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EoD expansion should have new RAID


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It's been ages since we had a new RAID. I think the expansion should be providing challenging end-game content again, given the failure of strikes and DRMs...I personally think that raids and fractal CMs keep the game alive, (Sunqua is a great addition), because casuals just log in to play through the story and some events and leave, but RAIDING has built a nice dedicated community, there are discords/guilds that specialize on raiding. This game type cannot be ignored, it gives the full fetched combat experience of the elite specs that you cannot really enjoy in open world etc. Please ANET, new RAID.

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They already said, that at the current size of the raiding community they cannot justify putting resources into making more raid content. And that community won't get bigger unless Anet is ready to put way, way more resources into raiding than even that. One raid release per expansion, per year, or even per 9 months would not be enough to make the community grow. It might not even be enough to stop it from getting smaller and smaller. And it's clear that Anet, even if they wanted to do so, simply do not currently have enough resources that they could dedicate enough to raids to guarantee even 1 wing per year rate, much less two. Not without negatively impacting the rest of the game anyway. The current state of LS clearly shows that.

(personally, i think that even far more frequent releases would not make the community grow, it would only reduce the diminishment rate because it would make veterans to stay for far longer, without actually solving the problem of attracting more new players, but that's not the place for this kind of discussion)

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@Astralporing.1957 said:They already said, that at the current size of the raiding community they cannot justify putting resources into making more raid content. And that community won't get bigger unless Anet is ready to put way, way more resources into raiding than even that. One raid release per expansion, per year, or even per 9 months would not be enough to make the community grow. It might not even be enough to stop it from getting smaller and smaller. And it's clear that Anet, even if they wanted to do so, simply do not currently have enough resources that they could dedicate enough to raids to guarantee even 1 wing per year rate, much less two. Not without negatively impacting the rest of the game anyway. The current state of LS clearly shows that.

(personally, i think that even far more frequent releases would not make the community grow, it would only reduce the diminishment rate because it would make veterans to stay for far longer, without actually solving the problem of attracting more new players, but that's not the place for this kind of discussion)

And this was exactly why blizzard implemented LFR in WoW, as otherwise they couldnt just keeping making raid content that only a minority ever would get to see. And without continuous gear improvement, raids only offers challenges too hard for the average players and unique transmogs. So yeah, I completely understand why there will be no more raids. Simply not cost effective. It was ever ill fitting for a game like guild wars 2.

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LFR won’t change anything in Guild wars 2. The game is not made to make you play open world just so that you can advance to raids and frankly easy raids in Gw2 would be the equivalent of having more strike misions.

At this point, what they really need to do in EoD, if they have any interest to have more players in raids and 10 man content in general, is to basically reproduce what they did with the start of of the Icebrood saga: have tuned-up version in strikes of some bosses that players battle in open world and design a reward scheme that involves playing both content extensively. Just need one closed instance for one 10 man boss fight and throughout a map you could find up to 5 of these instances.Other than that maybe they could add a reason for guilds to play the existing raid content outside of the weekly clear.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:They already said, that at the current size of the raiding community they cannot justify putting resources into making more raid content. And that community won't get bigger unless Anet is ready to put way, way more resources into raiding than even that. One raid release per expansion, per year, or even per 9 months would not be enough to make the community grow. It might not even be enough to stop it from getting smaller and smaller. And it's clear that Anet, even if they wanted to do so, simply do not currently have enough resources that they could dedicate enough to raids to guarantee even 1 wing per year rate, much less two. Not without negatively impacting the rest of the game anyway. The current state of LS clearly shows that.

Negatively impacting what rest of the game though?That's kind of the Story of almost all content, be it Raids, Fractals, Guild Activities, WvW, PvP, Stronghold, Dungeons, Bounties, Adventures, Strikes, Legendary (Weapon) Crafting etc.No or barely any new content means that both Veterans over time leave that content as well as that it doesn't seem attractive to new players to get invested in, leading to low player counts, leading to Anet seemingly not being able to justify putting more resources into any content in order to retain old and attract new players, leading to further lower and lower player counts, leading to it being less and less likely they will receive new content.

But that's just an endless downward spiral for almost all of the game, not just Raids. They got to have some plan. We can be pretty confident that pre other project cancellations and layoffs, that plan was to ride LW until their other games would release, transitioning to them. But what now?

If EoD is another PoF, with largely unrepeatable single player story content as meat of the expansion, sure that may be another flash in the pan in terms of players and revenue, but then what?

I understand that a very vocal part of this community likes to pile on Raids with this debate about player numbers and if it's worth supporting or not, if they have an audience or not, etc., but they are hardly an outlier - quite the opposite.If Fractals, WvW, Guild Missions, PvP and all that were prospering and gaining regular content updates, the argument that Anet just doesn't have resources for Raids in particular and that maybe they just don't have an audience/fit in GW2 might have some weight, but it's kind of everything else too.

Similarly, if LW was just doing fantastically for ArenaNet financially, it might make sense that they entirely focus on more single player Story/play alone together Open World content, and that that is what the majority of the player base is here for and willing to support, but the last ~2 years have shown the opposite to be the case there as well with revenue dropping to record lows over the Icebrood Saga, featuring no "endgame" content and just LW.

So just single player Story/play alone together OW content doesn't retain players and therefor doesn't provide sustainable revenue, and all other content does have low player numbers since they aren't being supported, which means Anet can't justify sparing the resources to support them.Where does that leave us long term?

They have to do/invest into something, no?

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@yukarishura.4790 said:... I personally think that raids and fractal CMs keep the game alive, (Sunqua is a great addition), because casuals just log in to play through the story and some events and leave, but RAIDING has built a nice dedicated community, there are discords/guilds that specialize on raiding. This game type cannot be ignored, it gives the full fetched combat experience of the elite specs that you cannot really enjoy in open world etc. Please ANET, new RAID.

What keeps the game alive is that people buy gems. It's got nothing to do with who's in a 'nice dedicated community'.

This game type can't be ignored? I beg to differ SIGNIFICANTLY given that it's been ignored for years and there have been nothing remotely catastrophic happen because of it.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:... I personally think that raids and fractal CMs keep the game alive, (Sunqua is a great addition), because casuals just log in to play through the story and some events and leave, but RAIDING has built a nice dedicated community, there are discords/guilds that specialize on raiding. This game type cannot be ignored, it gives the full fetched combat experience of the elite specs that you cannot really enjoy in open world etc. Please ANET, new RAID.

What keeps the game alive is that people buy gems. It's got nothing to do with who's in a 'nice dedicated community'.

And you don't think there is a correlation between dedication, investment and community to player retention and with that spending at all?

@Obtena.7952 said:This game type can't be ignored? I beg to differ SIGNIFICANTLY given that it's been ignored for years and there have been nothing remotely catastrophic happen because of it.

I don't know what you classify a >40% yearly revenue drop since HoT days and layoffs of ~1/3rd the company over those same years as, but catastrophic seems extremely fitting to me.Do I entirely attribute that to the abandonment of endgame content, no absolutely not, that would be foolish.Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.

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@yukarishura.4790 said:@Obtena.7952 Also go to LFG: you ALWAYS see at least 10 raiding squads, and when you go to open world kitten you see BARELY anyone doing METAS. So know tell me why raiding is dead, if you do not raid yourself, then u should shut up.

10 LFGs? Must be EU. All I ever see in LFG for NA are guilds selling clears.

Also, plenty of metas are being done all the time, even for old content like Orr. Maybe you need to get out of the aerodrome a bit more.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:I'm sure people asking for easy mode/ story mode Raids are enjoying Strike Missions daily, showing Arenanet how much of the playerbase is interested in easier instanced content. If you don't, then I'm not sure why you think an easier version of Raids would be any different.

raids are already easy

10 LFGs? Must be EU. All I ever see in LFG for NA are guilds selling clears.

Also, plenty of metas are being done all the time, even for old content like Orr. Maybe you need to get out of the aerodrome a bit more.

not true, I check LFG during the entire day and there is maximum of like 1 squad per meta during the day, TT is practically done by only one european guild.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:This game type can't be ignored? I beg to differ SIGNIFICANTLY given that it's been ignored for years and there have been nothing remotely catastrophic happen because of it.

I don't know what you classify a >40% yearly revenue drop since HoT days and layoffs of ~1/3rd the company over those same years as, but catastrophic seems extremely fitting to me.Do I entirely attribute that to the abandonment of endgame content, no absolutely not, that would be foolish.Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.See, the key part here would be
not wasting resources on side projects that didn't pan out
. And spending those resources not on "maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community", but on
doing the next expansion
. It was the cancelling 3rd expac act that almost drove them under, not abandoning raids. Which can be clearl shown by the fact that as soon as they announced that they
will
be doing the expansion, their finances suddenly recovered. Even though raids were still abandoned, with no sign it's going to change.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:This game type can't be ignored? I beg to differ SIGNIFICANTLY given that it's been ignored for years and there have been nothing remotely catastrophic happen because of it.

I don't know what you classify a >40% yearly revenue drop since HoT days and layoffs of ~1/3rd the company over those same years as, but catastrophic seems extremely fitting to me.Do I entirely attribute that to the abandonment of endgame content, no absolutely not, that would be foolish.Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.See, the key part here would be
not wasting resources on side projects that didn't pan out
. And spending those resources not on "maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community", but on
doing the next expansion
. It was the cancelling 3rd expac act that almost drove them under, not abandoning raids. Which can be clearl shown by the fact that as soon as they announced that they
will
be doing the expansion, their finances suddenly recovered. Even though raids were still abandoned, with no sign it's going to change.

Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage. That's not announcement related but rather in indicator of likely player loss, which has not been stemmed. We can obviously only speculate which type of players are leaving, but suffice to say, I doubt losing dedicated players of niche modes is healthy.

The change in living world achievements and tacked on "challenge" modes might fill in the rest of the mosaic as to which niche players are supposed to be kept occupied until some serious content releases. Let's face it: if all this game needed to be successful is the drop in and out open world crowd, the recent Saga and releases would have looked way way way different.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:And spending those resources not on "maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community", but on doing the next expansion. It was the cancelling 3rd expac act that almost drove them under, not abandoning raids. Which can be clearl shown by the fact that as soon as they announced that they will be doing the expansion, their finances suddenly recovered. Even though raids were still abandoned, with no sign it's going to change.

I wouldn't use the word "recovered", at least not yet, there was an increase in Q3 2020, but in Q4 2020 we are back to 2019 levels. If we take the yearly revenue the difference between 2019 and 2020 is very little and 2020 is still their second worst year, with 2019 being the worst. With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.

Maybe, just maybe, because they bundled Heart of Thorns with the purchase of Path of Fire in August 2019. Something that has little to nothing to do with content released. So that drop in Q4 2019/Q1 2020 could very easily be attributed to that. It's good though that since then the game recovered from those losses.

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@Raizel.1839 said:No thanks, raids in this game have failed, with only a litttle % of population playing them.

Better to include something more accessible in EoD.

people who claim raids have failed only play metas and auto attack, go to grind fests, and are having 0 motivation to engage with harder content, good to know who is ruining our chances of getting raids (as harsh as this sounds, not everybody likes going to metas and pressing 1 to get loot, sure if people do that, it's their own choice, but dont come here crying you do not want raids, because there are also players who want more from the game and the combat and want raids).

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@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

@maddoctor.2738 said:With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.Isn't that because it was the announcement for the IBS (30th of August, 2019, iirc) that finally made people realize that the earlier hints about expansion being cancelled are not just hints, but a reality? Is it accident that the revenue started to get better shortly after they announced that there will be an expansion after all?

Of course, there were a few other things that undermined people's trust in the game around that time - MO leaving (and then MZ ninja leaving shortly after) certainly didn;t help either. Until expansion announcement a lot of people honestly didn't believe this game had any future beyond LS5, and talks about maintenance mode were a daily occurence. Which definitely wasn't helping revenue at all.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

Sure, thus the question is which players and how players can be kept entertained or engaged with the game longer. Thus we are back to dedicated players sticking with the game longer, being in general more forgiving and appeased with less content, until shunned away.

Again, the recent shift in type of content delivery AND extent of grind required would indicated that a more dedicated crowd is desired by the developers (maybe even required). Raiders were/are certainly part of that crowd in the past given the dedication with minimum content provided. WvW and Spvp were other niche modes. The regular "I will drop in every few months occasional player" absolutely does not qualify. Looking at story completion rates the part of the community completing those is not even that much larger than the other mentioned niches.

If you honestly believe that this game can survive without catering to dedicated niche groups, I am sure we will soon see where this leads to. That is unless the developers disagree and start catering to niche dedicated players again. I'm sure the expansion will be very enlightening in this regard since it will hopefully provide a baseline for what to expect in the future.

In the end we are all subject to our subjective bubbles and communities. For example: I know a lot of dedicated players who spend regular money on this game. I wouldn't call any of them, or myself, a whale, but approximately in the area of a subscription based MMORPGs (so give or take around 300 bucks per year). Most of those players are about to leave or have left, unrelated to the IBS lack of open world content. Some will return to check out the expansion, and then leave again because the story keeps one entertained only so long and without niche content which took the majority of their time there is no reason to stick around.

Which also begs the question: how many players are advocating for things on these forums while not spending a single dime on the game, yet assuming that somehow their spending behavior makes up a lucrative bracket and somehow can sustain the studio. That's absolutely without judgement, given the game is monetized the way it is, which I find perfectly fine (though I will be honest, a subscription in favor of some gem store changes has had me thinking over the last few years as monetization becomes more aggressive). It just makes me wonder how much thought is put into this aspect from some of our forum crowd. It's very easy to scream:"I don't want that type of content in my MMORPG." all the while not supporting the developer or the studio the least bit.

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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

Sure, thus the question is which players and how players can be kept entertained or engaged with the game longer. Thus we are back to dedicated players sticking with the game longer, being in general more forgiving and appeased with less content, until shunned away.

Again, the recent shift in type of content delivery AND extent of grind required would indicated that a more dedicated crowd is desired. Raiders were/are certainly that crowd, so far. The regular "I will drop in every few months occasional player" absolutely does not qualify.

If you honestly believe that this game can survive without catering to dedicated niche groups, I am sure we will soon see where this leads to. That is unless the developers disagree and start catering to niche dedicated players again.

In the end we are all subject to our subjective bubbles and communities. For example: I know a lot of dedicated players who spend regular money on this game. I wouldn't call any of them, or myself, a whale, but approximately in the area of a subscription based MMORPGs (so give or take around 300 bucks per year). Most of those players are about to leave or have left, unrelated to the IBS lack of open world content. Some will return to check out the expansion, and then leave again because the story keeps one entertained only so long and without niche content which took the majority of their time there is no reason to stick around.

so true, and imagine, how can you potentially enjoy the full combat and the new elite specs without new raids?? why even look forward to new elite specs if we are just going to be using them to auto attack on map farming metas..., these players who are casuals complain raids take time but in fact, 2h of drizzlewood or whatever farm they are doing takes more time, and it's time gated...

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@yukarishura.4790 said:@Obtena.7952 Also go to LFG: you ALWAYS see at least 10 raiding squads, and when you go to open world kitten you see BARELY anyone doing METAS. So know tell me why raiding is dead, if you do not raid yourself, then u should shut up.

The issue here is revenues and how many teams sitting on LFG doesn't mean a thing to that.

Who the hell is gonna play for a story and few cosmetics??

Apparently, more people than those who raid. Look, it comes down to what makes money and what doesn't. If Raids was making Anet bankloads of money ... you would have them as fast as they could pump them out.

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@Asum.4960 said:And you don't think there is a correlation between dedication, investment and community to player retention and with that spending at all?

If there is, neither you, I or anyone else knows what it is ... so any argument someone is going to make with it is highly questionable in the first place. I do know one thing ... players don't need to be part of a 'nice, dedicated community' to buy gems ... so that's definitely a ridiculous relation.

Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.

Maybe ... but who's to say those future side projects must be raids?

It's nonsense to identify all the bad stuff happening and making baseless claims it has something to do with a lack of raid development. If raids were worth the return on Anet's investment ... they wouldn't have gone away ... if anything they would have pushed that content more if it's as wildly successful as proponents continue to proclaim they were. It's that simple. Raids simply were not worth their effort to continue making.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Asum.4960 said:And you don't think there is a correlation between dedication, investment and community to player retention and with that spending at all?

If there is, neither you, I or anyone else knows what it is ... so any argument someone is going to make with it is highly questionable in the first place. I do know one thing ... players don't need to be part of a 'nice, dedicated community' to buy gems ... so that's definitely a ridiculous relation.

There is a difference between acknowledging something but not being able to quantify it and strait out claiming it has no relevance. You might want to reevaluate where your stance is on this.

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