have to admit it kind of goes against Anet’s goals because a player like me won’t spend much.

I can’t honesty wait till black desert online is released in North America. Not only does it offer excellent PvP according to the reviews, but I am hoping it will remove all the elitist from GW2 in the process. I had high hopes for Wildstar too, unfortunately I must continue to hold out hope.

#wantmyoldGW2back

There was a time when people understood that everything wasn’t going to be easy.

I can honestly say that everytime I see someone anticipate the ‘next awesome MMO’, it’s not the game they think it is, sort of the same way that HoT isn’t the expansion that some people thought it would be.

Its not the expansion we need, but the one we deserve.

Harper.4173:

So then how do you make content harder without it being harder?

If they tuned raids so that people didn’t need specific gear, builds and strats to beat them then raids would be dungeons 2.0.

What’s your proposed solution for difficult instanced content? How do you make fights hard without requiring specialized comps and tactics, skills and rotations?

I mean hell – even in PvP where the opponents are human( assuming Anet could massively buff up the AI) you have metas, rotations, roles and whatnot.

In a way – Raids brought the PvE encounters closer to PvP ones – with much stricter necessities in order to succeed.

How do you make the raid hard without forcing people to specialize? Do you balance around the fact that an unspecialized group must be able to succeed? And if that’s the case doesn’t this mean a highly specialized group will breeze through the content on easy mode?

Dungeons suffered because they were fundamentally broken from the start, not because they lacked in difficulty for a majority of players.
Lets look at Kholer from AC for example. For the first half of GW2s existence, Kholer was shunned and avoided because stacking against him was difficult and unrewarding for the garlic bread you got from him for your efforts. Then something happened and Kholer became farmable, every run made him.
Or take the undead spider from the same dungeon. That is a pretty tough encounter for a majority of people. Stacking in the corner or even better on the pillar was again the downfall of it until it was fixed.
My personal solution to this would be to punish people with massive agony like damage if they stack together the whole time. Or make the opponent invulnerable if the group camps at spots. To avoid speed clearers, make a number of mobs mandatory before you enter the room with the end boss.

My solution would be timing instead of DpS and the removal of enrage timers. Vale Guardian and his three merry men for example have some mechanisms I like in general like the small colored fields. When I entered for the frirst time in a raid I though: “Oh, nice! What a novel idea.” Then I was brought back into reality when I realized that the Guardian itself makes a massive reflexestest out of the idea and just forces you to kill him with DpS in a given time, giving builds the edge over skills. Let people use levers and mechnisms, not DpS.
The common objection against that:
“Oh no, don´t remove enrage timers! I don´t want a group of 10 nomad guardians do it in 5 hours like I did with my DpS hero in 20 minutes!”
Lol, wut? I hope everyone here looks at this and realizes how stupid this objection is.
What do you care if people you don´t know and probably will never meet beat something in hours you took only minutes for? Can´t you just be satisfied that you are so much better without having people fun or success too who are not as good as you? If that bugs people so much, make a list of who accomplished it how fast like with adventures.

Let´s say a mid way boss mob named supernova heats up and if he is hot enough, punishes players with an unblockable and undodgeable supernova that takes out 99% of health. To avoid that, he needs stacks of cold where damage is not important, but just the numbers of stacks he has. A given player can only give him 2 stacks at once to avoid specialization builds. Suddenly, average Joe with cold gets useful. Give him a pain aura or henchmen to make him more challenging if you want.
Award hardcores with the achievement “Supernova Killer” when not a single stack of cold was used against him to avoid them misusing tissue productions because it was much too easy.^^

Torolan.5816:

My solution would be timing instead of DpS and the removal of enrage timers. Vale Guardian and his three merry men for example have some mechanisms I like in general like the small colored fields. When I entered for the frirst time in a raid I though: “Oh, nice! What a novel idea.” Then I was brought back into reality when I realized that the Guardian itself makes a massive reflexestest out of the idea and just forces you to kill him with DpS in a given time, giving builds the edge over skills.

Understanding good builds, playing high dps builds (less defensive stats/traits) and performing that high dps all require skill. If you’re going to tell me that performing high damage while being more easily killed requires less skill than your Nomad example then I cannot help you.

Environmental awareness Skill for a mob or encounter mechanic, not skill as in performance. Should probably have been more clear with that.

A current meta build requires research, needs to be rare to get a place quickly, then reflexes first an foremost, then timing. And that is like searching a job for me. The first two attributes are also needed when you want to have any chances while looking for a job, the third is not available to everyone, and the last part is how you make a job. I don´t want to have another job when I am at home, sorry.
If you understand casual as someone who wants to perform at the best level but plays irregularly, then you are right in your approach to the game. If you understand casual as I do, play regular but without much commitment to a specific cause, you are wrong.

And yes, High DpS is more unforgiven and requires environmental awareness too when battling a mob, but it does not require environmental awareness within mechanics. And do I really want an attribute like unforgiven in a game that should appeal to many people? Of course raids are made for the 1%, but this should not be stretched to vast parts of open world HoT content like it is right now.

Torolan.5816:

And yes, High DpS is more unforgiven and requires environmental awareness too when battling a mob, but it does not require environmental awareness within mechanics.

“but it does not require environmental awareness within mechanics” <- what does this mean?

Glad we agree though that playing a more easily killed build to a high degree of performance is clearly skillful. I’m still not sure on why you think therefore the enrage timer doesn’t encourage skillful play.

Halandir.3609:

Harper.4173:

Halandir.3609:

Wolfey.3407:

I’m still waiting on people who claim anet advertised this game as a casual friendly game to post their official sources.

Where’s the you tube videos of the game advertisement?
Where’s the official web images?
Where’s the official box art showing it?

Only thing i’m seeing is a friend of a friend of a friend who knew an anet employee said it was. Or some guy who worked at anet a long time ago said it was on an off hand conversation.

OK. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBeXr9iC4qU&feature=youtu.be&t=618

You’re welcome…

That’s from 2013 – the core game was already launched so it’s not part of the advertisement for core GW2 before release.
It’s also before HoT was even announced – so exactly how does this make a difference?

Also I don’t believe a developer interview should be considered “advertisement”.

It may not be (paid) advertizing but it IS the Game Director, who sits on relevant metrics, directly acknowledging a certain group of players when he says:
“… that’s something really aimed at our core base which is a group of players that really only has X amount of time each day they can play the game. And I think for us (for guildwars) we really want those people to be able to feel like, in an hour they can log in and they can really accomplish something…”

After a statement like that I would LOVE to see a PR-person saying: “Yeah this group of casuals appeared out of nowhere – Certainly not the group of players we targeted with our marketing…”

Yet the game was released with multi-hour dungeon paths (yes they did took multiple hours during the first months). And really the rant of the OP was about the 1%, the raids and the esports, can you still log for 1 hour and feel like you accomplished something? The answer is obviously yes. It’s only a few parts of the game that you can’t, which is exactly how the game was at release. The exact same thing, so what changed?

Find me an actual video that says the game was meant to be “for casuals” because that video doesn’t work Where does it mention that THERE IS NOTHING ELSE in the game? Oh wait, nowhere. Dream on.

Maybe this explains it better.

You have High DpS:
You win by bursting out damage and avoid damage with shielding abilities, dodges, movements and avoids of other kinds that prevent you from taking damage because you can not take it. Chronotank comes to mind.
You have high tank:
You win a war of attrition by tanking with armor, heals and HP while still doing damage on a lower level. It takes longer, but you can make a mistake without loosing automatically. Regeneration warrior and heal guardian come to mind.

The first variant requires more skill at actual playing. The second carries more responsibility for the survival of a team most of the time. We´re both on the same page with that I guess, expceptions are of course viable too.

But neither dependence on type I or II does make an encounter itself challenging. It rather makes an encounter difficult, exclusive for type II and rushed with the use of a timer, which is a difference in my opinion. An encounter is challenging when you need enviromental awareness with mechanics like things happening around the boss fight, like minions rushing in or happenings that groups must do to defeat a given boss.
Of course a timer is such an environmental happening too, but not an overly challenging one. It´s rather a test of your ability to do damage and if you have mastered your personal ability rotation, but it does not promote a good encounter itself most of the time.

My personal level of challenge would be an encounter where you have to defeat the dungeon with it´s denizens and guarding mechanics itself to defeat the boss, not the boss mob first and foremost. Where DpS and builds are not that important, that is only equipment gathering in my mind. It also needs a good story, not just a guy with 3 cronies that gates a valley.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

HoT was advertised as challanging content. I don’t see the issue here. The core game didn’t get more challanging, it’s still the same.

runeblade.7514:

Game is 99.9% casual friendly, it is also .1% hardcore friendly.

Therefore, game must hate casual players.

Ok.

So, casuals weren’t supposed to buy HoT..? o.o

Haha, just imagining how “well” the Xpac would have sold if the filthy casuals knew beforehand that the game becomes like this amuses me. “Core is still the same, why not play there?” Ok, hand everyone their 50 bucks back who are doomed to still play on core maps. Gl with that :)

I’m more and more glad I didn’t buy it. Thanks to that “no-you-don’t-get-a-free-charslot-if-you-don’t-pre-purchase” compulsion I was warned to not touch this thing until I see what it really is. Whoever in the marketing dep. was responsible for this: Thank you very much for the warning!

PS: Is it still ok to do some NC Soft advertisement here? If yes, the last closed beta from Blade & Soul was great. @OP – give it a shot when it comes out in January.

Torolan.5816:

Maybe this explains it better.

You have High DpS:
You win by bursting out damage and avoid damage with shielding abilities, dodges, movements and avoids of other kinds that prevent you from taking damage because you can not take it. Chronotank comes to mind.
You have high tank:
You win a war of attrition by tanking with armor, heals and HP while still doing damage on a lower level. It takes longer, but you can make a mistake without loosing automatically. Regeneration warrior and heal guardian come to mind.

The first variant requires more skill at actual playing. The second carries more responsibility for the survival of a team most of the time.

Please now explain how the second variant “carries more responsibility for the survival of a team” because this isn’t true, the Chronotank still carries that responsibility (by not dying). Also you’ve chosen to compare tanks when the real comparison would be between 8 High DPS builds and the 8 Nomad builds you were discussing earlier.

Things we agree on:

1) Enrage timer makes people run DPS focused builds.
2) DPS focused builds are squishier than tanky builds and require good execution to benefit from them – these require skillful play.
3) ???

Things I still need to convince you on:

4) Enrage timer encourages skillful play (ie. profit).

Please tell me what I need to get you to 4) because I’m struggling here.

A healer guardian and warrior usually falls last and especially the warrior has a safety net to nullify mistakes made by squishy DpSers. I know that DpS players don´t like that argument very much because the usual reply is that they would not have fallen if the healer or tank would have made more damage. Although I hoped that this reasoning would finally stop with mobs who have millions over millions of HP, it still seems to be valid for some people.

My main argument is that a DpS build is not more fun or better than any other by default and there should be no mechanism that only favors a few types of builds. A DpS build is of course more effective and mandatory if you want to win the race of against the clock. But what if I don´t want to even have a race against the clock in my spare game time? Maybe I want a rich and detailed background story, or more time to do the raid on my own with my friends of 9 nomad buddies(exaragation here^^) to not feel left behind and like a second class customer without bowing down to the requirements?
And the most viable reason for me, why should someone care if people do a raid in tanky armor? Invalidated rewards? Please. Make it gold, silver and bronze depending on the time you needed like with adventures and give them a shiny title, everyone is satisfied. But no ,it is all or nothing.

That is probably the reason you can´t convince me of 4. I want to have fun, not a skill contest or a DpS festival. Although that can surely be fun for people, it is not fun for me.
The only reason I am arguing here is because Anet made the decision to gate legendary between raids, a decision I find unreasonable. If that were not the case, I would wish you a heartfelt best of luck with raid content and go my merry way.

Torolan.5816:

My main argument is that a DpS build is not more fun or better than any other by default and there should be no mechanism that only favors a few types of builds. A DpS build is of course more effective and mandatory if you want to win the race of against the clock.

That is probably the reason you can´t convince me of 4. I want to have fun, not a skill contest or a DpS festival. Although that can surely be fun for people, it is not fun for me.

The only reason I am arguing here is because Anet made the decision to gate legendary between raids, a decision I find unreasonable. If that were not the case, I would wish you a heartfelt best of luck with raid content and go my merry way.

Legendary Armour is a reward for Raiding – so a reward for skillful play as designed. I hope we’ve now agreed that Raiding requires some skill due to what we’ve discussed above.

We don’t have any rewards for skillful play currently in the game and I think this is a valid and good addition to the game (we differ here I imagine). I am glad Anet have made Legendary Armour a reward for Raiding and think the enrage timers help with balancing the encounter and making it a challenge.

I hope your desire for something story driven is fulfilled in LS3 (something I also would like) but I wouldn’t want your position to knock Anet off course with Raids (which I have found to be the most fun content they’ve added to the game).

Happy Christmas!

ShelBlackblood.7826:

So, casuals weren’t supposed to buy HoT..? o.o

Depends on your definition of “casual”. If by casual you mean people who can’t play the game then yes they weren’t supposed to buy HoT.

I still think that the whole thread is pointless though. Tell me please, as someone who didn’t buy HoT, did you have fun running Arah or high level Fractals?

maddoctor.2738:

ShelBlackblood.7826:

So, casuals weren’t supposed to buy HoT..? o.o

Depends on your definition of “casual”. If by casual you mean people who can’t play the game then yes they weren’t supposed to buy HoT.

I still think that the whole thread is pointless though. Tell me please, as someone who didn’t buy HoT, did you have fun running Arah or high level Fractals?

Thanks for the question. Nope, didn’t do Arah explo or any fractals above 20. But I did enjoy playing dungeons, defeating Liadri, exploring DT and SW on my own, doing WvW with 2 other guildies, commanding Tequatl and SW event maps, doing many LS2 achievs solo and clearing the new LA jumping puzzle several times (26 minutes personal record). As you can see, I had pretty much to do that wasn’t considered hard core in the main game. And I was perfectly fine with that.

I did all this when I had the time to do so, not on specific 2 hour waiting circles that dictate me when do what I want and if I’m unlucky, these 2 hours were for nothing. My guild is gone now, you know? The others have quit completely after HoT launched. Pretty much a ghost guild with one active “forum only” player who still hopes ArenaNet will some day take a look at their own manifesto again and take a few steps back to their roots.

Also, I wouldn’t consider myself a casual player skill-wise, it’s rather the time gates and forced group play that annoys me. Don’t get me started on what I think about the specialsation grind for my 10 (18 were planed) characters or the general “approval” that it’s an OK thing to destroy or remove core game features to advertise the Xpac. I know exactly why I loved core Guild Wars 2, but I don’t see much of that left in HoT. Which is why I’m grateful I didn’t buy it.

ShelBlackblood.7826:

Nope, didn’t do Arah explo or any fractals above 20.

Do you think that they should never add content for those that did complete Arah and High level fractals (and enjoyed those)? Because that’s what they did with Raids. Adding content for the “minority” isn’t a bad thing. Nor does it make the game suddenly not as casual, just like there were lots of things to do in the core game, with few exceptions, it’s the same thing.

The map cycles have their own drawbacks of course but I think it’s something that was needed to group people and have meaningful open world content. You can always just port there during the final boss encounter just like with all the other world bosses in the game, you don’t have to stay there for 2 hours to participate in the last battle.

To avoid the main issue with the maps you can always think of them as a whole. If VB is not at the place you want, then maybe TD is, or DS.

maddoctor.2738:

ShelBlackblood.7826:

Nope, didn’t do Arah explo or any fractals above 20.

Do you think that they should never add content for those that did complete Arah and High level fractals (and enjoyed those)? Because that’s what they did with Raids.

I never wrote that. I’m fine with or without raids, but I don’t agree that the “challenging” content should make around 70%-80% of the whole Xpac. Many people bought it because they liked how the main game was. And if I remember correctly, Arah and high level Fractals weren’t the main focus of Guild Wars 2. Raids should be included, but what the heck happened in the open world areas? Why didn’t we get even one “normal”, non-timed non-event-overloaded new map? Why must almost everything about the Xpac be more challenging aka non-casual friendly?

ODB.6891:

I’ll agree with you completely on the gold sink issue. I think that was an attempt at a gem store cash grab…fortunately they have backed off of that a bit with the fractal rewards.

Only for the HoT users (rewards are balanced around the asumption of you having the highest tier of fractal mastery, and are significantly lower when that assumption is not met).

ODB.6891:

I’m not the guy to farm anything…and I’m also working towards my legendary items at my own pace. I’m not having any trouble with acquiring the funds or the items now…so long as I don’t mind doing it at a casual pace.

Most of my friends that didn’t buy HoT are no longer earning anything unless they farm Silverwastes.

ODB.6891:

Core content has not been forgotten btw. Seems like they are going out of their way to get players back into forgotten map areas. I just ended up in the forsaken halls jp/mini dungeon in the course of my legendary weapon crafting yesterday.

For the precursor collection, right? The one that requires precursor mastery… which is available only to HoT owners?

Truth is, i’m only being given a choice between abandoning the game or paying for the changes that will make it less appealing for me. I’m no longer expected to have fun in this game. It’s a lose/lose situation. And it’s mostly due to HoT and the changes it brought.

Torolan.5816:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Platforming was peripheral in vanilla gw2. The change to make it integral to the game is why you are getting complaints. People bought an rpg not a platformer.

how exactly is it ‘integral’? People bought GW2 knowing that it had optional jumping puzzles in it from day 1, if i choose to not do a jumping puzzle it has 0 impact on my ability to play any other part of the game. If you dont like something, just ignore it, your not losing out.

Ok, let us take a look then what has changed over the years?
Things including JPs, other jumping shenanigans or excessive leveling in Core Tyria to complete stuff:
Jumping Puzzles in itself
Some ls1 open world stuff
Festivals
Princess and Mawdrew
Wallbreaker JP to finish a map
Mawdrew was the first to relly heavily on JPs. At a time when the game was 2+ years old.
You do not need the JP to complete southsun, the first major patch with new land.
JPs in festivals were optional, the ablity to grind festivals with dailies is gone too.

HoT:
JPs
Adventures
Mastery Points and actual XP
Map completion for Specialization collections
Stuff as Save the city of Gold
Of course this stuff is optional too, but you miss out on much more stuff than you did with Core Tyria if you don´t like to jump or explore. And would you personally like to play a game where you either miss out on much or endure to farm it and then never do again?

ofc it’s optional, thats the point. Mawdrey for example is entirely optional, if you dont do it you dont lose out, if you want a long term goal, its great – i personally just completed mawdrey after starting it a couple months ago, at a net loss of gold, but it was fun for me,

Only an idiot would play a game they dont enjoy. You dont endure a game, you play it if its fun, if not move on. As for HOT, it didnt replace Tyria it added to it, it adds a different flavour to the game, and kitten good fun imo, and i spend most of my time still in tyria. Glass is half full?

vesica tempestas.1563:

Torolan.5816:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Platforming was peripheral in vanilla gw2. The change to make it integral to the game is why you are getting complaints. People bought an rpg not a platformer.

how exactly is it ‘integral’? People bought GW2 knowing that it had optional jumping puzzles in it from day 1, if i choose to not do a jumping puzzle it has 0 impact on my ability to play any other part of the game. If you dont like something, just ignore it, your not losing out.

Ok, let us take a look then what has changed over the years?
Things including JPs, other jumping shenanigans or excessive leveling in Core Tyria to complete stuff:
Jumping Puzzles in itself
Some ls1 open world stuff
Festivals
Princess and Mawdrew
Wallbreaker JP to finish a map
Mawdrew was the first to relly heavily on JPs. At a time when the game was 2+ years old.
You do not need the JP to complete southsun, the first major patch with new land.
JPs in festivals were optional, the ablity to grind festivals with dailies is gone too.

HoT:
JPs
Adventures
Mastery Points and actual XP
Map completion for Specialization collections
Stuff as Save the city of Gold
Of course this stuff is optional too, but you miss out on much more stuff than you did with Core Tyria if you don´t like to jump or explore. And would you personally like to play a game where you either miss out on much or endure to farm it and then never do again?

ofc it’s optional, thats the point. Mawdrey for example is entirely optional, if you dont do it you dont lose out, if you want a long term goal, its great – i personally just completed mawdrey after starting it a couple months ago, at a net loss of gold, but it was fun for me,

Only an idiot would play a game they dont enjoy. You dont endure a game, you play it if its fun, if not move on. As for HOT, it didnt replace Tyria it added to it, it adds a different flavour to the game, and kitten good fun imo, and i spend most of my time still in tyria. Glass is half full?

True, but games like this are a difficult matter. People invest a whole lot it these, financially and personally.

I like your optimistic view, but for me core Tyria has been neutered and I was already pretty bored of it. But much as I dislike recent developments, I’m far too invested in my characters to “move on”.

So yea, I endure.

The game is very casual friendly. I can log on , get my daily reward, log out. No need to play at all.

It helps that the game is more like SM8 than Guild Wars 2- I don’t like twitch jump puzzles with timers or ‘adventures’ with masteries locked behind meta events AND timers (so frequently not accessable), so I’m now extremely ‘casual’, having given up on finishing masteries in H0T (gated behind ‘adventures’ that are so bad they had to gate mastery points in them otherwise no one would bother with them at all), and given up on doing Tyrian ‘masteries’ that are locked behind gimmicks in stories, gimmicky jump puzzles, or gimmicks at world bosses where you have to wait and abuse the lfg tool and wait and hope that your instance map reaches the right bit, and you get the spot and then get to finish the gimmick.

I’m enjoying the ‘play how I want’ of Guild Wars. The one true Guild Wars. Not this JP infested thing that has the same name.

ShelBlackblood.7826:

I never wrote that. I’m fine with or without raids, but I don’t agree that the “challenging” content should make around 70%-80% of the whole Xpac. Many people bought it because they liked how the main game was. And if I remember correctly, Arah and high level Fractals weren’t the main focus of Guild Wars 2. Raids should be included, but what the heck happened in the open world areas? Why didn’t we get even one “normal”, non-timed non-event-overloaded new map? Why must almost everything about the Xpac be more challenging aka non-casual friendly?

Only challenging part is the raid, is raiding 70-80% of the whole expansion?

And about the maps, I don’t get the problem. You don’t have to play through the entire map sequence to fight the last battle, you can just port there like any world boss. You don’t have to be in that last fight either, nobody is forcing you to kill the Gerent, go on TD, play the game, then leave, you can play on the new maps just like any of the older ones.

From the start it was a grind.

without grind.
you don’t need levels.
without grind.
no one would turnup for the world bosses.
without grind.
no need for TP, everything should be accountbound.
without grind.
you don’t design gear with stats. so why have gear at all.
without grind.
you better not implement rankings of anykind.
without grind.
You don’t need to improve.

per definition any game entail grind. want to be good at Pong, chess, Solitair, CoD, Minesweeper? Guess what, you need to practice so you have to grind. Same for any game known to mankind.

If people want to just “experience” you should watch games and not play them. Sub to some streamers or better invest your “entertainment budget” into stuff that doesn’t trigger some individial “urgh this a grind” threshold.

They advertised that you do the endgame activity right from the start. To that end they keep their word. Sure XP level cap can be argued as grind. But please tell how to increase content difficulty and keep newbs out of that harder content for a while? At some point you will have to design grind.
Do casuals need a 80 boost? I doubt it. mob dificulty scales somewhat troughout the zones, same for newly added maps. HOT mobs will wrek boosted newbs as will southsuncove mobs for that matter.

To all the Ascended whiners. Exotics are fine! Even Rares are just fine.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item#Quality

Torolan.5816:

Harper.4173:

So then how do you make content harder without it being harder?

If they tuned raids so that people didn’t need specific gear, builds and strats to beat them then raids would be dungeons 2.0.

What’s your proposed solution for difficult instanced content? How do you make fights hard without requiring specialized comps and tactics, skills and rotations?

I mean hell – even in PvP where the opponents are human( assuming Anet could massively buff up the AI) you have metas, rotations, roles and whatnot.

In a way – Raids brought the PvE encounters closer to PvP ones – with much stricter necessities in order to succeed.

How do you make the raid hard without forcing people to specialize? Do you balance around the fact that an unspecialized group must be able to succeed? And if that’s the case doesn’t this mean a highly specialized group will breeze through the content on easy mode?

Dungeons suffered because they were fundamentally broken from the start, not because they lacked in difficulty for a majority of players.
Lets look at Kholer from AC for example. For the first half of GW2s existence, Kholer was shunned and avoided because stacking against him was difficult and unrewarding for the garlic bread you got from him for your efforts. Then something happened and Kholer became farmable, every run made him.
Or take the undead spider from the same dungeon. That is a pretty tough encounter for a majority of people. Stacking in the corner or even better on the pillar was again the downfall of it until it was fixed.
My personal solution to this would be to punish people with massive agony like damage if they stack together the whole time. Or make the opponent invulnerable if the group camps at spots. To avoid speed clearers, make a number of mobs mandatory before you enter the room with the end boss.

My solution would be timing instead of DpS and the removal of enrage timers. Vale Guardian and his three merry men for example have some mechanisms I like in general like the small colored fields. When I entered for the frirst time in a raid I though: “Oh, nice! What a novel idea.” Then I was brought back into reality when I realized that the Guardian itself makes a massive reflexestest out of the idea and just forces you to kill him with DpS in a given time, giving builds the edge over skills. Let people use levers and mechnisms, not DpS.
The common objection against that:
“Oh no, don´t remove enrage timers! I don´t want a group of 10 nomad guardians do it in 5 hours like I did with my DpS hero in 20 minutes!”
Lol, wut? I hope everyone here looks at this and realizes how stupid this objection is.
What do you care if people you don´t know and probably will never meet beat something in hours you took only minutes for? Can´t you just be satisfied that you are so much better without having people fun or success too who are not as good as you? If that bugs people so much, make a list of who accomplished it how fast like with adventures.

Let´s say a mid way boss mob named supernova heats up and if he is hot enough, punishes players with an unblockable and undodgeable supernova that takes out 99% of health. To avoid that, he needs stacks of cold where damage is not important, but just the numbers of stacks he has. A given player can only give him 2 stacks at once to avoid specialization builds. Suddenly, average Joe with cold gets useful. Give him a pain aura or henchmen to make him more challenging if you want.
Award hardcores with the achievement “Supernova Killer” when not a single stack of cold was used against him to avoid them misusing tissue productions because it was much too easy.^^

Except the game’s mechanics – boons for example – are actively encouraging people to move in closer to each other in order to benefit from different types of boon sharing.

When ressing a downed player multiple party members will close in to one area and converge on their downed teammate.

The game has a lot of mechanics that promote sticking close to your allies – healing abilities, blocks, buffs, etc.
To introduce a mechanic that punishes you if you’re close to your teammates is absurd.

You’d basically be invalidating core principles and mechanics of the game.

Also – the game is not aiming to avoid speed clearers – the whole idea is to make content difficult but not time gate it.

I mean – the easiest way to avoid speed clears is : You must spend x time in this room regardless of how fast you beat the boss. There – done.

The idea is to create difficult content that still works together and plays well with the other core mechanics of the game. Not to create mechanics that invalidate other core mechanics in order to make the game “harder”.

If that’s the route you want to take you can have the game arbitrarily throw a black screen every 3-5 seconds for 1-2 seconds. That’ll make it harder right?

Let people use levers and mechnisms, not DpS.

Have you done Sabetha? It’s actually a mechanics test more than anything else.

Let’s not judge the whole raid based on what VG is.

“Oh no, don´t remove enrage timers! I don´t want a group of 10 nomad guardians do it in 5 hours like I did with my DpS hero in 20 minutes!”
Lol, wut? I hope everyone here looks at this and realizes how stupid this objection is.

It’s not stupid – because it would probably not take 5 hours and people could find an easy way to afk/automatize the process.

What do you care if people you don´t know and probably will never meet beat something in hours you took only minutes for?

Yes if that means they didn’t reach the same skill cap I reached and that was required to clear the content but still got the reward.

It would mean my unique skin or mini that says “hey I’m this good because i beat this boss” would forever be placed under the shadow of “he must have just afkd it in full defensive gear”.

Can´t you just be satisfied that you are so much better without having people fun or success too who are not as good as you? If that bugs people so much, make a list of who accomplished it how fast like with adventures.

If instead of a list you offer skins – then yes – that’s a good deal.
And no – i’m not satisfied with people who aren’t as good as me getting the same rewards because that invalidates their uniqueness and coolness.

Rare weapons are great because they are rare. If everyone has them they stop being rare. And then you invalidate the point of having something that’s rare, unique and not many others have.

Your supernova idea is very odd and I didn’t really understand it but again I ask -why bring average joe in the encounter at all?

Why must the content change in order for X Y or Z suboptimal builds/players to become somewhat viable when obviously X Y and Z should step up their game?

Torolan.5816:

A current meta build requires research, needs to be rare to get a place quickly, then reflexes first an foremost, then timing. And that is like searching a job for me. The first two attributes are also needed when you want to have any chances while looking for a job, the third is not available to everyone, and the last part is how you make a job. I don´t want to have another job when I am at home, sorry.

Then don’t Raid – people have to understand that depending on how you want to play this game more or less of the content might not be for you.
There’s no absolute rule that regardless of your skill, dedication and competence the entire content of the game should be open and available to you.
The majority of it already is – if you don’t want to treat the game as a “job” when Raiding just wait a few months until enough people become good at it and you’ll probably get carried through.

If you understand casual as someone who wants to perform at the best level but plays irregularly, then you are right in your approach to the game. If you understand casual as I do, play regular but without much commitment to a specific cause, you are wrong.

And yes, High DpS is more unforgiven and requires environmental awareness too when battling a mob, but it does not require environmental awareness within mechanics. And do I really want an attribute like unforgiven in a game that should appeal to many people? Of course raids are made for the 1%, but this should not be stretched to vast parts of open world HoT content like it is right now.

No – your definition is your own but ap erson who wants to perform at 100% but plays irregular is not casual. He’s a hardcore with not enough time.
Again – before you talk more about environmental awareness with mechanics please go look up or actually get to the Sabetha fight – a combination of high dps and awareness of mechanics is mandatory there.

maddoctor.2738:

Halandir.3609:

Harper.4173:

Halandir.3609:

Wolfey.3407:

I’m still waiting on people who claim anet advertised this game as a casual friendly game to post their official sources.

Where’s the you tube videos of the game advertisement?
Where’s the official web images?
Where’s the official box art showing it?

Only thing i’m seeing is a friend of a friend of a friend who knew an anet employee said it was. Or some guy who worked at anet a long time ago said it was on an off hand conversation.

OK. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBeXr9iC4qU&feature=youtu.be&t=618

You’re welcome…

That’s from 2013 – the core game was already launched so it’s not part of the advertisement for core GW2 before release.
It’s also before HoT was even announced – so exactly how does this make a difference?

Also I don’t believe a developer interview should be considered “advertisement”.

It may not be (paid) advertizing but it IS the Game Director, who sits on relevant metrics, directly acknowledging a certain group of players when he says:
“… that’s something really aimed at our core base which is a group of players that really only has X amount of time each day they can play the game. And I think for us (for guildwars) we really want those people to be able to feel like, in an hour they can log in and they can really accomplish something…”

After a statement like that I would LOVE to see a PR-person saying: “Yeah this group of casuals appeared out of nowhere – Certainly not the group of players we targeted with our marketing…”

Yet the game was released with multi-hour dungeon paths (yes they did took multiple hours during the first months). And really the rant of the OP was about the 1%, the raids and the esports, can you still log for 1 hour and feel like you accomplished something? The answer is obviously yes. It’s only a few parts of the game that you can’t, which is exactly how the game was at release. The exact same thing, so what changed?

Find me an actual video that says the game was meant to be “for casuals” because that video doesn’t work Where does it mention that THERE IS NOTHING ELSE in the game? Oh wait, nowhere. Dream on.

I doubt he knows about the state of dungeons at release – a lot of discussion here is difficult because a lot of posters haven’t been with the game since release and don’t understand that their ideas were at some point part of the game or that certain ways they would like to change the game into have already been tried.

I am not a game designer, so I don´t know what would be a golden way for everyone. I was just trying to communicate why I think making abilities dependend from special gear and a set direction of numbers pressing(aka a rotation)is inherently wrong for me.

Why is it obvious that X, Y or Z should step up their game? Because you and some other people say so? Content was free for all until HoT, and in no instance you could earn anything substantial from a content that was restricted by the question if you had personal abilities and skills that was not accessible from other sources. Not in fractals, not in wvw or pvp, nowhere. Where is the logic in that if not just for the sake of forcing people to play raids? If the content was as challenging and rewarding by itself as you say, why put a reward behind it that is useful for anyone instead of massive amounts of gold, titles and skins? In my opinion, Anet knew that they would not get enough people to play them if they did not let any way point in that direction.

Please also note that I wrote free, not accessible. If I would put a single respirator inside a small rock patch in an active volcano that would force someone to walk through pyroclasmic smoke on te only bridge to the respirator, it would also be accessible for a chronical asthmatic, but still not free.

But maybe I am missing the logic here?
We are not at the olympics, and this is not even remotely a sport. There are no championships for raids either. Your reward would only be really unique if it would read something like that:
“This is the raid reward X. It was rewarded to Harper.4173 at the 22th december of 2015 after he finished the raid. He was the 27th person to beat it.”
If that is not the case, your reward is bound to be invalidated anyway as time goes on because more and more people will get an absolutely identical reward. so in my thinking, you´re not winning an olympic medal, but just a medal of good conduct that gets more common with every hour that passes. Aren´t we entering the treadmill here everyonew loathes, always on the hunt for the next unique gear?
Everything that protects your reward for now is that people will be getting it after you, until it is so common that nobody will notice it anymore. So your triumph is short lived.

Harper.4173:

I doubt he knows about the state of dungeons at release – a lot of discussion here is difficult because a lot of posters haven’t been with the game since release and don’t understand that their ideas were at some point part of the game or that certain ways they would like to change the game into have already been tried.

That’s exactly what I think as well. Most posters on threads like this started playing the game and much later date, when the whole “GW2 is a game for casuals” emerged. It wasn’t there for a very long time. In fact the best way to get Exotic Gear was by doing dungeons, and those things were considered HARD by MMORPG standards. Then they started moving away of getting things from content, and moving to getting things by grinding.

If I had to pinpoint the exact release that made the game so “casual friendly” I’d say the Queens Jubilee (The first one) which added the entire idea of spamming 1 to get rewards from things like Champion trains and World Boss hopping. Before Queen’s Jubilee the game wasn’t “easy mode” and it went downhill from there. Unfortunately a lot of players liked the idea of having to spam 1 or F and form big blobs to get any kind of reward and they didn’t notice that they were in fact grinding. QJ made huge changes to the economy as well, as prices skyrocketed and the value of gold plummeted. That’s because the game became so “Casual” and everyone could farm/grind and get the rewards they wanted, instead of being rewarded from actually finishing content.

And we get to today, when Anet needs to make the grind even more heavy to keep players playing the game. Raids are one of the things they did right, adding a brand new reward that is behind actual content and doesn’t require insane grinding. A lot of the Living Story rewards were another good thing as well, requiring you to “play the content” to get the rewards and not just farm/grind what you’ve already been doing.

It’s sad but you either put rewards behind challenging content that take time to master, or you put them behind excessive grinding. There is little middle-ground to be had in an MMORPG, I’d rather have the first one. Excluding players that can’t bother (or can’t physically do it) to learn/adapt to content is fine with me. Excluding players because you present them with a huge wall of grinding is not.

maddoctor.2738:

In fact the best way to get Exotic Gear was by doing dungeons, and those things were considered HARD by MMORPG standards.

Well, yeah… mostly because people tried doing them as the undergeared levels those dungeons were supposedly for, not at level 80. That lasted how long… two? three weeks?

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

In fact the best way to get Exotic Gear was by doing dungeons, and those things were considered HARD by MMORPG standards.

Well, yeah… mostly because people tried doing them as the undergeared levels those dungeons were supposedly for, not at level 80. That lasted how long… two? three weeks?

Rather hard to do Arah without being level 80 and that was the hardest dungeon. Two-three weeks? Try a couple of months, if not more (especially for Arah P4).

maddoctor.2738:

Only challenging part is the raid, is raiding 70-80% of the whole expansion?

Some HPs, general exploration while being constantly attacked – as I’ve heard – even more often than trash mobs did in the first Orr map versions (pre nerf) and very few WPs which punishes players for dying instead of helping. Also several places are locked behind meta events. I agree with you that it’s indeed arguable if this counts as “hardcore” content, but I wouldn’t call this design elements “casual” neither. Still, the open(!) world should at least be explorable for everyone, people shouldn’t be forced to cry for help in map chat or even pay for it on LFG. I have nothing against instanced hard content (call it raids, high level fractals, whatever) because people can avoid them since they won’t “have to” travel through them to get where they want. Map completion was never hardcore, not even when it still included WvW, everyone could do it before.

Please correct me if I’m wrong on some of these points, I don’t know if Anet patched this stuff during the last few weeks. I didn’t really read much here lately after the first month of ArenaNet’s legendary silence.

And about the maps, I don’t get the problem. You don’t have to play through the entire map sequence to fight the last battle, you can just port there like any world boss. You don’t have to be in that last fight either, nobody is forcing you to kill the Gerent, go on TD, play the game, then leave, you can play on the new maps just like any of the older ones.

It’s not about the last battle. It’s about exploring the map. Again, please correct me if the “event/time restricted areas / hero points” are still a thing or if they were patched to be always accessible. If you tell me I’m wrong, I’ll stop complaining here.

ShelBlackblood.7826:

maddoctor.2738:

Only challenging part is the raid, is raiding 70-80% of the whole expansion?

Some HPs, general exploration while being constantly attacked – as I’ve heard – even more often than trash mobs did in the first Orr map versions (pre nerf) and very few WPs which punishes players for dying instead of helping. Also several places are locked behind meta events. I agree with you that it’s indeed arguable if this counts as “hardcore” content, but I wouldn’t call this design elements “casual” neither. Still, the open(!) world should at least be explorable for everyone, people shouldn’t be forced to cry for help in map chat or even pay for it on LFG. I have nothing against instanced hard content (call it raids, high level fractals, whatever) because people can avoid them since they won’t “have to” travel through them to get where they want. Map completion was never hardcore, not even when it still included WvW, everyone could do it before.

It’s not THAT much harder than pre-nerf Orr really. As for the rest of the difficulty, it’s called a multiplayer game for a reason. You don’t have to beg for help, I find it better to not go and do that HP if nobody is around and instead do it, shortly before, or after, the main meta event of the map. That way you can find more people to help you with it. They finally made the open world worth playing (in terms of challenge) because let’s face it, the “core” open world is nothing other than pressing 1.

It’s not about the last battle. It’s about exploring the map. Again, please correct me if the “event/time restricted areas / hero points” are still a thing or if they were patched to be always accessible. If you tell me I’m wrong, I’ll stop complaining here.

There are a few restrictions, most of them are on DS, the other maps don’t have many of those. They aren’t always accessible but they are accessible for nearly most of the time and nearly all of the pre-events are either solo or for VB it happens on a timer (nightfall)

The only exception is DS

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

In fact the best way to get Exotic Gear was by doing dungeons, and those things were considered HARD by MMORPG standards.

Well, yeah… mostly because people tried doing them as the undergeared levels those dungeons were supposedly for, not at level 80. That lasted how long… two? three weeks?

Rather hard to do Arah without being level 80 and that was the hardest dungeon. Two-three weeks? Try a couple of months, if not more (especially for Arah P4).

there’s a difference between one dungeon being considered hard (and remember, that half the difficulty of the Arah p4 was a result of bugs), and all of them being hard.
Also, hard by mmo standards? Not even close.

Gw2 is very casual and very friendly, there isnt a easyer game to play…. these were one of the reason i started to avoid gw2 from time to time…and started to play much more others mmo’s.