Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

I think people just need to know that not everyone that doesn’t want to raid is necessarily lazy or incapable. Some of us just don’t enjoy it.

You can not want to raid and still enjoy a challenge…just a different type of challenge.

I don’t disagree with that, but that’s an internet community issue. Anet made some fairly stupid statements about ascended requirements which fueled that, but otherwise it’s a difficult situation for them control. At least no in game inspections/dps meters exist, but I don’t think the elite Vs casual mentality, which is what it boils down to eventually, can be overcome.

Whilst people continue to post lfg entries like “experienced only” all they are doing is continuing the ongoing trend for raids dying away, by putting walls up for new players. These appeared less than a week after the 2nd wing appeared and yet the vast majority of players could never be experienced so soon.

This is why raids are dying away in MMO’s. It’s not because of rewards, it’s not because they are too hard, it’s because it is fashionable for players to block players out.

But that’s a subject for a different thread

Fade to Black.7042:

Didn’t read the thread but only OP post.
I agree what Vayne said, and my conclusion is that MMOS aren’t for you. People who like playing MMOS like to compete against other players ….

I disagree with that notion 10 fold.

I love MMOs, I love being surrounded by other flesh and blood players to chat with. But the only competition I’m having is myself vs the game world. I have no compulsion to compete with other players which is why I love GW2. No KS, no rush to the new mat node first, no loot or XP sharing. This game’s PvE is designed to NOT be a competition. You want to compete, go play PvP. Heck go play an FPS or whatever version of sport console title you can school each other in. The only competition you have in PvE is keeping up with the Logan’s in terms of fancy skins or titles or AP or swanky rewards anyone can get if they do content X, that you can wave around in front of one another.

There is a non-insignificant population here that cares squat about PvP or WvW and are simply here for the story, the world, and the ability to interact with it and each other. MMOs aren’t just online versions of playing King of the Mountain when you were 8.

Fade to Black.7042:

People who like playing MMOS like to compete against other players,

Just no. Maybe you have not noticed, but the vast majority of PvE in this game is cooperative, not competitive. That is what made this game the success it is. It is not very clever to turn away from that.

I think part of the issue is the change of direction ANET made when they decided to go the expansion route.

I saw this mentioned in another thread, but thought it fit well in this discussion instead – what if, instead of selling us expansions, ANET sold season passes instead – that gave you access to everything developed in the next 18 months (that followed a specific story arc), freeing up all of their developers (and giving them the resources needed) to continue fleshing out the living world rather than the content drop → content drought → content drop → content drought – ad infinitum we are seeing now?

I think it would be a much much better method than what we are seeing now.

SlateSloan.3654:

reddit had over 230 million individual visitors last month. why do you all think the devs use that forum? really because it allows for better usability?^^

And how many of them were reading the Guild Wars 2 forum?

It’s definitely a huge change of pace with the way maps in HoT having a fair amount of areas and content that can most likely not be done by one player alone. I agree with Vayne that it might be best to try and find a group of friends or a guild to do that sort of content with. At least one of the nice things that has been in GW2 since the beginning is that groups can be picked up on the fly and form naturally out of all players having the same goal.

I can relate in the way that it feels like maps and their meta on “on rails” and that the players have a limited amount of agency in terms of when a map starts and stops the final meta event.

For example Auric Basin will begin the final battle with the Mordrem whether all pylons or none are active. Dragon Stand while fun and epic, it is a map that starts and stops based solely on the timer alone and not player actions or activity.

Maps similar in this way are of course Dry Top and Silverwastes. Dry Top does have an internal timer, but Silverwastes is unique in the way that it has a map wide meta but the start and stoppage of the final event is determined by players alone. I have entered low population maps at different levels of completion and players taxi in, work together and get the meta done.

If maps in HoT could allow for more player agency as to when a meta event starts I think it could be a step in the right direction.

if you dont have any masteries to level it could be accumulated to the point of a level up tome or spirit shard. maybe it could be done via a repeatable achievement in the achievement panel that captures xp gained while a mastery track is not selected to level

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

I keep seeing people saying ArenaNet has lied about this expansion, and haven’t delivered.

I just got back to the game last week, can anyone enlighten me on what promises they have gone back on? Or is everyone just whining for the sake of whining?

I don’t think it’s fair to say they lied. It’s just that, through a combination of their marketing and hype, and customer over-optimism, expectation were much higher than delivered. Some of these expectations changed before HoT, some after. For me:

Price:
Expectation – Maybe half the cost of the base game.
Reality – The same as the base game.

New class:
Expectation – Would come with a couple of free character slots.
Reality – Came with one free character slot, after massive backlash.

WvW:
Expectation – New maps would be added.
Reality – New maps replaced current maps, and destroyed WvW. Also massive gold sinks turned up.

Legendary weapons:
Expectation – We’d get a full set of legendary weapons.
Reality – Five months later we have three legendary weapons, and no time frame on more.

Precursor crafting:
Expectation – We’d have a fun and accessible way to get precursors instead of the massive gold sink.
Reality – We have a fun and accessible way to get precursors, broken up in the middle by a massive gold sink.

Guild halls:
Expectation – We’d get a small hall we could decorate and level with our guild.
Reality – We got a massive and pretty amazing hall we could decorate and level with our guild… with an enormous gold sink. Oh and they broke guild missions for a few weeks.

Story:
Expectation – We’d get a medium length story that addressed Living World questions like where Rytlock has been, and handled a sudden anti-Sylvari climate.
Reality – Eh… It sort of did some stuff well, but was really short.

Maps:
Expectation – Intitial, loads of new maps.
Reality – Actually some pretty amazing maps, but only three you can really explore, and all of them bound to timed metas.

Rewards:
Expectation – Loads of new armours and weapons, including the Revenant weapons from beta.
Reality – Keys. So. Many. Keys.

Fractals:
Expectation – Reworked reward system, including a legendary backpiece.
Reality – Initially broken rewards system, no legendary backpiece so far.

Raids:
Expectation – Three new raids.
Reality – So far, two thirds of a raid.

Dungeons:
Expectation – Nothing really. Maybe a couple of new ones?
Reality – Actively made the ones we had worse.

Post-launch:
Expectation – The content drought would end. We’d get living story again, and maybe even things like SAB or Dragon Bash.
Reality – Unless you’re a raider or a PvPer, then it’s occasional festival repeats for about a year.

Now a lot of those expectations were absolutely my own fault, and not ANet lying. But the problem is that ANet are so tight-lipped about what they’re doing that all you can do is guess about what’s coming. Combine that with some areas where they actually did way over-hype the content that was coming, or at least the time frame it was coming in, and it just makes it very hard to justify pre-ordering the next one.

onevstheworld.2419:

Given the recent history and business practices of all the major AAA developers, I would go so far to say noone should ever pre-order ANY game. Buy it when someone reputable has reviewed it first.

Don’t give them your money, and the permission to give you a crappy game.

I want to quote this a million times in letters ten miles tall

Given the recent history and business practices of all the major AAA developers, I would go so far to say noone should ever pre-order ANY game. Buy it when someone reputable has reviewed it first.

Don’t give them your money, and the permission to give you a crappy game.

They’ll have to show I bought HoT for the right reasons first… still waiting for 13 legendaries, LS S3 and maybe part of 4, nice PvE events, and stuff other then raids, outfits, and the promise of revamped “improved” WvW…

I really hope we will see something usefull happening before and call is gives WELL HErés the next expansion… Unless the expansion is free for people who payed for Vanilla and HoTIn that case i do not care,

payed 74.99 for vanilla (6.5K hours) and 99.99 for HoT….(also some)

Yes. Dear god yes. It is beyond frustrating having to use Traveler’s just to NOT feel kitten compared to my other toons when it comes to movement.

Having some other way of improving guard mobility and QoL might even warrant some positive changes into the staff. The symbol might give superspeed rather than swiftness, which would give it much better combat utility.

If it isn’t tied to a useful spec, the +25% movement speed should be tied to a signet, imo, wasting a utility slot for mobility is a much better tradeoff than wasting an entire line of unwanted traits. And yeah, I want this option to be in a guardian spec-line or utility, not DH specifically.

I’m actually okay with how the Maguuma masteries are set up. I’m not okay with how the Tyria masteries are set up. Actually it looks like no thought at all was put into how the masteries were done in Tyria. Some of them are ridiculous grinds. Collect whole weapons sets for 1 point? Really? The achievement choices are completely random. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Tyria mastery grind makes the Maguuma grind look easy.

I understand how leveling works, but I think Anet needs some kind of intervention here. They have a serious problem with not being able to tell the difference between challenge and a soul-sucking hate-fest against its’ players. Don’t even get me started on their events. I can’t imagine what their Christmas office party would be like. Probably have to belly crawl across a parking lot covered in broken glass to get their free half of a beer.

…and then someone come from another game like TESO, where grind is more extreme, and then find gw2 soft, at least in appearance, and give a story going along the way of fanboys opinions…
The fact that there is even worst games that exist doesnt excuse the progression for being a bit less a chore in GW2.
Once you hit 80, its always a long grind to get the maximum stats, while it almost wasnt back in 2012. Even if stats combinaison were restricted, everyone would be able to start at equality, with only skill, build management would matter in wvsw for efficiency, or dungeons (if we except tthat mobs were mostly all predictable and just hp bags, favorising dps gear)
So there will artificially always something to do, repeat for a reward or a stuff that become meta, so there is no way to say one day “finally, I have finished to grind, now I could enjoy the future content in the best gear/skin condition without chasing something beyond”.
You are never free to leave the game without the feeling of leaving something unfinished behind.
And I just cant be agree with it, it should be normal to leave one day a game even if its an mmo, to finish its whole content, switch, test out new experiences; instead of staying because durability have been increased , not with content but with grind and massive timesinks…
And thats the main problem of the game, I really love its universe, its content, but there is almost no content that give fair rewards and then decent progression to end game stuff…
Ascended crafting is not difficult, its just long, boring, uninteresting serie of task (at least I could listen to music, so my brain wont go asleep) and even if you can know switch stats, its still a costly investment that could quick become useless because of meta fluctuations…
Like if those greedy companies would make sure you cant leave, or have something, be fairly rewarded for playing a reasonnable time, because there is a cash shop, shareholders to feed, that need strong returns on investments…

I have made a choice at the beginning, to do the content freely, without chasing some end game chimera, something I would have, thats why I spent some gemms along the way to have definitive skins at the beginning (you are supposed to be a hero after all, not a mercenary with a poorly designed armor all along the way to max level). And I’m in right to di this, it probably didnt hurt anyone…
And it would have been almost perfect without introduction of a extremly costly, end game gear, that favorise to play one character due to the investment instead of trying out freely builds, classes, races, content etc…
What is not true when invested players claim new content designed exclusivly for themselves…

I would be happy if there were at least and normal mod, an easy/discovery mod accessible for everyone but with lesser rewards for the raid, and titles, other unimpacting but prestigious rewards for people able to beat raid content in hard mode.
I’m not necessarily looking for challenge, but new environnments, dialogs, stories etc…not locked begind massive requirments of gears, bifnumber of enthousiastic player etc…

I’m not saying that players like me want everything right now, but I didnt buy this game to work hard, have a secondary job, accomplish a chore, but have a game enjoyable, that doesnt leave rather casual players behind because of stats segregation betweens those able to afford ascended and the other that are told to use only exotic, and act like there were nothing above to look for, just because the system made things not affordable to their playtime.

You can be a real fan of the game like me, that doesnt mean I’m willing to stay forever or playexclusivly Gw2…
What would push you to make a costly stats combinaison axotic stuff, if at all moment, you are free to make a stuff that is almost the same, tempting, rising total of stats at +-10% more…
And GW2 is moving farther and farther from this with expansions like hot.
Expansion where meta are not acessible most of the time (DS), labyrinthic maps with dps check, stats combinaisons that require insane number of tonkens, etc…
Human life is terribly short, and if we want to have a maximum number of experiences like video games, multiplayers included in mmos, then grind, timesinks, repeating content become an ennemy, you can often pass with money if you are rich (or fool) enough; but it often quickly become a nightmare to explore virtual universes in their integrality if not….
its a game after all, we are not tied to the same conditions than real life, progression should be fair as much as its is not in reality, at least to compensate…
Even a beautifull virtual weapon doesnt justify semesters of daily work…time is precious and it is worth more than this.

Thats why I would love to have stats character bound, that are maxed once you hit max level, freely adjustable, and armor, weapon only giving damage, or support eventually rune/sigils, but with no rarity, and having just their skin worth their value.
etc….

I have seen the video of people doing the raid with full exotic gear, they are an organized guild, use specific, longly prepared builds, wich members master there characters extemly well, that normal they suceed despite of lacking stats.
That doesnt make their exploit agenerality for all player, even a fews errors are sufficient to fail with ascended, then thinks what happen woth lesser stats…

I would have tons of other things to say on this, but I better stop there, my english is not sufficient anyway…

MrGhosty.4296:

I’m relatively new to these parts and have no intention of trying to brush off anyone’s particular perspective of the game. As a new(ish) player I would simply like to submit my personal experience.

I quite happily consider myself a casual player, but this doesn’t mean I don’t invest a lot of time into the game. When I say casual I mean to say that I enjoy good stories, exciting encounters and the ability to hop in and out of them with ease.

I came to GW2 from leading a guild in Elder Scrolls Online. I was frustrated by the content (or lack thereof) and the stupid restrictions it took to get my guildies together to play through any particular piece of content. None of these problems exists for us in GW2 (barring the obvious level requirements and other basic and expected gates).

With a couple button clicks I can have my people grouped up and we’re fighting a world boss. Then we can opt to go run through one of the end game zones like the Silverwastes or venture into HoT. After that we might knock out a fractal or two and finish up with some quick pvp matches.

These are all experiences I would definitely classify as casual friendly. They don’t require extensive prep time or gear swaps or whatever and for the most part are easy to jump in and out of. That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges in the game, but when did casual friendly have to mean easily achieved?

What I have loved about GW2 since migrating over is that no matter your predilection there is a path for you to achieve your aims. If you don’t want to grind mats for something, just play the game as usual and save up for it. If don’t want to grind OR spend a lot of gold you can continue to play as you like and eventually you will have what you want/need. These paths in no way require the same exact time to complete, some are faster than others but no matter how you want to play there is a way to achieve your goals.

If all goals were easy, nothing would be worth doing. I feel like Anet has done a very good job of providing meaningful progression no matter how much time you put in. If you only complete the dailies each day you have achieved something. If you only spend time gathering mats to craft ascended materials, again, you have achieved something. These smaller goals tend to dovetail into a greater goal such as crafting ascended gear, finishing up a dungeon path, or getting your next achievement chest that naturally take a longer period of time. For the people who would rather throw gold at the hurdle instead, there are usually options on that front as well.

While I can certainly understand how some might feel this game isn’t casual friendly, in my grumpy, bad mystic forge days I know I have certainly muttered it. I don’t think that to be the case and I would welcome anyone who feels differently to give me a shout in the game and I will happily hear you out and perhaps we can find a way to make the game fun for you again.

Great post. Thanks for making it.

I think what you’re seeing here is the disconnect between someone coming from a more typical style MMO and people who were here from day 1.

This game is still far less restrictive than most themepark MMOs by a good margin….but it’s considerably more restrictive than this game was at launch. That’s why people are annoyed by the changes.

When this game launched, world bosses weren’t on schedules at all. In fact, they appeared on different servers on different types. When Anet introduced the megaserver techology that was no longer an option and they had to go to a timer. Now a timer for a 15 minute world boss isn’t that big a deal, where as a timer for a two hour meta event could be.

If you have 3 hours to play every night, and you can’t make the beginning of the DS meta due to when you get home, it’s entirely likely you won’t be able to get into a map doing the meta. That means that you have to wait for the next time, which might be more than an hour away, which might mean having to stay up late or otherwise change your schedule in order to experience the last zone of the game. It’s simply not convenient.

Even when the world bosses schedule first came out, there were complaints by people who wanted to do say the Karka queen, but it only appeared every three hours and they couldn’t play during the time that it was there, so it killed that boss for them. Not a problem if you’re doing random bosses…more of a problem if you need that specific boss, which is happening more and more as the game progresses.

I agree with you. This game is still night and day as far as freedom goes, when compared to other MMOs. It’s just not as good as it was for some of us as it was at launch.

raenen.5807:

today come home from work got a phone call missed DS timer. Went and watch a show on TV missed next DS timer looked on steam at other games to play. When did GW become the game you have to set an alarm clock to play. Put smaller events in there outside of the main meta if you miss the meta you can still build up currency and put a few pods in there. There is no way you guys thought this is what the players asked for.

I agree.

Stupid timers on long event chains means if you do not camp an event map and are tossed onto a duplicate map, fail. If a large guild is planning for the event, they all collect on your map, then port out at the last minute and your map fails. If you are trying to do something else besides the big event, there is no one around until the event ends and you get an offer to go to a more populated map where, again, there is no one around and you lose your progression.

today come home from work got a phone call missed DS timer. Went and watch a show on TV missed next DS timer looked on steam at other games to play. When did GW become the game you have to set an alarm clock to play. Put smaller events in there outside of the main meta if you miss the meta you can still build up currency and put a few pods in there. There is no way you guys thought this is what the players asked for.

I wish maps in HoT would not keep opening and closing all the time. I am sick of exploring the new areas or working events alone. Fix that! By the pale tree, make maps support 1000 players.

The raid sucks. There, I said it. It is designed more like a jumping puzzle with linear, gated progression and does nothing to encourage players to communicate and support each other. It’s just like the old dungeons but longer and tougher. New players die and are left for dead. Players complaining about each other. The raid is like a speed run where everyone just memorizes the pattern and does max dps. The raid is not “hard core” gaming. It is just a repetitive pain in the mule; a really grindy event to farm. Teqatl is more fun.

15 yrs I’ve been playing MMOs and I can’t remember when there hasn’t been gold sellers despite each company’s best efforts. The company will find a way to slow/cease it, and the gold spammers find a different tact.

Learn to deal with it. Your blood pressure will thank you.

~EW

Vidal.4306:

The announcement for a raid that I can’t take part in isn’t doing me any favors, so I’d like it removed. It never should have been put there in the first place.

While I disagree with you and think it should be there to make people aware of the new raid wing, I do think ANet should invest in making the announcements’ visibility configurable in the user preferences so we don’t have to read the same announcements for months on end (ie. PvP league).

TexZero.7910:

MadRabbit.3179:

But GW2 isn’t that game and adding raids is not only contrary to why people like me played it to begin with, but adds to the problem of trying to be everything for everyone while effectively being nothing for no one.

Burden of proof not met.

Please prove how adding content that brings about and fosters new communities is contrary to any aspect of 1) Play how you want 2) Social Gameplay 3) Being for no one (because apparently people who play it are no one).

IMO what you’re saying is coming from the vantage of someone who either had a bad experience likely due to pugging, poor leadership or just a flat out inability to accept that not every piece of content has to cater to your likes. PvP isn’t my thing, i do it from time to time but i don’t make a habbit of it, same for jumping puzzles you wont find me doing them daily, world bosses the same.

I doubt that burden of proof can be met and I always giggle a little bit when someone takes this kind of hardline in just some a bullkitten thread on a forum.

Exclusivity and inclusivity are incredibly difficult to quantify and I doubt I can say would be an adequate proof in an Internet forum where we are just talking casually and not assembling works cited pages for our work.

My response would be two fold.

One, the distinction between dungeons/fractals and jumping puzzles was that didn’t form the centerpiece of the development effort. The Living Story always had clear priority. A lot in recent times suggests to me that raids are the new focus and that is concerning. I’m not against a game having secondary content and think it’s healthy. My opinions is that raids aren’t secondary and are going to be the primary focus, similar to how they are the primary focus in PvE.

Two, I’m not just kitten, because I got kicked out of a pug and am here making some emotionally charged post loaded with salt. The basis for my opinions is my experience with being a raid leader in other games.

The relevant small size of the teams exceeds the capacity of the guilds and the difficultly of the content requires commitment and practice. Swapping out players constantly gets you no where and forming a secondary team is off difficult, because of lack of people wanting to lead and the people who are begging to go on a raid being unwilling to make a time commitment.

You have to make hard choices at times between taking one player over the other out of the pragmatic reality that you want to win and can’t have 9 people being brought down by one guy. These choices lead to hurt feelings and drama; guilds will dissolve over this.

Now, compare that to a form of content like Guild Missions where the player limit can handle participation from an entire guild and the challenge is such that you don’t have to have a schedule and commitment to practice, that creates a laid back, chill environment where nobody feels left out and we’re just goofing around, having fun with each other.

Raids just aren’t that experience. They are meant to be hard and because they are hard, they are stressful and lack of stress management leads to outbursts that ruin the night for everyone.

Play in one of the high end raiding guilds in WoW’s history. They are all pricks to each other. Night and day experience to guilds in GW2.

On the basis of that personal experience, it’s why I have the opinion they are contrary and detrimental to what makes GW2 special.

Just to make one thing clear here on my posting based on what is going on here right now …

I absolutely don’t “hate” raids or so, just to make it clear, I am absolutely wanting Raids for GW2.

The point is only, that I’m personally just disappointed of what Anet seems to understand under a “Raid” and practically delivers us instead only Dungeons 2.0, just with 5 more people, better rewards, time gated access and some harder bosses plus two for that instance new masteries that you just can learn there so far with the first Raid Wing, locking also Story and especialyl Legendary Equipment – so quality of life items – behind this gamemode to force practicalyl everyone to play raids, if they want to ever get full quality of life stat change on demand outside of combat. Seriously?

Personally I expect something completely different from a Raid.

I would have expected something more along the lines of these points:

- Group Size: Between 25-50 people based on difficulty (to make full usage of the new Squad System)
- Playtype: Infinite, means, you raid as long as you want and people/you leave , enemies reappear quickly, where raids become more rewarding, so longer/deeper you raid, but also become more challenging over time so longer/deeper you explore in them.
- Raid Map Size: Huge, similar to the Desert Borderlands, so that there is also enough space for some huge monsters of the size of World Bosses to raid in them
- Raid Types: Providing different Raid Types, from Hunting Grounds to Dungeon Crawlers over to Guilds Crusades as Guild unique form of Raids – brief said, I expected something completely new and different and not basically warmed up cold coffee that is Gameplay like Dungeons 2.0 with a tiny row of Bosses to slay that you can do every week once.

Under a Raid I expect challenging coordinated Group Content of various different types that are made for large Groups. 10 People is no large group! 25-50 people is a large group, big enough to make actually good usage of the new Squad System. WvW isnt the only game Mode, that could make good usage of it..Raids could also too, if just the Group Size would be bigger…
Under a Raid I expect that the content is so designed, that all playable Classes can be useful, provide something unique to their role for why you would want to have them with you and where all Classes can do something useful to support the group.
I expected something like class specific Masteries, as the introduction of the Mastery System and the raids together was the perfect opportunity to combine both systems with each other to do something unique there also for Character Progression – see my example of Thieves becoming the Raid Group’s Treasure Hunters and Trap Disablers just for example that can improve the Rewards you collect together on your Raid Tours.

Raids should be more of an social experience, where playing with many people together challening content that is made for a big group to make fun and not to be just only a silly DPS Race, where from everyone is expected to play godlike with no mistakes with absolute perfect equipment and only armed until under the teeth in ascended stuff, just so that you can make sure you can kill those few bosses on the run, before they can get into litterally “Berserker Mode” where their attacks become one hit killers if your group wa just too slow due to not good enough DPS…

One should expect from Anet something more originally and better, than these kind of lame DPS races permanently just to create artificially challenging battles that can fail somehow, if you are too slow…

Brief said, I dislike the way only, how Anet implemented Raids, at least so far the first Raid Wing. Hopefully will be the next Wing alot better and be completely different from the first one and not be again just another Dungeon 2.0 Clone with just like 3 Bosses to slay on the way to your loot at the end, because if thatx really everythign Anet can do, then they should have really not wasted any tiem and ressources at all with Raids and hsould have used that better on completely reworking Dungeons, instead of destroying them by removing their rewards and puting them to Fractals to literally shift over the Dungeon Players only to play Fractals now instead for farmign Gold.

If Raids wont improve and become more interestign with the next wing(s) and differentiate themself more from Dungeons/Fractals, then all of this was basically nothing but a huge waste of ressources, because when you go already so far to implement as complete new Game Mode, then you should want as Developer that this new Mode should also be as unique and different as piossible from all the rest of the game…

What Anet did here so far with raids is, as if anet would have implemented Stronghold for PvP as if Stronghold woudl be exactly the same than Conquest, but just only with 10 players on each side and different rewards and limitatign everyone to play it only every week (time gating)

Would you find Stronghold good, if it would be like that?
I guess not, I doubt hard that anyone would find Stronghold awesome, if Anet would have made with Stronghold, what they practically did so far with Raids by making it just too similar to other already existing content. Especialyl when parts of the already existign content get then extra dumbed down to oblivion in regard of their rewards, just so that players get a better reason to play the “new” old content that seems to come over so far, as if Anet sems to have reinvented the cycle new…

And then just to hear permanently, we have no team for this, when they could have already thrown together a long time ago practically all three teams together the very moment they introduced fractals to the game practically to form with them a new overarching Endgame Content Team that works on all three things, Dungeons, Raids and Fractals is for me personally just the top of the iceberg…

Main problem with raids is that it takes so much dev resources to create, yet it’s usually played by the smallest percentage of the actual player population. For a game like WoW, they don’t need to worry about this because Blizzard has unlimited resources with how much money they’re making with the game. But for a game like GW2, resources are very much limited, we see the results of Anet allocating large amount of resources to raids, and the things they have to sacrifice due to it. By resources I mean both manpower and money, Anet has continuously cited the lack of resources as a reason for how things are.

Living world getting pushed back because they want to release more raids first as an example. Lack of a true WvW dev team has all but killed this game mode. Lack of resources to separate PvE, PvP, and WvW class balance, so they do it the lazy way of trying to mash them all together and hope they could balance classes with a single stroke. Dungeons being left behind because again, by their admission recently, they don’t even have a team for dungeons. Lack of programming resources is cited as the reason they can’t bring Alpine maps back for WvW, because their programming resources are tied to creating new raid mechanics.

Raids are resource killers, but yet raids are not played by the large majority of the players. Large majority of the players are still out in the open world, they prefer open world bosses and zone meta’s. While many have tried raids initially due to the hype, many aren’t bothering with it now. So yes, raids belong in a MMO, they’ve always been in MMO’s since Everquest created this genre. But they’ve always sucked dev resources dry and made companies sacrifice certain aspects of their games just to create raids. And raids are traditionally always played by the smallest percentage of playerbase, this was the case in EQ, it’s likely the case today in GW2.

Good or bad, the real question is, what are you willing to give up to have raids. Because right now we’re giving up a lot just so GW2 could see more raid content. Also as a side note, raids tend to be exclusive in nature. Where as Guild Wars 2 have always been a more inclusive game. For good or bad, raids did change the attitude of the game and its players a bit.

Agree with the concept that a new forum is desperately required. I don’t agree with most of your reasons.
I love the merging aspect specifically when it deals with SAB and Mounts. There is only one agenda no matter how disguised as a new point of view. Closing your own threads, no big deal or required for a good forum, just ask a mod. Hiding others comments, again not needed. If you can’t deal with comments that come your way, then don’t post, specially if you know you are going to get responses that you don’t care for. Toxic or trolling, again ask a mod to make a decision that is in the communities best interests. That being said perhaps don’t make a topics that you are aware will result in a clash. The general tone of the suggestion appears to be more about ‘me’ than enhancing and benefiting the community as a whole with an up to date forum engine.

Encourage and politely demand that Anet spends the money to get new forums.
Search—now that is what really needs to be addressed and you ignore it.
Something the devs could use(be required to use) to communicate efficiently instead of using all the various unofficial alternatives. (again ignored).

Substance E.4852:

Cirran.1429:

Phy.2913:

Cirran.1429:

Phy.2913:

Poor Wildstar.

…….

Best part of that graph is how bad Wildstar is doing, it makes my day.

Cirran

Wildstar is the poster child for how the market has shifted away from WOW style business and game play.

Meh, personally I think it has a TON more to do with how Wildstar presented it’s self. It is a “hardcore” and “elitist” players paradise. Just shows when you basically call everyone who is not one of those a cupcake and needs to grow a pair, you fail badly. I do feel the game had potential but the focus needed to change when it went free to play, it didn’t it is now reaping what it has sown.

Cirran

EvE online has been going for longer than almost any other MMO at this point and has done so well they literally built a monument for the player base in Reykjavik.

Going hardcore isn’t a problem. Going hardcore and doing a poor job of it is.

Well to a point, but I don’t think Eve online ever got many more than half a million subs at one time, and a lot of those were multiple subs because all the serious players have multiple accounts…much like Guild Wars 2.

Both Guild Wars 2 and Eve Online are niche games. ANet’s issue is they want to be mainstream, so they keep kittening off different niches. Eve’s success is that they focused on a single niche and stayed true to it.