Guild Wars 2

You know it’s gonna take something like 250 Crystallized Mist essences.

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

WvW will have tournaments again with tournament rewards, that’s the separation.

Not enough.

Sorry.

“We might do something at some later date.. maybe”

You know, when you give people a big pile of kitten to eat, you could at least try to make it sound appealing. Yah, just remove the Wxp and Badges and call this done.

I’m sorry, that won’t happen. It would not have the net positive outcome you think it will.

WvW has to stand on its own, just like raids and everything else in game.

Excuse me, it’s not your place to say what will or won’t happen, unless you are the Head Developer for WvW, and this just happens to be some incognito account of yours.

Now if you are the Head Developer, and seem willing to have discussions on the forums, what’s your plan to Fix WvW, and deal with the many legitimate issues that the many other posters have brought up?

If you are not a Head Developer at Anet in Charge of WvW , spare us what you say will or will not happen as you have no knowledge or control of that, and instead return to discussing the merits of Why you think it my proposal would not have the effect I think it would. and what would your proposal be?

Sird.4536:

. Everything you listed for fotm are not needed either. Outside of some fotm you can dodge the AR attacks, you don’t need food or oil and if you do dodge the AR attacks you don’t need ascended gear. Plus in fotm you can also get rewards of up to 100g (btw you can’t salvage ascended items to get the based materials back so who cares how much they are worth).

While you may not need those things, I use them, and even with using food, oils, and potions, AR, Ascended Items, I still manage to turn a profit running Fractals.

Now, If you can’t turn a profit doing a Raid (or any content for that matter) then you need to revisit how good you really are at that content, and accept that perhaps that content is not really the right content for you, if you can’t turn a profit doing it.

Sarrs.4831:

If you’re gonna get your knickers in a twist over one post not being completely accurate with another post in two threads on the same topic whose pages total around 40 you’re kinda taking the kitten.

LOL, so, “not being complete accurate” is how you describe posts that are totally contradicting each other. Cute.

Well come back when you all get your stories straight.

Valtolimor.6230:

Tie loot to world score instead of offensive strength. Bags dropped from players are fine, and can stay as is. Creatures too. But instead of getting the bulk of loot from killing lords and taking objectives, award piles of loot at the end of the tick based on your world’s overall (in all 4 zones, even if you’re putting effort into a losing borderland you’re still contributing to an overall team) number of controlled castles, keeps, towers, and camps at that time. A looting system like this would encourage not only offense, but defense, roaming, and supply esoirts. Obviously this would have to be coupled with some kind of system that will be able to tell if someone is participating (y/n, not stages like in the jungle) to keep people from getting loot from AFKing and leeching off the team’s effort.

I welcome all discussion on my perspective

This is a pretty radical idea. Not sure if I like it, but it’s radical none the less that means it has the potential to be great!

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

WvW will have tournaments again with tournament rewards, that’s the separation.

Not enough.

Sorry.

“We might do something at some later date.. maybe”

You know, when you give people a big pile of kitten to eat, you could at least try to make it sound appealing. Yah, just remove the Wxp and Badges and call this done.

Well this has been a fun topic.

Let’s look at that replay for a moment. We go from posts like this.

fishball.7204:

The point is, raiding in GW2 isn’t hardcore. Anyone can do it if they really wanted to bar some serious real life circumstances (eg. disabilities).

45 minutes clear raid wing 1 is standard nowadays in pug groups.

You can argue all day why and how but when raid wings are cleared faster than AC1-3 pre HoT, you can’t really call these raids “hardcore”.

And then we move on to posts like this.

The one to Rule.2593:

We really don’t make money unless we can 1 shot the boss or unless it’s the first time killing it.

So let me get this right, a bunch of Pugs can go in, clear the raid in roughly 45 min, and at the same time I am hearing people fuss they can’t find a way to make money doing this. Well as I see it, either Fishball was grossly exaggerating the ease by which raids can be done. But, that’s unlikely as no one corrected them.

My other choices are that the people telling me they can’t turn a profit doing the raid are really, really, bad at doing the raid, like so bad they are losing money and maybe should not be raiding kind of bad at trying to do the raid OR they are not really telling the truth about their profit margins.

In either case, with each passing post, I gotta admit regrettably my respect for the Pro-Raid crowd takes a hit as their stands, points, and pretty much everything they have to say, flips and flops all over the place.

Swagger.1459:

WvW will have tournaments again with tournament rewards, that’s the separation.

Not enough.

Sir Mad.1092:

STIHL.2489:

Just want to chime in on this, they could have gotten those endless items by buying Gems with Gold and not actually paid any Real World Cash for them. Where the Expansion requires Real World Cash to Purchase.

But yah, I am with you, $20 for an expansion, is laughable. A decent expansion is an Easy $50, at least.

Not everybody purchases infinite tools with gems,

I am not aware of any infinite tool that is available outside the Gem Store.

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Dayra.7405:

Do you really believe that anyone playing EotM for PvE-rewards would play WvW? So should your pre-justice be true, no one from EotM would go to WvW.

I agree with you totally. let people get their loot/exp/karma, in fact give them a bit of a boost on the Exp and Karma, but EotM should not reward Wxp, or Badges.

It’s a pvp zone and the progress and rewards are appropriate. What you are asking for is akin to removing progress from hot join spvp and keeping it only in ranked. That’s not a logical thing to do, and thankfully our devs are much more rational than that.

Actually, sPvP is a great example of what I am saying being implemented with success. The Amber to Diamond ranks in sPvP are only part of Ranked Play. Honestly I loved the fact that they made “Ranked” have it’s own things going on with it that are totally separate from Hot Join, while they are similar, they are not the same.

I would have loved to see them expand upon that, with special Ranked Reward Tracks, that were unique to ranked play. That gave Ranked players, Equal, yet, different things to enjoy and take pride in. Like “Amber Reward Track” or “Diamond Reward Track”, nothing major, just a little something to set them apart from each other. I could also see special Hot Join Only Tracks. That reward should work in both directions.

I would love to see that same kind of process be applied to WvW/Eotm. If they could expand a system like that, where WvW had it’s own kind of Ranking System, seperate from EotM, it’s own special reward tracks and currency, that set is apart from EotM, in the same way Ranked was set apart from Hot Join, I would get behind that as well.

While I think that would be a lot of work, and it would be so much easier to simply remove Wxp and badges from EotM and generate pretty much the same effect, I could get behind some other kind of system that set them apart from each other the same way Ranked and Hot Join are set apart.

Sir Mad.1092:

Guys, you’re talking about $20 expansions, yet almost every lvl 80 player I see IG has infinite gathering tools (that I can see) and probably a salvage-o-mattic, extra bag slots, etc (I can only guess). You’re not willing to pay more than 20 or 30$ for an expansion, yet you’re willing to pay $50 per character to fix something deliberately made frustrating (25 uses salvage kits etc). You get the game and the expac you deserve I guess.

Just want to chime in on this, they could have gotten those endless items by buying Gems with Gold and not actually paid any Real World Cash for them. Where the Expansion requires Real World Cash to Purchase.

But yah, I am with you, $20 for an expansion, is laughable. A decent expansion is an Easy $50, at least.

Astralporing.1957:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Maybe it’s lag on my side but the last 2 incidents ended up with party porting to lab when there was 1 no, 1 yes voted.

If it really works that way, then it’s dumb. Though i’m quite sure that at least at some point in history the popup waited till everyone made a decision, and there was no timeout.

I know for a fact you can’t leave with only one vote in a full group. I am just not sure if it takes Majority or if 2 is enough. I think it takes Majority.

Also, if the votes went fast, you could get 3 votes in before you had a chance to read the screen, think of how fast you go to 3/4 votes in a daily run to enter the fractal.

Also, I could not find any info on if it was Majority or if 2 votes in a full group was enough.

Dayra.7405:

Do you really believe that anyone playing EotM for PvE-rewards would play WvW? So should your pre-justice be true, no one from EotM would go to WvW.

I agree with you totally. let people get their loot/exp/karma, in fact give them a bit of a boost on the Exp and Karma, but EotM should not reward Wxp, or Badges.

Hypairion.9210:

Endless Custom Ascended Armor/Weapons Skins.

Yes this one is nice ( but still 0 gold, and drop rate is very low, unless you buy it with shards. Just need some weeks ^^)

No, this is a item that is worth well over a 100 gold, in parts alone. The Ascended Insignia alone sells for over 85 gold easy.

So this is most assuredly.. Not 0 gold.

Assorted Ascended Crafting Material.

Oh, almost forget this one…let’s see, since we can only have the Chest once the first time we kill à boss, it’s almost négligeable

30 gold in materials for 45 min of Work is not Negligible.

So far, you could have gained well over 100 gold, and no less then 30 gold, for less then an hours work.

Dang.

Dang…

You know what, your attempt at a pity party is pathetic. But looking at that sweet easy loot, I might just have to get myself into this raid.

Hypairion.9210:

You know that running Sw, chopping trees or Killing mossman offer beter rewards? And i’m not talking about playing the tp…

Is there something stopping you from doing that with the rest of your time, or does doing the raid lock you out of the game for the rest of the week?

Also, go chop tress for 45 min, tell me your chances of pulling an Ascended Weapon, who’s parts alone are worth well over 100 gold.

Expensive food, à lot of wipe at the beginning when we learn, and even after we’re shards caped, we ré (at least in my guild) doing multiple times the wings for all people, for new people, to test new characters etc…so each time, food.
And of course, ascended weapons and armors…sigils, runes, black Diamond for viper set etc…you’ll be surprised ^^

Again, are you unable to use that gear for other parts of the game? Can you only put it on during the raid? If not, then it’s an investment in your character, not a cost of doing the raid.

Wipes cost zero Gold as there is no repair cost.

The only thing you have said, is “food”, I have got to ask, what are you eating that cost over 2 gold in the supposed 45 min it takes to do a raid?

Thank you for the heads up, going to check out that other topic.

Palador.2170:

Jewel Crafting 500 can make the ascended trinkets that are harder to get (HoT and future expansions), upgrade old jewels to new ones that are hard to come by or simply don’t exist outside of creating them, or create something entirely different. Remember the Halloween necklaces that have a jewel in them that turns you a different color? There’s an example of what 500 jewel crafting could do. Or how about a set of rare skins? Gemmed weapons and armor, perhaps?

The same goes with 500 skill in cooking. Forget just bigger stats, what about longer duration? Or some cosmetic effect? There’s in-game precedent for food that changes your size, why not some that lasts for 30 minutes and can be used in combat? Or brewing? Imagine a raid/dungeon/fractal where some bad guys can be heard complaining about the lack of good ale before the fight starts. Then, someone finds out that getting a big and difficult to make keg of 500 cooking skill ale and setting it out before the fight causes the NPCs to turn friendly, and unlock a hidden door to a different fight. We don’t have to stick to just the old uses.

Nice ideas, but I think trying to make stuff like that happen, would be a lot more work then it sounds like, which might be why nothing is happening on their end.

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

“without rewards” and “remove xp and badges”….

I would be afraid for the game if some of you were calling the shots. GW2 would tank pretty fast.

Even with the Loss of Badges&Wxp, I am sure they will still be able to find the will to still go out there for the piles of Champion Bags and endless Karma/Exp that doing EotM rewards them with.

And I can farm fractal 40 and get tons of loot and 3,000 karma every 5 minutes and get more in an hour than a few hours in eotm… or join those 12 hour chest trains in SW and get more loot and karma than a player will get in a week playing eotm or wvw regularly.

You can hope all you want to remove anything from any game mode, but your wishes won’t come true. Instead we have to think of rational solutions to build up the pvp playerbase in this game.

Actually I am doing the people that enjoy EotM as favor by suggesting removing Wxp.

Rank farming is not only pointless, it’s self defeating after like Bronze Scout, if you only enjoy EotM, after you get all the things you will use, like Guard Killer/Defense, Ram Mastery, Supply Mastery, Cata Mastery, and maybe Siege Bunker, Nothing else is gonna help you in a EotM farm run as hardly anyone defends and no one uses golems. And even Siege Capacity is a waste in EotM, as the groups are often large, not small 3 man havoc groups or solo flippers, where that +5 can really make a difference.

So if a player has no intention to do Server Based WvW, the Wxp ranks are as pointless as if you were running a Fractal instead. All they really do, is give you an artificially inflated title to the people looking to kill you.

Really, we both know that it would be better for everyone if the two were not linked.

If you feel that the Post 80 group in EotM needs something special, make a Mastery Line for EotM that uses Exp to level it, that gives all the needed WvW things like Guard Killer, for the people that are not there just leveling alts. Put in some Mastery Points around the map, and link a few to the Achievements.

In the end, they say they have the metrics to make them happy, but we shall see if that turns into cash.

In the end, given all I have seen and read here, I still really think this move they are making is gonna bite them in the kitten , something fierce.

I’ll wait an see at this point.

Hypairion.9210:

So much reward?

Lets see:
A whole collection of Custom Minis.
Endless Custom Ascended Armor/Weapons Skins.
a Special Title
10 Mastery Points
almost 200 Achievements Points.
Assorted Ascended Crafting Material.
A Special Currency used to Purchase Ascended Weapons and Armor with Custom Skins.

On top of that, each Raid Boss Chest, Drops No less then 2 gold, in coin alone, along with exotic items, and a chance for Ascended Items as well.

Yes, please tell me how you are losing money.

So on top of all those rewards, we all have to suffer to two topics of 20+ pages, of you all are fussing about needing to keep the Legendary Collection Unlock exclusive to the raid.

How many ways I can take that aside from being purely motivated by greed?

Hypairion.9210:

Have I expressed that I want it? Watch those Personal Attacks.

Hmm my bad, you just seem to not like having legendary armor locked behind raid (that i can understand, pvp and WvW should have something like that too)
But you were the one calling me greedy because it happens I like this content, and anet chose to put some rewards behind it..

You’re not greedy because you like the content, no one is greedy because they have fun playing, but the fact that you feel that the content should have so much reward linked to it.. yah.. that’s a bit much.

Added: Especially, when you say you would be satisfied with just a Special Skin, and you are Getting Ascended Gear with Special Skin.. to then demand that you also get Legendary. Come on.. You don’t think that makes you look greedy?

DGraves.3720:

You make me wish I could craft a Legendary donut.

Ok that was some serious funny.. I laughed!

Oh for a Price. I’d easy drop $50 USD, and up to $90 if they tossed in a bunch of points like they did with HoT.

But, just for the base Expansion, I’m good for 49.95 for that content, if I liked what I saw. Pre-Order would never happen again at this point.

Zergs.9715:

Anet has yet to prove that it’s capable of finishing ANYTHING they start working on. These are issues that are dragging on since release. So before moving on to another thing I suggest you turn around and take good look at what you terrible lack of consistency and discipline left in its wake. These are too big to be left in a state they are in right now!

1. Ascended crafting.

• No 500 jewelcrafting
• No jewel socketing on ascended, of course
• No 500 cook.

Ok a few things.

• There is no need to make 500 Jewel Crafting when All Ascended Trinkets can be Bought or Drop.
• Ascended Rings have the stats of an Exotic Ring + Upgrade, and a little bit more.
• Ascended Food? Really? Do we need to go there?

3. Everything related to underwater left in shambles

I have to agree with you, Underwater Comabt in this game is really cool, and they seem to be totally neglecting it, you can’t even dye your breather for pity’s sake.

5. LS season 1 still missing

Huh? I thought it already came and went?

Not gonna make any demands or express how much I would pay, but, I’d want to see if I liked it before I spent money on it. If it appeals to me, well I pre-ordred their largest HT bundle, so I’d pay whatever was the best deal. Just not willing to pay for it, till I see it this time around. Hope they understand.

Hypairion.9210:

STIHL.2489:

Hypairion.9210:

STIHL.2489:

Absurdo.8309:

The real question is why you want a reward that provides no increase in stats and is just a fancy skin. Exclusive rewards is nothing new in Guild wars 2.

Counter Question: Would you be fine, if the Raid gave you an Armor Skin, as opposed to Legendary Armor?

hmm, it’s a theoritical question, since raid reward legendary armor. But, for me, the answer at your therotical question is yes.

so, now, in practice, since raids reward legendary armor, i dont want it to be rewarded in a way that will remove all the effort put in learning raids, just to please some lazy people that want all for no effort.

No. The raid does not reward Legendary Armor, completing the raid unlocks the collection Those are two very different things.

But the Raid does Reward Magnetite Shards which can be used to buy Ascended Gear that has special Unique Skins

So at what point do you think you moved past fair reward and just dove right onto being Downright Greedy ?

Yes, indeed, it’s the legendary precursor only. And?
Raids reward that + magnétite shards. I’m not greedy, it’s just anet choice. You’re the greedy one wanting all of that, but without raiding.

Have I expressed that I want it? Watch those Personal Attacks.

I wanted to put a Question out there for Everyone. Now I know that the current expansion still has it’s shiny on it, so it seems odd to talk about the next one. But I figured this was a good time to discuss it.

Based on your experiences so far with Heart of Thorns, would you Pre-Order the next Expansion?

Hypairion.9210:

STIHL.2489:

Absurdo.8309:

The real question is why you want a reward that provides no increase in stats and is just a fancy skin. Exclusive rewards is nothing new in Guild wars 2.

Counter Question: Would you be fine, if the Raid gave you an Armor Skin, as opposed to Legendary Armor?

hmm, it’s a theoritical question, since raid reward legendary armor. But, for me, the answer at your therotical question is yes.

so, now, in practice, since raids reward legendary armor, i dont want it to be rewarded in a way that will remove all the effort put in learning raids, just to please some lazy people that want all for no effort.

No. The raid does not reward Legendary Armor, completing the raid unlocks the collection Those are two very different things.

But the Raid does Reward Magnetite Shards which can be used to buy Ascended Gear that has special Unique Skins

So at what point do you think you moved past fair reward and just dove right onto being Downright Greedy ?

Swagger.1459:

“without rewards” and “remove xp and badges”….

I would be afraid for the game if some of you were calling the shots. GW2 would tank pretty fast.

Even with the Loss of Badges&Wxp, I am sure they will still be able to find the will to still go out there for the piles of Champion Bags and endless Karma/Exp that doing EotM rewards them with.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

STIHL.2489:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

STIHL.2489:

I’m gonna toss my coin in saying it won’t.

It already did.

“Raid in MMOs are high-end content designed for the more hardcore player. However, from an analytics standpoint, the participation is higher than other games we’ve seen. This is likely due to the nature of our progression system in GW2.”

From their AMA on reddit.

Calling Bogus, link it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nx12v

I really hope it works for them.

We shall see.

Absurdo.8309:

The real question is why you want a reward that provides no increase in stats and is just a fancy skin. Exclusive rewards is nothing new in Guild wars 2.

Counter Question: Would you be fine, if the Raid gave you an Armor Skin, as opposed to Legendary Armor?

Pelto.9364:

The Exit button is only reason why I hate fractals.

Suggestion: When a quitter presses the exit button, should only the players who do press “yes” be moved to lobby in their party; all others stay in the fractal in their party and can continue.

Today was first time I went to fractals in four months. At the end boss of daily fractal lvl 17 a quitter hits the Exit button, and we all go to lobby besides 2 of us hit “no”. What a waste of time thanks to players who does not know how to quit fractals using “leave party”.

I remember the Exit dialog has timeout: make the timeout longer so that players have enough time to vote. Don’t count “not voting” as “yes” – count it as “no”.

Now it is too easy to ruin others gameplay by hitting that Exit button. Because of the Exit button, are fractals a disqusting experience. If I ask “all know this fractal?”, nobody says nothing, and at the end may come this Exit.

IIRC, it takes majority to vote for the whole party to leave. Which is funny, as I am wondering why they would want to leave at the boss fight anyway.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

STIHL.2489:

I’m gonna toss my coin in saying it won’t.

It already did.

“Raid in MMOs are high-end content designed for the more hardcore player. However, from an analytics standpoint, the participation is higher than other games we’ve seen. This is likely due to the nature of our progression system in GW2.”

From their AMA on reddit.

Calling Bogus, link it.

Thaddeus.4891:

Personally, I would like that ALL legendary armor be behind a hard content but up until now GW2 wasn’t this kind of game.

This is the key component of any discussion.This change to suddenly Skill Gate, a “legendary” item goes against the previous way the game was set up.

To coin a Phrase “It’s bold move Cotton, lets see if pays off”

I’m gonna toss my coin in saying it won’t. Given they did not have the metrics to keep 5 Man Dungeons Aline, they did not have the metrics to Keep HoT Legendary Weapons going, I am going to bet, once the shiny wears off the Raid, it’s gonna go the same way.

As other have said, Leave it in, if people enjoy it, let them enjoy it. Just remove the Wxp and Badges from it.

Not sure how I feel about Legendary Armor in WvW, I mean WvW Needs love, and lots of it, but.. I am not sure if going Legendary Armor, is the right way to go.

I know everyone is talking about Legendary Armor right now, but.. ya know what I would love to see?

Unlocking something like, Legendary Siege Golems.

Torolan.5816:

@Absurdo and Alveda
Since raids appeared in GW2, I already had the resolve to not invest time in them when I played the game. I gave them a try anyway to know if my precognition would stand the test of the game itself, and it did. I read the forums once in a while and was probably annoyed so much by silly and stupid “git good” arguments that I began to argue and lobby against the system of raids here. If you check my posting history, I never even tried to mask that.

I find it indeed annoying that raids got the Lions share of developer attention lately, and I am also not a fan of SAB as these two types of content are exactly the type of content I usually avoid, time consuming and jumping puzzle. From a personal point of view, I would indeed like to see both vanish or marginalized, as much as you would like to see them get support. This is because it takes away from stuff I would probably like much more and has nothing to do with me wanting to spit into your personal metaphorical soup. Of course I realize that there is a market for raids. I guess it would bother me much less if Anet would have stayed true to their original plan and just hand out skins and titles instead of actually useable items like legendary armor.

Well said.

I am in a similar boat. It’s not that I don’t like raids, I raided my little greedy black heart out in the last MMO I played, guess I am just burned out on the whole idea of “Double the People Dungeons”, beyond that, they hold no attraction for me. I don’t need the gear, and I am not in the mood to grind a HoT legendary, so the Armor, and thus the Raid, are not on my to-do list.

I just don’t want to see Anet make a massive fumble here, and in many respects it looks like they might be lining up to do just that.

I don’t know at this point. I think they are setting themselves up for a massive let down.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

STIHL.2489:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

STIHL.2489:

maddoctor.2738:

Raids in fractals. People have been asking for easy-mode raids but I don’t think that’s a good thing. So instead of that add the Raid bosses in Fractal format (for 5 people) with all the usual fractal rewards.

Want Raid rewards? Play the Raid.
Want to experience the story of the Raid? Play it in fractal form

This could work to a point. I could see the Rewards for Completion being benign (IE: No legendary stuff) in the “Non-Agony” fractal levels, but once you get to the Fractal Level where you need Agony Resist, this would become “Raid Boss with a Gear-Check and Mist-Instability” It would be fitting that they should get in on the Legendary Action.

With that minor change, I think that would be a great solution.

No, because those encounters would be scaled down to 5 man and fractal difficulty, i.e. they’re considerably easier than the normal raid versions, besides the instability which may or may not be annoying.

As for fracs; Battle on the Breachmaker as has been said, maybe something related to the war between Balthasar and Menzies, or something to do with Luxon and Kurzick.

Less People =/ Less Challenge.

And there is no such thing as a Mist Instability that is not Annoying.

Mechanics would require less people to pull off. Balance would have to be made for 5 people. It would’ve been balanced to be on par with other fractals because if they were to put something with the difficulty of a raid encounter into the otherwise rather easy fractals, large parts of the community would go completely ballistic. So no, if raid encounter (variants) make it into fractals, they would not be on the same difficulty as actual raid encounters and they should not reward anything related to raids.

I derfer you to this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-you-think-Raids-in-GW2-were-a-bad-idea/page/20#post6084813

Anyone can do a raid, there is no reason to not allow the same rewards to be given in a fractal.

Sykper.6583:

Yes, to avoid having the game get stale and lose player retention, the game must continue to evolve and build on what it has.

We agree here.

Sykper.6583:

Halt. You are confusing something here and you sort of made a leap from a previous point. As you said if projections were true, then GW2 HoT as a success doesn’t having this ‘small problem’ existing in the first place. Or if it did exist, a very small segment of the populace would be vocal enough and perhaps leave due to it, not significant enough to warrant changing anything.

Not true at all. For two factors.

First Problem: *The Expansion was Sold Pre-launch: What this means is that people bought it sight unseen. This means that their loyal Customers paid cash upfront Trusting Anet to provide them a product they would enjoy. If they were unhappy with it after it went live, that would not affect Anet’s sales numbers at all. So in reality Anet could have had an amazing success in the sales and simultaneously generating a catastrophic failure as far as customer sanctification, and unless people complained, they would have no way to know.

Even if people did not complain directly to Anet, and simply did not enjoy the content for whatever reason, that means they will be less inclined to pay forward for the product in the future, so Anet could suffer losses banking on pre-launch sails to providing development funds.

Second Problem: It’s not a subscription game, so, Anet is not directly affected by the number if players it has currently playing the game, it’s only affected by the number of people buying gems with cash. Which means they could take a massive flux in players from month to month and it would not hurt their running bottom line.. However, it could drastically hurt their sales for something like a Expansion, because it has a fixed price, and it’s a single account purchase. The number of active accounts is very important in that venture.

Sykper.6583:

STIHL.2489:

Allow me to explain,on this topic alone, I see how many people left WoW, because they were not enjoying how much a “cake walk” many of the raids and dungeons were. Now pause and ponder that. They were doing the content, they were farming the content, and it was well within their ability to complete it. They were simply not having fun, so they stopped buying it.

Another pause here, because this point is awkward from your stance. I ask of you to re-read what you wrote here, since you just indicated that players left WoW because PvE content was ‘too-easy’ and putting it on farm. …Did you catch it?

Actually this shoots down your entire stand that content is a success if people play it. Just because people play the content does not mean that it’s successful.

And for the record, this is a discussion on if the raid was a bad idea. If you want to talk about merits of difficulty of content, that discussion is here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Suggestion-Raid-Difficulty-Settings-Merged/first

Where everyone lost their minds and whined that it would be too much for them to handle when I suggested a gear check for the raid.

Sykper.6583:

STIHL.2489:

Do you think that does not happen to everyone? Do you think anyone sticks around for content they don’t enjoy? Do you think anyone invests money into a game they don’t find fun, engaging and enjoyable?

They will stick around for the content they CAN enjoy

No they won’t, just like the people who left WoW, did not stick around and do the hard raids, even tho they were there for them to enjoy. People will not stick around if they dare not having fun, even if they have only themselves to blame for not having fun.

Sykper.6583:

STIHL.2489:

Why do you think you’re here, and not still playing your previous MMO?

Because RL issues took me away from hardcore raiding.

I want you to know that the irony of you openly admitting that GW2 is a retirement MMO, for people that can’t do hardcore MMO’s, and then fuss about needing added difficulty. If this was a hardcore MMO, you would not be here, so what’s you motive to try and direct it towards being the kind of MMO you had to quit?

Anyway, again.

This is not a Discussion about the Difficulty, it’s a discussion on if it was a Good Idea.

Sykper.6583:

It’ll die out no faster or slower than more difficult content. Content being more difficult does not mean that most people will play it more. If anything, it will result in less overall play, because some players will try it, realize it is beyond their capabilities, and give up entirely, as was the case with a lot of HoT content for a lot of players.

HoT PvE content was not the biggest drawback for player retention. WvW suffered the most, with massive sweeping changes without any meaningful rewards added. Players were not leaving HoT in droves, some avoided the new expansion all together, others joined up with groups to comb VB and attempt the once thought ‘impossible’ meta events.

Turned out when players started working together they could get stuff done once thought impossible, get their rewards, and those who craved a bigger challenge got something to sate them, those who might have disliked it at first now enjoy it, and those who still hate the new maps get their rewards and barely go back there unless needed. As long as the content is rewarding you, regardless of your feelings, and getting you to play it, it is doing its job. It doesn’t get more simple than this given just how many different kinds of players are in this game.

I understand what you are saying, or more to the fact, what you are trying to say. And You have said some really good things about games, and made some good points.

One point in Particular, you made that I would like to return you to think about.

Sykper.6583:

MMOs are an entirely different beast from any normal game you might play. GW2 is certainly no exception even at its launch, although it did a terrific job at splitting itself away from the normal MMO selfish paradigms of MMOs before it, with promotions of working together towards objectives and individualized loot tables rather than competing with one another. However it still carries the same goals an MMO must have to be successful, it needs to retain players by producing content and rewards, and create a business through attracting new players and producing purchasable content in game.

My focus however, is on the first pivotal point of creating content to retain players. How do you retain players in an MMO? When you play any other game, from board games to even video game RPGs where you can sink hundreds of hours into, at some point that game ends. There’s a finale, a true end-game where once you have reached it you have finished the game it is done. An MMO does not have this luxury, it needs to continue to create content to retain players

I want you to read this for a moment. Take some time to process your own words. And then think about what you said about players not liking the new content.

You see, as you so clearly put out, the goal of an MMO is to continue, to always have that next content patch/expansion, to keep the game fresh and keep players coming back.

Now we could get into a discussion about projected ROI and investments, but long story short, if, for example, Anet made around 2 bauble bubbles of Profit off the Expansion, they would be excited to invest more into the next expansion, with hopefully a equal to, or even greater return. Now, if their numbers overall are growing, which is likely the case due to the Main game becoming F2P, they could invest more Bauble Bubbles into the Next Expansion then they have into this current one.

However, there is a small problem (That almost every MMO company learned one way or another) If players not enjoying the content, they will not buy more of it. It’s not simply that will stop playing, it’s that they don’t see the point to go to the next step of the game, if they did not enjoy the previous step.

Allow me to explain,on this topic alone, I see how many people left WoW, because they were not enjoying how much a “cake walk” many of the raids and dungeons were. Now pause and ponder that. They were doing the content, they were farming the content, and it was well within their ability to complete it. They were simply not having fun, so they stopped buying it.

Do you think that does not happen to everyone? Do you think anyone sticks around for content they don’t enjoy? Do you think anyone invests money into a game they don’t find fun, engaging and enjoyable?

I don’t know. Maybe you do.

I hope Anet is not making a mistake with this, and I would love to see them continue their great game. But every move has to be a smart move, it’s not enough to simply make content, it needs to engage the player, if they don’t enjoy something and do it for a reward, you can pretty much sign the “burn out” receipt for that player.

Anyone that players games knows that.

Why do you think you’re here, and not still playing your previous MMO?

Sykper.6583:

. The bigger the change or deviation from the normal content, the longer the new content retains the players.

I am going to have to disagree with this and I think the NGE is testament that big changes are not in fact good changes.

Asrat.2645:

STIHL.2489:

Ascended Weapons and Armor are Soulbound on Equip, but that is Irrelevant.

No. They are not.

I stand corrected.

Asrat.2645:

STIHL.2489:

What is Relevant is that Ascended Gear requires a Character to be 80th level to equip, and thus eliminating Problems like People wanting to bring their Up Leveled Characters to do 100th Level Fractals from happening.

Nobody said anything about 100. At least the op did not, I stopped reading after everybody just wrote the same stuff again and again

Only a matter of time before it gets there, and as you said, AR is already “account bound”, so there is no need to change things.

Alveda.8409:

STIHL.2489:

Alveda.8409:

I don’t cry about PVP backpack locking behind PVP content.

The fact that this keeps getting brought up, is really is starting to sound like ya’ll are whining about it.

You also ignored the fact there is no thread about it, while there is 19 pages of you crying for raid easy mode.

To be fair, I have 19 pages of you crying about the PvP back item now.

Fermi.2409:

STIHL.2489:

Alveda.8409:

I don’t cry about PVP backpack locking behind PVP content.

The fact that this keeps getting brought up, is really is starting to sound like ya’ll are whining about it.

Because it’s a great example?

Of what? Airing resentment?

Alveda.8409:

I don’t cry about PVP backpack locking behind PVP content.

The fact that this keeps getting brought up, is really is starting to sound like ya’ll are whining about it.

Shylock.4653:

STIHL.2489:

Making AR account bound will just inspire more people to bring their up-levels to try and do higher level fractals.

AR is basically account bound.

Most of the AR comes from ascended trinkets and back-item which can be swapped freely between all chars. Weapons and armor are not completely free swappable but can normally be used by a few chars.

Ascended Weapons and Armor are Soulbound on Equip, but that is Irrelevant.

What is Relevant is that Ascended Gear requires a Character to be 80th level to equip, and thus eliminating Problems like People wanting to bring their Up Leveled Characters to do 100th Level Fractals from happening.

FogLeg.9354:

This is test post only because thread shows up empty for me.

I had a similar problem, seems to be working now.

Absurdo.8309:

STIHL.2489:

Ranael.6423:

STIHL.2489:

The Question is Was it a good idea to Link that Item to that Content

I think it is, at least for now in order to measure the impact of releasing these new items. Ascended were totally gated at the beginning but with time they gave opportunities to get some in many different ways.
For now they chose to give through raid to 1/Evaluate their ability to design raid that people like (I mean the one that are asking for challenging content for more than 2 years) and 2/See if many materials or other things won’t lose too much value because of this.
Maybe for the next expansion there will be a new set of legendary armor released through story achievement, adventures and map meta completion. Those who hate PvE meta will then don’t do it because they don’t find it fun.
But for now it is locked by raid completion and I am sure it attracts people to do raid while they wouldn’t have tried it without the reward.

It also has the potential to alienate a substantial part of the player base, which could cause irreparable harm to their long standing customers.

For me, it’s not personal. The few times I did the raid because I was invited by my friends and guild mates, the armor and other baubles hold no attraction to me directly, might be because I am old school, and everything is about stats first, look second. The fact that my main toons have full ascended means I will never have to worry about a gear upgrade ever again, so the raid was, cute but pointless to me. But, I can see from the posts on this topic that I am apparently in the minority. Like Torolan said something profound when he said no one really cares about how pretty your gear is beyond you and maybe your close friends. While it might attract a passing comment, few really care that you have it, their interest is purely for it’s look on their own toon and less will even remember who you were when you part ways.

But, there are a lot of people who are very vested in the look of their toon. I guess that is the nature of a game like GW2. I believe the joke is “Fashion Wars 2”

So, will Anet pull in a good bank roll for their decision to make Legendary Armor Skins exclusive to the Raid.

Time will tell, but, I am betting not.

This argument makes no sense. Exclusive skins are part of every game mode, and they do not seem to alienate the player base. And we don’t even know what the skin looks like yet.

I am sure if it was just some “Raid Armor” like there was “Dungeon Armor” as opposed to the debut of “Legendary Armor” there would be far less issues and risks of alienating their player base.

It seems that “Legendary”, which at first were just a matter of luck and wealth, then later became a Journey type concept, so, we shall see how well Skill Gating Legendary items goes over. Didn’t go over too well when WvW was part of Map Completion tho.

I mean truth be told, if it goes over poorly, they could always simply remove Legendary Armor from the game, and just have the raid drop “Raid Armor Skins” and call the problem resolved as far as damage control goes.

We shall see what plays out. Will this be the bold new direction or that wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Ranael.6423:

STIHL.2489:

The Question is Was it a good idea to Link that Item to that Content

I think it is, at least for now in order to measure the impact of releasing these new items. Ascended were totally gated at the beginning but with time they gave opportunities to get some in many different ways.
For now they chose to give through raid to 1/Evaluate their ability to design raid that people like (I mean the one that are asking for challenging content for more than 2 years) and 2/See if many materials or other things won’t lose too much value because of this.
Maybe for the next expansion there will be a new set of legendary armor released through story achievement, adventures and map meta completion. Those who hate PvE meta will then don’t do it because they don’t find it fun.
But for now it is locked by raid completion and I am sure it attracts people to do raid while they wouldn’t have tried it without the reward.

It also has the potential to alienate a substantial part of the player base, which could cause irreparable harm to their long standing customers.

For me, it’s not personal. The few times I did the raid because I was invited by my friends and guild mates, the armor and other baubles hold no attraction to me directly, might be because I am old school, and everything is about stats first, look second. The fact that my main toons have full ascended means I will never have to worry about a gear upgrade ever again, so the raid was, cute but pointless to me. But, I can see from the posts on this topic that I am apparently in the minority. Like Torolan said something profound when he said no one really cares about how pretty your gear is beyond you and maybe your close friends. While it might attract a passing comment, few really care that you have it, their interest is purely for it’s look on their own toon and less will even remember who you were when you part ways.

But, there are a lot of people who are very vested in the look of their toon. I guess that is the nature of a game like GW2. I believe the joke is “Fashion Wars 2”

So, will Anet pull in a good bank roll for their decision to make Legendary Armor Skins exclusive to the Raid.

Time will tell, but, I am betting not.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

STIHL.2489:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

STIHL.2489:

maddoctor.2738:

Raids in fractals. People have been asking for easy-mode raids but I don’t think that’s a good thing. So instead of that add the Raid bosses in Fractal format (for 5 people) with all the usual fractal rewards.

Want Raid rewards? Play the Raid.
Want to experience the story of the Raid? Play it in fractal form

This could work to a point. I could see the Rewards for Completion being benign (IE: No legendary stuff) in the “Non-Agony” fractal levels, but once you get to the Fractal Level where you need Agony Resist, this would become “Raid Boss with a Gear-Check and Mist-Instability” It would be fitting that they should get in on the Legendary Action.

With that minor change, I think that would be a great solution.

No, because those encounters would be scaled down to 5 man and fractal difficulty, i.e. they’re considerably easier than the normal raid versions, besides the instability which may or may not be annoying.

As for fracs; Battle on the Breachmaker as has been said, maybe something related to the war between Balthasar and Menzies, or something to do with Luxon and Kurzick.

Less People =/ Less Challenge.

And there is no such thing as a Mist Instability that is not Annoying.

Mechanics would require less people to pull off. Balance would have to be made for 5 people. It would’ve been balanced to be on par with other fractals because if they were to put something with the difficulty of a raid encounter into the otherwise rather easy fractals, large parts of the community would go completely ballistic. So no, if raid encounter (variants) make it into fractals, they would not be on the same difficulty as actual raid encounters and they should not reward anything related to raids.

We shall disagree.