@ANet: If you want financial success to improve, give the players what they have been asking for
lothefallen.7081
Member ✭✭✭
-Cantha expansion
-Playable Tengu race
-New elite specs
-Demonetize build templates
-Overhaul core dungeon explorable paths with strike mission mechanics and add incentives for vets to help new players learn how to play properly with achievements and rewards
Dungeons are the first group content that the game encourages players to check out. Right now, the dungeon system in this game is a liability. It scares more people away from the game with a dead LFG when these instances could be used to teach new players how to play correctly and create a pipeline to fractals and raids. When you get a mail as you're leveling to check out these dungeons, make an automatic group finder for them. Get these new players learning break bars, cc, and dodging instead of roaming an empty overworld for 80 levels. New players won't stay for the current experience. You need to think about how your game should be designed to bring players into the fold, not alienate them because the first group content they touch is atrocious and no longer supported development. You need to fix this system. It's absolutely dire.
-Allow LWS1 to be playable so new players can actually orient themselves in the world and feel attached to the story instead of just watching a cinematic with 0 information.
-Stop the drip feed saga story focus. REPEATABLE CONTENT. REWARD SYSTEMS. GET PEOPLE PLAYING TOGETHER MEANINGFULLY
-Refocus on guild content and guild cohesion. We need more types of guild missions, more rewards, GvG, bonuses for clearing daily fractals or raids with guilds, come on.
-Stop putting all the flashiest rewards in the gemstore. Monetize your expansion. Reward players for playing the game first, then try to milk them on cosmetics and QoL second.
Any other ideas, feel free to add to the post.
-GW player since 2005
Comments
/shrug ... makes sense. Where does the money come in?
This post contains my opinion.
When players see investment into systems that create longevity and meaningful group experiences, they're more likely to spend on the gemstore. Plus, lock elite specs behind a $60 expansion and market it well, they'll easily have players banging down their door to give them money.
There are so many players that want different things and have different opinions that it isn't such an easy task.
Some want Tengu as a race, others think a new race would be wasted dev effort.
Some want Cantha, others want completely new locations.
Some want more instanced content, others don't care about that content.
Some want open world content, others don't care about that content.
Some only play PvP and WvW, others don't touch those gamemodes.
And dev resources are limited, they can't do everything at the same time. I also would prefer an expansion instead of the current saga, with new elitespeccs, but some fear those might throw the balance into chaos and it would definately make it harder to balance the game.
*...the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.* - Andrew Gray, February 3, 2020
To be fair a number of those would not help bring them more money.
Pretty much a new expansion with new specs is the only one that will.
Living world 1 needs to be remade.. has been needed for years but Anet could not monitize this for players who've been around as long as we have.
It would be expected to be released as free content for those of us who were there to play it.. though admittedly a number of us would probably be fine with paying for it, I would personally but not all of us would feel the same.
Refreshing old content like dungeons, vanilla maps etc would also again be something Anet could not monitize.. it would be expected as part of the usual free updates.
New playable race could be monitized but unlikely to go over well, many would just ask why even bother doing this.. could have been a tonic or it would serve no real purpose.
I'd like to play a Tengu myself but not at the expense of story continuity or my bank card, definitely not something i'd be willing to pay for.
I don't like that all the flashy stuff is in the gem store either but it is how they make money so it's just something we have to accept for this anti-subfee model to work.
At least you have the option to earn gems with gold so that's one way around the credit card if you want something badly enough.
One thing I think that might go over well in the gem store would be if you could buy a Mount role swap for the Griffon and Skyscale..
Basically Griffon Flies, Skyscale Glides.. I think a good number of players who are more partial to the Griffon would love to be able to fly around on it like a Skyscale while their Skyscales shoot through the sky like a Griffon instead.
And I think they would definitely pay for something like that.
I also think that Gw1 weapon and armour packs would do quite well as well.
There were a lot of cool skins in Gw1 and only a handful made it to Gw2.
Only thing I have to say is I don't think tengus are desired that much by the masses.
There's money to be had with these
They always come out on top of the "Which new race do you want?" polls. But, even those who want it realize it's not going to happen because of the required investment, but to catch up and permanent cost to continue.
Many alts! Handle it!
"A condescending answer might as well not be an answer at all."
-Eloc Freidon.5692
I'm not a developer, that's not my job. These are things that most people who play GW2 have told me they want or posted about constantly on Reddit, this forum, etc. Expansions sell incredibly well for GW2. We're long overdue for one.
Even if they don't want to annoy themselves with hard coding etc, I said it for a long time now, you can't add races? Add combat tonics! I have so much fun with kodan tonic, just add largos and tengu tonic. Woot you did it! Just adding those two to start would be awesome and will allow us to play them like we picked them as race.
Secondly, I consider strikes to be a failure, it's just boss fight, could have been called boss rumble, more seriously, dungeon should have continued; fractals are a different thing, it's a story telling thing about unfinished subplots. Visions of the past can be added as fractal. Dungeons, are meant to represent current events, sadly we got none with hot and pof. Mallyck story could have been a dungeon, the end of joko could have been a dungeon. Welp anyway. Don't want to rant again, it's just bad decisions at wrong moments. Even some of the devs said they aren't pleased with joko end... will not search the quote, long time ago, seek it.
Anet is sitting on a pile of money, just do especs after the rebalancing, do expac, more customization, bring back old lion arch, make marionette/battle on la to show how ls1 was, just add in the story journal "ls1= go play the fractals" with small video showing big events in order/ kind of pilgrimage.
More faces and hairs for other races than human. Racial skins for turrets and necro minions. More guild halls! In the mountains, rata novan like city, pirate island, anything possible!
TLDR
Anet I know you can be limited in ressources and money and this is the easiest way to make it: (races and ls1 can be done fast)
Races= Combat tonics (largos, tengu, skritt, grawl mainly)
LS1= Battle of LA, marionette, eventually breachmaker fractals. Cinematic showing key moments, asking player to revisit places like pilgrimage.
Customization= new hairs and faces, racial skins for necro minions, turrets, maybe pet skin for ranger?
Guild= new gh, guild missions
WvW= new map, underground? Archipelago?
But that's only my opinion, many players see the game differently.
Shiny links, take a look!
->Ideas: Housing , Designing a new lounge , New GameMode
->Project: ASURAN/PRIMORDIUS EXPANSION available on WIKI.
->NEW: Crucible of Eternity path 4: Legacy on WIKI
->NEW Asurapedia
I bet this is the new Visions of the Past thing they're making is. Either that or it's something to do with Fracdulls.
This post contains my opinion.
Ppl asked for templates. They even said they would pay for them. They got what they asked for. As for cantha and tengu race that’s not my cup of tea. Sure I wouldn’t mind it, but I would want something new instead
Oh no, not another one...
Good money says neither. They have already said its story content(so not fractals), and I am going to guess we are going to see things from like Ryland, or Bangar, or maybe even Asgeir's point of view.
I sure hope that you are right and they figured out a way to bring key moments of LS1 back to life via Visions of the Past. They said that LS1 was impossible to recreate because each patch wrote over the previous one and having been there and seen how LS1 unfolded I can see how that would be. For over a year they story played out through the open world and was integrated in all the seasonal festivals. Witnessing the destruction of old LA and helping with the evacuation of it's citizens, it was a pretty amazing experience. I complained about it not being replayable at the time cause I was on the road a lot and missed out on a few weeks here and there but it not being repayable really gave you the feeling that you were part of this ever evolving world. I mean, we even held an election to determine who was going to lead the efforts against Scarlet. Some of that feeling was lost when they went to repayable instances .
I think most of us would be happy just replaying some of key events from LS1 and have cinematic cut-scenes fill in the gaps in between.
But that's present and future, not, "Past".
This post contains my opinion.
I'm sure ANet has done the math about making another expansion. That's what companies do, cost/benefit analysis.
No, thank you.
No, thank you.
Ok, if balance can be achieved
How will overhauling these things incentivize any of the results given here?
Better tutorial, sure.
No, thank you.
No, thank you.
Need to focus on guild content before they can re-focus on it.
No, thank you. Game needs to make money somehow and items in gemstore can easily be purchased with gold -> gem conversion.
Is this supposed to provide some legitimacy?
I am a very casual player.
Very.
Casual.
The only things you list that make sense are a new expansion (doesn't need to be Cantha) and new elite specs. Everything else would be a resource sink and cost more to make and implement than it would bring in.
Playable tengu or other race:
Demonetizing build templates:
Overhauling dungeons:
LWS1:
Story speed:
Guild update:
Gem store:
The only thing that will bring in a huge influx of money/players at this point is an expansion. Everything else needs to be assessed on how much it will cost to do (time, money, people) and how much benefit (retaining players, gaining players, bringing in money, making future development easier) it will bring in. Much of what you listed is high cost with little benefit to Arenanet and at the end of the day Arenanet is a company (beholden to yet a different company) that doesn't have the resources to throw at everything players want changed. Especially now that so many people who have been with the company for years—some even since GW1—have left, meaning the number of people familiar with the code and its various iterations is dwindling.
A lot of long-standing games and programs become limited in what can be done with them not because of money but because after a certain point, no one knows the original code anymore and any change can result in a seemingly unrelated area being broken. And the Guild Wars engine is rather infamous at this point for being old and not being written to account for future changes to the game or available tech.
I think you'd lose that bet.
Scry into the past and witness what life is like as a member of Ryland's elite Steel Warband. Armed with the finest charr technology, the group will head into deadly snowstorms, dwarven ruins, and even explore the Darkrime Delves.
As a recruit, you are expected to assist the warband in a variety of tasks. Take up sniper rifles to fend off threats, gather components to bolster allies, and partake in friendly competitions to see who can defeat the most enemies.
Of course, there are additional perks to being in the Steel Warband—the troop is equipped with the latest armored vehicle. Recruits are expected to maintain the vehicle, but if you gather some ammo, you will be more than welcome to hop into one of the gunner seats and rain fiery death down upon any foe foolish enough to oppose the warband.
I agree with LWS1. Back as a new player coming in at the beginning of Season 4, I was thrown off when LWS1 only had a summary and I when I started Season 2 I was thrown off by expected to care about these characters I did not know. I found the story to be confusing and honestly if I didn't already had friends in the game, I may not have continued playing it. Thankfully I did continue and now love the story. However, LWS1 needs to be a factual or dungeon you can do once you complete your personal story just so new players can get orienated. Something else to add to this list, make the previous seasons free. GW2 is story focused. The paywall for new players to get caught up on the story is a bit overwhelming. Having to buy PoF/HoT should be enough, don't make them spend a bunch of cash on all the previous seasons too that are no longer current.
I've never really wanted to go to Cantha but I admit if they allowed us to play Tengu I'd rapidly jump on the Cantha bandwagon.
Hannah | Daisuki[SUKI] Founder, Ehmry Bay, NA | 24 charas, 18k hours, 29k AP | ♀♥♀
No need to be best, only good and kind.
Ah well that makes sense, yes. I am clearly wrong.
This post contains my opinion.
It's kind of funny.
We gamer regularly lament about how big companies only seem to be worries about their short term earnings, even if has a negative effect on a game.
We always talk about how these short term focused decisions end up killing games rather then improving them.
If GW2 wants to improve financially it needs to improve the new player experience which is currently garbage.
Then they need to figure out how to keep people playing the game.
In what language is "players" written as "lothefallen"?
The Commander will end you.
I'd be pretty pumped about playable largos, encountering bubbles, aquatic mounts, and nautical themed elite specs.
What would u actually want from this game, as it seems u like current state of it?
make prepardness baseline plz
No thank you, going to visit a xenophobic empire that absord the only two factions that made that area interesting chased off the Tengu, had parts of its cities sink(including Monastery probably, we know the battle isles sank.) and with the jade sea being just that a sea now it would be a terribly small continent.
Yes please
Yes, but only if they make sense
Yes
No. Leave dungeons as they are. They are easy to do 5 man content.
Disagree, the OW isnt empty either.
Yes. I still dont know how my character knows half the characters in the story.
I like the way they are doing the new saga.
Ehhh..Guild missions and rewards i agree with, the rest not so much.
This i agree with...sort of. Because when they put a flashy weapon in the game it has such a low drop rate as to be absurd.
Amana Silentchild; My Main
Ember Wandertooth; The Kingslayer, Kianda Redpaw; The Blazing Light
Why GW is Called Guildwars
I'm not sure I want to revisit the worst possible area/lore/story of the guild wars franchise. I'd like an expansion though so if Cantha is next expansion, so be it.
Bleh. Not really a fan of races, especially non-human looking ones. I'm sure the popularity of Charr is Asura is also rather low, compared to the humanoid races.
Of course any new race would have to be level 80 only and only participate in the story of the expansion. Even allowing Revenants to start from level 1 and play the original personal story was a stretch. But I guess it wasn't a new race, didn't need new voice acting and all that so it's excused.
Obviously.
Yes yes. They are way too overpriced. Bundle it with the next expansion and I'd pay for it.
They need to overhaul strike missions and add incentives for players to play them first. Dungeons are really old content using prehistoric tools so not sure how much they can improve/overhaul them. Removing them from the game would be a better option. Although I understand why they are still there.
I'd like to have the story instances of LWS1 come back, especially those that introduce the Dragon's Watch members. Not really sure making the entire Season 1 replayable would make any kind of sense though. Remember those big epic battles worked -because- it was temporary content and everyone was there. How would you bring back the Karka Invasion of Lion's Arch, Escape from Lion's Arch AND Battle for Lion's Arch content at the same time. Lunacy.
Yes to more repeatable content
If you need extra rewards to get your guild members to play together then you need better guild members, or better guild leadership, or better guild in general. A big no to any kind of extra rewards for guilds when they do Raids, Fractals and such together. It would make playing in a guild essential (and a big guild at that). New guild missions for the current types? Sure.
Already said yes to an expansion.
A few of my own:
Fix the performance of the game. It's silly that an external tool can make such a big difference but the actual engine developers cannot do anything. Ditch Windows XP, it's 2020. When I see "Windows® XP Service Pack 3 or better" in the minimum requirements I have to think that's the reason you aren't updating your god kitten engine to later standards. Remove Windows XP from requirements (and Vista), so the Core game/ Heart of Thorns have the same requirements as Path of Fire.
Overhaul the core game and Heart of Thorns with the graphical improvements that started in Path of Fire. Players see promos of the exciting new content of the latest area, only to see the dull and uninspired initial areas of the game. Go to Elona and check the night sky. Compare with Core Tyria. How difficult would changing the skybox be? Also, since the rest of the effects are post process it should be a painless experience to enable them. Shader Model 3.0 is ages old. Upgrade it to newer/faster/better versions
Overhaul the start of the game.
Better tutorials, better leveling experience, more informative early levels. Add a break bar tutorial in some way...
Allow players to start the personal story when they exit the tutorial. The times people asked me "what now?" once they finish the tutorial shows that requiring players to reach level 10 before accessing the story was a huge mistake. Split the story in two (play half at level 1 and the rest at level 10 if need be) but this whole situation is confusing.
Allow players to start the game without selecting a WORLD. Worlds only mean something when you join WVW so why in the world are players required to select their world before they even get to WVW? Bring the World selection screen up the first time a player joins WVW, after they join a guild. After they realize they might want to PVP with them.
Add a new low-level mount available to Core Players. The suggestion: "Now that you are level 80 go to Path of Fire, unlock the Raptor, then come back and enjoy the rest of the game" is a valid one (because the Raptor does make a huge difference) but it's a confusing one. Core players/new players need a mount, without a leap probably, to be able to keep up with veterans.
My 2 cents.
I can tell you that part of has to do with Ryland's back story, they already said that much.
~snip~
All of the above is a lot easier said than done, this game is still based on the original GW1 engine, you're talking about taking apart spaghetti code and trying to update it by inserting new elements. A lot of the changes made for PoF aren't internal to the engine, they're done by other means and if they tried to update the game as you suggest I wouldn't expect ANY new content for at least 12 months if not longer, as it would take them that long to implement. It's not worth it investment wise and development wise.
Yes...no...maybe...what do you want, can't you see I'm busy saving the world...AGAIN!
Point of order: Nobody makes money giving stuff away.
If we want ANet to step up their game, then we must step up ours.
Different groups of players ask for different things. No company has an unlimited budget in time or manpower, so they have to choose what they offer. And some groups ask louder than others, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily the biggest demographcs. You're making something that's very difficult seem very easy. For example, I'm not asking for a new dungeon. And I wouldn't really care if a new dungeon was ever added to the game.
sell and expac and people will be happy (especs have to be included to be an expac)
Keep going with the sagas and people will keep leaving...it really is pretty simple
Don't Worry, My Dutch is OK
Generally speaking, I can't agree with OP more.
Potential requires action in order to be realized.
If they can add raids and place them into currently existing maps to please a small core audience without monetizing it, they can update dungeons.
Personally, I feel there is an identity crisis between Dungeons, Fractals, Strike missions and Raids when essentially Raids are just Elite Dungeons , Fractals are stand a lone dungeon style scenarios, and strike missions are just Champion boss fights but for smaller groups instead of open world zergs.
Just dropped in to add my sentiments and 100% agreeance with OP.
also.. - Dyeable Weapons!!
Anet has been hiding behind the story and expansions trying desperately to avoid their dreaded C-word (Cantha). Considering they've released content for virtually every other playable area that existed in GW1, there's not a lot left to release, and Cantha is a big part of it.
The Tengu will add more to Anet's coffers as it'll encourage more people to buy up on character slots and all the good guff that comes along with it (armours, etc,). There can be story arcs regarding the Tengu as well, like the Aerie, the Sensali, etc. stuff that quite a few GW1 people may have forgotten about, and something that will intrigue people that get into these story arcs if they're new to the game.
As far as game story longevity has gone, GW1 didn't go on as far as GW2 has. It started in 2005 and GW2 released in 2012. It's now 2020 and we still haven't seen what could be touted as being the best content the game has to offer... yet. If only they'd commit to more new stuff instead of making drip-feed LS stories, irritating balance patches, etc. They're so focused on longevity but won't commit to the last piece of the GW puzzle.
Most GW1 vet's really appreciated that side of the game - Shing Jea Monastery (and the Boardwalk), Kaineng Center, Luxons vs Kurzicks, siege turtles, juggernauts, elite content (The Deep, Urgoz), Alliance Battles...
shut_up_and_take_my_money.gif
Yeah. Happy for about a month. Then, after they've burned through it the complaints will come of "no new content".
I am a very casual player.
Very.
Casual.
I want more dungeons but probably the only way would be if the Fract team was tasked with it, which I doubt. Don't even have to touch the old ones, the rewards are at least still OK.
Stopped reading after the first three lines and a few "expac" thrown here and there. Far too many topics about these points already.
I'd like actual WvW progress like what they said, you remember anet? ALLIANCES?- but they're turning it into PvE and alienating good players and WvW guilds that thrive on skill - Anet only wants to focus on pushing more mount skins, chair skins and tool skins because that's the content they know you'll buy
I like to have some Tengu arc story but not playable race since after personal story it's just there for cosmetic... unless Anet decide to make all race power become more impact. (I don't understand why they feature many playable race in first place if they didn't try to push their uniqueness it's oblivious people would pick human the most in any games. )
More Cultural Armor (or at least more race theme armor that can be worn by all race specialize Sylvari theme need more love), New face/hair options instant of boring item like toy/chair only for rich player who don't know what to do with their 100000+ gold like this even new player would consider to spend real money for.
Overhaul dungeon make it public area or at least more solo friendly. (for solo player to have something to do after complete story content and unlock all elite profestion)
I also like bounty a lot but there's no reason to repeat them anymore after unlock achievement. (maybe buff reward and add more bounty to core and hots area? )
that is 29 more days of happiness than a spoon fed saga
But, yeah, I know what you are saying
Don't Worry, My Dutch is OK
to hell with cantha, lets go places we've never been before.
te lazla otstara.
fingers crossed meta ~
swimsuits ......
I wouldnt completely demonetise build templates, the gear storage they can charge for but the rest should be free and each expac should give you 3 build and skill templates per class outside the cap (like shared inv slots).
Expacs, yes please, cantga esp i really like, some of the best zones they've ever done.
Other than that, obv new specs, wvw and pvp love and most of all a big push for modernizing the game. Customisable ui, flexible options to hide other player apearance, infusions, skill effects (of your choosing always) and last but not least substantial engine updates so the game can actually get the most out of current tech.
Around then new lw should be rolling.
This!!!^^
I've been a player since beta, love the game, want to see it continue and not be another game I love shut down by NCSoft.
These are the things I see as barriers to revenue.
The game, currently, is not approachable to returning, new, or casual players regardless of the play type.
Returning, New, and Casual Players generally spend more money than Vets that have played consistently.
WvW
WvW without a Warclaw is fairly futile. New players don't get them but do get to be exposed to all the players that already have them on day one in WvW.
Put simply, WvW needs to be segmented by skill level and accomplishment.
PVP
PvP tokens for casual players have almost no value.
Funnily enough, both are (on paper) more rewarding than PvE for the dedicated player even if it is generally less balanced.
That said, PvP will help retain a subset of vets...Not necessarily generate revenue.
PVE
The current story instance for Dungeons all have empty LFG's and Devs need to devise ways to resolve this (FFXIV did this by incentivising vet players for queueing for old content).
Different Maps metas need to be adjusted to account for the speed of travel attainable by vet players and those metas also need to be incentivised for repeat play for all player types.
Opening up the game base + expansions costs money... Only for those players to find that the different LW stories also costs money separately.
A way needs to be made for players to earn the story as opposed to merely being required to purchase it to get access to assorted stuff.
There are entirely too many map currencies and the things available from them differ wildly in value to the player. (For example, Why should Ley Stone armor cost so much more than Bladed and be all but worthless to the player purchasing it?) Something that allows the exchange of map currencies needs to be added.
The Economy
It's all jacked up on Mountain Dew these days....
Gems cost too much.
Things costing gems generally cost too much.
The exchange is a hot mess which, in turn, causes gold to have little to no value in the TP even though it is still work to earn.
Resource Scarcity and Item rarity are both manufactured to be higher than they reasonably should be.
The best way to ensure players don't want to spend money on a game is to make them feel it's their only option to begin with in the first place.
The BLC... You are more likely to get a metabolic primer you don't need and a dye you already have than something you actually might have wanted to begin with.
It's too random, the nice items too rare, with choice non-existent
Black lion tickets, and stubs appear to have become incredibly rare and we've seen prices from the statuette store go up for anything periodically featured over time.