Guild Wars 2 and Content Variety - Suggestions for More PvE Fun

Introduction

I've seen a lot of people posting recently, especially in relation to the upcoming Season 5, about how Guild Wars 2 doesn't have enough content. I don't think that's true. But I do think that the variety of content can lend itself to that perception. There's a good amount of solo content available--you can run story quests multiple times for achievements, for example, or join with a zerg and run map events (which is technically a group activity, but one that requires no coordination or communication so it's functionally solo). But group content comes in two forms: fractals and raids.

I think it might be nice to start shaking things up. First, let's be very clear: fractals and raids are both good and I hope they continue to be supported. I'm not saying I don't like those, or I want something to necessarily take their place. What I'm saying is that I think diversifying group PvE content a little bit more might be a good idea.

I have two suggestions. The first suggestion is for some added variety to our open world content; the second is a suggestion for another form of instanced group content.

Bring Back Big (World) Bosses

One thing that makes Guild Wars 2 unique is how much of its content takes place in the open world and not in instances. One thing that's lacking is challenging, team-focused open world content, at least these days.

Many people have suggested a return of map-wide meta events like the ones in Heart of Thorns that require very large groups of players to coordinate. I think that's a good idea. Primarily, I think another map that works like Dragon's Stand would be a very welcome addition. But I also think it's worth adding more large-scale world bosses similar to the Triple Trouble event or Tequatl the Sunless. These aren't long meta-events that require long-term coordination, but they do require short-term coordination and are flashy, impressive, and rewarding to do. Adding the occasional big bad world boss once again would be refreshing, I think.

An Alternative to Fractals

One thing I love about fractals is the focus on being short bursts of challenging group content. I think there's room for another kind of small-group content, though. For one thing, I think it would be good for there to be small-group content with a different theme. Right now, even though there's a wide variety of fractals, they're all focused on the theme of "weirdness going on in the Mists." It'd be great to have an alternative form of small-group instanced content that takes place on Tyria, as well. While we left "dungeons" behind long ago, I have another suggestion that I'm calling scenarios.

Here's how I see scenarios working. ArenaNet makes quite a lot of maps that are primarily used in single-player story instances, like the Inquest labs in "A Bug in the System" or Joko's palace in "Long Live the Lich." Why not reuse those maps for some group content? Alter the geometry somewhat--close off some paths, open up some other ones--and add new enemy packs and bosses, then use those maps as a new type of dungeon. These can be paced differently than fractals, providing a different kind of challenge and a different set of rewards. They can also be a bit longer than fractals tend to be (though not too long--I don't think Guild Wars 2 is the kind of game that needs hour-long dungeon crawls, you know?).

Sure, reusing maps might rub some players the wrong way, but I think if they're used to create new, unique group content, I think it would be a positive development. In a way you can liken them to Destiny's "strikes," which tend to take place in instanced versions of open world maps. And because they can partially take place in open world maps, there might also be room to incorporate things like mounts, or scenarios that involve covering a large amount of ground, the kind of thing fractals tend not to do.

Discussion

What do you all think? Are there things I didn't consider with these suggestions? Do you have your own ideas? Content variety is something that I think is worth talking about and throwing around ideas, so I'm interested in reading others' ideas as well.

@"Agent Noun.7350" said:

I think it might be nice to start shaking things up. First, let's be very clear: fractals and raids are both good and I hope they continue to be supported. I'm not saying I don't like those, or I want something to necessarily take their place. What I'm saying is that I think diversifying group PvE content a little bit more might be a good idea.I disagree on raids being good and them needing to be supported. I dislike raids so very much and I think they were a mistake to this game anyway. The main playerbase of this game is casual. Not hardcore, some semi-hardcore, and raids can be a nice challenge to them. but in terms of listening to the majority of an audience, raids were a mistake. However I do agree PvE needs more diversity.

Bring Back Big (World) Bosses

One thing that makes Guild Wars 2 unique is how much of its content takes place in the open world and not in instances. One thing that's lacking is challenging, team-focused open world content, at least these days.You are probably forgetting there is a LOT of new players coming into the game, there's lots of people just getting into HoT and there's enough people on those old maps still. I know where you are coming from, the veteran players are all playing t4 fractals, raids, wvw, etc etc. But it doesn't mean there's a lack of content. It means most veteran players are tired of playing that content, but the content still exists. I honestly miss the days from ls1 and ls2 where we had giant map events in core tyria, and core tyria is really dead now. I haven't even seen a cursed shore champion train in a while, even though that lasted long. The awakened events in starter maps are a nice example to get old and new community to work together and I would like to see more of that, Especially because veteran players are all about meta builds, doing the best dps, and I as a veteran player with a very unpopular opinion couldn't care less about being the best at the game. I prefer to help new community members get a feel for the game and have them be comfortable in their own way, instead of being pressured by the rest of the veterans who act like fractals and raids are the be all and end all.

An Alternative to Fractals

One thing I love about fractals is the focus on being short bursts of challenging group content. I think there's room for another kind of small-group content, though. For one thing, I think it would be good for there to be small-group content with a different theme. Right now, even though there's a wide variety of fractals, they're all focused on the theme of "weirdness going on in the Mists." It'd be great to have an alternative form of small-group instanced content that takes place on Tyria, as well. While we left "dungeons" behind long ago, I have another suggestion that I'm calling scenarios.I know anet is leaving behind dungeons and isn't going to give us more of that, but honestly, they should. Again for new community members, dungeons are dead, nobody is doing them anymore. Fractals are the new thing and it's cool we get new fractals every so often, and it's absolutely great. I still wish we would get some sort of casual version of a raid. Just something new, that's not too challenging.

Discussion

What do you all think? Are there things I didn't consider with these suggestions? Do you have your own ideas? Content variety is something that I think is worth talking about and throwing around ideas, so I'm interested in reading others' ideas as well.

I still don't think there is a lack of content in PvE

• Legendary crafting
• Trying out new characters and mapcompleting them, and I mean all mapcompletion, including LS and expansion maps,
• Revisiting old maps and helping out new players so they can later join us in the new content
• Leading old meta events, because honestly they are still a lot of fun and the rewards are still worth it.

Perhaps in the future we get more current events going on and I think I've heard developers talk about bringing that back (don't quote me on that i'm really not sure). But I also really wish we'd get more of that open world content from ls1 and ls2, where the entire map had to team up and it all basically turned into a pre-HoT dragon stand for just an hour or so. Those times were really fun!Also I just love holidays and festivals in gw2, We have halloween coming up, then wintersday, then lunar new year again, they announced festival of the four winds would be annual, who knows they might bring dragon bash back then too! And SaB ofcourse still exists even though it's not really normal gw2 gameplay, it's still PVE and still fun.

@MauChann.3081 said:You are probably forgetting there is a LOT of new players coming into the game, there's lots of people just getting into HoT and there's enough people on those old maps still. I know where you are coming from, the veteran players are all playing t4 fractals, raids, wvw, etc etc. But it doesn't mean there's a lack of content. It means most veteran players are tired of playing that content, but the content still exists. I honestly miss the days from ls1 and ls2 where we had giant map events in core tyria, and core tyria is really dead now. I haven't even seen a cursed shore champion train in a while, even though that lasted long. The awakened events in starter maps are a nice example to get old and new community to work together and I would like to see more of that, Especially because veteran players are all about meta builds, doing the best dps, and I as a veteran player with a very unpopular opinion couldn't care less about being the best at the game. I prefer to help new community members get a feel for the game and have them be comfortable in their own way, instead of being pressured by the rest of the veterans who act like fractals and raids are the be all and end all.

I don't mean to say there's a lack of content. But I think there's a lack of content variety. And I also think it's worth supporting veteran players--just because there are new players for whom all the content we've had years to play is still new doesn't mean that veteran players shouldn't also hope for new things as well, y'know?

There's a ton of content in GW2. I just wish that group PvE content had more going on right now than fractals and raids, specifically because fractals have a very specific theme that I think would be nice to see some variation from, and raids are a very specific kind of content that isn't going to be for everyone, even every veteran player.

@MauChann.3081 said:I know anet is leaving behind dungeons and isn't going to give us more of that, but honestly, they should. Again for new community members, dungeons are dead, nobody is doing them anymore. Fractals are the new thing and it's cool we get new fractals every so often, and it's absolutely great. I still wish we would get some sort of casual version of a raid. Just something new, that's not too challenging.

Small-group PvE is something I really enjoy, so I'd definitely like to see a wider variety of content available there. I think that revisiting the idea of dungeons--even if we still leave behind what dungeons were at launch--would be a good thing for the game because of that. Even if ArenaNet just reuses open world areas and makes instanced versions of them, as long as there are new things to do in those areas, that would be an exciting new addition.

Plus, using instanced versions of open world maps would let them do things like incorporate mounts, involve traveling over long distances (maybe even have a boss that incorporates a chase scene), and that kind of thing. Group content in an instanced version of a more open map could lead to some fun and unique encounters that you won't find in fractals, so that seems worth exploring to me.

What I'd like to see is more dynamic NPC fights.

What I mean is that the game is designed with mostly PVP mechanics (short CC, reflex responses, etc) but is balanced based on PVE mechanics (HP sponges, endurance encounters, cc immunity, repetitive AI).

It'd be great to see more mobs that responded to the mechanics in the game. More CC vulnerability, weakness to interruption, support NPC's that need to be taken out first (mordrem menders) and so on. HOT started down this path, but they overtuned it and due to complaints about difficulty have gone 180 degrees on it with POF. The mechanics were good, but there was no learning curve. Anet, please don't mistake poor balancing and expectation management with bad game mechanics. The combat mechanics in HOT were great, they just needed to be eased into and not dropped en masse in the first zone.

Combat is getting really boring now. The game has potential for a lot of great fight mechanics, but almost none of them are used in PVE.

@Rhyse.8179 said:What I'd like to see is more dynamic NPC fights.

What I mean is that the game is designed with mostly PVP mechanics (short CC, reflex responses, etc) but is balanced based on PVE mechanics (HP sponges, endurance encounters, cc immunity, repetitive AI).

It'd be great to see more mobs that responded to the mechanics in the game. More CC vulnerability, weakness to interruption, support NPC's that need to be taken out first (mordrem menders) and so on. HOT started down this path, but they overtuned it and due to complaints about difficulty have gone 180 degrees on it with POF. The mechanics were good, but there was no learning curve. Anet, please don't mistake poor balancing and expectation management with bad game mechanics. The combat mechanics in HOT were great, they just needed to be eased into and not dropped en masse in the first zone.

I agree completely. I love when I need to use CC, interrupts, and skills that aren't just about doing damage or enabling my teammates to do more damage. I think especially in instanced group content, there's a lot of room for throwing interesting groups of enemy types together and that sort of thing.

I can understand why PoF took a step or two back regarding open world mobs (though there are some challenging enemy types in PoF, as well, it's just not as much about group dynamics). But I think instanced PvE is a good place for things like healer/buffing mobs, defensive or tank-type mobs, ranged mobs standing back and being elusive, or other mechanics that make you feel like you're a team fighting against another team.

+1 to more interesting npc/ai fights. Would still love to watch the pvp dummy ai's used more in the game, especially for roaming small groups of veterans.

Wanted to point out one thing I really miss from LS1 was actually this gem: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tower_of_Nightmares_(zone)

It's been so long ago I don't remember most of it any longer, but it only allowed a small amount of players in (~10 iirc) and you where strongly encouraged to work together to progress, sort of a semi-open mini-dungeon thing.

Would love to see more content aimed at people teaming up, even in smaller numbers (2-3)

The main problem with new content is, that most of the players even don't have a chance to complete it (I am looking at You RAIDS! ). I love whole new fractals, maps, events, currencies, etc, but as over 13-years-veteran I never completed any Raid, because of "10-Man-Pro-Team". It's sad, that I have to read whole story from wiki instead of play it. Just look at it overally - what is the percentage of players who raid? 5%-10%? What is the percantage of people, who never completed ONE raid wing? I think it's over 50% of population.

How many people completed world bosses many times? Almost everyone !How many people completed Fractals T1-T2? Probably more than 50% of community!How many people completed Meta in Istan or Silverwastes? I think over 70%!

I hate democracy, because of stupidity of most people, but in games, that's a great choice to look over community and just NUMBERS. Please no more raids, just focus on metas, world bosses etc.

They won't do any 5-man group instanced content outside of fractals anymore. They struggle even with releasing fractals at this point, not mentioning raids. As for world events... well... look at Kourna metaevent to get general idea what they have to offer at this point.

For some reason their development got pretty stale and is basically copy-pasting old solutions (look at Kourna again, they simply copypasted Crystal Oasis bounties there and called it a day).

@"Iron.4372" said:The main problem with new content is, that most of the players even don't have a chance to complete it (I am looking at You RAIDS! ). I love whole new fractals, maps, events, currencies, etc, but as over 13-years-veteran I never completed any Raid, because of "10-Man-Pro-Team". It's sad, that I have to read whole story from wiki instead of play it. Just look at it overally - what is the percentage of players who raid? 5%-10%? What is the percantage of people, who never completed ONE raid wing? I think it's over 50% of population.

How many people completed world bosses many times? Almost everyone !How many people completed Fractals T1-T2? Probably more than 50% of community!How many people completed Meta in Istan or Silverwastes? I think over 70%!

I hate democracy, because of stupidity of most people, but in games, that's a great choice to look over community and just NUMBERS. Please no more raids, just focus on metas, world bosses etc.

About 65% of all players have never killed a single raid boss. That's a little more than the percentage of players who have never won a ranked sPvP match or the percentage of players who have never reached 100% map completion in core tyria. Should those activities be discontinued? I could certainly do without ranked sPvP...

Raids are directed at a certain player-demographic that is crucial to the GW2 community. How many wiki-contributors raid on a regular basis? How many guild-leaders? How many content creators on YouTube? How many streamers? How many PvE commanders, who entertain and help GW2 retain players every day, spend one or two days each week raiding? The length of a player's follower list and the likelyhood of them raiding are positively correlated.

I want to see the return of big events, like a new Ley-line anomaly boss type, and new world bosses just like the old ones that worth their names in a timer.

@"segman.3560" said:They won't do any 5-man group instanced content outside of fractals anymore. They struggle even with releasing fractals at this point, not mentioning raids. As for world events... well... look at Kourna metaevent to get general idea what they have to offer at this point.

Assuming they keep up the pace they're currently on, they'll reach 25 fractals at some point sooner than later. That's an interesting number, because it means that each fractal can show up once per tier. At that point, I suppose there's a choice. They could increase the number of tiers or the number of fractals per tier, but I think that'd be the most boring option. They could keep introducing new fractals and either start rotating the available ones or retiring old or unpopular fractals. Or they could start building up a different form of five-player content.

That said, while I wouldn't expect to have a whole new form of five-player instanced content spring up alongside fractals and raids without affecting the pacing of fractals and raids, I wouldn't personally mind if they started alternating between a fractal and a "scenario" or some other kind of five-player group content. So instead of the current release cadence, which goes fractal -> raid -> fractal -> raid -> etc., they could instead go fractal -> raid -> non-fractal 5-player -> raid -> fractal -> etc. Though admittedly I don't know how attached most other fractal players are to fractals specifically and if they'd generally accept non-fractal 5-player stuff (as long as it's still challenging/rewarding) or if they'd really prefer everything be done through the fractal system.

For my part, I just want to see other themes. After so long with only fractals, having the only 5-player group stuff happen in the Mists forever and ever gets old.

@Agent Noun.7350 said:

@segman.3560 said:They won't do any 5-man group instanced content outside of fractals anymore. They struggle even with releasing fractals at this point, not mentioning raids. As for world events... well... look at Kourna metaevent to get general idea what they have to offer at this point.

Their pace is pretty inconsistent to make any predictions. Also, between new maps there may happen some overhauls. And when we achieve mental piece with 25 unique fractal maps and all nevesarry reworks, the game will be so old they will probably just leave it.

One other note about my "scenario" proposal: I'm specifically suggesting that ArenaNet make use of already-made maps for these. That can include instanced versions of open-world maps (which is something we do in the story quests, and would also be similar to Destiny's strikes) or single-player instances that were used once in past stories.

• Using instanced versions of open-world maps could let ArenaNet set five-player "dungeons" in places like Vehtendi Arena, Gandara the Moon Fortress, or other cool structures that also housed single-player story quests. And because they're included in existing open-world maps, the scenarios can include things that take place outside of them, too, possibly incorporating mounts or even adapted versions of open-world events.
• We could also revisit single-player instances like Claw Island, Glint's Lair from LW season 2, and similar places. These maps already exist and could be adapted (some paths blocked off, for example, or other paths opened) to allow for a new small-group dungeon to use their existing art and level geometry (and probably enemy models, too).

Obviously I don't know a lot about how ArenaNet's development process works, so I don't know for sure if this would actually be a significant enough resource-saving measure to let these be developed more quickly than a new fractal. From the outside it looks like it could, but I do work in software and I know that nothing is ever as simple as it looks, even when it looks complicated.

@segman.3560 said:

@Agent Noun.7350 said:

@segman.3560 said:They won't do any 5-man group instanced content outside of fractals anymore. They struggle even with releasing fractals at this point, not mentioning raids. As for world events... well... look at Kourna metaevent to get general idea what they have to offer at this point.

I dunno, I feel like people assume GW2 is nearing the end of its lifespan just because GW1 didn't last very long, but one data point does not a pattern make. Meanwhile, WoW is still running 14 years on, Dark Age of Camelot is still kicking, and even EverQuest gets yearly expansions. The first EverQuest. Yeah, I know, it's kind of nuts.

I'm not saying ArenaNet is going to keep GW2 running literally forever, but successful MMOs have a longer lifespan than anyone would expect. It's possible that GW2's engine is coded in such a way that it's impossible to improve it enough that it'll still be able to do what ArenaNet wants it to in eight years, or that something will come along that makes it not economical to keep it running (RIP CoH, Asheron's Call, and other oldies but goodies), I really don't know.