Where is the PvE game heading?

I am just curious with where we are at with the game and where is it heading?I mean for pve. Pve contents split to normal world content where everyone can participate , 10 men raids and 5 men fractal/ dungeon, which dungeon is almost dead with no future update plans. To be honest, I am quite tired and bored with the small group challenge contents (raids and fractal cm). Many of my friends are on the same boat and many have quit. :(Look around you in your game and tell me your experience.. your in game friends, have they moved on? I find it hard to maintain a good friend circle for longer than 6 months with this game content. In the early days, when we had many updates for pve (exclude raids) we had friends around the world.. good for many years until raids came. tell me if you are experiencing the same. I just feel a little sad to see where the game is moving. I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on. I just feel that the game we had before raids were so much more relaxing to play with and people are friendlier. we lost that community.. if we cam make the game more relaxing to play with more open world content like the living story before and mini side games with new dungeon/fractals it will be awesome. and btw I feel that the mistlock doesn't really help to make fractal any interesting. This is just how I feel :) tell us your story and your thinking.oh and yes not forgetting PvP and WvW, i would like to see update on that part of the game mode too.

I don't think the small Raid/Fractal Team is subverting a whole lot of resources away from Open World content.Remember, before Raids were introduced, the game experienced a long period of content drought. And, ever since then, we have had pretty regular content releases.Dungeons were abandoned long before Raids, as well. Fractals are the new 'dungeons'.

@Talindra.4958 said:I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on.

Do you honestly believe that the game puts too much focus on raids and fractals? Are we talking about Guild Wars 2 here or some other game?

If you're focusing mainly on raids and CM Fractals of course you're going to mainly meet people who focus on those too, and then it's easy to end up feeling like there's nothing else to do or no one is doing it. Anet still adds open-world content on a regular basis, and many of us still play it - come join us if you like.

Have you done 100% map completion on all the story maps? Fully upgraded the Sunspear Sanctuary? Got all your elite spec weapons? Done the meta-achievement for each episode? That's just a few things beyond the basic story completion which will get you into some of the less obvious PvE content, some of which does require organised groups but some can be done solo or with whoever happens to be around.

since i don't do any kind of PVP, don't have any in-game friends and don't like to play with strangers about 80% of the game is out of reach for me.the story is boring and only has obvious crap so that's a no go, the open world is more and more behind story walls and i hate that. (i want to walk to any place i want as long as i own it, not have a boring stupid 2 part story to block my way just to get to a frikin place)i don't consider achievements content, they try to use that as replacement for quests but achievements are empty, soulless and add absolutely nothing to the game beside a waste of time.

for me, all they need to do is add quests and we're done, and no, hearts are miles from being quests replacers and DE's are more annoying side events then quest replacers.

@sorudo.9054 said:since i don't do any kind of PVP, don't have any in-game friends and don't like to play with strangers about 80% of the game is out of reach for me.the story is boring and only has obvious kitten so that's a no go, the open world is more and more behind story walls and i hate that. (i want to walk to any place i want as long as i own it, not have a boring stupid 2 part story to block my way just to get to a frikin place)i don't consider achievements content, they try to use that as replacement for quests but achievements are empty, soulless and add absolutely nothing to the game beside a waste of time.

for me, all they need to do is add quests and we're done, and no, hearts are miles from being quests replacers and DE's are more annoying side events then quest replacers.

So when did you find out you are in the wrong game then?

@aspirine.6852 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:since i don't do any kind of PVP, don't have any in-game friends and don't like to play with strangers about 80% of the game is out of reach for me.the story is boring and only has obvious kitten so that's a no go, the open world is more and more behind story walls and i hate that. (i want to walk to any place i want as long as i own it, not have a boring stupid 2 part story to block my way just to get to a frikin place)i don't consider achievements content, they try to use that as replacement for quests but achievements are empty, soulless and add absolutely nothing to the game beside a waste of time.

for me, all they need to do is add quests and we're done, and no, hearts are miles from being quests replacers and DE's are more annoying side events then quest replacers.

where did i say that?

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on.

Well compare to other part of games it's either gemstore update or most popularly talked about -- raid.. but I still hope we get more community friendly update eg tequalt remake. Triple trouble.. map like dragon stance chak egg .. etc.Recently news about community group disbanded.. they have been around for a long time organising events.. now we can ask snow crow to come up with a triple trouble guide and build

@Danikat.8537 said:If you're focusing mainly on raids and CM Fractals of course you're going to mainly meet people who focus on those too, and then it's easy to end up feeling like there's nothing else to do or no one is doing it. Anet still adds open-world content on a regular basis, and many of us still play it - come join us if you like.

Have you done 100% map completion on all the story maps? Fully upgraded the Sunspear Sanctuary? Got all your elite spec weapons? Done the meta-achievement for each episode? That's just a few things beyond the basic story completion which will get you into some of the less obvious PvE content, some of which does require organised groups but some can be done solo or with whoever happens to be around.

Yeah been doing a little bit of raids since day 1. Done most if not all pve contents that I can reach.. I been around since gw1. With all the changes and evolution have always been a supporter :) you see me in open world content sometimes in map chat.. not in the prime time of my server thiugh since I play at oceanic time in EU server ^.^

@Talindra.4958 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on.

Are you missing the 4 episodes released so far during Season 4? Or for some reason you don't count those? Nobody is talking about those?Triple Trouble was released in January of 2014, nearly 5 years ago. The gw2community that disbanded did so because in 5 years we never got anything like Triple Trouble which to this day remains the only content in the game that requires that kind of high level of organization. Dragon's Stand is nothing compared to it, you need 15 people spread on the 3 points and you can finish Dragon's Stand. Didn't you get the memo? This loud forum "playerbase" didn't like meta events and that's why they didn't add any large scale meta events in Path of Fire (even Serpent's Ire is tiny in comparison), the loud players asked for it, and they got it. Instead of saying that they are focusing on raids/fractals (which I find laughable) you can say that they focus on farm fiestas like Istan and lackluster open world metas like the Deathbranded Shatterer.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I don't think the small Raid/Fractal Team is subverting a whole lot of resources away from Open World content.Remember, before Raids were introduced, the game experienced a long period of content drought. And, ever since then, we have had pretty regular content releases.Dungeons were abandoned long before Raids, as well. Fractals are the new 'dungeons'.

Maybe I have overlooked .. but I used to have the group of friends from beta.. quit the game due to many reasons one of it is raid. Me and my partner continue to pursue with what the game offers so we are still around and we will be :)

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on.

Exactly what I'd like to point out... There's no support or content like that which will encourage this positive community events.. tequalt was amazing when it first intro.. even until today ppl still do it. hot map is amazing.... Recent update is a little different.

@Talindra.4958 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on.

Then point that out and don't blame the snail pace release rate of Fractals or Raids for it. The open world portion of the game turned from meta events that gather lots of players to communicate and coordinate in order to finish them, into simple loot fiestas. This has nothing to do with the tiny amount of instanced content we get in the game, but your problem should be about changing how the big map events work. Maybe the next expansion will return to Heart of Thorns type of meta maps

tbh i am fed up of these contant 'hate on raid' threads.

The raid team is a handful of people. They do not take resources away from open world and if raids were removed entirely from the game, living world would not release any faster, and additional content would MAYBE be 1 more acheievement per release if we judge on how fast instanced content is developed. Raids get released once per year.

I can counter your argument that all your friends quit because of raids, in that all MY friends quit the game in the first 6 months because of a LACK of raids ( or equivalent endgame challenge).

Everything you seem to enjoy, like hot meta events, were released alongside the first raid. They arent mutually exclusive.

Living world gets way more than any other game mode invested in it already. If it cant hold your interest than thats probably the fault of anets design to make throwaway lw maps that have almost no replay ability outside the few weeks it takes to complete all the achievements in them.

If you are still convinced that raids are killing the game. Please explain how LESS content would be good for gw2.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on.

If the next expansion is hot type meta map it would be nice.. one of best contents. Would rather them work on that quickly .. and take my money ?

@zombyturtle.5980 said:tbh i am fed up of these contant 'hate on raid' threads.

The raid team is a handful of people. They do not take resources away from open world and if raids were removed entirely from the game, living world would not release any faster, and additional content would MAYBE be 1 more acheievement per release if we judge on how fast instanced content is developed. Raids get released once per year.

I can counter your argument that all your friends quit because of raids, in that all MY friends quit the game in the first 6 months because of a LACK of raids ( or equivalent endgame challenge).

Everything you seem to enjoy, like hot meta events, were released alongside the first raid. They arent mutually exclusive.

Living world gets way more than any other game mode invested in it already. If it cant hold your interest than thats probably the fault of anets design to make throwaway lw maps that have almost no replay ability outside the few weeks it takes to complete all the achievements in them.

If you are still convinced that raids are killing the game. Please explain how LESS content would be good for gw2.

It's not a raid hate post. I still play raids on two accounts. I'm saying from my observation since beta.. the most fun time in guildwars for me was gw1 pvp and gw2 pve before raids was introduce.. I had fun after raid too and did enjoy the new content , but the community is not the same .. even update for guild is to none. There is a lot of update for gemstore and mount skins etc.. gamble tickets and so on....

We shouldnt really worry about gemstore updates. Without them, there would be even less content. More gemstore updates, means more and better quality long term.

@sorudo.9054 said:since i don't do any kind of PVP, don't have any in-game friends and don't like to play with strangers about 80% of the game is out of reach for me.the story is boring and only has obvious kitten so that's a no go, the open world is more and more behind story walls and i hate that. (i want to walk to any place i want as long as i own it, not have a boring stupid 2 part story to block my way just to get to a frikin place)i don't consider achievements content, they try to use that as replacement for quests but achievements are empty, soulless and add absolutely nothing to the game beside a waste of time.

for me, all they need to do is add quests and we're done, and no, hearts are miles from being quests replacers and DE's are more annoying side events then quest replacers.

Don't we have quests? I mean collections are GW2 quests, I really enjoyed 'Aurora' 1st collection, I missed daily grind for some reason and questing in general, was a good busy 2 weeks.

Have elits spec weapons done but ele and rev, several other collections that I find was worth and/or useful

@sorudo.9054 said:

@aspirine.6852 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:since i don't do any kind of PVP, don't have any in-game friends and don't like to play with strangers about 80% of the game is out of reach for me.the story is boring and only has obvious kitten so that's a no go, the open world is more and more behind story walls and i hate that. (i want to walk to any place i want as long as i own it, not have a boring stupid 2 part story to block my way just to get to a frikin place)i don't consider achievements content, they try to use that as replacement for quests but achievements are empty, soulless and add absolutely nothing to the game beside a waste of time.

for me, all they need to do is add quests and we're done, and no, hearts are miles from being quests replacers and DE's are more annoying side events then quest replacers.

You didn't say it in so many words, but since you don't seem to like anything about the game (PvP, WvW, group content, story, social activities, achievements, hearts, etc.), it seems pretty clear that it's not the right game for you.

@Talindra.4958 said:

@"zombyturtle.5980" said:tbh i am fed up of these contant 'hate on raid' threads.

The raid team is a handful of people. They do not take resources away from open world and if raids were removed entirely from the game, living world would not release any faster, and additional content would MAYBE be 1 more acheievement per release if we judge on how fast instanced content is developed. Raids get released once per year.

I can counter your argument that all your friends quit because of raids, in that all MY friends quit the game in the first 6 months because of a LACK of raids ( or equivalent endgame challenge).

Everything you seem to enjoy, like hot meta events, were released alongside the first raid. They arent mutually exclusive.

Living world gets way more than any other game mode invested in it already. If it cant hold your interest than thats probably the fault of anets design to make throwaway lw maps that have almost no replay ability outside the few weeks it takes to complete all the achievements in them.

If you are still convinced that raids are killing the game. Please explain how LESS content would be good for gw2.

thing is, thats exactly anets buisness plan. they "don´t really" gift us LS episodes for free, they use them to lure people back in the game every few months to spent their money on the gemshop.without (the announcement of) raids i would have never returned for gw2, because i found the "endgame" rather stale and boring. i also had no reason to even speak/engage with other players since it was pretty much a soloplayer experience. sure "we" have some rather rude community members, but my freindlist would be much shorter without that content.

@"Talindra.4958" said:I am just curious with where we are at with the game and where is it heading?I mean for pve. Pve contents split to normal world content where everyone can participate , 10 men raids and 5 men fractal/ dungeon, which dungeon is almost dead with no future update plans. To be honest, I am quite tired and bored with the small group challenge contents (raids and fractal cm). Many of my friends are on the same boat and many have quit. :(Look around you in your game and tell me your experience.. your in game friends, have they moved on? I find it hard to maintain a good friend circle for longer than 6 months with this game content. In the early days, when we had many updates for pve (exclude raids) we had friends around the world.. good for many years until raids came. tell me if you are experiencing the same. I just feel a little sad to see where the game is moving. I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on. I just feel that the game we had before raids were so much more relaxing to play with and people are friendlier. we lost that community.. if we cam make the game more relaxing to play with more open world content like the living story before and mini side games with new dungeon/fractals it will be awesome. and btw I feel that the mistlock doesn't really help to make fractal any interesting. This is just how I feel :) tell us your story and your thinking.oh and yes not forgetting PvP and WvW, i would like to see update on that part of the game mode too.

I agree whit what you say. I somehow feel the same. But the raids are not the only cause. In fact, I think the raids could be a good add-on for the game. But the way the raids were implemented (I'm inclined to think by intention) - only accessible to the "best / dedicated / elite part" of the playerbase -not the normal players - caused a fracture. Not because of the difficulty, but because of the rewards. It was for a first time in GW2 life when a reward was refused from the very start for the majority of the players.Because, as you said: "Pve contents split to normal world content where everyone can participate , 10 men raids and 5 men fractal/ dungeon". I don't know in what world our devs were raised, but in the world I live the "normal" is the most encountered atribute. The "out of normal" - in both direction - is less frequent. So, in my opinion, the raids + decision to reward the "non-normals" were the causes for the actual .... way the players feel the game.

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:I don't think the small Raid/Fractal Team is subverting a whole lot of resources away from Open World content.Remember, before Raids were introduced, the game experienced a long period of content drought. And, ever since then, we have had pretty regular content releases.Dungeons were abandoned long before Raids, as well. Fractals are the new 'dungeons'.

No matter how much of the resources are used by the Raid Team. No matter how many resources are used by the Open World team. The result is a very impersonal content, something unable to make you to "be there". Almost everything released in the last year is about grinding / repeating content / restrictions (all kind of restrictions - you cannot craft more than one gen2 Leg / you cannot craft more than one trinket / you cannot have XP if you had not a raid completed (they discarded this recently) / you cannot have ..... Well, You cannot.....) .This is not something you can find very often in the early GW2. It seems that with every "improvement" the game became better looking but started to loose the atmosphere. And, in my interpretation this is what the OP accuses: The lack of the friendly environment where you can play and make friends and even in these conditions you can achieve something (some pixels, indeed, but something).

No matter how skillful the devs are in what they do, no matter what level of technical knowledge they have, no matter how many tons of content they release. It seems they lack the ability to create a friendly environment. Where the players enjoy to spend the time. By "friendly" I don't understand "easy". As a proof you can look at the Triple Trouble event - this is not easy .But the ppl still enjoy it more than the endless farming in Istan. Not easy, but enjoyable.

i love the game... i bought it since it’s released and only in recent years i have been more active.. i don’t even play raids, personal story, pvp and wvw... i do have 9 classes and it’s enough to keep going ... like taking down the dragon over over again at dragon stand

Dont quite get how can you be tired of challenging instanced content. Maybe u mean its too much of a focus or that said content is too little.

Esp for fractal cms id say have seen the least attention from anet alongside raids.

That lack of updates or rather the long w8 times between updates can hurt ppl's interest and enjoyment and try to lead them elsewhere where the grass might be greener.

For me so far lw has kinda been disapointing, they have pucked a style of updates and have been worming on it for around 2+ years. You'd expect they would become more efficient and we would see w8 times between updates being closer to the 2 month cadence.

Instead it seems episodes, raids and fractals(normal ones mind you) all take longer than what they would take earlier.

Your issue is not with raids or the game content outside of raids. None of those things changed much. Raids do not take away a ton of developement ressources as far what we have been told, living world episodes add more grind content than they ever have in the past and are in general more polished. So what has changed?

1.) you are in a 6 year old game and have as such amassed a ton of in game wealth. This is good and bad. There is no more gear incentives for you. Many people run out of things to do without a carrot

2.) there has been an increase in gem store related content to fund the game. It's not pay to win, but still more developer resources go here than in the past

3.) fractals and raids have pushed the players to become more efficient and hardcore. Regular content gets consumed at a much faster pace and/or is less interesting now for many

4.) pve will grow stale. The only games who have successfully staved this off are ones with a dynamic world or player made content (Eve Online) or ones who force people to constantly regrind (FF14, WoW, etc.) or both (ESO). GW2 answer to this should be WvW, but that game mode needs a lot of love and new content and design

Basically what this culminates to is: you have become more efficient at consuming game content and as such are more easily bored now. Factor in the fatigue of playing 6 years and the wealth accumulated and you should be able to see why you might feel bored.

EDIT: typos and correction to auto correct from my phone.

@sorudo.9054 said:for me, all they need to do is add quests and we're done, and no, hearts are miles from being quests replacers and DE's are more annoying side events then quest replacers.

Do you mean quests like Knight of the Thorn? Or the collections that have you do a series of related tasks? Or is there something more specific you want quests to be?