I remember that back before GW2 was released. I think the Hall of Monuments was going to provide some stuff for the companion as well based on who was placed in the Hall of Monuments. Though sadly they never went through due to issues with design.
Going off topic for a moment:
Though I agree more resources should got to creating new Elite Specs and balances we already know Anet plans to release new Elite Spec per expansion, though a lot of players would prefer 2 new Elite Specs or more per expansion. As for balance well not many people are very fond of “balances” now consider how it is handled currently. These things are already set for the next expansion with New Maps and Storyline but the question about the expansion will certainly be what is the “real new Main thing” the expansion will introduce.
For HoT it was Mastery system that was meant to make exploration more “dynamic”. I am not saying they have to make the Comapanion system the next Expansion system. It is just the concept of what a Expansion provides that is “new” really is a shacky subject either for being too little content, too much content, too much change, or little to no change in the game, and etc.
HoT introduced new things but the change was too much and people felt it was too little as well due to how short the HoT storyline was until Season 3 was released.
I get what you’re saying. I guess I was thinking that changing to a companion(s) system, even in instances, would be a drastic change to base profession mechanics. I’m leery of dramatic systems changes because they take a lot of time and resource changes and delay the preparation of new playable content. It would be hard to design and balance encounters if you’re not sure what the character mechanics are going to be. I’m not sure whether another content drought would be good for the game at this point in time, especially when it seems like they’ve finally gotten to a sustainable release model while working on the next XPac.
Back when GW2 was just a gleam in ANet’s eyes, they talked about player characters being able to choose between a companion or a buff to their character. Given the way the game turned out, it was apparently too much trouble to offer that choice. Even ranger, the character based on having a companion, has pets with mediocre to poor AI who had to be buffed with massive damage reduction vs. AoE in PvE.
I can understand the nostalgia for Heroes from GW as well as the antipathy, but this game would not do them very well, and the effort to make them fit in would doubtless detract from other things. At this stage in the game’s life, I believe that systems/mechanics development ought to be reserved to new weapons/specs for characters and balance changes rather than changing basic mechanics yet again.
It’s not the shard creation system that stinks, it’s the ability of players to use LFG/taxi to stack one shard to capacity at the expense of other shards. If you don’t jump on that bandwagon, you’re kool (kitten out of luck).
What I do know is that I’ve never seen anyone make a thread complaining that the game is free to play … think about that for a minute.
You didn’t look hard enough. You’re not likely to find them now, both because a lot of current players are on the new maps where the free players don’t go, and because forum use is down.
You missed a part of the thread I think. Maddoctor came up with data that strongly suggest most of the active players did buy HoT.
So far for that.
If an expansion is not able to keep people busy for more then a few weeks, that is a problem of the expansion. A good expansion should be able to keep people at least busy for a year. Also I did say I was in favor of a patch in-between. Honestly a complete LS would be fine but I don’t think that is reasonable when going for the B2P approach. Most attention should then go to the expansion. You know, so you can create a good expansion that keeps people busy for at least a year.
I do not know if companies are willing to drop it. There was a time that companies did not believe in F2P games.. Times can change.
Anyway, I don’t say they have to remove it completely. Best would if they only sold ‘out of the game’ things. Like race changer, server-transfer, total make-over, additional char-slots, race changer. That sort of stuff would be fine.
There is a big difference between having a cash-shop and focusing on it. Many of those sub games might have a cash-shop, but it plays a very small role compared to the number of items you get in-game by playing content.Don’t get me wrong, in a game that has a sub and sells expansions like WoW, I would rather see no cash-shop at all. But still. It has 10 mounts, 12 mini’s and 3 helms. You can not compare that to a cash-shop like that of GW2. One cash-shop is not the other cash-shop. It’s the cash-shop focus I talk about not the cash-shop itself. If GW2 would have the cash-hop like that ‘500# gorilla game’ and have most other items available behind content in the game you would not hear me complain.
GW2 Efficiency is designed to appeal to a portion of the population. As such, it is biased toward those who invest time in 3rd party sites. It is unlikely that biased data represents the population as a whole.
That said, I find it highly interesting that within that population the drop-off is significant. I suspect that the drop off might have been even worse in terms of players who owned core but did not buy HoT, though who knows.
Anet said directly that expansion sales didn’t meet expectations, mostly due to free to play players not picking it up. It’s not a secret. It’s not some deeply buried conspiracy theory. The expansion didn’t do well as expected.
Anet has made mistakes, and NcSoft even admitted “mistakes were made”. What those mistakes are we can only guess, but the odds are the lackluster sales was attributed to many things, not just a couple.
Yep, fully agree. “If I had to pick one thing…” does not mean I would prefer to.
It’s never one thing, but there can be one main thing. Anyway, not sure what the one thing you pick here is? The F2P approach is what resulted in revenue drop?
The “one thing” from my prior post was disenfranchisement of players who chose not to buy HoT for whatever reason being locked out of both new content and the (deemed necessary due to power creep) Elite Specs.
Idk, we don’t have any numbers about how many of the people who where actively playing GW2 before HoT did buy HoT and how many did not and stopped playing around that time.
I do however think it would be strange. Maybe many people did grew into the idea of LS but don’t forget that LS is something they introduced after launch so if people should have any expectations before launch going into the game, it would be that they did get expansions just like GW1 did.
Anyway, we do not have those numbers so hard to say how many people did leave because they did not want to buy HoT and so missed part of the new content. Personally I don’t think it are that many.
No numbers? Yeah, it’s a WAG based on the many posts about refusing to buy HoT. Of course you don’t believe it because it doesn’t fit into your WAG about the cause of the recent drop in revenue after several quarters of relative stability. Psychologically speaking, my WAG is based on people feeling indignant and left due to having to pass a pay wall to continue to be vested in the product while believing that the XPac was not worth the money. Your WAG is based on people connecting perceived grind to the store, which I rarely see referenced by anyone but you. What I do see is some people blaming grind on gem conversion to gold.
I find it hard to believe that this player-base would be willing to wait a year for a new XPac with nothing in between XPacs. The complaints about nothing to do started within a couple of weeks after HoT dropped. I also find it hard to believe that any MMO company is going to be willing to forego store revenue. None of them do. Even in the 500# gorilla game, the items sold in the store could have been put in the game as rewards, and that game charges for XPAc’s and taps your credit card every month.
That’s a fair point about the length of the Order arcs. I guess I’m used to that in MMO’s, and so tend to form attachments quicker if I find the character to be interesting. With Braham, Et al, it’s very hard to suspend my disbelief that I’m tolerating them, never mind that I’m told they’re my “friends.”
Are people actually not salvaging greens and blues? If they’re just vending the stuff, that would indeed be a faucet. I’m still salvaging everything (except the 4 I hold onto for the next Mystic Forger Daily).
The gem exchange can increase the supply of gold (which isn’t the only factor in inflation). Players generate gold and anything that prompts players to generate gold will increase the supply and demand for gold. New gold generated specifically to buy gems is gold that would not have existed without the gem exchange and 1g taxed at 33% still leaves you with some silver.
Except it doesn’t. The exchange doesn’t create gold, or gems, out of nothing. The gold players get from selling gems comes from a “vault” of gold stocked by players buying gems with gold and the gems they are buying are from a “vault” of gems stocked by players selling gems. When the game launched the “vaults” were seeded but since then it’s all us pouring in and pulling out gold and gems.
He didnt say that the exchange creates gold. He said that some players do purposefully generate gold specifically to convert to gems. This is true. Some players do actively farm for the sole purpose of converting to gems when there is something in the gem store that they want.
True, my bad. But the exchange wasn’t meant to be the way to buy EVERYTHING you want from the Gem Shop, and sometimes it seems too many players think that. But I wouldn’t use the exchange rate as a gauge for overall inflation in the economy, just like I wouldn’t use Precursors, Legendary Weapons or Unlimited Contract Unlocks.
Also, farming is much more efficient if one gathers materials and sells them on the TP — incurring the 15% gold sink — as opposed to performing activities that are faucets. When I farm, more gold comes out of the economy than is created from nothing.
Anet said directly that expansion sales didn’t meet expectations, mostly due to free to play players not picking it up. It’s not a secret. It’s not some deeply buried conspiracy theory. The expansion didn’t do well as expected.
Anet has made mistakes, and NcSoft even admitted “mistakes were made”. What those mistakes are we can only guess, but the odds are the lackluster sales was attributed to many things, not just a couple.
Yep, fully agree. “If I had to pick one thing…” does not mean I would prefer to.
It’s never one thing, but there can be one main thing. Anyway, not sure what the one thing you pick here is? The F2P approach is what resulted in revenue drop?
The “one thing” from my prior post was disenfranchisement of players who chose not to buy HoT for whatever reason being locked out of both new content and the (deemed necessary due to power creep) Elite Specs.
I’m new player, few day ago I made my first full ascended gear. Just after that I wanted to try myself in raids. I prepared myself by watching tactic on YT.
My guild don’t play raids, so I used LGF tools. I’m playing full berserk gear on Engi.
Guess what, i can’t find group to make first wing. I found one team, I showed my gear on chat, and just after that I got few opinion about meta, ect.I understand all this things about build perfect team compilation. Getting meta healers, meta condi damage, meta tank. But in that way I have no chance to play this content, unlock masteries, practice in killing the bosses.
So, you made the effort to get find out what gear is demanded by PuG’s doing raids, you made the effort to learn the tactics used to deal with mechanics, but did not make the effort to learn what professions are demanded in the PUG meta. You obviously understand that PuG groups are going to make demands of those they include. Why stop after two out of three?
Prizes for killing bosses in raid are very good. But that is not the only reason people want to play raids. Why Arena don’t want to make easier mode, which don’t need meta builds.
To begin with, the raids can, by-and-large, be completed by teams that deviate from the meta. Some PuG groups (perhaps most, but who knows) choose not to because they can and because they believe that it both gives them a better chance to succeed and also finish faster. Even if ANet decided to do an easier mode, we’d still see PuG groups making demands and excluding people.
Lest start to teach players how to move in fight with all bosses. I’m sure that players will participate more often in easier rids for lower prices than now. They would like to learn about fight mechanics, and do all content in game.
According to ANet, there are easier and harder raid encounters already (VG or Escort vs. Matthias, for instance). That’s their chosen approach to make raids more approachable. If you cannot get a non-meta group for the easier encounters, well, that should say something about meta-based exclusion being a “human choice” thing rather than a “needed to beat challenge” thing. Even were ANet to make easy-mode versions of raid bosses, I think you’d find that there would still be meta-based exclusion. How do I know? GW2 had much easier instanced boss encounters for years before raids came along, and there was plenty of meta-based exclusion there.
I do realize that hardcore players have no problems with this, but what is the reason for the lack of players in instances and even in the dailies nowadays?
Here’s what’s happening, at least in zones where large (meta) events take place. Megaserver tehc is designed to bring people together into populated maps. However, it creates new map copies before the “first” map is full. In order to “stack the deck” and get “enough” players to win the meta event, players use the LFG tool to find a map that is doing the meta in that zone, join that group/squad and then use the “Join In” feature (right click on the party/squad people and look for that wording) to enter the map where more players are.
There are two side effects to this behavior.
- Other map copies lose players, which can start the “Map is closing” feature you speak of.
- The popular map gets full, and spamming Join In only to be told over and over that the map is full can be frustrating.
However, if you can Join In, at least you’ll find more players.
To me, this is a symptom of an apparently necessary evil. In order to foster the story, “I” end up choosing things that I would not do, say things I would not say, etc. It’s nearly impossible for me to form any bond, emotional, or even cognitive, with my character when I would never have chosen most of my actions or words. ANet should look at Bioware stories. While the choices are somewhat simplistic, and usually end up in the same place, at least there is some choice. In ANet stories, it feels like I am watching a movie that makes little to no sense to me, while NPC’s emote about various things, and while nothing I want or feel makes the slightest difference to the outcome.
But wasn’t a complaint about the game early on on how the Personal Story lacked substance … — snipped to fit — … while simultaneously trying to make headway against whichever dragon becomes the most immediate threat.
Heh… I liked Forgal a lot. I didn’t mind Tybalt, but he was the least interesting of the three Order mentors to me. The thing for me is, I could take all three of them seriously. Though I gritted my teeth at some of the things Trahearne said and did, I could even take him seriously. I felt invested in that story much more so than the PS since Season 2 rolled in. I just can’t take the antics of Kasmeer, Rox, et al seriously. They feel by and large like someone said, "Let’s make some off-the-wall wannabe hero characters and use hackneyed emotional hooks to make them ‘interesting.’ "
While I also felt shoehorned in the PS, I accept that as an artifact of it being an MMO story. I could accept that my character was working with the Order and later Pact people because they seemed to me to at least be competent adults. Just the choice of three Orders and the attendant NPC’s meant if I did not like one, I could try the other branch, as you did. With the current lot, there isn’t even that choice. Were it actually me in the LS2-3 episodes instead of a scripted placeholder, I’d dump all of them and find more competent (and believable) alternatives under the hypothesis that I could not possibly do worse.
I guess that goes to show that different people like different things. Maybe I just prefer characters who are more understated to those that are badly overacted.
Many times forum discussions about absent features that are wanted vs not wanted break down to one person’s desire being another person’s dread (duels, for instance). I’m with those who say use of the “other game” phrase is situational, but only in rare cases.
In a large number of instances, using the phrase means, “I don’t want what you want and I wish you’d shut up because I’m afraid ANet might listen.” Very occasionally, it means, “How did you end up buying a game that has consistently been advertised as being the exact opposite of what you say you want?” While I find the former dismissive, I find the latter either an honest expression of confusion or perhaps a misguided attempt to be helpful. I say misguided because the vast majority of complainers don’t want to be dissuaded and it really isn’t likely someone who does not want to be helped will heed.
In either case, I hesitate to use the terms “insulting” or “offensive.” If this phrase is either, then surely all attempts to disenfranchise a poster’s complaint are similarly so. Take, for example, “QQ,” or “whining.” Then there’s nitpicking, endless arguments about the meaning of a word, and attempts to evolve pejorative terms to apply them to a current peeve. Surely others could add more examples, though it’s hardly necessary. Why single out this one phrase, when there are a host of others used for similar purposes?
Well this might be a way out of left field suggestion for Anet, but the game could just have end game content that is fun to play for its own sake!
Iirc, that was the plan before launch. The problems are: not everyone enjoys the same things; content rarely remains fun long enough to keep enough players playing —- which fuels a business plan that relies on retention; and — to an apparently large segment of the MMO player-base — MMO’s are more about getting “stuff” than they are about fun.
Regardless, I’d bet ANet developers do think that the content they make is fun.
Anet said directly that expansion sales didn’t meet expectations, mostly due to free to play players not picking it up. It’s not a secret. It’s not some deeply buried conspiracy theory. The expansion didn’t do well as expected.
Anet has made mistakes, and NcSoft even admitted “mistakes were made”. What those mistakes are we can only guess, but the odds are the lackluster sales was attributed to many things, not just a couple.
Yep, fully agree. “If I had to pick one thing…” does not mean I would prefer to.
Last time I looked, Recount was a 3rd party add-on. The MMO giant has an in-game meter now?
- The OP vilifies GW2’s “cash shop focus.” The shop has been there since launch. If anything, new armor sets are now being placed as rewards for play rather than items to purchase. I haven’t seen a, “GW2 should be B2P/XPac only” post since the OP stopped posting ~12 months ago — at least until this thread. There is little evidence that an overwhelming desire for an XPac-only business model is a driving force in the revenue numbers dropping.
- “Perceived Grind” has been in the game since launch, also. While new things to work toward have been introduced in the last year or two, there have been complaints about “takes too long” since people were going for their first dungeon armors in Fall, 2012. Some people suggest that grind is there to get people to buy gems for gold, though those accusations have always been with us. There is little evidence that dislike of perceived grind is anything new.
- HoT launched, and generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $23-25M (estimated based on NCSoft statements that store revenues were stable, meaning amounts above the ongoing store revenue trend should be attributed to HoT). That’s not quite 2 quarters worth of store revenue (current quarters, less if you compare to quarters prior to HoT launch) for an expansion that took them a minimum of 9 months to produce with mostly all hands on deck (nine months from announcement to release, if they started production at announcement, which I don’t for a second believe). Given the time it took to produce the XPac and its relative lack of success, I see little to support the OP’s contention that an XPac-only business model would be better for ANet.
- There were a myriad of complaints about HoT. Grind was one. There were also a lot of complaints about value-for-money, perceived slights to veteran players, bundling core with HoT and the nature of HoT’s content.
- People who chose not to purchase HoT for the many reasons cited on these boards have been thereby disenfranchised. Not only is the new LS content unavailable, the Elite Specs are unavailable and are deemed to be essential to both PvE and PvP play, at least on the sharp end. This is a big problem for retention. While ANet has every right to charge for new content and ways to play characters, the buy-in comes with an XPac that turned a lot of people off. If I had to pick a single factor for why revenues dropped, this would be it. If a player cannot play the new content, and can no longer compete in competitive play, why stick around?
- We’ve had two content droughts, a 9+ month one pre_HoT release and another ~9 month one post release. This is also a strong contender for revenue drop-off. Bored players are unhappy players.
- The game has aged. Many games drop revenue over time.
- Other games, including the latest XPac for the 500# gorilla MMO, have released. Any game population will lose some players when this happens.
While gold can be obtained via paying, it can also be obtained via spending time. So, pay-to-win is not really an appropriate term. It’s more like, “Grind for an advantage.” and that is the nature of MMO’s. MMO’s are time sinks disguised as fun.
WvW costs more to play than it gains. As long as it is tied to the economy, it will always be that way.
WvW can cost a player more than s/he gains there. It doesn’t have to. However, there is certainly an inequity in return for time spent, though reward tracks have improved that a bit. Inequity in gold gain based on play mode may be poor design. That still does not make guild bonuses P2W.
While gold can be obtained via paying, it can also be obtained via spending time. So, pay-to-win is not really an appropriate term. It’s more like, “Grind for an advantage.” and that is the nature of MMO’s. MMO’s are time sinks disguised as fun.
Rather a confusing post, imo. Are you bringing up the daily AP cap at 15K AP or are you complaining that 2 gold is to little or maybe that you want something other than 2 gold?
I always logged in everyday to get 10 achievement points from daily.
note the past tense
I wanted something to show I was getting something. It showed progress. Believe me that can be a powerful thing to keep playing.
Past tense again. Looks like the progress from the AP mattered to this poster.
Now I get 2 gold. OMG, now I can add it to my 5,000 gold I already have.
Present tense, and a clear indication that something has changed which the OP does not like.
I suppose if he’d said, “Now I only get 2 gold and no AP.” it might be clearer. Still, I believe an inference can be made as is.
Even “thematically” its all wrong. Run around Frostgorge for a while and then walk into Bitterfrost. Why the sudden change in enemy counts?
Thematically, as we advance deeper into enemy territory, it would make sense that there would be more enemies. The exception to this would be if they were massing for an attack on the front lines. However, that does not seem to be the case.
I’d be receptive to the OP’s request if the GW2 reward system was primarily based on serendipity. It isn’t though. Aside from Precursors and a few items in specific content, the reward system is incremental. All of those blues/greens get salvaged and either used to make stuff or sold to those who want to make stuff. So, no thanks to the OP’s request. Do not want.
Actually, the more people I see using this “Unofficial DPS Meter”, the more exclusionary I’ve seen pick-up-groups become. There’s a memory-editing version floating around out there which can inspect you and also monitor the damage of everyone in the group. If you’ve noticed it harder to join a group, this is why.
So you can say, “DPS Meters are not bad!” and “They help people!” but in reality I’ve observed the opposite effect.
I’d like to know the basis for your observation and conclusion.
- Do people tell you they are using this software?
- If not, how do you know that people are using it more?
- If so, how many players is this?
- Also if so, are you seeing those specific players being exclusionary and citing the data the software provides as the reason?
- Are you instead (or also) generalizing (i.e., you’ve observed/been told that more people are using the software, and are also seeing more exclusionary behavior from PuG’s)?
- If so, how do you know that the meter is the cause?
- Have you considered that an increase in exclusion could as readily represent impatience due to the number of reps players have been through as the content ages?
- Have you considered whether there might be yet another reason for the increased exclusion you cite?
Again no, imo it’s the grind, the grind make people bored and that is why they leave. It’s not because of the cash-shop. The cash-shop is in my opinion the underlying reason for it.
In short, you looked at numbers and drew a conclusion without any consideration for other available data. That’s flawed analysis.
No it’s more that you drew (or Vayne) the conclusion that I said that these results proof that the cash-shop is to blame. I never did do that.
I still think this is the reason, but there is no way I can factually proof that. Nor can any other reason be proven by the data we have.
I did not say you claimed to prove anything. I said, to rephrase it, your conclusions are largely unsupported by the data because you ignore many reasons stated by many posters.
See, you can have an opinion all you like. However, when you post that opinion in a thread in which you offer facts, you’re attempting to convince others that your opinion is correct. Since you (now) cite one complaint (perceived grind) and ignore the remainder, your argument is unconvincing — except perhaps to those who already believe as you do.
I don’t play for the dailies at all but, the OP has a point if it’s so mind numbingly easy and very little time invested in every other mode then WvW should be no different. Is it a priority ? definitely not but I also suspect changing a couple numbers is not an extensive procedure.
We get rewarded very little in comparison to PvE to begin with, I don’t see why our dailies (for those that actively care) should be harder or more time consuming to achieve.
They aren’t, by and large. Even while I’m recuperating from a health issue that means I can’t play worth a kitten, I do anywhere from 1-3 dailies in WvW because they’re easier than some of the pita options in PvE, like “activities,” “adventures,” daily events or (actually doing) JP’s (no portal).
Presumably its to hinder gold sellers. How would you stop gold sellers from friending people in order to message or mail. without hitting these limits?
Ideally, friending someone should not be as simple as choosing to do so. Other games send the friend request to the “friend” who must then accept it. Facebook also does this. Now, maybe this is beyond ANet’s capabilities, but it would solve this issue and allow for a relaxation of the suppression bull-gravy among friends while preserving the gold seller suppression.
Build diversity will be improved greatly when we get a second, and hopefully third, elite spec to choose from. No matter what ANet says, elite specs were clearly designed to be more powerful than core traitlines, and they are now slowly being refined into true specializations (eg chronomancer is all about party support, druid is primarily a healing spec with some support in the form of GotL) instead of jack of all trades traitlines.
So, when we get more elite specs, we will be able to choose a more powerful traitline that defines how the class plays, and build diversity will be increased so much.
Of course there are other problems with build diversity right now. Poor balance being one of them, but I think adding more elite specs is absolutely crucial in achieving build diversity because our current traitsystem is setup around us picking an elite.
This is a good point. The Elite Specs were “supposed” to be alternatives — horizontal progression rather than a power increase. However, they were seemingly designed around the idea of generating more of a specialist than the core specs do. Ideally, specialization “should” be better at what that specialty does than a more general build does. The sad part is that in order to have enough different specializations available to afford true profession-based diversity is likely to take years due to the apparent “Elite Specs are only available in XPac’s” content design.
I don’t use speakers because I’d rather not have game sounds competing with other stuff going on with apartment sharers. I don’t use headphones because extended use gives me a headache. So, I play without sound. I never hear Job-o-Tron or other annoying in-game sound effects. Of course, I also don’t hear NPC dialogue and have to read it instead. Nor do I hear the music, which I believe is the greater loss.
I offer this, not because I believe it to be a good solution, never mind an ideal one, but if people are at the point where they’d rip their ears off (or something else drastic), I can testify that it’s possible to adjust to doing without the “good” sounds to avoid the “bad” ones.
Logic failure at it’s best!
160-176+ MPs don’t imply that those people are raiders.
You can’t get more than like 168 without raiding. I was playing with people over that limit.
Doesn’t that mean they did one raid boss to unlock the raid masteries, then got the XP somewhere in HoT to max them? Doing Escort, for instance, does not make someone a raider.
No Devata, you’ve been the one using flawed logic.
Where?
That is right. I can proof they drop, I can make a comparison to GW1 and I can look at what I predicted in the past. That is all I can do because that is what we have data for, and so that is what I do with the data. I also give my opinion about why that is the case. I do not say this data proofs that.
Your analysis offers no reason whatsoever for why your opinion should be preferred over other reasons. In fact, those other reasons have appeared in abundance on these boards and elsewhere since HoT launched. Until this thread dropped, I hadn’t seen any overall complaints about the cash shop since you stopped posting almost a year ago. Sure, I see complaints about items being too costly, gold conversion to gem rates, outfits v. armor and other store issues, but not, “The store is bad and why I stopped playing.”
In short, you looked at numbers and drew a conclusion without any consideration for other available data. That’s flawed analysis.
Cheating and displays of skill are not opposite ends of the same continuum. They are independent of each other.
- MMO’s essentially consist of lists of things to do
- Many of the things to do in MMO’s take time
- MMO business models depend on players playing the game over extended periods of time
- 2 and 3 are related
- Meanwhile, a significant portion of the MMO player base have an expectation of immediate (or short-term) gratification
- 3 and 5 are often in conflict; it’s against ANet’s business interests to give players anything they might possibly want with little time investment
- So, such complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears
Farming gold is not a good way to keep your players playing for a long time, as for many it will be too grindy and repetitive and they’ll just stop doing it.
Achievements should contain challenges, tie them to bosses and events and storylines, they should let you actually play the game instead of forcing you to mindlessly farm gold.
The Cultural Attaché achievement (Aurene) consisted of running to different merchants to buy souvenirs for gold and karma. A different approach would be: Do these events/kill specific bosses in Kryta to help the humans and get the first souvenir as reward. Do those events in the Shiverpeaks and get the Norn souvenir as reward,…
That way, the achievement actually involved the player, showing him the different cultures he’s collecting souvenirs from instead of just letting him farm gold and buy it.
My point was, asking for shorter paths to goals is contrary to MMO business interests, no matter how they’re implemented in game. Keeping players playing is always going to be a balancing act. Developers aren’t always going to get it “right.”
There are plenty of people who seem to like being able to do whatever content they prefer and still be able to get “stuff.” There sure are plenty of complaints about being “forced” to do X to get Y. There are plenty of things to do that involve rewards attached to specific content. Some of them are one-time things, some involve repetition, often due to RNG.
ANet does try to cater to different tastes, usually managing to anger people who prefer the opposite in the process. Now, if only some elements of the MMO audience could get the idea that everything put into the game is not going to be tailor-made for their preferences. Can’t happen when one group wants the opposite of what the other group wants.
While I’ve bought 2-3 bag slots, I’d have to say that I do not consider a bag slot for one character to be worth the price. That said, I also don’t feel that I can say anything beyond that about ANet’s business decisions. How they price items is up to them.
I view extra inventory space as a convenience item. So, I make do with 92-100 inventory slots per character. This tends to mean I don’t carry multiple sets of gear, and perhaps process drops more often than I otherwise might. It’s a choice I make in order to not spend the RL cash (or gold) to get the remaining extra bag slots for my 12 characters.
On a hypothetical level, I wonder what an account-wide bag slot would cost, given the potential loss of revenue from the sale of individual slots. MMO players tend to balk at high-priced game store items. Someone who might think nothing of spending $50 across a few months for 10 bag slots for 2-3 characters might indeed choose not to spend that $50 as a lump sum for one account-wide slot — even though it would be a better deal if they had more than 10 characters. So, any price that ANet might consider reasonable would probably be viewed as “too high” by some elements of the poster-base.
That said, I do consider the account-wide inventory slots to be worthwhile. I bought 3 on top of the free one, and have a copper-fed and three perma harvesting tools in them. That alone saved me ~17 inventory slots per character on a permanent basis (I used to carry 4 of each tool and 5 basic salvage kits per character as a matter of course).
- MMO’s essentially consist of lists of things to do
- Many of the things to do in MMO’s take time
- MMO business models depend on players playing the game over extended periods of time
- 2 and 3 are related
- Meanwhile, a significant portion of the MMO player base have an expectation of immediate (or short-term) gratification
- 3 and 5 are often in conflict; it’s against ANet’s business interests to give players anything they might possibly want with little time investment
- So, such complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears
I think what I meant by the title is that we should have as many meta builds as possible. From my perspective, what people call the ‘meta’ is a limited few builds, or just 1 single build, per class, or even limiting what classes people should use altogether. I think when people hear meta they hear 2 things, “best” build(s) and “only” build(s). I know the latter is not the literal meaning of meta, but I do think this is the way many people use it.
As far as meta goes, there is only ever going to be one build — per profession, per role — especially for instanced PvE content. Literally, the only way a developer could get around that would be by making multiple builds perform the exact same role with the exact same efficiency. This is because metas form based on perceived efficiency.
Once developers shoot for professions bringing different things to the table and playing differently, there will be professions and builds that will not be part of the meta.
I guess my belief in all builds being equally useful comes from the fact that multiple builds exist at all. Why make more than 1 build if you never intend for people to use it. I don’t think ANet has accomplished this even in a specific scenario sense. The falling trait for example is basically worthless even in specific scenarios. But perhaps ANet thought it would be more useful for some reason which is why it’s there?
Developers make multiple build options available for basically two reasons:
- It gives the number crunchers something to do initially, and after balance patches. After all, metas can and do get shaken up when such patches hit.
- There are a raft of players out there who play MMO’s for immersion and fun. Many of them do not give a kitten about whether their build is optimal, so long as it is viable in the content they want to play. If someone wants to make a shield-wielding, damage absorbing character, they can do so, even if PuG groups for instanced content see no need for such a build. These players do not care about the meta, and guess what, they paid for the game, too.
Gw2 is all about AoE spam.
Yep, which is fine in PvE, OK in PvP but a pain in the kitten in WvW. And no, OP, I don’t like zerg fights in WvW at all.
If I’m being sincere about why dps meters are bad for GW2, I could sum it up in one word.
Might.
Beyond tl;dr, some classes bring much more support, but their boons won’t attribute the damage done to the boon providers, only to the beneficiary. Some characters are much better supporting boon-factories but get less actual damage, and yet somehow the star is the selfish meter-kitten with “a good rotation”? Until a combat log can sort that out, it’s not really worth it.
The players that make the meta are well aware what utility the various professions bring, and will account for that in setting benchmarks for that profession running that utility-providing build. PUG players that copy the meta may or may not know the optimal DPS numbers for the various spots in the raid, but they will know which professions are in the meta and what they need to execute. They should also know not to expect as much DPS from a profession brought for its support than one brought for its DPS.
The problem comes in when PuG players think they know what they’re doing, but don’t. These are the guys that are going to act in ignorance. They’ll kick based on erroneous assumptions. They might kick that Might provider and then wonder why everyone’s DPS went down. Ignorant players are going to find a reason to blame someone else for problems whether there is a meter or not.
What a meter would do is provide the meta drivers with a tool to more easily evaluate the changes each balance patch brings. It would also provide information to groups who have some understanding of what’s going on that would allow them to diagnose problems and fix them — whether that’s through kicking (in PuG’s) or education and practice in dedicated groups.
Even as a non-raider I can see Nike’s point. There is going to be wannabe/elitist kicking whether there is a meter or not. Why not remove one source of ignorance, even if you cannot remove all sources of ignorance?
Lack of build diversity is a thing in the meta of whatever game mode your poison is. That’s always been the case, and it always will be the case. Yes, the Elite Specs are the Flavor of the XPac right now, and that may change next XPac as new Elites are unveiled — or with balance patches. For instance, Necromancers apparently lost their place in the harder instanced content PvE meta due to one nerf.
Build diversity still exists outside the various metas, just as it always has. To me, all that ever changes within a meta is which builds are on the top, profession x game mode x role in that meta.
As to the 5 trait lines v. 3 trait lines thing… that was changed to allow for Elite Specs. Going forward, players will only be able to choose one Elite Spec at a time, not multiple Elite lines. Placing traits in Adept/Master/Grandmaster Tiers happened before launch.
While I am sure that the current iteration of traits is not perfect, I am not sure it’s bad. In fact, I prefer it to the older iterations. Given that they’ve already spent huge amounts of developer time on trait system iterations, I think spending still more, at the expense of a lot of other things, would be a non-starter for me. There are times that the perfect is the enemy of the good.
How are there not convenient means to duel? There are loads of empty hot join maps, you can just drop into and duel away. If you have access to a guild hall with an arena go there and duel, you have the OS arena that I’ve seen a few people use for duelling. I only know about the place by accident as I wanted to know where the tunnel went. I really don’t see how these options are not convenient. Please tell me what is wrong with them?
In other games I’ve played, dueling is overwhelmingly utilized either:
- in specific locations (e.g., right outside a city). This allowed for a possible infusion of new blood or serendipitous dueling as people wandered by. It made dueling more accessible. The current iterations (custom arenas and halls) lack the accessibility of player-selected locations. Both are out of sight, requiring greater effort to go where duels are possible. This cannot help but limit usage.
- at locations where players were waiting for something to happen (e.g., while waiting for a raid party to form). This made dueling a convenient pastime. While 2 guild members would be able to port to the hall to duel, anyone not in that guild would have to travel to a HoT map to get in. The lack of convenience is also going to limit usage.
To add, Jaxom’s response about losing a spot in a map is well taken. Beyond just DS, there’s waiting for world bosses, waiting for a dungeon group to form; waiting for guild members to congregate for missions, waiting for people to come for HC’s in HoT maps. Tucking dueling away as it is very much limits spontaneity, which is a big part of why the feature sees a lot of usage in other games. It also limits duel possibilities. There are a lot of players who might duel were the option available during the normal run of their play, who would never bother going where duels are available now. Out of the way is out of the way.
I very much doubt ANet will make the raid Armor accessible in either a hypothetical easier raid or any other PvE content. Why?
- ANet does recognize that there are skill gradations in the pool of players who utilize PvE. They’ve made allowances in raids for that gradation.
- ANet does accommodate the preferences of PvP-only and WvW-only players. We see more and more PvE rewards available in reward tracks.
- ANet does not accommodate the preferences of PvE players who choose to avoid specific aspects of PvE. This observation is based on their 4-year plus track record. Rewards in specific PvE content do not appear in other PvE content, no matter how many players with such preferences complain. A few examples are dungeon skins, SW and HoT skins. Even dailies reflect this philosophy — PvP and WvW get 4 tasks each, and PvE gets 4 tasks, no matter the preferences of those who avoid dungeons, jumping puzzles, adventures or activities.
Why this philosophy? ANet has only so many devs. It’s undoubtedly a daunting task to prepare content for three game modes. Caving to demands that one of those modes, PvE, needs to be designed so that there are multiple (maybe many multiples) of ways to do specific content and multiple ways to get any virtual reward that anyone might want would increase dev workload by an order of magnitude.
As to horses and water… raids aren’t water, they’re food. Different types of horses all drink water, but are fed according to what they’re used for. Breeders don’t feed draft horses and race horses the same thing.
Finally, speaking of horses… Those campaigning for either raid tiers or access to raid rewards without doing the existing raids are — in a manner of speaking, riding a horse backwards. They might be better served to either ride the horse in the direction it’s going, or focus instead on the various other methods of transport the game offers.
Since I know the above analysis and advice will be disdained, I’ll go for three strikes in the horse discussion. While these posters will no doubt continue, I fear they are very much beating the proverbial dead one.
In truth, it boils down to people who duel wanting an audience. That is the truth, that’s why ever option we have all ready is not good enough for them, that means in truth, its about ego more than being able to do it.
Maybe for a few. Not for most. It’s about convenience, the same force that drives 99% of the feature requests we see on these boards.
PvE is already considered trivial. More stats will not help. Devaluing exotics would disenfranchise people who bought into the idea that Ascended were a slog put into the game at the request of people who just had to have something to “work at.”
No thanks.
To me, this is a symptom of an apparently necessary evil. In order to foster the story, “I” end up choosing things that I would not do, say things I would not say, etc. It’s nearly impossible for me to form any bond, emotional, or even cognitive, with my character when I would never have chosen most of my actions or words. ANet should look at Bioware stories. While the choices are somewhat simplistic, and usually end up in the same place, at least there is some choice. In ANet stories, it feels like I am watching a movie that makes little to no sense to me, while NPC’s emote about various things, and while nothing I want or feel makes the slightest difference to the outcome.
I don’t know what happened to ANet story-telling. While the GW stories were similarly on rails, the writers at least made me feel that my contribution mattered. I felt good when I rescued Koss. I felt bad when I had to destroy Rurik. In GW2, I find myself with no appreciation or affection for the NPC’s, especially DE 2.0, or whatever they’re being called. They could all jump off a cliff, and I wouldn’t even blink.
The key to liking quaggan is to dip them in butter.
#toserveman
Rofl
#thereisnothingwrongwithyourtelevision
As to Quaggan
In one event in FGS, the Icebrood attack a Quaggan village. The Quaggans hide. Players defeat the Icebrood. After, Quaggan emerges and shrieks, “Quaggan did it! Quaggan defeated the Icebrood!” Ingrates. Only the Asura are worse.
So no, Quaggan and I are not friends.
^^ Sounds to me like anyone that focuses on the reward vs. the play wouldn’t really have a much of a care in how Daily rewards work in the first place. If rewards is what you are about … Daily is a pretty strange and pathetic place to seek them.
There are more rewards available in general play from before than there is now because before, we didn’t have LS and HoT and Raids, and … well it should be obvious why. The game evolves with endgame content … and the balance of rewards towards that. That’s not a pity that the game evolved that way, it’s a natural evolution. If you seek the balance of rewards from general play, then I’m afraid the MMO genre isn’t for you to begin with.
Yep, that’s how GW2 has changed. Or did you forgot that GW2 was supposed to appeal to both MMO lovers and haters? And what’s with everyone attributing things to me I did not say. The “balance of rewards from general play?” Not even close when all I’m doing is talking about one reward track that used to be more accessible and is now less.
OK so maybe you’re just confusing everyone with the n=1 case because certainly what you point out it’s more than just how MMOs evolve. it’s not a consequence of some bad design or judgement on Anet’s part
I do know this much: I still don’t see how someone with such a focus on rewards makes so much of a stink about dailies.
Wow. Well, maybe I’ve confused you. I’m not so sure anyone else is confused.
So, to make it simple.
- Some play-styles are much less rewarding than others. That’s a natural part of MMO design.
- Daily rewards are accessible to everyone , but sooner or later one hits the cap and they get reduced.
- Why? Because people whose play-style is vastly more rewarding want the cap. Still a part of MMO development? Maybe
- However, let’s not forget the cap was put in because of complaints about inability to manage obsessive-compulsive behavior.
- So, a relatively small reward gets taken away from one group to benefit another group whose rewards were unaffected by-and-large and whose rewards are greater to begin with. Now the affected group is complaining back. That’s part of MMO development also. One group complains, and gets what they want. It affects another group, who then complains.
So, where were you when there was no cap on daily AP? Why weren’t you defending the status quo then?
I’m sure the reason they added dueling in the Guild Hall was in some way to see if there is interest about it. Judging by the many guild halls I’ve visited, I’m not sure if the results were very encouraging. The first step towards adding dueling in the game is convincing the devs that there is actual in-game demand for it, not by posting posts on the forums, I’m sure they can monitor how many people use any Guild Arena, or are dueling in WvW (for those without guilds and no way of paying the costs of an arena)
And if players aren’t dueling in the already existing dueling areas, then the question becomes, why aren’t they? Maybe those asking for duels aren’t asking for duels to fight with others one on one but want something else? Someone mentioned it earlier, asking for duels everywhere as attention seekers, asking for duels in many places so you can have an audience. The audience and the attention is what matters or the act of dueling?
In other games I’ve played, dueling is overwhelmingly utilized either:
- in specific locations (e.g., right outside a city). This allowed for a possible infusion of new blood or serendipitous dueling as people wandered by. It made dueling more accessible. The current iterations (custom arenas and halls) lack the accessibility of player-selected locations. Both are out of sight, requiring greater effort to go where duels are possible. This cannot help but limit usage.
- at locations where players were waiting for something to happen (e.g., while waiting for a raid party to form). This made dueling a convenient pastime. While 2 guild members would be able to port to the hall to duel, anyone not in that guild would have to travel to a HoT map to get in. The lack of convenience is also going to limit usage.
IF ANet was/is using the current iterations available to determine interest, they’re ignoring the accessibility and convenience issues that help make dueling popular in other games. While I might believe that ANet’s consideration of dueling ignores the social aspects involved, I consider it equally likely that another social issue — catering to duelphobia — is the reason why dueling is tucked away under a couple of rocks.
a.) healing
b.) boon support
c.) tanking
d.) control
e.) aoe
f.) burst power damage
g.) condition damage
a. is now a thing in raids. It can be used anywhere, but most content outside of raids does not demand it.
b. was always and still is a thing in any aspect of the PvE game, at least when people know what they’re doing.
c. is also now a thing for some bosses in raids. It’s not reliable in most other content, nor does that other content often demand it. However, I can pull it off with some regularity.
d. break bars are a much better mechanic to enforce the usefulness of control skills in PvE encounters than the Defiance Bar was. Control is not in a bad place imo.
e. AoE as a distinct role is a stretch in this game. Most professions have AoE options and there is often no trade-off on damage for using AoE over ST attacks.
f. If you mean true “burst” — dealing very high damage in a very short time frame — then it’s always been a part of dungeon play, where it’s usually a team iteration (see speed burns on dungeon bosses). If you just mean direct damage, well that’s alive and well, also.
g. condi is in a much better place since the stack restrictions were changed. However, condi is still backloaded damage (in contrast to direct damage being frontloaded). Mobs with high Toughness/lower health pools helps make condi more desirable. Also, the fact that many weapons have both direct and condi damage — coupled with the Viper stat combo — make hybrid condi/direct a viable thing.
All of which leaves me with questions.
- Why 5-man content? While small group, instanced PvE is a big part of PvE endgame in other MMO’s, those games do not feature large-scale open world content the way GW2 does. Is there really enough demand for new iterations of such content going forward, especially if a lot of players who wanted it bailed four years ago?
- Why doesn’t FotM cut it? What could be done with FotM to change that?
- In old dungeon groups, at least ones who knew what they were doing, we saw boon support, control, AoE and direct damage. Now, in raids, we also see healing, tanking and condi. That’s all 7 of your roles. Since ANet has made some changes to how they design instanced content, what concrete things should they do to further things? By this I don’t mean “design more dungeons,” I mean, “What can they do that they have not already done to enforce given roles?”
- 4 of your 7 roles were in use in dungeons regularly. Condi was not because of technical limits. Still, posters insisted there was only one role, largely because glass gear was being required by players. How would you propose dealing with the mindsets of players who seem to believe that if your skills/gear are not 100% dedicated to a given role, they aren’t performing that role?
- In order to enforce the use of roles in instanced PvE content, the content needs to be more structured and (at least potentially) more challenging. If 4 given roles are needed, that’s what will be demanded. The more structured the encounters, the more you’ll see exclusion. How would you propose dealing with accessibility issues? Face it, explorable dungeons were accessible to more players precisely because the encounters could be beaten by players ignoring the optimal roles in use by the most skilled players.
- Just where do the resources for your proposed 5-man content come from? Does this initiative impact FotM, raids, open world content, PvP or WvW? Needless to say, all of the above demographics would like faster, not slower additions to their preferred play preferences — so who gets thrown under the bus?
“Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.” wikipedia
So, is this satirizing requests for open PvP in PvE maps or requests for dueling? If the former, well played. If the latter, not so much. Given that there is a current thread on duels and I haven’t seen one on open PvP in PvE for a long while, I’d guess the latter. However, this is the internet and nothing is either certain or sacred.