(edited by Devata.6589)
New bigger open maps and mounts are great to get. Both things that I wanted and should be in vanilla imho. What I am however afraid of is that the mounts (different skins) will again become one of the cash-shop items (just like gliders). Sure with masteries there still is content linked to the mounts. But the idea of going into the world to find and catch and earn and build mounts is dead if mounts will be yet another cash-shop item. Exactly what happened with mini’s and skins and toys in this game. Let’s hope they did learn from the mistakes but I fear for it. It’s simply how monetization works in GW2 and with that much of the fun about those things (collecting them) is gone.
Would want to be positive, but it’s hard seeing how things have been going in the past.
Not to mention that imho many of these improvements just come too late to really give GW2 another chance and recapture a much bigger player base like it had in the past.
But yes, let’s still end with a positive note. After years of Anet preparing players for mounts (Did anybody still Not expect to get them?) it’s great when we finally get them. Mounts are a great addition to the game!
Eh? They said it was an April Fools joke, not something done on the side intended to be separate from the game that somehow made it in.
Overloading functionality like the jump/land/slow mechanic is pretty common, and creating a “category” would have required either premptive knowledge that a mod like SAB would exist (evil, evil over design) or, probably, a massive undertaking affecting their core engine to introduce now… And only a feature used by SAB.
I think the solution they came up with to update all of the places where SAB hooks into and overrides GW2 is a perfectly good one; sometimes you must make the best of what you have.
Incidentally, at my shop people are adding a new game to an engine, and it has been decided to totally redo the engine because Reasons. Naturally, all of the back end stuff this engine hooks into remains the same. Moving forward, we will be supporting two engines instead of one, just because someone’s ego trip required it. That’s your “category” solution right there, put into effect. God. kittening. kitten it.
I did not say they had no good reasons to do it the way they did at the time. I said that by now they should have (and probably have) come up with a more clean solution that would prevent the type of problems they had before.
And indeed the idea that it was a temporary joke could be part of that good reason. On the other hand, even in the first release the door for the second world already existed so it looked like they already played with the idea of expanding on it.
And no, using something like a category is not the same as supporting a completely different engine.
At best it’s having multiple dynamically selectable configurations for the same engine.
They should have left it in the game instead of making it a festival. I have not been playing a lot of GW2 lately and SAB was one of the things I did want to get into again, but have have been very busy lately, so did not manage to play. Now I am supposed to wait another year? It’s just yet another reason to lose interest in the game.
Making an upgrade to it every year would be a good idea. But having it only available once a year is a terrible idea. But what did Anet? They made it available once a year without an upgrade.
I can’t find the original quote now but apparently every update breaks SAB and they have to do a bunch of updates to it to get it working again. Once a year that’s feasible, but keeping it up all year round would be too much work.
I think it’s because it wasn’t originally intended to be part of the game – it was built by a small team for their own interest and they used the GW2 engine just because they worked at Anet so that’s the engine they had access to and knew how to use. So it was built however they could make it work, not how it was supposed to be done. (I want to call it a bodge job but I’m not sure anyone outside the UK would understand that.)
I know, heck I even talked about that before it was an issue in some comment. When SAB was just released a developer told (In some blog I think) that they had to do a lot of things to get SAB working. One example he gave was that normally when you fall you take damage and slow down. In SAB this should not happen so what they did was just after you did fall increasing the speed again for x second to undo the decrease. I might have some details wrong, this was a few years ago and doing it by memory but this is close to what was told.
As a developer myself that sounds like a horror-solution (that is what I mentioned in some comment) and you know it will create a lot of problem in the future. For example, what if the default speed changes, now you temporary increase is incorrect. You should never solve a problem in such a way. In the development-world they name that a Quick and Dirty solution.
Developers sometimes get forced into doing that because of deadlines, but it’s really something you want to avoid at any time.
Later they indeed gave that as a reason for not having it in-game for a long period. That is what you are referring to, I think.
However that is imho not a good excuse. What they should have done (and maybe did?) at some point, was fixing those Quick and Dirty solution for good more dynamic solution. For example, linking that type of behavior to a category. Then when you are in SAB you will be in the SAB category and so movement will always be based on a set of rules that you created once. The PVE category uses other rules and making a change there does not effect the rules in the SAB category. So now the one does not effect the other anymore.
I don’t know if they did make such changes but I would think so knowing they wanted to use it as an festival. Else it would mean that event time before the festival they had to fix for a year of changes.
Nonetheless, I don’t see this as a good reason to only have it once a year. If they still have that issue, they should solve that. It might cost some time once, but will safe them time in the future.
They should have left it in the game instead of making it a festival. I have not been playing a lot of GW2 lately and SAB was one of the things I did want to get into again, but have have been very busy lately, so did not manage to play. Now I am supposed to wait another year? It’s just yet another reason to lose interest in the game.
Making an upgrade to it every year would be a good idea. But having it only available once a year is a terrible idea. But what did Anet? They made it available once a year without an upgrade.
players need to feel like the hero of the story.
It’s true that Anet did try to give that feeling, but I did always find that a little silly. All these stories where you are the center of attention. We all know everybody gets exactly that same story so it feels fake.
I much rather see them going fore the ‘you are one of the explorers’ approach and you all make your own story based on the things you do. Instead of this single story where we all are the hero.
Anyway, what I don’t get is how ‘the trinity’ would make that you are less of a hero or how ‘the trinity’ would make it feel more like mathematical.
Builds have always been a thing in GW2 and that is the mathematical part of the game. Also not my favorite, but it’s unrelated to a ‘trinity’. Raids push everything to the limits so including the mathematical part, but that’s about it.
And if anything a trinity makes you feel MORE like a hero (but in a good way, not in a story way) because now your contribution does matter. Without a system like that you could simply be tagging along, it would just be a big mess of DPS and you did not really have any specific role. Your role did not matter because you did not have a role.
Now lets say you are a tank and you manage to keep the boss aggro to you, you do your task well, leaving the other group to kill him. Your role / contribution clearly matters.
Same for the other roles. That was something GW2 was lacking.
Also I put the trinity between quotes because a trinity refers to tank, healer, DPS. And while roles became more of a things in GW2 with raids, they are not just the trinity. There are different type of roles. That was in fact the way Anet always intended it. They never said no roles, they said no trinity.
However that did not really worked out as planned and it turned in to full DPS. What they fixed in raids.
What I find most interesting about this thread is how people keep blaming Raids. Raids did not make that much of a difference for the game as a total, it just added a new gameplay as end-game.
The problem this game has, it had from the beginning. And it’s something that gets people bored overtime. HoT should have fixed that to keep peoples attention, but HoT did not fix it. That is why many people might feel not like playing anymore. Now that might mean it feels like it ‘lost it identity’ but in reality you simply got tired of the game. And like I said before, the reason for that was in GW2 from the beginning.
The only thing Anet / HoT did not do correct if it comes to this matter, is addressing and solving that issue. And now you are simply bored by the game and might not feel like playing. That however is not because the game has lost it’s identity. It’s because you got burned out by the game.
@Devata
Even MMOs with expansions drop over time. WoW once had 12.4 million subscribers and even after the next expansioin they never got back to that number. For the most part each subsequent expansion saw less and less people coming back.
Yes, MMO income falls over time even for the expansion models.
The launch of the first title in an MMO is often the strongest any MMO EVER is, and over the course of time they lose people until they settle into a comfortable group of people loyal to that game. At that point there are still people coming in and leaving but the loyal people tend to stay longer, as they have more invested in the game for longer. Those vested people keep MMOs alive. WoW is almost an exception to all things, but I think you’ll find with most other MMOs, from their big big year was the first year after release of the first game and they never capture that again.
You ignore the whole idea of a business plan. Some businesses are expected to make money year after year at the same levels, Some aren’t. That’s all part of a business plan.
Anet switched to an expansion model because people were talking about it nonstop on Forums and reddit, and it got to the point where it seemed the pressure to do an expansion was great. I don’t think they planned to do it. I think they were forced to do it by popular opinion.
Which is why HOT launched in the state it did, incomplete, with other features coming. They started working on it too late, and there’s no evidence that they started it because of the numbers in the quarterly report.
It’s not about if incomes drops but if it drops to a point where it becomes a problem, where they have to decrease the dev-team, but also where the player-base it getting so small that you might up with empty maps and so on.
And yes not every business model is supposed to keep making money over a longer period, but for consumers MMO’s usually are supposed to go along many years.
“Anet switched to an expansion model because people were talking about it nonstop on Forums and reddit, and it got to the point where it seemed the pressure to do an expansion was great. I don’t think they planned to do it. I think they were forced to do it by popular opinion.” You might think that, but based on the numbers and Anet statements I think it’s more likely they where forced because of those numbers. Sure, the fact that many people asked for an expansion did then help to get that switch. But at the same time, the fact that people asked is because they Living World approach did not work. Again, the Living World approach was supposed to replace the expansions. If people where asking for expansions that means the LW was not able to replace the expansions.
Anyway, I am sure you have said all these things before, and I answered the same things to you before and on that you answered again and so on, and so on. So instead of making this some circular discussion between us again I better just let the thread go on. I did not leave my comment to get into another discussion with you again especially not as the discussion is already on the forum in older posts.
I do appreciate it that you always seem to comment on my comments. I guess you think I am a great person to debate with or something.
2016 – NCsoft boasts a record year on PC and mobile
http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/52118/ncsoft-revendique-annee-record-pc-mobiles#reactions
French website use a translator
Not sure if you are aware but NCsoft makes more than GW2…
I think there knocking on GW2 just look at those numbers represented on the charts. They are all going steadily upwards and increasing with the exception of Aion and Gw2. Gw2 is worse of because those numbers represent the hatred shown to HoT because we see Gw2 at 86 prior to HoT, 101 for people giving it a try, and then it falls lower than it even started out as new and old players found that HoT left a bad taste in there mouth with the lowest of the three at 77.
If they wanted to post something positive about gw2 they would have waited to see what LS3 has accomplished instead of showing of how great the Blade and Soul/Lineage apps are going to be for NCsoft.
I was surprised seeing this thread up again. Few more weeks and Q1 results will be released.
Anyway, numbers had already been dropping a year long before the announcement of HOT. When it was announced (and later released) the numbers did go up again. But if you where to continue the dropping line from pre-HoT-announcement then we would now be in a similar place with the results.
So I think based on that you can not say HoT was the problem. Imho HoT was not able to solve the problem that preexisted HoT. That is at least also what the numbers seem to suggest.
Except that game income for MMOs without expansions over time is generally expected to fall over time anyway and for all we know there isn’t a problem. The problem is that an older game makes less money than when it was new? That’s a problem virtually all MMOs have.
The expansion was supposed to stem that tide and it did, but only for a very very short period of time. It didn’t do its job.
In order for you to say that it was a problem prior to the expansion being released, you’d need to know if Anet thought it was a problem. I don’t particularly think they did.
I was in the gaming industry on the selling side and I can tell you it’s a rare game of ANY kind that continues to make the same money as it did the first year.
“Except that game income for MMOs without expansions over time is generally expected to fall over time anyway and for all we know there isn’t a problem.”
GW2 was using the “Living World” approach as a substitute for expansions. And those Living World patches where released while results where dropping. Now don’t get me wrong, I did not believe in that approach (I think you did defend it multiple times right?) and said from the beginning they should go for expansions. But they approach was to have that Living World as substitute to expansions.
So numbers where not supposed to drop even without expansions. But maybe that approach was the pre-existing-problem. Who knows. I have my ideas about what the issue was / is but that is not what it is about. Numbers did go down while they where not supposed to go down. Then HoT came to solve the dropping numbers and they succeeded in that by creating a temporary bump but eventually where not able to get rid of the downtrend.
“The expansion was supposed to stem that tide and it did, but only for a very very short period of time. It didn’t do its job.” That is what I was saying.
“In order for you to say that it was a problem prior to the expansion being released, you’d need to know if Anet thought it was a problem. I don’t particularly think they did.” Yes they did see it as a problem. They said multiple times they wanted to go for the living world approach (while an expansion still was on the table).
A very clear statement was here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-03-its-unlikely-guild-wars-2-will-ever-get-an-expansion-pack
“"If we do this right," he answered, “we will probably never do an expansion and everything will be going into this Living World strategy.””
So clearly they did not get it right.
“I was in the gaming industry on the selling side and I can tell you it’s a rare game of ANY kind that continues to make the same money as it did the first year.” You have been in a lot of industries. Anyway, I was not really comparing it to the first year. As you might remember, in thread where I put all numbers together I did even remove or lowered that initial bump to get more realistic numbers over-time.
Basically, if you start looking at Q1 2013 (after initial bump) it dropped until a bump again in Q4 2013 and then it did keep dropping until the HoT announcement.
So forget about Q3 and Q4 2012 and then you still see the dropping line pre-HoT-announcement I was talking about.
2016 – NCsoft boasts a record year on PC and mobile
http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/52118/ncsoft-revendique-annee-record-pc-mobiles#reactions
French website use a translator
Not sure if you are aware but NCsoft makes more than GW2…
I think there knocking on GW2 just look at those numbers represented on the charts. They are all going steadily upwards and increasing with the exception of Aion and Gw2. Gw2 is worse of because those numbers represent the hatred shown to HoT because we see Gw2 at 86 prior to HoT, 101 for people giving it a try, and then it falls lower than it even started out as new and old players found that HoT left a bad taste in there mouth with the lowest of the three at 77.
If they wanted to post something positive about gw2 they would have waited to see what LS3 has accomplished instead of showing of how great the Blade and Soul/Lineage apps are going to be for NCsoft.
I was surprised seeing this thread up again. Few more weeks and Q1 results will be released.
Anyway, numbers had already been dropping a year long before the announcement of HOT. When it was announced (and later released) the numbers did go up again. But if you where to continue the dropping line from pre-HoT-announcement then we would now be in a similar place with the results.
So I think based on that you can not say HoT was the problem. Imho HoT was not able to solve the problem that preexisted HoT. That is at least also what the numbers seem to suggest.
I can tell you that this is one of my main reasons I don’t really play when I log in, not on the mains at least. I am always somewhat of a hoarder, so inventory management has always been a pain in this game. But now, also with the daily chests it’s completely mad. Simply for having logged in a few times to chat a little, I did get free chests. Then I did not open them because of limited bag-space. But after 3 chests or so? The next one opens automatically it seems. So that filed up my bag. Now if I log in on those alts I have filled bags, multiple chest in the left corner and a ‘overflow’ window with items.
I do not want to start fixing that before I can play, so I don’t play on them.
Now obviously the blame is partly with me, on the other hand, while being a hoarder I can’t say I have had this problem in other MMO’s and when I play a game I don’t want to spend my time managing inventory.
As long as storage space is a profit item on the gem store, expect this trend to continue.
Ah yeah, another example of how the cash-shop focus negatively effects the game itself.
It’s also completely mad how they have many recipes that require like 1000 of some math, but the default max stack is 250, and then they sell items to increase that. How cheat. When you require 100 of x math in recipes, then you should also allow to stack to that number by default. I remember that before you could buy them and they started to drop in those recipe’s I wanted to make a topic about that requesting it. But before I made the topic they already dropped in that item in the cash-shop.
Well, here is the thing, Arenanet appears to have changed their business model to an expansion focused one.
Problem is they have not marketed themselves this way at all.They believe in a say little policy, do a lot. The problem with that is, if your focus is on expansions, people need to know that and be getting hints constantly. Essentially you need to promote big content releases.
No, it does not look like they are going for that model, while they should have done that from the beginning imho.
If you simply look at the cash-shop, for example at the gliders, by far most are limited time available cash-shop items. In a true expansion-based model the cash-shop would play almost no role.
LS3 is something they try to sell, just as many skins that keep being added there.
Also if they would truly focus on expansions they would need to push one out every year to year and a half. We are now 1 year and 4 months after HoT and have no news yet about the release of the next expansion.
So they are clearly still depending on the cash-shop as main source of income, while it seems that is getting harder overtime. That was to be expected.
It seems more that they noticed that they cash-shop only approach did not work anymore, so they added expansion as an additional source of income and a way to attract players who then spend money in the cash-shop.
But I agree with you that if they should go for an expansion-based model, they should market that also . That creates some acceptance for some decisions, like a higher price for the expansion and less content between the expansions.
Exclusive rewards for content is a good thing imho. Problem is not that raids have it, problem might be that other content does not have it so much.
I did not hear many raiders complain about the raid-content. I do hear many non-raiders complain about raids getting to much attention, and complaining about the content they get. Maybe Anet should handle the rest of the game as they handle raids?
Nonetheless, I do not think all attention go’s to raids. But the raid-team might be able to push out more content then other teams. (Or not more, but content that lasts longer)
No it’s not.
GW2 is mostly a casual focused game, it should not have such thing at all. It’s dumb to spend their limited source to raid content.
Also for casual gamers that is a good thing. If you like to hunt down mini’s (something a casual gamer might like), its still better do have to complete different type of content for that, then simply grind your brains out for currency to buy it.
I feel that ArenaNet, although many people argue they were unable to deliver on what they promised, have delivered what they promised with HoT. People keep comparing LS3 to HoT, as if they are separate stories, but this is part of the expansion. Purchasing HoT purchases the continued living story updates, whereas someone who has not purchased the expansion will not have access to the new raids OR to LS3. What does this mean? Everything we are playing now, is still part of the HoT expansion, simply due to the fact that people who do not own the expansion are not able to play LS3.
For example, if I played the free game today, and decided to purchase Heart of Thorns, I would find it a remarkable amount of content! Many new legendaries, 8 new maps, several different raids, and so many masteries. It seems that they have at this point, the expansion is definitely worth the money, especially because of what it promises.
Comparing this game to other games strikes me as unfair, simply because ArenaNet’s design philosophies are so different from the philosophies of other games that currently exist. Lack of a gear treadmill, consistent story releases every three months that comes with a host of content and game updates, and consistently new raids and legendaries being added; this has always been the design philosophy of ArenaNet in Guild Wars 2, and I have no idea what other games have successfully followed a similar philosophy. Every other game I can think of follows a much more money-gated expansion mentality that releases huge amounts of content and then slowly dies down in activity, with spare patches in between to keep some semblance of relevance in the market.
Despite what quarterly reports say, I refuse to believe that ArenaNet is sitting on or has exceeded a Point of No Return, and I think they will find it in themselves to do well again, even if it takes another expansion.
However, that they used a different design philosophy is not an excuse if people don’t like it. Maybe that different design philosophy was then the problem instead of an excuse?
It is also not true that this approach has always been there. LS was something they came with after release of the game. Not that that really matters.
Also if you consider LS3 as part of HoT (what I think is a good idea, in an expansion based model as I would like to see it, you also have at least one bigger content-patch just between the two expansions) you cannot charge money for that LS. But they do. Ofcourse the expansion should be the bulk of the content.
Personally I am afraid they have passed a Point of No Return. Results were dropping before HoT and I really did see HoT and the first half year after it as their (last) opportunity to turn things around.
That is also why I became a lot less active on the forums after HoT, in my mind any suggestions made at that point (considering development-time) would be to late anyway.
Now I do see one out, and that would be GW3, but even that is questionable.
Obviously I do not think the game will literally die / servers closing. But it simply reaches a lower state and is not running at the state it had the ability to operate on.
But that is also why I find it interesting to see what other people think about that from where we are now.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Again, you’re not really answering his question … even if the content was your preferred kind of grind, it would be unlikely that an MMO would generate content so quickly that it would keep you hooked. The hook isn’t that you get mats, the hook is that it’s fun to play. Even you can’t convince anyone that getting your 100th of a specific mat drop is what engages you as a player. We’ve all been there and done that … it’s no different than getting gold at some point.
I think I was answering the question. The question was not about how no MMO was able to keep a game fun for a long time. There are many successful MMO’s that are very old. So their players find it ‘fun’ for all this time.
But your correct, the content itself should be fun. On the other hand, I do think the reward should also be fun. In an MMO the two compliment each other imho. You need both.
I think the problem was the direction, hardcore and raid should never be the focus of this game.
But is it the focus of this game? I don’t think it is. Yes there where more raid patches in the first period after HoT then other type of patches, but that might simply be because it’s from another team who might be able to release it faster.
The HoT maps are harder for solo-players but that has imho more to do with the fact that they wanted to make group-content then because they wanted to make it more hardcore.
I can not say the game as total now suddenly has a focus on HC content. You do think that is the case? And what do you base that on?
Yes, the new content is mostly about raids, they even have elusive stories, backpacks and minis.
Exclusive rewards for content is a good thing imho. Problem is not that raids have it, problem might be that other content does not have it so much.
I did not hear many raiders complain about the raid-content. I do hear many non-raiders complain about raids getting to much attention, and complaining about the content they get. Maybe Anet should handle the rest of the game as they handle raids?
Nonetheless, I do not think all attention go’s to raids. But the raid-team might be able to push out more content then other teams. (Or not more, but content that lasts longer)
I’d like to some examples of MMOs that can generate content so quickly that it can keep you hooked to it forever, without Grind ou TimeGates….
There isn’t! Wow has been surviving of returning players to expansions for years!I know we should always demand more and better, and that’s right, but there are things that are almost impossible to keep popping out constantly, mainly in a game as big as GW2.
Well, there is a grind and there is grind. When you grind some currency to buy what you need, that is really boring. When you are specifically farming for 1 item and need to farm other content for other items it is imho already not as bad.
Also traditional quests can keep you busy a long time combine that with many festivals. A combination of that can keep people busy.
But more important, if expansions are keeping the game alive that is fine. It;s basically the system I would love to see, an MMO that works based on expansion-releases like GW1 did.
Afther the thread looking at GW2 results over a longer period ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/first that is now closed so save to link), I did want to have a look at the results for Q4 2016 and Q1 of 2017.
In that thread some people though it was too much of an ‘I told you so’ statement, well sadly this time I have to say ‘I was wrong’.
The results of Q4 did just get released, you can find them here: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/prfile.aspx?ID=9DE70054-C1F4-43C2-842B-8A228757B8D6
I expected Q4 to go up with it being Q4, shorter days, more vacation, Halloween, Wintersday and a lot of the season 3 release. Sadly I was wrong, Q4 2016 had even lower results the the two before.At least the ‘It’s because the lack of content’ argument as reason for lower results can now be completely shredded.
It’s really sad because the core of the game is really good.
Other than the ‘problem’ that the game has, there is an addition problem now, its how do you get the people back.
For example, the upcoming patch is really something we should have had much sooner, simply because of the location of the map, that is something that interests people. But those that left will not be likely to come back to see it at this point.
I always did think that HoT and the first half year after it was basically when Anet had to solve the problem because even if they fixed it now, people are just not here / coming back to see it. The only way I could see many people coming back if is the next expansion would be marketed as GW3 but that would be really bad if the next expansion is nothing like a GW3.
Edit: Clarification about the ‘lack of content, shredder’ comment in my first post\/.
I guess the main reason why i will mostly never come back is that it seems in all
new content i have to use those gliding stuff and that means i first am forced to
grind in HoT .. and i simply don’t want to go there.Oh .. and still no new armor sets .. just boring outfits.
Funny, I did run into a similar problem. Completing VB did not gave you all abilities you needed to complete the next map, so you could not 100% complete that, even after having completed it as far as you could. So you did go to the next map where you had the same problem and after having completed that as far as possible you still had not what you needed to complete the previous map. So in order to do that you basically had to start grinding to get all the required masteries. Now if I dislike something, it’s grinding, especially a currency (what xp is). So I did go back the the old maps and never unlocked more masteries.
It’s a similar problem as when you complete a map for level x, but after completing it you are not yet the required level for the next map. That is bad design imho. While it was likely deliberate as they wanted you to hang around in those maps, usually not a problem, but with all these group events it is a problem for people who prefer solo-play.
The mods shut the last one down because it became an infinite loop of the same binary discussion where both sides simply restated their OPINION at the other. All we can do, and could ever do, is supply theories as to why there was a drop in income in 2015 before HoT to income in 2016 after HoT.
It’s all reading tea leaves, entrails and runes to determine reasons since ALL we have as fact is the INCOME numbers from the quarterly statements.
While that was happening, it’s not complely true. New information did come in that thread overtime. Like the https://gw2efficiency.com/
analysis of maddoctor and the more detailed reports that another person found, and somebody was just to do a more detailed analysis before that thread was close. So while some discussions where going in a loop, there was also overall progression.Anyway, lets not go back to that thread. I linked it here simply because it showed the data from pre Q4 2016. But this thread is not supposed to be an extension of that thread so please lets just talk about Q4 2016 again. Why people think they are what they are and what has to be done to get them higher.. if anything needs to be done. Maybe people think it’s fine like this.
That is what this thread is about.
That analysis has at least two problems. First it requires self reporting. Players sign up to use that site, it doesn’t represent a balanced sampling of the player base.
Second just because players have item A and not B doesn’t mean they stopped playing altogether. It just means they haven’t bothered playing on those maps that drop B. They may have left, they may now be busy with real life so they don’t play as frequently as they once had or they rather play in core Tyria because VB put them off HoT when it first dropped.
The point was that new information was added, it was not only going into circles or a ‘done thread’. Seeing how multiple people sort of use this thread as a continuations of that (what try not to do!) shows that.
That not all new information was complete of perfect is true. It never is. But threads like that one and this one do use information that is more that just discussions about what somebody likes. That is also why I personally find these threads interesting.
For the rest, what maddoctor said.
The other thread was trying to see where we came from and where did go. This thread is more where we are now (with the results of Q4 2016) what people think are the reasons for it, what should change and how to get people back. I am truly interested in seeing other peoples vision on that.
All threads are about ideas. The reason given for it being closed could be used for any thread, and the true reason could be found in the first statement “This started out, a month ago”.
Except the mods don’t close just any thread because of the reason given, even if it’s applicable to many of them that exists. Think about that.
Indeed, they will not say “I did not like it” even if that is the reason. (just as one example ; ) But what is your point?
(edited by Devata.6589)
By the way, saying, “… income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost.” betrays a lack of understanding of how an XPac business model works.
That sentence was not about the XPac business model. It was about Vaynes claim that HoT sold badly.
Did you do the math? No? I didn’t think so.
Math about what? Vaynes claim?
The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.
I’m sorry can you offer evidence for this, because this isn’t my experience. Some people will always buy the expansion no matter what. Some people will wait to see what the first people say.
In this case the publicity long before launch due to the price and not saying how many zones would be in the expansion and also, due to the character slot not being included even though a new profession was. Those two things took a lot of the wind out of the expansion’s sales.
This statement, as far as I can tell, is just your opinion.
It´s my experience. GW2 sold good, not because it was good (And it was good) but also because Guild Wars and ArenaNet did get a good name with Guild Wars 1. Once a game is well received an expansion is likely to sell well, but if the expansion itself then turns out to be bad, the next expansion will not sell so well.
You talk a lot about the negative feedback of HoT and how that resulted in ‘lackluster sales’. I think HoT not fixing the issues many people had is more likely to have an effect on the next expansion.
It’s not so much my opinion. If it works like that is true or false, it’s not an opinion. When you look at game-sales it seems to be how it works. This is also exactly where many inverters go wrong. They look at the sales of the last game and based on that they invest in a sequel.
That does not mean a bad game or expansion is the end. Especially when the game has a long positive history people are more forgiving. If the next game or expansion gets positive reviews people might buy it after-all, while not on release day.
There’s faulty logic here. Even if Guild Wars 2 sold originally because of the good name of Guild Wars 1, you’re talking about a sequel game and not an expansion. Sequel games have a ton of hype around them. There was huge hype for the original game. It was plugged for well over a year before it every came out. There were playable demos at shows. It was talked about infinity in great detail. It was advertised more strongly.
HoT on the other hand, came out when the game had no momentum. The playerbase was already unsettled. Some left early on when ascended gear was introduced because they felt it was a betrayal.
Also the HoT launch was drawn out. There was very little to say but a lot of time to say it (unlike the core game). So I’m not so sure you can draw a parelel between a new game and an expansion.
And the original launch didn’t have the misteps that the HoT announcement did on top of that.
It’s just, in my opinion, an unwarranted assumption.
You can say that if a game is popular it’s likely it’s expansion will sell more than it would have if it weren’t popular.
But Guild Wars 2 has found a loyal core base of players that was considerably lower than it’s launch numbers. There are enough people who enjoy this game for what it is to keep the game going indefinitely.
But that doesn’t necessarily bring automatic sales to the expansion.
Those like me were always going to buy it, no matter what, because I want to continue moving forward in the game. I want the story and the new zones. I want access to everything.
There are also plenty of people who play casually who haven’t even done all the dungeons yet, or who have ever set foot in a fractal. Those casual players might not even be aware the expansion is coming until the expansion hits. And some of those people won’t buy the expansion without looking at what’s being said about it.
Clearly, from looking at what was being said about the game, prelaunch and what was being said about the expansion prelaunch, we have a different situation. I wouldn’t try to relate them at all.
Believe that it works like that, don’t believe it. I don’t care.
At the very least it’s something people should consider. Based on what I see I think it is how it works. Like I said before, obviously a bad expansion does not mean by definition that the next expansion also sells bad, multiple factors apply. But I do think it is a very important element / indicator.
It just boils down to deciding your purchase on past experience.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Then I wonder what their expectations where.
Consider that on average, they were making $18.95 million per quarter before HoT. Subtracting that, HoT bumped them up $13.57 million. Less than half of the usual sales was likely disappointing by itself. If we assume that ArenaNet was only making half the price, $25 on average per box, that’s 543,800 boxes sold (and another 307,600 the next quarter). Keep in mind it could be half that. SuperData Research estimated GW2 to have around 3.1 million active players in 2015, up from 1.5 million prior to the free client.
For comparison, post-HoT, they are making $13.39 million on average per quarter, down $5.56 million. Consider that sales are stable now with season 3, but they were also stable in the year prior to HoT when only hype was being offered.
But it was not stable until HoT was announced. They where dropping. It’s likely that HoT was the reason for the drop to stop and create a temporary stable situation. If you would have continued the drop from before HoT was announced I think you get a more honest idea of the state and that state should be compared to what HoT sales managed to do. Then I think HoT did not do bad. So I wonder what their expectations where. Maybe they expected it to do a little better, that is possible. But it just makes me wonder what they expected.
The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.
I’m sorry can you offer evidence for this, because this isn’t my experience. Some people will always buy the expansion no matter what. Some people will wait to see what the first people say.
In this case the publicity long before launch due to the price and not saying how many zones would be in the expansion and also, due to the character slot not being included even though a new profession was. Those two things took a lot of the wind out of the expansion’s sales.
This statement, as far as I can tell, is just your opinion.
It´s my experience. GW2 sold good, not because it was good (And it was good) but also because Guild Wars and ArenaNet did get a good name with Guild Wars 1. Once a game is well received an expansion is likely to sell well, but if the expansion itself then turns out to be bad, the next expansion will not sell so well.
You talk a lot about the negative feedback of HoT and how that resulted in ‘lackluster sales’. I think HoT not fixing the issues many people had is more likely to have an effect on the next expansion.
It’s not so much my opinion. If it works like that is true or false, it’s not an opinion. When you look at game-sales it seems to be how it works. This is also exactly where many inverters go wrong. They look at the sales of the last game and based on that they invest in a sequel.
That does not mean a bad game or expansion is the end. Especially when the game has a long positive history people are more forgiving. If the next game or expansion gets positive reviews people might buy it after-all, while not on release day.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Is it too late to say that this is just another really bad attempt to come to a cherry-pciked conclusion with too little data? I can’t imagine how badly someone wants the game to fail to make such a weak argument with so little information.
You really think that is the case?
Back when I was very active here, I was so because I very badly did NOT want the game to fall and I did see (in my idea) things going in a wrong way. So I did try to maybe change some ideas and prevent the game to fail.
Now I just find it interesting to follow these results and see how changes do work out. I would still love to see this game to make a come-back. While I am not anymore trying to make a change.
oow, and I am also not trying to come to a conclusion. Were in this thread do you see me do that?
I think that’s exactly the case … this thread is no more value than the last one you made, shut down by the mods, explaining clearly what made that thread so ridiculous in the first place. you’re view of what ails the game and it’s current state are skewed to your personal belief that the game is prematurely doomed to failure, all with the motive to get Anet to turn the ship around and do what you think should be done to the game. Well Nostradamus, if that’s the case, us left here are going to enjoy it to it’s fullest until the end. The fact is that it’s Anet’s prerogative to run this game into the ground if they see fit and little you say or anyone else says will change that because the reality is you are just as uninformed as the rest of us about whats going on at Anet. if anyone is most qualified to run this ship into the rocks, it’s Anet. It’s a consumer product; money will do the talking, not so speculative forum threads.
All threads are about ideas.
“you’re view of what ails the game and it’s current state” But that is not what this thread is about, and in fact it is not what that thread was about. It was what the threads over a year ago where about.
Clearly many people here know my ideas and come here debating that instead of the subject of the thread. Including you. This thread is about Q4 2016 results. Say what you want to say about that. Give your idea for the results and your ideas how to get them higher. No need to talk about my vision about how to solve it. In fact, my vision always was about how to prevent something, not how to solve it from where we are now!
“It’s a consumer product; money will do the talking, not so speculative forum threads.” Maybe that has been the core of the problem? They where so busy with making money, that they forgot what the players would like and how their process of making money interfered with that?
(edited by Devata.6589)
Look up that quote. You claim they said that, please proof it.
About HoT doing poorly? I’m going to guess this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/455vxo/ncsofts_earning_report_4q_2015_disillusioning/
In short, F2P failed to sell the game, HoT didn’t meet predictions.
… or this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4j3ntv/ncsofts_earnings_report_1q16_strong_performance/
In short, HoT didn’t meet expectations and they’ll try better next expansion.
About most people not seeing this? Only a small percentage use the forums. On one of the non-English forums they said something like less than 10%, but that’s also a general statement you can find for any MMO. Fun fact, ~184,978 accounts have posted here (forum-en) in the last ~3 years.
Then I wonder what their expectations where. I think most active players at the time did buy HoT, and ‘many’ old GW2 players did come back to buy HoT.
However, I also said a long long time ago that some irreversible damage had already been done. First I was like.. Go work on the next expansion (from like half a year after release of GW2), but when we where at about 2 years I started to make that claim. They simply waited to long with the expansion, while going for another approach / business-model.
I really wonder what their expectations where. For where GW2 was at that time, sales of HoT where good. If they expected something closer to initial sales their expectations where very unrealistic. Not that the first expansion could not have had sales coming closer to initial sales. But then things in-game should have been different and that expansion should be released like 1,5 year after GW2 was released.
That is at least what I believed and why I always was so actively advocating for that on the forums.
Looking at where we are now with the numbers of Q4 2016 expectations for the next expansion should be lower as those of HoT. If the correct changes had been made with HoT and the period just after it expectations could be at the same level as those of HoT.
The thing is, sales don’t so much depend on the quality of the expansion (or sequels), they depend much more on the history of the game.
(edited by Devata.6589)
The mods shut the last one down because it became an infinite loop of the same binary discussion where both sides simply restated their OPINION at the other. All we can do, and could ever do, is supply theories as to why there was a drop in income in 2015 before HoT to income in 2016 after HoT.
It’s all reading tea leaves, entrails and runes to determine reasons since ALL we have as fact is the INCOME numbers from the quarterly statements.
While that was happening, it’s not complely true. New information did come in that thread overtime. Like the https://gw2efficiency.com/
analysis of maddoctor and the more detailed reports that another person found, and somebody was just to do a more detailed analysis before that thread was close. So while some discussions where going in a loop, there was also overall progression.
Anyway, lets not go back to that thread. I linked it here simply because it showed the data from pre Q4 2016. But this thread is not supposed to be an extension of that thread so please lets just talk about Q4 2016 again. Why people think they are what they are and what has to be done to get them higher.. if anything needs to be done. Maybe people think it’s fine like this.
That is what this thread is about.
By the way, saying, “… income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost.” betrays a lack of understanding of how an XPac business model works.
That sentence was not about the XPac business model. It was about Vaynes claim that HoT sold badly.
The fact that it would not be a problem with an XPac business model is shown by another comment of me. " If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income." (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Quarterly-reports-Q4-2016/page/3#post6492217)
So before you try to say people have the lack of understanding of something based on a sentence, first make sure you understand the context of that sentence.
And yes, when Anet would apply a true xpac based model (what I am / was all i favor of) then low results in-between expansions are just fine.
But then you should have close to no cash-shop and periods in-between xpacs should be short. This seems not to be the case, Anet does not seem to aim for a true xpac model. If they did, things would have looked different. Who knows, maybe for the good. Results might then still have been low but feedback maybe more positive. A new xpac was then likely already announced and released or just around the corner and expected sales of that Xpac would be higher. But that’s where the problem is in my eyes. Because they did not satisfy people with HoT, I am afraid sales for the next xpac will be considerately lower.
No, income didn’t in fact get a huge boost, and it was a far smaller boost than one would expect with an expansion. What’s your definition of a “huge” boost?
Let me answer that by 2 pure facts.
1. HoT sales resulted in the highest sales since the initial two (release) quarter results.
2. Q4 2015 where almost double the results from before HoT was announced (Q4 2014).Based on that I say it’s a huge boost. Sure, it was really low compaired to the initial sale, but results where only so big in one quarter, and the first expansion came way to late. So everything considered I think the sale was pretty good and you can talk about a boost. If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income.
Yes, they sold boxes, but they stated directly that sales didn’t meet expectations. The expansion itself didn’t do well.
You made this claim multiple times in the past, but the quote you came with as proof, was that sales coming out of the F2P players where lower as expected. That is something else.
Also in that other maddoctor used https://gw2efficiency.com/ to try and find out how many of the playerbase (at least, those who use gw2efficiency did get intop HoT and then continued in HoT. Here is a link to his comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/page/4#post6427844
So we know that at least 90% of the gw2efficiency users who did play Gw2 did buy HoT.
You can repeat your claims, but the information we have simply says those claims are most likely wrong.
HoT didn’t do well, so of course, less people are playing now than would have been.
Then would have been if there was not HoT? Again, the information we have suggest else. Results where dropping before HoT announcement and if we followed that downtrend we would now be at a similar place, but likely without the (sadly) temporary bump we had.
But I agree that in the end HoT was a problem, but imho the problem was that HoT did not fix what was wrong, and it should have done that.
Anyway, now we are redoing the other thread. Let’s keep it at where we are now (with the results of Q4 2016.
I would love to know from people why they left, what people think should change to get the game ‘fixed’ and what should happen to get people back. Because honestly just an expansion is will not get as many people back as HoT did imho. Simply because many people gave up faith after HoT did not fix their issues.But GW2 efficiency pretty much became a thing after HOT came out. Most of the people most into the game are going to have it. It portends almost nothing.
We know from experience a huge majority of players never go to a website or visit a forum and those are the people most likely not to buy HoT.
Anet themselves said (and I’m paraphrasing here because I don’t remember the exact word) that sales were lacklustre.
Pretty sure they know better than you do.
Look up that quote. You claim they said that, please proof it.
Is it too late to say that this is just another really bad attempt to come to a cherry-pciked conclusion with too little data? I can’t imagine how badly someone wants the game to fail to make such a weak argument with so little information.
You really think that is the case?
Back when I was very active here, I was so because I very badly did NOT want the game to fall and I did see (in my idea) things going in a wrong way. So I did try to maybe change some ideas and prevent the game to fail.
Now I just find it interesting to follow these results and see how changes do work out. I would still love to see this game to make a come-back. While I am not anymore trying to make a change.
oow, and I am also not trying to come to a conclusion. Were in this thread do you see me do that?
No, income didn’t in fact get a huge boost, and it was a far smaller boost than one would expect with an expansion. What’s your definition of a “huge” boost?
Let me answer that by 2 pure facts.
1. HoT sales resulted in the highest sales since the initial two (release) quarter results.
2. Q4 2015 where almost double the results from before HoT was announced (Q4 2014).
Based on that I say it’s a huge boost. Sure, it was really low compaired to the initial sale, but results where only so big in one quarter, and the first expansion came way to late. So everything considered I think the sale was pretty good and you can talk about a boost. If 1 / 1,5 year later we would have a new expac with the same results (I don’t think so) you would have a good stable high income.
Yes, they sold boxes, but they stated directly that sales didn’t meet expectations. The expansion itself didn’t do well.
You made this claim multiple times in the past, but the quote you came with as proof, was that sales coming out of the F2P players where lower as expected. That is something else.
Also in that other maddoctor used https://gw2efficiency.com/ to try and find out how many of the playerbase (at least, those who use gw2efficiency did get intop HoT and then continued in HoT. Here is a link to his comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/page/4#post6427844
So we know that at least 90% of the gw2efficiency users who did play Gw2 did buy HoT.
You can repeat your claims, but the information we have simply says those claims are most likely wrong.
HoT didn’t do well, so of course, less people are playing now than would have been.
Then would have been if there was not HoT? Again, the information we have suggest else. Results where dropping before HoT announcement and if we followed that downtrend we would now be at a similar place, but likely without the (sadly) temporary bump we had.
But I agree that in the end HoT was a problem, but imho the problem was that HoT did not fix what was wrong, and it should have done that.
Anyway, now we are redoing the other thread. Let’s keep it at where we are now (with the results of Q4 2016.
I would love to know from people why they left, what people think should change to get the game ‘fixed’ and what should happen to get people back. Because honestly just an expansion is will not get as many people back as HoT did imho. Simply because many people gave up faith after HoT did not fix their issues.
I think the problem was the direction, hardcore and raid should never be the focus of this game.
But is it the focus of this game? I don’t think it is. Yes there where more raid patches in the first period after HoT then other type of patches, but that might simply be because it’s from another team who might be able to release it faster.
The HoT maps are harder for solo-players but that has imho more to do with the fact that they wanted to make group-content then because they wanted to make it more hardcore.
I can not say the game as total now suddenly has a focus on HC content. You do think that is the case? And what do you base that on?
We know th utilities are going down slowly, but to put something clear, this time they have more people working on the expa, that count as another project, one that will give profits later.
You have a point here. Where HoT did not seem to be planned ahead, the next expansion has likely already been planned even from before HoT was released. Work on it might now also already have been longer than the time they build HoT.
So that might result in a better next expansion.
That means if their costs are the same as before, some are in the new expa, meaning a drop in utilities for gw2 doesnt mean a drop in rentability.
That is also how a true expansion-based model would work and then indeed the results in-between can be very low without being a problem. But then you would need an expansion really every 1 to 1,5 year. Considering we still have no information I am guessing the next one will at best be 2 years after HoT.
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Problem does stay that people might not give the next expansion another try because the last one did not solve their problem. There is only so much people take before they give up trying / faith.
(edited by Devata.6589)
I have seen a few people suggesting that HoT might have been the problem. I don’t think this is true, however HoT should have been the solution to an existing problem and it was not the solution. It was their main opportunity to get things on track again and that failed. So they wasted that opportunity and in that way you can say it was bad.
I simply based this on the fact that results where decreasing also before HoT. If you would have followed that downtrend we would be at similar results as we are today. HoT created a bump but then we did fall back where we likely would also have been without HoT. And with one additional problem, the many people who would give GW2 one more chance with the expansion, now are not giving GW2 another chance with the next expansion. (Some will, but I think many won’t)
In fact, I think the fact that results where going down is likely the main reason we did get HoT. For a very long time there was no plan for an expansion (A big mistake according to me), and a developer even said “if we do this right, there will never be an expansion”. So their philosophy clearly was to go for the LS approach, but that did not work out. Once HoT was announced many people who might else have left, waiting for HoT, other came back for Hot. But once HoT did not solve their reason for wanting to leave or leaving they simply left after-all / again.
Sure HoT did also bring it’s own problems, but I really don’t think HoT is the main reason for GW2’s current state. HoT did also bring a lot of good things (while not all implemented perfectly). Like raids, guild-halls, new maps, gliders and so on. However, it did not bring (enough) the one thing it definitely should have… the solution to the problem(s) that GW2 was already struggling with.
Edit: My guess is the company’s perceived change of direction with regards to the way the game itself is structured is one of the bigger reasons the game hasn’t made as much money. That and the fact that HOT sales were lacklustre, which would mean the expansion model hurt the game, rather than helped it.
I could be wrong, though. There’s simply no way to tell.
HoT sales were not lackluster (F2P people buying GW2/HoT was lackluster), income did get a huge boost with HoT, it just was not able to retain that boost. Looking at the results from pre-HoT, it’s safe to say the total income would have been lower without HoT, so it’s a strange conclusion you make.
(edited by Devata.6589)
I meant to release them for free just like other LS episodes but Instead of one episode, bundle up 4 of them and call it an “expansion” to reach the headlines of news sites and gaming forums.
SW:TOR (EA Bioware) experimented with that during that game’s 2.x patch cycle. They called them “digital expansions.” The term was dropped after underwhelming response to the first two “digital expacs”
And then they can be lucky that they named it “digital expansions.”, because if they named it “expansions” and they would come with a true expansions there was also nobody to pay attention anymore imho. I really think these type of small things can be important.
Now because they named it “digital expansions.” and the reposes where underwhelming, once they talk about “Expansions” again, people are paying attention.
That is the same reason why I think GW2’s best way to get into the spotlight again is to promote their next expansion basically as GW3. But that is a risk as when they don’t deliver on that there are no more cards to play.
Not sure what the point of your threads is. They’ve gone to an expansion model, and are releasing them as soon as they are ready. I know you feel they should remove (or mostly remove) the Gem Store, but I don’t think the Studio feels that would be productive at this time, nor do I.
What more do you want from them? A ‘Devata was right’ announcement? Probably what happened to the last thread is as much acknowledgement as is forthcoming.
Good luck.
The point of this thread was to talk about the results. There has been a thread like this with almost every result every released. I just now happened to see the report before a thread was created so I created it.
It is not about what I feel they should do. Like I said to Vayne, we are passed that point.
And no, I do not need an acknowledgment.
It’s like having a huge box, filled with an unknown substance. We can speculate all day about the substance, but in this case, there’s no way to open the box to check.
Feel free to speculate. But in this case the data simply isn’t there to draw any kind of conclusion realistically. All we know is that total income is down. That’s it. It’s too complex to really get a bead on.
Pointing that out is not dismissive. It’s just factual. We can’t know this.
I have to disagree. You can shake the box, look at the shape and size of the box, way the box, look where the box came from, who gave it to you, the colors of the box. All that information can give you a better idea of what is in the box.
You don’t know for sure, but you can get an accurate idea. And in a way that is what we are doing here, and what I have been doing a long time.
It is also very important and because it helps you to at least narrow the possibilities and that is also why companies make big decisions in a similar way. There is almost never a 100% certainty about how something will work out. So they look at the information they do have and try to figure out what it means.
But let’s not make this a discussion between you and me. We have had enough of those discussions and agree to disagree on this.
Personnaly, user created content would provide me an infinite renewed interest (be it skins, dungeons, skills and what not). But even if they wre willing and able to pull it out, there are so many ways to screw also this…
In a way guild-halls do offer this with the decoration system. That does not do it for you?
Yep this thread is about how things are. You’re trying to determine WHY they are, and you don’t have the information to do so, nor have you ever had that information.
The players and ex players are likely the best source for that explanation so I just ask them here.
We know that the game isn’t making as much money as it used to, but we don’t know if that’s expected or not expected. We don’t know the expectations of the companies or the stockholders and without knowing that, there’s no way to judge it’s success.
The game is still successsful, even having had its lowest quarter. At least I think it is. I don’t really see any reason to believe otherwise.
Great how you keep doing that (dismissing people ideas because they can’t be factually proven while making a lot of claims yourself), even here where you end once sentence telling there is no way to judge it’s success, trying to dismiss somebodies opinion or data. And then making a similar claim yourself.
I mean.. look at this " there’s no way to judge it’s success. The game is still successsful, even having had its lowest quarter."
Anyway, it might still be successful from the investors perspective, I think it makes perfect sense that the more income, and the more stable the income, the better is is for the game and so the player. So dropping results is something you would not want to see. Even if the investor is happy because he made his money.
You’re trying to make a point using this as data.
uhm.. no? I am not trying to make a point in this thread. It’s just about sharing opinions and discussing data.
I am passed the try making a point. I did do that when I did think it was still useful if things changed and so making my point could be helpful. But I do find it interesting to look at this data and see people opinions and ideas, and than looking back ad old data and in the future looking back at what people are saying now and what did happen. That is interesting to me. If you do that a lot you might train yourself at predicting trends.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Question for people who put their reasons for leaving, or their vision why results are going down, here.
What do you think that has to change (and how) to get the game good again, and then how to get people back?
Because even if it is good, if there is nobody to see, it’s not helping.
It would be interesting to also see that in the comments.
There is nothing wrong with horizontal progression. In MMORPG’s I always go for horizontal progression. The problem here is that GW2 is built upon horizontal progression and so draws people who like horizontal progression and then monetizes horizontal progression. That is why I say, selling skins in a game like GW2 is just as kittenelling power in a PvP game (known as P2W). So basically GW2 is P2W where winning is getting the best skin.
This is not a popular thing to say, but it’s what it boils down to.
When you have a gear treadmill people usually have to do all sorts of content to get the best armor (usually different dungeons and raids). GW2 is about horizontal progression so things like skins (not only, also mounts and toys and so on can be part of horizontal progression). But then most of the best skins are in the gem-store or at least there is not one specific road (quest / challenge) to get them.
So it means buying (what is not playing) or it means grinding some currency (mainly gold but this game has been flooded with currencies, and if any mechanism of getting something is boring, it are grinding currencies). Then people get bored by this ‘horizontal progression’. You can then say “but when you can get it with gold you can play the content you like, to get the gold”. In reality that is now how it works. People will look for whatever results in the most gold. The link between reward and content is lost. There is no clear road towards the rewards it other than grind currency. So they go for the only road there is (grind), and then get bored. That is at least my philosophy.
There are also some examples in GW2 where this horizontal progression is implemented as it should have been for almost all rewards, like how the horizontal part of raids functions. There is specific content, and for that content there is a reward. So it creates a goal for people and a road towards that goal. And for every reward there is different content (another wing / raid).
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Interesting to see some of these comments. My main complain about the game always was the cash-shop focus. I did not expect many people still on the forums that complain about the direct effects of it (because they left). And in fact when I did bring that up usually I get a reaction like ‘I don’t see many people complain about that’.
But now in this thread I see multiple people who complain exactly about the things I consider a consequence of that focus. Sind Bowdragon namens a few of those things (especially “This created an adventure vacuum.” that is the lack of goals I mentioned many times as a consequence), just as DeeSystm and Einlanzer names a few of those things. There is also another thread at this moment https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/a-world-with-no-transmutation-charges/page/1 that hits the same subject.
Interesting to still see people here who have / see those same issues (even if they don’t talk about the focus itself).
I don’t understand this “Every living story episode that is being released will have a certain time that you need to log in into the game in order to obtain it if you missed this opportunity than youll have to buy the episode”.
Does someone mind explaining? So does this apply for, let’s say, someone who has HoT and has logged in before episode 4 came out but won’t log on for a few days after its release?
Ah, it is 2 months now. Was already wondering as I know people who did not log in during all episodes but who do have all episodes unlocked.
Back when they first announced this approach with LS2 I advised against it. The problem is that it’s not an expansion and so many people are less willing to spend money on it.
However at the same time they feel they are missing part of the game if they don’t have it.
So they have to buy it while they do not want to, or they have to grind for it (as if the game has not enough grind yet) or they feel they are missing essential parts of the game they are playing.
If it’s a real expansion I feel people are more willing to spend money on it. So these patches in-between should be paid for with the last expansion imho. But that only works if you earn your money with those expansions, not if you depend a lot of in game sales.
Also the only people who get this problem are new or returning players. Maybe the idea once was that people would log in to get them for free and so did stay active. But the reality is that people might also not log in and once they missed a few episodes you create another reason for them to not come back or have something they dislike when they are back.
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I log in once every two weeks since around 3 months. I used to play every day, but now I will probably also only come back on patchday at least for now. I will probably order another expansion, but I am not buying stuff I don´t need or want.
I also re-learned from the class primus that needing a tank and a healer makes people more forgiving when they need someone for their group and I don´t have to open up my wallet to change my gear, farm for 30+ days or play garbage I hate if there are options in other games where you are “come as who you are as long as you can heal or tank” .
HoT was hastily assembled together from two or three episodes of ls 2 after an emergency meeting and had to be heavily cut on the ginish line to meet the deadline, I am still sure about that.
One of the worse options imho. Even if they come back (I am not sure if an expansion does it now because they already left after HoT, I think only ‘GW3’ would trigger a lot of people to come back) they will then be dissatisfied about what there is. Even if Anet fixes all the issues left and manages to have a good LS setup, people would expect an expansion and will not get that.
Really the only way I can see it happen is if they would announce the next expansion as basically being GW3, but even then it also has to be different enough to be GW3 or people will be dissatisfied again. And that would then really be the last opportunity. If they would sell it as GW3 and it’s not GW3 (in many people’s eyes) then the name ArenaNet and the name Guild Wars are pretty much dead in the water for the big public.
So it’s tricky, but I really wonder if even the announcement of a new expansion would be enough to get enough people back and if it does and what they get is not an expansion they will be dissatisfied again. (Even if what they get is good, if it’s not an expansion when you promised an expansion that is bad).
Anyway, I don’t want tis thread to become a discussion between us two. It’s interesting to also see other people’s ideas about the subject and the results.
And that is not because of bad patches because I think this episode 4 is really good, and many people have praised the whole season 3, however that other episodes were also not able to get people back.
The patches are good and LS3 is an improvement over LS2 and/or LS1, at least in my opinion. Maybe players ARE coming back to the game but they are not paying, the problem is elsewhere. The amount of “returning player” posts on these forums is also on the rise.
As an example of “another” reason, there is no doubt that players are becoming richer, it gets easier and easier to get gold in the game, despite the high requirement of some crafting materials. Yet since June 2016 (with some spikes here and there) the price of gems has been falling while previously it was climbing at a steady pace. If players are getting richer, but the price is falling, doesn’t that show that there is less interest for items on the gem store?
That could be a reason. And that might also correlate with those people who are left being more positive about the game.
However if Anet is not generating (enough) money with the gem-store they need to generate it some other way and it still does not look like they go to the expansion-based model I have been hoping for. If they did I expected an expansion 1 to 1,5 years between each other.
We are already 15 months after the release of HoT but so far no news about the next expansion.
So financially (what we are looking at here) it’s still an issue.
And like I said before, even if they manage to fix the problems with GW2, I think that now it will be at least so hard to get players back.
Well if other games are have less ‘free’ content and if they are better at retaining people (what might or might not be true depending on the game) with expansions then that might be what works better for many people.
Let’s take a look at those other games then.
The first one in numbers of revenue is Lineage. To my knowledge the game is still subscription based and is only active in Korea. I have no idea how expansions work with this one.
The second is Blade & Soul. B&S is free to play with an optional premium membership. “Expansions” have no cost.
Third one is Lineage II. Lineage II is also free to play, no cost for expansions, with an online marketplace.
Next up is Aion. Aion, just like the others, is free to play with free expansions and a cash shop again.
So all the games that surpass Guild Wars 2 in revenue have no paid expansions and the only NCSoft game on that list with paid expansions is Guild Wars 2…
I was talking in general, not about the NCSoft games specifically. In fact especially not about those games.
My comment was to EdgarMTanaka.7291 who said “Many other more non-korean MMO-games does not give half as much content for free as what Anet gives GW2.”
The games you now refer to are mostly focused on Korean. There people seem to me fine with heavy grind games. In that case this might indeed work.
You know I say I think this approach leads to grind what burns people out. Well here that might be true, in Korea that might not be true.
You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.
Raids was just a very small part of the expansion compared to the other 99% that isn’t all that challenging.
Personally I thought he was referring to the harder hitting and more tightly packed trash mobs that made moving through the maps harder. Lots of complaints were about that.
Ah, but that was not based making it more hardcore. They wanted to get people to play together, because this is an MMO and there people are supposed to play together according to Anet at least. They talked about that during the presentation of HoT.
You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.
I don’t think the price itself was a problem, but this game is being handles as a cash-shop-game and for a cash-shop game that price is indeed too high. If the game was more focused on expansions from the beginning (and we also had more expansions by now) the same price would not have been an issue imho.
It’s like Anet wants to have the cake and eat it to.
I don’t think this ‘focus on HC’ is true or the problem. Yes we did get raids for that group, and it happens to be the part of the content that did get most attention lately. But I don’t think Anet really shifted to that, they simply added it.
More hard core is something you do hear a lot lately indeed, then again those that have left are not here to complain about their reasons for leaving. You know I still blame the grind (and some mistakes like no seamless zones and no traditional quests). But whatever it is, it needs to get fixed and then they need to find a way to get players back.
Strange that you name things that were never a draw of this game as something that would make players come back. That seems more something that would simply draw other new players.
No new content is never an argument that can be shredded though. Nor any vaguely viable argument. It is all a factor in the whole thing.
I think for me Kartels reason for playing less rings the most true and also brings to light something that is hard to fix. Familiarity and the rate at which something becomes routine is much faster. So a new map is played through in a few days. And the content light but tech heavy expansion HoT is attributing to that.
The focus of ArenaNet should be playing on their strong points in content and less on upgrading old content. And hopefully they will bring lots of things to do in the next expansion and find a routine of bringing lots of content to us so that there is things to play.
I must say that I have a fairly hard time determining what GW2s strong point is though. And I think even ArenaNet has a hard time deciding what that is considering they keep coming with new ideas and new systems every so often. (Unless that is their strong point that keeps players interested.)
Yeah, I think some problems where here form the beginning and still exist. Did you see how good GW2 initially sold, but then it made a huge drop and ended up on a way lower level.
People complain about nothing to do, well if you have many quest / quest-chains with its own rewards that can already give you a lot to do. But it also helps to get more of a binding with the world what helps you to return to the game even if you did leave.
The last is also true for seamless zones. In the new map there is this broken kitten , but you can’t go to the other side, there is an invisible wall. We can finally see DR from another side but not walk in there. This all does not help getting a bound with the world and so does not help to keep people in the game or get them back.
Getting players to feel like they are part of the world is important, and for that you need to draw them into the world. Talking with NPC’s and helping them (quests) or simply walking from one zone into a new one can go a long way. I still have memories from walking into new zones in other MMO’s and it’s that what you need to retain players but also get them to return.
Yes the issues I mention are there pretty much from the beginning, results have also been dropping pretty much from the beginning.
But then we go too much into things I see as a problem with the game, something I wanted not to go into too much in this thread. Many people already know what I see as the biggest issues with GW2.
About the ‘lack of content’, I did already clarify what I did mean with that exactly.
At least the ‘It’s because the lack of content’ argument as reason for lower results can now be completely shredded.
No the argument still stands and you explained why:
But those that left will not be likely to come back to see it at this point.
and also:
I always did think that HoT and the first half year after it was basically when Anet had to solve the problem because even if they fixed it now, people are just not here / coming back to see it.
Having such a lack of content after the release of HoT, and an equal content drought before HoT, is where the “lack of content” argument is coming from. The lack of content hurts the game long term.
It’s the same reason why the results of HoT weren’t as good as some expected. Huge content drought before HoT was released and a rather lacking LS2 led to many players leaving and not enough coming back to check out HoT.
The “lack of content” argument will remain forever as a reminder to the higher ups to never do it again for any reason.
If the arguments still stands and the reason simply is because people don’t return then we should have seen the same in the past, but we did not. Season 2 had lower results as the period after season 2. So back then people did return… just not for season 2 but more likely for the HoT announcement.
I do think it’s harder to get people to return at this time simply because they did come back for HoT, then got bored again and now don’t have faith in the game / company anymore. But the idea that lack of content is not the main issue is not only based on this data but also on older data from when people were still more willing to return.
Nonetheless, it still seems to show the LS approach is not working very well. They are not able to push them out all the time and the content is not able to get back people who did leave. And that is not because of bad patches because I think this episode 4 is really good, and many people have praised the whole season 3, however that other episodes were also not able to get people back.
“Having such a lack of content after the release of HoT, and an equal content drought before HoT, is where the “lack of content” argument is coming from. The lack of content hurts the game long term.”
Of course HoT was the content and many games have a ‘lack of content’ after an expansion but there it is less of a problem because the next expansion is on the horizon again.
Lack of content can hurt a game on the long term, however if expansions are close enough they should be able to solve that especially for the long term. And if the expansion is able to provide enough content and you have some smaller patches in-between that can fix the shorter term.
“It’s the same reason why the results of HoT weren’t as good as some expected. Huge content drought before HoT was released and a rather lacking LS2 led to many players leaving and not enough coming back to check out HoT.”
I did not hear many complains about the HoT results, other than that they did not get as many of the F2P players to buy the game as they hoped. In fact HoT did get back many people (something the LS does not seem to exceed in as well). So that was able to overcome the ‘content drought’ before to some extent. While I agree, they waited way to long with the first expansion what did do some irreversible damage.
They did believe too much in the LS approach and while going for that approach (season 2) results did only keep dropping. So then they had to come up with another plan (expansion) what was a little late and possible had to be rushed.
“The “lack of content” argument will remain forever as a reminder to the higher ups to never do it again for any reason.”
Sure, that is fine, but the real question is then what people (the masses) consider lack of content. Maybe for them these LS-patches is still ‘lack of content’ and what they need is good expansions with some love in-between. That is what I think at least.
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