Do you feel you are the target group of A-Net

Hey Folks, a new poll for the good people of GW2 who want to make their voice heard. There lot's of discussion going about A-Net missing their target group or what is their target group in general. Feel free to comment about A-Net's target groups

Go for it guys, everyone deserves an opinion

First yes! Whut up!!

I used to feel like the target group because I'm a casual player who would still occasionally chip away at long-term goals or challenge myself with puzzle and riddles peppered through the game. I'm also someone who would be excited to see what neat thing got put into the gem store next and had no problems budgeting each month for gem purchases to support the game. Back then, it felt like they spread their efforts across a variety of difficulties and content types and you could either cartwheel through the game or minmax at your leisure.

That has changed.

..now I feel like the target group is some combination of people who are willing to buy low-rez, low-effort items from the gem store (compared to past offerings, I miss you, armor sets) and folks who enjoy bullet hell mechanics, heavy visual noise, and exacting content like raids and upper-level strikes/fractals. I also feel like the lag, bugs, and lack of attention to game maintenance has accelerated in recent years - old problems that have gotten so much worse.

In summation, it feels like an effort is being made to focus on stretching content with grind while catering to a more intense crowd and simultaneously quality is falling short in areas like map design, story scripting, accessibility, QoL, and gem store offerings. Stuff's getting tedious. It worries me.

As a disclaimer, this could also just be me playing a game for 7 years and seeing the wear and tear on an old toy. I doubt it, though.

I keep thinking what qualifies me as part of the target audience. I play the game, but not all content or game modes. I never really quit this game as it is F2P so I don’t have to commit to the game in the way I may have WoW or SWTOR, so I return for new events and releases but leave when there isn’t anything to do. I do spend some money and gold on gems but find 90% of the gemstore of passing interest.

I am part of the audience, possibly the typical audience member in some regards but maybe not the prototypical audience member.

I feel like I was the target group in 2015 HoT, and during certain parts of Lws3 (chalice of tears). I liked the difficulty, it made the map scary and fun to explore.

Nowadays it feels like lw is an achievement grind. I have a friend who loves this, but it's not for me.

Considering we haven't had a new hairstyle in 2 years, I can tell my endgame has been neglected (fashion wars).

My play habits tend to focus on one thing or another and I participate in pretty much everything but raiding, depending upon what I'm feeling. However, the overwhelming majority of my years playing GW2 have been spent in open world/story content. This aligns quite well with ANet's development priorities. In that sense, yes, they do cater to my needs.

On the other hand, I have a little over 1,000 games played in PvP and have completed a ranked season in plat before. I'm also approaching plat rank in WvW and have earned a set of legendary armor there. I enjoy fractals enough to have at least reached personal level 100 and crafted my infinite mists omnipotion. Strikes are pretty new and I am not big into them, but I've completed all of them a few times by now. Raids are really the only thing I would consider myself very inexperienced with. It's something I almost never participate in.

It frustrates me that WvW and PvP stagnate and the pace of fractal development isn't much better. It's true that more than anything else I want a new expansion with the kind of game-changing impact the previous expansions had. So, the fact that they are working toward that is appreciated. But all of this other stuff that I care about is terribly neglected and has been for some time. Are they catering to my needs there? I'd have to say no!

Definitely not.Player since day 1 in GW1. They've definitely lost touch with their real fan base.

I play the game, almost every day. I'd guess that would make me the target audience.
I mean, as long as there's something to do, I'm playing each day. And, I'd say, that's ArenaNet's target.

No, because I don't spend real money in the cash shop.

Yes, because the reason I choose open-world RPG style games is for lore and world exploration. I think world exploration is great in GW2. The lore is also interesting, and the story is decent, especially for the nature of MMOs. Basically I just like Tyria as a world.

The reason I play an MMO is because it is fun to have a community to share experiences, even if it is just lore theory-crafting, complaining about issues we hate, or things we think are cool. Personally I don't play MMOs because I feel the need to build an in-game team to make any meaningful progress, which I think GW2 is pretty good at since story progression can be completed based on my schedule alone. I would like to see some more small group open-world (or instanced) content. For example, I kinda wish the upcoming Dragon Response Missions were 2-5 player content rather than 1-5 player content. Although I have to hold my criticism until I actually see what they are. But overall, I do think that GW2 is the "game for me".

It will be a 'no' from me. But it used to be 'yes'. And I remember the day it changed - the day "champ trains" were "introduced" - so 40 man train was teleporting through Cursed Shore. I had only one toon then - condi necromancer. And if you would get to boss late by 1 second of the rest - you wouldn't even tag it because there was limit on conditions on bosses. Which weren't anything more that punching bags. And it was the fastest way to get tens of champion bags.

Now every special event is about getting thousands of bags.

Also "Living World" seemed to be only repeatable, quick events and nothing more. Either soloable, repeatable small tasks but you needed to do them 100+ times or big events for 50 guys pew-pewing one-shotting boss for 10-15 minutes. And repeat after half an hour.

I remember my exact though on that - "this is not what I want from GW2".

There are many things I enjoy but not any form of "trains" for fastest loot. And not to just stand and shoot big guy for 10 minutes being AFK doing so.

I am unable to pick yes or no. That is because they do cater to me in some respects, and definitely not in others.

Yes: buy-to-play business model; ignorable (if I want to) cash shop; relatively flat gear progression (though I would have preferred the, "Every player, by level 80, will have max stat gear" thing); 95+% of skills can be used while moving...

No: no effects slider in a game that focuses on gameplay events drawing large amounts of players, all continually using flashy effects; ping-pong gameplay in WvW, with me as the ball, due to too much CC, not enough stun break, stability's inadequacies and no CC immunity; poor matchmaking in WvW, leading to poor gameplay experience; story that is for me excessively long-winded and plagued by silly mechanics for the sake of mechanics in story fights...

There's more on both sides of the coin, but those are the highlights.

As a disclaimer, my reaction could just be because I've been playing this game since Beta.I understand with the game aging, the original rewards are not as rewarding. In the first couple of years new weapon skins were incredible to have. However, now, we have a profound flood of weapon skins; some from the gem shop, from class specializations, dungeons, fractals, crafting, heart vendors, raids, wvw, mystic forge....We have a finite amount of characters and wittle that down to whatever class they are and what weapons they can use. We have no way to display them as accomplishments and therefore the desire to go after them is less with each new release.

Who are these rewards for? As a veteran I feel like they aren't really aimed at me. I am torn between being frustrated by new, less casual content - and being frustrated by spending my precious free time trying to learn that challenging content only to earn rewards that I can't really use. So, I feel I am no longer a part of arenanet's target audience.

It's kind of understandable because they need people buying the game. But I feel, they need to give veterans some way to appreciate what we're earning in the game too and also give us incentives to buying character slots

Most of the gemstore items aren't interesting to me, but they doesn't bother me neither.I'm just a chill endgame player that does stuff at my own phase, I do like challenging pve content but I rarely do it often except for daily fractal cms. I also got used to the amounts of new content anet give to us so I learned to wait and not expect much each patch.

Anet hasn't really given preference to a specific target audience, they have barely given us any endgame content for over a year. Strikes doesn't count because they are quite easy and boring. Only thing we've got since the launch of W7 more than a year ago has been Sunqua Fractal.PvP got the 2v2 and 3v3 modes introduced.And PvE of course gets their bimonthly living world chapter, although this year has been quite lacking with only 3 maps and a lobby and it feels like Drizlewood has been the latest new open world content since ages.

@"Kurrilino.2706" said:There lot's of discussion going about A-Net missing their target group or what is their target group in general.

Where is this "lot's of discussion going" ? Can you post some links of recent discussions of this topic in the forum? Thanks.

Yes, for me, though I am still torn on the flat powercurve thing. It totally works for me, since in other MMO's I was always lagging behind (and thus losing interest at some point) but I DO miss the fact that Loot could actually make you exited in those MMO's. Fashionwars just does not cut it for me.

But because the world is so beautiful and I can be social in this MMO the way I want it, without having to commit myself too much, makes it still a big win for me.

@Obfuscate.6430 said:

Who are these rewards for? As a veteran I feel like they aren't really aimed at me. I am torn between being frustrated by new, less casual content - and being frustrated by spending my precious free time trying to learn that challenging content only to earn rewards that I can't really use. So, I feel I am no longer a part of arenanet's target audience.For me, this is a very valid point/statement. Thanks for putting it into words.

Yes. This is Fashion Wars, and I like love skins, and there needs to be even more skins.

Before I found GW1 I had concluded that MMOs just weren't for me because all the ones I'd played or knew about before that demanded a lot of time on a regular schedule. To really get anywhere you had to not only play daily (or near-daily) but at the same sort of time so you could meet up with your fixed group and progress through things together. That didn't work for me at the time and if anything it's only gotten more impractical since then.

But GW2 (and GW1) works for me. I can log in whenever I have time and choose something to do either solo or with whoever happens to be around at the time. Some things take planning (like the Dragon's Stand meta) but even then it's fairly flexible - it's not like if I miss the one night this week/month my guild is doing it then I can't do it at all and I've fallen behind everyone else. If I want to stop playing entirely for a week or a month or whatever I can do that and I won't lose any progress or need to catch up when I do come back.

But it's also the content. I like playing RPGs because I enjoy the story and exploring ficitonal worlds and this game is ideal for that. It's one of relatively few where it always seems worthwhile to check out all the corners, see if it's possible to climb up somewhere, talk to that random person in a farmhouse somewhere, because there's a good chance it will actually lead to something. On several occasions I've taken the time to figure out my way into somewhere I was sure the developers never expected anyone to go, only to find a chest or something sitting in there, silently saying "Yeah I knew someone would find their way up here". Things like that make me feel like they had people like me in mind when designing the maps, rather than some games where everything is either sign-posted, largely irrelevant or just empty space. Similarly while I understand it's impractical sometimes I like that a lot of the lore and stories are pieced together from stuff found in the world.

Finally whilst the fact that content is given away free and random cosmetics cost extra still seems weird to me I like that it means I almost never have to spend money on this game if I don't want to. I will buy gem store stuff with real money sometimes and over the years it probably adds up to quite a bit, but I've also gone for long stretches without spending anything at all and was still able to keep playing the game as before, instead of being pressured to spend money to keep up.

Pretty much. I play their game every day and played all expansions and living world releases.

I would say yes, because everytime I participated on gemstore suggestion thread I somehow got my suggestions added: Inquest exo suit - shrine guardian - exo-suit roller beetle - arcane marksman rifle - synergetics roller beetle - inquest mark II weapons. When I asked for an evil base map we got sandswept. When I asked for auris we saw it in blood keep in grothmar. I ask regularly for certain decorations, and got them: mad labyrinths walls, clocktower gear, candy platform...

I'm still playing, because of the story, discovering new maps but also finishing my mount skins sets: I'm waiting for exo suit skyscale and exo suit warclaw. I have currently 900 gems, cause I'm waiting to buy a mount adoption select licence containing that skyscale.

Do I feel I am part of the targetted audience? Obviously, because the most listened are pve players apparently. I still enjoy my stay, and got my 8th birthday 10 days ago. But I really hope that the 9 or 10 birthday is a special ascended cultural set or a legendary. Really, come on. 10 years... 10. Really, a tier 4 cultural set for lvl 80 players...

Through I'm heavily disapointed by the latest outfits on the gemstore: Either it's a skimpy ninja suit, a latex suit, eye burning shing crystal outfit or aura nightmare. Dunno how many time has passed without buying one: I'm only interested by hightech/ simple/ futuristic/ mecha/ asura outfits. That's why I hame dynamics, inquest, mist stranger, queensdale academy, hexed ones and no others.

I would really enjoy seing more gw2 outfits helmet re released as individual helmet, like the head scouter of inquest exo suit.

yes i am OCD guy with social akward skills who loves be anonym. Hates the feeling of being pushed and looses progress when quit the game for a while.

only exeption I want gear doesent matter so i can play all my professions without gearing up

Frankly, i'm not sure Anet devs themselves know what is the game's target group. And i don't think it's something recent - in my experience Anet for a long time tried to make GW2 a game for everyone, while at the same time ending up with something where, no matter what type of content you play, you can justifiably think you're not their target group at all.One of the things this game has always lacked (and from the beginning, since launch), is a clarity of vision.

It's hit and miss, but most of the time hit.