Guild Wars 2

pranker.3748:

What is impacting it is the amount of people that farm Tarir Multi loot every day. 30-70 ectos per 15minutes of work is too much if you ask me.

Oh, on that i fully agree. It’s way too much. If that amount of rewards has been coming from an equally easy non-HoT content, it would have been nerfed long ago. Remember, that the previous example, SW chest farm (which pre-nerfs wasn’t coming even close to the current Tarir multi reward levels) got nerfed within weeks, and has been nerfed directly and indirectly several times more after that.

The only reason i can think of why TML is being left alone is to inflate the HoT maps participation rates.

While i don’t agree that more challenging content should be automatically more rewarding, no content should be reward-wise so out of synch with the rest of the game as TML is now.

For the most races, the current canon answer is that they cannot interbreed. For sylvari, it goes further however – they can’t have kids period, as they are drones with no inbuilt biological species propagation method. The only one that can have children is the Pale Tree (well, and the other potential trees out there), and it happens in a way that’s completely incompatible with the other races.

“magic” and “asuratech” could possibly bridge the gap between other races, but that would still not allow for sylvari-whatever crossbreeds.

In both cases i see no reason why devs might want to change the current status quo.

Considering i haven’t seen anyone using tower/camp upgrades for a very, very long time (since the beginning of the year at the very least), i do fully agree they are way overpriced. Even keep ones are generally used only on EB and your own battleground garrisons, and even then it doesn’t happen that often.

There’s simply no point in upgrades that are so costly noone bothers to ever use them.

(now, i’m not going into arguing whether those upgrades, if/when used, are beneficial for WvW or not – that’s a separate discussion)

FrizzFreston.5290:

Doesn’t need a fix, since it’s not broken.
The reason it needs crystalline ore is to make it artificially rarer, so that not everyone is running around with it.

It really only needs one (successful) run of dragon’s stand to get the 40 crystalline ore though.

There’s 6 noxious pods per camp (when all events done successfully) times 6 camps which is at least 36 crystalline ore.

Not every pod drops ore. Even with the additional post-victory areas pods added to all the camps ones, it’s not really uncommon to end with less than 40 ore. Besides, it requires an over-hour long single meta. Just to get enough for one piece of armor.

It would have been better if they just used higher guild commendations cost, or some other guild based resource (like those shimmering/tenebrous crystals), instead of basing it on farming a specific, single map in the game. Over and over and over and over again.

Djinn.9245:

If this was a consistent and purposeful decision, why start this practice only with HoT and then stop it with Bloodstone Fen?

Moreover, remember that they once decresed density and cc usage of mobs in Orr specifically because players complained it’s hard to get anywhere on foot without killing everything on the way.

At that time, at least, Anet agreed that it made the map movement too slow and too annoying for a majority of players.

DGraves.3720:

People haven’t changed gear in years.

Yes. The ease of getting the most powerful gear and lack of gear progression (both ideas taken from GW1) were one of the important selling points of this game. They still are.

DGraves.3720:

I want to take note of that. Rather than the players rising to the challenge the game constantly lowers to the players. This is the primary reason why the game is too easy. If I went into a class and said “The test is too hard.” and the teacher just crossed off all but one question and made sure I knew the answer how exactly is that a challenge?

That’s what you don’t get. Not everyone is interested in being challenged. There are other reasons for playing games as well.

Razor.9872:

- What can A-net do to lean ‘casual’ players in the direction of self-improvement, so they would be content with pre-nerf HoT?

Most likely nothing. Why should they even attempt that, if, as it seems, majority of the players do not want to improve? It’s not like there’s some inherent value in “being a more hardcore player”, or in game being more difficult.

Hexinx.1872:

Different developers, different company goals.

It’s actually quite sad, considering we are comparing GW2 to GW1.

Sarahfull.4930:

No, fractals should be end game.

That pretty much ended the day Anet decided to obsolete dungeons.

Vayne.8563:

If a meta map is going on, we can fill 10 maps for the meta in AB. Filling ten maps is not no one playing.

That’s not “playing”. That’s the most farme event in the game. and 10 maps is around 1000-1500 people at most (that assuming all those maps are full, which they are not).
On the other hand, there are days when, even at the peak hours, you can’t find even a single map doing Gerent. Or VB meta above t2. AB maps 15 mins after te multiloot has ended are also generally empty or filled with afkers waiting for the next chest run opportunity.
Also, multiloot is going to get killed one of these days. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened yet – Anet was usually faster to kill (or at least diminish in some way) such farms before.

In general, i really, really hope Anet has really took the lessons to heart and is going to change course for the next expac. I don’t think i’d be able to stomach a second HoT.

Tentonhammr.7849:

The challenge from PvP is derived from the players, not the content itself. Comparing the human brain to AI is beyond delusional.

Yes, exactly. And yet people are still trying to claim that Raids are the “most challenging” content in the game. They aren’t.

Tentonhammr.7849:

By your own definition the “most challenging game mode” is already the most rewarding, since pro level players get to compete for large sums of real world money.

The quote i was answering to was “The most challenging content in the game should be the most rewarding content in the game.”. Tournament rewards are not part of the game.

Tentonhammr.7849:

And while we’re on the subject, that level of PvP is fsr more exclusionary than raids will ever be.

I agree on that. Which doesn’t impact the argument in the slightest.

pranker.3748:

That is true, none of us showed the desire to increase rewards for PvP and that’s probably because we dont have any major interest in PvP and PvP offers great deal of rewards as is, not to mention regular seasons. Also nobody is arguing against your idea that PvP is under rewarding, rather stating raids are even lower beyond what apparently PvP is. Also you have not mentioned the fact that none of us 3 went on PvP forum and complained how certain aspects in PvP be it match making/rewards/balance need nerfing nor did we shut down any ideas about possible fixes.

I was merely pointing out that the argument that “the most challenging content in the game should be the most rewarding content *in the game.” in no way supports beefing up the raid rewards. As it obviously doesn’t apply to raids at all.

No need to get agitated about it.

perry.9645:

Chaos.5072:

The most challenging content in the game should be the most rewarding content in the game.

End of story.

Astralporing.1957:

No. That would make the problem of raids being designed for a small minority of the population even greater.
Or did you mean pvp? Which at the competitive level is far more challenging than raids?

how about the thousands of dollars pvp players can earn? yeah sure i would like some dollars for raiding as well

Those rewards are sponsor-based and not part of the game itself. Apparently there’s noone interested enough in raids to sponsor them the same way.

If we consider the game itself, then pvp is way underrewarding compared to the challenge it provides (and that’s even when top level pvp is way, way more challenging than raids). I haven’t seen Chaos, OP or you complaining about it, so it seems neither of you is really about increasing rewards for “most challenging content”, but merely increasing rewards for content you, personally, like.

Mourningcry.9428:

Working as intended.

Prevents zerging the fractal, as was once possible

It’s not about someone joining the team midfight. It’s about the gate teleporting people inside only on first attempt (and on second and next ones simply triggering the fight few seconds after the first person enters, and locking outside anyone that didn’t manage to get in within that time.).

Chaos.5072:

The most challenging content in the game should be the most rewarding content in the game.

End of story.

No. That would make the problem of raids being designed for a small minority of the population even greater.
Or did you mean pvp? Which at the competitive level is far more challenging than raids?

pranker.3748:

In my original post you can get a sense of where raids are right now. Pretty popular but only for a period of time, if you dont count dedicated raiders. And thats a problem. If EB/sPvP/Tarir/eotn/… can have unlimited rewards why not do the same for raids?

If you want Raids to be more popular and more rewarding, make them more accessible first.

So, if raids are there to challenge you, they shouldn’t be at the same time a farm content. People should play raids because they like them, not because they want to get the rewards. Yes, they should have decent rewards (because we already know that rewardless content will end up abandoned no matter how liked it is), but it shouldn’t be so good to become a primary reason for people to be interested in them.

If there’s not enough people liking them even then… well, then there’s not enough reason to keep that content supported.

Mr Quinn.9815:

BrotherBelial.3094:

aare.5867:

one -50% just ended when living world 3 started. im not sure but anet dont really do many sales on the game.

I think he’s asking about the gem store upgrade.

yep … I bought an upgrade … now I have to wait for the 4k gems ?? yet, if you buy gems, you get them straight away.

The Ultimate one, from the buy.guildwars2.com site? Because the deluxe upgrade from gemshop does not have gems in it.
(from what i remember, the gems from Ultimate version are processed once per week, so if that’s the version you bought, you may end up waiting for few days)

Vinceman.4572:

And nobody would run mode 2 any more.

Just like noone’s running fractals t4…
Yeah, right.

Garambola.2461:

I got my 4th birthday gifts on the 25th of August just as it should be, since headstart did begin on that date. Are all the people who got theirs a day early Americans? Because the the GW 2 day starts at midnight GMT, which is in the afternoon/early evening across the Atlantic, the reset for the 24th would actually taken place on the 24th over there.

It’s the daycount. Everyone gets their present the first time they log in on a character that passed the 1460 days threshold. You can confirm it with the /age command. Most likely you’ve got your present the day before, but after you’ve already logged in.

thrag.9740:

An easy mode without rewards could increase the population engaging in raids, but still push all the new players towards hard mode.

An easy mode without rewards will be as popular as dungeons were after the rewards nerf (so, pointless).

The solution might be to increase current level raid rewards (in quantity, not quality) after introducing easy mode. It’s not like they are all that good currently anyway (exclusivity does not confer longevity, it works only short term until players obtained everything they wanted).

Lyp Sao.1375:

@Ampa True

@Seera
Not Anet. I am sure that the DATEDIFF function (SQL database) is aware of leap years and does the logic for GW2.

Actually, nope. Whatever they use don’t take leap years into consideration, which is why the 4th year gifts ended up being issued a day early.

Razor.9872:

Astralporing.1957:

Gunsnroll.2657:

Don’t tell me you can’t do one escort to unlock the mastery, come on.

You need people with raid mastery in your group in order to do the escort. Raiders don’t group with raid noobs.

Yes, there are raid training guilds out there, but they are for people genuinely wanting to start raiding, not for unlocking raid mastery bars.

Besides, the point remains. The exp bar is locked behind an activity that Anet specifically wanted to be done by only a small minority of players.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/The-super-easy-way-to-get-into-raids

Let me quote to you again the part of my post that you seem to have missed:

Yes, there are raid training guilds out there, but they are for people genuinely wanting to start raiding, not for unlocking raid mastery bars.

This thread is about non-raiders, if you haven’t noticed.

One rollback in 4 years of the game. Second long maintenance downtime in 4 years of the game. People cry havoc. That pretty much sums up how wonderful (relatively speaking) the situation has been so far in that regard.

Some people just got spoiled by Anet.

Seriously, other games have long scheduled and unscheduled maintenance downtimes, and rollbacks happen on more frequent basis, sometimes covering far longer than just a few hours. With no compensation whatsoever.
And anet is even trying to be nice here (see the comment about precursors).

Serale.9314:

Maybe to boost sales on karma boosters?

It’s the opposite. The direct karma gain is affected by karma boosters (and karma bonus from achievements), but karma containers aren’t. So, Anet’s using karma containers in order to make those boosters useless.

otome.2673:

Whereis the point in playing 1500 Days if you dont improve your Gameplay.

The same point as in any other game – having fun.

IndigoSundown.5419:

ProtoGunner.4953:

To OP: Dude, kitten happens. Not everything is for everyone, you have to accept that. No one is entitled to get/have everything he/she wants. That’s life.

Where would the game be if posters had just accepted that GW2 was not for raiders because it had no raids?

Without this problem to discuss, that’s for sure.

slamfunction.7462:

Ok, so let me get this straight, you can only ever obtain 15000 AP from doing dailes, before the dailies AP is capped?

So this means that if i never did any other achievements, got to my 15000 AP mark, i could then do the regular achievements like slayer, story achievements, and etc to go beyond 15000 AP? Is this right?

Yes. If you hover up over your AP counter, you will see a popup with AP split per sources: Permanent, Daily and Monthly. Daily and Monthly total is capped to 15000 AP (together, not separately), while Permanent counter is uncapped (limited only by the number of available achievements).

It seems they realized they would need something to make people play for the next two months until the second chapter of LS3 hits. It also seems, they thought that the answer for it would be “grind”.

A pity.

Obtena.7952:

Is there value in complaining that a reward is not given to people that don’t do the activity that gives it?

That’s not what we’re discussing here. Raids are not the activity that gives the reward (that would be earning xp). Raids are the gate that keeps the rewards away from some people, even if they are doing the activity. And in this case, yes, there’s definitely a value in asking whether that gating is necessary, wise, or even reasonable.
(also, asking for changes to reward systems are something people do all the time. Raiders were and are doing that as well)

Obtena.7952:

I think that’s a good point because shards aren’t JUST an XP reward anymore .. they have additional requirements as you mentioned. People can’t seem to get their head around this.

No, they just disagree with those requirements. You might not agree with them, but it doesn’t make them wrong.

Gunsnroll.2657:

Don’t tell me you can’t do one escort to unlock the mastery, come on.

You need people with raid mastery in your group in order to do the escort. Raiders don’t group with raid noobs.

Yes, there are raid training guilds out there, but they are for people genuinely wanting to start raiding, not for unlocking raid mastery bars.

Besides, the point remains. The exp bar is locked behind an activity that Anet specifically wanted to be done by only a small minority of players.

As of now, there isn’t even 100% certain that the raid legendary will become available. So far, they keep delaying and delaying introducing it, and we know that so far it’s not even done yet.

Zelanard.5806:

You’re allowed to want a low level only kinda game…

There’s a massive difference between low-level only and not concentrating only on hardcore minority. Game expac (especially the first one) should be aimed to give something to the majority of the players. You could create specialized dlc’s that are aimed at some small subgroup of the players, but that’s usually only done in addition to, not instead of the content to majority.

Zelanard.5806:

But most of the player base wanted high level endgame content, which, HoT was designed to give them.

I’m pretty sure that you are wrong. A loud group of players on forum and reddid did want that, but they weren’t really a majority even there (where the hardcore players are generally overrepresented). No, what most players wanted was new and interesting content to play in. Not necessarily high level endgame or challenging one. If you noticed general reaction to HoT (and the reason why april patch happened), you’d see that a majority of players didn’t in fact want for things to get harder.

Zelanard.5806:

If anyone is mistaken, it is the players who think they can go straight from noob to endgame, and then complain that they get their butts wooped. o.O

If anyone is mistaken it is the developers who think they can give content aimed at a small minority and use it to retain players that are outside that minority.

Udolpho.1209:

I had no idea this was even a thing until I saw someone with red glowing eyes near the bank and wondered why the glowing crimson mask had changed.

Followed the dulfy stuff and now I`m waiting for the wyvern to spawn and hoping it`s not like in the others — most of the creatures spawned in a different map location from the guide.

The guide doesn’t really show the spawn location. It cannot, because the location is not set. The boss can spawn anywhere within that zone where a mob of that type can spawn (so, anywhere there are normal moas, devourers, bears, sharks or wyverns).

Zelanard.5806:

Alex Shatter.7956:

I liked the expansion packs in GW1 because they let you really focus on a whole different story… a lot of the criticism of HoT was that it wasn’t welcoming for new players in the slightest. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I’d like to see something similar to nightfall where the focus is intense story telling

HoT was never meant to be for new players. Why would High level endgame content, be welcoming to new players?

Exactly. That was HoT’s failure.

Zelanard.5806:

I would like that too. I’d love to have both Cantha and Elona back.
However, GW2 is not the same kind of game as GW1. It’s not possible to do it in the same way unless they double their team size with each standalone game release…

They don’t need to do it the same way as gw1 campaigns (as a mergable standalone). Having a branching out expansion that is not centered on hardcore minority is still an option.

Icethorn.6570:

The order of the creatures are as follows
Moa/Devourer (1hr)–>
Arctodus/Shark (1hr)–>
Wyvern (30 min) –>
Break (30 min)

Notice to the above: those are only general estimates. There seems to be some random effects tied to it, so you can’t really count on it too much. Sometimes some phases will be longer (or shorter). Sometimes they will be out of order, or happen two at the same time (that includes break phase).

DeceiverX.8361:

ANet didn’t need to make an expansion, and actually started losing revenue when they did, and never started making more after they released one.

It’s not that. Making an expansion was definitely a good move. It’s just the execution part where they failed. They designed this expac based on the suggestions of vocal minorities, and ended up forgetting about their core player group.

Alex Shatter.7956:

but you would think, introducing raids and leagues would have at least leveled sales w/ pre-HoT

No, i wouldn’t think that. I’d say that both might actually cause the reverse effect. Raids because they were introduced in a game that was actually significantly anti-raid from the start (remember, a lot of people came to GW2 to avoid raids and the effects their existence caused on other MMOs), and they were aimed at a small number of people from the get go (so they couldn’t really offset the losses they caused), while league was really badly done (Anet tried to catch 2 birds with one stone, and managed to scare both of them away).

Khisanth.2948:

Looks more like the April patch didn’t deliver the fix people were looking for.

April patch did a lot of good, but unfortunately lot of things just couldn’t be changed without completely redoing half of the zones. They made doing things solo or outside meta easier, but it didn’t change the maps from being meta-centric and the metas from being on a loong, static schedule.

Khisanth.2948:

It could be the lack of content post HoT but there was a lack of content pre HoT as well and that did better.

Most likely it was lack of content coupled with disappointment caused by HoT not fulfilling expectations.

Manuhell.2759:

Can’t say i’m particularly surprised. Devs focused their attention for months unto raids, but they’re essentially niche content. And the maps from the expansion being an handful didn’t help either. Sure, they’ve got replayable events, but even those can get boring after a month or two. Many people likely found themselves without something fun to do and just stopped playing, or did that after getting shunned in raid (be it due to their class or something else). And people that don’t play also don’t pay.

It was also the feeling of being left out in a game that up until that point wasn’t about catering to a small elite minority.

Beldin.5498:

Neural.1824:

Teniz.5249:

Belenwyn.8674:

• They are working on the 2nd expansion.

So we will get 2 expansions at the same time?

Hmpf strange marketing, I would release 1 expansion and work on the 2nd after that.

No no no. The 2nd expansion is the 2nd half of the first expansion, which is being released before the 3rd expansion which is billed as the 2nd expansion.

2nd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and ALL the missing legendary.
3rd expansion will contain a new raid-zone and REALLY all missing legendarys.

Question : what do you think we get in the 4th expansion ???

A legendary, missing raid zone. Underwater legendary missing raid zone.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Bloodstone Fen lets you get Ascended Viper trinkets without raiding. For weapons and armour, you can get recipes to craft them in Auric Basin, both exotic and Ascended tiers.

Only partially true. Bloodstone fen lets you get an amulet, a backpack and one ring. Supposedly the other ring and both earrings will be in future LS updates (so it might take another half a year before you will be able to get a full set of viper accesories)

Cerby.1069:

its not as bad when u finally figure out how everything works in the event. Just the lack of information and wiki entries is one of the main problems. If everyone knew exactly how the event worked…they wouldn’t care enough to complain about the other many problems it has lol. Just do it…i farmed bloodstone fen while waiting in a squad. Find a squad doing them…join it. Go farm and wait for them to callout where/when the creatures spawn….do them….go back to farming….repeat. Hopefully ur squad will call out the enemies before they are below 50%….had to jump through hoops to find a 2nd arc because they didn’t call it out properly the first time.

And then you may find, as my friend did, that most of the squad members are doing the same and only commander and 2-3 other people are actually looking.

And yes, lack of information is the main problem, but it comes as a result of the event working in a way that makes getting any reliable information on it really hard. I mean, we can’t even get a schedule right, because no matter how much you keep adjusting it based on past experience, you still end up seeing exceptions from it.

Obtena.7952:

The confusing part is where you relate your experience to the casual player. I simply don’t think your experience is indicative of the kind that someone looking to buy gems ingame with gold would have.

Well, of course. Casuals are more likely to buy gems with cash instead of gold, because they are less likely to have enough gold to casually (heh) spend it on gems.

Just so you know how big the difference can be from what you might expect, i’ll tell you a story:
At one time, Anet introduced possibly the first set of big farm events. At the same time we’ve got the first instance of Queen’s Pavillon (deadeye farm + monster farm below) as well as the mapwide massive farm fest that was the Scarlet Invasion. People were earning tons of gold daily on this. And then we’ve been told what was the median gold income for the whole 2 weeks among the active players.
It was 2 gold.

TexZero.7910:

I mean, if that is your personal choice go for it, no one will stop you from not playing raids. What i will absolutely stop you from doing is taking my quote out of context to enable you to self destruct the thread because you hate everything raids stand for and refuse to work with others.

Wasn’t out of context. You gave OP advice to play with like-minded people. Raiders are not like-minded.
Just look at this very thread – all raiders (including everyone that assert that you can do raids with more relaxed group compositions) basically told OP that he was in the wrong and that by playing warrior in a group that already had two others he was causing the group to fail. So, by saying that OP should play with like-minded people to avoid class discrimination in raids, you basically told him to not raid.

Daishi.6027:

Overwatch = People don’t get mad or toxic at the Reaper who died to Phara flying high with Reaper on point, nor do they get mad or toxic at the Phara blind sided by S-76.

Funny thing. RPS is not a great design. Nobody really likes to end up as paper to someone else’s scissors. Besides, it relegates too much importance from skill to vagaries of chance.
You should win because you are a better player, not because you happen to be running Paper against Rock.

BTW: It doesn’t mean the current pvp balance is good. It really isn’t (and Anet’s insistence on doing balance passes only between seasons, or their common approach of balancing classes using a massive hammer as a primary tool do not help here at all).

Ubi.4136:

I really, really hope not. I loved the stormbow skin in GW1, and, although that skin is ok looking, it is NOT the stormbow. Every time they try and “modernize” the skins for GW2, they just make them worse.

May be nostalgia speaking. Personally, to me, that new skin is way better (and yes, i am a GW1 veteran too).

The staff will likely be a gemstore item. It’s an envoy weapon, with ties to Cantha, so it’s extremely unlikely to end up as LS/open world reward. Theoretically it might be a fractal one from some new fractal as well (but i don’t think anyone here is going to actually believe that) or a new raid skin (due to name tie with envoy armor).

Still, gemstore is the most likely idea.

(though if the bow is not a legendary longbow skin, i will be extremely disappointed)

HazyDaisy.4107:

Lastly, the rotations. This piece of the puzzle is flawed, 2 of the creatures show for an hour each, and one is supposed to show for 30 minutes, but those 30 minutes seem to overlap either the first or last half of 1 of the 2 creature hour rotations, I even saw 4 appear once. Once all 5 creatures have appeared on the rotation, the device goes into a 30 min break where it shows nothing. Players think it’s bugged, but it’s intentional.

It doesn’t always work like this, actually. Seen wyvern up for an hour. Seen more than one half-hour break in the rotation. Seen half-hour breaks that are hour long. Seen mobs device showing a certain setup for few minutes, then going back to previous one that has aready ended.

Generally, the only thing you can count on is not being able to count on anything.

(though i agree, Mordrem Bloom events were worse)

Didn’t like remort class idea when i first seen it (which was long before RO times), and i still do not like it. And as for good and evil divide – a game needs to be designed for it from the grounds up. This one isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Short answer is raids don’t, people do.

Play with like minded people and you wont have this issue. Aka, don’t play raids.

Fixed that for you.

morpheus.6489:

Idk it’s just weird that you have two achievements covering level ranges 1-50 to replace them with two achievements covering level ranges 1-50…

but it’s not weird to have an achievement covering range 1-20 to be replaced by one covering 1-25, and one covering 21-50 by one covering 26-50.
Do not think of them as a pair. Think of them being replaced individually.

TL/DR;
Those two old achievements are no longer representative of the current tier spread and had to be removed.

simplesimon.2084:

That is during the half hour break when no creatures spawn.

Which often last way more than half an hour.

AliamRationem.5172:

I don’t understand this issue with players moving on from HoT content. We’re on megaservers, right? So unless 100% of the population has moved on and there are insufficient players to fill up even a single instance, there shouldn’t be an observable issue.

And yet there is. What does that tell you? I mean, beyond the already known fact that megaserver works badly for HoT areas, and prefers creating a lot of underpopulated instances instead of one-two full ones – assuming there even are enough players for one full instance in the off hours)

AliamRationem.5172:

What am I missing here? I keep hearing this mentioned how HoT is going to be a real nightmare when players start moving on. But what I haven’t seen explained is why that should be a problem? I can find players on every single map in this game. Why will this be any different?

Because HoT map metas were designed for more than a handful of people, and beyond participating in the meta there’s not that much to do (it’s not as bad as before the April patch, but it’s still a problem. Especially on abovementioned Tangled).

AliamRationem.5172:

What is the map capacity anyway? 50 players? 100?

Don’t know about HoT (apparently it’s different there), but in core it’s around 120 soft 150 hard cap.

AliamRationem.5172:

And how many simultaneous players does GW2 have logged in at any given time? Tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands?

Unknown. The record so far was slightly below half a million concurrent logins, but that happened around Launch (the first one, not the expac). Apparently it’s more than the estimated number of sold HoT boxes. I’d guess it’s in tens of thousands at the moment in EU and US each.

Sykper.6583:

Is that really an interesting encounter overall?

Yes. It’s one of the more interesting (and fun) bossfight mechanics in fractals at the moment, actually.

Sykper.6583:

Now, this ball and chain mechanic, would you say it would be more interesting to have it when it hits you:

- Send you flying quite a distance with a heavy stun, a good chunk of your life gone, and you are bleeding and vulnerable.
- Knock you back a bit with a daze, low damage, mild annoyance.

Which of these two effects from a mechanic will people more likely ignore outright?

Both. They will either melee, or range. Death zone will be dodged through once. Threat from the mechanic will not matter, because it won’t be actually engaging enough. You might try to force it by changing the safe ranges during fight, but (based on similar mechanics from SW) players will generally not like it. Melee players don’t usually like to be forced into range. Range players don’t like to melee. Most players don’t like to switch between one and the other too much during an encounter. Most builds don’t support that switching either.
(that’s one main reason why too widespread melee hate and missile hate mechanics aren’t generally liked too much)

Sykper.6583:

Would the encounter become more engaging regardless of either of these effects should the boss start spinning the Morning Star faster as it gets lower in health?

Not really (for the same reason as mentioned above). Might make it more annoying, though.

Sykper.6583:

Objectively, should the mentality of players be that an Interesting mechanic is one that should not be ignored lest there be pretty bad consequences, or one that is annoying because it cannot be ignored even though it can never kill you?

“Objectively”, “should” and “interesting” do not fit in one sentence. But to answer the question you wanted to ask – both and neither. Both of those can be interesting, and both can be boring. Both of those can be fun, and both can turn to be unfun and irritating. Sometimes it will depend on the mechanic in question, often it will depend on the player.

There’s no “should” in this however. It’s not only not a game’s (or yours) job to change mentality of players, it would also be completely futile. If a player doesn’t like certain mechanic, no amount off telling him he’s “objectively” wrong will make them like it.

By the way, just thought of something. Attack gliding in new area is an interesting mechanic. Even if it’s not really dangerous. And can be ignored with no effort whatsoever.
It is also a lot of fun.

In general, i agree, with few comments on it though.

Interesting Mechanics can be new.
Definitely. They don’t have to be, but it helps. For a time anyway (until they are no longer new).

Interesting Mechanics must be different initially from the normal.
Depends. It should likely be a deviation from a standard pattern, but it shouldn’t completely disregard the normal mechanics. A fight is a fight, not a puzzle and shouldn’t circumvent/ignore too much of combat mechanics. Occasional gimmick encounter can be fun, but overusing them gets tiring very fast (see also the comment at the end).

Interesting Mechanics have to be threatening.
Not really, or at least not in the way you probably think. Here i agree with Jahroots fully. They have to be engaging at least to the point players cannot trivially ignore them (trivially – without special preparation and additional effort). Underground Fractal last boss is a good example. At some time so were the underwater electric cages (not now though, as ignoring them nowadays is actually easier).

Interesting Mechanics could be learned and potentially mastered.
No argument there, but fully masterable mechanics run a danger of becoming less interesting.

I’d like to add a caveat here, though.

While fun mechanics are often interesting, interesting mechanics are often not fun.
Do not lose sight of fun when aiming for interesting mechanics. That won’t end well.

azizul.8469:

@OP you can wait for another 3 years, and get HoT for free when they launch a new expansion (if there is any).

Well, not for free. He’d need to actually buy that next expac in order to get HoT.

Ubik.8315:

kurfu.5623:

Revenue dipped significantly below what it was pre-HoT… that’s not good. Looks like HoT actually did drive away a large portion of players.

I doubt HoT drove people away, more likely the content drought post HoT caused that.

More precise statement might be that HoT did not introduce anything to help with the player retention. We might argue about whether specific features did or did not drive players away, but on the whole the picture is clear – what was supplied was not what the community as a whole (instead of just small subgroups of that community) wanted.

Vayne.8563:

This game would need to do a lot worse to be dying. But it’s definitely slumping.

Agreed. It’s not dying yet, but at that moment this “yet” is becoming more and more a danger that devs should worry about.

Vayne.8563:

A long content draught with nothing but raids will do that to you.

Especially when it’s arguable whether raids even helped here, or whether they added to the other problems.