Guild Wars 2

Khisanth.2948:

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

I thought of one other tip: Hearts and Minds is one story instance that it is fairly easy to find a group for in LFG if you wait a few minutes. Almost everyone hates it and struggles with it; at least in a party you increase your chances of one person clearing all the bugs and hurdles to see the thing through to the end. It’s basically using other players to save your progress the way the game should. And if you don’t beat the odds you have each other for moral support.

that is debatable … had one up for a few hours once after too many run in with rocks thrown at me right after getting in to the air. The only response was from a person who apparently just started the game and didn’t even have any clue where the instance is located. They were on a level 50ish character.

so that is about as true as “I’ve never ran into any bugs”

I’ve offered to help people through this mission again and again. The people who complain the loudest about it, are usually the people who never take me up on it. I’ve run many people through this mission without encountering bugs. Maybe I’m just lucky.

Ashandar.2570:

Avy.4560:

Does anyone know what this thing is?

There’s no lore to support it, but for me that is the ghostly afterimage of every anet employee who were proud of what they’d made and then made the mistake of looking at player comments on this forum after a release. The image is their reaction carried through the mists into the game.
But as I said, only a theory, there’s no evidence. Unless we can get Gaile to let something slip..

Best answer ever! I’m going to read this to my guild. lol

OnizukaBR.8537:

Vayne.8563:

Djinn.9245:

Astralporing.1957:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gee, there are many cool skins locked behind content I’m not interested in.

They are not the legendary armor skin. The only one.

By saying “you’re not worthy of that armor set”, you are sending a message telling all those people “you’re second-class citizens”.

Who is saying someone “is not worthy”? Not being “worthy” is a judgement, which I have not seen anywhere in game or by Anet. It doesn’t make any more sense than saying that if you don’t have a ticket, you are “not worthy” to see Hamilton…..

What is actually happening is that you have to successfully do raid content in order to get the armor.

This is exactly the same as a Legendary back item. At one time there was only 1 available through only 1 mode of game play. Now there are 2 but each is still only available through 1 mode of game play.

I don’t see a problem with this. Many MMOs have similar exclusive rewards for modes of game play.

As I said before if it were “just a skin” I’d have no real issue with it, but legendary armor animates when in combat. No other armor in the game can.

When I bought this game, if I wanted a legendary weapon I could slowly work toward it. I could buy it off the trading post by slowly working accumulating gold. There were options in ways to get ascended armor.

Now, the game has in fact changed. New legendary weapons require participation in certain content (at least the old new ones lol) and legendary armor requires you to beat the hardest content in the game.

If we’re talking about changing identity, which is what the thread is about, I’m not sure that it can be denied in this context.

Why you cant slowly work toward legenadry armor?
Because you dont like raids?
Guess what i dont like the boring open world pve, so i dont get cool legendaries like Astralia, nothing changed. You just liked the content where the reward you wanted was.

I can slowly work to world complete, because I can do one point of interest and stop. I can slowly work toward dugeon tokens, because I can go into a dungeon, with four other people and get the dungeon done in 15 minutes. Or go to a daily PvP room and play one game now.

Even when WVW was part of world complete I could go in, do a tiny bit an stop.

To learn raids, there’s no tiny bit. You can’t learn raids in 15 minutes. The raiding I’ve done so far, has taken me hours and hours and hours.

I have no been able to do it in little bits. I can deal with 15 minutes of something that’s not fun. Hours? Not so much.

How many times do you go in your first raid group and spend 15 minutes and leave?

Djinn.9245:

Astralporing.1957:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gee, there are many cool skins locked behind content I’m not interested in.

They are not the legendary armor skin. The only one.

By saying “you’re not worthy of that armor set”, you are sending a message telling all those people “you’re second-class citizens”.

Who is saying someone “is not worthy”? Not being “worthy” is a judgement, which I have not seen anywhere in game or by Anet. It doesn’t make any more sense than saying that if you don’t have a ticket, you are “not worthy” to see Hamilton…..

What is actually happening is that you have to successfully do raid content in order to get the armor.

This is exactly the same as a Legendary back item. At one time there was only 1 available through only 1 mode of game play. Now there are 2 but each is still only available through 1 mode of game play.

I don’t see a problem with this. Many MMOs have similar exclusive rewards for modes of game play.

As I said before if it were “just a skin” I’d have no real issue with it, but legendary armor animates when in combat. No other armor in the game can.

When I bought this game, if I wanted a legendary weapon I could slowly work toward it. I could buy it off the trading post by slowly working accumulating gold. There were options in ways to get ascended armor.

Now, the game has in fact changed. New legendary weapons require participation in certain content (at least the old new ones lol) and legendary armor requires you to beat the hardest content in the game.

If we’re talking about changing identity, which is what the thread is about, I’m not sure that it can be denied in this context.

flog.3485:

That is the problem though. To you it feels cool but it won’t necessarily to others. I feel like getting skins has no real value because you can swap to any preferred or matching skin you want. Here is an example: it took me some time to get the reaper greatsword that comes with HoT and yet now I ended up straight up buying a greatsword from the TP that was worth 6g only because it was a better match to the ley line pieces of armor I was wearing. And yes I believe everyone has a chance of getting it because as you said the top stats are not hard to get.

It’s all a percentage game. Whether it looks cool to 25% of the players or 35% isn’t really relevant to what I"m saying. It certain looks cool to me, or rather, what it does is cool to me. An armor animated every time you enter battle is cool, to me. I’m pretty sure I won’t be the only one.

I have raided. I have a couple of LI. But if I raided enough to get this armor, I’d leave the game. I know I would. Because I’d come to hate the game. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the situation that any developer would want.

Once you make a suit of armor that does something no other armor in the game does, a percentage of people are going to want it. My guess is the percentage of people who’ll want it will be higher than the percentage of people willing to raid for it. And therein lies the problem.

This isn’t just a skin. It’s a skin that does something no other skin in in the game does.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gee, there are many cool skins locked behind content I’m not interested in. Sure, I’d love to have said skins, but it’s a choice I make to eschew the content, and having made that choice, I don’t consider myself a ‘second-class citizen’.

It might be prudent, or even more accurate, to only speak for oneself, rather than an entire segment of the playerbase.

Good luck.

Actually you can speak for a segment of the player base if you’re not quoting that you have some kind of majority. Unless you believe I’m the only single person in the game that feels this way. But I know at least several others who feel this way, and even then I’d assume we’re not the only ones. In fact we’ve seen posts from other people I don’t know who feel this way too. So obviously there are some of us out there.

I’m not claiming it’s a majority but since we don’t know the quantity of people who would feel this way or how it would affect their relationship with the game, it’s a fair point to bring up.

flog.3485:

Vayne.8563:

Djinn.9245:

Rednik.3809:

Djinn.9245:

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is how gaming works. Raid loot is always much better than anything else and it should be. People dedicate a lot of time and effort to raiding and they should be rewarded for that.

So, at first people were asking for challenging content and rewards to show off. Now there is “I’m entitled not for just exclusive, but for the best rewards because I’m doing content I asked for”. And then some people are wondering why raid community have such reputation.

I don’t really understand what you are saying, but traditionally in MMOs Raiders get the best rewards because Raiding requires the most dedication / time investment in the game.

What I believe is being said is that the raid community said we want challenging content and in many of those threads, they weren’t talking about rewards and whenever someone who didn’t want to raid brought up rewards, the raiders didn’t come forward and say we want exclusive rewards only we can get. They often said things like they’d be happy with at title or a mini to show off.

Now, suddenly people who want an alternate path to legendary armor are slackers and beggars, because we don’t enjoy raiding but we still want access to those potential rewards.

It’s always been my argument that keeping rewards like legendary armor exclusive, after legendary weapons could be grinded out by almost anyone given enough time, wasn’t good for the game.

Raiders often want the best rewards, and they want the raids hard enough to keep that club exclusive. But there are less of them, and therefore, the devs start catering to a smaller user base.

People say only a small number of people are working on raids, but part of working on raids, at this point in time, is also people working on legendary armor. Unfortunately if we’re all waiting for more armor sets, and a set comes out that only raiders can get, it’s most likely not great for the game over all.

It will please the small number of people who can get it, while making everyone else feel like a second class citizen.

But why exactly will you feel like a second class citizen ? And how can you predict it ? Because you locked off of an armor offering stat swap while at the same time the game never required to actively change stats on a regular basis ? I personally don’t and frankly I don’t look like the fact that you consider everyone else not playing raid a second class citizen just like you said you will be. There is plenty of things that has been locked behind some content and it is not because all the other was content was easy to do or a straight up grind that all the players will go for it.

To you it’s about stat swap. Seriously do you really believe most people get legendary weapons so they can stat swap? They do it because the skins are cool.

Legendary armor, from what we’ve seen so far, is the only armor in the game that animates when you go into combat. It’s very cool, to some people. And if those people can’t get it, and it’s really cool looking, yes, those people will feel like second class citizens. They’ll look at their armor, they’ll look at that armor and say wow, I wish I had that.

There are legendary backpacks, but there are two of them, one of them PvE and one of them PvP. There’s two ways to get them. There should be a WvW one too.

The problem is they’re taking time and energy to create this great animated skin and 10% of the population if that will have it. And compared to what else is out there, its’ a major upgrade.

Do you believe everyone is going to have a chance at armor that animates when you go into combat, cause I don’t.

This game has always been about skins, not stats. Top stats are not hard to get. Legendary weapons give you footprints, which are cool and set them apart from other weapons. It’s why people get legendaries. That and the cool skins/effects.

If we can’t get legendary armor without dedicating ourselves to something we don’t enjoy, yes, we’re going to feel disenfranchised.

OCE servers are very expensive to run and there aren’t enough players to populate them anyway is my guess.

I live in Australia and I feel your pain but I knew up front we’d never have OCE servers for this game.

Djinn.9245:

Rednik.3809:

Djinn.9245:

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is how gaming works. Raid loot is always much better than anything else and it should be. People dedicate a lot of time and effort to raiding and they should be rewarded for that.

So, at first people were asking for challenging content and rewards to show off. Now there is “I’m entitled not for just exclusive, but for the best rewards because I’m doing content I asked for”. And then some people are wondering why raid community have such reputation.

I don’t really understand what you are saying, but traditionally in MMOs Raiders get the best rewards because Raiding requires the most dedication / time investment in the game.

What I believe is being said is that the raid community said we want challenging content and in many of those threads, they weren’t talking about rewards and whenever someone who didn’t want to raid brought up rewards, the raiders didn’t come forward and say we want exclusive rewards only we can get. They often said things like they’d be happy with at title or a mini to show off.

Now, suddenly people who want an alternate path to legendary armor are slackers and beggars, because we don’t enjoy raiding but we still want access to those potential rewards.

It’s always been my argument that keeping rewards like legendary armor exclusive, after legendary weapons could be grinded out by almost anyone given enough time, wasn’t good for the game.

Raiders often want the best rewards, and they want the raids hard enough to keep that club exclusive. But there are less of them, and therefore, the devs start catering to a smaller user base.

People say only a small number of people are working on raids, but part of working on raids, at this point in time, is also people working on legendary armor. Unfortunately if we’re all waiting for more armor sets, and a set comes out that only raiders can get, it’s most likely not great for the game over all.

It will please the small number of people who can get it, while making everyone else feel like a second class citizen.

sorudo.9054:

Ayrilana.1396:

sorudo.9054:

GW2 never had an identity since they pretty much dumped the idea of guild wars and made a game that has nothing to do with guild wars, i am surprised you never noticed.

Maybe because the title wasn’t based on player guilds fighting each other? People keep claiming otherwise and yet I’m unable to find anything that supports their claim but have found sources from a year before launch that despite’s those claims. How could GW1 (and GW2) not have an identity because they lack something that never existed and never were?

GW1 has an identity, GW2 doesn’t.
that’s the problem here, no guild wars in guild wars 2.

The funny bit is I played Guild Wars for more than most people and never ever involved myself in Guild vs Guild combat, or PvP at all. The general shift in Guild Wars was from a PvP-centric game, which was intended, to a PvE-centric game which it became.

Evidence? The last two titles didn’t bother with PvP at all. Anet realized by then on which side it’s bread was buttered. PvE was popular and I’m guessing most players never touched GvG.

I believe this because if everyone or even most people GvGed, Anet wouldn’t have likely dropped it in the expansion. They dropped it for a reason. My guess it wasn’t as popular as people who liked it and lived it think.

The bottom line is, GvG was probably quite niche and therefore for most people wouldn’t have been part of the identity of Guild Wars 1. It sure wasn’t for me.

Djinn.9245:

Ayrilana.1396:

Djinn.9245:

Healix.5819:

Malice.8439:

I don’t like the way Counter-Magic is used. I suppose it’s meant to be keybound, but I keep wanting to hover my mouse over it, expecting some sort of tooltip about what I’m supposed to be doing.

The counter magic tutorial was in the first episode, which explained that it reverses the effects of whatever you are countering. It’s a generic skill, so the tooltip isn’t going to help. In this case, it interrupts his shadowstep combo.

How are you supposed to know that if you don’t have time to look at stuff?

Generally just assume that anytime that it comes up on screen, you should use it.

Wow, interesting way to play. Don’t worry that you don’t know what this new thing will do because you don’t have time to figure it out, just press it instead of one of the other things that you know will be useful to your character…

Unless chapter 4 is the first Season 3 story you’re starting with, I’m not sure how anyone would not know that counter magic is an option to repel an existing attack.

That is, the option only exists when the attack is imminent or occuring. You get it from both story and open world, and there’s plenty of places the mechanic is taught.

It’s like saying you don’t know how to remove bleeding and poison by the time you reach the Silverwastes. It’s true many people probably don’t. There’s no real condition removal tutorial.

But I think most of us have worked out how to do it.

No real opinion on whether you should come back or not, but Guild Wars 2 was not the lesser of the two compared to Wildstar. Wildstar made a very very small percentage of what Guild Wars 2 made.

It’s definitely down in sales compared to where it was, but that’s not really all that suprising. It’s like when WoW loses subscribers 3-6 months after an expansion.

Obtena.7952:

Vayne.8563:

Obtena.7952:

Hey call it whatever … it’s change. People might not appreciate the fact that games that don’t change enter ‘maintenance’ mode VERY quickly.

Change is neither good nor bad. But saying a game changes and that’s okay doesn’t work if people don’t get behind the change. Games have survived because of change and games have been killed by change. Change is not necessarily a good thing.

Saying games that don’t change eventually are going to die is probably true. Which doesn’t mean that the wrong changes won’t kill a game even faster. Ask the people who played Star Wars Galaxies about how change affected that game.

Sure, some change is good and sure Anet has made some good changes. But Anet also tends to make a lot of changes that aren’t well received.

Nerfing the dungeon rewards was a change. I don’t think it helped this game at all…even if they were later fixed.

It’s not my intent to argue on the merits of specific changes. I’m simply saying that the identity of a game isn’t the level of success of it’s content; it’s the way that the dev approach the game as a living and evolving thing. So far, for my money, Anet has been pretty consistent in their approach and rather open to adjustments when they screw up. THAT’S what I identify to this game. Anyone that is associating content and lore to the identity of the game is making a very shallow assessment.

I couldn’t disagree with this statement more. For one thing the very idea of “the devs” is something that doesn’t really exist. Because there are 300 or so devs and I’m pretty sure they don’t have the same goals or the same ideas all the time. And some key devs have left and they’ve been replaced by other devs.

For a long time, we were told that the game would have few new zones because they were scared of dividing the community. Now they’re adding a new zone every single living story episode. The point is if the devs adapt and continue to adapt and you’re basing your sense of the games identity on that, and what they say changes, then you’re basing the games identity on 1. Your understanding of what the devs want for the game (which is half advertising and half just people talking about what they want) and 2. The random chance that something will or won’t work out. That actually gives the game no identity and no identity for a game is pretty dangerous.

The same is true for books in publishing, which is my area of expertise. Authors that tend to sell best are the ones who repeat the same stuff over and over to gain an audience. People like Robert Ludlum wrote essentially the same type of book again and again, with very very few exceptions. Danielle Steele wrote the same books. It’s easier to market and you’re keeping an audience you know who likes what you’re doing. That’s the very essence of an identity.

Very often authors writing something different or in another genre would write under a different name. I’ve done it myself.

It’s not shallow to base your concept of an identity on something like the manifesto if the manifesto in fact “called to you”. That’s what drew you to the game and when you get into the game, that’s what you’re going to look for. That’s why so many people who interpreted the manifesto one way felt that the game didn’t live up to those expectations. I had a different view of the manifesto and based on that and what was said around those times, I wasn’t disappointed by the product, but my sense of the game’s identity came from what essentially a piece of advertising. Playing backed that up, but in all likelihood, it was a case of confirmation bias. I saw what I expected to see, because there was little enough that didn’t fit into my spectrum of acceptability for what matched what I wanted.

That’s slowly changing. What I like and I enjoy happens less and what I don’t like and enjoy happens more. In that sense, I don’t feel my understanding of the game’s identity is shallow. I think it’s realistic.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

This never meant that those two things were supposed to fulfill exactly the same role.

They said that explorable dungeons and the temples of Orr would be this game’s Raids. They were supposed to be the hard and challenging content that we were used to from other games. And for a couple of months they were, while the game was new and we (as a community) didn’t know how to play.

Example:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185945-Dungeons-Explorer-Mode-

Nah, the “mass exodus” was just the content locust leaving. This happened to every MMO game for the past many years. Those people would have left anyway.

Not really. If there was interesting end-game at release a lot of them wouldn’t leave. You can easily verify this by the amount of players who left GW2 after the first few months and now they are coming back because of Raids. These players would’ve never left the game if Raids were in the game at release, or their “Version of Raids” was what was advertised and expected.

They also said you wouldn’t need a dedicated healer. They’ve said lots of things. Some of those things have come to pass and others haven’t.

People don’t care about what’s said, so much as what they experience. If I say I’m not going to hurt someone and I poke him in the eye, he’s not going to trust me the next time, no matter what I say.

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Developers have very little time to test and play their own game compared to players. They don’t have the benefit of dulfy or youtube starting out. They don’t have a million people trying something to find the easy way.

So of course, dev-challenge, doesn’t necessarily mean the kind of challenge you’re thinking of.

After all, they ended up nerfing Orr. Thinned out mobs and made other changes to make it more friendly. So if they intended it to be that hard, they later changed their minds.

By now you have to have realized that nerfing and simplifying the parts of the game that were intended to be hard didn’t help the game in the least.

Why would I realize that? How can it even be proven, one way or another.

I certainly thing the changes made to the open world HOT zones were an improvement.

IndigoSundown.5419:

What I find ironic is that most of Maddoctor’s points about why the vanilla leveling game fails to entice PFF players to buy are things that were put into GW2 with the NPE, an initiative to make the game more inviting and accessible.

It would be ironic if the stuff that Maddoctor listed was bad with a capital B, but I don’t agree with everything on that list. In fact, I found the game more disjointed when I started because I had to sometimes stop to level in the middle of a story arc, which I hated. Now, the story arcs, which are in ten level increments, can be played straight through without stopping to level.

What there should be, or needs to be, is something to let you know up front that something will be happening at level 10, so you know it’s coming.

I don’t think taking nodes out of level 1-5 zones makes a difference, since a new player might not even have gathering tools by then. Go a bit further in starter zones and there’s plenty of stuff to harvest.

It simply doesn’t take that long to get out of the level 5 area.

I also haven’t had huge problems with the content guide. Not to say there aren’t occasional problems, but I don’t think it’s as common as implied.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

This never meant that those two things were supposed to fulfill exactly the same role.

They said that explorable dungeons and the temples of Orr would be this game’s Raids. They were supposed to be the hard and challenging content that we were used to from other games. And for a couple of months they were, while the game was new and we (as a community) didn’t know how to play.

Example:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185945-Dungeons-Explorer-Mode-

Nah, the “mass exodus” was just the content locust leaving. This happened to every MMO game for the past many years. Those people would have left anyway.

Not really. If there was interesting end-game at release a lot of them wouldn’t leave. You can easily verify this by the amount of players who left GW2 after the first few months and now they are coming back because of Raids. These players would’ve never left the game if Raids were in the game at release, or their “Version of Raids” was what was advertised and expected.

They also said you wouldn’t need a dedicated healer. They’ve said lots of things. Some of those things have come to pass and others haven’t.

People don’t care about what’s said, so much as what they experience. If I say I’m not going to hurt someone and I poke him in the eye, he’s not going to trust me the next time, no matter what I say.

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Developers have very little time to test and play their own game compared to players. They don’t have the benefit of dulfy or youtube starting out. They don’t have a million people trying something to find the easy way.

So of course, dev-challenge, doesn’t necessarily mean the kind of challenge you’re thinking of.

After all, they ended up nerfing Orr. Thinned out mobs and made other changes to make it more friendly. So if they intended it to be that hard, they later changed their minds.

Healix.5819:

Vayne.8563:

In fact, before the change to rezzing, you could rez rush certain bosses and that was a strategy for people who weren’t as good, but you could still get through the content.

That wasn’t intended however. Dungeons were originally revealed as challenging group content for coordinated groups. I remember them talking about the unique dungeon skins as being prestigious rewards to show off.

The devs have always wanted the game to be more challenging, as they’ve always been for the gamers rather the majority like other MMOs. In BWE1, enemies could kill you within seconds, much like HoT, but had higher health. It was all heavily nerfed however for obvious reasons, as the traditional crowd would facetank and get instantly killed.

But it wasn’t challenging, whatever they wanted. And people grew used to the game as it was, rather than as it was intended.

If I open up a restaurant and say the food is spicy and it’s not spicy and suddenly I make it really spicy I’m going to lose people.

Anyway, what’s really challenging to most devs is not always really challenging to good players. They can say challenging and mean something completely different from a decent raider.

Anet delivered a game that was one way and now it’s another way and people wonder why some people think it’s lost it’s identity. I guess I just don’t see any mysteries here.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

I just feel like there’s a new breed of dev at Anet who thinks dying repeatedly and running back or trying again and again is fun for most people, because they themselves find it fun. They’ve even bragged about it. They find it fun to die and bang their heads against those kinds of walls.

That’s how dungeons were supposed to be. Remember at release you could even use a waypoint even while your party was in combat, to return to a fight, once you died.
That was removed from the game because it cheapened the dungeon experience.

They expected us to have a very hard time in dungeons, especially explorable modes.
They expected us to have a hard time coordinating the Orr temple events.

It’s not a new breed of dev, it’s the release/original dev idea being brought back.

Maybe it was how it was supposed to be, but it was also supposed to be any group of people could beat a dungeon. You didn’t need a healer, or a tank.

As far as I know, it’s not like it’s supposed to be. That is to say even ages ago, near the beginning, me and my casual guild could beat dungeons. They took a while and we died a lot, but we could rez each other when we went down.

In fact, before the change to rezzing, you could rez rush certain bosses and that was a strategy for people who weren’t as good, but you could still get through the content.

The second it goes to you can’t rez anyone and you’re always in combat and you can’t even use a revive orb, it becomes something else, that’s very unlike the dungeons at launch.

Devata.6589:

Beldin.5498:

Devata.6589:

Afther the thread looking at GW2 results over a longer period ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/first that is now closed so save to link), I did want to have a look at the results for Q4 2016 and Q1 of 2017.

In that thread some people though it was too much of an ‘I told you so’ statement, well sadly this time I have to say ‘I was wrong’.

The results of Q4 did just get released, you can find them here: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/prfile.aspx?ID=9DE70054-C1F4-43C2-842B-8A228757B8D6
I expected Q4 to go up with it being Q4, shorter days, more vacation, Halloween, Wintersday and a lot of the season 3 release. Sadly I was wrong, Q4 2016 had even lower results the the two before.

At least the ‘It’s because the lack of content’ argument as reason for lower results can now be completely shredded.

It’s really sad because the core of the game is really good.

Other than the ‘problem’ that the game has, there is an addition problem now, its how do you get the people back.

For example, the upcoming patch is really something we should have had much sooner, simply because of the location of the map, that is something that interests people. But those that left will not be likely to come back to see it at this point.

I always did think that HoT and the first half year after it was basically when Anet had to solve the problem because even if they fixed it now, people are just not here / coming back to see it. The only way I could see many people coming back if is the next expansion would be marketed as GW3 but that would be really bad if the next expansion is nothing like a GW3.

Edit: Clarification about the ‘lack of content, shredder’ comment in my first post\/.

I guess the main reason why i will mostly never come back is that it seems in all
new content i have to use those gliding stuff and that means i first am forced to
grind in HoT .. and i simply don’t want to go there.

Oh .. and still no new armor sets .. just boring outfits.

Funny, I did run into a similar problem. Completing VB did not gave you all abilities you needed to complete the next map, so you could not 100% complete that, even after having completed it as far as you could. So you did go to the next map where you had the same problem and after having completed that as far as possible you still had not what you needed to complete the previous map. So in order to do that you basically had to start grinding to get all the required masteries. Now if I dislike something, it’s grinding, especially a currency (what xp is). So I did go back the the old maps and never unlocked more masteries.

It’s a similar problem as when you complete a map for level x, but after completing it you are not yet the required level for the next map. That is bad design imho. While it was likely deliberate as they wanted you to hang around in those maps, usually not a problem, but with all these group events it is a problem for people who prefer solo-play.

Completely VB can’t give you all the skills you need for the next map because they don’t unlock until you enter the map. However, if you enter the map early and come back, which many people do, then completing VB gives you everything you need for the next map, and that trend continues.

@Devata

Even MMOs with expansions drop over time. WoW once had 12.4 million subscribers and even after the next expansioin they never got back to that number. For the most part each subsequent expansion saw less and less people coming back.

Yes, MMO income falls over time even for the expansion models.

The launch of the first title in an MMO is often the strongest any MMO EVER is, and over the course of time they lose people until they settle into a comfortable group of people loyal to that game. At that point there are still people coming in and leaving but the loyal people tend to stay longer, as they have more invested in the game for longer. Those vested people keep MMOs alive. WoW is almost an exception to all things, but I think you’ll find with most other MMOs, from their big big year was the first year after release of the first game and they never capture that again.

You ignore the whole idea of a business plan. Some businesses are expected to make money year after year at the same levels, Some aren’t. That’s all part of a business plan.

Anet switched to an expansion model because people were talking about it nonstop on Forums and reddit, and it got to the point where it seemed the pressure to do an expansion was great. I don’t think they planned to do it. I think they were forced to do it by popular opinion.

Which is why HOT launched in the state it did, incomplete, with other features coming. They started working on it too late, and there’s no evidence that they started it because of the numbers in the quarterly report.

Devata.6589:

Doam.8305:

TorsoReaper.8530:

as asureus.6287:

2016 – NCsoft boasts a record year on PC and mobile

http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/52118/ncsoft-revendique-annee-record-pc-mobiles#reactions

French website use a translator

Not sure if you are aware but NCsoft makes more than GW2…

I think there knocking on GW2 just look at those numbers represented on the charts. They are all going steadily upwards and increasing with the exception of Aion and Gw2. Gw2 is worse of because those numbers represent the hatred shown to HoT because we see Gw2 at 86 prior to HoT, 101 for people giving it a try, and then it falls lower than it even started out as new and old players found that HoT left a bad taste in there mouth with the lowest of the three at 77.

If they wanted to post something positive about gw2 they would have waited to see what LS3 has accomplished instead of showing of how great the Blade and Soul/Lineage apps are going to be for NCsoft.

I was surprised seeing this thread up again. Few more weeks and Q1 results will be released.

Anyway, numbers had already been dropping a year long before the announcement of HOT. When it was announced (and later released) the numbers did go up again. But if you where to continue the dropping line from pre-HoT-announcement then we would now be in a similar place with the results.

So I think based on that you can not say HoT was the problem. Imho HoT was not able to solve the problem that preexisted HoT. That is at least also what the numbers seem to suggest.

Except that game income for MMOs without expansions over time is generally expected to fall over time anyway and for all we know there isn’t a problem. The problem is that an older game makes less money than when it was new? That’s a problem virtually all MMOs have.

The expansion was supposed to stem that tide and it did, but only for a very very short period of time. It didn’t do its job.

In order for you to say that it was a problem prior to the expansion being released, you’d need to know if Anet thought it was a problem. I don’t particularly think they did.

I was in the gaming industry on the selling side and I can tell you it’s a rare game of ANY kind that continues to make the same money as it did the first year.

I just feel like there’s a new breed of dev at Anet who thinks dying repeatedly and running back or trying again and again is fun for most people, because they themselves find it fun. They’ve even bragged about it. They find it fun to die and bang their heads against those kinds of walls.

I’m cut from a different cloth. I never liked banging my head against a wall. And I never liked artificial difficulty. Stuff like enrage timers, or not being able to rez someone when you can rez them everywhere else in the game annoys the hell out of me. It’s changing the rules.

Agony is fractals is okay by me, because I can enjoy multiple levels of fractals without ever going to a tier 4 Fractal. I mean my Fractal level is 90, obviously I’ve done some T4, but the point is, that’s not my preferred content. So with Fractals, even if I didn’t play them at T4, I can still enjoy them at earlier tiers, more casually and slow work toward rewards. And yeah, I did get the Legendary Fractal backpack, and it wasn’t too onerous, but again, I didn’t enjoy that process. I did it, but didn’t enjoy it.

Raids are different from Fractals because there is no entry level and if I don’t play it that way, I can’t enjoy it at all. So it’s PvE content I’ll not enjoy even if I eventually do it all. That to me is different from what’s in the game elsewhere.

Prior to raids the only content in the game I hadn’t done in PvE was killing Liadri. I’d done everything else. I didn’t do the cheese life steal build before it was fixed, because that too isn’t really my kind of content, or really fun for me.

So in short, no matter what PvE release came out in the past, I was playing it and enjoying it. With Raids I get PvE releases now that I don’t enjoy and I don’t look forward to, and that feels different to me. It didn’t happen in the past.

Raids should have a mode for people who want to experience the content and story that everyone can enjoy, like low level Fractals and I’d have much less problem with them. But as of now, because they’re PvE content I don’t enjoy and probably never will, the game feels less…to me.

I’m not asking for raids to be taken out of the game or made easier. I am asking to give a range of experience so more people can experience them and, like T4 Fractals, if there was a gradual incline in difficulty, maybe I would have gotten there more happily.

Again, I play HOT the same way I played the core game. And I love those zones. That made HoT worth it for me. But do raids leave a strange taste in my mouth, finally having something in PvE that’s there all the time that I feel is past what I’m willing to invest in PvE?

Yep, it does.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Vayne.8563:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Vayne.8563:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Again, box sales are lacking; Gem Store sales are relatively even.

I’ve no idea how ‘loyal’ vets are; do they spend more money in the Gem Store than newer players? Do vets still need the items newer players might find convenient, after all this time?

I don’t think we have the answers to those questions, not being privy to the sales breakdowns….or any other kind of metrics.

Again, everyone has their own opinions. It would be great if we had actual facts. Maybe, some day. =)

You want some facts? It’s a fact that at least some people feel the game’s identity has changed. That’s an absolute fact. It’s a fact that at least some people claim to have stopped playing because of it.

There’s no way to tell how big that population is but to deny it exists is senseless.

No one has ever accused me of being overly hard on this game, but I can see how people I know have been affected by some of the changes.

And there is people that came back just because of HoT and raids.
Me and my friends played GW1 since prophecies until the launch of GW2, then we quit GW2 in the first year. Why? Because there wasnt challenge content, you didnt need to adapt your build for the content, builds felt meaningless ( All the things that we loved about GW1). I went back to GW1.

Now GW2 is back to the track like GW1, offering meaning build choices ( what give meaning to a build is the encounter ) and challenging fun content without gear trendmill. So we all came back when hot was announced, and we sticked to it, and dont plain to leave. If gw2 had challenge content we would never have left.

Not really my point. People are asking for facts in a thread that is absolutely 100% opinion based. There’s no right or wrong answer to the question posed by the OP. It all depends on your specific concept of what the game’s direction was in the first place, based on your specific concept of where the game has gone. It’s not really possible for someone to be wrong about what they think the game’s direction was to them.

Long before this started, I made a post in a raids thread and I said straight out that if raids were introduced in this game, part of the game’s audience would feel disenfranchised and some of those people would leave and over all, I believed and said that profits would decrease.

Raids came into the game, some people felt as I said and profits or at least total income has decreased. Does this mean I was right?

Nope, it doesn’t. There are many possible reasons why sales are less than they were. But this game made more money before raids were introduced. That much is factual.

There’s no way to prove the raids themselves did it, and it’s unlikely the raids did this all by themselves. But as I’ve said numerous times now, the raids are symbolic of a shift in the game to harder, more grindy content. And some people just aren’t on board with that.

Let’s not get it twisted. Stating it would be nice if ArenaNet or NCSoft released income facts isn’t derailing a thread that’s 100% opinion. In fact, I stated several times what people were posting here was only opinion. Differing opinions, at that.

Funny how some opinions seem to change depending on the thread, as well.

Well Anet isn’t going to post factually how many people are or aren’t playing or any specifics other than what they have to post to inform their stockholders. Whatever picture Anet paints is going to be with a broad brush.

But yes, I’ve been saying making the game less casual is going to hurt the game for a long long time, even though I personally enjoy HoT.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Vayne.8563:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Again, box sales are lacking; Gem Store sales are relatively even.

I’ve no idea how ‘loyal’ vets are; do they spend more money in the Gem Store than newer players? Do vets still need the items newer players might find convenient, after all this time?

I don’t think we have the answers to those questions, not being privy to the sales breakdowns….or any other kind of metrics.

Again, everyone has their own opinions. It would be great if we had actual facts. Maybe, some day. =)

You want some facts? It’s a fact that at least some people feel the game’s identity has changed. That’s an absolute fact. It’s a fact that at least some people claim to have stopped playing because of it.

There’s no way to tell how big that population is but to deny it exists is senseless.

No one has ever accused me of being overly hard on this game, but I can see how people I know have been affected by some of the changes.

And there is people that came back just because of HoT and raids.
Me and my friends played GW1 since prophecies until the launch of GW2, then we quit GW2 in the first year. Why? Because there wasnt challenge content, you didnt need to adapt your build for the content, builds felt meaningless ( All the things that we loved about GW1). I went back to GW1.

Now GW2 is back to the track like GW1, offering meaning build choices ( what give meaning to a build is the encounter ) and challenging fun content without gear trendmill. So we all came back when hot was announced, and we sticked to it, and dont plain to leave. If gw2 had challenge content we would never have left.

Not really my point. People are asking for facts in a thread that is absolutely 100% opinion based. There’s no right or wrong answer to the question posed by the OP. It all depends on your specific concept of what the game’s direction was in the first place, based on your specific concept of where the game has gone. It’s not really possible for someone to be wrong about what they think the game’s direction was to them.

Long before this started, I made a post in a raids thread and I said straight out that if raids were introduced in this game, part of the game’s audience would feel disenfranchised and some of those people would leave and over all, I believed and said that profits would decrease.

Raids came into the game, some people felt as I said and profits or at least total income has decreased. Does this mean I was right?

Nope, it doesn’t. There are many possible reasons why sales are less than they were. But this game made more money before raids were introduced. That much is factual.

There’s no way to prove the raids themselves did it, and it’s unlikely the raids did this all by themselves. But as I’ve said numerous times now, the raids are symbolic of a shift in the game to harder, more grindy content. And some people just aren’t on board with that.

OniGiri.9461:

Amaimon.7823:

I raid Daily/weekly/monthly
this option completely ruins the poll. It’s not a bash to you, it but it just shows that nothing of value will come out of it.
Someone who tags along for a raid with some friends who happen to have a space left, will now be “actively raiding” as someone who does every every boss, every week, at the earliest convenience

I understand. But would someone regularly tag along on raids if he didnt enjoyed them or at least was interested in them? Because that is all i was interested in.

I raid every week with my guild. If they didn’t need me and my wife to make 10 we wouldn’t do it at all. It’s not my preference. I don’t enjoy it. But I am a team player and I will help out my guild.

The forum community is going to have a disproportionately large percentage of raiders. It’s the 70-80% of the people who never come to the forums, who will probably not be raiding. That’s the problem with polls like this.

A Lotro dev said straight out only 10% of the population of Lotro EVER raided, but they accounted for 50% of all forum posts.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Again, box sales are lacking; Gem Store sales are relatively even.

I’ve no idea how ‘loyal’ vets are; do they spend more money in the Gem Store than newer players? Do vets still need the items newer players might find convenient, after all this time?

I don’t think we have the answers to those questions, not being privy to the sales breakdowns….or any other kind of metrics.

Again, everyone has their own opinions. It would be great if we had actual facts. Maybe, some day. =)

You want some facts? It’s a fact that at least some people feel the game’s identity has changed. That’s an absolute fact. It’s a fact that at least some people claim to have stopped playing because of it.

There’s no way to tell how big that population is but to deny it exists is senseless.

No one has ever accused me of being overly hard on this game, but I can see how people I know have been affected by some of the changes.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I thought the NCSoft people said Gem Store sales were steady, and only box sales were down these last few quarters. If so, I guess that would negate some of the theories.

To me, over the past nearly-5 years, many things have changed. This just seems like a bash-Raids thread. I consider Raids to be equivalent to WvW or PvP; something I don’t/did’nt initially find interesting, but would consider/did try out eventually. In other words, just another Game Mode I can take or leave.

I also don’t believe a player can’t be loyal to a game/franchise if they haven’t been playing since/near launch. No more than playing at/near launch would automatically make one a loyal player.

But, of course, each have their own opinion; one no more valid than the other.

Good luck.

I never said a player can’t be loyal coming late to a game. I’m saying those most interested in the game would have bought it much earlier and those coming later are approaching the game more casually to begin with.

People who play games to not spend money can be loyal as they want to the game, but they’re not spending money.

Since Anet said that people who were free to play didn’t buy the expansion in the numbers they thought they would…well if you’re really loyal to a game and company one would think you’d buy the expansion, I know I would.

A lot of people, once a game goes free to play, jump in, try it, even if they’re playing other games to which they are loyal.

People on limited budgets are going to support their main games before games they jump into to kill time.

The point is, if people are playing the free game, but not spending money to buy the expansion, just how loyal are they?

Obtena.7952:

Hey call it whatever … it’s change. People might not appreciate the fact that games that don’t change enter ‘maintenance’ mode VERY quickly.

Change is neither good nor bad. But saying a game changes and that’s okay doesn’t work if people don’t get behind the change. Games have survived because of change and games have been killed by change. Change is not necessarily a good thing.

Saying games that don’t change eventually are going to die is probably true. Which doesn’t mean that the wrong changes won’t kill a game even faster. Ask the people who played Star Wars Galaxies about how change affected that game.

Sure, some change is good and sure Anet has made some good changes. But Anet also tends to make a lot of changes that aren’t well received.

Nerfing the dungeon rewards was a change. I don’t think it helped this game at all…even if they were later fixed.

Ayrilana.1396:

Evolution is mutation though or was it the other way around. Not arguing for or against what you said other than to correct that one part.

Sorry but this is not correct. That is not every mutation ends up being part of evolution. There are hundreds, probably thousands of mutations in any species population, most of which do not add to the ability of the species to survive, so those traits never end up getting passed down.

Successful mutation ends up causing evolution but random mutations abound that never make it.

Anet seems to throw a lot of things at the wall to see what sticks. But that means that the changes are drastic, not gradual, and some people will be taken out of their comfort zone.

The less gradual changes are, the more people will be affected. Evolution is the result of many mutations, but most mutations do not aid evolution.

Obtena.7952:

I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.

Sure, Anet has made some errors during this evolution but I don’t think this is very relevant; any expectation that Anet just scores homeruns is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in a game where a developer would just pump out the same old, just to maintain game identity. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a game’s identity is the sum of it’s content and lore is wrong; it’s identity is how the dev team implements the game and interacts with players.

Sure all games evolve. But to some people this feels like mutation rather than evolution. Evolution implies slow steady change in a single direction. Some people, no idea how many, see the evolution of this game as something more sudden and drastic, which is why threads like this exist.

Ayrilana.1396:

Vayne.8563:

Ayrilana.1396:

What do gem store sales have to do with the status of the game itself?

That’s an amazing question. It deals with the over all health and viability of the game, because long term, if the game makes less it’s less likely to be supported. Ask the people who played City of Heroes, which was also a title owned by NCSoft.

We’re not in any kind of danger yet. But showing a slacking of gem store sales, means people are less willing to spend money on the game. Obviously there could be many reasons for this, but from this thread, at least some people seem to believe the game has lost it’s identity and I can see why those people feel that way. I’m spending less. I could spend more,. but I’m not as happy with the product as I once was. It’s my decision to support it less than I did.

When I see that the game is moving more in a direction that benefits me, I’ll start spending more again.

I assume I’m not the only person who does this.

It could mean that people are less willing to spend money. It could also mean that there’s nothing worth spending money on too.

I agree. I’m always the proponent that there’s more than one reason for something to occur. I very rarely say that one thing caused another. But I do believe people leaving the game because they feel the game has changed is a factor, possibly a large factor. It’s obviously not the only factor.

The problem is I know people who feel this way and it’s unlikely that the people I know are the only ones who feel this way. We’ve seen many posts over many months about various things, all identity related. Given that the game was sold on the idea of the open world was the most important thing (living breathing world), that 9 month content drought with only PvP and raids probably hurt the game a lot.

The fact that the LS and new zones have returned to the path didn’t stop people from leaving during the content drought. Two of my guildies that played all the time for years are now playing another MMO, and spending there money there. Others log in, but not as often.

A lot of times it’s not the reality that matters, but the image. If people get it in there heads that this game is more hard core than it used to be, and they’re not hard core themselves, they’re going to feel less of a connection to the game, no matter what you say, no matter what I say. That’s how human nature works.

I used to think the devs were on the same page as me, but I had deluded myself into believing that, because development bore it out. I no longer think the devs are on the same page as me. Of course, the people working on the game are different, too. There are newer faces with newer ideas. Not all those ideas are going to jibe with mine.

I’m happy to keep playing and enjoy what I enjoy but that doesn’t necessarily make me happy with everything.

I guess I remember the days when RP was all text and didn’t require an animation to be a thing. I’m not sure I like this new breed of RP.

Ayrilana.1396:

What do gem store sales have to do with the status of the game itself?

That’s an amazing question. It deals with the over all health and viability of the game, because long term, if the game makes less it’s less likely to be supported. Ask the people who played City of Heroes, which was also a title owned by NCSoft.

We’re not in any kind of danger yet. But showing a slacking of gem store sales, means people are less willing to spend money on the game. Obviously there could be many reasons for this, but from this thread, at least some people seem to believe the game has lost it’s identity and I can see why those people feel that way. I’m spending less. I could spend more,. but I’m not as happy with the product as I once was. It’s my decision to support it less than I did.

When I see that the game is moving more in a direction that benefits me, I’ll start spending more again.

I assume I’m not the only person who does this.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

This is a vast oversimplification. The fact is, the game is doing worse than it’s ever done financially, and new players who come to the game for raid type content are competing with far more games.

When this game was a casual MMO that was relatively easy, it was actually in a vast minority and that was one identity. The more stuff added to make this stuff more like other MMOs, the more likely it’s just going to get lost in a sea of MMOs.

There’s no way the players coming in are going to replace the really loyal guys who have been here for years. That’s never been the way MMO works. Core communities are what keep games alive.

Guys who are just coming in now, they’re less likely to be loyal because that ship has sailed. They’ll be the guys looking for a cheap or free game. They’ll be the people looking for something to play for free until the next installment of their main game comes out.

You can’t just replace loyal long term players with new guys. So if loyal long term players leave it’s going to affect the bottom line.

What did Anet say about the expansion. New players didn’t buy it as often as they expected. Anet expected more free to play people to buy the expansion and it didn’t happen. This is why the change of identity thing has been such a hot topic.

Frankly I don’t think so many people have left per se, but the less happy I am with the game the less money I’m going to spend on gems and I used to spend quite a bit on gems. Now I spend a lot less. Why? Because I’m less happy.

I suspect that’s not all that unusual either. Certainly the numbers are down. Down lower than they’ve ever been.

However, I suspect those numbers to jump up when the new expansion hits anyway. So much depends on how well the next expansion does.

So you are not going to let off with that “numbers are down” argument even though i already thoroughly debunked that in the previous comments.

Pls stop stating your opinons as fact – it goes against the rules for commenting on this forum.

Where do you get that people coming in now are less likely to stay loyal?
Many of those “long term players” have stopped playing the game for one or two years and come back when ever they feel like playing it again. Who are you to call them disloyal?

Also not all the guys that have been in the game since launch think like you do. You should probably stop talking for more than yourself.

Its’ a fact that the last three quarters have been the lowest quarters the game has ever produced. You debunked nothing.

So, this is how I do it, since I do it on multiple characters. I have an order in which I do the hearts, and by doing them in that order, if I stop, I always know what heart I’m up to.

I end to work my way around counter clockwise, saving the heart in the fort for when it comes up in the story (so it’s always last).

Sometimes I’ll do the centaur farm to get the POI in the centaur area. In that case I usually get the heart. If I see that POI done, I know that heart is also done.

But there should be a way for the game to let you know a specific heart was done or not done.

OniGiri.9461:

Blaeys.3102:

Ayrilana.1396:

Enrage timers have a specific peurpose that is necessary which has been discussed to death already. You’re free to feel that they’re lazy mechanics.

Undoubtably with enrage timers, there is some math and minimum DPS that must be done before the timer ends. When groups fail, what percentage of the time is it because they reached the enrage timer?

Perhaps lazy was a bit harsh.

In full meta builds and comps (or builds and comps close to it) – other than fights like Gorseval, you are right – the enrage is rarely a big issue. Once you start talking about different types of players and playstyles, however, they definitely come into play.

But, that isnt really my point, anyway. My point is the math provides a limiting factor that makes raids a different animal than dungeons. You cannot compare where dungeons are now with where raids may be in the future – there are just too many differences in design based on mathematical walls.

The inclusion of story (any story – but especially GW1 lore), unique mechanics and boss models may all seem like small things now – when we only have 4 wings, but in years to come, when we have a dozen or more wings, were going to end up with a game where large chunks of the experience are limited heavily based on playstyle and build choices. That is a major shift from the game we had for the first 4 years.

It will essentially be a segmentation of the PVE community in a way that has never existed in the game. That is the identity change I dread most. ArenaNet needs to address this problem now – before it creates a game where the experience is so divided and many of the initial core supporters of the game decide the frustration and limitations make it no longer worth it to log in.

It is a sad thing if “core supporters” leave the game. But its not disasterous. Disasterous is if a game can’t attract new players. Thats were youll see how a game will die out. Not by adding new, interesting, challenging content.

And the picture you are paint is just your opinion and not based in facts. You think because YOU (and the fraction of people in this game that you know) are not willing to adept to the changes in the game or even better come up with own ideas to clear raid bosses as they are implemented now the majority of people thinks the same. And you couldn’t be more wrong about that. Weekly new people join the training runs where i learned the ropes. New people with different experience levels, raiding experiences and skill levels. The raiding community is growing not declining – which contradicts the dooms day scenario you and a lot like you are trying to paint.

This is a vast oversimplification. The fact is, the game is doing worse than it’s ever done financially, and new players who come to the game for raid type content are competing with far more games.

When this game was a casual MMO that was relatively easy, it was actually in a vast minority and that was one identity. The more stuff added to make this stuff more like other MMOs, the more likely it’s just going to get lost in a sea of MMOs.

There’s no way the players coming in are going to replace the really loyal guys who have been here for years. That’s never been the way MMO works. Core communities are what keep games alive.

Guys who are just coming in now, they’re less likely to be loyal because that ship has sailed. They’ll be the guys looking for a cheap or free game. They’ll be the people looking for something to play for free until the next installment of their main game comes out.

You can’t just replace loyal long term players with new guys. So if loyal long term players leave it’s going to affect the bottom line.

What did Anet say about the expansion. New players didn’t buy it as often as they expected. Anet expected more free to play people to buy the expansion and it didn’t happen. This is why the change of identity thing has been such a hot topic.

Frankly I don’t think so many people have left per se, but the less happy I am with the game the less money I’m going to spend on gems and I used to spend quite a bit on gems. Now I spend a lot less. Why? Because I’m less happy.

I suspect that’s not all that unusual either. Certainly the numbers are down. Down lower than they’ve ever been.

However, I suspect those numbers to jump up when the new expansion hits anyway. So much depends on how well the next expansion does.

Blaeys.3102:

Sartharina.3542:

When the game first launched, Dungeons were seen as stupidly hard, and required specific builds to beat until players figured them out, several got nerfed, and player skill in general increased. I bet in a year or two, several Raids will be seen as ’Playhowyouwant" in terms of difficulty – not from the power creep, but from improved skill at the game from experienced players being able to carry the newer ones even in mixed parties.

Even at their worst, masteries were never as bad as The Time We Had To Unlock Traits.

There are huge differences between dungeons and raids that will keep this from happening. Raid encounters, due to lazy mechanics like enrage timers and “kill fast” elements, are more math based than dungeons. If the math isnt there in a dungeon, the fight takes longer (which is fine). If the math isnt there in a raid, the fight fails. Second, raids are considerably more punishing to builds and compositions that are far from the “meta.” (I know highly experienced players can do the raids on just about anything, but that isnt the group we are talking about here). That was also less of an issue in dungeons. That isn’t going to change either.

I also think people overstate the difficulty of dungeons at launch. I dont remember failing many dungeons for any reason other than just running out of time (and that was mostly in early runs in Arah where we thought it made sense to kill all the mobs) – even with fairly inexperienced and casual guild members.

This is a pervasive issue that will only worsen as time goes on rather than improve. As more and more raids are added with more and more “side” stories/interesting bosses/other experiences, the rift between raiders and non-raiders will only widen.

They need to address and fix the issue now – before it gets any worse.

If nothing else you can rez people in dungeons when they die, or they can use revive orbs, which some people do. Can’t do either in raids.

Healix.5819:

Vayne.8563:

The idea that hero points can’t be soloed is a shift.

That and masteries were a big change in direction from the days of leveling however you wanted. Masteries shouldn’t have forced the content, the points should have been a way to speed up the process. To change it now, a repeatable track to earn one of the available points could be implemented for example. Likewise, the same could be done for hero challenges, then you could do whatever you wanted in HoT, as it was originally with core.

I didn’t really have a problem with masteries. I threw on some boosters, and buffs, and had the ones I needed, pretty much before I knew it.

Just by doing event chains in VB I had most of the masteries I needed. It was almost seamless to me.

I think people who focus on only story as if story doesn’t include what’s going on in the zones, were annoyed the most by this.

OniGiri.9461:

Doam.8305:

OniGiri.9461:

Blaeys.3102:

Snip

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You are drawing a pink-colored past of guild wars 2 that is not realistic.

So can you pls explain what kind of behaviour raids introduced to the game that wasnt there already?

None of what you said holds any water at all

Fractals weren’t there in the beginning and your dungeons/fractal exclusionary response was due to a small minority of the population. The dungeons were introduced through story mode an entry point for all levels for people to learn the map and layout. The rewards and prestige were all tied to tokens the elites could farm tokens faster for their rewards but the more casual runs would get the same rewards without being all gun ho all builds were viable.

Raids have no build up no entry no way to ease new players in it to get a taste and learn the lay of the land. You go in and you learn through death the trail and error path. New players can’t be eased in and their is no muddle your way slowly over time for them either. They took the elites that demanded zerker and gave them the keys for an entire mode to play.

If dungeons had a scale in difficulty a lower tier that a pug can muddle through for some extremely meager rewards to teach players the ins and outs then allowing those players to take steps on their own then maybe.

Aside the difference it painfully obvious that dps meters weren’t a thing back then.

Dungeons, Fractals, Pvp, and even WvW let the common player get their feet wet first while raids have no such thing and Anet even went as far to make official statement about dps meters allowing their usage. The very nature Anet chose to implement these raids is what changed the behavior of the game. None of it is anywhere near what this game was like at the start its a behavioral shift for the player base and the basic design of the game as a whole.

Since the argument was that RAIDS introduced some “game identity changing anamoly” my point that this behavior was already present before introducing them (in dungeons and fractals – which were here before raids) is correct!

Yes its true that raids have no story mode like dungeons or lower tier like fractals to ease you in. But thats not a mistake. Why would you need another instance based content like that? Fractals are already well implemented and fun content. And they can also help groups ease into raids since there are some fast paced, mechanic heavy ones now.

You should maybe refrain from presenting your opinions as facts.

There are 12 raid bosses with different difficulty levels now. Everyone can setup a group and jump into one of the easier ones and get their feet wet by wiping a couple of times.
No need for gearing correctly, meta-classes, meta-compositions, strategies, preperations, etc. Just jumping in and dying until you can kill it.

Isnt that how all video games work? Or how any other content works in Guild Wars?

But my argument isn’t that raids themselves, all alone introduced a shift. I’m saying that raids are a visible indication of the shift. That is to say the game has become much harder, and because of that some people have drifted away.

Sure they can play the same zones they always played, but that’s not why most people buy an expansion. Those people who wanted to see the game expanded in size, but not in difficulty spend $50 on an expansion that didn’t cater to their needs. Of course they’re going to be upset.

I’ve said this many times but raids aren’t the reason people are annoyed with HoT. Raids are simply the most visual identifier mark, an easy target so to speak.

The game has gotten harder and more complex and more grindy in a number of says. At launch you could buy a legendary. You could grind gold and buy one. Now you can’t buy a legendary. That’s a shift.

Before you could take any old stupid build and get through the open world. That’s much much harder to do in HoT. That’s a shift.

The map complexity of HoT (which I love) is a shift.

The idea that hero points can’t be soloed is a shift.

The idea that you have to use timers to get to every meta in every zone and use LFG to make sure you’re on a populated map doing it, that’s a shift.

All by themselves, these changes don’t mean much. But when you add in the grind for the 10,000 drinks you need for the shoulders, or the grind for what you need for nightfury (the bat shoulders), suddenly casual players are feeling left out in the cold.

Now after HoT there was a long content drought punctuated by very visible raids and very visible PvP seasons.

I know I felt pretty left out. That has changed somewhat now with the new zones, but raids were there for 9 months as the only thing being released for PvE.

During that time, people defined what they believed HoT was about.

Yes, once it’s in your collection they can be destroyed.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

Actually they’re not. They’re about half that level. That is to say the last three quarters have been the lowest this game has ever earned. That situation hasn’t existed until now. I’m not really concerned about the numbers, because now that the game has moved to an expansion model, that will be the norm. Drops between expansions and more money during the expansion.

But I do hope the next expansion is better received than HoT was.

Discussing with you is so exhausting. You keep flip floping on your arguments its not even funny…

How do you find it exhausting that I’m replying directly to a statement you made, in the post I’m replying to.

You said that Guild Wars is producing as much money as they did before the expansion came out. It’s factually not true. I’ve said all along, income is less than it was, and now you’re saying it wasn’t.

If anything, you’re defending a pro-raiding point of view, without even acknowledging that someone else might feel differently. That’s exhausting.

You’ve said HoT is only a little harder than the open world and we know plenty of people don’t find this so. Now you said the company is doing as well as it was before HoT launched, which is factually not true.

Not sure how responding to what you’re saying is exhausting.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

@OniGiri.9461

This makes no sense at all. Those guildies that are dissatisfied now, were satisfied before the expansion (and many of them are still satisified. But yes, HoT is massively different from Orr before the patch for a lot of reasons.

There was nothing in Orr like pocket raptors. The big problem with Orr before the initial nerfs were pulls and stuns. Maybe some conditions.

There were no creatures in Orr that stealthed. There were no normal mobs in Orr that could one shot you. There were no areas of Orr that I can remember where you had something like two frogs, one who was harder to melee and one who was harder to range. Orr was annoying but I don’t ever remember dying there.

There was nothing like a smoke scale. There weren’t groups of enemies, that included guys that tormented you, because torment didn’t exist. There were no break bars to think about. The maps were much simpler as well.

You may not have seen a big difference in the jungle and Orr but that doesn’t mean that difference doesn’t exist….because it’s huge. And Orr got nerfed for complaints and since the nerf it’s certainly much easier.

Beyond that, let’s pretend someone liked the game the way it was, and bought something for $50 that was different from what it was. Those people spent $50 on something they don’t enjoy playing. That is to say they put the same amount of money into the game as you did, but got a product that they considered significantly different from the product they were enjoying.

Do you really think those people are interested in buying gems and throwing more money at this game? Do you not see that monthly income is down? Because I’m sure Anet sees it.

It’s up to Anet to decide the cause of that, but I don’t think adding raids made them a ton of money, or driving away their most casual players. Not to say all casual players feel this way but there’s obviously an issue,. because people are talking about an issue.

Your response is basically I didn’t find it hard, so it’s not hard. I’m not sure how helpful that response is.

I didn’t say the new HoT maps weren’t hard. But i don’t think they were so much harderer then the old level 80 maps that its reasonable to cause a dropping off of “casual” players.

Dont panic about the numbers – you are reading too much into it.
The numbers were in a very similar state before they announced the expansion.

Actually they’re not. They’re about half that level. That is to say the last three quarters have been the lowest this game has ever earned. That situation hasn’t existed until now. I’m not really concerned about the numbers, because now that the game has moved to an expansion model, that will be the norm. Drops between expansions and more money during the expansion.

But I do hope the next expansion is better received than HoT was.

I guess magical beings like the Exalted don’t qualify as fantasy. Who knew?

I do the leather farm most days, but only a single run. I’m not running out of leather any time soon. In fact, I just finished a run 15 minutes ago. I find it enjoyable.

Anet said a long time ago they had 70 people working on the expansion, and that was then. Most people expect the expansion to be officially announced in the next couple of months.

You know before HoT was announced, there was no talk of an expansion either.

@OniGiri.9461

This makes no sense at all. Those guildies that are dissatisfied now, were satisfied before the expansion (and many of them are still satisified. But yes, HoT is massively different from Orr before the patch for a lot of reasons.

There was nothing in Orr like pocket raptors. The big problem with Orr before the initial nerfs were pulls and stuns. Maybe some conditions.

There were no creatures in Orr that stealthed. There were no normal mobs in Orr that could one shot you. There were no areas of Orr that I can remember where you had something like two frogs, one who was harder to melee and one who was harder to range. Orr was annoying but I don’t ever remember dying there.

There was nothing like a smoke scale. There weren’t groups of enemies, that included guys that tormented you, because torment didn’t exist. There were no break bars to think about. The maps were much simpler as well.

You may not have seen a big difference in the jungle and Orr but that doesn’t mean that difference doesn’t exist….because it’s huge. And Orr got nerfed for complaints and since the nerf it’s certainly much easier.

Beyond that, let’s pretend someone liked the game the way it was, and bought something for $50 that was different from what it was. Those people spent $50 on something they don’t enjoy playing. That is to say they put the same amount of money into the game as you did, but got a product that they considered significantly different from the product they were enjoying.

Do you really think those people are interested in buying gems and throwing more money at this game? Do you not see that monthly income is down? Because I’m sure Anet sees it.

It’s up to Anet to decide the cause of that, but I don’t think adding raids made them a ton of money, or driving away their most casual players. Not to say all casual players feel this way but there’s obviously an issue,. because people are talking about an issue.

Your response is basically I didn’t find it hard, so it’s not hard. I’m not sure how helpful that response is.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

Objectively you’re right. But I’m not sure how much that really helps the conversation.

There never has been a ‘conversation’ because people participating aren’t talking about the same thing. The original poster was really trying to say, “I don’t seem to like GW2 any longer.”

And he’s right…for him. No one can tell him the game hasn’t changed it’s identity because to him it has. But there is a conversation to be had, though it’s not really obvious.

The problem isn’t just that changes are made, but how changes are made to the game.

If you’ve been playing all along and you’ve done all the living stories and living story achievements the jump to HoT is actually not that bad.

But if you haven’t, and you just level to 80 don’t own LS 2 and you just jump into HoT the difficult from core to HoT is huge. It’s a total game changer.

There’s no warning to tell you not to do that. How many people do you think finish their story and then jump into hot that bought the game more recently?

That’s a big issue because people are used to games with breadcrumb trails that gradually increase difficulty.

Many of those people are going to feel like the game’s identity has changed from a more or less casual romp to a death trap.

I’m not sure what can be done about it, but something should be.

Sorry, no. The OP cannot say that the game has lost its identity, not even for the OP _unless the OP defines what they mean by “identity”. (By the way, they played with LS2; they quit after HoT.)

What they said they liked was that a new game was fresh. What they said they didn’t like was that a four-year old game wasn’t fresh in the ways that they liked. That’s not “identity” — that’s imposing a world view upon the game makers about what constitutes ‘fresh’.

They go on to claim a mandatory holy trinity that doesn’t exist (not in the way that term implies), they claim there’s a mastery ‘treadmill’ (not in the way that term implies).

In short, they don’t like the new things in GW2. Which is fine; they don’t have to. Everyone’s entitled to their own preferences. That doesn’t mean that they get to claim that the game has changed identity.

And of course there’s a conversation to be had — my point is that we are not having that conversation. Everyone keeps going round and round about what identity means, without agreeing on any of the key terms they are using to define it.

I don’t think anyone would argue that there’s room for improvement in the transition from Core to HoT, especially for new players. I don’t think anyone would argue that some mechanics and fights could be refreshed to be more fun for more people. But this thread isn’t about that — it’s about one person making an incredibly bold claim without any bold evidence to back it up, just opinion.

You’re obviously right about this…but who’s going to agree on what the identity of the game was in the first place.

There were people who came to this game and all the did was Fractals and dungeons and certainly they’d have a different sense of the game’s identity than I do. And those who only WvW or PvP, they’d have a completely different sense of the game’s identity than I do.

I used to think this game and the devs represented me, pretty solidly. I no longer think that’s true. But I’m not sure it’s ever been true. I’ve been misled by assumptions.

Now I have a broader view of what the game entails. But from my original standpoint, I’d have said the game had lost its identity too.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

To be fair, at the very least, it says that a vocal minority feel passionately that the new zones are too difficult to solo.

In ANet’s shoes, I would take note and start communicatating more clearly that expansions change the game in all sorts of ways and that people need to be ready to adapt.

Well, adapt or leave; I’ve chosen the later. And, I’d be careful when using the term “vocal minority” as it’s usually merely a rhetorical device used to bolster an actual minority opinion on the forums. There is no vocal minority on the forums, there are merely voices—and, they are either in the minority or the majority. Do they represent all player voices—no. They merely represent all the voices on the forums.

I’ve determined that the current game is unplayable solo. And, let me be more precise in my definition: it is unplayable solo while having fun playing it. You see, one of my gaming principles in that the time I play should feel like play and be fun. I’m always returning to the forums every few months or so looking for changes in the games direction.

I don’t know I think vocal minority is a very important concept. Let’s say a small group of people make so much noise that people think they’re a larger group than they are. It’ causes a chain reaction.

You’re not having fun soloing HoT and you said so loudly before you left, I’m sure. Other people are saying they can’t solo HoT as well. This is in spite of the fact that there are people who enjoy soloing HoT. But of course, complaints get more air time and they’re usually louder.

So people read this over and over again and they believe, rightly or wrongly that HoT isn’t soloable. They don’t then buy HOT to try it themselves.

I’ve seen more than one post by someone who’s hesitated buying HOT because of people saying it was so hard, but they didn’t find it that hard and they were enjoying it.

So yes, vocal minority can be an issue and saying it’s all just opinions and numbers don’t matter, probaby isn’t the whole story.

I must admit that you are probably the best case for there actually being a vocal minority. If you review threads in which you have participated over the years you will find that your posts can represent 30% or more of the posts in that thread. This would certainly serve to bolster your notion of the importance of the concept “vocal minority”.

I, however, can see that you have posted 10%, 20%, or 30% of the posts in cases where you actually represent a minority opinion. In reality you are simply a single voice whether you are in the minority or majority and humans can understand and adjust for the spamming of ideas.

What I notice is that those who love the concept of a vocal minority usually are using it as a rhetorical device to prop up a minority opinion. And, so, I return to my original thesis: there is no such thing as a vocal minority; there are simply voices and they are either in the minority or the majority. And, additionally: the voices do not represent the entire player base, simply those who participate on the forums. And, they may in fact be quite atypical, especially those who could account for a majority of posts in any given thread.

Except you’re completely ignoring the fact that more people complain than compliment. People who are aggrieved almost always have a stronger voice. If I represent 30% then it’s very likely that I’m not a minority at all.

Just saying.

Doam.8305:

Carighan.6758:

Doam.8305:

What is group content pre hot and what in core tyria prepares a player for the things in HoT?

I agree that this is a problem, but I see the fault entirely on the pre-HoT side.

HoT feels much more balanced. Still easy, but you cannot go brain-AFK. Things will kill you if you do, unless you are grouped (then it’s entirely trivial again). Which is a nice balance for a social MMO. Group up and it’s all safe haven, go solo but then pay attention.

But ofc, yes, it’s a harsh lesson from pre-HoT, but that’s because honestly, the old world is pretty… boring? As far as PvE goes? It’s all very very bland.

Agreed but to be fair you couldn’t go brain-afk pre HoT at least in regards to season 1 content anyway. They did have a build or ramp up in difficulty and in group play that would’ve eased people into HoT more so than anything shown. The issue is it was all temporary from Aetherblades, Toxic Tower, Marionette, and the assault on LA version of LA you saw large scale open world maps that easily could bridge the gap into HoT. I left out season 1 because it’s no longer in the game but I person would have a much easier time soloing HoT maps then lets say trying to solo climb the toxic tower even if you removed all the toxic bosses.

Season 2 can still be bought and played and it’s a pretty good ramp up to HoT, particularly if you’re doing achievements.