Guild Wars 2

MashMash.1645:

Vayne.8563:

But the experience after we level will count for mastery points, which I think is much much better. I don’t now about you, but I don’t think most players are sitting there at 80 counting their XP points. A few probably are, but not most.

But what happens when your mastery is maxed though? You no longer get any advancement at all?

Which mastery? There are a lot of masteries. You can switch between the mastery tracks you’ve unlocked on the fly, any time you want, so you can work on whichever mastery you want. Each mastery has several tiers.

By the time you’ve maxed them all? I think you’ve got a while to worry about that.

MashMash.1645:

The OP makes an interesting point, which I hadn’t thought of. What happens when you are in a map, and your mastery is maxed?

You just get nothing then, no mastery track progression at all? I mean, if it’s full, it can’t go up any more, right?

Or does something else happen? If so, what.

I still find this new system confusing (without being able to actually look / play with it I mean).

If you’re familiar with the way WvW reward tracks work, you can always switch reward tracks to any track you’ve unlocked. The same will be true of masteries.

So if you bother unlocking the masteries, which I would think would be a priority for most people, once you finish a mastery track, you can switch to another one.

Keep in mind, each mastery track has multiple levels also.

Arewn.2368:

Vayne.8563:

But without knowing the drop rate and what drops them, this whole conversation is premature. They’re not likely to be random like a legendary. We might end up with as many of them as we have of dragonite ore.

It’s just a huge assumption that somehow you’ll be disadvantaged. We saw the same posts about laurels when the dailies came out. You’re saying Anet could do X without even knowing if they’ll need to or not. Without knowing if you’ll get more or less under the new system.

Seems premature to me.

No, it’s not premature.
I know the method of acquisition. I could not care so much as an iota less what the drop rate is, within the context of this conversation. It’s irrelevant to me. I don’t care if it’s easier or harder to get them.
What I know is that it’s a drop of some sort (that’s all I need to know) vs the old acquisition method of leveling, which is to include the existence of leveling which keeps exp somewhat relevant post 80. That’s what I care about. And that’s what I think many people care about, the VS.
It’s not a big deal to me, I simply prefer getting them through post-80 leveling vs having yet another loot drop. Like dragonite ore. And bloodstone dust. And empyreal frags. And geodes. And bandit crests. And an assorted array of crafting mats. And more to come in the expansion too I’m sure.

Well if you don’t care to listen to anyone else’s opinion, not much to talk about. You’re not being reasonable. If the drop rate is high enough where it doesn’t matter….if people aren’t being disadvantaged by the new system then they’re not being disadvantaged by the new system.

Why should anyone even respond to you if that doesn’t matter? Your argument becomes invalid.

Arewn.2368:

Vayne.8563:

Here’s some information that math doesn’t affect. One of the big problems reported with this game, is the lack of progression. Most people don’t feel they’re progression. Even if you get another skill point after a certain level, people don’t see it as progression because it doesn’t only move forward. When you spend them it goes backwards till you get more, That’s because it’s a currency.

With the mastery system, people will feel like they’re progressing…even if they progress more slower, because mastery points won’t go backwards.

Masteries can be added to keep the feeling of progression going.

The few people that feel that XP gain after 80 is progression are just that. Few people.

I don’t feel that it’s progression. I do however feel that it’s a better way to reward us with skills points (shards to be) then making them yet ANOTHER rng loot drop.

The other thing is that your post presents a false dichotomy. The mastery system does not necessitate the removal of post-80 leveling.
You can have both.

But without knowing the drop rate and what drops them, this whole conversation is premature. They’re not likely to be random like a legendary. We might end up with as many of them as we have of dragonite ore.

It’s just a huge assumption that somehow you’ll be disadvantaged. We saw the same posts about laurels when the dailies came out. You’re saying Anet could do X without even knowing if they’ll need to or not. Without knowing if you’ll get more or less under the new system.

Seems premature to me.

Mystic.5934:

I didn’t read that… where does it say that skill points your characters currently have will not be useful anymore?
I read that new infinite skill points will give spirit shards, and scrolls you currently have will convert to spirit shards, and spirit shards can be used to buy things from miyani, but nothing about what happens to old skill points

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/

I think you’ve missed some things. Skill points will no longer be used to purchase skills moving forward. Hero skill points will be used to purchase both skills and traits. There are a fixed number of hero skill points, that you get from a combination of leveling and hero point challenges (formerly skill point challenges).

You will no longer be able to use skill points to purchase skills. It’ll be a different currency.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

I can live with that, if mastery ‘progression’, is affected by everything that currently rewards bonus exp. Aka you have total of 35% experience bonus at the moment? That means you are farming your mastery 35% faster (mobs only). They will not only take away experience after level 80, they will take the passive bonus system away (wich some people like to work on, and is a progression on it’s own).

What I want is a integration of old and new. Shouldn’t be that hard, I gave enough examples of how to do that.

And you think that people will find they have a feeling they progress if they farm a hylek language? don’t think so. Lore geeks (fans that go very deeply in lore, not just global story telling) are also few. Yet Anet focusses this patch on them (wich btw i’m happy for them – and you, i know you like Lore Vayne – come). But why does it have to be You or me story? So many solution to combine both.

The hylek language farm will unlock specific rewards you can only get after you’ve unlocked it. For example there’s a specific boss you can’t fight until you have a certain level unlocked. Unlocking content is progress in most people’s books.

Donari.5237:

Wait, we can do that and we don’t have to go to the merchant? We can spend them anywhere? I did not know that! (And I still don’t believe it without testing).

If we have to be at the merchant anyway, clicking the scrap is extra work (open inventory, 2 clicks on scrap) and it’s easier to just hit F.

You’ve been able to do that for ages. That’s how I buy my weapons.

Here’s some information that math doesn’t affect. One of the big problems reported with this game, is the lack of progression. Most people don’t feel they’re progression. Even if you get another skill point after a certain level, people don’t see it as progression because it doesn’t only move forward. When you spend them it goes backwards till you get more, That’s because it’s a currency.

With the mastery system, people will feel like they’re progressing…even if they progress more slower, because mastery points won’t go backwards.

Masteries can be added to keep the feeling of progression going.

The few people that feel that XP gain after 80 is progression are just that. Few people.

I’d like to know the answer to this as well, considering how many pristine fractal relics I have and how few rings I need.

Zoberraz.2694:

I kind of relate (and agree) with the opening poster.

The part that resonates the most with me there is how spirit shards are RNG drops, rather than gradual gain… and how everything we did – from reviving downed comrades, to foraging vegetables, to finding new vistas/exploring new locales, to vainquishing monsters and participating in events… all contributed to that. There was o activity that wouldn’t contribute to it.

Basically, we could obtain rewards on our advancement doing pretty much all we wanted. But now, it’s only RNG drop from defeated monsters. It feels like it cheapens how approachable and broad Guildwars2 had initially set out to be. Getting mystic forge-related currency wasn’t just about combat. But soon, it will be.

I believe it’s always been a positive influence to see the little xp numbers when someone stops to raise a fallen player or that, yeah, you gain as much killing something as you do lumbering wood. It validated other stuff than killing, even though the end result – the skill point at the end of the skill bar – may not carry the same importance to everyone (which I think is the primary culprit to the indifference/scorn I see in this thread).

I’d encourage A.Net to not change something which was not broken. I believe the upcoming iteration is inferior, and once the change is made it could be cumbersome to rollback. Not worth it, IMO.

Trust me, it is broken. You’re really not going to feel even happier when you see those mastery tracks progressing?

But the experience after we level will count for mastery points, which I think is much much better. I don’t now about you, but I don’t think most players are sitting there at 80 counting their XP points. A few probably are, but not most.

Deep wound was arguably one of the strongest conditions in Guild Wars 1. I seem to remember it being left out intentionally for that reason. If it does come back, it’ll come back in name only.

Chnages work together or they don’t. Until we see how it works, it’s hard to comment. One would assume they made these changes based on tests they’ve run, so it might not be as arbitrary as it looks.

Spirited Was Eceni.3869:

That’s true Vayne and was especially so in GW1 where the skills were almost constantly changing in an attempt to keep the game balanced. This is to be accepted as the ongoing evolution of an MMORPG as a massive population is working to find niche builds for the little or large advantage and a small group of developers are working to keep everything in balance. I like this evolution as it keeps the game fresh.

But to wipe out several years of combined effort across all chars on an account in one hit? To render all my equipment unusable to me? That is a little hard to swallow from a game that prides itself on being casual with no gear grind.

I must be misunderstanding this and should have been paying more attention to the announcements as I really don’t think ANet would do that.

I’m not sure I understand several years of combined efforts. First of all, ascended armor doesn’t really give you much more than exotic armor, and ascended weapons, once you’ve leveled your crafting to 500 are easy to make. It’s the leveling to 500 that’s really expensive.

Just playing the game should get you enough mats to make any ascended weapon you want. As for ascended armor, while it might take longer, it’s not years of work to get ascended armor.

Of course, we’re also seeing this without seeing the update and we don’t know how fast or hard it will be to get ascended armor drops in maguuma either. But right now, I could outfit all my characters with ascended weapons quite easily and ascended armor is just a matter of the mats themselves.

Not to mention, I don’t think most people are going to be affected. You have to be some kind of min/maxer to worry about the kinds of numbers you’re talking about. I’m pretty sure a huge percentage of the population won’t be affected.

Sure, dungeon speed runners may, and I’m sure they have plenty of money to change their armor.

What makes you think masteries are single map limited? And you don’t know how long it’ll take or how many masteries they’ll add.

Donari.5237:

What makes you think there won’t be progression? It’ll just go to masteries rather than pseudo levels.

Very much this. You’ll still have to level your masteries after level 80 and you’ll need experience to do it. It’ll just count for your mastery levels.

There are always changes in MMOs. It’s part of the landscape. Adapting to changes has always been part of the MMO landscape. Sometimes that sucks and sometimes it doesn’t. Your build gets nerfed or your profession gets buffed. Either way, the name of the game is adapting.

I wouldn’t expect a refund.

Julie Yann.5379:

GROMIT.7829:

Oh look a mystery portal in a map that no one takes seriously……..i wonder where this will port me…..

facepalm

What do you do when they place that portal on a chest or piece of siege?

Click on the chest or the siege and hit F. It will choose what you have selected over the portal.

Acinonyx Rex.8609:

They said they will be transfered, but they also said there would never be an expansion, and that the game would remain “alt-friendly”, but with HoT you will have to grind with every char you have, so who knows…..

Except masteries are unlocked per account, not individually. And we’ve always since launch had to unlock skills and traits on each character.

Thanks for the update Bill!

Sorry you’ve been gone for so long, but you need to understand, this problem affects a tiny tiny percentage of people.

For example, I have 50/50 in my hall of monuments and since all those skins have been in my wardrobe for over a year, I never have to go to the hall of monuments again.

There’s no eta on it, and there’s almost never an ETA on anything else either. Sorry it sucks so much for you though.

spoj.9672:

I dont know why you keep using your guild as an example. Its obvious its a certain type of guild that has a much more casual playerbase. Which are the sort of players that try things once then move on to the next thing.

Actually I’m willing to wager that most of the playerbase is even more casual than my guild. They log in, kill a few things and log out. Some players probably never set a trait.

Do you have any clue how many people solo and never join a guild. Most of those people don’t do dungeons either and they usually make up a bigger percentage of the player base than we expect.

When you add up all the people who don’t do dungeons, soloers, casual people, people who only WvW or SPvP, RPers, I’m guessing it is a significant percentage of the playerbase.

There’s always going to be a farm somewhere. You nerf this and something else will pop up. At least this particular farm doesn’t involve intentionally failing an event. I say Anet should leave it alone.

Malediktus.3740:

Prototypemind.4026:

Malediktus.3740:

Just look what Final Fantasy is doing. Regular updates + a much larger expansion than GW2 will be getting.

FF also didn’t do it right from the start. It took a shutdown for a rework to get them into a good place. That said, it’s also subscription-based with that funding going into a much larger studio. Revenue doesn’t fix everything, but it certainly helps, and this game can’t fund that level of development.

Even with that in mind. The content roll out has been poor. Living Story S2 is all the worse for not offering dynamic content that groups can hop into. There should be instanced fights, but there should also be a continuation of open world play, and Dry Top/Silver Wastes are not enough to sustain that.

I know FF relaunched their game. But the relaunch was worth it with a lot of additional stuff and less bugs. Do you have any numbers on the staff size and revenue FF makes? I doubt its much better than GW2. The problem is Anet is maximizing their profits instead of player fun. I dont mind if they make profits at all, but it seems like they reinvest too little of their revenue into their game.

I’m sorry but this is based on what, besides your thought process. Anet is paying over 300 employees. They have all sorts of expenses. There is no subscription. And the game tries new things all the time, which means some things they do don’t end up working out.

It’s much easier to just stay with the tried and true trinity and make that game, but I don’t necessarily believe that’s better for the industry, or the player base.

There’s a price you pay for playing something new and different…experimental in some ways. I’m willing to pay that price. Not everyone will be.

sirsquishy.8531:

Vayne.8563:

Malediktus.3740:

Vayne.8563:

Malediktus.3740:

Julie Yann.5379:

GW2 playerbase=impatient

GW2 playerbase = proud to get nothing

You can be realistic without being “proud to get nothing”.

If you lined up 50 MMORPGs and looked at how many of them actually go months without updates, you’d probably be surprised. This is particularly true before expansions are released.

I don’t know why people think this is so unusual.

None of them claimed to have a living world with biweekly updates.

Anet announced the living world during the 1st Season of the Living World, which they had to abandon. Anet didn’t start with the idea of an expansion. There was a LOT of pressure from fans to make an expansion.

Anyone who thinks there’ll be an expansion and 2 week updates is fooling themselves.

Unless you think there wasn’t tremendous pressure on Anet to shift their emphasis to an expansion? Because you know, I saw a whole lot of people demanding an expansion.

Just keep drinking that cool aid. The fact remains, the game has not had a substantial CONTENT update since Jan 13th. It is June 9th, that is 6 months with no static content update (Not bug fixes, game play changes/balancing, or otherwise). With the Expansion on the horizon (I say 6-7 months~) The game might be in its current state until the expansion. I just can’t believe you guys are all OK with that.

To me, this is a bait and switch on Anet’s part.

‘hey guys! Buy GW2, there will be no sub we will NEVER throw an expansion at you! Instead!!!! we are going to make a ’living world’ that changes about every 2 weeks, with Content Cycling out every 4 weeks. Yes that means if you don’t log in in a 4-6 week period you will/might miss the last content cycle, BUT!!! That means you still get a nice and fresh gaming experience EVEN!! if you cant log in but every 6 weeks!!!’

yes the above statement is how the game was DELIVERED, that is what I paid for and supported. The expansion was a value add with a promise to drop in MORE content at one go. But they basically gave up on the rest of the game in the process.

And here we are, like every other MMO…no content updates for MONTHS, and expansion(paid content) delivery.

Only difference? No Sub.

Again if you want to ignore people screaming on the forums for a sub for months on end, go ahead. Anet also said they’re a company that iterates. There was enough noise by enough people to warrant the change. If you don’t like that change, that’s perfectly fine.

When I ran a store, I said I’d never do certain things that I ended up doing when enough peopled asked for it. At the time, I absolutely meant that I’d never do them. I don’t really see the big deal.

The only big deal is that you took one line from one place, and decided that was the entire future, when everyone with any experience in MMOs knows that things in MMOs change all the time. You deal with it or you move on.

There are plenty of people who still wanted an expansion and Anet catered to them. This time those who didn’t want one lost. But you can’t blame a company for switching gears to cater to the desires of the player base.

Malediktus.3740:

Vayne.8563:

Malediktus.3740:

Julie Yann.5379:

GW2 playerbase=impatient

GW2 playerbase = proud to get nothing

You can be realistic without being “proud to get nothing”.

If you lined up 50 MMORPGs and looked at how many of them actually go months without updates, you’d probably be surprised. This is particularly true before expansions are released.

I don’t know why people think this is so unusual.

None of them claimed to have a living world with biweekly updates.

Anet announced the living world during the 1st Season of the Living World, which they had to abandon. Anet didn’t start with the idea of an expansion. There was a LOT of pressure from fans to make an expansion.

Anyone who thinks there’ll be an expansion and 2 week updates is fooling themselves.

Unless you think there wasn’t tremendous pressure on Anet to shift their emphasis to an expansion? Because you know, I saw a whole lot of people demanding an expansion.

Malediktus.3740:

Julie Yann.5379:

GW2 playerbase=impatient

GW2 playerbase = proud to get nothing

You can be realistic without being “proud to get nothing”.

If you lined up 50 MMORPGs and looked at how many of them actually go months without updates, you’d probably be surprised. This is particularly true before expansions are released.

I don’t know why people think this is so unusual.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

BlackDevil.9268:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Will everyone please stop treating stronghold like some big adddition? Seriously the “new game mode” is one spvp map. ONE.
In no way can that be considered “expansion worthy” when sitting right next to new WvW borderlands (new content equally big to old one), or Heart of Maguuma.

In spvp we have like….7 maps? Add 3 maps at least, and then we can talk about spvp getting an expansion. Right now we’re getting crumbs.

You mean aside from that it’s a new game mode with, most likely, having it’s own Go4/ESL? It’s not ’’just’’ 1 map. It’s a whole new game mode for PvP. I rather have 1 good game mode being added than 3 more boring conquest maps. There should only be 5 anyway since you’re not gonna do more than best of 5…

How exactly is it a new game mode? All they did was remove the circles you stand in… still has a 500 point cap, still has a 15 minute timer, still get the same points for killing other players, still get points for killing lord, still 5v5. It is legacy of the foefire with points for downing the gates. I was expecting this awesome new game mode but when I got there it was just legacy of the foefire with increased PvE and decreased PvP. It’s hardly expansion worthy. Maybe if they added 5-6 more maps or 2-3 new maps of an actual new game mode.

You clearly don’t understand what a new game mode means.

It’s a new game mode, because it has to be played differently. There’s far more requirement for cooperation here than in point capture. A lot of PvPers don’t want it in the queue, because you’ll want to respec to play it, something you really don’t have to do in other maps, except maybe Skyhammer.

But this is clearly a different mode with different objectives.

sirsquishy.8531:

Vayne.8563:

Freeze content development? I know they are testing the fixed story now, and core specializations will launch before the expansion comes out. We’ve seen changes to the camera…plenty of development going on…and these things are important too.

Bug fixes are not content development, its bug fixes for issues that have existed since day 1.

Calling a complete redesign of the personal story, including new dialogue and other changes, including a single player version of the final mission is NOT a bug fix. Redoing the entire trait system in core specializations is NOT a bug fix. And adding first person point of view and a PoV slider and other options are not a bug fix either.

There are features that are neither content, nor bug fixes. QoL features like the account wallet, like the wardrobe. They’re not content, but they’re not bug fixes.

I get that you want content, but not acknowledging that other things need to be done besides content is just naive.

So 8 responses. Typical. Doesn’t really say much. Of my guild of 200, probably 10% like dungeons at all. Maybe 15% though I think that’s stretching it. Most people in my guild either don’t run dungeons, or ran them once to get their achievements. However, since that’s annecdotal and since the mods have now moved this to the dungeon forums, where no dungeon people will ever look, the mods might as well close the thread. Any additional posts from now on in are probably going to be fans of dungeons. No reason for a non fan to come to this forum.

It would be interesting if we could see the dev’s data on how many people ran dungeons after they got their achievement, though. I suspect it’s not as much as people think.

Endless Soul.5178:

serenke.4806:

Vayne.8563:

There’s lots of stuff to do…but there’s nothing you have to do.

That’s quite true and many people interpret that as a lack of content. When in fact Anet basically lets you pick your own goals and reach them at your own pace.

That’s my line of thinking precisely.

A lot of people seem to be needlessly throwing around the “lack of content” phrase without truly understanding what it means.

To be fair, if you’ve been playing since launch, at this point, there’s not much left to do…which is normal for lots of games at various points in their development, particularly shortly before an expansion launches.

But when you first hit 80…plenty left to do…just not end game content as defined by other games.

Freeze content development? I know they are testing the fixed story now, and core specializations will launch before the expansion comes out. We’ve seen changes to the camera…plenty of development going on…and these things are important too.

My guild does lots of bounties, though we usually end up doing different bounties on Saturdays and Trilla or Poobadoo for our make up bounty for people who weren’t there on Thursday.

Yes, we still do bounties. Hell we killed Half Baked Komali a couple of weeks ago.

New content types don’t unlock when you hit 80. But you have dungeons, fractals, guild missions, achievements, collections. Even PvP and WvW can be started when you’re not 80.

This game is about choosing your own end game, instead of being thrown into a premade end game with a single path to advancement.

For example, if you want ascended gear, the only reliable way to get it is to craft. Some people try for a legendary. Some people try to unlock rare skins. Some people try to find and do every jumping puzzles.

Then there’s the Living Story which will continue when the expansion comes out.

There’s lots of stuff to do…but there’s nothing you have to do.

You don’t only get one. It’s just RNG.

Even after you have them all you still keep getting map scraps.

Just curious about this, since it came up in another thread. How many people here ran dungeons to get the achievements for those dungeons, even though they don’t like running dungeons or don’t care about dungeons all that much.

I know I run dungeons sometimes, because other people need help with them or to fill in when the guild can’t find a fifth. Anyone else?

serenke.4806:

Vayne.8563:

serenke.4806:

That’s nice but if you totally forget/dismiss people who would like to have harder content, you will end up with tons of casuals. Casuals will get to 80, then nicely leave (maybe craft some shinies, maybe not even that).

If for nothing else, the “hard core” crowd is good for population. But no worries, apparently instances are not on the table and we can all rejoice in zerg wars 2.

First of all, there are already zerg breaking things in this game. If you’ll notice a lot of the new stuff only really works if it’s anti zerg. Even as far back as trying to save people in escape from LA, you couldn’t get the max reward without splitting up into smaller groups. Same with the battle for Lion’s Arch, Triple Threat, the Marionette, Drytop, Silverwastes, all encourage the zerg to split. So nice rhetoric but dated.

More to the point, casuals can be as loyal as hard core players. Because they don’t run out of content as fast and because they don’t have crazy high standards that say we must have this done this way.

A lot of the casuals in my guild are playing since launch. Many of them don’t run dungeons or PvP at all, but they’re happy to wander the world and farm and do events.

And yes, they’re restless too, and anxiously awaiting new content. But I can guarantee you hard core players will run out of content a lot faster than casuals will.

Casual doesn’t mean you’re not vested. It means that you’re not quite a goal oriented or not quite as push yourself hard to get stuff.

A casual person might still be slogging away at their first legendary.

Breaking the zerg down into smaller zergs is even worse than one blob. At least you can still complete the event in a big enough blob. Watching something as simple as the Vinewrath or breach fail because of a bunch of people who have no clue is not exactly fun. Nor can you do anything about it. No, explaining it does not work, i’ve tried. If the challenge in content is to find/organize people who are competent enough, then that is not the kind of challenge this thread is looking for.

Casuals slogging away at their first legendary after a year won’t put their boss solo fights on youtube, spurring people to better their gameplay. Maybe you are right and the “casual” group is full of people who don’t even want to come out of their comfort zone of “i press 1 and win” but i refuse to believe that.

Here’s another theory then. I’ve done every dungeon in this game and couldn’t care less if I ever saw another dungeon again. Now what?

If you give a reward like an achievement, people will do it. Some people even pay for runs.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve run through arah in my guild for their achievement, but they’ll never do another dungeon again.

maddoctor.2738:

Zaklex.6308:

spoj.9672:

Both.

Lets just ignore the severely and unrealistically skewed in favour of open world example you gave.

Id say a more accurate guess would be 10% sPvP, 25% WvW, 15% instanced PvE and 50% open world. Even thats kind of generous.

Reread my post again, I specifically stated my hypothetical game is PvE only, there is no sPvP or WvW, therefore my percentages are more accurate than you would care to believe(they are also based somewhat on reality, from a old post about WoW’s community breakdown). Also, from a purely business perspective, anyone that is of sound mind would concentrate on the 90% market and dismiss the 10%, let the smaller percentage go elsewhere and don’t waste resources on them.

Again with WoW’s community, why are people still using that as an argument against instances? I already posted above about those claims of WoW’s community. The low numbers of players that are raiding were pre WLK. 2% in vanilla and 5% in the expansion (BC) After WLK the percentages are much much higher so can we go away of the 90/10 please?

I’m not following WoW and I’m NOT a WoW player so someone who is more actively interested in WoW might have more specifics than me, so feel free to help me out here.

So the BIG question is, how much of the playerbase of WoW is interested in RAIDS?

Take a look:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2614-Dragon-Soul-and-Firelands-Statistics-Blue-Posts-Poll

They have a sample of 6 million characters (also contains alts though). I want to focus on this part: *Only 4% of the population managed to do Normal difficulty Dragon Soul so far, and 34% completed it on LFR or higher difficulty. *

So I ask once more if you don’t want Normal or Heroic raids it’s fine I don’t want it either this isn’t a hardcore raiding game. What about LFR-difficulty “instanced content”?

And even more recent:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3608-Armory-Stats-Player-Raid-Completion-Blue-Tweets-Poll-World-PvE-Content-Fan-Art

Polls are filled out by harder core players by nature. As I said before, though only 10% of the Lotro population raided ever, they accounted for 50% of forum posts. So I wouldn’t say it’s an accurate analaysis anyway. It’s a guess at best, based on harder core fans who actually care about polls for the game.

The WoW community is indeed a crappy community. The logic is this. The more you attract testosterone, the more competitive you get. Why is PvP more toxic than PvE and why are speed running dungeon groups more toxic than casual groups.

It’s due to the competitive edge. That drive to be the best and to care about being the best. If someone gets me killed in a dungeon, I shrug my shoulders and tell them it’s no big deal. In a hard core group, someone gets you killed, you hear it. I remember in WoW and later in Rift, people blaming tanks and healers for all their wipes. And you know, maybe it was the fault of a tank or healer, but people were rude and cruel over it. Why? Because it was harder and took longer and we don’t want to be here all day doing this. It doesn’t promote the best community.

Arguably the areas of the population you hear the worst stuff about are the hard core guys. Hardcore PvPers think nothing of sledging. Hard core speed runners are not usually relaxed and patience, tolerant people…not during a speed run anyway. When harder content was added to open world PvE, like the marionette, you heard people screaming in map chat all the time. Rangers in lane 2 put your pets on passive, are you stupid? The harder the content the more likely you’re going to get a strong response when something goes wrong. Those that play games to have a good time and blow off some steam, without taking it too seriously end up being the targets.

ODB.6891:

Vayne.8563:

So you play a game for 3 years and up until this point, you can basically get everything. Now the company changes the product so you can’t. That’s another form of unfairness.

If I ate at a restaurant every week and they decided to raise the prices so I couldn’t afford them, I’d stop eating there. But I also might feel angry that they raised the prices so much.

I think it’s more immature to not acknowledge basic human nature than it is to try to justify calling people names for no real reason. It doesn’t strengthen your argument.

It’s not a case of I can’t get this so I’m taking my ball and going home. It’s a question if I used to feel comfortable here and now I don’t so I’m leaving.

You don’t have to get angry or throw a tantrum to leave. You’re simply making a decision based on what’s best for you. That’s what mature people do all the time. We look at what we’re doing, see if it’s worth our time and energy, and if it’s not, we walk away. I’ve walked away from TV shows that started strong and suddenly didn’t fit the bill anymore. I can do with same with a game.

This isn’t just about not having. It’s being sold and playing one thing and then switching it to something it wasn’t. Your attempt to make it sound like immaturity shows a lack of understanding of the issue.

You can’t really change a product mid-stream and not expect some backlash, unless you’re changing it to make it better…and by better I mean better for the majority.

This changing of a product mid-stream is exactly what ANET has done. Like so many others have posted…they did start out with both instanced and open world content. They have since broken this contract and only gone with open world content now. You are correct, it is a sad thing that many, including myself have been patiently waiting on them to honor this contract and implement more instanced content. Luckily, this game is F2P, so I haven’t exactly lost anything in the interim. As far as catering to the majority goes…that’s a double edged sword. Eventually, when you cut off enough minorities….then you are left with almost nothing.

This game, as I’ve said over and over again, was sold on dynamic events and open world and anyone who bought it for dungeons and instances wasn’t paying attention. I knew it wasn’t going to be a instance-centric game before launch. I’m not sure why you didn’t.

The big push has always been living/breathing world. Originally the plan was to do that was DEs but that didn’t work, since they added new DEs and hardly anyone noticed or did them. So they tried another way to bring the world to life instead, which was the Living Story Season 1. Arguably that was very successful when it comes in terms of the companies goal of a living/breathing world. The world moved forward in time. But it was unsuccessful due to fan complaints and so Living Story Season 2 was launched.

Again the world was alive, Waypoints were attacked and some were destroyed. Forts were destroyed. The world progressed.

The living breathing world is what Anet has been pushing since their first panels on world building, before the game even launched. That’s what they pushed.

Not to say they wouldn’t have instances, but I’m not sure how anyone could justify that the game was centered around them. I mean Anet directly said that DEs were at the heart of the game. They never said that about dungeons.

ODB.6891:

Vayne.8563:

ODB.6891:

What I get from this whole argument….“If its something I might have a hard time completing….then I don’t want anyone to have it!” This doesn’t seem to be a very mature standpoint.

…snip…

In the end, the above quote still holds true….regardless if that is what ANET ends up making their decisions based on or not. You pretty much admitted that this is all about making the content faceroll easy so players can get whatever rewards they want via pay to win or whatever path of least resistance they choose. Your whole argument was about making sure that rewards were not “locked behind” any content type that you either didn’t want to do or can’t complete. This argument logically lead to not wanting any content that you did not desire to do or could not do available to anyone else. Its illogical to get indignant when that is showcased.

ANET has proven themselves to be forum balancers over and over again. Whether or not they make the decision to only include faceroll 11111111 spamming content for zergs or if they choose to add some content to support skilled play…that’s up to them. Ultimately, I agree with you on this being a business decision. If they are even looking at game play numbers…and not true forum balancing again…and they see that 1111111 is the most money…I can’t really blame them for choosing the 1111111. In the end, 111111 is going to be excessively boring and will eventually lead to migration of even casuals to the next game…that does have some excitement level attached. If they want a lasting game…they would allocate resources to both.

I will admit, that your assessment of what they should do may be valid. Neither of us has the actual raw data to show participation in any specific content type or the raw data to show trends on who would participate. Even if we did, the ship has probably sailed on that data no longer being accurate as players who would have participated have long since left this game. I has been years since ANET did provide any content for this type of player. I think the only reason I’m still around is the lack of viable alternative games.

So you play a game for 3 years and up until this point, you can basically get everything. Now the company changes the product so you can’t. That’s another form of unfairness.

If I ate at a restaurant every week and they decided to raise the prices so I couldn’t afford them, I’d stop eating there. But I also might feel angry that they raised the prices so much.

I think it’s more immature to not acknowledge basic human nature than it is to try to justify calling people names for no real reason. It doesn’t strengthen your argument.

It’s not a case of I can’t get this so I’m taking my ball and going home. It’s a question if I used to feel comfortable here and now I don’t so I’m leaving.

You don’t have to get angry or throw a tantrum to leave. You’re simply making a decision based on what’s best for you. That’s what mature people do all the time. We look at what we’re doing, see if it’s worth our time and energy, and if it’s not, we walk away. I’ve walked away from TV shows that started strong and suddenly didn’t fit the bill anymore. I can do with same with a game.

This isn’t just about not having. It’s being sold and playing one thing and then switching it to something it wasn’t. Your attempt to make it sound like immaturity shows a lack of understanding of the issue.

You can’t really change a product mid-stream and not expect some backlash, unless you’re changing it to make it better…and by better I mean better for the majority.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. Yes it is mandatory in the same way WoW is mandatory. All future content will require HoT to play, you will be at a significant disadvantage in both mats/economics, cosmetics, and story.

2. Probably $10-25 based on the amount of content being given to us.

Edit: actually it will be worse than WoW since you will be at a disadvantage in PvP without access to specializations. So it will be MORE mandatory than WoW is.

Except that in a wow expansion the level cap goes up, and that would put you at a disadvantage in WoW PvP if I’m not mistaken.

serenke.4806:

That’s nice but if you totally forget/dismiss people who would like to have harder content, you will end up with tons of casuals. Casuals will get to 80, then nicely leave (maybe craft some shinies, maybe not even that).

If for nothing else, the “hard core” crowd is good for population. But no worries, apparently instances are not on the table and we can all rejoice in zerg wars 2.

First of all, there are already zerg breaking things in this game. If you’ll notice a lot of the new stuff only really works if it’s anti zerg. Even as far back as trying to save people in escape from LA, you couldn’t get the max reward without splitting up into smaller groups. Same with the battle for Lion’s Arch, Triple Threat, the Marionette, Drytop, Silverwastes, all encourage the zerg to split. So nice rhetoric but dated.

More to the point, casuals can be as loyal as hard core players. Because they don’t run out of content as fast and because they don’t have crazy high standards that say we must have this done this way.

A lot of the casuals in my guild are playing since launch. Many of them don’t run dungeons or PvP at all, but they’re happy to wander the world and farm and do events.

And yes, they’re restless too, and anxiously awaiting new content. But I can guarantee you hard core players will run out of content a lot faster than casuals will.

Casual doesn’t mean you’re not vested. It means that you’re not quite a goal oriented or not quite as push yourself hard to get stuff.

A casual person might still be slogging away at their first legendary.

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

What do you think will happen if it’s made really hard? Or content is introduced that most people will never play? How does that really benefit the game?

One word: reputation.

Not long after release, a large amount of players started complaining because of the lack of endgame, but there was endgame, but it was different. I think it’s reasonable to think that what they actually missed was hard, rewarding content. Anyway, word spread fast and GW2 quickly became “the MMO without endgame”, and not in a good way. This quite obviously affected the game sales too over the years.

By creating hard content they target a quite large audience: the ones who left the game because the lack of it, and the ones who never bought the game because it didn’t have any. The purpose of hard content isn’t to let as much player complete it as possible; its there to challenge the players to buy the game and try to beat that content.

Well that’s sort of my point too. It DID get that reputation and that’s what drives some of us TO this game. That’s the game some of us play. You can’t go now mid stream and change that reputation.

It’s like a restaurant that gets a great name as having lots of great vegetarian dishes, and suddenly advertising steak. Even if all the vegetarian dishes are there, vegetarians might well be turned off by the change….even though they don’t plan on having steak. The more meat dishes you serve, the more you kitten off your vegetarian clientele.

There are people, a lot of people, who have a negative associate with raids in general, fairly or unfairly. There’s the elitist mentality people who feel raids would make people less friendly and open to helping new players, again fairly or unfairly. It’s a perception that’s not likely to change.

So yes, you’re right, this game had a certain reputation that attracts certain people. And now you can’t go and change the reputation to get other people without rocking the boat.

Don’t click until the event your’e doing is over. You have an hour.

Even in the Silverwastes there are PLENTY of mobs that drop loot. I get T6 mats (which is loot by anyone’s standard) in the Silverwastes by killing the creatures there that aren’t part of events…hyenas, devourers, even the boars.

So if you’re doing events and you take time to kill a few of the other creatures you’ll get drops.

Generally speaking, however, people aren’t mostly complaining that the Silverwastes aren’t profitable, so the whole point of the OP is moot.

dlonie.6547:

And every time we say “people are leaving, this endgame isn’t cutting it”, we hear “that’s the great thing about GW2, you can always leave and come back!”.

Those people aren’t coming back. Not after the way ArenaNet has maintained/updated their instanced content.

Just so we’re on the same page, your argument is:

“Since GW2 has already driven off the folks who enjoy instances, let’s not drive away the casual crowd in an attempt to get them back.”

Am I understanding correctly? I’ll accept that as a valid argument against adding instanced content over the whole ‘exclusive rewards’ thing any day, because for years I’ve been watching those people leave with no intention of ever returning.

No. my argument is the game has spent almost 3 years now, without really offering great hard core content. You’ve never once heard ME use the argument you can always come back when a hard core player leaves. Not once, ever.

There are some people who leave because they are bored, and need new content end stop and those people I will say you can always take a break. But when I hard core player leaves, I think, this isn’t really the game for that player. That is my argument.

Orr was nerfed because it was too hard. Arah story mode was nerfed because it was too hard. Things that have been too hard have been consistently nerfed because the playerbase, as a whole, probably avoids the most challenging content. That’s my take on it.

So Anet is catering to the playerbase as a whole. It’s sad that a small percentage of the playerbase wants this game to be what it hasn’t been for years. I find it sad for those players that they don’t have what they want. I find it sad that they like the game enough to hang in there to wait for it.

But because the game has oriented itself that way for as long as it has, it’s embraced a different type of non-hard core player, there is never really going to be enough hard core content FOR hard core players.

Open world stuff isn’t great for hard core players but it gives a chance for those less hard core to participate without becoming hard core…which doesn’t work for hard core.

Instanced content will allow hard core players to sit around in their own little private tea parties, having fun in their hard core content, while players who can’t get their rewards start complaining about it. We’ve seen a couple of those complaints already, but at this time, there isn’t that much that you can’t get as a casual.

If that changes, you’ll start seeing casual players complaining about the stuff hard core people are now complaining about. And we STILL see posts, even now, that the game is too hard. Imagine that. We see posts that this game is too hard.

What do you think will happen if it’s made really hard? Or content is introduced that most people will never play? How does that really benefit the game?

dlonie.6547:

Vayne.8563:

one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen authors make it is breaking the deal they made with the reader at the start of the book. Every book starts with the tone, genre, and other factors of the book being set. It’s an unwritten contract. You risk losing readers by changing those things as the book advances. […]

By changing the direction of a game, you risk alienating a percentage of the playerbase in the same way. If I see this as a casual game and play it as a casual game, and then see the game becoming less casual, I start to feel like it’s not the game I bought.

I saw it as a game with both casual open world and more challenging instanced content. That was the contract they established in my eyes. Not developing more instanced content would break that contract just as much as if they stopped developing open world content.

Your argument seems to hinge on the game launching with nothing but casual open-world content. It did not.

My argument hinges that for the last couple of years, there hasn’t been that much hard challenging content added. This is how the game has grown and this is what the game has attracted. I’m pretty sure most people who wanted a challenging MMO have already left the game, except for a few stalwarts. The people left people the game are probably more casual.

spoj.9672:

Zaklex.6308:

spoj.9672:

Both.

Lets just ignore the severely and unrealistically skewed in favour of open world example you gave.

Id say a more accurate guess would be 10% sPvP, 25% WvW, 15% instanced PvE and 50% open world. Even thats kind of generous.

Reread my post again, I specifically stated my hypothetical game is PvE only, there is no sPvP or WvW, therefore my percentages are more accurate than you would care to believe(they are also based somewhat on reality, from a old post about WoW’s community breakdown). Also, from a purely business perspective, anyone that is of sound mind would concentrate on the 90% market and dismiss the 10%, let the smaller percentage go elsewhere and don’t waste resources on them.

You also said a million active players. Are you seriously suggesting to completely ignore 100,000 customers? The best option is always to appeal to both communities unless one is a very very small minority. But no matter the percentage difference. The instanced content community is not small enough to be totally ignored. Regardless of what bullkitten numbers you pull from totally different games.

Also as someone mentioned in an earlier post. Those numbers from WoW were inaccurate and only represent the very beginning of the game before they made raids appeal to a wider audience.

But this isn’t a question of ignoring 100,000 customers. This is something else entirely which people don’t seem to get.

I’ve edited professionally for a long time, and during that time, one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen authors make it is breaking the deal they made with the reader at the start of the book. Every book starts with the tone, genre, and other factors of the book being set. It’s an unwritten contract. You risk losing readers by changing those things as the book advances. If you start a comedy book that suddenly becomes serious, you risk alienating readers because you’ve already “advertised” to them a different experience. Changing that experience can absolutely be done, but most of the time doing so requires skill and finesse. It’s not something you do lightly. It’s something you do intentionally.

By changing the direction of a game, you risk alienating a percentage of the playerbase in the same way. If I see this as a casual game and play it as a casual game, and then see the game becoming less casual, I start to feel like it’s not the game I bought. This is normal. This isn’t selfish. It’s human nature.

Anet changed something early on by introducing ascended gear and they lost a portion of the playerbase. At the time, the big argument was that this is a slippery slope and it’s going to keep happening and the company betrayed us. We now know that’s not true. It wasn’t a slippery slope. We don’t have a new tier of gear (as many said we would), but people still left the game based on them feeling betrayed.

The real question is do you risk changing the game in such a way that you risk a percentage of 900,000 people in order to placate 100,000 who might or might not stick around anyway, if an actual hard core game does make it on the market.

My argument is Anet will have harder content, but probably won’t have enough harder content for the people who crave harder content. They’ll be changing the nature of the game to make that content, but at the end of the day, if they provide enough of it, if they leave enough casuals left out of enough content, they risk the bulk of the playerbase.

Obviously the real question is even more complicated, because you have people in PvP or WvW who don’t PvE at all and don’t care if there is harder PvE content, because those people aren’t looking for a PvE experience. They’ll leave or not leave depending on what happens in PvP and WvW.

The real question is how much hard content will solve the problem for the hard core players and if Anet provides that even over time, do casual players, arguably the larger group, start wondering if this game is for them and do some of them leave?

Which group of players is more likely to stay anyway? A hard core crowd who’s thrown an occasional bone, or a casual crowd who constantly has stuff to do?

The game is running for three years without that much hard content, which means casual people now feel quite at home. Changing that comes with risks. It can be done, but gradually and only with really good reason.

You mean like today? Yeah I remember it.