Jump to content
  • Sign Up

A Message from Andrew Gray


Recommended Posts

The main problem with idea of Strikes as a lure for raids is that even if those people get good there step by step, they can't access raids because the "friendly" community there will not allow them because they don't have killproofs, even if they can do dps and mechanics on par with everyone else. That is the main reason why the audience is so small. All those killproof currencies should have been abolished as step one, so people actually determined how players are good not before the fight, but during it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 358
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Thanks for the update! :)

2019 was a very tough game indeed, for the studio, but also for the game itself and the faith of the players. I really do hope that we are actually starting a much more promising year right now. :) The GW franchize and especially GW2 has a very solid foundation, has accomplished a lot and still has potential for the future. The latest preview for the balance patches also seem quite brave and confident, I hope that's true right now for the studio as a whole.

However...If the Visions only start after PAX East, that means we certainly won't have a 2-3 months schedule on LW releases? That's a bit disappointing. I do hope the Visions will make up for it, though. Somehow.On Raids, I also don't think you are quite on the right track here. I don't think strike missions can really solve the issue. Maybe really take a look on how other games manage their endgame content?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really hope Anet watches wooden patoes video on the current state of the game. He nailed it for me at least. I haven't played the game propperly in almost a year now if not longer. There is sadly not a lot that is keeping me there. Please Anet go watch it, if you haven't already and learn! Cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Astralporing.1957" said:I'm afraid it's not that simple. The gap exists not because there's no middle content (although there isn't one, which is bad - and strikes do not bridge that gap, for a multitude of reasons, one of them due to them being a 10-man content). It exists, because the game system magnifies even tiny differences in gear, build and skill. The game as it is cannot realistically help players bridge that gap. All it can do (and what you're doing with strikes) is to try to incentivize players to get better. Problem is, the players need to learn how to get better on their own - and those players that know how to do that (and have a mindset that is required to follow through with that learning, which most players do not have) are improving already, without the need for strikes. For everyone else, it will just be more and more aggravating, as they will just see more and more content placed in front of them, but just outside their reach.

If they ever want to listen to constructive feeback this is the post they should react to at first. I know that we had some verbal foughts in the past but your comment pretty sums up everything I'm thinking about the whole "gap situation".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for taking the time to speak about the coming year, even if it is in vague terms. Sadly for me, the vaguest of hints were about WvW. Clearly the current focus for all competitive game play is the massive balance patch. It would be heartening to also hear something about WvW bonus week(end)s and Alliances and other things that are coming to the game mode over 2020.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The content of raids isn't the problem its dealing with other humans that is the problem. They can't speak in normal languages either its like we need a Delta F22EGXY84 and a Gamma 92DONUT456824-Z. Also with wvw concerned is it really necessary to bring back brainless condi spamming builds? I thought we were getting past the old we are going to make more counter play by bringing back the very thing that had no counter play. So far its looking like last year will be better than this year :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Fire Attunement.9835 said:RaidsWe gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.

Instead of putting all these recourses and effort into a new game mode that is supposed to bring people into raids you should have simply focused on raids for people who want to raid and add difficulty settings. Those who want to raid will raid. Difficulty settings (easy, normal, challenge) would have made the already existing content accessible for a huge amount of players and added a new form of progression. Add actual repeatable rewards (not one kill per week and once in a life time cm rewards) and boom, you would have had a through and through insanely well made game mode.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for this post. Communication is important, and I think, even with this level of transparency, this is a good step.

To those unfamiliar with raids, and saying the barrier of entry is too high due to how the LFG works, I highly suggest checking out https://snowcrows.com/raids/training/It's very easy to get into raiding with only exotics with the proper guidance. The biggest issue right now is people have a hard time finding their way to these resources, or are unwilling to take an extra step (like going through discord) rather than trying to jump into LFG which is mostly looking for experienced clears.>

@TGDM.5908 said:

In regards to using Strikes as stepping stone to Raids:

  • Have you guys considered adding a currency/token system for Strikes to help gear players up for raids? Both Fractals and Raids have RNG gear acquisition from completion and guaranteed tokens which can be used to acquire more gear as well. Strikes don't exactly pay out much for rewards in terms of raw gold or gear (aside from very rare cosmetic exotic rarity drops).
  • How will Strikes funnel players into raids in general? There doesn't seem to be any connection between the two or a call to action to enter the raids in general until a new wing comes out and players receive an in-game mail. What serves as the call to action?

I agree with TGDM here. I think improving the overall gear acquisition from Strikes would help people gear up properly would be a good step. Raid loot is crazy good for gearing new characters, so while I dont think Strikes should reward close to that, I think even dropping relevant exotics so that people can raid with it would be good. Like exotics with stat selectable would be sufficient.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, I’d like to thank you for the communication. I truly believe the community needs to hear from our devs often, even if it’s just small responses or acknowledgements in forums.For this feeling like a “roadmap” and what’s to come in 2020, I’m very disappointed that WvW wasn’t mentioned, except as a feel for an upcoming pve map. I would be happy with a “hey, we haven’t forgotten about you, upcoming surprises in store”We might not be the largest part of the community, but we are still gw2 players and would like a roadmap for our game mode as well. Not all who WvW venture into pve land. What will keep us playing and excited about 2020? Can’t keep us going on hopes and “soon”.Thanks for your time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.

What about if ArenaNet were to support some content creators and streamers who are, say, specifically teaching people and inviting their communities to join, because they see the raid community is shrinking and understand it's because of the xp-LFG loop? :thonk:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice communication, but why being so productive and enthousiast about the future, if not caring about the past? Revitalize dungeons? Bringing back old LA? Fixing everything left unfinished like SAB? Making lunar new year really fun and rewarding? The lore holes? Malyck, E, Auris Weirdbringer, Kuda? Asura past we don't know anything about. That transition from charr homelands to olmakhan? Rata Novus loading artwork was so much promising compared to the reality of just broken stones and a small story step...

I don't want to break the good ambiance, and the big big balance patch is a good step, that communication too. But it's really sad that things like dungeons, guild missions, guild halls, marionette/battle on lion arch style of events are just forgotten. Even that awesome animated theater-like dialogues cutscenes during personnal story: it's double bonus, the artworks are stunning and peoples can skip the cutscene. The personnality system also disapeared, was a thing I loved so much with the election event you spoke about. The first season karka and events were rewarding, now it's not rewarding, just take a look at drakkar, we kills hundred and hundred of enemies popping out of portals for 0 loot from them! Nothing! Just 3 chests at the end. A boss that is really under core tyria level. Not even pre event to start that world boss, whereas it's always the case! You just directly go after it and it's just a big hp sponge.

It's still worry me a lot you don't use at all the word expansion or elite specs or alliances. Hope it arrives after balance. Scary that the visions of the past would be like that awful Caithe thingy.

It's not hate, it just infuriate me speaking of rewards where those last times have been the worse regarding that: Unnacessible raven armor, annoying no reward celestial challenge, and more recently all those enemies without loot. No accessible free bl key apart making genocide of your characters or rarely by completing map.I've spendt 15g at the new map vendor for karma boost? What it gave me?! A negligable amount when doing events. Look back at Ember bay, for 15g I have chance to loot 1000+ karma randomly on every foe! Season 3 maps are more rewarding than season 4? Insane. The only thing rewarding in season 5 is the currencies exchange and you nerfed it hard, and you speak of rewards?!

That's it, a lot of good luck to catch my interest again, will be hard. Not fault of not suggesting things everywhere like many other players.

The end, said clearly what I think since 7 years ago. That's my opinion, agree or not. You have a more than beautiful universe at a point I would like to roleplay, but have you done anything regarding rpers? Nope. I just want to be free of making side quests/choice for earning titles like "Son of Svanir", "Nightmare Courtier", "Inquest Agent" and whatever, beeing free to wander within one faction I like without being killed. Meet other peoples rping too and feeling like I influence the environment. Stupid but, imagine, I'm a thief and with my friends I could steal seraph stuffs to start an event? A meta where we can choose to join icebrood or pact before it starts? Infinite possibilities. You could even add a new novelty slot called game for using a golem chess, bubbles head, bluff, campfire.... even events depending on class used, engineer reprogramming smth, goes haywire...Please, add tengu tonic. Add largos tonic. More for WvW, new gamemode like fort aspenwood or like the beta with branded?

Elitism is comming to strike missions, it's time to add easy paths at raids. Since the start I fear them like pestilence, when I start speaking about trying I receive shouts like "meta or nothing" "2g" "Only zerk gear" "your role?" "Wings" just all the vocabular, I'm lost in 2 seconds.

Dungeons were way far more cozy, you chill with 4 players within a place full of lore with several unique paths. Fractal and strike will never achieve that sadly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you misunderstood the thing about the difficulty of raids. Its more on the lines that the raids themselves don't inspire build diversity or at least a solid understanding of classes. Or any stimulating gameplay.

Look closely at the data that you get from those who do run the raids regularly, and you can see where it went wrong and what improvements can be made.

So far. Most of the raids requires some sort of healer and boon spam followed by clumping together in one big heap. The biggest challenge is just watching out for mechanics and memorizing a dps rotation.. This gameplay is simple enough to passively play and watch netflix.

Theres only a few encounters where I can say there was some difficulty and wbat I felt was fun. The twin assassins in the geninie's dungeon for example. Which forced players to split up and fight the bosses alone while racing against the map

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So while this is nice to finally hear something back from the Devs i feel like a important point is being missed........a reason to continue to raid after you have gotten into it. At this point, there just doesn't feel like a huge reason to continue doing raid content. You need Ascended gear? There are plenty of ways to get ascended gear without taking 2 hours to find a group and then find out if that group will even clear the content. The only real "carrot on a stick " is legendary armor and to be honest, it doesn't feel like enough to deal with the hassle that raids are at the moment. Or course this is coming from someone who has played since the game came out, so i have so many sets of armor and gear throughout my account that raids don't really provide me anything that i don't already have or have access to outside of raids.

Thats just my 2 cents though. Bringing more players to raids will obviously make the wait time for a group to form less but it still doesn't provide anything new that you can really only get from raids. I mean it would neat and more worth it to me if there was a stupidly low chance of legendary armor/or weapons to drop from a boss. I dunno, i'm just spit balling at this point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Fire Attunement.9835" said:

  • Between episodes two and three, we already mentioned we'll be releasing a special new type of content called Visions of the Past; we'll have more details on that at PAX East.

So does this mean that Episode 3 won't make the 2-month release cadence? PAX East ends March 1st, and so far every S5 release has been in the middle of the month. For Visions of the Past to be before Ep3, that'd mean a March 3rd or March 10th release, unless Ep3 is not in the middle but at the end (or in April)?

  • I can't go into a ton of details on episodes three and four because, you know, spoilers and all, but I can tell you the map is meta-focused with a push-and-pull feel similar to WvW in a PvE setting. We want maps this season to bring something to them that makes them a permanent part of your play experience. That's why the culmination of Bjora Marches is a world boss and we're striving for high replayability for the episodes three and four map. We want it to be a unique, fun, and rewarding experience that will be part of your daily/weekly play cycle.

So the next map will be more akin to Silverwastes? Silverwastes was modeled quite a bit after WvW, with forts, dolyak escorts, and sieges.

This is not a bad thing, given Silverwastes is one of the strongest maps in this game in terms of replayability lifespan.

  • After episode four, again I'm going to be somewhat vague here, but we want to revisit some of the types of content we pioneered in the past. We learned a lot with Living World Season One and one thing it did very well was to bring the community into the story, and make their actions drive the plot forward. The Nightmare Tower, the election between Evon Gnashblade and Ellen Kiel – these things are memorable experiences because the community's combined efforts had an impact on the world. As you may have noticed, we've been testing tech with things like the boss rush event, that we hope to leverage later on in The Icebrood Saga to create a unique, community experience. But, learning lessons from Season 1, the bulk of this content will be built in a way that it is still playable after the Icebrood Saga comes to a close.

This will be interesting to see pulled off, and tbh, I'm a little concern. If it's a community-driven choice, then does this mean the community gets to re-choose for players who come in months or even years later? If not, how do the new players get to choose? Or do you simply mean that progressional stages will exist, which will require the community to complete one time, then it's always progressible for players?

  • I am personally committed to Fractals and see them as an area that deserves more focus and attention going forward. I'm happy to announce that Cameron Rich, who worked on Fractals during Season Three, will be taking the reins on a new Fractal as he rolls off his current duties. This Fractal will feature a challenge mode. Beyond that, I'm working with the Systems Design team on more plans to keep Fractals fresh and exciting. I'm excited and when everything is ready to share, we'll have more details.

Does this suggest we'll have another "fractal arc" like, er, Arkk's arc?

Also, I am curious if there has been any discussion about what to do with fractals once 25 unique fractals have been made. We are currently at 20/25. If a 26th is made, then we'll finally hit a point where a tier is missing a fractal.

Once a full suite of strike missions is complete there should be a graceful ramp up to the existing raid content rather than the imposing leap that previously existed, and our hope is once that ramp is in place, the number of players participating in raids will go up.

I have a question and a request in regards to the future strikes for this "ramp up":

Question: Is there any invisioned "ideal number" that ArenaNet is planning to introduced with Season 5, or is it kind of a "we'll stop when we feel we finally hit that spot"?

Request: Can strikes be added to older maps, so that they're not universally snow-themed, but cover other topics? It's rather odd that every strike is snow-themed. Adding a strike elsewhere in the world would also be a good opportunity to cover some loose plot threads without extensive storytelling. Might be a bit scrupulous to request, esp since I'm among those who don't really touch raids/strikes, but still I found myself going "another snow strike?" with the Shadow in the Ice trailer.

All that said, glad to see an update, and some news about raids and fractals. Maybe all the naysayers proclaiming "not expansion content because no raids/fractals" will quiet down a bit now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@DirtyDan.4759 said:

@Fire Attunement.9835 said:RaidsWe gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.

Instead of putting all these recourses and effort into a new game mode that is supposed to bring people into raids you should have simply focused on raids for people who want to raid and add
difficulty settings
. Those who want to raid will raid. Difficulty settings (easy, normal, challenge) would have made the already existing content accessible for a huge amount of players and added a new form of progression. Add actual repeatable rewards (not one kill per week and once in a life time cm rewards) and boom, you would have had a through and through insanely well made game mode.

I wish I could like a response more than once.

Difficulty modes just make sense (and it isn't like they haven't heard why a few hundred times the past few years). I like the idea of strikes, but as a bridge to raids, they will fall short, no matter how you design them. Commit to either raids or strikes - get rid of the other - and then implement actual difficulty scaling to offer the range of experiences content like that needs to survive in this game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is addressing the visual noise on the agenda? Right now it's causing huge problems within the game and metas suffer for it. Even if I thought highly of the Drakkar fight, it is obscured by the visual noise. Then you have that horrible blizzard border and that equally impairing Raven barrier.

Please put it to the top of your list. We've been crying out for visual noise reduction for years now, but you seem intent on worsening the issue not trying to solve it at least work around the problem. Surely it comes up in conversations during the design phases?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...