Guild Wars 2

I’m amazed that people keep reducing the problems with HoT to people complaining about the difficulty.

Can’t you people think of another way to deflect HoT’s problems onto the discontented players? This is getting as stale as an old Tyria map.

HoT has too many bad design ideas that aernt just about casual friendly content, honestly its just a poor concept from the start making 4 zones that have group oriented content that will go stale in later game expansions.

This has nothing to do with casual friendly on that front, the casual friendly aspect, is the fact that prior to things like LS1, Fractals, and all that crap, GW2, was an entirley open game that allowed even the laziest player to enjoy it with ease even with some frustration, it wasnt without challenge, Orr was pretty bloody challenging to a solo player and frustrating at times.

But it was at least playable solo, except for that forced final fight with Zhaitan.

Other than that, the world was your oyster, if you wanted to do personal story a few levels lower than you should you could and still reaped the rewards for it. You could do alot of things that the game now forbids you access to.

Alot of changes were made poorly and dont really make any sense to have changed them at all.

E.g. Changing the dungeons multiple times from rush-runs where you rushed a boss to death to gold-sinks to removing even that makes them valueless if your not in the skin-farming market.

Or the fact that we never “had” raids, or fractals where the only content appeal was to a minority of people that wanted that kinda thing.

Its a case of a-net catering to a minority, that minority is a group of people that came from WoW, SWTOR, other mmo’s with group content they’re bored of and want to do it on another MMO, so they changed the casuals mmo into something “they” wanted.

Thats not how it should have gone, or should go.

There are MMO’s designed for people that “dont” want the challenge and should exist for people that “dont”.

So yeah.

Thrist.9046:

maddoctor.2738:

Thrist.9046:

maddoctor.2738:

Sykper.6583:

It’s unfortunate that A-Net did such a poor job attempting to scale up the difficulty steadily, you can see some failed attempts such as the Tower of Nightmares mobs requiring a ‘stomp’ but is that really difficult? Compared to normal HoT mobs they are still leagues away.

The worst part about the scaled up difficulty was the removal of LS1 content after it was done. Although most of LS1 was way harder than anything in Core Tyria, they removed it few days later, so we went from brainless easy to more challeging and then back, too many times. I believe if LS1 was permanent all the issues with difficulty in HoT would be non-existant.

I think I remember casuals complaining about LS 1 also, if I’m not mistaken.

So they’ve been complaining for the last 3 years and then stopped until HoT was released and they start complaining again? I’m sure there were complaints about LS2 as well, so there’ve been complaints from casuals since forever…

Precisely my point. Every time challenging content was released, a percentage of people complained. The harder the content, the higher the percentage. It seems like some people don’t play this game to be challenged, and never have.

In other words GW2 was never a casual game to begin with? I checked the title of this thread and it’s a bit different. If it was ALWAYS like this, why is it a problem now?

CaptainVanguard.4925:

This has nothing to do with casual friendly on that front, the casual friendly aspect, is the fact that prior to things like LS1, Fractals, and all that crap, GW2, was an entirley open game that allowed even the laziest player to enjoy it with ease even with some frustration, it wasnt without challenge, Orr was pretty bloody challenging to a solo player and frustrating at times.

For 3 months the game was awesome, then “all that crap” as you say, was released and the game was no longer good. What have you been doing the last 3 years then to start complaining about HoT now?

Sorry but Orr was never challenging, it was frustrating because you lost speed and couldn’t avoid mobs. If you took the time to kill them Orr mobs were never a threat to begin with. In fact all of them can be auto-attacked to death without ever using any skill or dodging.

If you dislike everything they’ve released so far then maybe “HoT” isn’t your problem.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

GW2, was an entirley open game that allowed even the laziest player to enjoy it with ease even with some frustration, it wasnt without challenge

Contradiction.

I’m a casual player & I’m enjoying HoT. Most of the time I do things on my own, solo but sometimes I go do things with a player mob. If I can run around doing things mostly by myself then surely other ppl can too. I’m not some leet solo min-maxer that can kill everything just by looking at them either. I just some schmuck that not-so-randomly presses buttons on mouse & kboard. If a doofus like me can run around doing stuff then other ppl far more skilled can do so as well.

Thrist.9046:

Well yes, but in the Silverwastes you could suck and you wouldn’t necessarily notice it. In the HoT zones, that’s not really the case. A lot of players didn’t complain because they could be carried. Now that they can’t be carried anymore, they’re annoyed that the game is harder. Getting harder only matters to people if it affects their ability to accomplish stuff.

People play poorly in HoT as well as anywhere else. It’s inevitable that in group events involving dozens of players (or more), not all will be contributing equally. I very much doubt that not being “carried” anymore is the source of the complaints.

While a harder game may impact quantity/quality of reward, it also impacts enjoyment. If one plays for an adrenaline rush, harder is likely better. If one plays to decompress after a stressful day at work, harder is likely not better. Both demographics were asked to purchase HoT because it is the game going forward, but the XPac offers less to the decompress group.

In discussing large groups, oversimplifying motivations is almost always wrong — unless the issues relate to real life survival, which is almost always going to trump other concerns.

teufeldritch.7691:

I’m a casual player & I’m enjoying HoT. Most of the time I do things on my own, solo but sometimes I go do things with a player mob. If I can run around doing things mostly by myself then surely other ppl can too. I’m not some leet solo min-maxer that can kill everything just by looking at them either. I just some schmuck that not-so-randomly presses buttons on mouse & kboard. If a doofus like me can run around doing stuff then other ppl far more skilled can do so as well.

Again, a casual player is not a player that wants only easy things. A casual player wants to do things in his or her own time.
I have an hour to play? I want to work on this collection in that hour, and not be stopped because the game schedule prevents me.
I want to get that armor box you maybe only get from a T4 map in VB? I must first be lucky enough to actually find a T4 map, then be there long enough to get 200% participation, and also in the timespan I can actually play. And then you don’t get it as the RNG god is against you…

Hot in itself isn’t too bad, as long as you don’t want something that is tied to the meta (be it adventures, loot, or map completion points)

Metas have unique rewards as with most things, if you want something from a meta play the meta, if you cant play the meta, they you wont get the reward, its not life threatening.

What this does give is choice, I can choose to play metas, or choose not to. Choice is good, a game that avoids choice but somehow expects it to appeal to a big audience is not good. RNG is also good, theres far too much self entititled I should be guaranteed stuff asap, its dull, getting a drop you wanted for a lot more fun,. and if it don’t drops well that just adds value to your next run, not having a skin for another week is not the end of the world either.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Metas have unique rewards as with most things, if you want something from a meta play the meta, if you cant play the meta, they you wont get the reward, its not life threatening.

What this does give is choice, I can choose to play metas, or choose not to. Choice is good, a game that avoids choice but somehow expects it to appeal to a big audience is not good. RNG is also good, theres far too much self entititled I should be guaranteed stuff asap, its dull, getting a drop you wanted for a lot more fun,. and if it don’t drops well that just adds value to your next run, not having a skin for another week is not the end of the world either.

It’s not that I don’t want to play the meta, I don’t care if it’s difficult or not. I just don’t like the fact that I can do my best and not get anything, and by the time the entire map is up to scratch, and I could have (maybe) gotten something, but not based on my effort, I have to leave. A two-hour meta means it’s generally too long, you may maybe only get one try.

this is a more modern outlook in gaming where only a ‘winning’ reward makes a thing worthwhile. Even in losing a meta you get the gameplay, loot and xp you got on the way, but people don’t see this, they just lament that final prize.

MMORPG’s are a group game, and within GW2 the Metas are designed for large groups. Meta events take time, they are meta, if its a good meta you should have a mix of failures and successful attempts, and its this that makes it more interesting than non meta events.

Personally I’m also extremely busy and mostly have no time for big metas like the new ones which I wish was different, but occasionally I do, and that’s what makes them fun for me. You have to look at things within the context of the full game, not just in isolation, and in this case GW@2 is mostly solo able content or easy group events, with a small number of metas available that can be failed.

The alternative is short meta’s, except we have these In GW2, or meta’s that guarantee a win, which we also have, and are ultimately dull face rolls.

I think that the game currently is actually more casual friendly like it ever has been.

With the new fractals system people can make 5-10 gold within minutes of daily play. The economy is very good atm. With a little gaming in magumaa people have good valuables to get quickly to skins and items they like. No grind needed.

I personally crafted sunrise and its precursor in 6 weeks without grinding just with casual daily gameplay playing fractals and events on magumaa maps.

Most the time i play almost noone is online from the guilds i am currently in as its late daytime and still i randomly can join successful groups no coordination needed at all.

I think its good to have also other content which is more challenging. Also casual guilds shall have something to manage by working towards it not just 111ing through the content.

I think its important to challenge guilds to play better together until something is reached as its a better feeling in the end to finally have done it together by practicing and improvement rather than to just pick up the chest after the first attempt.

Content must last a while, if its done within the first 2 days after release people will shout to get the next content and the maps will be empty directly.

Also by now the game reached alot diversity in locations and what is to be done on the maps so if i want i can spend every day doing something different.

If more time goes by it will even be more casual friendly as the number of possibilities get more and more. Have a look at how many parts of tyria are yet not discovered. Its like still 50% of the content is not inside the game. From ring of fire to home of the blood legion.

So i see alot casual friendlyness here. For myself everything moves too slow though. Cant wait until the norn get more involved, thers plenty of room in the snow now discovered yet and so little content is abou them, when i see how big they arrived in gw1 its a pity but what has been done to them in gw2 but thats another topic.

Gw2 casualfriendly? Yes it is.

SlateSloan.3654:

I…

With the new fractals system people can make 5-10 gold within minutes of daily play. The economy is very good atm. With a little gaming in magumaa people have good valuables to get quickly to skins and items they like. No grind needed.

I personally crafted sunrise and its precursor in 6 weeks without grinding just with casual daily gameplay playing fractals and events on magumaa maps.

Most the time i play almost noone is online from the guilds i am currently in as its late daytime and still i randomly can join successful groups no coordination needed at all.

…

Well, that only happens when you hold 99% of the luck of the whole game, and , (in)fortunately , it does not last long.

I know I have posted Issues and Submitted a request, but I just thought I would say that
Gw2 is a very good game. However It doesn’t matter how great a game is, if you can’t actually play it it is a waste of money. So come on Anet Speed up your bug fixing.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s about 6-8 DS metas for leyline gliding alone. With 2 hours of ds per day, it’s a week. For a single mastery, not even a whole tier. And yes, dedicating 2 hours a day, day after day, to a specific activity you do mostly for mastery xp is definitely a grind, and not something casuals are likely to do, unless they have a ton of free time.

So, you prefer to have nothing to work for, just grinding your way for loots and complain that there is nothing to do? It’s account wide, you have to do it once. And you don’t have to do it immediately, why the hurry? What’s the gain?

ProtoGunner.4953:

Astralporing.1957:

It’s about 6-8 DS metas for leyline gliding alone. With 2 hours of ds per day, it’s a week. For a single mastery, not even a whole tier. And yes, dedicating 2 hours a day, day after day, to a specific activity you do mostly for mastery xp is definitely a grind, and not something casuals are likely to do, unless they have a ton of free time.

So, you prefer to have nothing to work for, just grinding your way for loots and complain that there is nothing to do?

More like, if i need to work for it, i’d rather have a multitude of choices, rather than just repeating the same 4 metas on the same 2 hour timer.

ProtoGunner.4953:

It’s account wide, you have to do it once.

And? It’s still a massive grind.

And you don’t have to do it immediately, why the hurry? What’s the gain?

There’s tons of things i’d like to work on that are hidden behind high mastery levels, unfortunately. Yes, i don’t have to do those immediately, but then taking it slower just extends the grind (and boredom) even further.

As mentioned already, the problem lies in general lack of new content. Maybe if there was a lot more new things to do, i wouldn’t be bothered that much that some of them are just plain boring, while others are locked out behind insane grind.

Game can best be described as a train-wreck

It has absolutely zero direction and no true plan to aspire to anything

We got some dungeons but instead of adding more they skipped that and added fractals and instead of improving that they added raids. We started with biiweekly temporary content, then permanent content on a longer schedule, and then expansion and forget PVE and WvW it’s all about the e-sports and yet I don’t see Anet ranking in the top slots for best e-sport anywhere either. In addition the game is B2P with a cash shop, then we had this timed deal where it was free depending if you were logged in(LS2), and now its F2P with B2P expansion. They’ve even added skills and then removed some like Antitoxin spray we’ve also had PvP maps removed when all people wanted was balance. Water combat was never balanced in fact but instead it was simply removed and in addition we started with individual armor both in game and the cash shop to them going the complete outfit route.

The last two points also make little sense because we have swiftness, traits, runes, skills, weapons, mushrooms, and masteries to increase our speed when a simple mount or sprint function would have sufficed. The movement system in this game is a disaster all to itself they spend the time to develop ways just for a basic ground speed increase instead of working on things more important. Other MMO’s know you sprint or mount and you take the time for other things but in GW2 the other thing is spending all the cash shop income to play make believe youtube star instead of just posting the changes and tossing that money back in the game they have to make full blown productions about it. People have been asking for harder content, mounts, SAB, and so for months-years and the thing is those people have never left nor will they ever leave and will remain asking for those things no matter what happens. Nut Anet catered to the diehards instead of the casuals who will leave without word and we are left in the situation we are in.

As for me I come back to the forums from time to time to check the updates to see if anything has changed but what I see is them changing the support system instead of polishing what we have right now and going on another tangent.

Most of the problems with the game come from fellow players. The content is casual but if you can’t raid because all the groups want pugs to be in full pink zerker with 10k+ AP and other toxic nonsense we get the problems we have now.

Every map I go to has some idiot cussing out all the players in map chat that aren’t doing the meta event exactly the way he or she tells them to do.

I was doing an HP with a group and half the members were ragging on the revenant for the class being garbage and the player himself meekly agreed.

Everything in this game is easy to deal with except the community.

Marthkus.4615:

Most of the problems with the game come from fellow players. The content is casual but if you can’t raid because all the groups want pugs to be in full pink zerker with 10k+ AP and other toxic nonsense we get the problems we have now.

Every map I go to has some idiot cussing out all the players in map chat that aren’t doing the meta event exactly the way he or she tells them to do.

I was doing an HP with a group and half the members were ragging on the revenant for the class being garbage and the player himself meekly agreed.

Everything in this game is easy to deal with except the community.

And this is exactly where a developer can intervene and help manage the community. But what did Arenanet do about toxic elitism? They added content which actually encourages toxic elitism is what they did. They kittened up.

pepsis.5384:

Marthkus.4615:

Most of the problems with the game come from fellow players. The content is casual but if you can’t raid because all the groups want pugs to be in full pink zerker with 10k+ AP and other toxic nonsense we get the problems we have now.

Every map I go to has some idiot cussing out all the players in map chat that aren’t doing the meta event exactly the way he or she tells them to do.

I was doing an HP with a group and half the members were ragging on the revenant for the class being garbage and the player himself meekly agreed.

Everything in this game is easy to deal with except the community.

And this is exactly where a developer can intervene and help manage the community. But what did Arenanet do about toxic elitism? They added content which actually encourages toxic elitism is what they did. They kittened up.

The issue is that the bad players dominate discussion and group prereqs. If Guild Wars had a raid finder like WoW that brought together pugs based on the pug qualities then 90% of issues would disappear.

Draknar.5748:

Things that people claimed weren’t casual friendly pre-HoT:

Fractals (3 mini dungeons plus a boss?! I don’t have time for that I play 20min a day, I’m casual!)
Dungeons (I can’t get into a group because I don’t have zerk gear and I don’t speedrun! I’m casual!)
World completion (why do we have to do WvW for world completion, I’m casual, I don’t like PvP!)
Story-mode finale (I need a group to finish the story?! what the heck Anet! I’m too casual for that!)
Living Story S1 (these LS events are timed?! You’re saying I can’t do all of the achievements within the 2 weeks if I only play 10min a day?! I’m casual, wtf ANET!
Living Story S2 (wtf Anet, I didn’t log in when these were released because I’m super casual, and now you want me to grind gold so I can trade for gems? I’m casual! I don’t have the time nor money to do this!)
Dailies (Whoa, Anet, look at how long it’s taking to do these dailies! And I have to do it to get laurels?! I’m only on for 2min a day! I can’t possibly get all of this AP that you are forcing me to get! Make it casual friendly!)

I think a lot of people think that casual friendly means everything needs to be able to be completed quickly or easily. A casual player does not imply a bad player, it implies someone that plays at their own, typically slow, pace. Being able to do things at your own pace: that’s the definition of being casual friendly.

In GW2 you can do literally everything at your own pace (minus holiday events, as those are time limited). That is casual friendly. Raids is the only area that I would say has the biggest obstacle to casual players, and that’s getting a 10man group together.

I’d love to hear what exactly in GW2 you couldn’t do at your own, casual, pace.

If something takes a long time, it doesn’t mean it isn’t casual friendly, it just means it will take longer to complete, but it can still be 100% casual.

People claimed crafting legendaries wasn’t casual, but I can assure you I crafted two from scratch, casually, over the course of 2 years. Some days I felt like working towards a requirement, some days I didn’t. I dictated the pace I completed things. THAT IS CASUAL.

If only I could give you reddit gold for this.

Jacobbs.9468:

If only I could give you reddit gold for this.

The fact that you can’t, is why these forums are a joke, and will always be filled with selfless people who blame the devs for adding raids because they consider them “toxic”.

This is why devs post more on reddit. Who wouldn’t.

OK, I had to come here and post that I don’t agree with the OP at all. The game still has all the casual content there, and now more options for those who would like more challenging content. About challenging content, do you guys honestly think they are hard? I hate to compare, but when World of Warcraft introduced new bosses, some super hardcore guilds (that raided like 12 hours a day) would take at least a month to defeat them. GW2’s raids are still easy compared to those.

In all honesty, I think the problem is in the community. It seems that all guilds can only ask you for more: more Flax, more X, more Y, more more… that turns me off completely. And you can still gather your legendary parts at your pace, are you kidding? How is the game pushing you into that?

I have to say, in my opinion, Guild Wars 2 is a 100% better game after the expansion. 100% means twice as better as it used to be, it is still the same as it was but added the masteries and raids.

Can we stop trying to talk about “casuals” as if casuals are a single group. (and this applies to hardcore too) There are many different types of casuals with many different interests. Many have no problems with HoT, many do. Many have no problems with the existence of raids, some do.

Most of the “Masteries are casual unfriendly” posts, come from casual players that would show up as achievers on a Bartle test. Of course the problem with this is casual achievers are nearly impossible to build around without comprising the content for everyone else.

I think there is certainly a number of very good points to be made here, if people can avoid casting this argument as some sort of black and white, casual vs hardcore thing.

Rather obviously, how accessible content is, how difficult it is and how long it takes to achieve a certain reward are all sliding scales. Sure, you can have “long term goals,” which players can choose to try and get to as fast as possible or work on casually. But there is also a point where the requirements are so high they become a practical impossibility for players with a casual time allotment to play.

I can think of a few changes over the life of GW2 which really does feel like ANet is turning the screws on the players who enjoyed the more free roaming, non-linear aspect of progression in GW2, because that is pretty much gone.

Note, I am not going to talk about how challenging content is, because I absolutely think varying levels of challenge across the game is a very good thing. That and doing the same task over and over for 100 hours is not challenging, but clearing a single difficult instance over 30 minutes can be.

1. Death of Multiple Ways to get Nice Things
The first is a sharp move away from being able to get the best gear in just about any way. Ascended brought in the age of crafting, where crafting is the only reliable way to ever get anything it seems. Yes, there are the boxes which can drop and for a while were for some unknown reason much nicer when dropped from Fractals (more stat choices) than anything else. But the only sure way is crafting. New guild skins even need 450 crafting.

It doesn’t matter if 450-500 crafting is hard or easy, before ascended I could do what I enjoyed and work my way to BiS gear. Now if I absolutely detest crafting, I force myself to do it or go without. And while there are some skins exclusive to other areas of the game (Glorious comes to mind), crafting has basically become ANet’s catch all way to make something “exclusive” or “hard to get.” Which is silly.

2 The Mighty Zerg Event of Raining Gold
This one started with the first Queen’s Jubilee. Before that was a time where getting the Golden achievement for having 100g was actually something. I made 100g inside a week that event, playing maybe a couple hours a night.

After that, periodically and then repeatedly with places like EotM, SW and so on ANet managed to thow some zerg train into the game that gave far and away better gold return than doing anything else. As in not even remotely close to what you would get doing any other thing.

That lead to a greater wealth gap between those who could and enjoyed surfing a zerg for 8 hours against those who preferred free roaming, taking on harder dungeon paths because they were more interesting and so on. Of course, this meant all the really nice things got more and more expensive on the TP. So you became a TP wizard, joined the zerg surfing, farmed another way or got left behind.

Surfing a zerg is far from hard, but it’s mind numbingly boring after more than 30 minutes for a lot of players.

3 HoT and its love of Checklisting
I call this “checklisting” and it’s something HoT abuses so much.

Masteries, though often complained about, are actually okay. There’s an argument that the XP values might be a bit ridiculous (see above about the zerg trains, that applies to XP too), but at least I can go about doing whatever it is I enjoy and make progress. Much like it was getting to 80 in core GW2. This is a good thing.

Many of the other things in HoT however, you either actively do right now or you get nowhere. Hero Points are the most heinous example. Unlocking a specialization is in no way part of the HoT experience. You don’t just play and explore the content and slowly work your way up to it. You either seek out and complete a list of very specific challenges or you don’t. It’s a checklist of which the only purpose is to delay the player from playing with the elite specialization.

Masteries, though set up well in terms of gaining XP, are guilty in that rather than being something which adds to the experience in HoT are instead a series of locks which gate off content. It’s another checklist of do this before that before that.

There’s nothing to discover, explore or free roam in that. It’s here’s the list with a bucket of XP or HPs to get, now go do it or don’t and get nowhere.

No, getting the HPs isn’t hard. But it is dull, boring and after the first set repetitive to the point of banality (which is a shame because some of the HP fights are pretty fun, at least once). Checklisting and gating this way is a cardinal sin of game design, whether your audience is casual or hardcore.

Conclusions and TL:DR
And I think that is where some of this backlash against HoT comes from. It is not all “it’s too hard” or “it’s too time consuming.” It’s much more this is far too repetitive and uninteresting. Please, absolutely send me on a grand quest which will take 6 months to get my Cool Item 27, by all means. But make it a quest with interesting things to see and do, and not just a list of grind. If you make it fun and engaging to do, the complaints tend to go away even if it still takes a long time.

Core GW2 got around this problem by allowing us to explore a very large world with many different maps, themes and enemy types. Sure leveling was all events and hearts from 0-80, but it felt different being in Snowden compared to Bloodtide; it stayed engaging. HoT does not have that with only 4 maps and honestly, the only reason I can think of for the gates, checklists and general sense of grind is because someone at Anet was acutely aware of the lack of content and decided padding it for launch was the best solution.

Astralporing.1957:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Astralporing.1957:

It’s about 6-8 DS metas for leyline gliding alone. With 2 hours of ds per day, it’s a week. For a single mastery, not even a whole tier. And yes, dedicating 2 hours a day, day after day, to a specific activity you do mostly for mastery xp is definitely a grind, and not something casuals are likely to do, unless they have a ton of free time.

So, you prefer to have nothing to work for, just grinding your way for loots and complain that there is nothing to do?

More like, if i need to work for it, i’d rather have a multitude of choices, rather than just repeating the same 4 metas on the same 2 hour timer.

ProtoGunner.4953:

It’s account wide, you have to do it once.

And? It’s still a massive grind.

And you don’t have to do it immediately, why the hurry? What’s the gain?

There’s tons of things i’d like to work on that are hidden behind high mastery levels, unfortunately. Yes, i don’t have to do those immediately, but then taking it slower just extends the grind (and boredom) even further.

As mentioned already, the problem lies in general lack of new content. Maybe if there was a lot more new things to do, i wouldn’t be bothered that much that some of them are just plain boring, while others are locked out behind insane grind.

I agree, content is scarce, basically only 4 maps and all have huge meta events on a set timer. While I don’t have problems with it, I see players who only have 1-2 hours per day to play. If even. Also I think it’s a bad decision to point out Fractals as the new 5man content and then not adding a single one new fractal. The complete lack of new dungeons doesn’t help either. Basically, what I think is, that HOT initially was planned as seasoned content, similar what we got with LS2. Then they made the decision to make an expansion. Hope is that the next expansion will be a real one with more maps etc.

That said; it’s not all, they’ll add 1-2 new maps and add some new raid wings and new fractals. So let’s see what they’ll do the next 1-2 years.

Helequin.2608:

I think there is certainly a number of very good points to be made here, if people can avoid casting this argument as some sort of black and white, casual vs hardcore thing.

Rather obviously, how accessible content is, how difficult it is and how long it takes to achieve a certain reward are all sliding scales. Sure, you can have “long term goals,” which players can choose to try and get to as fast as possible or work on casually. But there is also a point where the requirements are so high they become a practical impossibility for players with a casual time allotment to play.

I can think of a few changes over the life of GW2 which really does feel like ANet is turning the screws on the players who enjoyed the more free roaming, non-linear aspect of progression in GW2, because that is pretty much gone.

Note, I am not going to talk about how challenging content is, because I absolutely think varying levels of challenge across the game is a very good thing. That and doing the same task over and over for 100 hours is not challenging, but clearing a single difficult instance over 30 minutes can be.

1. Death of Multiple Ways to get Nice Things
The first is a sharp move away from being able to get the best gear in just about any way. Ascended brought in the age of crafting, where crafting is the only reliable way to ever get anything it seems. Yes, there are the boxes which can drop and for a while were for some unknown reason much nicer when dropped from Fractals (more stat choices) than anything else. But the only sure way is crafting. New guild skins even need 450 crafting.

It doesn’t matter if 450-500 crafting is hard or easy, before ascended I could do what I enjoyed and work my way to BiS gear. Now if I absolutely detest crafting, I force myself to do it or go without. And while there are some skins exclusive to other areas of the game (Glorious comes to mind), crafting has basically become ANet’s catch all way to make something “exclusive” or “hard to get.” Which is silly.

2 The Mighty Zerg Event of Raining Gold
This one started with the first Queen’s Jubilee. Before that was a time where getting the Golden achievement for having 100g was actually something. I made 100g inside a week that event, playing maybe a couple hours a night.

After that, periodically and then repeatedly with places like EotM, SW and so on ANet managed to thow some zerg train into the game that gave far and away better gold return than doing anything else. As in not even remotely close to what you would get doing any other thing.

That lead to a greater wealth gap between those who could and enjoyed surfing a zerg for 8 hours against those who preferred free roaming, taking on harder dungeon paths because they were more interesting and so on. Of course, this meant all the really nice things got more and more expensive on the TP. So you became a TP wizard, joined the zerg surfing, farmed another way or got left behind.

Surfing a zerg is far from hard, but it’s mind numbingly boring after more than 30 minutes for a lot of players.

3 HoT and its love of Checklisting
I call this “checklisting” and it’s something HoT abuses so much.

Masteries, though often complained about, are actually okay. There’s an argument that the XP values might be a bit ridiculous (see above about the zerg trains, that applies to XP too), but at least I can go about doing whatever it is I enjoy and make progress. Much like it was getting to 80 in core GW2. This is a good thing.

Many of the other things in HoT however, you either actively do right now or you get nowhere. Hero Points are the most heinous example. Unlocking a specialization is in no way part of the HoT experience. You don’t just play and explore the content and slowly work your way up to it. You either seek out and complete a list of very specific challenges or you don’t. It’s a checklist of which the only purpose is to delay the player from playing with the elite specialization.

Masteries, though set up well in terms of gaining XP, are guilty in that rather than being something which adds to the experience in HoT are instead a series of locks which gate off content. It’s another checklist of do this before that before that.

There’s nothing to discover, explore or free roam in that. It’s here’s the list with a bucket of XP or HPs to get, now go do it or don’t and get nowhere.

No, getting the HPs isn’t hard. But it is dull, boring and after the first set repetitive to the point of banality (which is a shame because some of the HP fights are pretty fun, at least once). Checklisting and gating this way is a cardinal sin of game design, whether your audience is casual or hardcore.

Conclusions and TL:DR
And I think that is where some of this backlash against HoT comes from. It is not all “it’s too hard” or “it’s too time consuming.” It’s much more this is far too repetitive and uninteresting. Please, absolutely send me on a grand quest which will take 6 months to get my Cool Item 27, by all means. But make it a quest with interesting things to see and do, and not just a list of grind. If you make it fun and engaging to do, the complaints tend to go away even if it still takes a long time.

Core GW2 got around this problem by allowing us to explore a very large world with many different maps, themes and enemy types. Sure leveling was all events and hearts from 0-80, but it felt different being in Snowden compared to Bloodtide; it stayed engaging. HoT does not have that with only 4 maps and honestly, the only reason I can think of for the gates, checklists and general sense of grind is because someone at Anet was acutely aware of the lack of content and decided padding it for launch was the best solution.

This is a really good post. Well thought out and clearly laid out. I agree with everything you’ve said.

I never thought the difficulty of HoT that bad. Especially if you are running a proper build. What really puts me off the game and keeps me away is the fact that all the nice stuff is either locked behind the gem store, some tedious collection, or ridiculous RNG and is either soul bound or account bound. Add to that with a dozen forms of currency to ensure that you almost never have enough of everything you need to get what you want. This means that I can’t play how I want and still progress in the game anymore.

I can think of many things that are wrong with HoT and difficulty isn’t one of them.

Yea i am takeing a brake from gw2 just bought ESO last night plan to mostly solo
and take my time and listen to the quest since every one seems to be fully voiced
Gw2 is now a log in once a day for login rewards game

Ok, so now final figures have been announced.
And HoT has sold “weaker than expected” as NCsoft’s CEO explained.

And when they say that, it means that sells were really low: 37 bn Wons… If you add those sells + the 3Q2016 sells it may be like around 750k copies in total since pre-sells (more or less)… They expected 2 millions or even 3 at the start, lol….

Clearly HoT was not a success and I hope they turn back someday, stop listening to that minority who demands more hardcore gameplay and beacuse of them today we “enjoy” HoT, and we all can play again a casual game, where you log in for 1 hour and you have fun and do a lot of rewarding stuff.

Silicato.4603:

Ok, so now final figures have been announced.
And HoT has sold “weaker than expected” as NCsoft’s CEO explained.

And when they say that, it means that sells were really low: 37 bn Wons… If you add those sells + the 3Q2016 sells it may be like around 750k copies in total since pre-sells (more or less)… They expected 2 millions or even 3 at the start, lol….

Clearly HoT was not a success and I hope they turn back someday, stop listening to that minority who demands more hardcore gameplay and beacuse of them today we “enjoy” HoT, and we all can play again a casual game, where you log in for 1 hour and you have fun and do a lot of rewarding stuff.

Actually the CEO never used the words “weaker than expected”. What was weaker than expected was the uptake of free to play players. The comments about HoT sales in general were positive not negative.

I agree that it wasn’t as big a success as the company hoped, but the CEO didn’t say what you’re saying he said. More to the point, there was a lot of negativity early on just based on the character slot issue that hurt presales. If that hadn’t happened, if the game had been $10 cheaper, who knows what would have been.

There is a danger in assume you know the reason something happened. It’s probably many reasons, including the dissatisfaction of the casual market.

What is more, the HoT sales are not telling us much. After all, to experience the expansion, people had to buy it first, and most of the sales happened when there was still either no or not much information to be had. It’s the Q1/Q2 2016 numbers that will give us a hint to what the reaction of players is.

Thrist.9046:

Silicato.4603:

Ok, so now final figures have been announced.
And HoT has sold “weaker than expected” as NCsoft’s CEO explained.

And when they say that, it means that sells were really low: 37 bn Wons… If you add those sells + the 3Q2016 sells it may be like around 750k copies in total since pre-sells (more or less)… They expected 2 millions or even 3 at the start, lol….

Clearly HoT was not a success and I hope they turn back someday, stop listening to that minority who demands more hardcore gameplay and beacuse of them today we “enjoy” HoT, and we all can play again a casual game, where you log in for 1 hour and you have fun and do a lot of rewarding stuff.

Actually the CEO never used the words “weaker than expected”. What was weaker than expected was the uptake of free to play players. The comments about HoT sales in general were positive not negative.

I agree that it wasn’t as big a success as the company hoped, but the CEO didn’t say what you’re saying he said. More to the point, there was a lot of negativity early on just based on the character slot issue that hurt presales. If that hadn’t happened, if the game had been $10 cheaper, who knows what would have been.

There is a danger in assume you know the reason something happened. It’s probably many reasons, including the dissatisfaction of the casual market.

Oh man..
I have listened to the press event… and yep, I dont speak korean (so i dont know “exactly” what CEO said), but the CEO’s translator clearly said that HoT sells were in deed “weaker than expected” after a person asked about the strategies for GW2 on the light of gw2 bad results.
The only gw2’s positive coment was about the revenue from gem store, in comparison with number of players, that was “ok”. Not “very good”, or “positive” or… whatever: was “ok”. And sells “weaker than expected”.

I recommend all of you to listen to the whole press conference to check what really was said or not.

About the rest… let me differ from you. I would say that the real “danger” is in closing our eyes and ears, and think that something that it is an issue, is not actually an issue.
After the whole numbers and press conference, believing that the coments about HoT sells were positive and try to convince people about that, is the real danger, imo.

Tell me then: why CEO told about creating events or in game advantages to make people buy HoT? Why are they discussing the kind of content the game is going to deliver from now on? If sells are “positive”, why change anything?

Dont you see they are actually trying to fix an issue (weaker than expected sells)?

And my solution is clear: make the game afordable (reduce its prize) and create content people actually demand (casual content).
I know some people like hardcore content as well. But it is clear by now they are not enough, or sells would have been “as expected” instead of “weaker than expected”. Anet must choose what kind of game they want to deliver and to who. and the sooner they decide the better for all, including them.

Silicato.4603:

Thrist.9046:

Silicato.4603:

Ok, so now final figures have been announced.
And HoT has sold “weaker than expected” as NCsoft’s CEO explained.

And when they say that, it means that sells were really low: 37 bn Wons… If you add those sells + the 3Q2016 sells it may be like around 750k copies in total since pre-sells (more or less)… They expected 2 millions or even 3 at the start, lol….

Clearly HoT was not a success and I hope they turn back someday, stop listening to that minority who demands more hardcore gameplay and beacuse of them today we “enjoy” HoT, and we all can play again a casual game, where you log in for 1 hour and you have fun and do a lot of rewarding stuff.

Actually the CEO never used the words “weaker than expected”. What was weaker than expected was the uptake of free to play players. The comments about HoT sales in general were positive not negative.

I agree that it wasn’t as big a success as the company hoped, but the CEO didn’t say what you’re saying he said. More to the point, there was a lot of negativity early on just based on the character slot issue that hurt presales. If that hadn’t happened, if the game had been $10 cheaper, who knows what would have been.

There is a danger in assume you know the reason something happened. It’s probably many reasons, including the dissatisfaction of the casual market.

Oh man..
I have listened to the press event… and yep, I dont speak korean (so i dont know “exactly” what CEO said), but the CEO’s translator clearly said that HoT sells were in deed “weaker than expected” after a person asked about the strategies for GW2 on the light of gw2 bad results.
The only gw2’s positive coment was about the revenue from gem store, in comparison with number of players, that was “ok”. Not “very good”, or “positive” or… whatever: was “ok”. And sells “weaker than expected”.

I recommend all of you to listen to the whole press conference to check what really was said or not.

About the rest… let me differ from you. I would say that the real “danger” is in closing our eyes and ears, and think that something that it is an issue, is not actually an issue.
After the whole numbers and press conference, believing that the coments about HoT sells were positive and try to convince people about that, is the real danger, imo.

Tell me then: why CEO told about creating events or in game advantages to make people buy HoT? Why are they discussing the kind of content the game is going to deliver from now on? If sells are “positive”, why change anything?

Dont you see they are actually trying to fix an issue (weaker than expected sells)?

And my solution is clear: make the game afordable (reduce its prize) and create content people actually demand (casual content).
I know some people like hardcore content as well. But it is clear by now they are not enough, or sells would have been “as expected” instead of “weaker than expected”. Anet must choose what kind of game they want to deliver and to who. and the sooner they decide the better for all, including them.

Right and what did he say before that question was asked about Guild Wars 2’s performance. They didn’t say it was bad, or down or sucked. They attributed weak sales to people who were free to play buying less than they thought they would.

That likely indicated that there are as many or more free players now than there are people who stuck around.

I don’t have any rose colored glasses on. HoT has some serious issues, but the way you phrased your information is misleading. That’s all.

Thrist.9046:

They attributed weak sales to people who were free to play buying less than they thought they would.

Sorry but you were the one trying to mislead, Thrist.
If they “attributed weak sales” to somehing (doesnt matter what), that means they said sales were weak. and you said they didnt said that. False.
And thats what i said and what I wanted to make clear. Trying to hide it wont benefit in order to be fix the fact.

And that f2p players didnt buy HoT is not actual a reason for weak sales. I dont care they blame them for that.
The real reason is the product. We cant blame f2p of not buying HoT, like if that was an issue (even if someone tell us that is the issue).
We should blame HoT, because that is the product that it was not bought.
We should ask what failed in HoT that made people not to buy it enough.

I agree with you price and marketing played a huge part on HoT rejection. But it is not just that. And there is no danger on express what we think went wrong in HoT (cause it went wrong, it didnt sold as expected, lets make that clear and agree on it).

So just to clarify: CEO did say that sales were weaker than expected. And it is logical, everyone should notice that fact. at this point we should not debate about that anyomer. Figures and statements are out there, and the reality is what it is.

Now it has to be determined why HoT was not attractive and what solutionts they will bring to reverse those weak sells or not make the same mistakes in the future.

I sugested 2 actionts that i believe they will fix the reasons why people dont jump into HoT. prize and kind of content.

I just hope we all erase our predifine believes and just look the things are they are. Specially Anet.

HoT is not casual and it doesnt sell well. There you have my cause and consequence.

Silicato.4603:

HoT is not casual and it doesnt sell well. There you have my cause and consequence.

No. HoT has a small amount of content that’s why it didn’t sell as much as expected. If the “Casual” part was the true problem, then all those Free 2 Play players would buy immediately because the core GW2 is as casual as a game can be. But it’s clear F2P conversion rate is much lower than expected so there is a different issue for why F2P players do not convert. Maybe it’s because core GW2 is way too easy instead?

Silicato.4603:

Thrist.9046:

They attributed weak sales to people who were free to play buying less than they thought they would.

Sorry but you were the one trying to mislead, Thrist.
If they “attributed weak sales” to somehing (doesnt matter what), that means they said sales were weak. and you said they didnt said that. False.
And thats what i said and what I wanted to make clear. Trying to hide it wont benefit in order to be fix the fact.

And that f2p players didnt buy HoT is not actual a reason for weak sales. I dont care they blame them for that.
The real reason is the product. We cant blame f2p of not buying HoT, like if that was an issue (even if someone tell us that is the issue).
We should blame HoT, because that is the product that it was not bought.
We should ask what failed in HoT that made people not to buy it enough.

I agree with you price and marketing played a huge part on HoT rejection. But it is not just that. And there is no danger on express what we think went wrong in HoT (cause it went wrong, it didnt sold as expected, lets make that clear and agree on it).

So just to clarify: CEO did say that sales were weaker than expected. And it is logical, everyone should notice that fact. at this point we should not debate about that anyomer. Figures and statements are out there, and the reality is what it is.

Now it has to be determined why HoT was not attractive and what solutionts they will bring to reverse those weak sells or not make the same mistakes in the future.

I sugested 2 actionts that i believe they will fix the reasons why people dont jump into HoT. prize and kind of content.

I just hope we all erase our predifine believes and just look the things are they are. Specially Anet.

HoT is not casual and it doesnt sell well. There you have my cause and consequence.

It’s a bad conclusion though that HoT didn’t sell well because it’s not casual. It’s just a guess. Maybe it didnt’ sell well because of bad publicity. Maybe it didn’t sell well because of bad promotion. Maybe it didn’t sell well because of the timing of the release. There are tons of reasons why it might not have sold well and you’re saying well it’s not casual content and that’s the reason.

What makes you think the reason isn’t that it doesn’t offer enough content for the price? Because then it would have nothing at all to do with casual or not casual.

Thrist.9046:

It’s a bad conclusion though that HoT didn’t sell well because it’s not casual. It’s just a guess. Maybe it didnt’ sell well because of bad publicity. Maybe it didn’t sell well because of bad promotion. Maybe it didn’t sell well because of the timing of the release. There are tons of reasons why it might not have sold well and you’re saying well it’s not casual content and that’s the reason.

What makes you think the reason isn’t that it doesn’t offer enough content for the price? Because then it would have nothing at all to do with casual or not casual.

At least we finnally agree that HoT didnt sell well. Thats a start i guess.

And I think we all made good points about why HoT didnt seell well. Marketing, promotion, prize, quantyty of content, kind of content… all are reasons enough.

And never forget that the same way i am “guessing” that it was casue it was not casual enough, or you are “guessing” that it is cause they made bad publicty, anet will have to “guess” as well. Thats the only way to fix the problem. trying to identify the reason and fixing it.

Now we all can debate that it was because of A or because of B, but is anet who is the one that has to guess why it was. ANd i hope they dont comit the same mistake that when they decided to create HoT: listen to the wrong people. The result was “weaker than expected sells”.

Some people asked for “an expansion”, they even said they would be glad to pay money. They wanted harder content. Well… that doesnt work, it is clear now. For other games maybe, for other players. But not for GW2 and its player base (as a general term). Im sure anet has learned that by now, wich is key so they can reverse the situation.

Silicato.4603:

Thrist.9046:

It’s a bad conclusion though that HoT didn’t sell well because it’s not casual. It’s just a guess. Maybe it didnt’ sell well because of bad publicity. Maybe it didn’t sell well because of bad promotion. Maybe it didn’t sell well because of the timing of the release. There are tons of reasons why it might not have sold well and you’re saying well it’s not casual content and that’s the reason.

What makes you think the reason isn’t that it doesn’t offer enough content for the price? Because then it would have nothing at all to do with casual or not casual.

At least we finnally agree that HoT didnt sell well. Thats a start i guess.

And I think we all made good points about why HoT didnt seell well. Marketing, promotion, prize, quantyty of content, kind of content… all are reasons enough.

And never forget that the same way i am “guessing” that it was casue it was not casual enough, or you are “guessing” that it is cause they made bad publicty, anet will have to “guess” as well. Thats the only way to fix the problem. trying to identify the reason and fixing it.

Now we all can debate that it was because of A or because of B, but is anet who is the one that has to guess why it was. ANd i hope they dont comit the same mistake that when they decided to create HoT: listen to the wrong people. The result was “weaker than expected sells”.

Some people asked for “an expansion”, they even said they would be glad to pay money. They wanted harder content. Well… that doesnt work, it is clear now. For other games maybe, for other players. But not for GW2 and its player base (as a general term). Im sure anet has learned that by now, wich is key so they can reverse the situation.

I’ve always been vocally against raiding. I don’t think it belongs in this game. I think it pretty much takes away everything that makes this game special. Anet wouldn’t have had to even add the whole healing spec for ranger if not for raids. It wasn’t necessary to go there.

The core value of not having a trinity works pretty much everywhere but raids. The core ideals of playing how you want are shattered by raids. I can’t play fun builds to raid, I have to play a specific build. I never had that issue in dungeons or even fractals.

Raids, to me, are a symptom of the game changing into something I personally don’t want to play. But that also doesn’t mean other people didn’t come back just to raid.

maddoctor.2738:

Silicato.4603:

HoT is not casual and it doesnt sell well. There you have my cause and consequence.

No. HoT has a small amount of content that’s why it didn’t sell as much as expected. If the “Casual” part was the true problem, then all those Free 2 Play players would buy immediately because the core GW2 is as casual as a game can be. But it’s clear F2P conversion rate is much lower than expected so there is a different issue for why F2P players do not convert. Maybe it’s because core GW2 is way too easy instead?

Dont understand your reassoning here.

If GW2 is way too easy, how a content harder (HoT) is going to be appealing to the players who like a very easy content?.

If GW2 core game is casual (which i agree it is) why people should jump into a payed expansion that is not casual (like HoT)?

If F2P part of the game is full of people, as casual as it is, why dont they jump to HoT if it was equally casual oriented? I answer this: cause Hot is not equally casual.
In fact it is not casual, it demands time from the player and skill for some areas of it.

HoT is not like GW2, and thats why i personally think it underperfrom in comparisson. It Is not like it in quantity of content, not in kind of content, not in prize… among other factors. I mean come on: free vs payed… is a no brainer.
Thats why a payed expansion shouldnt have been on the table to start with it. LW was just fine enough to keep people playing, in my humble opinion. But all can be fixed, so i am full of hope they will be back on track at some point.

Thrist.9046:

I’ve always been vocally against raiding. I don’t think it belongs in this game. I think it pretty much takes away everything that makes this game special. Anet wouldn’t have had to even add the whole healing spec for ranger if not for raids. It wasn’t necessary to go there.

The core value of not having a trinity works pretty much everywhere but raids. The core ideals of playing how you want are shattered by raids. I can’t play fun builds to raid, I have to play a specific build. I never had that issue in dungeons or even fractals.

Raids, to me, are a symptom of the game changing into something I personally don’t want to play. But that also doesn’t mean other people didn’t come back just to raid.

I agree.

Meta events of 2 hours of duration are another big issue in my opinion added with HoT. Most people i know need to go to HoT maps cause thy still have achievs to make, or map completion or even lvl up masteries, but they cant or dont want to spend 2 hours on those metas.

To my eyes, HoT is for an specific kind of player. A player who, we just can see now, are a minority compared to what GW2 had as player base.

Anet should conquer back those other kind of players who are not bought yet.

The F2P crowd didn’t value the full price game when it was available and look at the amount of content it had. What makes anyone think those players would now value HoT in comparison?

Those 2m didn’t want to play until it was free. That’s how much they value the game.

Silicato.4603:

If GW2 is way too easy, how a content harder (HoT) is going to be appealing to the players who like a very easy content?.

GW2 being mostly easy doesn’t mean players don’t like more challenging content in the game. Many of the best viewed parts of the game, including Living Story events were actually much harder than the core game. Just because that content doesn’t exist anymore, doesn’t remove the fact that it was praised and liked.

If GW2 core game is casual (which i agree it is) why people should jump into a payed expansion that is not casual (like HoT)?

It’s not about jumping to HoT. F2P players won’t jump to HoT for HoT alone but for GW2 as a whole game, they haven’t spent the years playing core GW2 like older players did. The only players who won’t buy HoT because it’s different than what they are used to are the old GW2 players who already bought the game.

If GW2 was good enough on its own for F2P players they would be converting already regardless of how good HoT is.

Sicarius.4639:

The F2P crowd didn’t value the full price game when it was available and look at the amount of content it had. What makes anyone think those players would now value HoT in comparison?

Those 2m didn’t want to play until it was free. That’s how much they value the game.

F2P accounts have restrictions, it’s not the same as playing the core game for free. Something many people mistake, especially on the “HoT price threads”, is that the core game isn’t free, F2P isn’t the same as buying the core game. The core game disappeared and was replaced with HoT+Core.

Sicarius.4639:

The F2P crowd didn’t value the full price game when it was available and look at the amount of content it had. What makes anyone think those players would now value HoT in comparison?

Those 2m didn’t want to play until it was free. That’s how much they value the game.

The thing is that GW2 had sold 4 millions copies before they made it F2P. 3 million of those 4, just on 2012-2013.
They should look after those 4 millions, cause i agree with you that a f2p player just want the game as long it is f2p (there are exceptionts of course, but residual ones).
I understand why anet made that move, they didnt had enough active players from those 4millions and open it to everyone for free could make some ot them to buy hot, which is better than nothing. But yep, that shoukd have been a last move thing, not their only move. they could not really expect people jump massively from f2p to b2p, right?

I agree. I did not get into GW2 so I would have to grind to access gated content! There used to be a time when everything was simply layed out so players could enjoy the game. But now, instead of receiving tokens to get gear, why do I have to spend hours calculating the best use of my gold, to farm a list of mats, just to get ascended weapons to stay relevant, not just on one but on several different classes so I can enjoy different RPing and gameplay aspects, to then access raids. Maybe my sense of what is “fun” is warped, but to me, this is not fun. It might be rewarding, but that fleeting moment of joy does not outweigh the waste of time I could of spent actually enjoying the game.

Silicato.4603:

Sicarius.4639:

The F2P crowd didn’t value the full price game when it was available and look at the amount of content it had. What makes anyone think those players would now value HoT in comparison?

Those 2m didn’t want to play until it was free. That’s how much they value the game.

The thing is that GW2 had sold 4 millions copies before they made it F2P. 3 million of those 4, just on 2012-2013.
They should look after those 4 millions, cause i agree with you that a f2p player just want the game as long it is f2p (there are exceptionts of course, but residual ones).
I understand why anet made that move, they didnt had enough active players from those 4millions and open it to everyone for free could make some ot them to buy hot, which is better than nothing. But yep, that shoukd have been a last move thing, not their only move. they could not really expect people jump massively from f2p to b2p, right?

I believe it was 5m box sales, with 2m F2P being added to that (Think there is some PR Anet info graphic floating around). Of those, 1.5m. were monthly actives (historically).

Of those (1.5m + 2m.), around 250-300k bought the expansion. Do we have figures on the breakdown of F2P converts? That would make the figure for those who originally bought the game even smaller…

maddoctor.2738:

Silicato.4603:

If GW2 is way too easy, how a content harder (HoT) is going to be appealing to the players who like a very easy content?.

GW2 being mostly easy doesn’t mean players don’t like more challenging content in the game. Many of the best viewed parts of the game, including Living Story events were actually much harder than the core game. Just because that content doesn’t exist anymore, doesn’t remove the fact that it was praised and liked.

Then, how gw2 players, who play in a casual game, and they actually prefer harder content, didnt jump into HoT? I still dont see your point man. They didnt jump into HoT cause they dont like the kind of content HoT offers (among other things)

maddoctor.2738:

Silicato.4603:

If GW2 core game is casual (which i agree it is) why people should jump into a payed expansion that is not casual (like HoT)?

It’s not about jumping to HoT. F2P players won’t jump to HoT for HoT alone but for GW2 as a whole game, they haven’t spent the years playing core GW2 like older players did. The only players who won’t buy HoT because it’s different than what they are used to are the old GW2 players who already bought the game.

So… 4 million people who bought GW2… vs 750k who bought HoT… 3,25 millions….thats a lot of “the only players who won’t buy HoT because it’s different than what they are used to”. XD

maddoctor.2738:

If GW2 was good enough on its own for F2P players they would be converting already regardless of how good HoT is.

I completely disagree.
Specially in this case when HoT has nothing to do with GW2 in the kind of content they deliver or the kind of player they are trying to get with it.
If you like GW2 you should not like HoT and viceversa.
People who enjoyed GW2 have serious problems enjoying HoT.

This is not like: I had an appel that i loved on this store and then im going to buy my next appel on the same place.
It is like i loved that appel, and when i go to the store for another one, they no longer sell apples, but oranges, and i actually dont like oranges… they will lost me as buyer. I think it is pretty clear, right?.

I really dont know how are you trying to defend that the content of HoT is what people liked when they have not bought it. If they liked the content, it would have sold just nice, even with hight prizes.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

HoT has too many bad design ideas that aernt just about casual friendly content, honestly its just a poor concept from the start making 4 zones that have group oriented content that will go stale in later game expansions.

This has nothing to do with casual friendly on that front, the casual friendly aspect, is the fact that prior to things like LS1, Fractals, and all that crap, GW2, was an entirley open game that allowed even the laziest player to enjoy it with ease even with some frustration, it wasnt without challenge, Orr was pretty bloody challenging to a solo player and frustrating at times.

But it was at least playable solo, except for that forced final fight with Zhaitan.

Other than that, the world was your oyster, if you wanted to do personal story a few levels lower than you should you could and still reaped the rewards for it. You could do alot of things that the game now forbids you access to.

Alot of changes were made poorly and dont really make any sense to have changed them at all.

E.g. Changing the dungeons multiple times from rush-runs where you rushed a boss to death to gold-sinks to removing even that makes them valueless if your not in the skin-farming market.

Or the fact that we never “had” raids, or fractals where the only content appeal was to a minority of people that wanted that kinda thing.

Its a case of a-net catering to a minority, that minority is a group of people that came from WoW, SWTOR, other mmo’s with group content they’re bored of and want to do it on another MMO, so they changed the casuals mmo into something “they” wanted.

Thats not how it should have gone, or should go.

There are MMO’s designed for people that “dont” want the challenge and should exist for people that “dont”.

So yeah.

GW2 was dying when the game was a purely “open world game”. This game has grown so much since the installations of grouped challenging content like Teq,Fractals, new map meta events and raids. In the end of the day Gw2 is an mmo and people want their characters to progress and obtain special things other players can’t obtain. That’s why grind and challenge exist in mmo’s if they didn’t all mmo’s would die off.

Sicarius.4639:

I believe it was 5m box sales, with 2m F2P being added to that (Think there is some PR Anet info graphic floating around). Of those, 1.5m. were monthly actives (historically).

Of those (1.5m + 2m.), around 250-300k bought the expansion. Do we have figures on the breakdown of F2P converts? That would make the figure for those who originally bought the game even smaller…

Maybe you are right but just to check the info, in the KDB analysis from 11/March/2015 they said that at that date (no f2p yet, f2p came on june), gw2 had sold 4,6 millions boxes, 2,5 of which were sold on the first year of life of the game.
KDB is no NCsoft, so they may have been mistaken but i would say that kind of figures are always correct. One thing are expectationts and another real figures.

However about number of f2p accounts i dont recall any statement regarding that, so i guess if you heared about 2 millions, must be true. ^^
But yep if we believe KDB Daewoo, one year ago aprox, GW2 had sold just itself, 4,6 million copies. You can check the statement if you like in its web with that date.