There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Answer. Legendaries were never meant to be casual. The trade off is they’re not required either. Early on, when people asked Eric Flannum if there would be stuff to grind for, he said, yes, but there wouldn’t be required grind.

This is where your legendaries fall, and to a lesser degree ascended weapons.

Not really. Raids require at least full-ascended gear. The GAME doesn’t require them, but there are virtually no teams who will accept less. And, the game doesn’t punish people for being exclusive.

However, you’re missing the point. Flannum said no required grind. But HoT is essentially nothing BUT grind.

Except casual guilds attempting to do them which accept less. If you insist on pugging you play by pug rules. If you run with a casual guild the rules change.

A lot of people start with ascended jewelry which is easy to get, and maybe ascended weapons. People in guilds. If you want to pug, you can always make your own pug group and say all welcome, no ascended required. I bet it fills.

Lots of casual guilds can’t pass Gorseval DPS check. Of course, an all welcome pug raid group would fill, but they probably can’t even phase Vale Guardian and repeatedly wipe on Green Circle. That was my experience of pugging raid for the first two weeks. Raid is not for casual. If you can’t bother to invest in full ascended character, no serious raid group will consider you. Casual raid group may, but you can enjoy your Gorseval wipe.

Well the thing is we have someone who’s an admitted casual, complaining about the fact that pugs are requiring ascended armor to clear raids. The whole question is disingenuous when phrased this way.

But if someone ABSOLUTELY wanted to try raids in exotics, they wouldn’t beat even the first boss. Because raids were NEVER made for casuals. Anet said as much.

Saying I’m a casual and I don’t have the gear to raid is like me saying I don’t have the gear to do brain surgery. I shouldn’t need that gear, because I’m not a brain surgeon.

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Posted by: Doam.8305

Doam.8305

Even in GW1 they knew to make challenging maps a side item the problem with HoT is that this isn’t the case at all. In GW1 the story path or the main path is casual friendly as it always should be in any game however once you walk of the beaten path you’ll end up in more difficult content however in HoT the main story path and this more difficult content is one in the same.

I would contest this assertion, I would say the GW:EN maps were about as difficult as HoT maps (Tarnished Coast maps and Depths of Tyria). Do you remember the large groups of dinosaurs and krait? My memory isn’t what it was but I do remember groups of mobs that were dangerous.

I agree with this. There were story steps you had to get to and packs of raptors patroled and if you took the time to fight one, there was a roaming group of mixed dinosaurs that came through that would just wipe you if you weren’t careful/didn’t know what you were doing/didn’t build for the encounter.

In fact, there were often really powerful dinosaurs you’d start fighting and then you’d get a raptor patrol on top of you. The open world was much harder than the story missions in Guild Wars 1 and we didn’t hear a lot of complaints about the design.

The fact is, anyone can learn to play this content without too much effort. I’ve helped teach quite a few people how to get through it.

You both are thinking of the Asuran EN questline and I’m aware of those maps however that was indeed part of the story path as you had to collect two Asuran scientists on that map. Furthermore the map was a wide an open area and the Dino’s acted more like patrols which could be easily by passed if one chose not to fight.

Furthermore off the beaten trail it did get more difficult with elites, dungeons, and access to other more challenging areas. Kinda like the part where they make you travel through the Orr segment as the story only made you travel through the first flow but off the beaten path you’d find a much greater challenge if you choose to go lower and deeper.

I’ll use WoW because I think it fits perfectly as that game had literal roads and those roads have far fewer mobs and basically worked as the network working as the story path between areas. In GW2 one could argue that it makes little sense for there to be such roads however the plot point is your traveling a Mordrem supply route. If your following and tracking along this route then why is it covered with so many none Mordrem creatures!? Did that Caravan just ignore the Smokscales, Raptors, and Chak or do the modrem not even patrol that path. Those mobs shouldn’t be there at best they would be replaced by mordrem patrols as it’s stated that the captured Sylvari are also being hauled down the path so it must be fairly active. It would fit with the story and it would’ve fit with all the QQ people bring up about difficulty if they did use the beaten path for the story path alone and made side areas and harder enemies off that beaten track. Not about difficulty at all but more about balancing mob locations part of the reason HoT maps are kinda vacant is due to this but I feel the biggest part is all the time gating. Adding hearts/basic quests would’ve fixed that though but no gotta get in at the right time for meta, adventures, farming, and even basic exploration cause while there are ways to get up to the canopy during day time you can’t map it all until night and thus waiting on another timer.

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Posted by: Daddicus.6128

Daddicus.6128

Except casual guilds attempting to do them which accept less. If you insist on pugging you play by pug rules. If you run with a casual guild the rules change.

A lot of people start with ascended jewelry which is easy to get, and maybe ascended weapons. People in guilds. If you want to pug, you can always make your own pug group and say all welcome, no ascended required. I bet it fills.

I have no interest in raiding myself; I’m too casual to put up with the hardcores. I was speaking more generally, for people who might want to.

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Posted by: Daddicus.6128

Daddicus.6128

Lots of casual guilds can’t pass Gorseval DPS check. Of course, an all welcome pug raid group would fill, but they probably can’t even phase Vale Guardian and repeatedly wipe on Green Circle. That was my experience of pugging raid for the first two weeks. Raid is not for casual. If you can’t bother to invest in full ascended character, no serious raid group will consider you. Casual raid group may, but you can enjoy your Gorseval wipe.

Sorry, I may have led you astray. I have 9 main characters, and 3 of them have all-ascended gear, and I’m working on two others.

I might raid some day, but it’s just not on the radar. But, other people do want to, and many are the situation you describe.

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Posted by: Serious.6940

Serious.6940

Except casual guilds attempting to do them which accept less. If you insist on pugging you play by pug rules. If you run with a casual guild the rules change.

A lot of people start with ascended jewelry which is easy to get, and maybe ascended weapons. People in guilds. If you want to pug, you can always make your own pug group and say all welcome, no ascended required. I bet it fills.

I have no interest in raiding myself; I’m too casual to put up with the hardcores. I was speaking more generally, for people who might want to.

Which is a real problem, casual gamers guilds may want to do the raids but find them far too difficult and for some expensive.

Perhaps it is time for a return of hard mode for those who want the extra difficulty and an easier version for everyone else.

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Posted by: Maximillian Greil.1965

Maximillian Greil.1965

There were options before on what content you could endgame. The original idea of GW2 was everything is endgame.

Now, if you don’t like doing content where the rewards takes a very long to get, example: legendaries, there’s nothing to do. If you’re not into raiding or legendaries, you just get to farm money to spend on nothing.

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Posted by: Nethod.7068

Nethod.7068

Instead of a raid-meta where you need specific classes and gear, GW2 pre-HoT was more about dungeon functions, hitting switches or standing on plates…doing things.

This raid I haven’t tried yet and I probably won’t.

People are telling me my guardian doesn’t fit the common meta already.

I remember old games with meta dungeon play and adolescence kicking out people due to gear checks.

Out of memory of that horrible game and the people in it, I do not wish to be forced into a meta-style.

As a player I want freedom to choose how I play.

This raid is different – I have to support a meta if I want to participate.

In other dungeons the mechanics were usualy interesting.

Path 2 Explorable Ascalonian Catacombs – The team doesn’t matter so much, the people just have to know how the boss is made vulnerable. No meta required (though zerker is nice, it’s not needed. Specific classes aren’t needed.

HoT raid feels like someone hired a former WoW designer.

Mercellas,
Guardian, Chef

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Posted by: Captain Remix.8762

Captain Remix.8762

I would suggest to the original poster, that he not want to the best at everything.
You cannot be the best in life at everything you maintain. If you try to, you will fail and one of them will become your master.

You can just NOT play the game.
Take up your other hobbies for a while if you do not like HoT.

Either way, I see it as no excuse for you to try to defame / put down the game / devs whom have worked so hard to get the game to its current state.

You sir, need to lead, follow or get out of the way.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

There were options before on what content you could endgame. The original idea of GW2 was everything is endgame.

Now, if you don’t like doing content where the rewards takes a very long to get, example: legendaries, there’s nothing to do. If you’re not into raiding or legendaries, you just get to farm money to spend on nothing.

But this was always true of legendaries even at launch. The fact is, even casual games need something for people who want to strive to strive for. The end game hasn’t significantly changed for me.

If I want achievements I hunt achievements. If I want skins I play for those. If I want collections I work on collections. If I want every alt with ascended trinkets, then weapons then armor, I can work on that.

None of it is fast, but most of it isn’t impossible. Are there easier things to do? Sure. The Wintersday meta wasn’t impossible to get. In fact, it took me a couple of days so for a more casual player it should have been easy in the time frame. The shoulders were for harder core players, who wanted to do that. You don’t really need the shoulders, but the meta for Wintersday, almost anyone could do it. That would be end game for some people.

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

If I want achievements I hunt achievements. If I want skins I play for those. If I want collections I work on collections. If I want every alt with ascended trinkets, then weapons then armor, I can work on that.

The problem with HoT is, it doesn’t add a significant enough amount of varied content to make all those pursuits interesting.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

If I want achievements I hunt achievements. If I want skins I play for those. If I want collections I work on collections. If I want every alt with ascended trinkets, then weapons then armor, I can work on that.

The problem with HoT is, it doesn’t add a significant enough amount of varied content to make all those pursuits interesting.

You may well not find them interesting, but clearly some people do. The question, as always is about percentage.

I find the HoT zones more interestings than the core zones, because of the complexity. But I’m not a meta focused individual generally. I still like to go do my own thing sometimes.

If all I did in the HoT zones was meta over and over again, it would probably be a lot less interesting for me too.

Some people hate the mini games and some people like them. I’m 50/50 on them, I like some but not all of them.

For a guy like me, the expansion brought enough of the kinds of content I like to keep me playing…but that’s obviously not true for everyone.

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Posted by: Nethod.7068

Nethod.7068

- Mechanics over meta play ANET. -

I don’t want to be that guy telling someone “You can’t play because of your gear and class.”

Anet forgot GW2 was about mechanics.
Dungeons are not like this raid, world bosses are not like this raid. Gw2 has always been more about the group preforming acts to complete a task.

Time trial dps on a boss to win with meta-class roles IS WOW’s STYLE, not GW2.

Time trials of “bring the bomb to the wall at the top of the hill to blow it up before you blow your hand off” – Guild Wars 2

Mechanics over Metaplay please, anet.

Mercellas,
Guardian, Chef

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

Casual doesnt mean what some people believe it means. Casual doesnt mean only plays easy content, casual means you dont have a lot of time to play.

HoT for example is actually casual friendly.

An MMO is not casual friendly when it puts barriers that stop you from playing unless you spend a lot of time playing that as a casual player you just cant. This is generally a side effect of a gear threadmill. You dont need to play a single second before you can tackle any content in HoT ( with the possible exception of raids though there are videos in which full exotic groups did beat the raid)

Open world though doesnt require any gear, all you need to do is know how to play your profession well. Even someone who can play 1 hour a month can do that… there is no barrier there and thats why HoT is actually casual friendly.

I think the problem is the core game was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy to easy. most content can be easily beaten using the 1 skill or skills as they come out of cool down. HoT isnt like that, you need to play your profession effectively. You need to dodge, interrupt, heal, crowd control to ensure your survival.

I am a casual player myself, Cant help it, my free time has been eaten away drastically. Yet I have no ascended weapons, no Ascended armors.. I do have ascended trinkets but those are easy to come by… Yet I have no issues playing HoT, lately I’ve been going after The specialization weapons… As a casual player progress is slow of course, still working on my first one. Part of it involved map completion that requires winning all hero points. Now HoT has a good number of hero points that are group events. Lets not forget group events are designed for 5 people… yet as I am sure you all know unless you follow a train some of these points are so out of the way that you’re not going to get 5 people but you dont need to wait long for another player to show up, so I have been doing quite a few of these with 2 players and let me tell you its great fun and more importantly doable.

HoT is challenging but not impossible, all it takes is to play your profession strategically and leverage all it can do. Do that and you’ll have lots of fun. Dont sell your self short just cause you dont have a lot of time available to play. That has no bearing at all in this game.

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

- Mechanics over meta play ANET. -

I don’t want to be that guy telling someone “You can’t play because of your gear and class.”

Anet forgot GW2 was about mechanics.
Dungeons are not like this raid, world bosses are not like this raid. Gw2 has always been more about the group preforming acts to complete a task.

Time trial dps on a boss to win with meta-class roles IS WOW’s STYLE, not GW2.

Time trials of “bring the bomb to the wall at the top of the hill to blow it up before you blow your hand off” – Guild Wars 2

Mechanics over Metaplay please, anet.

Time limit is essentially for difficult content in this game.
Everyone can res and everyone can heal.
Do you think the hard world bosses like triple trouble or tequalt would ever get lost if they didnt have a time limit!
No we’d beat them each time if we had all time in the world to finish those events! No one is going to consider them hard if they get to win each time.

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Posted by: vesica tempestas.1563

vesica tempestas.1563

Agree there is no relationship between casual play and skill, A highly skilled player can decide to play casually. A casual player may fancy playing easy or hard content.

A casual player may play 1 hour a week or they may play 30 hours a week, again number of hours played does not make a player casual, although it can indicate it.

What a casual player is from a mmorpg perspective is a players that does not commit to long scheduled events on a regular basis where the events are deemed important in relation to conflicting real life events.


“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

Casual doesnt mean what some people believe it means. Casual doesnt mean only plays easy content, casual means you dont have a lot of time to play.

HoT for example is actually casual friendly.

In the context you brought up, it clearly isn’t. Map metas take 2 hours to cycle, and start at predetermined times (so that every instance is at the same point always). Reward system is designed to favour longterm participation. Events are meant for groups (while there are events that can be soloed, there are almost none that are designed with solo/small groups in mind).

You cannot log in at whatever time you find convenient, play 20 minutes here, take a break,. play 20 minutes elsewhere etc.
Well, you can, but you won’t get anything out of it. Someone that plays 2 hours in one day, but split over many 15-20 minutes parts will get rewarded significantly less than someone that can invest only one hour of continuous, unbroken time. In fact, some rewards will be plain locked out from the first player (i.e. bladed armor chest piece).

Whole HoT assumes that not only you do have a lot of time to play, but that are willing to play according to strict schedule. That’s not casual at all.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

Casual doesnt mean what some people believe it means. Casual doesnt mean only plays easy content, casual means you dont have a lot of time to play.

HoT for example is actually casual friendly.

In the context you brought up, it clearly isn’t. Map metas take 2 hours to cycle, and start at predetermined times (so that every instance is at the same point always). Reward system is designed to favour longterm participation. Events are meant for groups (while there are events that can be soloed, there are almost none that are designed with solo/small groups in mind).

You cannot log in at whatever time you find convenient, play 20 minutes here, take a break,. play 20 minutes elsewhere etc.
Well, you can, but you won’t get anything out of it. Someone that plays 2 hours in one day, but split over many 15-20 minutes parts will get rewarded significantly less than someone that can invest only one hour of continuous, unbroken time. In fact, some rewards will be plain locked out from the first player (i.e. bladed armor chest piece).

Whole HoT assumes that not only you do have a lot of time to play, but that are willing to play according to strict schedule. That’s not casual at all.

Like I said I am a casual player, quite often the time I have to play is X amount of time when I wake up to when my daughter wakes up. Most of them thats around 30 minutes some times it stretches to 1hr. Yet I get plenty out of it. Sure its not enough time for a full meta cycle but thats not such a huge problem as you make it up to be. you dont get rewarded just at the end. You can even ignore events and still get rewarded. Besides may that 30 minutes slots in right at the end of the meta event. Nothing is that clear cut here.

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

The minimum time required for one complete play-through of the content that the maps are completely built around, is longer than it takes GW1 to remind you that you should ask yourself if you haven’t been playing too long.

Sad.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The minimum time required for one complete play-through of the content that the maps are completely built around, is longer than it takes GW1 to remind you that you should ask yourself if you haven’t been playing too long.

Sad.

I don’t know why you find that sad. It just means Guild Wars 1 didn’t have lengthy content. Or did some of the content in Guild Wars 1 take 2 hours to play anyway?

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

It’s a long meta, which took a long time to design. They build a whole map just for that meta. From one point of view, in my mind the most reasonable, is that they wanted to give people the feeling of an epic events and for me, it is an epic event. Lots of people seem to like it.

They cared enough about the players to make an event chain epic. Those horrible terrible Anet people.

They used to be totally caring about us, and make really short events so we wouldn’t get hurt. Now they want us all to destroy our bodies so we can’t play their game any more and spend gems.

You and I live in very different universes apparently.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

It’s a long meta, which took a long time to design. They build a whole map just for that meta. From one point of view, in my mind the most reasonable, is that they wanted to give people the feeling of an epic events and for me, it is an epic event. Lots of people seem to like it.

They cared enough about the players to make an event chain epic. Those horrible terrible Anet people.

They used to be totally caring about us, and make really short events so we wouldn’t get hurt. Now they want us all to destroy our bodies so we can’t play their game any more and buy gems.

You and I live in very different universes apparently.

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

It’s a long meta, which took a long time to design. They build a whole map just for that meta. From one point of view, in my mind the most reasonable, is that they wanted to give people the feeling of an epic events and for me, it is an epic event. Lots of people seem to like it.

And lots of people seem to dislike it. When you build something starting from a flawed concept, the result will be bad, no matter how painstakingly you put your heart and soul into it. It’s actually sad that so much obvious work went into something so inherently flawed.

They cared enough about the players to make an event chain epic. Those horrible terrible Anet people.

No, they didn’t care, or they’d have considered the very, very, very obvious problems 2 hour meta-cycles would bring with them. They didn’t care enough to think of different mechanics for different maps. They made something up and went with it, completely indifferent to how many people were sure to receive it. It’s not rocket science that these rubbish 2 hour cycles wouldn’t work for many people.

They used to be totally caring about us, and make really short events so we wouldn’t get hurt. Now they want us all to destroy our bodies so we can’t play their game any more and spend gems.

Going from “Hey, haven’t you been playing too long? You’ve been here for an hour.” to “Hey, better get online when we tell you to and play for 2 hours straight!”, something sure changed.

You and I live in very different universes apparently.

I live in a sane universe where games are supposed to bend to my whims, not the other way around. How is yours?

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

It’s a long meta, which took a long time to design. They build a whole map just for that meta. From one point of view, in my mind the most reasonable, is that they wanted to give people the feeling of an epic events and for me, it is an epic event. Lots of people seem to like it.

And lots of people seem to dislike it. When you build something starting from a flawed concept, the result will be bad, no matter how painstakingly you put your heart and soul into it. It’s actually sad that so much obvious work went into something so inherently flawed.

They cared enough about the players to make an event chain epic. Those horrible terrible Anet people.

No, they didn’t care, or they’d have considered the very, very, very obvious problems 2 hour meta-cycles would bring with them. They didn’t care enough to think of different mechanics for different maps. They made something up and went with it, completely indifferent to how many people were sure to receive it. It’s not rocket science that these rubbish 2 hour cycles wouldn’t work for many people.

They used to be totally caring about us, and make really short events so we wouldn’t get hurt. Now they want us all to destroy our bodies so we can’t play their game any more and spend gems.

Going from “Hey, haven’t you been playing too long? You’ve been here for an hour.” to “Hey, better get online when we tell you to and play for 2 hours straight!”, something sure changed.

You and I live in very different universes apparently.

I live in a sane universe where games are supposed to bend to my whims, not the other way around. How is yours?

This is a ridiculous overstatement. I’ve gone to the movies to watch movies that require more than two hours to see. Most people who see movies, watch them in one sitting. They don’t watch them 20 minutes at a time. They make the time, they watch the movie. This isn’t some evil plan created by Dr. No. It’s an event chain in a video game. That’s all it is. It’s an event chain that’s meant to be the epic end fight of the expansion. Is it long? Sure. Is that evil, no? Does it mean they don’t care. No.

They probably thought most people wouldn’t do it thousands of times, and they could make the meta longer, because people could find the time to do it. Even people who work have days off. It was an oversight that probably affects a relatively small percentage of the population. If you’re one of them, I feel for you, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing to do.

Because there are people who do like it. It’s a popular and populated event. You wouldn’t by any chance of the numbers of people who don’t like it compared to the people who do, would you?

It’s sort of funny because all the world bosses are on timers and you have to be there when they’re there to do them. If you can’t make it for certain world bosses, you can’t do those bosses. And though some people did complain about that, world bosses are still one of the more popular features of this game.

Just because a design decision negatively affects a percentage of people (and I maintain that decision isn’t killing a large percentage of people), doesn’t mean Anet doesn’t care. At the very worst it was an oversight. They were TRYING to provide an epic experience. That’s all this was.

Unless you have evidence to the contrary I won’t be replying to you again on this.

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Posted by: Coulter.2315

Coulter.2315

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

Can you please post the poll you took which seperates people who agree with you into “a lot of people” and those who don’t agree with you into “some do like it (but rare).”

Oh wait.. You really have no idea cause you didn’t do anything but assume you were in the majority thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know).

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

This is a ridiculous overstatement. I’ve gone to the movies to watch movies that require more than two hours to see. Most people who see movies, watch them in one sitting. They don’t watch them 20 minutes at a time. They make the time, they watch the movie. This isn’t some evil plan created by Dr. No. It’s an event chain in a video game. That’s all it is. It’s an event chain that’s meant to be the epic end fight of the expansion. Is it long? Sure. Is that evil, no? Does it mean they don’t care. No.

Movies are a different medium that has adhered to the “show at 8pm and 10pm” for a century. Games never have. Useless comparison. Incidentally, I haven’t seen the inside of a cinema in almost 3 years. I watch my movies at home. On my own time.

And “It’s an event chain that’s meant to be the epic end fight of the expansion”? Really? There are two hour long event chains every step of the way in this expansion. There’s nothing else. And some of them don’t even make sense. Take Verdant Brink. It’s all so arbitrary. Camps are only assaulted at night. Sure, but when did Mordrem become nocturnal? Oh wait, they aren’t, we also fight them during the day. They only pointlessly hang around during the day but fight just as effectively. Is there any reason other than “designers want to tie things to day/night cycle”? Why do we automatically lose all base camps when day breaks? None of it makes any sense at all, unless you suspend your disbelief really, really tightly and assume everyone in Verdant Brink is in a perpetual Groundhog Day. But I guess it’s “epic” and it’s got “loot” so who cares?

They probably thought most people wouldn’t do it thousands of times, and they could make the meta longer, because people could find the time to do it. Even people who work have days off. It was an oversight that probably affects a relatively small percentage of the population. If you’re one of them, I feel for you, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing to do.

I don’t know what they probably thought. Your guess is as good as mine.

Because there are people who do like it. It’s a popular and populated event. You wouldn’t by any chance of the numbers of people who don’t like it compared to the people who do, would you?

I don’t know what that means.

It’s sort of funny because all the world bosses are on timers and you have to be there when they’re there to do them. If you can’t make it for certain world bosses, you can’t do those bosses. And though some people did complain about that, world bosses are still one of the more popular features of this game.

I don’t do world bosses except when people ask me to join them and I’m not doing anything at the time, or they added a new reward you need to make progress on something else to them, like they do every few updates. Do you think they’ve taken into account how many people don’t do world bosses before they decided to put the entire expansion on a ridiculous schedule?

Just because a design decision negatively affects a percentage of people (and I maintain that decision isn’t killing a large percentage of people), doesn’t mean Anet doesn’t care. At the very worst it was an oversight. They were TRYING to provide an epic experience. That’s all this was.

You don’t make these kinds of oversights when you care. Anyone could tell you that these schedules won’t sit well with many people. Design decisions like this can only spring from indifference. And indifference is the opposite of caring.

Unless you have evidence to the contrary I won’t be replying to you again on this.

Please get off that high horse. You’re embarrassing the poor animal because it realizes that you don’t have any evidence either.

(edited by Manasa Devi.7958)

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Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

Just my take of common sense:
I have a product. I have customers. I have numbers who show me if my game draws people and keeps people.
Then numbers for my game begin to fall. So my advertising strategy either fails, or my product is not good enough anymore or it is outdated because of the hype train driving elsewhere (I´ll leave the more shady stuff like greed and management failure out of this) .

What would the common person probably do?
My product holds still some customers in it´s old state, so lets keep it that way.
Then add something to make it more interesting, but it has to be so appealing that the largest majority of my players can make it for a long time until I am ready to bring out a new product again. The new addition has to be at least as good or even better than the old product or I will just make a quick buck until people realize that the addition is garbage. In my mind, it makes sense to cater to the largest base of players first and foremost, but maybe I get it all wrong?

What did Anet do?
Nerfed some content of core Tyria to officially battle a perceived problem of said core Tyria, inflation. Then they quickly assembled the few patches that were left of the last campaign with ls only and put out a product that is controversal to say the very least.

I can assume that Anet knows much better than me what this means:
You alienate the content core players to maybe/maybe not gain a piece of the raid and difficulty crowd cake. Of course it makes sense business wise with GW2 going F2P that core Tyria will be nerfed to give an incentive to buy HoT. But the shoehorning is so blatantly obvious that Anet should be ashamed of themselves for perceiving people to be such morons and trust that the competition is so weak that they won´t lose many players.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Just my take of common sense:
I have a product. I have customers. I have numbers who show me if my game draws people and keeps people.
Then numbers for my game begin to fall. So my advertising strategy either fails, or my product is not good enough anymore or it is outdated because of the hype train driving elsewhere (I´ll leave the more shady stuff like greed and management failure out of this) .

What would the common person probably do?
My product holds still some customers in it´s old state, so lets keep it that way.
Then add something to make it more interesting, but it has to be so appealing that the largest majority of my players can make it for a long time until I am ready to bring out a new product again. The new addition has to be at least as good or even better than the old product or I will just make a quick buck until people realize that the addition is garbage. In my mind, it makes sense to cater to the largest base of players first and foremost, but maybe I get it all wrong?

What did Anet do?
Nerfed some content of core Tyria to officially battle a perceived problem of said core Tyria, inflation. Then they quickly assembled the few patches that were left of the last campaign with ls only and put out a product that is controversal to say the very least.

I can assume that Anet knows much better than me what this means:
You alienate the content core players to maybe/maybe not gain a piece of the raid and difficulty crowd cake. Of course it makes sense business wise with GW2 going F2P that core Tyria will be nerfed to give an incentive to buy HoT. But the shoehorning is so blatantly obvious that Anet should be ashamed of themselves for perceiving people to be such morons and trust that the competition is so weak that they won´t lose many players.

This is only your perception of what Anet did and why they did it. You’re guessing. You don’t really know, unless you happen to be sitting in their meeting rooms. There are different ways to interpret every single assumption you’ve made, down to them having to react to the game not doing well, which at least quarterly reports don’t bear out. NcSoft has always said they were fine with the profits and they’ve met expectations, which is all that really matters in the corporate world.

You’re assuming that Anet nerfed dungeons to drive people to buy HoT, but since HoT has nothing really to replace dungeons (raids certainly are a different beast) there’s not a huge point to doing it for that reason. Maybe Anet had numbers about how many people actually ran dungeons and it was a smaller percentage than you believe it to be. They figured it was a small percentage of people making a lot of money. They made a decision, perhaps, for the benefit of th game as a whole. Not the dungeon runners. I’m not saying that’s how it happened, I’m saying it’s an alternate possibility.

You’re down on the expansion so you want to assume the worst. That doesn’t make it true. I’m enjoying the expansion so I don’t want to assume the worst, which doesn’t make what I believe true either.

But until we see numbers we don’t know how well the expansion is doing. We don’t know how well the game is holding up. And we’re not likely to know for a while yet. So this theorizing is all well and good, but it’s just your opinion of why stuff has been done.

You then say Anet should be ashamed of themselves for doing something they may not have done. It’s one thing to make accusations, but if you can’t prove them, then they’re just that. Accusations.

In the middle ages, people accused other people of being witches and they said those people should be ashamed of themselves too.

People are down on the game, and so the witch hunt begins. It happens whenever people are angry. But it doesn’t make what they’re saying true.

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Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

The funny thing is, I actually assume that the expansion was a financial success for the next shareholder meeting. People with my mindset preordered it last minute in the belief that Anet would deliver content they would like. Others bought it weeks or even months before its release without looking what they were actually buying. If that assumption is true is up to anyone individually, but for the present this means that Anet can drum on it´s chest with a good result. Future results may not be so good, but that is indeed speculation an probably part of the risky game they played.

Controversial does not mean bad. HoT has it´s strong points if you just wander around in it like I do. If I was bent on playing it for success, I would probably go nuts with it.
I was merely interested in the thought process of that decision.

It would have been a witchhunt if I had accused the devs that they just wanted to implant the vision of the game they like and told anybody else to love it or get lost.

And do you really believe that Anet had HoT already in the drawer when they announced an expansion would come? They probably had some concept art and some codes, but it has so much filler that I am hard pressed to see it as anything but rushed.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The funny thing is, I actually assume that the expansion was a financial success for the next shareholder meeting. People with my mindset preordered it last minute in the belief that Anet would deliver content they would like. Others bought it weeks or even months before its release without looking what they were actually buying. If that assumption is true is up to anyone individually, but for the present this means that Anet can drum on it´s chest with a good result. Future results may not be so good, but that is indeed speculation an probably part of the risky game they played.

Controversial does not mean bad. HoT has it´s strong points if you just wander around in it like I do. If I was bent on playing it for success, I would probably go nuts with it.
I was merely interested in the thought process of that decision.

It would have been a witchhunt if I had accused the devs that they just wanted to implant the vision of the game they like and told anybody else to love it or get lost.

And do you really believe that Anet had HoT already in the drawer when they announced an expansion would come? They probably had some concept art and some codes, but it has so much filler that I am hard pressed to see it as anything but rushed.

Well that’s what I’ve been saying all along. We won’t know if the expansion is a success or not, till six months from now, not the next report. If people are truly kittened off in enough numbers to matter, it’ll show in the bottom line with falling gem store sales. If people are happy it won’t.

Those new zones, are complex and took ages to create. They didn’t just throw them together when they announced the expansion. They didn’t just put gliding into the game then either. The amount of stuff in the expansion is more than a year’s work.

What happened was they had a number of products which they were going to deliver in the living story and people demanded an expansion. Often and loudly.

I’m not saying Anet didn’t have to scramble. I think it’s obvious they did have to scramble. But that said, I don’t think they did anything like this sort of sinister Dr. No villain character people are trying to make them out to be.

I’m pretty sure Mike O’Brien isn’t sitting his his office, twirling the end of his mustache and cackling about how he’s fooled everyone. He’s either happy if the game is doing well or sad that it’s not….or most likely happy with some things and not happy with others.

I think Anet underestimated the number of casual players who would be frustrated by the new zones and I think they’re taking steps to make it more approachable for casuals. That’s what they said.

After years of hearing the game is too easy, they made a harder expansion and it met with mixed results.

But there’s not some devious plot going on here to kitten you off. That’s just not what’s happening.

Yes, they want to make money because they’re a business and that’s their job. By the same token they also want people to enjoy their game, because that’s ALSO their job.

They have to find a balance that works for everyone. It’s not always going to be easy or smooth riding.

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Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

Of course it has not happened out of spite. There are surely some companies that are led by megalomanial dynasties or billionaires who would do something like this just to flex their muscles, but Anet has not the muscles to flex in that way.
It is also viable that they follow their business strategy, I just don´t get it or overlook a significant piece in that strategy.

From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense to me what they did with the nerfs of Dungeons and the priorisation of HoT maps. But I guess it is also hard to deny that this did not sit well with many people who either did not have HoT but bought the core game and now were left hang out to dry.
And this already has and probably will cost them customers in the future. Goodwill can´t be counted or drawn in circles, but it tends to turn into anger and bad propaganda when it is not petted.

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Posted by: Nethod.7068

Nethod.7068

I hate your new meta-play requirements guild wars 2.

Too many better things to do than be discriminated over class and gear. Can’t enjoy new content on builds i’m used to playing with -

Why did you design a meta-style raid? Feel like kicking people off groups and saying “Oh sorry we don’t need your class.”?

I hate everything about that design of raid.

Mercellas,
Guardian, Chef

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Posted by: Coulter.2315

Coulter.2315

I hate your new meta-play requirements guild wars 2.

Too many better things to do than be discriminated over class and gear. Can’t enjoy new content on builds i’m used to playing with -

Why did you design a meta-style raid? Feel like kicking people off groups and saying “Oh sorry we don’t need your class.”?

I hate everything about that design of raid.

The “meta” is players’ response to the game, the raid isn’t designed specifically for the meta group to beat.. The meta is an evolving thing created by people fighting against something (originally it refered to metagaming against other players but has, over time, been extended to include fighting against AI or designed encounters).

Hope that clears up why you weren’t making sense and why, no matter the design of a raid, it will ALWAYS have a meta.

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

Can you please post the poll you took which seperates people who agree with you into “a lot of people” and those who don’t agree with you into “some do like it (but rare).”

“(but rare)”

Your words. Don’t ask me to prove your words.

Oh sorry do blind chickens hit with startling accuracy? How disingenuous of you to even try to claim I was putting words in your mouth, paraphrasing yes, that is EXACTLY what you meant.

You read the metaphor the wrong way. Creating expansions is the thing I’m equating to the pecking of kernels. The players aren’t the kernels . It’s not as if they’re coming after every player individually. If only, I’d have told them. What I meant was, they created something dreadful and luckily for them some people like it regardless and any quantification you read into that is just you wanting to read that. It’s absolutely not in my writing.

I love the bit at the end where you say that you live under a bridge though.. Really makes your opinion have weight.

My presentation doesn’t affect the veracity of what I’m writing. Every opinion I express is sincere.

(edited by Manasa Devi.7958)

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

You’re way oversimplifying the issue.

You say “When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players.” okey fair enough but lets take a minute to look at the opposite scenario…. If you created content just for people who enjoy short bursts of play and always ignore people that like long stretches of content does that make you caring of players? Cause I dont know but seems to me when you create some content for everybody you’re being way more caring towards players then if you had to ignore a subset of players all the time!

Dont forget, this is an MMO, millions of players play it, some players like X some players like Y and more often than not X is opposite of Y.

Its physically impossble for any developer to create content thats tailored for every kind of player. A caring developer splits their effort between content for all their players. Naturally they cannot do it all at one go but its unfair in my opinion to say they just dont care about their player cause they happen to release some of their content targeted at player who like Y when you enjoy X when overwhelmingly the game still happens to be made of X.

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Posted by: Nethod.7068

Nethod.7068

Hey Anet, your raid meta doesn’t include a lot of specifications available to players.

Its really discriminatory.

(Don’t forget to explain this one for me too, Coulter.2315….LOL….)

Mercellas,
Guardian, Chef

(edited by Nethod.7068)

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

You’re way oversimplifying the issue.

You say “When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players.” okey fair enough but lets take a minute to look at the opposite scenario…. If you created content just for people who enjoy short bursts of play and always ignore people that like long stretches of content does that make you caring of players? Cause I dont know but seems to me when you create some content for everybody you’re being way more caring towards players then if you had to ignore a subset of players all the time!

Dont forget, this is an MMO, millions of players play it, some players like X some players like Y and more often than not X is opposite of Y.

Its physically impossble for any developer to create content thats tailored for every kind of player. A caring developer splits their effort between content for all their players. Naturally they cannot do it all at one go but its unfair in my opinion to say they just dont care about their player cause they happen to release some of their content targeted at player who like Y when you enjoy X when overwhelmingly the game still happens to be made of X.

They could easily have created content for every type of player that likes some content in the original game. The expansion fails to deliver variation. They pretty much knew the types of players they had after hosting the game for over 3 years. They chose to ignore several segments of them.

If there was enough there to enjoy to warrant the price tag, I’d have no complaints. I knew I wasn’t going to go into the raid. I knew I wasn’t going to do the new sPvP mode. I haven’t complained about either because I knew going in that it wasn’t for me.

The problem is, the content that I thought was for me, turns out not to be for me either. The open world PvE content is pathetically scarce and single-mindedly tied to timers I abhor. The original game wasn’t like that and I had no inkling that the expansion would depart from it so drastically.

Also, if I’d say that the fractal revamp is also on the light side, I’d be describing it too favorably. It’s just a repackaging, there’s nothing to “expand” it. The only thing the expansion does with regard to fractals is to lock the rewards and split the player base. It’s not “buy the expansion and gain access to exciting new content” If only. It’s “don’t buy the expansion and our fractal revamp will inconvenience you!”

The precursor crafting is also completely void of new content. It’s basically nothing but shopping lists of old content with some excursions to HoT content thrown in for good measure. Neither fractals nor precursor crafting offers anything new and worthwhile.

I dare say they made no effort at all to appeal to all existing types of players even though they were acutely aware of them. If they had, there would be more in the game to show it.

(edited by Manasa Devi.7958)

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Posted by: Coulter.2315

Coulter.2315

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

Can you please post the poll you took which seperates people who agree with you into “a lot of people” and those who don’t agree with you into “some do like it (but rare).”

“(but rare)”

Your words. Don’t ask me to prove your words.

Oh sorry do blind chickens hit with startling accuracy? How disingenuous of you to even try to claim I was putting words in your mouth, paraphrasing yes, that is EXACTLY what you meant.

You read the metaphor the wrong way. Creating expansions is the thing I’m equating to the pecking of kernels. The players aren’t the kernels . It’s not as if they’re coming after every player individually. If only, I’d have told them. What I meant was, they created something dreadful and luckily for them some people like it regardless and any quantification you read into that is just you wanting to read that. It’s absolutely not in my writing.

“If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.”

IF some do like it (everything refering to the target of the sentence is now hitting this phrase because of ‘if’), THAT is fortunate (THAT being the act of some liking it), but I file THAT under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while.”

So it does say “some liking it” is “like a blind chicken finding corn,” ie. bound to happen but rare.

If you meant something different thats fine, what you were trying to say was, “anet randomly constructed the expansion, hit some good things by accident.” Well that seems odd because there isn’t an objective standard of “good” in a game like there is with “corn.” My corn could be your pebble, you have a multidimensional chicken flickering from all our view points pecking at objects that are both pebbles and corn depending on which point of view it takes, seems a bit much – don’t you think?

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

Can you please post the poll you took which seperates people who agree with you into “a lot of people” and those who don’t agree with you into “some do like it (but rare).”

Oh wait.. You really have no idea cause you didn’t do anything but assume you were in the majority thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know).

Devs have all but confirmed that in the latest stream, and admitted that the design did not work out as good as they hoped, so what he says is not as baseless as you seem to imply.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Of course it has not happened out of spite. There are surely some companies that are led by megalomanial dynasties or billionaires who would do something like this just to flex their muscles, but Anet has not the muscles to flex in that way.
It is also viable that they follow their business strategy, I just don´t get it or overlook a significant piece in that strategy.

From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense to me what they did with the nerfs of Dungeons and the priorisation of HoT maps. But I guess it is also hard to deny that this did not sit well with many people who either did not have HoT but bought the core game and now were left hang out to dry.
And this already has and probably will cost them customers in the future. Goodwill can´t be counted or drawn in circles, but it tends to turn into anger and bad propaganda when it is not petted.

I’m going to say this is not true. That is to say I don’t know anyone who plays MMOs that doesn’t expect to buy expansions, even subscription MMOs. That is to say if you don’t buy the sub you don’t get the new cool stuff in every MMO on the planet. That even included Guild Wars 1, even though it wasn’t an MMO. You want the new cool Rit, you have to buy the new game. You want the new skills, you buy the new game. You want to glide, you buy the game.

People who play buy to play games should expect to have to buy expansions. If they are free to play players, in most others free to play games, you are treated worse than here. And no one bought the first WoW, didn’t buy the expansion and expected to hit level cap, because you can’t. Here you can.

This whole we are forced to buy the expansion or we don’t get cool stuff is normal for the genre and outside of a handful of people who didn’t expect it, it will be treated as every MMO on the planet. The core constituency is going to buy the expansion. Do you know the percentage of people in my guild who didn’t buy the expansion? Zero percent. If they were playing the game they bought the expansion.

The only people who didn’t are free to play players we recruited after the expansion released, and most of those people are saving for the expansion and want to buy it.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

You’re way oversimplifying the issue.

You say “When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players.” okey fair enough but lets take a minute to look at the opposite scenario…. If you created content just for people who enjoy short bursts of play and always ignore people that like long stretches of content does that make you caring of players? Cause I dont know but seems to me when you create some content for everybody you’re being way more caring towards players then if you had to ignore a subset of players all the time!

Dont forget, this is an MMO, millions of players play it, some players like X some players like Y and more often than not X is opposite of Y.

Its physically impossble for any developer to create content thats tailored for every kind of player. A caring developer splits their effort between content for all their players. Naturally they cannot do it all at one go but its unfair in my opinion to say they just dont care about their player cause they happen to release some of their content targeted at player who like Y when you enjoy X when overwhelmingly the game still happens to be made of X.

They could easily have created content for every type of player that likes some content in the original game. The expansion fails to deliver variation. They pretty much knew the types of players they had after hosting the game for over 3 years. They chose to ignore several segments of them.

If there was enough there to enjoy to warrant the price tag, I’d have no complaints. I knew I wasn’t going to go into the raid. I knew I wasn’t going to do the new sPvP mode. I haven’t complained about either because I knew going in that it wasn’t for me.

The problem is, the content that I thought was for me, turns out not to be for me either. The open world PvE content is pathetically scarce and single-mindedly tied to timers I abhor. The original game wasn’t like that and I had no inkling that the expansion would depart from it so drastically.

Also, if I’d say that the fractal revamp is also on the light side, I’d be describing it too favorably. It’s just a repackaging, there’s nothing to “expand” it. The only thing the expansion does with regard to fractals is to lock the rewards and split the player base. It’s not “buy the expansion and gain access to exciting new content” If only. It’s “don’t buy the expansion and our fractal revamp will inconvenience you!”

The precursor crafting is also completely void of new content. It’s basically nothing but shopping lists of old content with some excursions to HoT content thrown in for good measure. Neither fractals nor precursor crafting offers anything new and worthwhile.

I dare say they made no effort at all to appeal to all existing types of players even though they were acutely aware of them. If they had, there would be more in the game to show it.

Yes it’s called filling in the gaps in their product.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

What’s sad is that there’s no longer even a pretense that they care about the players. Content that takes 2 hours without even a player’s choice in the matter of when they want to start their 2 hour sessions, that’s insane. There’s no other word for it.

In the age of the rise of on-demand media, this is an abomination I really can’t get my head around. I’d post what I really thought of it, but I’d get infracted.

That’s just ridiculous. They don’t care about their players because they made a meta event that’s long that’s liked by a whole lot of people? That doesn’t make sense.

When you thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know which) create content that anyone with a shred of common sense could predict will rub a lot of people the wrong way, you certainly don’t care about your players. If some do like it, that’s fortunate, but I file that under “even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn once in a while”.

Can you please post the poll you took which seperates people who agree with you into “a lot of people” and those who don’t agree with you into “some do like it (but rare).”

Oh wait.. You really have no idea cause you didn’t do anything but assume you were in the majority thoughtlessly (or maliciously, I don’t know).

Devs have all but confirmed that in the latest stream, and admitted that the design did not work out as good as they hoped, so what he says is not as baseless as you seem to imply.

Yes, the expansion didn’t meet with the reaction the devs had hoped it would meet with, at least in the sense of publicly on the forums and reddit. This much is obvious and has been from day one.

This isn’t some sort of secret. But there are some people in this thread claiming Anet doesn’t care, because they offered a product they thought people would like and there are others saying that Anet thought this was a good offering and got it wrong. These are very different statements.

Anet overlooked how many casual players were in the game. They saw the feedback we want harder content over and over and over and they made harder content. Longer content. They weren’t saying oh I like these guys more than I like those guys. They were saying this is missing from our game, and this demographic of fans has really had nothing. They tried to find a middle ground and in some cases failed.

Of course, there are casual players who have come here and said they’re enjoying the expansion, so it’s not like all casuals even feel the same way.

And there are people who come here just to agitate, just to troll, because that’s fun for them.

At the end of the day, the expansion was met with mixed reactions. It’s not all bad and it’s not all good. By the same token Anet is once again listening to the play base and trying to make it better for everyone.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Daddicus.6128

Daddicus.6128

You know, they could solve many of the gating issues by allowing XP earned in Maguuma Wastes count towards HoT masteries. And, a crossover like that makes sense, lore-wise.

There would still be a huge mapping problem, but if we could at least progress masteries, perhaps the mapping problem would solve itself.

As it is, I dread re-entering the HoT zones.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

Of course it has not happened out of spite. There are surely some companies that are led by megalomanial dynasties or billionaires who would do something like this just to flex their muscles, but Anet has not the muscles to flex in that way.
It is also viable that they follow their business strategy, I just don´t get it or overlook a significant piece in that strategy.

From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense to me what they did with the nerfs of Dungeons and the priorisation of HoT maps. But I guess it is also hard to deny that this did not sit well with many people who either did not have HoT but bought the core game and now were left hang out to dry.
And this already has and probably will cost them customers in the future. Goodwill can´t be counted or drawn in circles, but it tends to turn into anger and bad propaganda when it is not petted.

I’m going to say this is not true. That is to say I don’t know anyone who plays MMOs that doesn’t expect to buy expansions, even subscription MMOs. That is to say if you don’t buy the sub you don’t get the new cool stuff in every MMO on the planet. That even included Guild Wars 1, even though it wasn’t an MMO. You want the new cool Rit, you have to buy the new game. You want the new skills, you buy the new game. You want to glide, you buy the game.

People who play buy to play games should expect to have to buy expansions. If they are free to play players, in most others free to play games, you are treated worse than here. And no one bought the first WoW, didn’t buy the expansion and expected to hit level cap, because you can’t. Here you can.

This whole we are forced to buy the expansion or we don’t get cool stuff is normal for the genre and outside of a handful of people who didn’t expect it, it will be treated as every MMO on the planet. The core constituency is going to buy the expansion. Do you know the percentage of people in my guild who didn’t buy the expansion? Zero percent. If they were playing the game they bought the expansion.

The only people who didn’t are free to play players we recruited after the expansion released, and most of those people are saving for the expansion and want to buy it.

I know several people who have not bought HoT and still play core Tyria, but that is not the point.
Where did I say I think that asking for money for HoT as it is an expansion is not legit?
I am not talking about cool new stuff in HoT that is only available for buyers of said HoT. That is perfectly legit.

I am talking about delivering a more hardcore environment in a world full of pampered berserker newbies who fall in droves against any halfway acceptable mobs when they are new. Southsun Grove for example was a bloodbath when it was introduced, you could not walk around without stumbling over a berserker ele whose 11K life had shrunk as rapidly as a snowball in the mojave desert when facing a karka veteran. People hate these mobs until today because they have good counters against damage dealers who can´t dodge or remove boons.
Sure, they learn these mechanics someday because some math geek gamer tells them so with building sites and his fancy youtube channel, but I guess the group of people who want to be challenged in their free time is rather small. I conclude this because I don´t see many people extreme skiing or base jump, but rather go out to watch sport, go into a movie or just hang out with friends or at home. It´s a matter of disposition, and most people are simply not wired to be adrenaline junkies.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Of course it has not happened out of spite. There are surely some companies that are led by megalomanial dynasties or billionaires who would do something like this just to flex their muscles, but Anet has not the muscles to flex in that way.
It is also viable that they follow their business strategy, I just don´t get it or overlook a significant piece in that strategy.

From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense to me what they did with the nerfs of Dungeons and the priorisation of HoT maps. But I guess it is also hard to deny that this did not sit well with many people who either did not have HoT but bought the core game and now were left hang out to dry.
And this already has and probably will cost them customers in the future. Goodwill can´t be counted or drawn in circles, but it tends to turn into anger and bad propaganda when it is not petted.

I’m going to say this is not true. That is to say I don’t know anyone who plays MMOs that doesn’t expect to buy expansions, even subscription MMOs. That is to say if you don’t buy the sub you don’t get the new cool stuff in every MMO on the planet. That even included Guild Wars 1, even though it wasn’t an MMO. You want the new cool Rit, you have to buy the new game. You want the new skills, you buy the new game. You want to glide, you buy the game.

People who play buy to play games should expect to have to buy expansions. If they are free to play players, in most others free to play games, you are treated worse than here. And no one bought the first WoW, didn’t buy the expansion and expected to hit level cap, because you can’t. Here you can.

This whole we are forced to buy the expansion or we don’t get cool stuff is normal for the genre and outside of a handful of people who didn’t expect it, it will be treated as every MMO on the planet. The core constituency is going to buy the expansion. Do you know the percentage of people in my guild who didn’t buy the expansion? Zero percent. If they were playing the game they bought the expansion.

The only people who didn’t are free to play players we recruited after the expansion released, and most of those people are saving for the expansion and want to buy it.

I know several people who have not bought HoT and still play core Tyria, but that is not the point.
Where did I say I think that asking for money for HoT as it is an expansion is not legit?
I am not talking about cool new stuff in HoT that is only available for buyers of said HoT. That is perfectly legit.

I am talking about delivering a more hardcore environment in a world full of pampered berserker newbies who fall in droves against any halfway acceptable mobs when they are new. Southsun Grove for example was a bloodbath when it was introduced, you could not walk around without stumbling over a berserker ele whose 11K life had shrunk as rapidly as a snowball in the mojave desert when facing a karka veteran. People hate these mobs until today because they have good counters against damage dealers who can´t dodge or remove boons.
Sure, they learn these mechanics someday because some math geek gamer tells them so with building sites and his fancy youtube channel, but I guess the group of people who want to be challenged in their free time is rather small. I conclude this because I don´t see many people extreme skiing or base jump, but rather go out to watch sport, go into a movie or just hang out with friends or at home. It´s a matter of disposition, and most people are simply not wired to be adrenaline junkies.

The game has been getting harder all along though. Silverwastes is harder than most of core Tyria. The living story and the achievements are harder. Triple threat is probably as hard as anything in HoT.

People have been given the opportunity to play harder content. Anet has spoken about giving people more challenge in the past. This hardly should come as a surprise.

And HoT isn’t really that much more difficult. It has a learning curve, but lots of people who said they couldn’t do it and it was impossible are now playing. One guy made a thread about his issues and I whispered him in game, asking if he needed help. He said, he was getting it now and it was much better.

There’s really nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone….particularly because it really isn’t as hard as a lot of people make it out to be. No, I don’t consider I have to use a different weapon to a be a legit grievance.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

The game has been getting harder all along though. Silverwastes is harder than most of core Tyria. The living story and the achievements are harder. Triple threat is probably as hard as anything in HoT.

People have been given the opportunity to play harder content. Anet has spoken about giving people more challenge in the past. This hardly should come as a surprise.

And HoT isn’t really that much more difficult. It has a learning curve, but lots of people who said they couldn’t do it and it was impossible are now playing. One guy made a thread about his issues and I whispered him in game, asking if he needed help. He said, he was getting it now and it was much better.

There’s really nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone….particularly because it really isn’t as hard as a lot of people make it out to be. No, I don’t consider I have to use a different weapon to a be a legit grievance.

It´s true that the difficulty always went up. And how went that on? The Alliances of evil races are long gone, Soutsun is deserted most of the time. The only success from that perspective is SW.

Where I disagree is with the idea that there is nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone. I think there is plenty of wrong with that idea.
If I can´t have a comfort zone in a game, where then?
I play characters because I like the effects or the idea behind them, not because they are awesome in game.
My Guardian carries for example his ascended soldier gear because that is the way I see him, a stalwart defender of his people and a Soldier. And even if Dragonhunter is superior to other options, I´d never use that for him because it is inaproppriate for a Soldier/Knight.
On the other hand, I like the torch effect of Guardian and often thought about making another guardian zealot.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The game has been getting harder all along though. Silverwastes is harder than most of core Tyria. The living story and the achievements are harder. Triple threat is probably as hard as anything in HoT.

People have been given the opportunity to play harder content. Anet has spoken about giving people more challenge in the past. This hardly should come as a surprise.

And HoT isn’t really that much more difficult. It has a learning curve, but lots of people who said they couldn’t do it and it was impossible are now playing. One guy made a thread about his issues and I whispered him in game, asking if he needed help. He said, he was getting it now and it was much better.

There’s really nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone….particularly because it really isn’t as hard as a lot of people make it out to be. No, I don’t consider I have to use a different weapon to a be a legit grievance.

It´s true that the difficulty always went up. And how went that on? The Alliances of evil races are long gone, Soutsun is deserted most of the time. The only success from that perspective is SW.

Where I disagree is with the idea that there is nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone. I think there is plenty of wrong with that idea.
If I can´t have a comfort zone in a game, where then?
I play characters because I like the effects or the idea behind them, not because they are awesome in game.
My Guardian carries for example his ascended soldier gear because that is the way I see him, a stalwart defender of his people and a Soldier. And even if Dragonhunter is superior to other options, I´d never use that for him because it is inaproppriate for a Soldier/Knight.
On the other hand, I like the torch effect of Guardian and often thought about making another guardian zealot.

Not sure why playing a character doesn’t involve some form of practicality. This argument has always confused me.

I have a character that has a certain look. It’s them. I like how they look. But my characters are smart (except for Olaf Hamfist who’s a norn clutz). They try something, see it’s not working and adapt, because they’re “real” to me.

What kind of heroic character goes to try to do something, cant’ do and doesn’t come up with a plan b. That doesn’t change the character from being heroic, or even tanky. It just makes them smarter.

Anyway I don’t see why you couldn’t use a PVT guardian in HoT. I think it would work fine.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Nethod.7068

Nethod.7068

The game has been getting harder all along though. Silverwastes is harder than most of core Tyria. The living story and the achievements are harder. Triple threat is probably as hard as anything in HoT.

People have been given the opportunity to play harder content. Anet has spoken about giving people more challenge in the past. This hardly should come as a surprise.

And HoT isn’t really that much more difficult. It has a learning curve, but lots of people who said they couldn’t do it and it was impossible are now playing. One guy made a thread about his issues and I whispered him in game, asking if he needed help. He said, he was getting it now and it was much better.

There’s really nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone….particularly because it really isn’t as hard as a lot of people make it out to be. No, I don’t consider I have to use a different weapon to a be a legit grievance.

It´s true that the difficulty always went up. And how went that on? The Alliances of evil races are long gone, Soutsun is deserted most of the time. The only success from that perspective is SW.

Where I disagree is with the idea that there is nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone. I think there is plenty of wrong with that idea.
If I can´t have a comfort zone in a game, where then?
I play characters because I like the effects or the idea behind them, not because they are awesome in game.
My Guardian carries for example his ascended soldier gear because that is the way I see him, a stalwart defender of his people and a Soldier. And even if Dragonhunter is superior to other options, I´d never use that for him because it is inaproppriate for a Soldier/Knight.
On the other hand, I like the torch effect of Guardian and often thought about making another guardian zealot.

Not sure why playing a character doesn’t involve some form of practicality. This argument has always confused me.

I have a character that has a certain look. It’s them. I like how they look. But my characters are smart (except for Olaf Hamfist who’s a norn clutz). They try something, see it’s not working and adapt, because they’re “real” to me.

What kind of heroic character goes to try to do something, cant’ do and doesn’t come up with a plan b. That doesn’t change the character from being heroic, or even tanky. It just makes them smarter.

Anyway I don’t see why you couldn’t use a PVT guardian in HoT. I think it would work fine.

“I”, my character Does Not like PVT gear. He also shuns anything META, curses the “DevGods” for creating poor content based on the player’s gear instead of the environmental mechanics that could replicate a DPS or TANK or HEALER…

Put everyone in golem suits that make them those classes, give them a gun, give them a trinket that makes them a tank, SOMETHING other than the gear be a REQUIREMENT to kill the boss!

Stop making me build FOR A RAID ANET, I don’t like that at all, I hate it and its not GW2. That is WOW. RAIDS are WoW, Meta stupidity based on gear is WoW.

I hate wow.

I want to play like I PLAY and the stupid raid is already built for meta so THERE IS NO CHANCE without reworking my character and re-learning how to play as a DPS or something to make this work.

That’s not my problem, I didn’t design the raid around a player meta. I have a role to play in the game as my character.

People be like “build like dis” NO. I don’t like that. I want to use what I know and have always used and I can’t and it’s FRUSTRATING when placed against this poor design.

Mercellas,
Guardian, Chef

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: MarTn.3810

MarTn.3810

It’s not rocket science.

The harsh and cold truth is that Guild Wars 2 offers very little proper content. Making the game an insanely hard grindfest ensures that ArenaNet doesn’t have to create much content to keep people occupied. Not happy, but occupied.

Heart of Thorns and it’s degree of difficulty is a great example of this. I’m not complaining about it being too hard(even though it’s rather unnecessary to design it that way), but it’s hard to not notice their business model with GW2.

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

Where I disagree is with the idea that there is nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone. I think there is plenty of wrong with that idea.
If I can´t have a comfort zone in a game, where then?

It depends on how low that “comfort zone” is. Remember that the game needs to appeal to all kinds of people, while also staying in the open world. I don’t want an instanced based game with the entire community hidden inside instances, because they can have varied difficulty levels. I want a game with meta events where everyone can join up, a game based on cooperation without strict requirements for parties and builds.

And you are really wrong about the comfort zone. A game trying to get players out of what they are already doing and presenting the players with new and unique challenges is a good game, not a bad one. A game that keeps players inside their comfort zone all the time and never tries something new is a boring/stale game. Even a game like Solitaire or Minesweeper (really really casual games) changed over the years and the latest Windows versions have challenges for different types of players.

That’s not a bad thing despite how you try to make it.