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HoT = Dark Souls ? Casual Gamer perspective.


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@kharmin.7683 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:lool, so they have MILLIONS of players there? okay, have fun with that then. if that was true, i doubt thay have had to lay all those people of

Another uninformed comment, I guess should be expected. The layoffs didn't happen because of Guild Wars 2 performance, but because the "unreleased" projects weren't deemed profitable by NCSoft. It was an issue with Arenanet as a company and projects we'll never get to see, and not about the game. As for your million comment I need to remind you that the game never had millions of players.

if GW2 was performing well, it could had funded even more side projects. wow funded SEVERAL big titles, and even a 8 year project, that was scrappedif it never had MILLIONS of players, then i doubt , that hot would had sold over a million copies in the first month alone.they had them alright, but not anymore...

You are assuming facts not in evidence. No one here knows how Anet budgets for projects.

it doesnt matter, since another company has done it...ergo IT CAN BE DONEbut if we dont use THE BEST as reference anymore, im all for that too

That's your argument? I mean, sure, anything CAN be done but you compared Anet with Blizzard in your example where everyone knows that the two game studios aren't even close in comparison.

its exactly the same when you are expexting all players to be the same as you. yes they are different companies with different resources, just like players are.but they still follow the same rules for failure or success.wow launched many years ago with around 300k players. GW2 was years later , so they only had to copy the formulathey partially did that, and they could launch with approximately 10 times MORE playersthe potential was there, but they squandered it

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:lool, so they have MILLIONS of players there? okay, have fun with that then. if that was true, i doubt thay have had to lay all those people of

Another uninformed comment, I guess should be expected. The layoffs didn't happen because of Guild Wars 2 performance, but because the "unreleased" projects weren't deemed profitable by NCSoft. It was an issue with Arenanet as a company and projects we'll never get to see, and not about the game. As for your million comment I need to remind you that the game never had millions of players.

if GW2 was performing well, it could had funded even more side projects. wow funded SEVERAL big titles, and even a 8 year project, that was scrappedif it never had MILLIONS of players, then i doubt , that hot would had sold over a million copies in the first month alone.they had them alright, but not anymore...

You are assuming facts not in evidence. No one here knows how Anet budgets for projects.

it doesnt matter, since another company has done it...ergo IT CAN BE DONEbut if we dont use THE BEST as reference anymore, im all for that too

That's your argument? I mean, sure, anything CAN be done but you compared Anet with Blizzard in your example where everyone knows that the two game studios aren't even close in comparison.

its exactly the same when you are expexting all players to be the same as you. yes they are different companies with different resources, just like players are.but they still follow the same rules for failure or success.wow launched many years ago with around 300k players. GW2 was years later , so they only had to copy the formulathey partially did that, and they could launch with approximately 10 times MORE playersthe potential was there, but they squandered it

The issue was that they designed the game too much around the wrong audience.

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@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

GW2 was SOLD with the PROMISE of a no grind policy. if you dont see the problem there...

Read this as you misinterpreted the meaning behind their statement of "no grind" and continue to do so

Hey folks,

I just want to take a second to address this topic, because it’s something we state as one of our key philosophies – but don’t often clarify exactly what we mean we say it. And because everyone and their mother has their own unique interpretation of what grind can mean, it’s very simple for this to feel like we’re not following our own guidelines when we build and implement content.

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:
  • The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)
  • Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

There are certainly optional activities in the game players can embark on that I think we’d openly accept fall into the category of our definition of more “grindy”. Earning certain unique skins, and in particular some titles absolutely qualify as things we’d put on this list. Legendary weapons have components to them that fall into this category, though we’ll be doing work in HOT to make this much less the case. We feel these are optional choices players don’t need to do, but can if they want, and because they are optional are acceptable within our statement that “Gw2 doesn’t make you grind to have the best gear/stats”. That doesn’t mean we can’t make those activities more fun as well, but when we say “no grind philosophy” we’re not including optional things you can do, but don’t need to do, in our definition.

Hope that helps a bit, that’s our philosophy and definition we’re going by when we make those statements. They may not align to your definition of grind, and that’s ok – we’re fine with that! It’s just important you know what we mean when we make that statement so you can make decisions about how you view Gw2 and judge us by our actions/words.

Thanks again for being so passionate about this topic and the game which ever side of the discussion you fall on. It’s something incredibly important to modern MMO’s and gamers in general, and we truly appreciate the dialogue you all are having on topics like this. It’s what makes better games for all of us.

what is your point? are you trying to imply, that runes and sigils arent gear? or, that they dont improve my stats?or that i dont have to GRIND to get them?

There is gear with runes on them and those are cheaper than crafted i think medium is nika, devona for heavy and light was maybe zheds i think

still many hours of work with a questionable result, no thanks. specially since i never got past the experimental stage with runes and sigils

Not really those sets are really cheap. Selling amors arent really profitable crafting runes cost more than buying them. Farmers dont rule economy the tp flippers do. But honestly i think you dont want to use tp. You can buy zerker with karma even

and where do the flippers get the capital to start? i am not coming back until they have made some pretty big changes.farming or grinding is one thing, but to do it for AH barons is even worse. SPECIALLY in a game, that promised to be different in that regard

A game has to gave economy in this case a supply vs demand economy. Tp flipping to by something cheap and sell it for a profit. You act like earning gold is evil its not gw 2 unlike most mmos has a stable economy.

stable? in the short time i was back, i literally saw the the prices of the most desired sigils DOUBLE. that aint stable, thats inflation.the one with +crit started at 3½ G, when i quit , it was at 7and i wonder how much it costs NOW

Superior Sigil of Accuracy? It currently costs about 10.4 silver. In fact, its highest price ever was about 3.5 gold; it's never cost 7 gold. (Source:
.) Given that its price has been steadily decreasing for years, if you want to argue that the GW2 economy is badly affected by inflation, this isn't the item to use in your argument.

Maybe you're thinking of Superior Sigil of Force (+5% damage), which has had some
. But the price of that has been pretty stable for a while now, so there's no evidence of inflation there either.

okay, but the jump from 3.5 G to 10 s is still pretty wild. this is not how a stable market works. and i certainly dont want to spend my time by filling the pockets of someAH baron. as for inflation, i can still remember, when the MOST expensive things on AH were a couple of 100s of gold, and having 1000 gold was almost impossible.the inflation is there.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

GW2 was SOLD with the PROMISE of a no grind policy. if you dont see the problem there...

Read this as you misinterpreted the meaning behind their statement of "no grind" and continue to do so

Hey folks,

I just want to take a second to address this topic, because it’s something we state as one of our key philosophies – but don’t often clarify exactly what we mean we say it. And because everyone and their mother has their own unique interpretation of what grind can mean, it’s very simple for this to feel like we’re not following our own guidelines when we build and implement content.

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:
  • The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)
  • Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

There are certainly optional activities in the game players can embark on that I think we’d openly accept fall into the category of our definition of more “grindy”. Earning certain unique skins, and in particular some titles absolutely qualify as things we’d put on this list. Legendary weapons have components to them that fall into this category, though we’ll be doing work in HOT to make this much less the case. We feel these are optional choices players don’t need to do, but can if they want, and because they are optional are acceptable within our statement that “Gw2 doesn’t make you grind to have the best gear/stats”. That doesn’t mean we can’t make those activities more fun as well, but when we say “no grind philosophy” we’re not including optional things you can do, but don’t need to do, in our definition.

Hope that helps a bit, that’s our philosophy and definition we’re going by when we make those statements. They may not align to your definition of grind, and that’s ok – we’re fine with that! It’s just important you know what we mean when we make that statement so you can make decisions about how you view Gw2 and judge us by our actions/words.

Thanks again for being so passionate about this topic and the game which ever side of the discussion you fall on. It’s something incredibly important to modern MMO’s and gamers in general, and we truly appreciate the dialogue you all are having on topics like this. It’s what makes better games for all of us.

what is your point? are you trying to imply, that runes and sigils arent gear? or, that they dont improve my stats?or that i dont have to GRIND to get them?

There is gear with runes on them and those are cheaper than crafted i think medium is nika, devona for heavy and light was maybe zheds i think

still many hours of work with a questionable result, no thanks. specially since i never got past the experimental stage with runes and sigils

Not really those sets are really cheap. Selling amors arent really profitable crafting runes cost more than buying them. Farmers dont rule economy the tp flippers do. But honestly i think you dont want to use tp. You can buy zerker with karma even

and where do the flippers get the capital to start? i am not coming back until they have made some pretty big changes.farming or grinding is one thing, but to do it for AH barons is even worse. SPECIALLY in a game, that promised to be different in that regard

A game has to gave economy in this case a supply vs demand economy. Tp flipping to by something cheap and sell it for a profit. You act like earning gold is evil its not gw 2 unlike most mmos has a stable economy.

stable? in the short time i was back, i literally saw the the prices of the most desired sigils DOUBLE. that aint stable, thats inflation.the one with +crit started at 3½ G, when i quit , it was at 7and i wonder how much it costs NOW

Superior Sigil of Accuracy? It currently costs about 10.4 silver. In fact, its highest price ever was about 3.5 gold; it's never cost 7 gold. (Source:
.) Given that its price has been steadily decreasing for years, if you want to argue that the GW2 economy is badly affected by inflation, this isn't the item to use in your argument.

Maybe you're thinking of Superior Sigil of Force (+5% damage), which has had some
. But the price of that has been pretty stable for a while now, so there's no evidence of inflation there either.

okay, but the jump from 3.5 G to 10 s is still pretty wild. this is not how a stable market works. and i certainly dont want to spend my time by filling the pockets of someAH baron. as for inflation, i can still remember, when the MOST expensive things on AH were a couple of 100s of gold, and having 1000 gold was almost impossible.the inflation is there.

Reason for jump is its not as much demand and its more supply as that sigil is not meta anymore

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:if hot was such a good deal, people would gladly had paid or it, but they didnt. and they could even play the GOOD part for free too.

It's the other way around, if Core was such a good deal people would gladly pay to play the expansions. You seem to forget that the vast majority of accounts in this game haven't reached Orr or level 80, and the percentages of players that haven't reached the mid-levels or even left the tutorial are also large. You cannot blame the expansion if players haven't left the tutorial or the starter zone. And remember some of those that didn't leave the tutorial -paid- for it before the game went free to play. After the game went free to play we got comments by NCSoft themselves that the core game wasn't converting players, but hey go along and believe whatever you want even if it's against official statements.

even THE BIGGEST MMO EVER doesnt have a good conversion rate, so how good could the smaller be? it is INDUSTRY STANDARD.its like a restaurant with a big FREE FOOD sign. people come in, get the meal, and they when the restaurant try to recouperate their losses by selling an expensivedessert, people just get up and leave. is anyone surprised by this?

Bad analogy since most players leave before reaching the mid point of the game. A better analogy would be: a big free food sign, people come in, get the salad and appetizer then leave before the main dish (which is also free) and never even get exposed to the "expensive" dessert. Is it the fault of the dessert that they left? No, it's because they didn't like the salad and/or the appetizer. This is what happens in Guild Wars 2

core is far from perfect, specially the looong buildup of zhaitan and the less than ideal ending

Build of Zhaitan and the less than ideal ending doesn't affect those (the vast majority of accounts) that never got past the mid-game and those that never got past the tutorial and the first zones.

core could use a workover, but they have MUCH bigger fish to fry

Much bigger fish than revamping what is causing all their revenue loss? That's not solid business idea but whatever you say. They are still trying to make more desserts (expansions and living world) when the real problem with this game is the appetizer.

they have to make those desserts, since THEY HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO SELL. where do you think this game would be WITHOUT NEW CONTENT?revamping core would be a HUGE project, a la wow cataclysm or FF ARR, they prolly have to put all other projects on hold for many months.

Of course they have to make the desserts otherwise the game would die. Also, obviously revamping core would be a huge project. But it's still the only hope they have for making the game better, no amount of expansions can make the core more "sellable" than it is. Or I can dare say expansions make core look worse, for example a free player trying to move around and reach events but players with mounts getting there faster. That would have one of two effects: "Those mounts look great, I'll buy the expansion!" or "Mounts give an unfair advantage, this game is terrible, I quit".

I'm glad we agree that revamping core would be a HUGE project, changes wouldn't need to be so extensive if it was so good, but it does have loads of issues, which make it a giant undertaking.

i dont see that happening in the coming years, specially since they have said, that they dont like to work with the older content

What is interesting here is that they told us they want to go back to old zones and made adjustments and changes with the Icebrood Saga, but yet they haven't done any of that. Their total aversion to changing old content is really strange

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@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:lool, so they have MILLIONS of players there? okay, have fun with that then. if that was true, i doubt thay have had to lay all those people of

Another uninformed comment, I guess should be expected. The layoffs didn't happen because of Guild Wars 2 performance, but because the "unreleased" projects weren't deemed profitable by NCSoft. It was an issue with Arenanet as a company and projects we'll never get to see, and not about the game. As for your million comment I need to remind you that the game never had millions of players.

if GW2 was performing well, it could had funded even more side projects. wow funded SEVERAL big titles, and even a 8 year project, that was scrappedif it never had MILLIONS of players, then i doubt , that hot would had sold over a million copies in the first month alone.they had them alright, but not anymore...

You are assuming facts not in evidence. No one here knows how Anet budgets for projects.

it doesnt matter, since another company has done it...ergo IT CAN BE DONEbut if we dont use THE BEST as reference anymore, im all for that too

That's your argument? I mean, sure, anything CAN be done but you compared Anet with Blizzard in your example where everyone knows that the two game studios aren't even close in comparison.

its exactly the same when you are expexting all players to be the same as you. yes they are different companies with different resources, just like players are.but they still follow the same rules for failure or success.wow launched many years ago with around 300k players. GW2 was years later , so they only had to copy the formulathey partially did that, and they could launch with approximately 10 times MORE playersthe potential was there, but they squandered it

The issue was that they designed the game too much around the wrong audience.

not really, but they didnt go all the way, we have a mostly casual game with some insane difficulty spikes. ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills,wildstar showed us what happens if they DONT go the right way. and albion too. casual= hamburger content, make it short, easy , and cheap

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@Laila Lightness.8742 said:

GW2 was SOLD with the PROMISE of a no grind policy. if you dont see the problem there...

Read this as you misinterpreted the meaning behind their statement of "no grind" and continue to do so

Hey folks,

I just want to take a second to address this topic, because it’s something we state as one of our key philosophies – but don’t often clarify exactly what we mean we say it. And because everyone and their mother has their own unique interpretation of what grind can mean, it’s very simple for this to feel like we’re not following our own guidelines when we build and implement content.

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:
  • The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)
  • Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

There are certainly optional activities in the game players can embark on that I think we’d openly accept fall into the category of our definition of more “grindy”. Earning certain unique skins, and in particular some titles absolutely qualify as things we’d put on this list. Legendary weapons have components to them that fall into this category, though we’ll be doing work in HOT to make this much less the case. We feel these are optional choices players don’t need to do, but can if they want, and because they are optional are acceptable within our statement that “Gw2 doesn’t make you grind to have the best gear/stats”. That doesn’t mean we can’t make those activities more fun as well, but when we say “no grind philosophy” we’re not including optional things you can do, but don’t need to do, in our definition.

Hope that helps a bit, that’s our philosophy and definition we’re going by when we make those statements. They may not align to your definition of grind, and that’s ok – we’re fine with that! It’s just important you know what we mean when we make that statement so you can make decisions about how you view Gw2 and judge us by our actions/words.

Thanks again for being so passionate about this topic and the game which ever side of the discussion you fall on. It’s something incredibly important to modern MMO’s and gamers in general, and we truly appreciate the dialogue you all are having on topics like this. It’s what makes better games for all of us.

what is your point? are you trying to imply, that runes and sigils arent gear? or, that they dont improve my stats?or that i dont have to GRIND to get them?

There is gear with runes on them and those are cheaper than crafted i think medium is nika, devona for heavy and light was maybe zheds i think

still many hours of work with a questionable result, no thanks. specially since i never got past the experimental stage with runes and sigils

Not really those sets are really cheap. Selling amors arent really profitable crafting runes cost more than buying them. Farmers dont rule economy the tp flippers do. But honestly i think you dont want to use tp. You can buy zerker with karma even

and where do the flippers get the capital to start? i am not coming back until they have made some pretty big changes.farming or grinding is one thing, but to do it for AH barons is even worse. SPECIALLY in a game, that promised to be different in that regard

A game has to gave economy in this case a supply vs demand economy. Tp flipping to by something cheap and sell it for a profit. You act like earning gold is evil its not gw 2 unlike most mmos has a stable economy.

stable? in the short time i was back, i literally saw the the prices of the most desired sigils DOUBLE. that aint stable, thats inflation.the one with +crit started at 3½ G, when i quit , it was at 7and i wonder how much it costs NOW

Superior Sigil of Accuracy? It currently costs about 10.4 silver. In fact, its highest price ever was about 3.5 gold; it's never cost 7 gold. (Source:
.) Given that its price has been steadily decreasing for years, if you want to argue that the GW2 economy is badly affected by inflation, this isn't the item to use in your argument.

Maybe you're thinking of Superior Sigil of Force (+5% damage), which has had some
. But the price of that has been pretty stable for a while now, so there's no evidence of inflation there either.

okay, but the jump from 3.5 G to 10 s is still pretty wild. this is not how a stable market works. and i certainly dont want to spend my time by filling the pockets of someAH baron. as for inflation, i can still remember, when the MOST expensive things on AH were a couple of 100s of gold, and having 1000 gold was almost impossible.the inflation is there.

Reason for jump is its not as much demand and its more supply as that sigil is not meta anymore

okay, so its actually a GOOD thing i didnt buy it. i still feel sorry for those, who wasted hours, to pay for a overpriced item

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@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

they had around 3 mio sales at launch, without casuals they would had been at 500k-1 mio2 mio x 50 $...do the math. without casuals , this game wouldnt even EXISTas for gem sales, it only proves, that all the big whales are in the harcore crowd

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

they had around 3 mio sales at launch, without casuals they would had been at 500k-1 mio2 mio x 50 $...do the math. without casuals , this game wouldnt even EXIST

First I'd like to see your sources about the sales of "casuals" since you have the numbers. Or you pulled them out of your mind? Not a valid argument.Second, I was talking about "paying the bills", meaning the gem store, not game sales. NCSoft told us gem store sales were stable after HOT launched, so before HOT and after HOT gem store revenue was the same, meaning Anet was making the same amount of money before and after HOT from their active players. If casuals were paying the bills AND left the game after HOT, that revenue would go down, but it didn't. You failed to address the actual point and I believe because it goes against your failed argumentation, it doesn't fit your agenda. But you do have to choose between "casuals paying the bills" and "casuals left after HOT"

And please do the math yourself

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

they had around 3 mio sales at launch, without casuals they would had been at 500k-1 mio2 mio x 50 $...do the math. without casuals , this game wouldnt even EXIST

Strange that casuals has mostly beaten hot core difficulty was its harder to actually lose. But biggest point this is an mmorpg you are meant to play with others. The reason many left wasnt due to difficulty was due to f2p. Alot of ppl left also for how easy game was and it wasnt really. I was casual once thought hot was hard then learned from my mistakes and now hot is easy. But you dont want to improve you want a game wich could be mistake for an afk game. You dont raid or do fractals so you dont need meta gear like zerker or force sigils. You can easly pick cheapest rune like eagle or lyssa and use soldier stats and win. You have a dodge but you dont use it. You got heal but same. Most enemies in hot has skills unlike core. Most of them have obvius animations and tells. Dark souls is harder for it got artificial difficulty and invasions, gw 2 is hard for core game taught you nothing about how to play. So new to the jungle is you have to realise same strats as core wont work unless in a large train wich is up often

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@"battledrone.8315" said:as for gem sales, it only proves, that all the big whales are in the harcore crowd

Wait, if hardcore players are the whales, why would a company that has a FREE/BUY to play game with a cash shop that is supposed to give most of their revenue, cater to the casuals? That still doesn't add up with "casuals paying the bills", if the hardcore crowd pays the money, then they are the ones paying the bills and not the other way around. You just made your argument worse

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

they had around 3 mio sales at launch, without casuals they would had been at 500k-1 mio2 mio x 50 $...do the math. without casuals , this game wouldnt even EXIST

First I'd like to see your sources about the sales of "casuals" since you have the numbers. Or you pulled them out of your mind? Not a valid argument.Second, I was talking about "paying the bills", meaning the gem store, not game sales. NCSoft told us gem store sales were stable after HOT launched, so before HOT and after HOT gem store revenue was the same, meaning Anet was making the same amount of money before and after HOT from their active players. If casuals were paying the bills AND left the game after HOT, that revenue would go down, but it didn't. You failed to address the actual point and I believe because it goes against your failed argumentation, it doesn't fit your agenda. But you do have to choose between "casuals paying the bills" and "casuals left after HOT"

And please do the math yourself

sure buddy, have fun with that. i have given up waiting for the code to swtor now, i guess the EA support isnt as effective, as one could expectguess its back to wonderverse and co. even when they triple dip on their customers..

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@Laila Lightness.8742 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

they had around 3 mio sales at launch, without casuals they would had been at 500k-1 mio2 mio x 50 $...do the math. without casuals , this game wouldnt even EXIST

Strange that casuals has mostly beaten hot core difficulty was its harder to actually lose. But biggest point this is an mmorpg you are meant to play with others. The reason many left wasnt due to difficulty was due to f2p. Alot of ppl left also for how easy game was and it wasnt really. I was casual once thought hot was hard then learned from my mistakes and now hot is easy. But you dont want to improve you want a game wich could be mistake for an afk game. You dont raid or do fractals so you dont need meta gear like zerker or force sigils. You can easly pick cheapest rune like eagle or lyssa and use soldier stats and win. You have a dodge but you dont use it. You got heal but same. Most enemies in hot has skills unlike core. Most of them have obvius animations and tells. Dark souls is harder for it got artificial difficulty and invasions, gw 2 is hard for core game taught you nothing about how to play. So new to the jungle is you have to realise same strats as core wont work unless in a large train wich is up often

yep, hot is practically A DIFFERENT GAME. and that is a BAD thing , if you actually LIKED core.so, its the expansion for players, WHO DIDNT LIKE THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE.casuals have fun, until the game practically KICKS them outand the hardcores have to slug through core, to get to the game THEY wantand no, i cant do it. i can raid in other mmos though.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

they had around 3 mio sales at launch, without casuals they would had been at 500k-1 mio2 mio x 50 $...do the math. without casuals , this game wouldnt even EXIST

First I'd like to see your sources about the sales of "casuals" since you have the numbers. Or you pulled them out of your mind? Not a valid argument.Second, I was talking about "paying the bills", meaning the gem store, not game sales. NCSoft told us gem store sales were stable after HOT launched, so before HOT and after HOT gem store revenue was the same, meaning Anet was making the same amount of money before and after HOT from their active players. If casuals were paying the bills AND left the game after HOT, that revenue would go down, but it didn't. You failed to address the actual point and I believe because it goes against your failed argumentation, it doesn't fit your agenda. But you do have to choose between "casuals paying the bills" and "casuals left after HOT"

And please do the math yourself

sure buddy, have fun with that. i have given up waiting for the code to swtor now, i guess the EA support isnt as effective, as one could expectguess its back to wonderverse and co. even when they triple dip on their customers..

So you have absolutely nothing to backup your claims. I expected as much.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:ANY major mmo simply NEEDS a ton of casuals to pay the bills

Does it? Let's see, after HOT launched NCSoft told us that gem store sales are STABLE, meaning the drop in revenue after HOT wasn't due to the lack of sales on the gem store. According to people like you lots of casuals left the game when HOT launched. If the income from the gem store (from the active players) is confirmed stable after the launch of HOT then the two arguments don't add up. If casuals were paying the bills AND they left the game, then gem store sales would go way down, but they didn't.

This means that either casuals don't pay the bills, or that casuals didn't leave the game when HOT launched. An interesting dilemma.

they had around 3 mio sales at launch, without casuals they would had been at 500k-1 mio2 mio x 50 $...do the math. without casuals , this game wouldnt even EXIST

Strange that casuals has mostly beaten hot core difficulty was its harder to actually lose. But biggest point this is an mmorpg you are meant to play with others. The reason many left wasnt due to difficulty was due to f2p. Alot of ppl left also for how easy game was and it wasnt really. I was casual once thought hot was hard then learned from my mistakes and now hot is easy. But you dont want to improve you want a game wich could be mistake for an afk game. You dont raid or do fractals so you dont need meta gear like zerker or force sigils. You can easly pick cheapest rune like eagle or lyssa and use soldier stats and win. You have a dodge but you dont use it. You got heal but same. Most enemies in hot has skills unlike core. Most of them have obvius animations and tells. Dark souls is harder for it got artificial difficulty and invasions, gw 2 is hard for core game taught you nothing about how to play. So new to the jungle is you have to realise same strats as core wont work unless in a large train wich is up often

yep, hot is practically A DIFFERENT GAME. and that is a BAD thing , if you actually LIKED core.so, its the expansion for players, WHO DIDNT LIKE THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE.casuals have fun, until the game practically KICKS them outand the hardcores have to slug through core, to get to the game THEY wantand no, i cant do it. i can raid in other mmos though.

Thats wierd as hot maps are the most active ones and you arent forced to go to hot. You think the hardcores play open world sorry they dont hot is only hard if you ignore every bit of gameplay and mindlessly. Core issue is they could removed every skill but auto and no one would cared for it would been skills they hardly used. But you didnt come here to listen to ppl whose opinion differs from yours. You think you need a raid build group of hard core for hps. You dont at most you need 2 ppl its a mmo not a single player adventure where everything is balanced for soloing. Gw 2 core lost players as nothing felt engaging like how you kill zhaitan by pressign f and 1 it was harder to fail than win. If you want to se real hardcore content go try raids or strikes or t4 fractals. They changed little difficulty wise except the enemies arent walking punching bags anymore

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HoT = [We listened to too many people who cried about the game being "easy".]I get that there should be some skill escalation for expansions, but what HoT is and was is mostly cheap mechanics that defy counterplay. At least half of the critters have something "good but wrong" about them.

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HoT and PoF mobs have a lot of cheesy powers they can use far too often, and they're all HP sponges.

Don't compare this hackneyed farce to Dark Souls. Dark souls requires good timing and figuring out the choreography of a fight, which only the good fights here in GW2 also feature.

Overworked mobs and dramatic oversaturated Veteran/Elite mobs are just cheese factories that spam overpowered and utterly enormous AOE and Charge and hugely damaging multihits and knockdown and cripple/weakness conditions.

When you look at the design of something, the purpose of that design is often clear based on what the thing in question does.

The purpose of HoT and PoF mobs in terms of their design is clear - they're meant to bypass any and all defenses players have except dodges, blocks and evades, which many classes don't have in abundance and typically don't have in sufficient quantities in any builds that actual players will ever use, because those builds would be utter trash for anything else.

So what's the purpose of this? I phone that the purpose is to feign challenge, and in lieu of being creative, making mobs overpowered damage sponges that can often be counted on to have long and spamable evade/block phases during which time they're essentially invulnerable even if they're also attacking you.

This is the phoned in fake challenge route, and all it does is encourage zerg gameplay for HP's and events, and while there's nothing wrong with zerging up, it's a fairly stupid thing to drive people into doing if you wanted them to do anything else at all ever.

If you're at all concerned about efficiency of time use any time/reward factors, soloing is stupid and you shouldn't bother with it at all. Join an event/bounty train or HP train and get things done quickly and properly, then plink around exploring solo if you like.

HoT and PoF ironically trivialize themselves by making zerg tactics the only tactic worth bothering with if you're actually serious about getting things done. This means that all their pointlessly cheesy mobs get melted in five seconds no matter and they might as well not have bothered giving them ridiculously huge, hard hitting and boringly tedious powers that punish nobody but solo explorers at all.

HoT and PoF mobs are tedious and exasperating. They're not particularly fun and aren't rewarding whatsoever to deal with, and that annoyance factor is the only successful accomplishment achieved by their design.

I can solo low tier fractals more easily than I can sometimes deal with overworld mobs, and the hlarity of why is because fractal fights are structured.

Run around HoT or PoF and you're almost certainly going to have tons of adds wander into your fights, and a considerable number of those adds will be veterans that can frequently kill you in one big crit or spammed multihit roll/channel/shoot you forever powers even if you're derping around in full Soldier gear.

HoT and PoF completely destroy the use of creative builds and functionally force players into a single playstyle that relies completely on dodging on desperate use of frequently sparing evade/block/distort powers to avoid being utterly annihilated by some tiny little rolling monster that can hit you five times a second for 3k per hit while almost never stopping it's rolling.

You miss one dodge and you're often dead. You miss one block when you're out of stamina and you're often dead. The best defense is often an overwhelming offense, and of you can't kill it before it one shots you, you're going to die a lot, and even if you manage to kill the five things you got the jump on just fine, there'll be a wandering patrol with a stealther and a veteran that will wander in while you're fighting

Fractals are fun because they reward strategy and good gameplay. Dungeons aren't generally fun because they're where the issue of grossly overpowered trash got featured firstly and they reward nothing except killing things asap and figuring out how to skip as much as possible.

Raids reward good gameplay and solid group synergy.

Overworld exploration is just as PITA that rewards asolo explorer with nonstop annoyance and the promise that every fight will be obnoxious and all you'll want to do while you're picking your way through the crap you can't avoid fighting is never have to fight this stuff ever again, because it's pointless and annoying.

It isn't hard in any sense other than to put up with, and when your 'challenge' is a tolerance check for blinding tedium, you failed at coming up with a challenge worthy of the name.

So zerg up if you want to get things done quickly and efficiently. I promise you, of you had fun the first few times you had to deal with obnoxious mobs, in six years, you'll be so sick of having to deal with them that you'll be putting groups together for everything because there's just no salient point in soloing unless you're a masochist or perhaps not the sharpest spoon in the knife drawer.

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HoT enemies really are not HP sponges unless they’re scaled up. Doing poor damage because you’re in defensive gear may also contribute to the impression that they take longer to kill.

I’ve never been in a situation where adds have been a problem except for like two hero points in PoF. Usually I just clear the roaming add group so they’re a non-issue.

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@"Rauderi.8706" said:HoT = [We listened to too many people who cried about the game being "easy".]I get that there should be some skill escalation for expansions, but what HoT is and was is mostly cheap mechanics that defy counterplay. At least half of the critters have something "good but wrong" about them.

Okay, this one has me scratching my head. Can you provide some examples of cheap mechanics that defy counter-play? That it is intended that you utilize your available kit to counter powerful enemies seems an obvious theme of the design.

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@"naiasonod.9265" said:HoT and PoF mobs have a lot of cheesy powers they can use far too often, and they're all HP sponges.

Don't compare this hackneyed farce to Dark Souls. Dark souls requires good timing and figuring out the choreography of a fight, which only the good fights here in GW2 also feature.

Overworked mobs and dramatic oversaturated Veteran/Elite mobs are just cheese factories that spam overpowered and utterly enormous AOE and Charge and hugely damaging multihits and knockdown and cripple/weakness conditions.

When you look at the design of something, the purpose of that design is often clear based on what the thing in question does.

The purpose of HoT and PoF mobs in terms of their design is clear - they're meant to bypass any and all defenses players have except dodges, blocks and evades, which many classes don't have in abundance and typically don't have in sufficient quantities in any builds that actual players will ever use, because those builds would be utter trash for anything else.

So what's the purpose of this? I phone that the purpose is to feign challenge, and in lieu of being creative, making mobs overpowered damage sponges that can often be counted on to have long and spamable evade/block phases during which time they're essentially invulnerable even if they're also attacking you.

This is the phoned in fake challenge route, and all it does is encourage zerg gameplay for HP's and events, and while there's nothing wrong with zerging up, it's a fairly stupid thing to drive people into doing if you wanted them to do anything else at all ever.

If you're at all concerned about efficiency of time use any time/reward factors, soloing is stupid and you shouldn't bother with it at all. Join an event/bounty train or HP train and get things done quickly and properly, then plink around exploring solo if you like.

HoT and PoF ironically trivialize themselves by making zerg tactics the only tactic worth bothering with if you're actually serious about getting things done. This means that all their pointlessly cheesy mobs get melted in five seconds no matter and they might as well not have bothered giving them ridiculously huge, hard hitting and boringly tedious powers that punish nobody but solo explorers at all.

HoT and PoF mobs are tedious and exasperating. They're not particularly fun and aren't rewarding whatsoever to deal with, and that annoyance factor is the only successful accomplishment achieved by their design.

I can solo low tier fractals more easily than I can sometimes deal with overworld mobs, and the hlarity of why is because fractal fights are structured.

Run around HoT or PoF and you're almost certainly going to have tons of adds wander into your fights, and a considerable number of those adds will be veterans that can frequently kill you in one big crit or spammed multihit roll/channel/shoot you forever powers even if you're kitten around in full Soldier gear.

HoT and PoF completely destroy the use of creative builds and functionally force players into a single playstyle that relies completely on dodging on desperate use of frequently sparing evade/block/distort powers to avoid being utterly annihilated by some tiny little rolling monster that can hit you five times a second for 3k per hit while almost never stopping it's rolling.

You miss one dodge and you're often dead. You miss one block when you're out of stamina and you're often dead. The best defense is often an overwhelming offense, and of you can't kill it before it one shots you, you're going to die a lot, and even if you manage to kill the five things you got the jump on just fine, there'll be a wandering patrol with a stealther and a veteran that will wander in while you're fighting

Fractals are fun because they reward strategy and good gameplay. Dungeons aren't generally fun because they're where the issue of grossly overpowered trash got featured firstly and they reward nothing except killing things asap and figuring out how to skip as much as possible.

Raids reward good gameplay and solid group synergy.

Overworld exploration is just as PITA that rewards asolo explorer with nonstop annoyance and the promise that every fight will be obnoxious and all you'll want to do while you're picking your way through the kitten you can't avoid fighting is never have to fight this stuff ever again, because it's pointless and annoying.

It isn't hard in any sense other than to put up with, and when your 'challenge' is a tolerance check for blinding tedium, you failed at coming up with a challenge worthy of the name.

So zerg up if you want to get things done quickly and efficiently. I promise you, of you had fun the first few times you had to deal with obnoxious mobs, in six years, you'll be so sick of having to deal with them that you'll be putting groups together for everything because there's just no salient point in soloing unless you're a masochist or perhaps not the sharpest spoon in the knife drawer.

I think it's pretty fun to utilize positioning and timing along with dodging and all of my skills to counter enemies that could otherwise be a real threat to me (and usually were, earlier in my GW2 career!).

That just looks cool, doesn't it? Check the part at about 0:44 where I backpedal toward the two pursuing bladedancers and then polaric leap back to the shadowleaper leaving them attacking nothing but air with their stun-and-kill maneuver! Cmon, that was pretty slick, right?

This just doesn't look like the same game you're describing. But I suppose that's a matter of perspective.

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