Hello there,

Here is a small post, about some current in-game aspect, that may or may not need addressing. Please do let me know what you think.

edits:-04/03/2019 deleted section about theorists (was not relevant)-04/03/2019 deleted Raids 10man content (general knowledge information) that took too much place and were unnecessary-05/03/2019 changed PVP sphere image (GvG 40+ to 15+)-05/03/2019 edited some section of the text, to make it clearer

I am writing this post, due to recent event, and also out of growing frustration for a game that I loved, but which fail to conceptualise it's competitive projects or just to bring player together to play the game. And as of right now, my Guild Wars 2 experience looks something like that (see below)

I believe there is a serious lack of content during the 'dead time' and this is what I would like to address here. What I call 'dead time' is in between two patch or rather two major patch when player are just (and I don't think I'm exaggerating here) suffering through game content until the next content comes out. I therefore want to discuss the following content and highlights some of the problems which I think arises from them:

• PVE sphere
• PVP sphere
• Global Game Economy
• Content Exhaustion and the notion of Guild

1. The PVE sphere

Key ideas: DFR (Dungeons/Fractals/Raids) needs more inexhaustible content, Open World doesn't offer 'Guild playable content'

I don't claim to have the answer to 'making PvE better', but I think one can see some pretty self explanatory flaws from this drawing.

In term of PVE content, Guild Wars 2 offers three different dungeon/raid type game mode: Dungeons (3-5man; daily reset), Fractals (5man; daily reset), and Raids (10man; weekly reset). And it's open World Content, which includes World Discovery, achievement completion, farming resources, Meta-events, Jumping puzzle.... etc.While we get it that there is a lot of content available for players to play, it would however be a mistake to think of those game modes as 1, and that they should be viewed as extremely different and specific content. And that while it is an MMORPG, and that players are thus expected up to some extent to cross the boundaries of those different game modes.

Now, let's be realistic here. Guild Wars 2 is a free to play MMORPG, as it doesn't have a monthly paid subscription as compared to other game such as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy Online. On that basis, I believe, it would be wrong to assume or expect Raid or content release to be as good as monthly subscription game. It just isn't realistic, the numbers don't work. Guild Wars 2 can't have enough developers working on raid content to match other games. And this is fine. Dungeons and Fractals on the other end could and should be done better. The lack of competitiveness available in the Raid content due to the lack of patch release and game mode difficulties shouldn't be representative of Dungeons and Fractals.

Dungeons and/or fractals should have their own competitive game mode, which should make up for the slow release of Raid content.

Raids reset are probably what make the most sense and items acquisition (while skins could be better) is great too. And let's give some credit to Anet here, while the content release is fairly slow, raids content which has been released has been outstanding. Boss mechanics appears to be different on every single boss fights, which would arguably contribute for few boss release but new mechanics all the time.

Then, on to the next set of problem and this is a fairly complex one: Open World. Open World is.... interesting, obscure, promising. To be fair when I started this article I wasn't even sure, whether or not 'Open World' should have it's own section, or not. And by that I mean it is a completely different game mode than DFR (Dungeons/Fractals/Raids) and while players are expected to play both game mode (depending on how much you play), you can get around enjoying the game playing only DFR or Open World.

My initial interpretation of all that, is that I understands Anet prioritising some game content over others, that totally make sense, and the game is well balanced that way I would say. I do however think that some section can be bonded together, such as Guild Missions + Bounties + Meta Events. As the game is looking right now, the only Guild based for the game in open world are the Guild Mission, Meta Events and Bounties, but arguably, there should be more Guild base clearable content, for example modes which if you do that content with a Guild, you could for example farm some currency for Guild Hall rewards or other.As it is right now, the content is exhaustive, once you've acquired the items that you were looking for, repeating the content is not rewarding and becomes boring, even though not all content should be rewardable, the game should at least introduce ways to keep players interested, get them to form groups and play the game together.

2. The PVP sphere

Key ideas: GvG scene needs spaces; Conquest 'season 5v5' non-full team availability is problematic

Arguably, Guild Wars 2 PvP content in terms of repetitiveness and competitiveness, is better than its PvE content. I say arguably, because GW2 PvP content is inaccessible or extremely hard to comprehend for new players. Due to its character animation based gameplay, it is harder for players to know when to block or execute their chain combo skills, and until, arguably, Platinum II (for Conquest) and GvG (for WvW), players are struggling to know when to execute their skills. Twitch players also took the opportunity to create their own community content, while making GvG content for massive player vs player and has it's own tournament comment for the monthly tournament created. as well as hosting their own 1vs 1 on twitch which brings the community together.

However, my goal here is to highlight the lack of content playable by players as a community. Conquest which appears to be the most accessible PvP content doesn't offer much opportunity for players to form a group and play the higher end tier content. It is weird that, the off/on season appears to be changing everything within the conquest game mode. There simply are more players during the pvp season playing the game while off season, and while this is normal and make sense as rewards are higher it is also problematic. I am in no way saying that Season and off-season should have the same rewards, no. I am referring to the fact that Guild Wars 2 has shown inconsistency of the amount of players that can form a group for the Season PvP scene (it's generally been caped to 1-2 players). Now it seems that Arena Net countered this by now offering a better tournament system with better rewards to urge players to form a group and queue for Tournament match. But this simply isn't working. Queue times are simply not working. And in most cases 5 completely random players join together to form a group. Hence I do not understand why the game is not offering alternative options for 5v5 competitive modes or any other competitive mode that could fix this issue.

I would also like to highlight that GW2 is not a MOBA game, and as its failure upon delivering a competitive PVP scene has shown us, it doesn't work the same way as MOBA PVP scene nor should it be interpreted in the same way. They are different game type and it wouldn't make sense to try and take one game mode to apply it on Guild Wars 2. Therefore my point here is that. The current 5v5 (non-season) playable game mode available is just not an option. As opposed to the MOBA scene, in which every single player in the game is playing a competitive player vs. player game, Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG and simply doesn't have enough player interested in that game mode to make the 5v5 (rewardless) game mode interesting enough.

I would suggest 3v 3 content to be created, however, I am positive that Guild Wars 2 thought about this, and if they didn't go forward with it, I am curious as to why. Maybe the shift was too scary. However things can be incremental, and removed if they turn up to be a complete flop. But, I think, if the multiple PvP seasons have shown us anything at all, it is that GW2 aim to reanimate the PvP scene, while working, is working slowly. And due to the relatively difficult accessibility of the game, I do think, that a Full Team (3v3 and/or 5v5), immediately accessible content, would be beneficiary to players learning experience. I will talk about it later in section 4, but there seems to have been an interest by the player community to push certain content, in an attempt to 'revive/make it more accessible' to the rest of the community.

I will not pronounce myself on the WvW and GvG, I have very little experience within that field. Overall, it seems to be doing fine. The player community is really pushing for it, and the Devs seems to be responsive and hearing towards players comments. The only thing ,which I could have to say, is that, as the GvG scene is developing at a fast-paste, GW2 should provide spaces for it to happen more easily.

3. Global Game Economy

Key ideas: DFR and PvP scene should have more impact on the Global Game Economy; Guilds too; ANet appears to be controlling players activity through the Global Game Market; Fashion Wars shouldn't be the END GAME content

Here is when things start becoming interesting, because this drawing (see above) gives us some idea about how GW2 dynamics might be at work here. So on the one hand you got players contribution to the global game market and on the other hand, the illusion that they do. Players, through playing the game, acquire items, craft skins and therefore, contribute to the game economy. However, this is only an illusion, as the game is in someways forcing you to play 'Open World' in order to farm specific items, to be able to craft legendaries. And the end game content provided through the game is Fashion Wars. The acquisition of skins, and while this make sense and Guild Wars 2 being a free to play (non-subscription type) game, they have to get some money somewhere. Why am I now arguing that players contribution to the global economy is inexistent? Is because it is simply an illusion. The PVE and PVP spheres are IN NO WAY contributing to the global economy.

Let me further explain, PVP while giving you gold for playing the game, doesn't give you any specific type items that makes a significant change to the game economy (and here the critical point 'significant'). In other words, you do get some items and boxes for playing the game, but those are general items, and there are no items that let's say are only providable by Guilds playing WvW. Now, the same occurs for PvE – there are no 'Raid only' or 'Dungeon only' items which Guilds or Groups can farm and then sell. So what this means, is that, while you actually think that every game mode is profitable to the game economy it truly is not, as the game is mostly forcing you to go Play Specific Game Type controlled by Guild Wars 2, and in this instance, the game is pushing players to constantly go and play Open World in order to farm significant amount of Gold and craft their legendaries or other items faster.

Now, here is my understanding of it. First,. I do understand that Guild Wars 2 needs to control the game market, in order to get people to buy skins/lootbox, account upgrades.... you name it. Second, I also understands that implementation of such items can have major impact on the game economy. However, and here is my point I do believe that it can be controlled, and beneficiary in some ways to both get people to play some contents together and get Guilds more significant representation or a specific market share within Guild Items creation, would Guilds wish to pursue that route. I do not want to get into detail, but I am sure that a lot of ideas, can be found to push into that direction, and thus make PVP and PVE sphere market contribution within the context of Guilds or outside much more significant.

Let me give you an example. I was arguing that as the community is taking GvG to the next level, and that the only things I could see was that specific spaces for the GvG to happen should be 'sponsored' by the game. Within that in mind, Special competitive halls, within Guild Halls could be manually editable by players and thus display some nice craftable items in order to provide interests for the players. What I am suggesting is NOT to suddenly have PVE an PVP sphere providing an insane amount of different items, that can be acquired through those game modes. But to have some specific items, which would bring players from the same Guild/Communities to play the game together. Fractals are already doing that up to some extend with Matrixes, but I'm talking bounties, WvW siege, Conquest, Raids, specific game content that may or may not required a Guild to clear them.

I do realise that such of those proposition seems utopic, those are only examples of suggestion, and can also be incremental within the game. No major change is required. This then takes us to the next section.

4. Content exhaustion and the notion of Guilds

Key ideas: Content exhaustion is categorising players and not respecting players interests diversity; More 'inexhaustible' content; More Guild or Group activities

This brings us to the last section of this article. The main argument, that is that: now looking at an overall picture of Guild Wars 2 game content, with the idea of Global Economy in mind, one can see the impact which favoritising one game play may have on the other ones. Pushing the Raids content, may displease some players, that may not enjoy and that wishes not to have to play that gameplay. However and here is my argument that, currently, Guild Wars 2 has too much exhaustive content – that is only repeatable / rewarding once a day or once a week. In other words, exhaustive content is creating effect within the game that is: players are 'surviving' through the game, farming the different items available while waiting for new content release to then farm new items and enjoy the game again. While the PVP scene is arguably fine. PVE players are waiting upon new fractals, new titles, new difficulties and new raids, while Open World Players (and everyone falls into that category up to some extend, as the GW2 economy 'forces' to go back to it would you wish to farm legendary items or other items, and this is fine, it's an MMORPG after all) are waiting for new LWS content to be release. Which create the effect of MEGA patch contrasted with the 'normal' patch which brings a different level of hype as I have demonstrated in the graph in the introduction section.

Now, this is totally fine, however it is also important important to remember that players cannot be categorised. PVP players don't only enjoy PVP content and sometimes appreciate some Open World content, or WvW content. And the PVE players don't only/or enjoy all form of PVE content 'Open World included'. Every player is very different and have different interest within the game. This may seem pretty straight forward however it can easily be forgotten, as the game is at-the-moment asking players to cross boundaries between the different game type and that is problematic within itself. While some players may enjoy a cross type experience (and in my opinion fully enjoy the game) others may not. And this is in-my-opinion what categorise for most of the 'seeable' player frustration on Reddit post, twitch discussions, and Forums post within their respective category. If we now go more in depth, and hence my argument to say that Guild Wars categorise players. While PVP players may enjoy an Open World Free (up to some extend) through it's repeatable content, PVE players may not and are currently forced to either cross boundaries to the PVP section or the Open World Section. Let me make it a clear statement here 'OPEN WORLD IS NOT PVE' it is something else altogether.

Hence my argument here that more 'inexhaustible content' should be created for players to enjoy 'together' within the context frame of a Guild or else. I guess that this quickly brings us up to a World of Warcraft: Mythic 'Dungeons' with different level of difficulty type. However this is not how it should be looked at. It is better viewed as new way to create 'inexhaustible' PVE/PVP/PVX content for a better competitive game play and create potentially new Global Economic market within the game.

Another point, and here is why the title 'What Twitch is telling us about the game?', there seems to have been a community response to the issue of 'exhaustible' / lack of competitiveness content within the game. And hence why I think that the 'exhaustible content' currently present here needs urgent addressing. Players who have responded to that exhaustion would be:-MightyTeapot with the creation of Raid Elitist tournaments and TeaTime https://twitch.tv/mightyteapot-Jawgeous with conquest PVP https://twitch.tv/jawgeous-Roy with current GvG organisation https://twitch.tv/roy__-John Freeman helping the community with free raid sell https://twitch.tv/johnscfreeman-ROM various PVP tournaments https://twitch.tv/roms_hut-Lord Helseth with personal commentary of GW2 monthly tournament https://twitch.tv/thelordhelseth-Wooden Potatoes with amazing and very insightful various content review https://youtube.com/user/WoodenPotatoes-and many more active twitch/youtuber who participate to the community contributionI am definitely forgetting many other active twitch/youtuber dedicated to the GW2 community, please do let me know who I am forgetting and I will update the list.

I also want to highlight that each of my drawings had Twitch and YouTube section within them, although I have not addressed them in the previous section I will address them here. The reason for those logos is because as well as being present within each section of the game. Twitch streamers are streaming various aspect of the game. Twitch can also be deceptive, give you the illusion that everything is going well in the game, or give you the exact opposite effect that people are getting frustrated. When, in order to under the truth behind those twitch representation is to look at it on the multiple levels. I have therefore incorporated within each of my drawings and let you make up your mind on that section. Or how those twitch/youtube could be use to boost the game, game mode representations.

Conclusion

While overall the game provide a very wide range of playable content, I however want to highlight that due to it's exhaustible PvE or PvP content, there is an overall growing community of players experiencing in-between patches frustration. Twitch streamers, players, and communities alike have tried to respond to those issues by any mean that they could, but there is only so much that they can do, and I believe Guild Wars 2 should respond to those communities by offering more content which 'brings players together' by the creation of more inexhaustible content.

Arguably, the 'Global Game Economy' is dubious, as only some extremely specific aspect of the game (mostly Open World) seems to have a major contribution to it, while the PvP and PvE sphere could have further contribution of their own.

The notion of Guilds should be looked at in further detail, I believe there is a current unseen potential within them as to bring player together. After all Guilds are community of players and there should be repeatable content for players to play together.

Last, I understand that Guild Wars 2 seems to have adopted a Patch Release (peak player interest) / Achievement based (keeping player interested during 'dead time') course of action. However as my graph at the beginning, and as the twitch representation is ultimately showing, player frustration within the sphere of players that do not necessarily appreciate every aspect of the game appears to be rising.

Wow - I'm not going to pretend to have read all that. But I'll say the same thing here as on that other post - having these 'down times' is only because of your approach. Nobody dictates that you have to exhaust new content as it comes out, or that you can't revisit old areas regularly. I never felt the need to do that, and I don't feel any down time. The game is intended to offer a lot of content and makes it possible to set long-term goals. You don't have to race to 'finish' each bit of expanded content as it emerges.

Off note: wvw is also 1+ man content because roaming is also a thing. GvG is in majority of the cases 15 man content (actual gvg, like in tournaments), it's guild raids that tend to be around 20-25 (with additional pugs sometimes) - it's better to just put it as 15+.

Wow. I did read all that, and frankly found that was unnecessary; could have just read the conclusion.Not sure the Devs will take the time to read all that...

I guess the tl;dr is that you are suggesting more Guild activities. ...I guess.

When did Twitch become any kind of authority? Did I miss a memo?

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Wow. I did read all that, and frankly found that was unnecessary; could have just read the conclusion.Not sure the Devs will take the time to read all that...

I guess the tl;dr is that you are suggesting more Guild activities. ...I guess.

In a way, yes I am suggesting more Guild activities but not only. I'm suggesting Guild activities as a way to bring people together to play the game, as I feel there isn't enough content to bring people to play the game together.

And yes, I guess you could just read the conclusion in order to get it all, I must assume, I have been repetitive within some paragraph. But you do get a better scope of what I am talking about by reading all

Twitch is irrelevant for 99 percent of the gamers and games (casual). Why would i want to see other people play when i can use my precious time playing the same game. Its only a platform for a select range of e-sport games, which i personally don't count under entertaining (nor i call them real sport) , more annoying and immature with all the bad language drama kids in the chat and competing each other. Wheres the fun in that? My advice play healthy, play for fun first, don't take it too serious, its a game, not a life.

@particlepinata.9865 said:Twitch is irrelevant for 99 percent of the gamers and games (casual). Why would i want to see other people play when i can use my precious time playing the same game. Its only a platform for a select range of e-sport games, which i personally don't count under entertaining (nor i call them real sport) , more annoying and immature with all the bad language drama kids in the chat and competing each other. Wheres the fun in that?

Alright, I agree. But I do think that there are steal some really good streamers. MightyTeapot TeeTime for example is extremely intuitive on game content. MMOINKS also has really good insights on the game, as well as many other Twitch streamers... And I would still say that compared to other MMORRGs such as World of Warcraft the community in GW2 is far better.

I would say that, thanks to scaling, zerging, set schedules etc, playing together in the open world is already happening, except depersonalised and automatic.

There is so little friction between layers thanks to the design, that players dont get in contact with eachother.

Whenever I feel like I've "completed everything" or don't have enough to do, a simple idea I like to embrace is to create a new character again on a class I've never played before. That means starting their story all the way back to their beginning, figuring out who they are, how they'll look, how they'll fight; essentially creating another person I can fall in love with again. Considering I only have two permanent characters so far (with a lot of failed experiments), there is Plenty of time to play the game at my own, apparently slow pace.

What's also nice is if there's a particular Legendary Weapon I think would be befitting to that character, that gives me a long-term goal to reach, but only when my character has "earned" it after reaching level 80 and defeating Zhaitan and moving further on to Mordremoth, Balthazar, etc. In the meantime, my own life goes on, the game continues to develop, and I don't ever feel "rushed" to do anything (except during Holidays ;) ) I could never understand the people that create dozens and dozens of characters that they feel little attachment to, other than to farm gold and other things, I guess? You shouldn't ever feel "forced" to play a single game all the time, especially with so many other great games that could also use some love and attention. But again, it's up to you of course. :)

I dunno, maybe I just have a weird perspective on it.

"Inexhaustible guild content" sounds a lot like "group oriented grind-fest" to me. That's the sort of stuff that GW2 purposefully tries to avoid. The thing about dynamic events and daily content is that it is convenient. It is casual. It is optional.

The more I read these forums, the more I am convinced that there's something out of whack with a segment of the MMO fan base. At a guess, some people play MMO's too much, and invest way too much importance in their play time. If I'm reading the OP correctly, he's calling for more stuff to do in a game that offers a bewildering and varied array of things to do -- unless you play an enormous amount of time.

I know it's way too late, but I there are time I wish that ANet had not entertained dreams of drawing some of the MMO market share that was "kind of a big deal" back when GW2 was in the formative stages.

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:"Inexhaustible guild content" sounds a lot like "group oriented grind-fest" to me. That's the sort of stuff that GW2 purposefully tries to avoid. The thing about dynamic events and daily content is that it is convenient. It is casual. It is optional.

@"IndigoSundown.5419" said:The more I read these forums, the more I am convinced that there's something out of whack with a segment of the MMO fan base. At a guess, some people play MMO's too much, and invest way too much importance in their play time. If I'm reading the OP correctly, he's calling for more stuff to do in a game that offers a bewildering and varied array of things to do -- unless you play an enormous amount of time.

I know it's way too late, but I there are time I wish that ANet had not entertained dreams of drawing some of the MMO market share that was "kind of a big deal" back when GW2 was in the formative stages.What's wrong with "group oriented grind-fest" and why is GW2 avoiding it, if people are currently getting frustrated (unless I am the only one, but that's not what I'm hearing on reddit/forums/twitch/in-game conversations) with high end PVE content. Also I don't believe that Raids/Fractals/Dungeons falls into the same category as Open World. So as it is right now, the game is currently asking those players (me included) to play/farm legendary or other 'exotic fashion wars items'. While I see the value of having a legendary item, I however do not have a particular interest to do achievement oriented grinding for account value purposes. In other words, I'd rather have fun 'playing' and 'enjoying' the game, instead of unlocking 'pixel items'.

I know that this is a very blunt and very harsh comment to say, and it is a very subjective point of view. So I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me, which is completely understandable. The bottom line is, the game does provide, good high end game content, but it's exhaustibility is just too fast. I have sometimes done daily Fractals of the Mists, two or three times a day, as well as repeating weekly raids clear. While, this does have its fun (testing out new class/builds), you just reach a point when you feel like you are wasting your time, and this is not cutting it out for you anymore. This is pretty sad in my opinion, as the amount of time you invested perfecting bosses mechanics, classes rotations, seems to go to waste at the end of the day. The only 'appearable 'options, which you are then left out with are: 1. Sell raid (I've been there, done that – it is pretty sad, and time consuming) or 2. Start exploring the other contents (PVP, Open World) the game as to offer. A 3rd option would be: change game, which isn't a solution at all. Thus, you are 'forced', in a way, to do Open World content and/or PVP. And here is my point, Open World/PVE and PVP/PVE are just too different from one another.

Open World is mostly solo player based, with the impression that you are playing a multiplayer game. You are surrounded by other players, playing with the same goal, completing that meta-event, or killing that boss for a bounty, or farming a collection, etc (...). But the game doesn't ask you to either communicate with those players or form a group. You can simply, get by, playing single player mode. Every time I ask a Guild member or just an in-game friend, if they want to join you to farm that item, or do this meta event, is most of the time a straight on "NO", as they have either already done that collection, or did their daily meta event today, etc...

So, YES, when the game seems strongly dedicated to stop me from playing with other people, or simply do not have "group oriented grind-fest", with no 'apparent reason, I start asking why.

I have attempted, to link it to the "Global Game Economy", and analyse how maybe this could be link to ArenaNet fear that, this may impact the Community, destroy the game economy or else, and ultimately get people to leave the game. But, nothing has to open over night. In other words, ArenaNet wouldn't need to implement changes over a single patch, it could be incremental and removed. While the game appear to offer a lot of promising platforms: Scalable Fractals, Bounties, Dungeons, Speedclear strats. They do not seem to take advantages of that.

@tim.4596 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Wow. I

did

read all that, and frankly found that was unnecessary; could have just read the conclusion.Not sure the Devs will take the time to read all that...

I guess the tl;dr is that you are suggesting more Guild activities. ...I guess.

Your biggest problem is I don't think you understand the market they're going after...it's a portion of the 3 billion people that play mobile games, those mobile gamers that may have played MMO's in the past but think they take up to much time and have left them behind. Even .1% of 3 billion people is 3 million players, that's not a small number...so having things for people to play together more is not going to entice that audience, and no, I don't mean it should be like a single player game either, but rather a hybrid, single but able to mingle with others, not necessarily have to play together.

You should have said you wanted more 'Challenging Group Content' in the first place. I didn't get that from the OP, at all.Unfortunately, that's not that popular with the playerbase.

Good luck.

Your entire section on the economy is plain incorrect or worded incorrectly. You are mislabeling issues and calling this "not contributing", using a way to general term. I understand what you are going for, but your approach, analysis and conclusion are plain wrong or faulty.

First off:Not having content unique loot is not the same as not contributing to the games economy. As a matter of fact, the goal was always to allow players to acquire wealth via any means they enjoy. Yes, this leads to overall generic and low value rewards (those couple of rares/greens/blues and silver per event). It also leads to constant wealth acquisition (almost everything can be turned into materials and/or traded on the TP, aka you always increase your wealth in some way unless you spend it, in which case you hopefully get something you desire in return).

While PvE is the main and most forward method of acquisition for wealth, Spvp and WvW have their own approaches with the reward tracks which need to see balance along the lines of for example semi afk ppt farming in WvW and semi afk Spvp players.

Finally, there is an item which requires WvW participation to some extent in regular demand by the PvE community: the Gift of Battle. The reception to being forced to play WvW content or spend weeks getting chests is not great.

While I personally agree that incentives could be made to encourage players to try other game modes (see the Warclaw). These must be carefully balanced against players desires to play or not play a game mode.

The rest of your analysis can be summed up as: we need more repeatable group content.

I'd leave out the qualification and keep it simple: we need more content.

@tim.4596 said:

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:"Inexhaustible guild content" sounds a lot like "group oriented grind-fest" to me. That's the sort of stuff that GW2 purposefully tries to avoid. The thing about dynamic events and daily content is that it is convenient. It is casual. It is optional.

@"IndigoSundown.5419" said:The more I read these forums, the more I am convinced that there's something out of whack with a segment of the MMO fan base. At a guess, some people play MMO's too much, and invest way too much importance in their play time. If I'm reading the OP correctly, he's calling for more stuff to do in a game that offers a bewildering and varied array of things to do -- unless you play an enormous amount of time.

I know it's way too late, but I there are time I wish that ANet had not entertained dreams of drawing some of the MMO market share that was "kind of a big deal" back when GW2 was in the formative stages.What's wrong with "group oriented grind-fest" and why is GW2 avoiding it, if people are currently getting frustrated (unless I am the only one, but that's not what I'm hearing on reddit/forums/twitch/in-game conversations) with high end PVE content. Also I don't believe that Raids/Fractals/Dungeons falls into the same category as Open World. So as it is right now, the game is currently asking those players (me included) to play/farm legendary or other 'exotic fashion wars items'. While I see the value of having a legendary item, I however do not have a particular interest to do achievement oriented grinding for account value purposes. In other words, I'd rather have fun 'playing' and 'enjoying' the game, instead of unlocking 'pixel items'.

The problems are the hard and high barrier to entry, fundamental player inequality, the high in-group toxicity that such an environment fosters, and also that most of the playerbase came here to avoid such a thing. Since before launch, GW2 was advertised as avoiding these kinds of things, and it attracted players who were tired of the skinner box model that every single other MMO uses. Likewise, the loot models this game uses exists specifically to avoid having players clump together in one spot to gather a single, crucial material.

We have some aspects of this in the game already, and they're debated heavily. A key example is the Gift of Battle, wherein players complain on a regular basis that they don't want to go to WvW just to get the Gift of Battle.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Finally, there is an item which requires WvW participation to some extent in regular demand by the PvE community: the Gift of Battle. The reception to being forced to play WvW content or spend weeks getting chests is not great.

That should be plural. There are also several weapon and armor sets and in some cases there are no work around unlike the GoB.

@tim.4596 said:In other words, I'd rather have fun 'playing' and 'enjoying' the game, instead of unlocking 'pixel items'.If that's what you want, why not do it? I've been playing this game for over six years, enjoying myself and having fun, and I still have a wealth of content that I have barely touched (and tons of achievements to do, but since I don't enjoy chasing a single carrot I rarely ever do any except by accident). If you have already exhausted all of the content in this game that you find fun and enjoyable, then either your scope is very narrow , or you just don't enjoy the kind of content most of this game is made up off. There is no shortage of content in this game, although there might well be a shortage of content that a specific player enjoys. Seeing the content that ANet keeps coming up with does however imply to me that there are sufficient players happy with what the game offers that it's not worth their time to shift their focus drastically.

@tim.4596 said:Every time I ask a Guild member or just an in-game friend, if they want to join you to farm that item, or do this meta event, is most of the time a straight on "NO", as they have either already done that collection, or did their daily meta event today, etc...Have you ever considered that this might be on your friends and guildies rather than a "fault" of the game? I have no problem getting friends to do pretty much any activity in this game I can think off, be it story, map completion, dungeons/fractals, smallscale wvw, events, resource gathering, achievements (although I rarely pay attention to those) or whatever else I'm up to. On the contrary, sometimes it seems more difficult to go out do something by myself because there'll for sure be somebody to whisper me and ask if I'd want to team up for whatever it is I'm doing. Sure I could do most of the open world (and even wvw) activities by myself, but why do that when it's more fun in a group?

I dont think they are avoiding grindfests, there are actually a lot of grinds in this game. You grind for legendaries you grind for ascended, you grind for gold, you istan farm grind or any other event, you grind pvp/wvw rank and reward tracks, you grind fracts etc. I think the only thing that isnt a grind is the stories. But i mean lets be real here part of an mmorpg is the grind. There isnt a mmo out there that dont have grinds.> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

"Inexhaustible guild content" sounds a lot like "group oriented grind-fest" to me. That's the sort of stuff that GW2 purposefully tries to avoid. The thing about dynamic events and daily content is that it is convenient. It is casual. It is optional.

@tim.4596 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Wow. I

did

read all that, and frankly found that was unnecessary; could have just read the conclusion.Not sure the Devs will take the time to read all that...

I guess the tl;dr is that you are suggesting more Guild activities. ...I guess.

Very repetitive..Guild content is definitely needed, I wont argue that but the last time ANET tried emphasising guilds it ended up alienating masses of small guilds and forcing them to either upscale drastically, killing their own reasons for being a small guild or ignore the content/rewards entirely... some may of taken alliances but how long does that really last once certain content is completed.Guild Halls have been a complete hash up, poorly thought out, rushed to the point it made the mere thought of trying to go higher than certain levels just too much time, effort and cost.. once again culling the smaller guild desire to see the GH content for anything other than a few tokens to spend at a vendor every now and then.Scribing .. so tiresome in levelling, extremely expensive unless your a larger guild willing to throw some morsels to your scriber.. which in turn lessens the need to players to be scribes in a guild and want to craft stuff for them.. no need for more than 1... perhaps being able to sell decos like in other games would of been a good call and certainly making guild halls scaleable based on guild size and choice... there was simply no credible thought placed into guilds other than "it made a good SP" for HoT… and then they simply killed guild content and guild progression soon afterwards.

Twitch should not be your yard stick for anything here, they will be biased views borne from the twitch streamer hoping to gain wider audience appreciation.. I mean lets be honest how many even bother tuning in to see PvP gameplay in GW2 especially in the wake of all the issues it has been and still is plagued with.. yeah win trading, hacks, balance, queue times.. sorry I would rather go watch an old episode of Dads Army.As for GvG stuff space.. that would only serve to harm other game modes like WvW and PvP as the community begins to fence itself off to others rather than what Openworld and WvW are supposed to be.. community focused (one reason I dislike the idea of Alliances because servers gave community identity). Granted ANET have done all they can to kill that idea by pushing xfers so hard which served to only ruin tourneys, which added to long term festering of some modes has pushed a lot of serves to the point of obscurity.Adding GvG will also isolate those smaller guilds from content unless they alliance, which kind of defeats the object of it...

I appreciate the effort you put into the post, it is great to see that kind of passion being put into something we player enjoy, but I think Guilds have had their day in Guild Wars (short as it was), openworld PvE is what it is now, open to all and draws more opportunity for the game to harness revenue by way of non P2W fluff.. pvp and even WvW are by contrast competitive and other than some fancy skins and now a mount.. anything else would need to come by enhancement to areas such as guild halls, more scribing and those issues are already dead horses.. unless they now begin to push at P2W rewards and gemstore stuff to support competitive gameplay (which is a slippery slope I don't think ANET want to even come close to).

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:You should have said you wanted more 'Challenging Group Content' in the first place. I didn't get that from the OP, at all.Unfortunately, that's not that popular with the playerbase.

Good luck.

It depends what you are referring to by 'challenging group content', if by that you mean more raids, more fractals (with challenge mode), then no. Asking Guild Wars 2 for quarterly raid release, or more bosses per wings isn't realistic I guess, as it is a non-subscription game. What I want is scalable (or challenging in whatever way), repeatable content, with some kind of leaderboard (to make it competitive), if possible.

There is a competitive PVP sphere in GW2 why can't there be a PVE one ? The content is there, it just isn't being exploited.

@tim.4596 said:

There is a competitive PVP sphere in GW2 why can't there be a PVE one ? The content is there, it just isn't being exploited.

Competitive PvE?

@kharmin.7683 said:

@tim.4596 said:

There is a competitive PVP sphere in GW2 why can't there be a PVE one ? The content is there, it just isn't being exploited.

I think we are trying deviating from the point which I was trying to make within my OP. But yes, the immediate visible solution, would be:

1. Scalable difficulties within one of the game modes (harder dungeons; open up fractals up to 125 just for the enthusiasts).
2. Farmable items, which can then be sold at the trading post from raids, fractals and dungeons.
3. More Guild activities, and allow the drop of Guild Hall items, which could then be sold at the trading posts.

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Your entire section on the economy is plain incorrect or worded incorrectly. You are mislabeling issues and calling this "not contributing", using a way to general term. I understand what you are going for, but your approach, analysis and conclusion are plain wrong or faulty.

First off:Not having content unique loot is not the same as not contributing to the games economy. As a matter of fact, the goal was always to allow players to acquire wealth via any means they enjoy. Yes, this leads to overall generic and low value rewards (those couple of rares/greens/blues and silver per event). It also leads to constant wealth acquisition (almost everything can be turned into materials and/or traded on the TP, aka you always increase your wealth in some way unless you spend it, in which case you hopefully get something you desire in return).

While PvE is the main and most forward method of acquisition for wealth, Spvp and WvW have their own approaches with the reward tracks which need to see balance along the lines of for example semi afk ppt farming in WvW and semi afk Spvp players.

Finally, there is an item which requires WvW participation to some extent in regular demand by the PvE community: the Gift of Battle. The reception to being forced to play WvW content or spend weeks getting chests is not great.

While I personally agree that incentives could be made to encourage players to try other game modes (see the Warclaw). These must be carefully balanced against players desires to play or not play a game mode.

The rest of your analysis can be summed up as: we need more repeatable group content.

Thank you for pointing all this out. I truly appreciate. I was indeed referring to "unique loot" more than the overall contribution.

I'd leave out the qualification and keep it simple: we need more content.

We do need more content, however players have been asking for this for ages, and I do believe that GW2 is already trying their best to deliver upon that.

Therefore, what would be the solution in-between patches to have an overall better game experience? While keeping in mind that each player may have different interests within the game?