Guild Wars 2

basically what it means is that raid battles will be heavily based on simulation style play.
5-10% is huge in trinity games, since its designed around simulation of theoretical maximums.
in gw2 it wasnt before, but now, with unavoidable dmg healers, and tanks, it becomes a lot more feasible.

Gerrark.9870:

Eponet.4829:

Gerrark.9870:

As many people in many threads before me have pointed out, ascended gear increases your effectiveness by basically 5% (maybe, it depends on your build, even). That’s nothing. Seriously, that’s nothing. That 5% is not going to make or break anyone’s ability to fill any role.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJAscnsIClohFpBuqBUrhFVDiMAjo4ldoEDAtLp5KA-TRRBABXt/o8DP9AA8CAoU9HzUCGA4AY4CHArv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDXKA9EaB-e

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJAscnsIClohFpBuqBUrhFVDiMAjo4ldoEDAtLp5KA-ThRDwAP3fIhSweK/ep+DI9AAM/RKA9EaB-e

It definately depends on your build, for power builds, he difference is much greater than 5%.

The only difference between the two is that one is in full ascended, the other in full exotics. Maximum might and fury will be assumed despite not necessarily happening all the time, which dilutes the differences between the two.

Power type damage is a function of multiples, so, comparing one skill to itself is sufficient to compare every skill.

Mind slash does 728 damage base for the exotic user, and 824 for the ascended user. This is a gain of 96 damage, a 13% increase on the exotic user’s damage before factoring critical hits.

Additionally, crit chance for the ascended user is higher, 76.43% v s 70.14%.

and ferocity is also higher, 220.73% crit damage vs 216.6% crit damage.

728+(728*.7014*2.166) = 1834.00
824+(824*.7643*2.2073) = 2214.12

2214.12-1834= 380.

380/1834 = 20.726

With the only difference being ascended vs exotic gear, and assuming permanently maintained buffs that dilute the impact of ascended’s bonus stats somewhat, ascended gear is over a 20% increase on exotics.

If you take away the permanently maintained buffs, you end up with 568 vs 648 base damage and 50.14% crit chance vs 56.43% crit chance. Ferocity is unchanged.

568+(568*.5014*2.166) = 1184.87
648+(648*.5643*2.2073) = 1455.14

1455.14-1184.87 = 270.27
270.27/1184.87 = .227097128

Without buffs, ascended gear ends up giving a 22.71% damage increase on exotics for power builds.

Based on the current DPS rankings, at item level 720 (The best approximation for current tier raiding)‘s realistic values, the only specs that would need more than 22.71% damage buff in order to match the highest are specs that aren’t meant to be played in single target encounters (2handed frost is being phased out entirely, arms warrior and combat rogue are dedicated AoE specs)

http://www.noxxic.com/wow/dps-rankings#720,real,1

The difference is even greater than the difference between “We nerfed demonology because we don’t want people playing it” and the survival hunters that were notorious for having their spec completely broken due to the fixing of a bug that they had been balanced around. The specs of which only 0.3% and 0.1% respectively have killed a single mythic boss.

This isn’t even considering the benefits of the extra armour that ascended gear provides, because trying to estimate how much more dps uptime it would gain you is heavily based on the player, but even if the armor were irrelevant, a 22.71% damage boost is very significant.

Would you mind showing me your math for how you came up with the base damage of mind slash for your attacks? Forgive my ignorance, but my calculations are not the same as yours at all. As near as I can tell 2756 power is only around 3.5% higher than 2664 power, so how that equals an increase in damage (not factoring in crits at all of course) around 13% I cannot tell. Even with the higher average that an ascended weapon has over an exotic one, the increase in direct, unmodified damage only seems to be around 8% at most. Which is higher than my calculations for sure, but it doesn’t seem to gel with yours.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAR8MA-TRROwAjU+BY/Bi6GAr+jMlgBAQA+tvx38Nw5Nv5Nv5NP38m38m38mBA-e

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAR8MA-ThRDgAJKB7V+9q+D7+Dg6GAM/BA-e

looking at mirror blade i see
2352/2096 112% dmg boost for full ascended and infusions

i dont believe that includes ferocity or crit

Coulter.2315:

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Erm as a company don’t they need to declare to the government what their profit margin is so they can pay tax? You guys are acting like “cost of creating HoT” has no number attached.. You can’t just say “sell for £25 and sell more than £35” they have set a cost of development and projection on sales per unit and clearly have found their projection on £35 is best for the company. They need to generate profit for their shareholders and pay tax and wages and cover costs of development – you can’t just ask them to charge less money and maybe more will be sold…

All these factors need to be worked into the cost of a sale and so slashing 30% off the price to customer impacts the profit margin and that makes the product less viable – remember by law they have shareholders, tax and wages to consider – not to mention company liquidity and future planning – Anet will also be publishing GW2 from now on. Thats a lot of responsibility and burden.

Everyone likes things cheaper, that doesn’t mean the thing you want can survive if it is…

firstly, my point still stands. In order to consider what you are talking about, you only have to look at raw production costs per customer, not costs of development. This product doesnt have a lot of those costs, especially if they can make people order from them, with a attractive price point and marketing.

for this type of good, especially the way they sell it now.

The initial cost per sale is very low. The main cost is development and standard running of the company. This doesnt really change much based on number of users
This is the type of product that is well matched with a strat that hits as many different customers as possible.

like say for example ; say im making a song to be sold via digital distribution on my website.
The costs are virtually the same whether i sell one song or 1 million songs

now, also imagine on average, the people who buy my song bring in 4 dollars more per month in watching youtube videos, and advertisements on my website.

In this situation, with a extremely low cost per sale, no inventory costs, and distribution costs, my best bet is to sell as many songs as humanly possible while still making the same, or more money.
so if i can choose between selling songs for 25cents at 4 million customers, or selling 100,000 at 10 dollars, i should choose the the 25cent price point.

now of course this is simplified, 25 cents would be unfeasible due to CC transaction costs, but point is, regardless of your development costs, the end result goal is to get as many customers and as much money as you can. You can actually achieve that a lot better with lower price points and still make more money.

Your words would have more weight if you knew more than a single number, £35. Since you don’t all your saying is “HoT’s publisher has chosen a price to deliberately lose them money, don’t ask how I know but let me tell you about my imaginary music which cost nothing, required no marketing to get 4M customers and had zero distribution costs.”

Im not saying the chose a price to deliberately lose them money, im saying now that we can see how this played out, we can see that most likely they chose the wrong price point.
They decided to charge on the upper teir of expansions (the only one i can name is WoW) with substantially less content in the purchase. Even wow had issues with that price point with more content offered.

Based on the backlash alone, you can tell you chose the wrong price point. People generally dont crazy unless the number you pick just seems wrong to them.

Im sure they didnt do it deliberately, deciding to go above average on your price point is always a gamble, they thought they were winning. I think they overestimated the current perception of anet and the product.

Now i fully concede its possible im wrong, its possible that 80% of the people who hot could have gotten at any price purchased, but from the information available that seems highly unlikely.

They can basically compare people who bought the first gw2 as a theoretical maximum (though its possible to go higher, but improbable) im fairly certain the current re adoption rate of HoT is not large. Might change when its in more stores, but i dont think you ll see numbers like last time, which had like 3 mil in the first few months i think? without a china release.

Short version; I think they made a bad guess, and could have made more money with a different package and marketing.

anyhow im sure they will still profit. They just wont profit as much, with as much good will (my opinion)

My point is we cannot see how this played out… NONE of us can see the sales figures.. Remember people typing stuff into the forums on this topic is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the player base, we just don’t know and asking for a price reduction because “they picked the wrong price” from your position of ignorance has nothing to stand on.

the only way to really test it, is to do more market research.
however, they actually got a ton of market research when they released the price, and it was fairly negative, not just here, but throughout various gaming sites/circles.

In general they take surveys, and they ask people
would you buy at X price?
would you buy at X-10 price?
etc.

The fact they added the char slot to prepurchase suggests that they were not hitting the expected sales points. And the negative feedback throughout the gaming community also suggests this.
Thats about as close as you can get in business to a suggestion that you have the wrong price point.
Your main demographic complains voiciferously, and you arent hitting your projected goals.

let me tell you again, a lower price point does not necessarilly mean less profits.

People make mistakes, the key is, i hope they learn from their mistakes.
The best thing they can probably do now, is over deliver on content. However, based on the info on the last 3 years, this will be difficult.

Hopefully the next expansion they offer is either cheaper or has more content, or the feeling on the live service goes up so drastically that people think its worth it to buy in early.
Part of the problem is the last like year of GW2 live service hasnt been too interesting for many people, often actually making them less satisfied. promises of cool live updates seem flat based on recent history.

glenndevis.8327:

To be fair I would LOVE some sort of trinity. Maybe not the old trinity everyone got bored of. But in an action combat based game like gw2 having a trinity-ish system would certainly be interesting.

i already tried it in tera.
playing solo was highly entertaining, playing in groups was boring and sleep inducing (comparitively) Because the amount of attention i had to pay to not getting hit, or mitigation was low (tank holds aggro) and i didnt really have to worry about my hp much even taking regular unavoidable type dmg, because the healer was healing it.

and that game was designed from the ground up to support a trinity. I dont think gw2 will implement a more compelling trinity style with a few tweaks.

Coulter.2315:

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Erm as a company don’t they need to declare to the government what their profit margin is so they can pay tax? You guys are acting like “cost of creating HoT” has no number attached.. You can’t just say “sell for £25 and sell more than £35” they have set a cost of development and projection on sales per unit and clearly have found their projection on £35 is best for the company. They need to generate profit for their shareholders and pay tax and wages and cover costs of development – you can’t just ask them to charge less money and maybe more will be sold…

All these factors need to be worked into the cost of a sale and so slashing 30% off the price to customer impacts the profit margin and that makes the product less viable – remember by law they have shareholders, tax and wages to consider – not to mention company liquidity and future planning – Anet will also be publishing GW2 from now on. Thats a lot of responsibility and burden.

Everyone likes things cheaper, that doesn’t mean the thing you want can survive if it is…

firstly, my point still stands. In order to consider what you are talking about, you only have to look at raw production costs per customer, not costs of development. This product doesnt have a lot of those costs, especially if they can make people order from them, with a attractive price point and marketing.

for this type of good, especially the way they sell it now.

The initial cost per sale is very low. The main cost is development and standard running of the company. This doesnt really change much based on number of users
This is the type of product that is well matched with a strat that hits as many different customers as possible.

like say for example ; say im making a song to be sold via digital distribution on my website.
The costs are virtually the same whether i sell one song or 1 million songs

now, also imagine on average, the people who buy my song bring in 4 dollars more per month in watching youtube videos, and advertisements on my website.

In this situation, with a extremely low cost per sale, no inventory costs, and distribution costs, my best bet is to sell as many songs as humanly possible while still making the same, or more money.
so if i can choose between selling songs for 25cents at 4 million customers, or selling 100,000 at 10 dollars, i should choose the the 25cent price point.

now of course this is simplified, 25 cents would be unfeasible due to CC transaction costs, but point is, regardless of your development costs, the end result goal is to get as many customers and as much money as you can. You can actually achieve that a lot better with lower price points and still make more money.

Your words would have more weight if you knew more than a single number, £35. Since you don’t all your saying is “HoT’s publisher has chosen a price to deliberately lose them money, don’t ask how I know but let me tell you about my imaginary music which cost nothing, required no marketing to get 4M customers and had zero distribution costs.”

Im not saying the chose a price to deliberately lose them money, im saying now that we can see how this played out, we can see that most likely they chose the wrong price point.
They decided to charge on the upper teir of expansions (the only one i can name is WoW) with substantially less content in the purchase. Even wow had issues with that price point with more content offered.

Based on the backlash alone, you can tell you chose the wrong price point. People generally dont crazy unless the number you pick just seems wrong to them.

Im sure they didnt do it deliberately, deciding to go above average on your price point is always a gamble, they thought they were winning. I think they overestimated the current perception of anet and the product.

Now i fully concede its possible im wrong, its possible that 80% of the people who hot could have gotten at any price purchased, but from the information available that seems highly unlikely.

They can basically compare people who bought the first gw2 as a theoretical maximum (though its possible to go higher, but improbable) im fairly certain the current re adoption rate of HoT is not large. Might change when its in more stores, but i dont think you ll see numbers like last time, which had like 3 mil in the first few months i think? without a china release.

Short version; I think they made a bad guess, and could have made more money with a different package and marketing.

anyhow im sure they will still profit. They just wont profit as much, with as much good will (my opinion)

Coulter.2315:

Erm as a company don’t they need to declare to the government what their profit margin is so they can pay tax? You guys are acting like “cost of creating HoT” has no number attached.. You can’t just say “sell for £25 and sell more than £35” they have set a cost of development and projection on sales per unit and clearly have found their projection on £35 is best for the company. They need to generate profit for their shareholders and pay tax and wages and cover costs of development – you can’t just ask them to charge less money and maybe more will be sold…

All these factors need to be worked into the cost of a sale and so slashing 30% off the price to customer impacts the profit margin and that makes the product less viable – remember by law they have shareholders, tax and wages to consider – not to mention company liquidity and future planning – Anet will also be publishing GW2 from now on. Thats a lot of responsibility and burden.

Everyone likes things cheaper, that doesn’t mean the thing you want can survive if it is…

firstly, my point still stands. In order to consider what you are talking about, you only have to look at raw production costs per customer, not costs of development. This product doesnt have a lot of those costs, especially if they can make people order from them, with a attractive price point and marketing.

for this type of good, especially the way they sell it now.

The initial cost per sale is very low. The main cost is development and standard running of the company. This doesnt really change much based on number of users
This is the type of product that is well matched with a strat that hits as many different customers as possible.

like say for example ; say im making a song to be sold via digital distribution on my website.
The costs are virtually the same whether i sell one song or 1 million songs

now, also imagine on average, the people who buy my song bring in 4 dollars more per month in watching youtube videos, and advertisements on my website.

In this situation, with a extremely low cost per sale, no inventory costs, and distribution costs, my best bet is to sell as many songs as humanly possible while still making the same, or more money.
so if i can choose between selling songs for 25cents at 4 million customers, or selling 100,000 at 10 dollars, i should choose the the 25cent price point.

now of course this is simplified, 25 cents would be unfeasible due to CC transaction costs, but point is, regardless of your development costs, the end result goal is to get as many customers and as much money as you can. You can actually achieve that a lot better with lower price points and still make more money.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

VictorTroska.3725:

ArenaNet, lower expansion price to 30 €. I guarantee your sales will increase so much that it will surpass current numbers with 45 € price tag by tenfold. Just ask Gabe Newell.

As stated someone else, since you guarantee it, are you willing to bet your own money and pay someone else?

The 30 euro your suggesting is about $33.50 in the U.S. How many existing players do you think will not purchase the expansion between now and when Anet does reduce the price? Would the $17.50 loss in sales from each player, be cancelled out by the ones hesitating to buy the expansion now purchasing it? Would the new price bring in enough new players, who would not have bought it at $50, to cancel out the loss Anet would take?

thats what finding a price point is all about, I’d say yes. Especially since the cost per consumer is minute, they have nigh infinite inventory, and each new user adds little in terms of cost.
Not to mention a system that profits from selling stuff to players who are fairly engaged with the game.

Of course its impossible to know for sure without testing it both ways. Truth is i probably would have prepurchased without much questions if they had a lower cost and a release date(about 40 bucks). Now that some places are selling it at an even lower price, i still hesitate, because the info they released looks grim. I’m waiting for some critical player feedback now.

of course we ll never no for sure unless we tested both scenarios.

Except if the majority of players were willing to pay the $50 (only Anet would know the actual percentage) then there would be no point in testing to see what would happen if the price were reduced. Based on that, the rest of the players who would forego purchasing the expansion, and the new players who would only have purchased the game if it were at that lower price, would in no way compensate for the loss.

Its fairly likely that the majority of people who bought gw2 did not purchase gw2 hot. Because at this point last time they had already released preorder numbers in the millions.
Not only that, but you couldnt even measure it with the number of initial gw2 sales, because the overall market for MMOs is much higher than gw2 sales ever were.

anyhow, even assuming a perfect non expanding pool of players, your math is wrong, even with a majority of players accepting the price you can still be at a bad price point.

51% of people will buy at 50 dollars
81% of people will buy at 40 dollars
91% of people will buy at 30 dollars

81 is the best price point given that data. Stopping at 51% you would lose out on 27% more earnings.

finding the right price point isnt as simple as majority is ok.

in fact with their system, if they could get the same exact profit, but more customers, they would profit more in the long term.
so IF they could find the proper 81% price that would equal a 51% price point, it would be better to go for the 81% because they would make more money off that extra 30% in the long term

That’s assuming the percentages you listed are accurate. You’re also forgetting about opportunity cost as Anet is loosing out on the difference of the $59 and whatever new price point you set.

I don’t see how my math is wrong when I didn’t even do any.

the game is 49 dollars not 59, and im including the opportunity cost.

i made up numbers but you dont need to make up the number to see how much more % you need to gain to profit.

you spoke about majority, majority is 51%
if 51% buy at 50 dollars that is equal to 63.5% buying at 40 dollars

so mathematically, if dropping the price gives you 13% more of the total, you would make MORE money.

its just math.
The problem is its generally impossible to find out for certain how much a price point will add to your totals. So you basically guess. People almost always guess wrong. Generally takes years of data to find the right point, and even then you are never certain if it was the right answer at that moment in time.

Based on the initial high backlash though, and the market standard for expansions, i dont think they picked the right price point. You generally dont get a substantial backlash from the right price point.

I had meant $50. Majority means different things and you choosing the lowest possible value for it doesn’t make you any more right.

majority means 51 to 100 % 51 is used to show that majority is not the proper term.
but 51 is arbitrary, it can be many %

71% at 50 is equal to 88.75% at 40 dollars

the point is that losing a minority of people actually can very realistically lose you money.
if a 10 dollar drop is discouraging even 15% of buyers, you could be losing money.
even at 71% satisfaction, if 10 dollars cheaper would get you 18% more people it would be profitable.

now, there are other factors, like outside buyers, but along with that one must consider anet is way better off making the sale themselves than having people who wait for price drops from other retailers.

anyhow main point is for finding the right price point you cant simply look to majorities, its all about ratios

I’d go into the math but there’s no reason to. They can sell it at $50 and capture a certain percentage of the player population. They can then sell it at a reduced price later on and capture the rest.

So you are basically saying they are trying to pimp early adopters?
Thats a valid tactic

however, then you start having to add in hard to quantify factors, like hype train derail, competition, whether they buy it from the company or outside vendors, and as they get closer to an expansion, it becomes a bad idea to buy the last expansion.

In general banking a price point based on sales is a bad strategy. Having to put things on sales is usually a result of poor pricing. Any time a customer leaves the store without you making a sale, its less likely you will get them back later

not to mention, the game makes consistent money off highly engaged players. Last i saw they made 5 dollars per month per player on average. That means if some one stops playing because they are waiting for hot to have a sale, and it takes two months for them to buy the game, they lose on average 10 dollars. If it takes 5 months? 25 dollars.

so overall i would say the goal is to get as many people to buy hot initially as possible, they get money up front, and will on average make money off these players each month. Reduces customer dissatisfcation, and people who buy late then find out a new expansion is coming soon and want refunds/money back.

Really i think they thought people would over all love the 50 dollar price tag. They didnt actually believe so many would find it not worth it.

Essentially they didnt think they would lose 12-15% of people at that price point. Will they? its hard to to say.

Astralporing.1957:

Nokaru.7831:

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Correction, mostly involved the same ~20-30 people arguing with each other. Yes, the raiders had a visible percentage majority in this thread, but then (as we already know) raiders are generally more active and overrepresented in forums, and it was a raid thread as well, so it’s no surprise. And if we look at total numbers, then the pro-raider group seems really small.

making assumptions about the data you didnt collect really isnt logical.

one could assume anything anyone wants about people who didnt respond

Halvorn.9831:

Morfedel.4165:

I think the trinity is only going to matter in raids. So it isn’t like it’s the entire game.

This game already has an open-world trinity:

Leecher
Zerker (aka downed/defeated)
Rezzer.

Seriously, in my book only a tiny fraction of the playerbase is really capable of handling zerker, I cannot count anymore how many players I have seen going to downstate from the FIRST wave at Tequatl, because dodge-rolling is still a miracle to them.

I found out that for me it is better to show up in my WvW PVT gear, as I cannot dodge-roll while rezzing. And if I don’t rezz, it may become a problem for the success of the event, since their inability to dodgeroll or jump is only topped by their inability to waypoint somewhere else.

So I’m standing there with my shoutheal-and-condicleanse warrior, trying to keep my environment alive. Don’t tell me about trinity, it is there already.

trinity is not about healers/tanks/dps existing, its about mechanically requiring them to succeed.
You having to be a tank or healer for certain party skill levels, or team make ups is fine, requiring it is not.

Its the difference between being able to dodge roll that skill, and making everyone in the battle take damage regardless to what they do.

in the old system you were a hero helping the weak
in the new system you are required piece who better be doing his job, or the run fails.

way to screw up tequatl by not shoutheal ressing me bro. GG

and thats why the old concept was better, all they needed to do was increase difficulty, and healers become needed by most, but they arent a requirement. Its better to be a boon than a crutch

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

VictorTroska.3725:

ArenaNet, lower expansion price to 30 €. I guarantee your sales will increase so much that it will surpass current numbers with 45 € price tag by tenfold. Just ask Gabe Newell.

As stated someone else, since you guarantee it, are you willing to bet your own money and pay someone else?

The 30 euro your suggesting is about $33.50 in the U.S. How many existing players do you think will not purchase the expansion between now and when Anet does reduce the price? Would the $17.50 loss in sales from each player, be cancelled out by the ones hesitating to buy the expansion now purchasing it? Would the new price bring in enough new players, who would not have bought it at $50, to cancel out the loss Anet would take?

thats what finding a price point is all about, I’d say yes. Especially since the cost per consumer is minute, they have nigh infinite inventory, and each new user adds little in terms of cost.
Not to mention a system that profits from selling stuff to players who are fairly engaged with the game.

Of course its impossible to know for sure without testing it both ways. Truth is i probably would have prepurchased without much questions if they had a lower cost and a release date(about 40 bucks). Now that some places are selling it at an even lower price, i still hesitate, because the info they released looks grim. I’m waiting for some critical player feedback now.

of course we ll never no for sure unless we tested both scenarios.

Except if the majority of players were willing to pay the $50 (only Anet would know the actual percentage) then there would be no point in testing to see what would happen if the price were reduced. Based on that, the rest of the players who would forego purchasing the expansion, and the new players who would only have purchased the game if it were at that lower price, would in no way compensate for the loss.

Its fairly likely that the majority of people who bought gw2 did not purchase gw2 hot. Because at this point last time they had already released preorder numbers in the millions.
Not only that, but you couldnt even measure it with the number of initial gw2 sales, because the overall market for MMOs is much higher than gw2 sales ever were.

anyhow, even assuming a perfect non expanding pool of players, your math is wrong, even with a majority of players accepting the price you can still be at a bad price point.

51% of people will buy at 50 dollars
81% of people will buy at 40 dollars
91% of people will buy at 30 dollars

81 is the best price point given that data. Stopping at 51% you would lose out on 27% more earnings.

finding the right price point isnt as simple as majority is ok.

in fact with their system, if they could get the same exact profit, but more customers, they would profit more in the long term.
so IF they could find the proper 81% price that would equal a 51% price point, it would be better to go for the 81% because they would make more money off that extra 30% in the long term

That’s assuming the percentages you listed are accurate. You’re also forgetting about opportunity cost as Anet is loosing out on the difference of the $59 and whatever new price point you set.

I don’t see how my math is wrong when I didn’t even do any.

the game is 49 dollars not 59, and im including the opportunity cost.

i made up numbers but you dont need to make up the number to see how much more % you need to gain to profit.

you spoke about majority, majority is 51%
if 51% buy at 50 dollars that is equal to 63.5% buying at 40 dollars

so mathematically, if dropping the price gives you 13% more of the total, you would make MORE money.

its just math.
The problem is its generally impossible to find out for certain how much a price point will add to your totals. So you basically guess. People almost always guess wrong. Generally takes years of data to find the right point, and even then you are never certain if it was the right answer at that moment in time.

Based on the initial high backlash though, and the market standard for expansions, i dont think they picked the right price point. You generally dont get a substantial backlash from the right price point.

I had meant $50. Majority means different things and you choosing the lowest possible value for it doesn’t make you any more right.

majority means 51 to 100 % 51 is used to show that majority is not the proper term.
but 51 is arbitrary, it can be many %

71% at 50 is equal to 88.75% at 40 dollars

the point is that losing a minority of people actually can very realistically lose you money.
if a 10 dollar drop is discouraging even 15% of buyers, you could be losing money.
even at 71% satisfaction, if 10 dollars cheaper would get you 18% more people it would be profitable.

now, there are other factors, like outside buyers, but along with that one must consider anet is way better off making the sale themselves than having people who wait for price drops from other retailers.

anyhow main point is for finding the right price point you cant simply look to majorities, its all about ratios

Wanze.8410:

Zaron.1987:

Wanze.8410:

Ihales.3820:

for example 200g vs 1000g out of TP

say hello to mithril and elder wood at vendor prices and a couple of copper for t5 fine mats.

yay, that would be so awesome….

remember you can only do prec crafting one time ….

there will be more than enough that still play the flushing toilet game

the OP wanted to have precursor prices at 200g instead of 1000g, at those prices, no one would flush anything, removing the biggest sink for mithril elder wood and t5 mats.

depends how much effort and type of effort it requires. Many people would pay 1000g to avoid 500 hours of work, or 1000g to avoid something extremely difficult.
problem seems to be they have a really high cost AND a ton of work. why do both?

but ultimately the problem is grind and gold can suck the fun out anything.

Mirta.5029:

Torolan.5816:

I am pretty sure that there are enough people that play for example berserk but would really be more comfortable with playing something else, something more safe. Still they stay berserk to be able to stay in their groups. Is that mandatory too? Surely not mandatory be design, but mandatory by default.

Jackums.3496:

It’s amusing, though, watching this minority cling to the zerk meta for dear life.

I have never, in my life ran zerker and I didn’t have problems ever getting groups. Yet I’m one of those that is upset by the game forcing healers on us for raids. The lack of trinity is one reason why I played this game to begin with.

But hey, Blayde and Soul has no trinity. And they’re releasing in the west before 2016… However if the people that you call a minority get up and leave, I don’t think that they’ll look like such a minority anymore.

i also have no pure zerk chars, and dont even run dungeon zerk meta. I wanted them to make stats valuable by having them effect playstyle in a gw fashion, and through encounter design, not be forcing guaranteed dmg so that stats and party make up is a gate

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

the reason i say most people dont like it, is because tank and healer are the MAIN bottleneck in any game i have played/heard of that needs them. Years of product research and statistics back this up.

Then, let’s ask ourselves, and the entire MMORPG industry, why are tanks and healers the bottlenecks on all trinity games? I will outline a few reasons that I personally believe so (there are probably more):

A) They are stressful roles, not because they are more complex to play, that’s by no means true, but because if something goes wrong and the entire run fails, they get all the blame. When was the last time a DPS got the blame for a wipe? The percentage of that happening is very low compared to how often Healers/Tanks get the blame.

B) They require multiple gear sets and multiple builds. While a DPS character can use the same build in raids/dungeons and while questing, the average tank or healer will probably have to change while questing and roaming the open world. That’s because your amazing tanking/healing abilities are rarely useful when leveling/exploring/ questing and you rely on those only when you play group content. This means that tanks/healers have an extra expense to play (to acquire their raid gear) and extra builds to learn. How is this fair?

C) Tanks/healers are slow. And when I say slow I mean slow to level. Most trinity games go to great lengths to give such roles at least one DPS spec, so they can compare with DPS characters at least for the leveling process, but it’s rarely enough, a pure DPS character will out-DPS them, and even in trinity games, DPS is all that is needed and all that is important when leveling/questing. When they give you the quest to kill 10 rats you must kill them in the least time, so you move on to the kill 10 cats afterwards. A tank/healer will take a substantial more time to finish them. And since we also have B ) this learning experience with the DPS spec is moot because once they go to try group content they will need to change their build anyway.

D) Tanks/healers are, in general, boring to play at lower levels. While DPS characters start quickly with dps skills, a tank or healer might learn taunts and heals first, which aren’t useful for low level play at all. This is done so the players learn their “role” but it makes the roles slow to level and incredibly boring to play at least at those lower levels of play. What’s the use of threat management or healing if there is no party to help?

The game that did it correctly was GW1 because players always needed a group, even at the lower levels, which meant your healer could use the same build when questing and when doing elite dungeons. You were never left alone, so an actual healer was important even when doing random quests outside Ascalon.

even in gw1 finding healers was a bottleneck, and i will admit they had one of the more entertaining healers.

people just dont enjoy the responsibility, and lack of coolness, games i played tanks and healers level faster through dungeons.

once again, leveling healer classes isnt really the issue, its that people dont want to play healers.
they dont want to have responsibility for everyone elses life or death, and they dont really enjoy the gameplay, and the idea of the role. If they enjoyed it, they d have leveled it up. I suffered through hours of waiting for group, had low value in raids, because i enjoyed monk(martial) in ffxi, a great many people were just like me, waiting for group, doing crappy exp boosting stuff i the mean time. And ffxi was crazy with gear sets, you literally had to macro gear changes before doing big attacks. Point is people arent playing healers because they dont want to heal, not because its inaccessible.

Ald.9418:

Bearhugger.4326:

ODB.6891:

This is wrong in so many ways. Their design succeeded, but they made the mistake of allowing gear stat combinations in PvE that were superfluous. They left clerics, nomad, cavalier, rampager, etc gear sets available for PvE players to choose from, when there was not a need for them. There should have been a single gear set for PvE. That way players would not have chosen safety net gear to begin with and would not be looking at the need to handhold these players now to make them feel wanted or needed. They did not want to just correct this mistake after the fact by removing the unnecessary gear stat combinations from PvE, so now they are trying to find ways to force relevance of those stat combinations now. Had they not made this mistake to begin with, they could have balanced encounters properly around this base level of stats. They would not be trying to find ways to make players in zerk gear die without the assistance of dedicated healers. They would not be fighting with the condi cap and struggling with balancing condi versus melee damage as much. They would not be struggling with tuning bosses and mobs to hit hard enough to kill players in full nomad…at the expense of everyone else.

You call me wrong in “so many ways” then you proceed with a suggestion to officially kill other players’ favored playstyle in order to preserve your own.

The solution to Arenanet’s problems is to promote build diversity, not to discourage it. God forbid some people like to play something that’s not fully glass-cannon, and they have the right to ask for viability in group content. “Play your way” works in both directions.

ODB.6891:

They did succeed in implementing their trinity of damage/support/control, but players stuck in the traditional trinity mind set still cannot adapt to a new paradigm. The new paradigm did not have those three elements as separate players….it is for each player to do all three of those things at once. We still have so many players struggling to understand that they are supposed to being doing damage, using support abilities and traits, and using control abilities and traits ….all at the same time. ANET seems to have given up on educating these players and decided to revert back to dedicated roles so these players will stop complaining. Hence we have our two new dedicated healers…ventari and druid.

How did they succeed with their vision when the vast majority of their players did not accept it after 3 years? How long do you want them to give the players to adapt before scrapping the idea? 10 years?

ODB.6891:

It is a matter of opinion and personal preference as to whether ANET’s damage/support/control was an improvement over the traditional trinity’s tank/healer/dps. I don’t think one is an improvement over the other…they are just alternatives. I personally enjoyed the alternative, but it looks like that alternative is about to end because ANET could not stick to their vision.

Personal opinions are what they are, but here’s a fact: in 3 years there hasn’t been a single competitor that has copied GW2’s party mechanics. Dynamic events, or some lesser form of them, have been copied by nearly every other MMOs since then. WvW has inspired a lot of new PvP modes in 3 years. A gear and level normalization in PvP has been implemented by a lot of other MMOs. Cosmetics rewards are becoming more popular in MMOs as well… But in 3 years, no one has been willing to copy GW2’s party mechanics. That’s a pretty good sign that the classic trinity of tank/DPS/healer is still viewed as superior.

They stuck to their vision for 3 years and it has turned their group PvE into a wasteland. It’s time to try something else. Tank/DPS/healer or something else, it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s not the status quo.

ODB.6891:

Instead they are letting the unwashed masses cries overwhelm them into reverting back to WoW.

Feel free to blame WoW and its players for every GW2 design decision you dislike, but the fact is that WoW has a healthy and challenging group PvE experience while this game does not, and for 3 years, players have been asking Arenanet to do something about it.

ODB.6891:

The real problem here, is that ANET is not just making these dedicated healers useful, they are making them mandatory to success in raids. This violates their entire phiw policy. Success in a raid will apparently require these healers….you will have to bring one…whether you want to or not…if you plan on completing the content.

Have you done the content to say they’re mandatory? Unless I missed something, all they said was that they were killing the 10x berserker groups, and good riddance because that’s just stupid.

And even if a healer is required, if there isn’t a single person in your group that is willing to put a few group heals on their bar to help the group progress then I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you need to stop hiring cowboys in your guild. The only problem that could happen is if revenant and druid are the only viable healer classes, because the ranger class does not typically attract very “healy” players, and the Ventari stance looks very boring. (That tablet…) If elementalists, guardians, engineers, and maybe shout warriors are viable group healers then it shouldn’t be a problem to have 1 or 2 players heal.

Also, welcome to DPS/Control/Support, where healing is a form of support, and tanking is a form of control. If you can’t find a healer then maybe other forms of support will work. We don’t know yet.

I love you.

If the basis for your PVE group content is completion time rather than actually completing it, then your content fails to properly challenge your players. GW2’s group PVE content is by far the worst out of any MMO i’ve ever played and i’ve played them all since ’99.

I’m personally in favor of expanding the trinity to what it once was instead of sticking to the boring one made popular by WoW. Tank/Heal/Support/CC with DPS being the least important. Unfortunately the encounters and content need to actually be designed for this to prevent everyone from just throwing nothing but dps at it.

The core design flaw in GW2’s group PVE is that you can just throw dps at it and do better than the alternatives. That’s been a huge mistake in my eyes and one that’ll hopefully be corrected in the expansion.

thing is healers and tanks wasnt the flaw, gw2 fights would be exactly as lame with tanks and healers if not moreso.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

VictorTroska.3725:

ArenaNet, lower expansion price to 30 €. I guarantee your sales will increase so much that it will surpass current numbers with 45 € price tag by tenfold. Just ask Gabe Newell.

As stated someone else, since you guarantee it, are you willing to bet your own money and pay someone else?

The 30 euro your suggesting is about $33.50 in the U.S. How many existing players do you think will not purchase the expansion between now and when Anet does reduce the price? Would the $17.50 loss in sales from each player, be cancelled out by the ones hesitating to buy the expansion now purchasing it? Would the new price bring in enough new players, who would not have bought it at $50, to cancel out the loss Anet would take?

thats what finding a price point is all about, I’d say yes. Especially since the cost per consumer is minute, they have nigh infinite inventory, and each new user adds little in terms of cost.
Not to mention a system that profits from selling stuff to players who are fairly engaged with the game.

Of course its impossible to know for sure without testing it both ways. Truth is i probably would have prepurchased without much questions if they had a lower cost and a release date(about 40 bucks). Now that some places are selling it at an even lower price, i still hesitate, because the info they released looks grim. I’m waiting for some critical player feedback now.

of course we ll never no for sure unless we tested both scenarios.

Except if the majority of players were willing to pay the $50 (only Anet would know the actual percentage) then there would be no point in testing to see what would happen if the price were reduced. Based on that, the rest of the players who would forego purchasing the expansion, and the new players who would only have purchased the game if it were at that lower price, would in no way compensate for the loss.

Its fairly likely that the majority of people who bought gw2 did not purchase gw2 hot. Because at this point last time they had already released preorder numbers in the millions.
Not only that, but you couldnt even measure it with the number of initial gw2 sales, because the overall market for MMOs is much higher than gw2 sales ever were.

anyhow, even assuming a perfect non expanding pool of players, your math is wrong, even with a majority of players accepting the price you can still be at a bad price point.

51% of people will buy at 50 dollars
81% of people will buy at 40 dollars
91% of people will buy at 30 dollars

81 is the best price point given that data. Stopping at 51% you would lose out on 27% more earnings.

finding the right price point isnt as simple as majority is ok.

in fact with their system, if they could get the same exact profit, but more customers, they would profit more in the long term.
so IF they could find the proper 81% price that would equal a 51% price point, it would be better to go for the 81% because they would make more money off that extra 30% in the long term

That’s assuming the percentages you listed are accurate. You’re also forgetting about opportunity cost as Anet is loosing out on the difference of the $59 and whatever new price point you set.

I don’t see how my math is wrong when I didn’t even do any.

the game is 49 dollars not 59, and im including the opportunity cost.

i made up numbers but you dont need to make up the number to see how much more % you need to gain to profit.

you spoke about majority, majority is 51%
if 51% buy at 50 dollars that is equal to 63.5% buying at 40 dollars

so mathematically, if dropping the price gives you 13% more of the total, you would make MORE money.

its just math.
The problem is its generally impossible to find out for certain how much a price point will add to your totals. So you basically guess. People almost always guess wrong. Generally takes years of data to find the right point, and even then you are never certain if it was the right answer at that moment in time.

Based on the initial high backlash though, and the market standard for expansions, i dont think they picked the right price point. You generally dont get a substantial backlash from the right price point.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

VictorTroska.3725:

ArenaNet, lower expansion price to 30 €. I guarantee your sales will increase so much that it will surpass current numbers with 45 € price tag by tenfold. Just ask Gabe Newell.

As stated someone else, since you guarantee it, are you willing to bet your own money and pay someone else?

The 30 euro your suggesting is about $33.50 in the U.S. How many existing players do you think will not purchase the expansion between now and when Anet does reduce the price? Would the $17.50 loss in sales from each player, be cancelled out by the ones hesitating to buy the expansion now purchasing it? Would the new price bring in enough new players, who would not have bought it at $50, to cancel out the loss Anet would take?

thats what finding a price point is all about, I’d say yes. Especially since the cost per consumer is minute, they have nigh infinite inventory, and each new user adds little in terms of cost.
Not to mention a system that profits from selling stuff to players who are fairly engaged with the game.

Of course its impossible to know for sure without testing it both ways. Truth is i probably would have prepurchased without much questions if they had a lower cost and a release date(about 40 bucks). Now that some places are selling it at an even lower price, i still hesitate, because the info they released looks grim. I’m waiting for some critical player feedback now.

of course we ll never no for sure unless we tested both scenarios.

Except if the majority of players were willing to pay the $50 (only Anet would know the actual percentage) then there would be no point in testing to see what would happen if the price were reduced. Based on that, the rest of the players who would forego purchasing the expansion, and the new players who would only have purchased the game if it were at that lower price, would in no way compensate for the loss.

Its fairly likely that the majority of people who bought gw2 did not purchase gw2 hot. Because at this point last time they had already released preorder numbers in the millions.
Not only that, but you couldnt even measure it with the number of initial gw2 sales, because the overall market for MMOs is much higher than gw2 sales ever were.

anyhow, even assuming a perfect non expanding pool of players, your math is wrong, even with a majority of players accepting the price you can still be at a bad price point.

51% of people will buy at 50 dollars
81% of people will buy at 40 dollars
91% of people will buy at 30 dollars

81 is the best price point given that data. Stopping at 51% you would lose out on 27% more earnings.

finding the right price point isnt as simple as majority is ok.

in fact with their system, if they could get the same exact profit, but more customers, they would profit more in the long term.
so IF they could find the proper 81% price that would equal a 51% price point, it would be better to go for the 81% because they would make more money off that extra 30% in the long term

some more math, if dropping the price 10 dollars would have got them even 13% more (of the theoretical maximum amount of players) it would be more profitable directly, and definately more profitable in the long term.

silvermember.8941:

Fractals are the new 5 man content. Sorry.

they are the new 5 man content, and they havent added any new ones in HOT

Torolan.5816:

phys.7689:

Torolan.5816:

I am pretty sure that there are enough people that play for example berserk but would really be more comfortable with playing something else, something more safe. Still they stay berserk to be able to stay in their groups. Is that mandatory too? Surely not mandatory be design, but mandatory by default.

This is the first raid Anet makes for GW2. If it is planned with a healer in mind, how do you lose time or are hampered in your playstyle if you stayon your berserk close combat warrior? It is working as intended then. You are unable to speed rush the raid, and your friend that likes to support and heal can finally do something he likes instead of just bleeding profusely when attempting to dodge this and that. I see only winners here, with the exception of the speed runners which had everything shoved up their rektums up until now.

but the problem is, there are never enough of these people to warrant forcing other people to NEED them. Its like if they required you to travel with a guy who wears a beenie to go to the amusement park

sure its really nice for the beenie loving public, its not very nice for people who dont like to wear beenies, and there are way more of them. Who wants to sit around waiting for the beenie guy, or being forced to be the beenie guy for a day.

the reason i say most people dont like it, is because tank and healer are the MAIN bottleneck in any game i have played/heard of that needs them. Years of product research and statistics back this up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2r22ai/duty_finder_wait_times_as_dps_150/
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/2ww2fh/how_it_feels_to_soloqueue_as_a_dps/
https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1pcmvj/que_times_for_dps/
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/79252/hows-the-wait-time-for-dungeons-as-dps

And then we are at the team building stuff again. Lets take on your amusement park example. Are you willing to wear a beenie if it brings you and your friends in the park? You call it unjustified, I think it is a social spot for someone who likes beenies nd would elsewise not be allowed in the park.

as i have shown, there are not enough people who like wearing beanies to support the desire for said content. That is the main problem, and has always been the problem with requiring them.

Why does everyone have to suffer for beenie wearers? Its already been documented, its a known outcome.

in the old system you could take a beenie wearer if you wanted to
in the new system you can not, not take a beenie wearer, how is that a better situation?

If they wanted healers to be more viable, they merely had to increase the skill cap.
Then people would take healers based on their skill levels.

sure, the super elite wouldnt need healers, but the average team? they might want them.

Torolan.5816:

I am pretty sure that there are enough people that play for example berserk but would really be more comfortable with playing something else, something more safe. Still they stay berserk to be able to stay in their groups. Is that mandatory too? Surely not mandatory be design, but mandatory by default.

This is the first raid Anet makes for GW2. If it is planned with a healer in mind, how do you lose time or are hampered in your playstyle if you stayon your berserk close combat warrior? It is working as intended then. You are unable to speed rush the raid, and your friend that likes to support and heal can finally do something he likes instead of just bleeding profusely when attempting to dodge this and that. I see only winners here, with the exception of the speed runners which had everything shoved up their rektums up until now.

but the problem is, there are never enough of these people to warrant forcing other people to NEED them. Its like if they required you to travel with a guy who wears a beenie to go to the amusement park

sure its really nice for the beenie loving public, its not very nice for people who dont like to wear beenies, and there are way more of them. Who wants to sit around waiting for the beenie guy, or being forced to be the beenie guy for a day.

the reason i say most people dont like it, is because tank and healer are the MAIN bottleneck in any game i have played/heard of that needs them. Years of product research and statistics back this up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2r22ai/duty_finder_wait_times_as_dps_150/
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/2ww2fh/how_it_feels_to_soloqueue_as_a_dps/
https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1pcmvj/que_times_for_dps/
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/79252/hows-the-wait-time-for-dungeons-as-dps

Ohoni.6057:

loot doesnt make content required unless you need loot to access content.

I find this faulty reasoning. This is a game, nothing is required, therefore everything is required. What actually is “required” is anything you really want. You say it isn’t required unless you need it to access content, but accessing content is not required, it is just something people might want. Likewise, accessing a skin is not required, but it might be something that someone wants just as much as you want access to that content. It’s all entirely subjective.

So you can justify restricting a skin from someone if you want, but when you do so, you can’t take the easy way out by just accepting as fact that it’s “not a big deal.” If you want to justify locking out a skin, you have to justify it on the grounds that you are locking out the single most important thing in the entire game for at least some of the players. It is not objectively less of a big deal than locking them out of content.

If you have a Key, it’s a big fancy key, and you only get one of them per account. You can use it once, and only once. One way to use it is to open a giant gate, which will grant permanent access to the raid dungeon, and there is no other way in, so not using the Key in this manner locks you out of content. Another way to use this Key would be to open a chest, from which you can select one of a handful of specific skins that can only be earned through this method.

One is content, the other is purely cosmetic, and yet you know as well as I do that a sizable portion of the playerbase would choose the latter option, all else being equal. Cosmetics are not a side show, they are a co-equal element of the game, and if you want to have any reasonable discussion on rewards, you need to accept that fact.

You are way too focused on access to loot. i dont have every legendary, And i never will, the time investment is too huge. I dont have every skin, the time investment is too huge.

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not project that onto others.

There are some things in any large world that you simply arent going to get, because you arent willing to do them. As long as this doesnt block you from gameplay its not a big deal.

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not project that onto others.

im more concerned with how raids will effect the gameplay and game development, than if i will be able to fill my collection tab

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not. . . whoa, deja vu.

so your reasoning is, its ok to lock people away from loot based on time investment but not based on difficulty?
thats completely arbitrary. Both are things that some people are incapable of regardless to desire.

also, any design has to be created to fit its purpose first and foremost, and other considerations after.

so the question becomes
is guild wars 2 designed as a virtual item delivery mechanism first and foremost
or as a game first and foremost.

if its a game first, gameplay, and enhancing gameplay is the primary concern
if its item delivery, te primary concern is being able to deliver items to people.

for example if your goal is to make people walk up steps, you may give people clothes to walk up steps
if your goal is to give people clothes then you will give it to them regardless of them walking up steps.

problem is you think their goal is to give you clothes, when in fact they want you to walk up steps. You re like, you really could make clothes more accessible if you gave it to people for walking down the block, but they want people to walk up the steps

Ayrilana.1396:

VictorTroska.3725:

ArenaNet, lower expansion price to 30 €. I guarantee your sales will increase so much that it will surpass current numbers with 45 € price tag by tenfold. Just ask Gabe Newell.

As stated someone else, since you guarantee it, are you willing to bet your own money and pay someone else?

The 30 euro your suggesting is about $33.50 in the U.S. How many existing players do you think will not purchase the expansion between now and when Anet does reduce the price? Would the $17.50 loss in sales from each player, be cancelled out by the ones hesitating to buy the expansion now purchasing it? Would the new price bring in enough new players, who would not have bought it at $50, to cancel out the loss Anet would take?

thats what finding a price point is all about, I’d say yes. Especially since the cost per consumer is minute, they have nigh infinite inventory, and each new user adds little in terms of cost.
Not to mention a system that profits from selling stuff to players who are fairly engaged with the game.

Of course its impossible to know for sure without testing it both ways. Truth is i probably would have prepurchased without much questions if they had a lower cost and a release date(about 40 bucks). Now that some places are selling it at an even lower price, i still hesitate, because the info they released looks grim. I’m waiting for some critical player feedback now.

of course we ll never no for sure unless we tested both scenarios.

Torolan.5816:

maddoctor.2738:

I wouldn’t call those people “elitists” but still they are a problem. It’s even worse when it doesn’t matter (skill/gear wise) which character you bring, like for example guild missions. How many times I’ve waited for that guy (different person every time, not the same one) to come to guild missions because he was now playing “a new main” that didn’t have any waypoints anywhere and had to run. And when told to get one of the 100% exploration characters they reply with “but this is my NEW main”! I really hate those kinds of players and can’t imagine them ever playing any type of content that requires more complex and specific roles.

If you have an properly geared and ready to go character that can fill a specific role needed by your guild, then why not change?

The real issue comes when nobody has such a character but they want to do the raid. What happens then?

Elitist is maybe indeed a little harsh, but they certainly are not teamplayers.

Regarding the problem that no one has a ranger in that group of 10 man, I highly doubt that if they are not relatively new in the game. Maybe he is not properly equipped, but then he just goes in with what he finds in his vault and the raid gets a little bit shaky if not one or more of the more seasoned players can up his game considerably. I am really sure that a raid won´t be planned on maximum gear anyway, so a little less performance should be acceptable.

And the ranger still won´t be the only healer available, just the best. It´s just the mindset of people that are unwilling to accept a viable solution because it is not the optimal solution. Which is really mindblowing if you think about it, a group of 10 people don´t make the raid they plan for days because they only have an ele or a hastily modified bearbow instead of a fully clad druid and probably don´t even try because they automatically assume they will fail or spend hours over hours in the raid to no avail.

why is there a mandatory role added, that less % of people want to play, than is needed to do content?
This role serves no purpose other than to give people who like the idea of healing, something to do, and make healing based armors serve a purpose.

you dont make everyone suffer to appease less people.
you dont create a tool, then make task just to use the tool.

its completely superflous.
the game had support, like 8 boons and 4 debuffs, healing was supposed to be what happens when you either mess up, or decide to take dmg in order to serve another purpose (have a choice)

by forcing damage, they basically make healing a requisite.
is the game cooler if you always take 400 dmg a second, and have an npc who cures 400 hp a second?
it adds nothing but a dependency for no real purpose

Ohoni.6057:

In the broadest definition all forms of reward are bribery there is, however, a difference between effective bribery that encourages and rewards different content differently, and ineffective bribery like what you’re proposing, that only rewards the single least difficult and most efficient path toward a given reward

You’re right that all rewards are a sort of bribery, but ideally they should be bribery to “play OUR game, rather than someone else’s game.” So long as they’re playing your game, you shouldn’t care which part of that game they’re playing, so long as they’re enjoying themselves. Now, if there is an area that is significantly more efficient to farm than others, to the point that people will go there even if they do not find the experience entertaining, then its your job to nerf that source a bit, to bring it back in balance with other sources of reward, but if you’re doing your job right, people can choose the type of content they enjoy and feel rewarded for playing it.

LS2 is some of my favorite content. I have done it about five times now. However, I’m not going to run it a sixth time because At some point repeating an experience just for the experience is not fun any more

But also because LS2 relies on those “unique rewards” you guys put so much stock in, and once you have them, as you point out, there’s little reason to go back. If they were instead balanced based on repeatable rewards such that you’re 20th time through LS2 would be roughly as profitable a use of your time as Silverwastes farming, then you’d be more likely to do it, assuming it was still fun content for you.

A bad loot system says “yeah, you beat the end of the world like thirty times, here’s the same thing you could have obtained by picking flowers for three months while you watch netflix”

I think that if you actually had a strong argument, you could make it without straw men.

It is my opinion, and it seems to be the opinion of the developers of this game that all content should be rewarding, but all content should not, however, have the same rewards.

So then should they make it so that the “daisy picking” is the ONLY way to earn the Legendary armor, while the raids only offer a unique “flower in the hair” headpiece skin? You talk up the ideal of “every content should be rewarding,” but you seem to imply, but not express, the added point that “and the content I want to do should be most rewarding of all.”

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

All those things are concerning, but it’s the loot that makes it an actual problem. Without the loot, no matter how bad those things might make the raiding experience, players would always have the option of opting out of it without penalty. “Raids suck? Ok, I won’t raid then.” With the lure of unique skins, however, players do not fairly have that option, they either have to do the raids, no matter how much they may suck, or miss out on those rewards.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.

I actually enjoyed playing a healer in DCUO. The trick to it is that you need to be able to be a solid solo-capable character in a healing spec OR be able to turn the healer spec on and off at will. Being a healer in a big raid group can be interesting, but it’s no fun if it makes you worthless for anything else you want to be doing. They either need to make it so that a healer spec can keep himself healed well enough that he can solo anything anyone else can, or they need to make it so that you can build your character to be a great DPS/solo build, and then press a button and you’re a great healer-spec without having to waste a ton of time swapping traits around or have an entire second set of optimal gear.

loot doesnt make content required unless you need loot to access content.

You are way too focused on access to loot. i dont have every legendary, And i never will, the time investment is too huge. I dont have every skin, the time investment is too huge.

There are some things in any large world that you simply arent going to get, because you arent willing to do them. As long as this doesnt block you from gameplay its not a big deal.

im more concerned with how raids will effect the gameplay and game development, than if i will be able to fill my collection tab

Harper.4173:

Kormeg.2469:

Mirta.5029:

Kormeg.2469:

Mirta.5029:

What I don’t get is the reaction to everything in here. You’re getting the developer to literally go back on what they said years ago and you’re welcoming it.

And why do you think they’re doing that? They decided to put the time and effort to changing around systems for funsies?

I’m just saying that it’s severely disappointing to me when an MMO decides to abandon one of their selling points years later. It really feels like a slap to the face to those that bought the game for those reasons that they advertised then.

Well they really don’t have a choice, take that as a slap in the face if you want. The game isn’t as as successful as they need it to be so they are adapting. Obviously if they are changing direction it’s because they foresee switching their systems to appeal to more people than the current one.

What would you have them do, stick with the old system? That won’t work. Improve the old system? They’ve had 3 years to do that. There is no point in you deciding to take their decision as a personal offense, you either adapt too, or at least wait to try the system before you start complaining. Right now it seems your just whining because things aren’t how you like them.

Here’s the catch -the old system where you add gear and healing as you need them and if you’re good enough you can mitigate everything could have worked with raids but in order for raids to still be hard it would have meant that raids would have had to be made incredibly hard so that the very best 1% of players have a tough time and need to really focus and bring their A-game.

That means they would have created a lot of content that was basically inaccessible to all other players except the most dedicated, skilled and with top-tier hardware and internet connection.

They could have made the damage “avoidable” for example but made the margin of error so small you basically have to land 99/100 dodges to get out unscathed – some would have done it – sure – but most wouldn’t have been able to.
So they went the other way – forced everybody to take a step back and bring sustain because of forced damage – that way they can balance against a much lower “average team skill” and make the content accessible to most players.

It is my sincerest belief that even though raids are supposed to be “hard” they will end up being accessible to the vast majority of players simply because Anet has this all-inclusive view.
They have never specifically stated that if you’re really bad, or slow, or have a very bad internet connection raids will be forever out of your grasp.

While it is possible to design difficult raids with trinity, I also think this move was to partially make raids easier, but also a lot easier to design.
starts to fall a lot more easily into dps/mitigation/hps. Also they wanted 10 man content but needed to create a reason for extra people.

basically simulation game play is easier to design, and easier in the long term for everyone to win once people figure out the patterns.

Torolan.5816:

ODB.6891:

Torolan.5816:

ODB.6891:

The real problem here, is that ANET is not just making these dedicated healers useful, they are making them mandatory to success in raids. This violates their entire phiw policy. Success in a raid will apparently require these healers….you will have to bring one…whether you want to or not…if you plan on completing the content.

But isn´t a raid the epitome of greatness and adaptability anyway, so one of the team is of course the adaptable one and the healer for the evening? If a healer is really going to be mandatory, we are then back at where people that ask for gear from others are now in the position to play something they are either ill suited for or dislike.

Sounds fair to me as being on the other side of that stuff for years, but probably not to you.^^

The logic here is so twisted and convoluted that I am having trouble following it. How is the one person in the group that is only good for one thing (healing)…supposed to be the adaptable one. Are you saying they are adaptable because they have a high healing specialization and the other raid members do not? That may be the case with the ventari, but not with the druid. No one really wants a ranger in a group now, and they certainly won’t when druid becomes available. That leaves you no adaptation….just a mandatory expectation. As far as the rest of the group not being adaptable….they are currently (with the exception of necromancers) and have always been adaptable. That’s what the damage/support/control foundation of the game was previously built upon. The majority of the professions could do all three of these things….just now it likely won’t be enough because of the ramped up healing requirement they are putting into raids to force healers on us. Now we apparently are going to have to take probably two dedicated healers to each raid. If you think the damage dealing players are going to be the only ones expected to ping gear with this new setup….you are in for a rude awakening. If a ranger/druid walks in with anything but full nomad…I’ll leave the result to your imagination. Does that sound fair to you?

It does sound fair to me if I want to play such a character instead of a berserker geared one. Suddenly, one choice(Berserk) turned into at least 2(Berserk X or Ranger Healer) choices. There is also apothecary or cleric for the healing output, so i am not sure that nomad is really needed.

He is indeed the adaptable one because he is willing to change on the healer instead of adamantly demanding to be a damage machine. I am pretty sure that most veterans have classes that can heal really well even right now and still use them as damage dealers in 99% of all cases. Of course there will be long faces if you have to park your damage dealer for a run, but good guys sometimes take one for the team. And raids are a team effort and not about rewards or being an elitist if the propaganda for them told me right, so what could you do better for your team?

In general, I have no problem getting a seat that is given to me or anyone else that is not berserk because it is mandatory. A seat is a seat. It was mandatory to be berserk for years if you wanted to be seen as viable for certain types of content by some people and even then, you were excluded if you were a ranger or a necro. I don´t even have a necro and usually play guardian, so you are barking up the wrong tree anyway if you think that I want to press my ranger into raid groups at all costs.

So it is just that I enjoy using the “convoluted” logic because is it the raider mantra, specialize in damage or get out. Now replace damage with healing, and you have the same reasoning.

you think you are sticking it to elitists/meta players but you are not. They always play the meta, and they will be kicking their former party mates if they arent the meta. They only did zerk because it was the meta.

you are however sticking it to players who enjoyed combat actually being about how well they played, as opposed to matching a mathematic requirement of dmg taken per minute and how well someone else can heal per minute

Kormeg.2469:

Mirta.5029:

Kormeg.2469:

And it’s for this reason why I don’t understand why you think having no roles was a major selling point of GW2. Sure it might be for some ppl, but far from the only one, or the most significant I’d say.

I highlighted the most important part. It was for me. It really was.

In every single other MMO I don’t play what I want, I play what is needed. I play what will be useful for my team. Except in this one. Because I could be anything, I chose to be whatever I wanted. Heck I even climbed the fractal ladder up until 50 on my necro, and people don’t really like necros normally. But necros, just like anyone else, could deal damage and it was up to player to execute the mechanics properly, so you didn’t lose too much from taking one into your group.

So you’re right. It’s not a major selling point for all. But it is for some. So I don’t approve 180 your design choice 3 years into the game.

For the most part I get your sentiment, really I do. If the whole no roles thing was a big thing for me, then I’d be upset too.

Mirta.5029:

Because I could be anything, I chose to be whatever I wanted.

And this is the problem, you really didn’t choose what you wanted, you we’re just some variant of damage. The game as it is only rewards you for going damage specs in PvE. Sure you can use any class you want to do it, but you are most certainly relegated to being dps in same form of the other, otherwise you are effectively holding the team back.

And I guess this is where we differ. I don’t necessarily want for the game to have a trinity specifically, I just want a system where everyone isn’t just dps that spam all their buttons in every situation and win.

if what you wanted to play, requires everyone else to get punched in the face for no reason, i dont think they should force everyone else to get punched in the face.

Id be ok if the dmg wasnt because it was impossible to avoid, just that it takes high skill, but thats basically the game as it was before, except made more difficult.

but that doesnt seem to be what we will get

Devata.6589:

Astralporing.1957:

PopeUrban.2578:

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They also said that the raids will need specific group configurations. It may not be “Need Class X”, but it will be “Need role X”. And not only specific roles will be limited to only few classes each, but some of those roles will be roles that people in general do not like to play.

And so it seems that “LF Healer for Raid” will be a thing in the future.

We can only hope so.. because one of the problems with combat in GW2 was that it missed roles. No roles means you all kinda do the same and your participation does not feel that meaningful.. Not like where you as healer are indeed needed to heal up the group and so play an important role.

And before anybody says “but that does not fit with GW2”. That is nonsense. What GW2 did try was to give any multiple professions the ability to fulfill multiple roles, and instead of DPS, Tank, Healer they had Damage, Support, Control. Only the implementation of this horribly failed making everything DPS, and making nobody in a group really fulfilling a special role.

One may only hope they succeed in setting up a new role system for HoT. While indeed it does look like it’s not Damage Support Control anymore as they clearly talked about healers and tanks, but also about support.

As far as I know they did not revealed / told yet how they envisione it now, but to me it looks like they now try to set up.. Control, Healer, Tank. Next to that, everybody has some extent of Support and Damage.

Not sure how that will work out, but we will see.

Personally I would have loved to have seen roles more based around profession. Like pets or minion and DPS role (rangers / necro), speed and invisibility-role (mesmer and thief) and so on.

the problem with your important roles;
for healer, you arent really important, the game makes people take damage so you serve a purpose.
And a tank, could be important, the problem is his doing his job well, makes the encounter less engaging for everyone else.

GW2 wasnt made for this type of system.
If all you have to do is worry about dps, your dps options are incredibly boring, there is usually only one or 2 dps skills in a build
Games built with trinities, generally have to make each job more complex so the job isnt boring.
Healers get a heavy resource limit, and aggro management, and a host of spells that represent different healing effeciencies, and agro potential

tanks get direct agro control, and various means of mitigation

dps have multiple rotations, and in good games, the boss forces them to alter or adapt their rotations often, as well as short term defensive skills.

gw2 is built around needing to do multiple things, buff, debuff, heal avoid, move. once people only have to do a few it will be fairly rote.

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

PopeUrban.2578:

phys.7689:

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

Feels like raids are going to highlight all the flaws of raids in other games and have little to no connection to the old gw2 ideals.

Gw2 raids should have been designed to be, easy to attempt
Able to be organically organized
Involve combat that requires reaction and short term prediction over stat crush
Designed to have many ways to solve a problem with various play types (guaranteed dmg bad)
Not require waiting for x role

Really seems like raids are at odds with gw2 design, and seems like gw2 is changing to accomodate raids rather than vice versa. Not looking forward to the effects on the game

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They are designing the raids around GW2’s combat system, and the changes to the combat system and PvE roles in general have more to do with build variety than raid design.

In fact, the process of designing raids has allowed skill and profession designers to ferret out unbalanced PvE builds and generally work toward a healthier game.

The point is that up until now you only really had to play the entire combat system in PvP. In PvE all you played was damage, reflect, dodge. That was boring compared to the extremely intricate PvE systems we had in GW1 where knowing enemy abilities, key interrupts, target order, range, and party composition was actually important, and the content was actually challenging.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.
Even in gw1, i had a smiting assassin sub monk. I had no problem with the monk class, but i didnt want to play healer.
The reason there is never enough healers and tanks in mmos, is because few people want to play that role.
Why is it, if they have 5 dps classes 2 healers and two tanks, that a 6 man party always has to wait for a healer? because few people wanted to play heals.

if i only had a ranger, i still wouldnt want to heal. the fact that my class can do it is completely irrelevant.

Also they are ignoring gear, which is a huge tax on inventory and will probably cost like 100 gold or more for alll the exotic pieces,

Having specific roles is a good thing and is fun.. without it you get exactly the complain you hear some much about in GW2.. everybody does the same, dps, dps, dps..

But yes, it can become a problem when there is one role you require but nobody wants to play. So you need to try and make all roles interesting to play. Personally I enjoy the healer and Tank roles, so never really had this problem in other games. But I agree it is a problem you do see.

On the other hand, that ‘problem’ is also not that big. I don’t mind having to wait a bid before having a group.

Still they should try to make all roles fun to play.

you say waiting a bit is no problem because you were the golden child. Trust that for dps waiting is not cool. we arent talking about waiting 10 minutes, wait time in ffxiv for leveling dungeons was huge. some times an hour wasnt enough.

And when it comes to guild politics, the waiting is even greater, because usually there is no wait, its basically, sorry, we dont have enough for a second team, and we are already done for the week guys.

anyhow, i wouldnt mind if they had some other challenging endgame content for smaller groups, but all signs are nope.
no new dungeons at all
no new fractals for the announceable future
no low/solo goals besides easy grind

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

And it should be over by now. They even announced that not only you will get legendary armor precursors from the raid but also unique skins from specific bosses (like a unique shield skin from one of them)

Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

I don’t see any problems with the first two. Although the endgame of GW2 was supposed to start at level 1, it didn’t work that way and players were still looking for that imaginary thing called endgame. It’s a good thing that they want to increase the challenge rating in the game and make it more active, and giving new goals is always important.

The 10-player requirement isn’t so far fetched either. It’s 2 parties, and they specifically said that they won’t change the boon system for the raid, so it might be that they have put plans to split into 2 (or more) groups at certain points. I don’t think having 10 players stacking in a corner will be good for the game, I think they will avoid it as much as possible.

The last part is the most important one. Unfortunately with the Druid reveal, it seems like they want to add dedicated healing in the game. How good or bad it is will depend on how easily a raid team can compensate for the lack of a dedicated healer by having multiple extra healing skills.

the problem is not that 10 man content exists, its that its the main challenging content going forward. Gw2 has a lot of low man type players, soloist, and small group types. They should also have some challenging endgame activities/goals for them, that are not about grinding.

But the biggest issue with the 10 man and the lockouts specific roles needed, it basically means this is going to end up being full of drama and problems.
all the problems like, when can all 10 guys get on
healer had to work late
jimmy has beef with sarah
2 guys want to raid, but raid team is busy for the week
jimmy the healer got all his drops he doesnt want to play anymore
Sam wants to play his dps ranger, but we need replacement for jimmy.

the more people required, the harder it is to organize, and the more screw ups. 1 week lockouts reduces the amount of skilled people participating.

you can basically copy paste all the flaws in other MMOs right in here, because nothing they have done eases the logistics. In fact they are less equipped than other MMOs which has item level checks, role checks, and teired raids, such that people are generally at the skill level of each raid, because they beat easier ones.
they also gonna have mastery rank check issues.

man, what a mess.

PopeUrban.2578:

phys.7689:

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

Feels like raids are going to highlight all the flaws of raids in other games and have little to no connection to the old gw2 ideals.

Gw2 raids should have been designed to be, easy to attempt
Able to be organically organized
Involve combat that requires reaction and short term prediction over stat crush
Designed to have many ways to solve a problem with various play types (guaranteed dmg bad)
Not require waiting for x role

Really seems like raids are at odds with gw2 design, and seems like gw2 is changing to accomodate raids rather than vice versa. Not looking forward to the effects on the game

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They are designing the raids around GW2’s combat system, and the changes to the combat system and PvE roles in general have more to do with build variety than raid design.

In fact, the process of designing raids has allowed skill and profession designers to ferret out unbalanced PvE builds and generally work toward a healthier game.

The point is that up until now you only really had to play the entire combat system in PvP. In PvE all you played was damage, reflect, dodge. That was boring compared to the extremely intricate PvE systems we had in GW1 where knowing enemy abilities, key interrupts, target order, range, and party composition was actually important, and the content was actually challenging.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.
Even in gw1, i had a smiting assassin sub monk. I had no problem with the monk class, but i didnt want to play healer.
The reason there is never enough healers and tanks in mmos, is because few people want to play that role.
Why is it, if they have 5 dps classes 2 healers and two tanks, that a 6 man party always has to wait for a healer? because few people wanted to play heals.

if i only had a ranger, i still wouldnt want to heal. the fact that my class can do it is completely irrelevant.

Also they are ignoring gear, which is a huge tax on inventory and will probably cost like 100 gold or more for alll the exotic pieces,

Lets be honest gw2 item design team has very rarely designed items that were fun to obtain.
They have always erred towarda intense grind and large numbers with a focus on item creation as a function of adjusting the economy.

You will never get any fun item aquisitions tied in anyway to the economy. The game will never feel rewarding because they have already decided on low progress achieved on any worthwhile action.

If they give good loot, they will increase item need to compensate. Its basically a no win system.

Due to this economy based items will always come down to grinding effeciently, or hustling gold substantially better than other people.

never expect cool item aquisition in this game its really a game designed for grinding from day one, and that has only gotten worse

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

Feels like raids are going to highlight all the flaws of raids in other games and have little to no connection to the old gw2 ideals.

Gw2 raids should have been designed to be, easy to attempt
Able to be organically organized
Involve combat that requires reaction and short term prediction over stat crush
Designed to have many ways to solve a problem with various play types (guaranteed dmg bad)
Not require waiting for x role

Really seems like raids are at odds with gw2 design, and seems like gw2 is changing to accomodate raids rather than vice versa. Not looking forward to the effects on the game

Random.4691:

Thank you for speaking on behalf of everyone, I missed the meeting where we voted you in as our community voice.

There is nothing wrong with what they are doing, you can’t have challenging raids and or content with what we had. Realistically standing still and mashing a rotation is not challenging and quite frankly myself and some others find it dull and boring. I’m ok with them changing it up, so I hope you realize now that you do not speak for everyone.

Lol stand ing still and mashing a rotation is the hall mark of trinity games. In fact to break that up, they added action elements.

The flaws of gw2 combat had nothing do with healing and everything to do with weak enemy and encounter design.

They dont really want you to play raids a lot, or help. You helping makes the content easier. They want people to have to get invested in raid teams, and weekly raids

Since this was moved to druid forum, but is actually about required healing, i guess this proves anet sees druids as being required healers.

So yeah required healers the new way to play the game

evilunderling.9265:

phys.7689:

There is no depth to guaranteed dmg and heals. When i play a trinity game i have no idea how much the healer is healing. I just avoid the avoidable attacks.

Mechanics can be simple without losing their effectiveness.

If the boss throws out targeted attacks faster than players can dodge them? You have to adjust how you play to deal with that. All of your options have tradeoffs associated with them — do you bring a healer? Do you co-ordinate everyone so that most players are at range and one player ‘tanks’, using VC and swapping tank whenever that player takes a hit? That’s depth. There’s counterplay, there are different styles of counterplay. You need to think about how you want to approach things.

Even “everyone in the raid loses a massive chunk out of their hitpoints” can still be effective. On its own, it’s pointless, but as one part of a larger whole, it can work extremely well.

For their goals it has to be more than that. Because you could still succeed with skilled zerkers using rnged attacks and kiting. Which would be faster than having two players with low dps.

Im not saying you cant design interesting mechanics with any system. Im saying that what makes gw2 battle system unique was it was primarily about proactive and reactive play rather than guaranteed dmg guaranteed heals and max stat mathematics.

They could have made some really interesting gw2 mechanic based fights, instead they are inserting a half rass trinity style. When i want trinity style play i to games designed from the ground up to support it.

This game had its unique combat going for it, its combat with guaranteed dmg is not that unique

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

Healers have everything to do with what’s being discussed in this thread. If the Druid is a powerful enough healer that they are required to complete content, and cannot be viably subbed with other classes, then there is a major conflict with the game’s design philosophy.

Healers have nothing to do with the argument that I responded to, which was that ten thieves (or any other group comp using ten of the same profession) ‘must’ be able to complete a raid.

I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make there. It looks like you’re trying to say that taking two of the same profession automatically means a DPS loss, which makes no sense. If you’re dropping one profession (1 player, or mulitple?) for another profession, your gain/loss in DPS is going to depend on which professions/builds/roles those are. They all have different levels of DPS, support, and survivability.

What I am saying is that every time you exclude a profession from your raid group in favour of a different profession, you should end up losing out on something that you’re really going to miss, and ultimately, that almost invariably has to mean that one way or another, you lose a nice, fat chunk of your practical raid DPS.

Why?

Because the typical raid encounter can be reduced to a pretty simple question:

“Can you successfully deal with these mechanics while maintaining an average of at least x DPS for y time?”

If you can answer ‘yes’ to that question, you win. If you can’t, you wipe and will have to try again.

Everything about any fight that follows this formula ultimately boils down to either increasing your raid’s DPS or avoiding the loss of DPS.

The entire design philosophy of GW2 is for the profession to be balanced with each other so that any party composition is possible. That a certain profession or mix of professions is not required. That 10 of the same profession can complete any content, even if it’s not likely to be the best/fastest/easiest. In fact, that was a specific thing Anet was showing off before launch. Being able to complete dungeons of 5 of the same profession.

Whether you agree with it or not, or whether if fits your idea of what profession balance is, that is the intended design of GW2. Or at least it has been for the last 3 years.

It’s never really been the intended design to that degree — what they’ve promised is that you shouldn’t have to wait around for a member of one specific profession, and all signs point to that continuing to be the case.

But that doesn’t mean that full groups of ten of the same profession can or should be viable in all conceivable PvE content. That’s taking the original idea to an extreme.

It might be different for open-world, dungeons, and even fractals, but I would expect raids to be tuned in such a way that those comps aren’t viable, simply because of the practical DPS losses incurred by excluding all eight of the other professions.

Its not about profession its about waiting for a healer.

Which looks like will be whats going to happen

Suziana.3759:

After a long wait, I am pleasantly surprised and happy that the druid is getting a healing spec. I know it’s not for everyone, but there are a lot of us who do enjoy doing that. With the reveal I now anticipate more exciting encounters in the dungeon, where my team won’t just be stacking and dpsing bosses down. I hope this change will implement strategy and mechanics to future raid and dungeon bosses. I can’t wait to utilize my new skills as a druid. I’ve been playing an elementalist as my main so far, but I will definitely be switching to my druid. My only regret is that they don’t get to turn into various animals. Good job A-net!

Theyll be stacking and dpsing with one person healing?

Zalavaaris.5329:

Trinity isn’t bad and wow has some of the best raiding ever created. I welcome having a wow style raid with healers but with gw2 combat. It isnt the style of raids and the format that makes me dislike wow. It’s the aweful combat system compared to gw2.

Its not gw2 combat with unavoidable dmg.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Last I checked WoW had servers. Lots of them. Doesn’t that cut the population in parts?

Even if I’m wrong since I havn’t checked the game in a long while, it’s a dying game. Most of its playerbase just logs in for X expansion, stays for a month and leaves for another year again.

In its heyday, you were drowned in players who wanted to join you no matter your role. Thats the case in GW2.

Ffxiv is the up and coming trinity powerhouse and Group finder pulls from every server and you still have to wait long on dps.

I believe wow is also using cross realm for group finder.

So yeah servers dont matter.

The key is its not about how many healers there are its about how many healers there are in comparison to everytging else.

Based on these games i would say less than 10% of players want to heal, or else the group finders would fill quickly.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

phys.7689:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Astralporing.1957:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

And this is a bad thing how exactly? …

Pretty much everyone asked for an actual challenging content.

To be precise, a small number of forum posters asked for it. For a large part of player community current content is already challenging enough, and many others do not care.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

They gave classes much more focused roles in order to provide something that requires thinking and finally get rid of the braindead zerker meta.

No point in removing one meta, if it’s done through introducing another, even more strict meta.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Also, who said that raids will be easy enough to be completed by pugs? You might never see stuff like that on chat once people realise that they need a team/guild in order to actually complete a raid.

Because within guilds there will not be situations where a leader needs to roll a dice to see which of the guildmembers will be forced to play the healer (because all the players that liked playing healer role left 2 years ago). Yeah, right.

Let’s be honest, healers are a bottleneck in other games, because this is a role that is unappealing to a large majority of players. And most players that found it appealing left GW2 long ago.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Last but not least, I’d rather have groups looking for healers rather than Ice Bow providers.

Don’t worry, you won’t see any icebow in action after the next Tuesday. It won’t lessen the desirability of eles in groups in the tiniest.

First of all, anyone who thinks that the game is currently challenging, is brain-damaged., or came to GW2 after 5 years of hack n’ slash games played on easy mode.

Also, it seems you are stuck in 2007 MMO gaming. Cause nowdays, even in super small population MMOs, healers are everywhere, and very easy to find. Games offer various roles for 1 class depending on how you trait. It’s not like you can only heal 24/7 being a X class.

And, yes, Ice bow WILL affect ele desirability. Once HoT launches, elite specs become playable and zerker meta goes bye bye, how many eles would you want for a 5 man group? If any…

I think you must play a healer, because i cant think of a single current gen mmo that doesnt take dps substantially longer to get groups without a healer friend.

What games are you talking about here? Both wow and ffxiv dps takes long to get groups

Of course it takes longer to find healer or tank. Although finding dps and finding the right dps is not the same story.

Its much more difficult to play dps properly than to play healer properly. So yeah, since 80% of dps are n00bs (MMO rule #X) its kinda difficult to find geared dps with proper knowledge in order to kill things before they go enrange and HULK SMASH everyone.

About Q times, in a game with GW2 population, at peak times you wont wait a single bit no matter what role you play.

Gw2 has less population than wow and ffxiv right now, so i doubt it.

And yeah great dps might be less likely, but so are great tanks and healers.

Except there are a lot less of them to begin with.

The total population isnt important, whats important is the ratio of people who want to heal to people who dont want to heal

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

dsslive.8473:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Tuntz.8953:

I moved from my last game to GW2 exactly because i was tired to wait for hours for healers.

Just curious where do people find this info on todays MMOs. Cause even on low population games, healers are probably the easiest role to find. Much harder to find a good dps or a good tank, especially dps since most challenging content has a “timer”, meaning if you dont kill a boss in the given times it goes HULK SMASH.

Saying that you cba waiting hours for healers, just shows that you are clueless about MMOs and how they evolved.

Especially when a healer can just “respec” to become solid dps and vise versa, and especially when talking about the highest population MMO (GW2) and its mega-server mechanics….

Well, not all games are the same, and while it wasn’t a true mmo, in gw1 you could definately spend quite some time before you actually got a healer. Not to mention one ahs to take into account what region and time of day you play, if you’re not playing on peaktimes it will obviously take longer. Anyhow, kinda non-relevant , but jsut thought to mention that there are games out there where finding a healer isn’t the easiest to do.

Even if there are such games out there, Large MMOs are not like that.

Saying that you wonr be able to find healers in GW2 where there are unlimited amounts of players 24/7 is just laughable. This is just a typical doom and gloom thread created by the typical whiny people.

I played large MMOs with tanks and healers. Average q time for anything other than a healer is around 20-30 minutes at peak hours and up to an hour during the rest of the day. And that’s if you got a good healer. If party got unlucky you have to kick him and start again.

30 mins q time on a large MMO at peak times for top-end daily run dungs?

Something’s not right here…….

If you q alone as a dd and there are not that many healers that’s what you get. Of course there were occasions when q popped up in 10 minutes or so. It is still 9 minutes longer than gw2.

If you seriously believe that you will need 10 mins to find a healer in GW2, I’m wasting my time here…

The reason people dont play healers is because the majority of players are not interested in the playstyle. Tell me what game is it you play as dps where you dont wait for healers?

BrandyBiscuits.2873:

its either the holy trinity or pure zerker meta, theres really no in-between honestly from what i think at least. either holy trinity( where team coordination is really required) or jerker meta where everyone needs to learn how to survive themselves more or less(which i think is quite boring). so why not give this a try? i mean at least for once there will be some thinking and skill play involved instead of mindless stacking and might stacking and dpsdpsdps?

my 2 cents

There is no depth to guaranteed dmg and heals. When i play a trinity game i have no idea how much the healer is healing. I just avoid the avoidable attacks.

When i tank i just mitigate and try to hold agro.

There is no great strategy and depth in the healer mechanic.
Its there as a relic to a time when all dmg has to be unavoidable due to networking.

And in offline rpgs where you controlled all charachters which is closer to the current gw2 philosopy where you mist consider your dps your damage and how you recovwr from mistakes

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Astralporing.1957:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

And this is a bad thing how exactly? …

Pretty much everyone asked for an actual challenging content.

To be precise, a small number of forum posters asked for it. For a large part of player community current content is already challenging enough, and many others do not care.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

They gave classes much more focused roles in order to provide something that requires thinking and finally get rid of the braindead zerker meta.

No point in removing one meta, if it’s done through introducing another, even more strict meta.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Also, who said that raids will be easy enough to be completed by pugs? You might never see stuff like that on chat once people realise that they need a team/guild in order to actually complete a raid.

Because within guilds there will not be situations where a leader needs to roll a dice to see which of the guildmembers will be forced to play the healer (because all the players that liked playing healer role left 2 years ago). Yeah, right.

Let’s be honest, healers are a bottleneck in other games, because this is a role that is unappealing to a large majority of players. And most players that found it appealing left GW2 long ago.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Last but not least, I’d rather have groups looking for healers rather than Ice Bow providers.

Don’t worry, you won’t see any icebow in action after the next Tuesday. It won’t lessen the desirability of eles in groups in the tiniest.

First of all, anyone who thinks that the game is currently challenging, is brain-damaged., or came to GW2 after 5 years of hack n’ slash games played on easy mode.

Also, it seems you are stuck in 2007 MMO gaming. Cause nowdays, even in super small population MMOs, healers are everywhere, and very easy to find. Games offer various roles for 1 class depending on how you trait. It’s not like you can only heal 24/7 being a X class.

And, yes, Ice bow WILL affect ele desirability. Once HoT launches, elite specs become playable and zerker meta goes bye bye, how many eles would you want for a 5 man group? If any…

I think you must play a healer, because i cant think of a single current gen mmo that doesnt take dps substantially longer to get groups without a healer friend.

What games are you talking about here? Both wow and ffxiv dps takes long to get groups

lordkrall.7241:

^ That is true for CERTAIN enemies. The agro system is different based on which foe you are facing.

And testing shows that the large majority of bosses follow that rule. Enough to the point that those rare cases are not great enough to be differrent than the occaisonal enemy in other games that will ignore agro for a moment or have certain skills that target a specific role

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

dsslive.8473:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Tuntz.8953:

I moved from my last game to GW2 exactly because i was tired to wait for hours for healers.

Just curious where do people find this info on todays MMOs. Cause even on low population games, healers are probably the easiest role to find. Much harder to find a good dps or a good tank, especially dps since most challenging content has a “timer”, meaning if you dont kill a boss in the given times it goes HULK SMASH.

Saying that you cba waiting hours for healers, just shows that you are clueless about MMOs and how they evolved.

Especially when a healer can just “respec” to become solid dps and vise versa, and especially when talking about the highest population MMO (GW2) and its mega-server mechanics….

Well, not all games are the same, and while it wasn’t a true mmo, in gw1 you could definately spend quite some time before you actually got a healer. Not to mention one ahs to take into account what region and time of day you play, if you’re not playing on peaktimes it will obviously take longer. Anyhow, kinda non-relevant , but jsut thought to mention that there are games out there where finding a healer isn’t the easiest to do.

Even if there are such games out there, Large MMOs are not like that.

Saying that you wonr be able to find healers in GW2 where there are unlimited amounts of players 24/7 is just laughable. This is just a typical doom and gloom thread created by the typical whiny people.

I played large MMOs with tanks and healers. Average q time for anything other than a healer is around 20-30 minutes at peak hours and up to an hour during the rest of the day. And that’s if you got a good healer. If party got unlucky you have to kick him and start again.

30 mins q time on a large MMO at peak times for top-end daily run dungs?

Something’s not right here…….

Yup i noticed the same thing
Tank instant queue
Healer 1-5 minutes
Dps 20-40 minutes

Sometimes you get lucky, but its rare

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

lordkrall.7241:

ArenaNet have never been anti-trinity. They have been anti-forced holy trinity, which is rather different.

Healers have been in the game since release. They have simply made them better latety.

We know that you love the holy trinity and want ArenaNet to put it into the game, but this is not a step towards that. It is simply them going forward with what they have been doing since release.

They said you wont be able to avoid all damage. That means you need a healer. They also said you will need tanks some how.
Its trinity
Unavoidable damage
Healers
Tanks
Thats Trinity

Trinity requires three defined roles. I don’t see anyone actually tanking here. I don’t see any way to hold aggro. If you can’t hold aggro then it’s not a trinity. And that’s assuming that you must have a healer, which isn’t necessarily even proven yet.

Actually you can hold agro, via control, or even more simply by being the highest toughness closest to the enemy. People have already proven this and done it and posted videos.

dsslive.8473:

phys.7689:

dsslive.8473:

The druid isn’t a “dedicated” healer, he’s an addition to an already existing group of healers. Elementalists can spec as healers, so can engineers, guards, mesmers and even necro’s (yes i ran a necro healing build for awhile ^^) Healers aren’t new to this game. The game has always been based around a soft trinity of support/control/damage.

The main difference between the main game and HoT, is that support and control will actually be a viable choice instead of a rather forgotten one. You wont NEED a druid, if you find that you need more in the forms of support there are already a variety of classes that can do just that.

the key is not that druid exists, is that his heal potential is extremely large, and they said players will not be able to avoid attacks, such that druids heal per second might actually be useful.

the real key is unavoidable damage that alone changes the whole nature of the game.

The real key is, how big is this “unavoidable damage” you seem to go straight to “the damage will be so high we will most definately need someone keeping us alive”

Every profession still has the capabilities to heal themselves. Not to forget that this game was always meant to have a support role (one that every class could fill), we simply do not know whether the ways of supporting (be it thorugh healing, boons or active defense) will be made void by this “unavoidable damage” in such a way the druid becomes a must.

The zerker build they are talking about that wont work was heavily focused on active defenses and mitigation. In order for those guys to have to heal, it means dmg has to be fairly regular, and deadly.

If the zerker meta will need heals, that means its basically not possible to fight without a healer. Even tho people think they are pure dps, they actually generally have support focused traits and utilities.

dsslive.8473:

The druid isn’t a “dedicated” healer, he’s an addition to an already existing group of healers. Elementalists can spec as healers, so can engineers, guards, mesmers and even necro’s (yes i ran a necro healing build for awhile ^^) Healers aren’t new to this game. The game has always been based around a soft trinity of support/control/damage.

The main difference between the main game and HoT, is that support and control will actually be a viable choice instead of a rather forgotten one. You wont NEED a druid, if you find that you need more in the forms of support there are already a variety of classes that can do just that.

the key is not that druid exists, is that his heal potential is extremely large, and they said players will not be able to avoid attacks, such that druids heal per second might actually be useful.

the real key is unavoidable damage that alone changes the whole nature of the game.

lordkrall.7241:

Lets wait until we actually see the content before assuming things, shall we?

if he waits for the release, its highy unlikely he will be able to get refunded without canceling his gw2 account, because he will have various unlocks and what not.

If you have a chance for a refund without locking your account, now is time, contact support staff