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So what is even the future of this game?


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I ask this question because although obviously gw2 is not dead, it is in trouble. The more I play this game, the more it becomes a single-player, cash grab, WoW "killer", like every other typical MMO. Where's the plan concerning gw2 as it stands? Sure there is living world- s5, but....then what? How long can this game survive with just living world and gem store? I actually don't even CARE about expansions or gw3. Honestly, those will solve nothing, not the core issues regarding this series. If the expansions or gw3 are merely single-player, gem store oriented, cash grabs then what is even the point of playing them?

What I notice about gw2 is the disturbing lack of group content. I'm not even talking about hard content like fractals or raids, just general group content: something that is so basic regarding MMOs. Where are the guild functions? Why have dungeons, spvp & wvw been abandoned? Why is there no group content that people can get into to encourage socialization--example: player housing, bounty systems, job systems, etc? I notice that gw2, like other MMOs, generally caters to the single-player, instant loot gratification crowd.

Honestly, I'd rather scrap the expansions or gw3, and fix the game at this point...

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Guild Wars name has nothing to do with actual player guilds. "Set in the fantasy world of Tyria, the game follows the re-emergence of Destiny's Edge, a disbanded guild dedicated to fighting the Elder Dragons, a Lovecraftian species that has seized control of Tyria in the time since the original Guild Wars. " The name comes from the wars between Destiny's Edge and the Elder Dragons and all the wars within races.

@"JTGuevara.9018" said:I ask this question because although obviously gw2 is not dead, it is in trouble. The more I play this game, the more it becomes a single-player, cash grab, WoW "killer", like every other typical MMO. Where's the plan concerning gw2 as it stands? Sure there is living world- s5, but....then what? How long can this game survive with just living world and gem store? I actually don't even CARE about expansions or gw3. Honestly, those will solve nothing, not the core issues regarding this series. If the expansions or gw3 are merely single-player, gem store oriented, cash grabs then what is even the point of playing them?

What I notice about gw2 is the disturbing lack of group content. I'm not even talking about hard content like fractals or raids, just general group content: something that is so basic regarding MMOs. Where are the guild functions? Why have dungeons, spvp & wvw been abandoned? Why is there no group content that people can get into to encourage socialization--example: player housing, bounty systems, job systems, etc? I notice that gw2, like other MMOs, generally caters to the single-player, instant loot gratification crowd.

Honestly, I'd rather scrap the expansions or gw3, and fix the game at this point...

First of they announced Living World Season 5 (with expansion like features whatever that means.. hope we know more 30th August), WvW alliances (taking them a while now), Swiss system in pvp (taking a while but not as long as alliances), and they announced some things they may bring out like higher lvl cooking/jewelcrafting/build templates,...

The game has group content (world bosses, bounties in living world maps and core tyria, meta events in living world maps and pof and hot maps + silverwastes and drytop, rift events, current events, fractals/dungeons, raids, wvw, team pvp). However, it is not group content you do with your guild friends alone (exceptions there). The things we have is not challenging enough or not rewarding enough or too much of the same old tactics (or none at all and just autoattack spam). The activities on living world maps even seem to be empty as soon as ppl got their item from it (or achievement). What these events miss is replayability that are worth it. And I agree that apart from guild missions there is no real purpose to be in a guild apart from buffs/nodes and chatbox. So I agree that there may be some more focus on being rewarded to be in a guild doing things together.

Dungeons weren't abandonned. They became fractals. Basically new technology could be used, they added some replayability and challenge in ways of tier/level system. Only issue here is that you cannot simply go in with 1 friend and duo everything (like you could in old dungeons if you had 2 good players). Pugging exists here but you sometimes walk into elitists (this aint a problem from Anet but playerbase themselves). Also the fact that certain players are lazy to learn their classes well and learn that there is more than spam all keys when they are off cd and don't look at surroundings and mechanics. Part of this is an issue fromout the playerbase, another part by lacking tutorial on dodge/combofields/where to look out for and how to counter certain things. Raids are nice but they need more difficulty modes. Its too difficult for the casual players (or ones that don't know their class or game mechanics well enough), its too easy for the raid fans resulting in them leaving. There should be more raids coming out within a year as 1 is a bit lackluster. Same goes for fractals.

Pvp, we can see they are working on Swiss and they ocasionally create new maps but what players really want is to make it worth it to play these maps (big example is having 3 2vs2 maps without a queue and rewards). Many players like to pvp as a sort of duel so no capping points, just fight player vs player (perhaps with some mechanics that make things more difficult like objects appearing that block your line of sight or aoe fields or something). Or drop 50 ppl on a map and last man or team standing wins or something.... That there needs to be put some energy into this mode is sure. I am well aware that in other mmo's pvp died out completely but it had a reason as to why it did (bad balancing/bad game design/stale boring fights/gear dependant). Gw2 has a great gear system for the spvp. Just needs to have more variation (which ain't just a new map) and better balancing.

WvW they are still working on alliances but there needs to be done more. Balancing is one but there is probably more as to why its less popular. For me its the fact its gear dependant (can't just fast hop in, play and get back into open world play as you have to change all equip/weapons/runes/sigils and build and then you are stuck with a full backpack with all these items). For the rest, regarding play itself, ask the WvW community. I am sure they have some decent ideas to look into.

For me its ok that one can do story and map completions solo (not everyone has friends or friends around at all hours of play). Player housing for me actually makes things anti social. Ppl just go sit in their individual houses all day without leaving (tops some dailies in between). Being able to decorate the home instance would be nice however. We have the buildings/area's already.

As for cash grab.... Till now it was never p2w and always what you want to spend for optional items (like mount skins). They have to make cash somehow and we all know its probably more cash than if they sell expansions. When they become p2w then I would start worry and run away from the game.

We can all speculate about the future of the game but this is going to help nobody. Not Anet, not the community, not potential players.... We better give them time to announce their thing on 30 August and give them input on how to improve their game (without saying nerf and buff this class because its my class and it needs to be buffed/nerfed). We cannot see into their "kitchen" on whats cooking when it comes to balance ideas they have in mind on long term or content that will come out etc.

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@"Aaralyna.3104" said:Guild Wars name has nothing to do with actual player guilds. "Set in the fantasy world of Tyria, the game follows the re-emergence of Destiny's Edge, a disbanded guild dedicated to fighting the Elder Dragons, a Lovecraftian species that has seized control of Tyria in the time since the original Guild Wars. " The name comes from the wars between Destiny's Edge and the Elder Dragons and all the wars within races.This is incorrect.

Guild Wars 2 is named Guild Wars 2 because it is Guild Wars 2. It is a separate sequel to the original Guild Wars series; Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North. The original Guild Wars was named because both it's well-developed Guild vs Guild PvP system and a series of significant historical events in the game's lore, the latest which set the stage for the very beginning of Guild Wars: Prophecies.

On topic; I, as well as others, disagree that the game is in trouble. Could it be improved? Of course, but so could every single game out there. It seems to me that many players don't internalize the fact that Guild Wars 2 is not a game you're supposed to play all day, every day. It's a game that doesn't penalize players for taking breaks and walking away for months at a time, though it does reward players that at least log on every day. It's a game meant to be played in increments. Regarding official communication, ANet has given the players a wish list as well as a date for an announcement, on top of regular content updates and seasonal festivals.

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Pretty much everything I do is group content. Dungeons Fractals and Raids are obviously in the game. PvP tournaments are in the game. WvW is in the game and I know for a fact that there are people in my guild that do that as a group. Beyond that there are meta events, hero point runs, group events throughout the world, boss events, mini dungeons, plenty of stuff for groups to do.

What you want is challenging group content that can ONLY be done by a group. Okay. Doesn't change anything I've said though.

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There is group content all over the place. The difference between GW2 and other games is that while other games force you to group for large parts of the endgame, GW2 encourages playing with others without forcing you into it. Depending on mood, I can grab a couple of friends and roam wvw, jump into a fractal party, or go out into the world and take part in some meta event or other with tons of other people.

What you perceive as a game flaw is to me one of its greatest strengths: The choice to group or not, formally or informally, play solo or with others is mine, and mine alone. I'm not forced to endure a pug of "I know better than you how you should play the game" players telling me what I'm doing wrong just to get through a zone that for some arbitrary reasons got the stamp of being group content and needs a formal party to get through. I can just go in, join with others on the same path, and go my own way afterwards.

This game offers me a ton of freedom to play the way I want to play, much more than any similar game I've ever played. This game isn't dying for the many players that come here specifically because of this freedom.

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The good thing about the game is that it is very beginnger and alt-friendly. (Alt as in alt char 2nd and more chars/classes playing.) I remember playing WoW at release. After 6 months I got bored with my level 40 or 60 (I don't remember anymore) char and having to grind tons of money for a mount.

GW2 1 year after release I had my main char finished through all the main story and had already 8 chars (each profession 1). Will always get new players - even if it is only for the story and stuff. (Even GW1 which is pretty dead and in maintenance mode might get players that don't only play for achievements in GW2 but because they want the story/lore.)

So I don't see it dying that easily player-wise. As long as there is the megaserver system there will be a lot of population in most maps. (We get complaints about empty maps every now and then but it seems it is more because of festivals - and for unpopular maps.)

As for making money: Worst case the game will go into maintenance mode ... which should not cost too much to keep it running (1 dev to repair the servers in case of server bugs might be enough + server upkeep). Doesn't need to compete with WoW and have millions of players that enjoy boring combat systems..

One bad thing though is the communication of ArenaNet (often talked about - the lack of) and the fact that they aren't even fixing very old stuff from the core game. (Yesterday I saw someone mentioniong stuff buggged since release.) This could be better. In terms of teamwork/leadership I'd suggest to share the work and have one person working on fixing stuff - dedicated only to that. Instead of everyone focused on creating new contend ... then when there appear bugs having everyone focus on fixing them (which will have them only working on new bugs) and then back to creating new contend.

Some people dedicated to fix bugs could fix the older bugs (while newer ones are fixed and the other people work on new content).


@Diak Atoli.2085 is there some info about the original guild wars (the historical/lore events that set the stage for guild wars 1)? I have heard about this ... but always wondered. I only remember/see GW1 as a game where fights between player guilds were prominent (more prominent than in GW2 where it is more about WvW or going solo in a queue in PvP). Only thing I found was in wiki of GW1/GW2 somewhere that there was mentioned "some guilds fought and it brought destruction" or something like that. Not more than 1-2 paragraphes. I'm missing a bit the detailed version (mentioning heroes and some of the bigger guilds from the lore ... important battles).

Or is this explained in game in the first campaign? (Have not played GW1 yet.) The wiki seemed to have only low amounts of info as if it wasn't really more explained thatn those few paragaphs. (Which is sad.)

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Origin of the game's name:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_WarsThe Guild Wars were a series of military conflicts between the human kingdoms of the northern continent that finally ended in 1070 AE. When considered separately, they are known as the First, Second, and Third Guild Wars.The Third Guild War came to an abrupt and brutal end by the emergence of an even greater threat. The Charr invaded the human kingdoms, ...

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I ask this question because although obviously gw2 is not dead, it is in trouble.What evidence is there of this? Like any 7-year old game, participation is down from peak periods. On the other hand, revenue is holding steady.

Veterans come and go and come back ... nor not. Maintaining a hobby in an MMO for 7 years isn't the norm; it's the exception.

How long can this game survive with just living world and gem store?Indefinitely, apparently.Now, that might not be your cup of tea, which means that you won't be enjoying the next seven years. That doesn't mean that the game is in trouble.

Don't confuse "some of us don't like the direction" with "there is no direction." Don't confuse, "I don't like the content" with "there is no content." If the game isn't fun, stop playing. It's not the end of the world; it's just the end of an era for you as a player.

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@ErikTheTyrant.4527 said:I can't help but feel that these kinds of posts are just other mmo users who want to try and sabotage gw2. They just try to make the game seem like its dying even though it's not.

It's a very common thing to see nowadays, check WoW's forums...

GW2 forums and reddit always get anxious 2 months after the episode, the same thing happened before PoF, and in between every episode that GW2 is dying, while seeing that we get constant patches.

We must learn to ignore those kind of posts, and don't comment on them. There is no use to prove someone is wrong every single week.

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I can't say that I'm surprised by some of the responses here.

When I emphasize group content, I mean content that actually requires people to group up to complete; content that motivates people to cooperate. I thought that's what MMOs were about, cooperation. If there's no cooperation, then what's the point of an MMO? Just play a single-player games. Yes, there are open world meta events, but they require little cooperation except for something along the lines of 2 or more players on the same map agreeing to keep pressing 1 on a boss because you can't obviously do it by yourself due to the high HP pools. Only the HoT metas require cooperation... but people tend not to like those.... Still, that's hardly enough to sustain people playing over the long-term, metas get stale after a while. People really just play them for the loot, not because the meta has unique mechanics! If you don't believe me, the upcoming boss rush confirms this notion. Fractals and raids are group content, but they are locked for new or beginner players. Also, where is the guild content? You would think for a game called Guild Wars, there would be more stuff for guilds. Apparently not. Where are the guild missions? Where are the guild functions?

spvp has been decimated with the focus on the single-player as well as almost completely neglected. spvp removed the team queues, the ability to play as a GROUP, making conquest spvp completely pointless as a game mode. Why even bother playing when you or a friend can just troll the matches for the rest of your allies? Why even try? And people have the nerve to protect this? So-called "competitive" pvp is nothing but a cash grab farm for gold and gear. Tournaments are just a consolation prize being that they're every two hours, it's not enough.

wvw has been completely silent on alliances for over a year and a half.

You know, when I see that gw2 has laid off about 1/3 of its workforce, releases content and updates at a snail's pace, gw2 not communicating its direction.... maybe...just MAYBE there's room for questions about the state of the game....but no.... "Don't worry about it! Enjoy the gemstore!" "gw2 is steady chugging along as usual!!"….But no....I'm just a veteran, what do I know? Players just come and go right? Yeah...until they don't....

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Problem might also the balancing issues. And we still get always people crying for new expansions and new elicte specs. (Which are similar to full new professions/classes.) How many new classes did WoW introduce with each expansion? (According to some research there aren't that many more classes than at release.)

If they wanted to change they'd need to focus on making dungeons and raids and stuff - without adding a gear treadmill. (But then you'd have players that complain that they finished it too fast. If one time playthrough is enough - if you don't need to grind the dungeon/raid for a gear treadmill to be able to do the next one.)

Imo focus should be in PvP (and yeah add more guild content ... I saw that short stuff someone above also quoted ... doesn't mean a lot if "Guild" isn't really relevant in the game and people might expect more).

In fact we get 2 vs 2 PvP map ... which seems less appealing than 5 vs 5. Since I prefer bigger battles and also team online games where teams of 10-20 people fight each other I'd say they should make something in between WvW and sPvP. Maps for 10-20 vs 10-20. Could be interesting for guilds - and needing more teamwork/coordination. (Actual contest at the moment allows for circle capping, losing, recapping - while killing and getting points as well afaik.) But depends on the gameplay the'd create on such maps. (Certainly it should not be deathmach - which is boring.)

"Raids" (in terms of PvE content) could get bigger sized as well. But then it should focus on enabling it for weakar/less skilled players as well. Meaning 30-40 players raid that can played well if 5-10 players are not really pros. (Coordination between players - timing and having different groups going to different locations ... should be important. As with Boss Blitz atm ... imagine Bronze tier was disabled and you had to time for gold ... a lot of players would find this already challenging. That with harder bosses and more mechanics as raid. Gold tier at Blitz of course is easy and guilds would laugh about it. Just to explain what I mean when I say groups of people going to different locations and coordination. With 5 players or 10 ... there probably it is only focusing on fighting bosses - 10 at one place fighting and dps and staying alive.)

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I'll also just call myself a veteran since i was here since GW1 and give my thoughts on this.I've seen a lot of people call the open world "single-player" content, yet big metas require a lot of people. Yes, they aren't hard to coordinate, but you need the people. That itself is already enough for me to not call it "single-player". People cooperate to finish the meta, you play as a group, but don't have to be in a group. What's wrong with that?

I still have a question for everyone saying that they want true MMO-content like dungeons/fractals/raids. How is that MMO content? How are 5-10 player groups "massively"? 5-10 Players are the amount of players i normally see on lobby based games. Most shooters have more players in a single match.

Don't kid yourself, only because you keep pressing 1 while doing open world metas just to get the reward, doesn't mean everyone is. You're only able to do that, because others are doing your damage.

About the group SPvP. There are 5man group tournaments.Removing Team-Queue from normal ranked SPvP was good, it makes match making too volatile. If you want another example of why team queues are bad, just look at the time Riot tried to add "dynamic-Queue" for a whole season, no one took ranking seriously.

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@"JTGuevara.9018" said:I can't say that I'm surprised by some of the responses here.

When I emphasize group content, I mean content that actually requires people to group up to complete; content that motivates people to cooperate. I thought that's what MMOs were about, cooperation. If there's no cooperation, then what's the point of an MMO? Just play a single-player games. Yes, there are open world meta events, but they require little cooperation except for something along the lines of 2 or more players on the same map agreeing to keep pressing 1 on a boss because you can't obviously do it by yourself due to the high HP pools. Only the HoT metas require cooperation... but people tend not to like those.... Still, that's hardly enough to sustain people playing over the long-term, metas get stale after a while. People really just play them for the loot, not because the meta has unique mechanics! If you don't believe me, the upcoming boss rush confirms this notion. Fractals and raids are group content, but they are locked for new or beginner players. Also, where is the guild content? You would think for a game called Guild Wars, there would be more stuff for guilds. Apparently not. Where are the guild missions? Where are the guild functions?

spvp has been decimated with the focus on the single-player as well as almost completely neglected. spvp removed the team queues, the ability to play as a GROUP, making conquest spvp completely pointless as a game mode. Why even bother playing when you or a friend can just troll the matches for the rest of your allies? Why even try? And people have the nerve to protect this? So-called "competitive" pvp is nothing but a cash grab farm for gold and gear. Tournaments are just a consolation prize being that they're every two hours, it's not enough.

wvw has been completely silent on alliances for over a year and a half.

You know, when I see that gw2 has laid off about 1/3 of its workforce, releases content and updates at a snail's pace, gw2 not communicating its direction.... maybe...just MAYBE there's room for questions about the state of the game....but no.... "Don't worry about it! Enjoy the gemstore!" "gw2 is steady chugging along as usual!!"….But no....I'm just a veteran, what do I know? Players just come and go right? Yeah...until they don't....

Well there is tripple trubble and how many guilds do that daily or even weekly?Thats one of the reasons anet stoped doing such events the playerbase refuse to do content that needs to much cooperation in open world.

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On the subject of group play, one of the things that i saw in ff14 is how they tie such group activities with their story content. Like for example, the player needs to go kill some powerful god like being because its trouble if left unchecked, bam you get a dungeon (4man) mission to do that. Similarly the big steps of their story for example the climax boss is an 8 man encounter.

These are by no means hard, they have mechanics but its like a 1 or 2 wipes at most kind of encounter. It really adds to the narative that these antagonists are big deals and we, the players must come together to defeat them, even if the fights themselves are nowhere near raid hard.

It really grinds my gears how gw2 has moved away from this considering at its core the gw2 combat system is all about teamplay, even when you play with only 1 more person the content gets insanely easier (just the boons a group dishes out compaired to 1 person as well as the ability to ress downed players fast and do more dmg than the npcs). Like the diff i noticed when playing gqw1 campaign with full bots vs playing with some friends was massive, not just the encounters going by smoother but just the bants and the talk during the mission just made the whole thing more enjoyable.

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@"Raknar.4735" said:I'll also just call myself a veteran since i was here since GW1 and give my thoughts on this.I've seen a lot of people call the open world "single-player" content, yet big metas require a lot of people. Yes, they aren't hard to coordinate, but you need the people. That itself is already enough for me to not call it "single-player". People cooperate to finish the meta, you play as a group, but don't have to be in a group. What's wrong with that?

Whats wrong with that is group content and doing something along xyz other players aint the same. The realest way i can put it to words would be that if anet replaced all players in metas with simple npcs nothing would change.

Dungeons, fractals, raids all require more than just others being there and to diff extend they all rely to communication far more than most of the ow.

To describe it in one line ill just quote Woodenpotatpes: Gw2 is the play alone together mmo and thats sad.

I still have a question for everyone saying that they want true MMO-content like dungeons/fractals/raids. How is that MMO content? How are 5-10 player groups "massively"? 5-10 Players are the amount of players i normally see on lobby based games. Most shooters have more players in a single match.

I think they refer to the inherent need for communication and interaction between players to innitiate and beat that content. Out of all worlds bosses and metas only tt reliably has had a community around doing it and i find it to be the best example of non single player ow content gw2 has.

Don't kid yourself, only because you keep pressing 1 while doing open world metas just to get the reward, doesn't mean everyone is. You're only able to do that, because others are doing your damage.

The others would prob die of boredom if they didnt press anything else tbh.

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@zealex.9410 said:On the subject of group play, one of the things that i saw in ff14 is how they tie such group activities with their story content. Like for example, the player needs to go kill some powerful god like being because its trouble if left unchecked, bam you get a dungeon (4man) mission to do that. Similarly the big steps of their story for example the climax boss is an 8 man encounter.We used to have that at the end of the personal story (Arah story mode). ANet made the concious decision to remove that requirement and replace it with a single-player story instance, to allow but no longer require grouping to finish the story.

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@Rasimir.6239 said:

@zealex.9410 said:On the subject of group play, one of the things that i saw in ff14 is how they tie such group activities with their story content. Like for example, the player needs to go kill some powerful god like being because its trouble if left unchecked, bam you get a dungeon (4man) mission to do that. Similarly the big steps of their story for example the climax boss is an 8 man encounter.We used to have that at the end of the personal story (Arah story mode). ANet made the concious decision to remove that requirement and replace it with a single-player story instance, to allow but no longer require grouping to finish the story.

Yeah it sucks, it took out all the sense of scale and grouping up to take out a big foe that the fight could have.

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@"JTGuevara.9018" said:So what is even the future of this game?Realistically what I hope for:

  • PvP 2v2 tournaments(like 5v5 monthly automated tournaments)
  • WvW alliances system + adding big rewards for wining a match(not for eotm so the "big" maps are still preffered for playing long/hardcore), adding pips for eotm(for more casual playing when someone doesn't have time to play an hour or longer)
  • PvE going back to ls2 maps model where maps are filled with content but are small so there's less work needed to make them. And we only get part of the map in one ls chapter. So after for example 2-3 ls episodes we get one nice map with pretty big meta-event. The time gained in creating less maps is used for creating more raids(cut the time from 9 months - 4.5 for example) and fractals.

What I am scared will happen

  • WvW - nothing - alliances aren't even close and arenanet hasn't considered making match rewards
  • PvP - nothing - the 2v2 maps are added with no idea what to do with them
  • PvE will give us ls5 which will have new map each episode. Creating a raid will still take almost a year.
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