Top 3 reasons why raids only attracted a small audience

Aridon.8362 · March 29, 2020

@thepenmonster.3621 said:No one has noticed that this thread answers the question about why few players raid.

An astute observation, care to elaborate?

Jilora.9524 · March 29, 2020

@Obtena.7952 said:
@Jilora.9524 said:How would anet make money off raids thru gems when they added almost nothing raid related to purchase?

EXACTLY ... THEY WOULDN'T

That's why it's NOT UNREASONABLE to believe that raids are not being actively developed because of a lack of revenue from raiders.That's

also

why I suggested If Anet wants to encourage more raiders to spend money on the game to justify more raid development, they need to consider some GS items that improve the QOL for raiders.

Seriously ... is it too much to ask that you put more effort in comprehending my posts or should I just expect you to be combative over everything I post? The best part is that AGAIN ... your literally parroting my own points back to me ... but I'm wrong. Gotcha :trollface:

Ok, obtena there are no such things unless you go Ptw route and add items that buff you. You are def wrong this time. Before I said we both could be wrong because opinions but your worst argument yet is just plain wrong. Glad to see you still up to your trick of taking 1 sentence from a paragraph and acting like I got you when it changes the meaning of what someone said when it's stand alone. I'll do it next post. We all comprehend your points but this is your life arguing and extending threads and acting like people can't understand that you are always right. Maybe you will post something that make sense and I won't be combative. I look forward to that day.

Jilora.9524 · March 29, 2020

@Obtena.7952 said:
@Jilora.9524 said:How would anet make money off raids thru gems when they added almost nothing raid related to purchase?

but I'm wrong.

Wow, you admitted you are wrong. We all thank you for finally coming to that realization. It has been a long journey but it's ok to admit defeat. I look forward to our next discussion

Obtena.7952 · March 29, 2020

@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.

Of course I am, because that's the primary goal of a business. There isn't any 'guise' that revenue maximization is Anet's goal and that they are going to make business decisions based on that. When I suggest raids have a diminished development schedule because they don't have the revenue, it's not a ridiculous notion that some people would believe. It's likely VERY close to the truth. Are there other factors? Maybe. I didn't say there wasn't ... I simply believe revenue is the top one.

This is where we fundamentally disagree. I do not believe raids or rather the development for instanced content has seen a stop in development. On the contrary, I see more of it.

You see more raids being developed and released now than before? I don't think that's true is it? The raid release schedule is pretty well documented. To be clear, we are talking specifically about raids, not all instanced content. At least I am.

Cyninja.2954 · March 29, 2020

@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.

Of course I am, because that's the primary goal of a business. There isn't any 'guise' that revenue maximization is Anet's goal and that they are going to make business decisions based on that. When I suggest raids have a diminished development schedule because they don't have the revenue, it's not a ridiculous notion that some people would believe. It's likely VERY close to the truth. Are there other factors? Maybe. I didn't say there wasn't ... I simply believe revenue is the top one.

It is a ridiculous notion because you make no differentiation as to when or why raids saw less development.

I also disagreed with the revenue assumption, and I clearly explained this with pointing to the fact that the game overall might not have seen continued development.Obviously development goals changed, and that might not have been solely due to revenue or raids, but game wide.

@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:This is where we fundamentally disagree. I do not believe raids or rather the development for instanced content has seen a stop in development. On the contrary, I see more of it.

You see more raids being developed and released now than before? I don't think that's true is it? The raid release schedule is pretty well documented. To be clear, we are talking specifically about raids, not all instanced content. At least I am.

You really need to read full sentences:I do not believe raids or rather the development for instanced content has seen a stop in development.

and by willfully omitting everything which does not serve your argument, you are being negligent at best, and plain incorrect at worst.

Strikes are close enough to raids that one can argue that they are very similar if not almost the same from a resource consumption perspective.

Obtena.7952 · March 29, 2020

@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.

Of course I am, because that's the primary goal of a business. There isn't any 'guise' that revenue maximization is Anet's goal and that they are going to make business decisions based on that. When I suggest raids have a diminished development schedule because they don't have the revenue, it's not a ridiculous notion that some people would believe. It's likely VERY close to the truth. Are there other factors? Maybe. I didn't say there wasn't ... I simply believe revenue is the top one.

It is a ridiculous notion because you make no differentiation as to when or why raids saw less development.

Sure I did ... the when is whenever Anet made the decision to reduce their development. Do i have a calendar date for you? No ... but it happened at some point. The why is because of reduced revenues. There is NOTHING ridiculous about the idea a company decides to cut a product/service because of failing to being profitable. It's a common reason; I dare even propose it's the main reason.

I really don't know what your other beef is. You don't believe raid development is stopped. OK ... but make no mistake that there is definitely a reduction in the release of raid content in the way it has been traditionally offered in this game. I don't think that's how raiders OR OW players want raid content delivered to them, so it's even WORSE. I guess that's another thread though.You feel strike missions fall under the umbrella of raid content? That's fair to say. If strike missions are the 'new raids', then that is just shows how raids were offered when released were never sustainable content to begin with ... my whole point.

Cyninja.2954 · March 29, 2020

@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.

Of course I am, because that's the primary goal of a business. There isn't any 'guise' that revenue maximization is Anet's goal and that they are going to make business decisions based on that. When I suggest raids have a diminished development schedule because they don't have the revenue, it's not a ridiculous notion that some people would believe. It's likely VERY close to the truth. Are there other factors? Maybe. I didn't say there wasn't ... I simply believe revenue is the top one.

It is a ridiculous notion because you make no differentiation as to when or why raids saw less development.

Sure I did ... the when is whenever Anet made the decision to reduce their development. Do i have a calendar date for you? No ... but it happened at some point. The why is because of reduced revenues. There is NOTHING ridiculous about the idea a company decides to cut a product/service because of failing to being profitable. It's a common reason; I dare even propose it's the main reason.

So, given how the developers were about to shelve the game, then did a 180 on that approach. You see no possibility that them reducing resources towards raids could have been a similar decision (and timeline wise it falls into the same time frame while other resource reduction towards GW2 were decided)? Which was a contributing factor to the content losing its player base.

The now in place nearly forcing and way higher implementation of instanced challenging content, in form of strikes, is not potentially an attempt to remedy past mistakes?

@Obtena.7952 said:I really don't know what your other beef is. You don't believe raid development is stopped. OK ... but make no mistake that there is definitely a reduction in the release of raid content You feel strike missions fall under the umbrella of raid content? That's fair to say. I don't think that's how raiders OR OW players want raid content delivered to them, so it's even WORSE. I guess that's another thread though.

Which is what I was eluding to when stating:

@Cyninja.2954 said:A. stick to a low amount of resources and just target a niche group with this contentorB. stop this content development completely (and while this would certainly hit players interested in challenging group content, if there are not enough or the resource cost is to high, there is no point in this life line approach)

But as you said: it doesn't matter what players want. What the developers implement is without question in the best interest of their revenue and they make no mistakes. For me, I can live with strike missions and the release cadence they are seeing (5 within the last 5 months, far more than any raid content but on a smaller scale, so it is easy to assume they have a about as much developer attention as raids did during their prime).

Obtena.7952 · March 29, 2020

@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.

Of course I am, because that's the primary goal of a business. There isn't any 'guise' that revenue maximization is Anet's goal and that they are going to make business decisions based on that. When I suggest raids have a diminished development schedule because they don't have the revenue, it's not a ridiculous notion that some people would believe. It's likely VERY close to the truth. Are there other factors? Maybe. I didn't say there wasn't ... I simply believe revenue is the top one.

It is a ridiculous notion because you make no differentiation as to when or why raids saw less development.

Sure I did ... the when is whenever Anet made the decision to reduce their development. Do i have a calendar date for you? No ... but it happened at some point. The why is because of reduced revenues. There is NOTHING ridiculous about the idea a company decides to cut a product/service because of failing to being profitable. It's a common reason; I dare even propose it's the main reason.

So, given how the developers were about to shelve the game, then did a 180 on that approach. You see no possibility that them reducing resources towards raids could have been a similar decision? Which was a contributing factor to the content losing its player base.

Of course I do ... but because of low revenues. Anet had to choose what content they were going to reduce resources on ... how do you think they decided that? Do you think Anet would have reduced resources towards raids if it was the main revenue earner? OFC not.

Cyninja.2954 · March 29, 2020

@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.

Of course I am, because that's the primary goal of a business. There isn't any 'guise' that revenue maximization is Anet's goal and that they are going to make business decisions based on that. When I suggest raids have a diminished development schedule because they don't have the revenue, it's not a ridiculous notion that some people would believe. It's likely VERY close to the truth. Are there other factors? Maybe. I didn't say there wasn't ... I simply believe revenue is the top one.

It is a ridiculous notion because you make no differentiation as to when or why raids saw less development.

Sure I did ... the when is whenever Anet made the decision to reduce their development. Do i have a calendar date for you? No ... but it happened at some point. The why is because of reduced revenues. There is NOTHING ridiculous about the idea a company decides to cut a product/service because of failing to being profitable. It's a common reason; I dare even propose it's the main reason.

So, given how the developers were about to shelve the game, then did a 180 on that approach. You see no possibility that them reducing resources towards raids could have been a similar decision? Which was a contributing factor to the content losing its player base.

Of course I do ... but because of low revenues. DO you think Anet woudl have reduced resources towards raids if it was the main revenue earner? OFC not.

I think Anet reduced resource towards the entire game. I think they went back on that approach. I think some game modes were affected more drastically than others. I think recent actions suggest a try to fix this problem for those game modes.

So in short: making any claims as to resource allocation based on revenue in this situation for that time frame WITHOUT any actual numbers is not feasible without an agenda.

Obtena.7952 · March 29, 2020

@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.

Of course I am, because that's the primary goal of a business. There isn't any 'guise' that revenue maximization is Anet's goal and that they are going to make business decisions based on that. When I suggest raids have a diminished development schedule because they don't have the revenue, it's not a ridiculous notion that some people would believe. It's likely VERY close to the truth. Are there other factors? Maybe. I didn't say there wasn't ... I simply believe revenue is the top one.

It is a ridiculous notion because you make no differentiation as to when or why raids saw less development.

Sure I did ... the when is whenever Anet made the decision to reduce their development. Do i have a calendar date for you? No ... but it happened at some point. The why is because of reduced revenues. There is NOTHING ridiculous about the idea a company decides to cut a product/service because of failing to being profitable. It's a common reason; I dare even propose it's the main reason.

So, given how the developers were about to shelve the game, then did a 180 on that approach. You see no possibility that them reducing resources towards raids could have been a similar decision? Which was a contributing factor to the content losing its player base.

Of course I do ... but because of low revenues. DO you think Anet woudl have reduced resources towards raids if it was the main revenue earner? OFC not.

I think Anet reduced resource towards the entire game. I think they went back on that approach. I think some game modes were affected more drastically than others. I think recent actions suggest a try to fix this problem for those game modes.

Hey, I don't disagree with that. The idea that Anet reduced the raid release schedule somewhere between 'very long' to 'infinite' because of reduced revenues doesn't conflict with any of that. Like I said ... it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to make 'resource reduction' decisions based on the services they offer that make money vs. those that don't.

I get you think there is just a 'transfer' from raids to strike missions. If that's the case, it just supports my view that as originally offered, raids were not sustainable content to original adopters. And I believe that if there was a transfer, it was STILL a revenue-based decision.

So in short: making any claims as to resource allocation based on revenue in this situation for that time frame WITHOUT any actual numbers is not feasible without an agenda.

/shrug ... so is any other claim someone will make. This thread is purely speculative exercise. That's already been solidified in another post about 3 pages ago.

Excursion.9752 · April 20, 2020

I don't know why EVERYONE doesn't raid but I can tell you why I didn't raid up until recently.

1)Time investment - I didn't have a clue how long it would take to do what ever was required to be able to raid. I made my own preconceived notions that I came to find out were wrong. If people are willing to explain and have patience it can come along quickly.

2)No One To Raid With - To me it felt like invite only club and you were only invited to a group if someone either knew you or thought that you would be a good addition to their team. Backwards logic because how was one to know you were good in those situations if they never saw you in them?

3)Fear of Toxicity - Since I was new and I knew that I was going to struggle at the start, I was a little intimidated at the thought of people calling me out for bad play.

A friend of mine asked if I would like to raid and I took him up on the offer. I now have been raiding for the past 3 weeks and I'm doing really well. 38 LI!

So I really think the bottom line is the fear of the unknown. You can watch as many raid videos as you want but there is no substitute for the real thing. Even though I have completed close to 5 total wings now I still don't feel comfortable joining random groups because I "think" every group has these crazy high expectations for people playing with them. I know this is not always the case. Self doubt is a Kitten!

Aridon.8362 · April 21, 2020

@"Excursion.9752" said:I don't know why EVERYONE doesn't raid but I can tell you why I didn't raid up until recently.
1)Time investment - I didn't have a clue how long it would take to do what ever was required to be able to raid. I made my own preconceived notions that I came to find out were wrong. If people are willing to explain and have patience it can come along quickly.
2)No One To Raid With - To me it felt like invite only club and you were only invited to a group if someone either knew you or thought that you would be a good addition to their team. Backwards logic because how was one to know you were good in those situations if they never saw you in them?
3)Fear of Toxicity - Since I was new and I knew that I was going to struggle at the start, I was a little intimidated at the thought of people calling me out for bad play.
A friend of mine asked if I would like to raid and I took him up on the offer. I now have been raiding for the past 3 weeks and I'm doing really well. 38 LI!
So I really think the bottom line is the fear of the unknown. You can watch as many raid videos as you want but there is no substitute for the real thing. Even though I have completed close to 5 total wings now I still don't feel comfortable joining random groups because I "think" every group has these crazy high expectations for people playing with them. I know this is not always the case. Self doubt is a Kitten!

Positive mental attitude!

Taril.8619 · April 21, 2020

@"Swagger.1459" said:2- The way your professions were designed... https://massivelyop.com/2019/03/28/massively-overthinking-thoughts-on-the-holy-trinity-in-mmos/
“Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): Fun fact: I still remember when “holy trinity” meant tank, healer, and mezzer – the DPS players were a given, the warm bodies that filled out the rest of the group, and not part of the trinity back in the early pre-WoW days of MMO group content. The fact that this shifted over time really says all you need to know about how MMO class and combat design have changed, and not necessarily for the better.
Don’t mistake me; I no longer believe we need or must respect a trinity of either type. But what I truly resent is the loss of class variation and combat flow that naturally accompanied the demise of the classic trinity, specifically the fact that crowd control, buffing, and debuffing classes have all but disappeared in the modern rush to make nearly everyone a damage-dealer, even the healers and tanks.

Ironically, making everyone a damage-dealer actually lends itself more towards better designed content requiring a trinity. So long as it's done right (As opposed to FFXIV style "Make Tanks and Healers have to barely Tank or Heal")

If everyone is a damage dealer, then you can focus your content towards having a better distribution of Tank/Healer/Support especially in smaller group sizes, since you don't have to worry about fitting in X amount of DPS classes into each group.

An example, would be the industry standard "Dungeon" group is 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 3 DPS. This means that 1) There's inherently a disparity between required roles. 2) Requirements for 2 of the roles are shouldered entirely by a single person. 3) You have a separation of DPS from other roles, while Damage is the only infinitely scaling variable for encounters (I.e. Healing more, just leads to more overhealing. Tanking more, just leads to less healing required. While damaging more will always make fights go faster).This of course also gets worse as you enter into "Raid" groups which are often 2 Tanks, 2-4 Healers and X DPS (Depending on format, often they use multiples of regular party sizes, so 10, 15, 20 or 25 players meaning 6-19 DPS) which often highlights how poorly Tanking is designed in the game as there's usually a period of time where the 2nd Tank feels redundant (Also, sometimes actually replaced by another DPS) since the games entire combat system has been designed with the 1 Tank mentality for the majority of it which doesn't often translate well into then forcing multi-tank encounters (Typically using "Debuff that means you can't MT for X seconds" type mechanics that force swapping tanks or "This big attack hits number 1 AND 2 on threat" that simply requires 2 tanks to exist in the encounter)

In a setting where "Everyone is a damage dealer", you could instead find a standard 5 man Dungeon party of 1-2 Tanks, 1-2 Healers and 1-2 Support. Thereby allowing you to make content that can be more taxing on these roles as each one can find themselves with a partner to back them up. Heck, given the fact that all 3 of these roles happen to work towards the same goal of mitigating incoming damage, well designed content could find themselves in a situation where any number of these roles can accomplish said content. A party of 5 Tanks could absorb all the damage, a party of 5 Healers could heal all the damage or a party of 5 Supporters could lock down all the enemies (Provided you actually let players CC bosses and not enforce blanket immunities... One of the cool things about CoX was that it did allow for people to chain CC Arch Villains, to a point where a Controller/Dominator could solo an Arch Villain by perma-CC'ing them provided they had good enough mods to provide enough CC as well as damage to overcome natural regen).Of course, larger scale content becomes harder to design, since you then have to consider how to limit CC so as to not nullify the content with a handful of Supports. I.e. In the case of the CoX example where a Controller/Dominator can perma-CC an Arch Villain, such a character can single handedly nullify the need for a Tank or Healer in any content meaning that everyone else is there to act as a pure DPS (Though, I guess with everyone designed to be a damage dealer, it wouldn't necessarily mean they would be bored, as opposed to redundant Tanks/Healers in Tank/Healer/DPS trinity games. Also, this particular example wasn't unique in CoX, since Scrappers, Brutes and Masterminds could all easily solo Arch Villains by maxing out their defense/resistances too)

This potential all goes to waste once you start making specific "DPS" roles required to output the majority of the damage (Since, even if content is technically possible to still be accomplished with 5 Tanks or 5 Healers, people will err to the path of least resistance, which would be the much faster clears by having as many dedicated damage dealers as possible). Even more so when players start to look at gear and stats and there are stand alone options that maximize damage output designed for the DPS classes (As opposed to a scenario with only Tanks/Healers/Support where all 3 roles will need to focus on their role stats to perform), since then you get situations where everyone starts trying to forgo their role in order to stack up on damage (Since again, the only infinitely scaling variable is damage output)

Aridon.8362 · April 21, 2020

@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Obtena.7952 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:It's not that I am not looking at revenue from content which is an issue, it's that you are cherry picking what you want to look at under the guise of revenue maximization as goal.