Guild Wars 2

It still doesn’t make sense.

No “noticible effect” [sic] on the total number of raiding players? Nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.

Hot wasn’t part of the discussion I added to so no, I’m not taking it into account.

Something being delivered by a product you just paid for is too obvious to even contemplate. Of course it delivered something.

You should read the post right before me, the one I responded to, and place my post in that context.

WvW is already getting updates and the whole thing will be delivered over time. Quite recently the much hated Oasis event for example was turned off.

They have a track record of not delivering, but recently it’s been the polar opposite. We do have a dedicated fractals team and we are getting new fractals this year. Raid wings actually do get released every couple of months."

The polar opposite? They’ve delivered hardly anything significant in ages, except for raids.

Sure, they’ll release something someday, that’s usually been the case (far from always.) But for now, it’s all talk.

Look, when they deliver, they’ve delivered.

When they’re announcing future deliveries, they’re talking.

It’s not rocket science.

Yes, turning off content. That’s delivering!

For the moment, it’s all talk except for the raids.

I supply and hardly consume materials. Combining my experience with that reported by others, the main thing that happened with liquid gold is that the flow has changed direction and magnitude. I’ve never made more gold as easily as post-HoT. And I still don’t know what to do with it.

What Colin says with regard to his leaving the company might be true, or it might be what a nice severance package bought them. We’ll never know, and I don’t care.

Andulias.9516:

Manasa Devi.7958:

No, I’m making a genuine guess at the amount of content added by HoT here.

The base game offers a lot of PvE content, from open world to dungeons to fractals. HoT adds a tiny bit of open world, no dungeons, no fractals.

The base game offers a whole game mode that HoT does nothing for (WvW).

What HoT adds compared to what the base game starts out as, is very little by any objective standard.

What you said is objectively not true. HoT borught the new BLs and the new fractal system. Whether it’s good or not is another thing, but those came with the expansion.

The HoT maps are bigger and (IMO) better designed than any of the core Tyria ones. They are also more than the maps added in LS1 and LS2 combined and each is significantly bigger than either Southsun, DT or SW. In fact because of their verticality I think they are bigger than any of the core Tyria maps.

Raids

Elite specs and masteries

HoT was relatively light on content, but objectively what you are saying is not correct at all. Neither is the 1.1 games estimation. Simply not true.

Fractals got changed, not added to, and the changes are not tied to HoT. 0% added.

The new Deserted Borderlands add exactly as much as what was taken away from WvW, assuming that they’re as valuable as the original borderlands were, which many people would vehemently disagree with. Also, not part of the HoT package. 0% added, and that’s being gracious.

That’s 2 things you mention that are part of the original game now, not part and parcel of the HoT purchase. I ‘m starting to see why you think my 1.1 is too small a number. You’re misinformed about what HoT buys you.

Even if HoT maps are “bigger” and “better designed” (which I don’t agree with, but I’m being gracious again) taken all together they’re still awfully small compared to the rest of Tyria taken all together. Some percentage added.

Raids. Terribly small amount of content, regardless of to whom it appeals.

Elite specs and masteries. Small amount of content.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Manasa Devi.7958:

So all of this is a lie? False advertising?

You should see the video on combat, where they suggest a thief “tanking” using evades (not talking about raids where there’s controllable aggro).

It’s not a lie, but it’s a little off. The part about your parents as a human? That’s part of character building based on your character’s past (before the instanced tutorial). It isn’t the focus, it’s just another insight to background that temporarily takes the foreground due to uncontrollable events. Your parents were dead?: There’s a little story behind that. No different from short D&D episodic adventures based around a particular party member: it’s good and aids development, but it isn’t the major arc.

I hope you’re aware that I’m playing the devil’s advocate here.

The fact remains, if there’s a White Mantle story happening in the raid, that is a direct link to a very important aspect of my character’s narrative, which the game advertises as important and meaningful. Of course we’ve known for a long time that it’s neither. Even aspects of some personal stories that should be important and meaningful got lost in the shuffle, like Malyck and his tree.

No, I’m making a genuine guess at the amount of content added by HoT here.

The base game offers a lot of PvE content, from open world to dungeons to fractals. HoT adds a tiny bit of open world, no dungeons, no fractals.

The base game offers a whole game mode that HoT does nothing for (WvW).

What HoT adds compared to what the base game starts out as, is very little by any objective standard.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Manasa Devi.7958:

It is the story of this game. My very first character fell victim to a cowardly attack by the White Mantle. Unfortunately, he got sidetracked by dragons, of all things, and railroaded into fighting them like some spineless patsy who couldn’t stand up for himself and tell those useless order representatives that his own vicissitudes were much important.

That’s not the story of the world though, it’s the story of your character. Does it matter? Yes, it should, but it isn’t the primary focus. The dragons pose (at least they’re supposed to) an immediate threat to the world and everyone in it. The white mantle tried to kill your character and killed your character’s parents. Big deal, every other creature in the game tries to kill you, from toxic spiders to giants to drunken skritt.

Some games can do personal vendettas instead of saving the world. Usually it involves the world’s collapse being beyond the character’s control. This isn’t one of those games though, this is one of the type where “saving the world” comes first.

So all of this is a lie? False advertising?

AggroBrat.2038:

I get it, I really do. I just think new players are getting a great deal. 2 games for the price of one, while us old players are stuck with no extra goodies at all. But I suppose I will download the core game and just wait for a sale I suppose

It’s not as great as all that. It’s more like 1.1 games for the price of one for new players.

It is the story of this game. My very first character fell victim to a cowardly attack by the White Mantle. Unfortunately, he got sidetracked by dragons, of all things, and railroaded into fighting them like some spineless patsy who couldn’t stand up for himself and tell those useless order representatives that his own vicissitudes were much important.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Raid = small map, a few mobs, 3 bosses with novel mechanics; rewards; achievements. LS Episode = modify existing map or new zone (See DT and SW); multiple dynamic events; multiple champions with novel mechanics; rewards; story step(s); achievements; maybe a jumping puzzle, and other stuff. It’s likely that story is the main culprit, as most everything else hinges on what the story is.

So why not set 5-6 other people aside to make a few living story chapters that use small maps, a few mobs, a few bosses with novel mechanics, rewards and achievements? Exactly what raids are, but balanced for a single player, which, incidentally, is exactly what most of the LS2 instances were.

A stand-alone story in 3 chapters (instead of “wings”) to tide things over until the next “big thing” that will apparently take hundreds of people 11 months to kick off. If 5-6 people can pull off these raids, I don’t see why this can’t be done as well.

It’s all a matter of prioritisation, and obviously, raids have a high priority because they were marketed as being a part of HoT. They can give us whatever they want. They chose not to, for reasons I can only guess at.

Randulf.7614:

The living story pretty much revolves around the dragons. The open story of what happened with the mursaat is more in keeping with the living world, which the raids are a part of. It does make sense to have the raids used as a side story.

What are you talking about? A side story? The White Mantle played a big role in my personal story. They’ve been a big part of the primary narrative ever since this game launched back in 2012. They killed my parents. They tried to kill me. They’re my character’s motivation to pick up the sword (well, staff) and go out to better the world.

And now that the side story of putting down some rubbish dragons is finished, they’re putting the continuation of what matters most, my character’s personal story in a raid? What the hell man!

Regular intervals? If we’re to take that literally and they do them in groups of 3 we’ll be well into 2018 before they’ve all been released.

EcoRI.9273:

Hopefully the FoTM team can release boss encounters

I’m going to stop you there. No more needs to be said than that at this point. Baby steps.

Danikat.8537:

What if they created a completely original story with new characters and villains (which as far as I know everyone assumed they had until now)?

Wouldn’t people who don’t get to play the raid be missing out on that?

There are thousands upon thousands of stories in the world that I’ve never heard about. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on any of them. I never lay awake in bed at night wondering how on earth I’m ever going to read every book ever written.

Just because an arbitrary story takes place in a game I happen to play, it doesn’t suddenly become something I’d feel I’m missing out on. There’s plenty of storytelling in GW2 that I happily ignore. Dungeon paths, for example. I’ve only ever done 2 or 3. Couldn’t give a kitten about the rest.

It’s different when a story is a sequel or a continuation of another story you’re invested in.

maddoctor.2738:

Manasa Devi.7958:

I feel the same kind of immersion problems in both. Time being frozen completely is no worse than the entirety of a zone being stuck in a 2 hour loop. I’d sooner say the former works better than the latter.

If the entire map resets every 2 hours you will NEVER do the same thing over and over during that time frame. Events happen, the zone as a whole progress and you can feel and see the change. You can see the actual progress, then it all resets and you start from square one. I feel like resetting the entire zone allows much better story telling and world building than having individual events all over the place with different timers for each one.

It makes no difference to me. I find both types of storytelling equally terrible. If I want good storytelling, an MMO isn’t my port of call. I’m there for the game play and if the narrative vignettes that frame the game play are tolerable, that’s nice.

I’ve never rated GW2 highly on that account and HoT is no improvement. There’s this NPC that delivers 3 lines. The first is calm and collected. The second is panicked and overwrought. The third is calm and collected again. It’s obviously a butchered cut-and-past job of several unrelated recordings. I can’t remember where and when it happens, but it’s toe-curlingly bad by any standard.

maddoctor.2738:

The alternative that happens on many core maps, is to have enough big event chains. But sadly, good enough chains do not exist on many maps but those that DO exist provide some great alternative to a timer, like the Straits of Devastation Balthazar event chain or the entire Harathi Hinterlands zone (but not when Ulgoth is coming)

The back-and-forth battle lines event chains are pretty good, as are some of the temple chains in Orr where the enemy works at recovering lost ground. Those offer the best kind of immersion.

Well that’s just grand. My one big disappointment about GW2 was its severely lacking continuity going forward from the first game, instead saddling us with rubbish dragons, ugly steampunk nonsense and Trahearne.

And then they put this in the raid I’ll never be playing.

I feel the same kind of immersion problems in both. Time being frozen completely is no worse than the entirety of a zone being stuck in a 2 hour loop. I’d sooner say the former works better than the latter.

Of course it works that way. I’m just pointing out that to point to “immersion” as a reason for 2 hour cycles doesn’t hold water. It’s like Freddy Krueger putting on lipstick to look better.

You do these things once, there can be some immersion. You repeat the content and that’s gone. Putting it on a 2 hour cycle doesn’t fix that.

Yesterday I had the privilege to hear a leader or officer of some guild or other complain loudly about a nifty guild hall feature he’d paid for out of pocket. The guild portal.

Not having had any prior interest in the workings of guild halls, I had no idea what he was talking about, so Iooked it up.

“Add a portal device to the guild hall, allowing guild members to quickly travel as a group to missions and other destinations.”

Sounds great. Except, it put his squad in 3 different instances of the same map and in fact it took them longer than it would before he’d built the portal to get everyone together, on this instance where I happened to be present to witness his frustration, because it involved the extra step of gathering in the guild hall which took more effort than just linking a WP and have everyone just travel on their own.

I’m so glad I don’t bother with any of that.

Immersion-wise, the HoT event cycles are the worst thing ever anyway. Every cycle, practically all the VB and DS chains rewind the clock to just after the crash and everything plays out again like Groundhog Day.

Silverwastes at least tried to dress it up as a continuing experience where the cycle was an ever repeating “Mordrem forces renew their assault, aaaaaand… we’ve beaten them again, phew!”

Vayne.8563:

Manasa Devi.7958:

maddoctor.2738:

I say it’s the best thing they could do, to provide something for everyone.

So why didn’t they do that with HoT?

And why are they still not doing it, 5 months after?

Will they be doing it in April?

Actually they did add something for everyone, just not ENOUGH for everyone. They added elite specs for every professions. You may or may not like an elite spec, but that was definitely something for everyone. They added combat mode. They added a story (which some say was too short, but it is something for the more casual player base). The added a mastery system in core Tyria. The made Fractals MUCH easier and allowed you to pick which one you want. That’s all stuff for a more casual crowd. Even the Shatterer revamp that came later was received pretty well.

I guess I’m looking at “for” from the other direction. Like when you look at something and decide “that’s not for me”.

Just because something can be used by someone, doesn’t mean it was “for” them. I could’ve done without the elite specs. I don’t like or use most of them. They are not “for me”. (I don’t even know what “combat mode” means, so I can’t comment on that.) The story, that was supposed to be “for me”, but it turned out it wasn’t “for me” because it was terribly paced, stunted and badly acted.

I’m sure the WvW-only crowd will have a good laugh when you tell them HoT had something “for them”.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think they have the capacity to deliver stuff to everyone all at once in quantity and that’s the issue. They can deliver raids for the hard core crowd, because its’ three bosses and done. It’s not as time consuming or resource cosuming. The new zones, like them or not, took a lot of time.

Yep, they can’t deliver, that’s the whole problem right there. I’ll be making that a bilateral issue in the future. I won’t be handing them money for lacking products anymore.

Vayne.8563:

They added collections, too for those of us who like that sort of thing, PvP seasons and a new map for WvW. Everyone got something. Not everyone likes what they got however.

Yeah, the Deserted Borderlands sure didn’t meet with universal approval.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Manasa Devi.7958:

You know, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, people can start watching their movies at any time they want and pause them whenever they want.

You might want to look into that, it’s really amazing what’s been accomplished since the 1960’s.

Since the 1960s people have gotten increasingly more free time to do more things with their lives. You might want to look into that.

Yeah, it’s great. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to give up this freedom to a game that would dictate you when you can play.

FrizzFreston.5290:

While you can indeed start and stop a movie, I wonder how many people actually do that. People often take time to go watch a movie with friends, hang out with friends for hours hang out with family, etc. loads of people binge watch TV series on netflix. No time is a poormans excuse for “I rather do something else with my time” and then say GW2 is not for casuals anymore. It’s just that people don’t want to do GW2 over those other things.

To say you don’t have 2 hours in a week or two weeks time anywhere, then you mismanaged your wallet. You obviously shouldn’t be investing in a game that is more for people who play a little bit longer than just a small hour in a week, or at least not when you expect to see the whole game. We’re not talking about Farmville here where you login play a few minutes and get everything the whole game has to offer. This is an MMO, people tend to spend more time on it. Hell have you ever played a boardgame that you stopped midway through just because you had to “live your life”.

You’re arguing against a point I wasn’t making. The problem isn’t having to spend 2 hours, the problem is not being able to decide when you want to play if you want to play some piece of specific content.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, that’s not a new thing for HoT. World bosses are like that too. You know what? I complained about that too. Search my message history. Nothing came of that and I dropped it, and just stopped playing world bosses. Small sacrifice, I never enjoyed those anyway except during off-peak hours pre-megaserver when you had to tackle them with just the handful of people still awake on your server. They were an insignificantly small part of my gaming experience and no big loss.

HoT however, is completely steeped in this ridiculous itinerary-based play and totally not worth it if you’re not willing to submit to that.

I guess where we disagree is that HoT is worth a kitten with regard to content, and that supporting a game mode can be done without adding any significant content to that game mode for an extended period of time. Polishing and fixing bugs doesn’t cut it in my book.

TexZero.7910:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Reruns of festivals that were boring the first time they reran them? Polish? Fractals? Where are the new ones?

Well, to that I say:

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

But you wanted content that was casual…Aren’t those festivals exactly what you were asking for ?

I did? They are? I don’t think I did and they most definitely aren’t.

TexZero.7910:

How about that shatter rework ?

Not significant, not new.

How about those fractal bug fixes and reward updates ?

Not new content.

How about that bonus to map completion now including zones like Southsun, which literally is just a walk on the beach ?

Not new content.

How about that nice casual addition of Gliding in Tyria ?

Not new content.

How about them nice casual additions to map rewards for just playing your event trains out ?

Not new content.

TexZero.7910:

No……okay. I see we like only specific updates to PvE, everything else can be omitted.

Maybe you should read my complaint. (“HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.”)

Reruns of festivals that were boring the first time they reran them? Polish? Fractals? Where are the new ones?

Well, to that I say:

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

Countless updates? Which ones?

Festivals? Which ones?

I can’t judge how someone other than me would value the expansion, but I consider it a waste of money.

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, here’s a question for those who are on about the content “drought” since HoT released. Would GW2 be a better game if they went back to the 2 week release cycle, with “click F 150 times for achievement” play and a couple of events that disappeared two weeks later?

You’re describing a situation there that never existed.

Click ‘g’ 150 times, those were S1 achievements. Events that disappeared? S1 too.

The 2 week release cycle that was upheld for S2 bar the half-time break, wasn’t like that. At all.

IndigoSundown.5419:

It seems to me that there were few who liked that, with many complaints about quality, temporary content and the sheer monotony of the busy-work that made up most of it. What would ANet have to provide?

Of course there were few who like that. I’d go as far as to say that no one like it, because it never happened.

I would be a lot happier with the game if there were was something new every 2 weeks. Even if it wouldn’t be amazingly groundbreaking. Because it would only have to last for 2 weeks. It would break the monotony of absolutely nothing for many weeks.

There’s definitely something wrong with that. I’m sure I didn’t have to download anywhere near that much.

I’ve deleted a few that I levelled up quickly with birthday scrolls and tomes, for reasons of experimentation. Never one that I spent any real time on.

Are you saying they did????

maddoctor.2738:

I say it’s the best thing they could do, to provide something for everyone.

So why didn’t they do that with HoT?

And why are they still not doing it, 5 months after?

Will they be doing it in April?

TheRandomGuy.7246:

After that we’re packaging up and preparing our next big quarterly update for April. The April update is about reducing grind, clearing away some tedium, getting quickly to the fun, and improving rewards."

Still not a hint of anything new. Yawn.

I’m sure with most of those people, the “you didn’t give me what I want” remains unspoken or it isn’t expressed explicitly.

I’m pretty sure that a whole lot of those people wouldn’t be complaining on the forums at all if HoT had given them significant amounts of content to be excited about.

That’s what the currently happy people like to counter dissenting opinions with: “all the happy people are in the game and not complaining on the forum.”

You alienate them by adding virtually nothing they want. No one worth listening to will begrudge anyone any content if they feel they’ve gotten their own money’s worth.

Who’s talking about removing anything?

It’s not necessary to focus on the majority, but it makes little sense to alienate them, and certainly not those among them upon whose spending habits they depend, i.e. the ones they already had and stand to lose as costumers.

You know, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, people can start watching their movies at any time they want and pause them whenever they want.

You might want to look into that, it’s really amazing what’s been accomplished since the 1960’s.

Is there any concrete evidence or even a hint that’s more expansive than the anecdotal, that there’s any relationship between preferred game content and cash shop spending habits? (Discounting of course the people whose preferred game content actually is just the consumption of cash shop stuff.)

There’s really no money saving involved. If he hasn’t bought HoT yet he can’t raid, and if he buys it, adding it to the old account or creating a fresh one makes no difference money wise.

If nothing on the old account has any value to you, making a new one will actually be more lucrative in-game, because the new account can profit from login rewards on the old account. You’d need to regularly log on to that account too, of course.

If your characters don’t interest you anymore, there’s birthday presents and perhaps some discontinued items/achievements to keep you on your old account. Can’t think of anything else.

Sorin.4310:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Manasa Devi.7958:

They can add as many raids as they like. Doesn’t bother me at all. It would be nice though if they’d add something I like some day soon.

^this. Where is the content for everyone else? There has been nothing new to do since HoT, that was 5 month’s ago. I don’t count a revamp and festivals(which didn’t really add anything new)

This seems a bit myopic. Anet spent over 3 years releasing content for nonraiders. They’ve spent far less time releasing content for raiders. Anet seems to bounce around releases, instead of content for everyone simultaneously. Your time will come again. Mike O’Brien’s AMA (I think it came from his AMA) even commented that the raid team is far smaller than the other PvE oriented teams.

It felt like “my time” should’ve come up again when I bought HoT, which arrived after over a year of new content draught. It didn’t. Now we’re over 5 months in, and still nothing.

It’s obvious why they’re releasing raids as fast as they can. Raiding was supposed to be part of the expansion.

I’ve seen people on this forum say, in response to complaints about lack of content, that “HoT is like a season pass”. Yeah, sure. A season pass for raiders.

They can add as many raids as they like. Doesn’t bother me at all. It would be nice though if they’d add something I like some day soon.

I’m a lucky guy I guess. I’ve never spent any gems on Black Lion Chest Keys, yet I’ve managed to gain quite a lot of very decent rewards out of the chests, just from keys I got for playing. Even a permanent bank access express. Last week, I got my 10th weapon ticket. Hurrah!

Sadly, I still have 9 of them sitting unused in storage, most of them for years now. And again, I’m not tempted to spend any.

And talking about pointless… How about those “unique” amulets?

I’m sure glad they prevented people from equiping 2 identical ones.