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Why i think casuals are the most important player in guild wars 2


Angel.3916

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I really don't like the axiomatic agenda of this. It draws what I think is an unnecessary line in the sand between 'Casuals' and...everyone else? What exactly is a casual anyway? Nobody's going to agree on a definition for this term, and the very act of trying to bisect the issue and then declare one arbitrary side to be of greater importance automatically throws the whole discussion - everyone's going to want to think of themselves as a casual because who, precisely, is going to want to identify and categorize themselves as being of lesser importance?

And since we're all pretty much free to make up what 'casual' does and doesn't mean, the discussion was over pretty much before it even began.

No. I think the better mindset to have is to understand that player experience is the most important thing no matter the individual's colloquially labeled playstyle.

The quality of a player's experience with the game will directly impact retention, evangelizing and representation through extraneous mediums such as fan art, guides, content discussion videos, etcetera.

It is completely counterintuitive and self-destructive to just draw some line in the sand and say one side is better because of reasons we'll never actually be able to meaningfully define let alone statistically determine.

Every player is important because every player is both a potential paying customer, and money is blood in the body of any business, but also because every player is a potential spokesperson representing the game far and wide throughout their own social networks.

From a god's-eye view, it seems easy to recognize which players fall into which demographics. Those players that seldom to never raid, do fractals or even dungeons might look definitively casual, and the hardcore raiders that religiously do their fractal dailies and then spend numerous hours a day in WvW or PvP might look definitively hardcore, but those assumptions can be and often are incorrect because they're conclusions drawn from woefully incomplete data.

Sme people that seldom to never raid, do fractals or dungeons are hardcore farmers of events and harvesting nodes. They might have spreadsheets and exhaustively explored efficiency routes for farming and 37 alts they'll cycle through on nine different maps. Do you want to be the one to tell a person like that that their effort is objectively less valuable because they're not raiding or fractaling?

What about the people that do just about nothing but pvp? They don't even interact with most of the game or most of the players in the game. They might not even contribute hardly anything to the game's economy because they're on no gear treadmills in pvp and there's no essential reason for them to bother with anything else if pvp is all they want to do.

Are they casual or not? Who gets to say? What other categories other than 'casual' even are there? How do we define those in sufficiently distinctive contrast to justify their having a category of their own?

Everyone that plays the game is important. Every game mode the devs make available at least should be regarded as being of equal importance to all others. And it should always be remembered that words like 'casual' are just shy of being meaningless in too many ways for them to be used as solid reference terms for much of anything.

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@Angel.3916 said:So why are casuals the most important player in guild wars 2 ? The reason is - they buy gems and support guild wars 2. I don't think pros and end game players support guild wars 2 that much. The reason is, fractals and raids provide way too much gold, and they give you stacks of armor boxes and materials, and you just flip legendaries as well as convert gold to gems and buy what you need.

I know that as soon as i start doing fractals or raiding, gold will be a thing of the past and money(gold) won't be a problem. I really think anet should nerf the gold generated from endgame content but otherwise, casuals and those who don't play end game are most likely to spend gems.

Except casual (hold down W and 1) open world farms like RIBA, Istan, Dragonfall and Drizzlewood Cost generally have been the highest gold/h farms/activities in the game, far exceeding Raids and often even Fractals - especially since most efficient Fractal farms have been nerfed/reworked.Not sure how flipping legendaries is tied to those game modes at all.

There is already not that much point to playing endgame content, except ofc simply because it is really fun, and it's communities are already slowly dying since years because of lack of new content and in general appealing updates (incl. rewards) to bring in new people.

@Sifu.9745 said:It's hard to stay casual in a game that favorises only pro players with super fast fingers. Game is just way too difficult for any kind of casual playstyle with exception of open world, which is irrelevant.

Right, so 95%+ of content released, both through LW and expansions, being casual Open World content doesn't count and Anet is clearly favouring the filthy hardcores who dared to learn the game, with their little content drops every 1-3 years...

@Atomos.7593 said:I think all the players in the game are important for long term success. Not just the whales or the hardcore, dedicated gamers.

Exactly, an MMO needs a healthy spread among it's population to be successful longterm.There aren't enough hardcore players to carry a game on it's own, so casuals and whales just by means of numbers (population for the former, spending for the latter) are generally the bedrock of any MTX game, but once a game only has casual players or whales without hardcore players to boost activity, generate guides, organise events, lead communities etc., games start to feel dead, and then usually go that way too.The amount of players a game would need to not appear like a ghost town if mostly what it's got are players who log in once or twice a week for a bit or even just every 3 months to check out new content, or some high spending whales, in astronomical - which then leads to those players slowly quitting too to greener pastures.

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Hello all. Hope you're all having a good week. Lots of good feedback and good ideas about these things. I did get some different perspectives but i still think that the easiest way to make gold is to do fractals or raids.

But yea, i think that fractals are the worst corporate for anet, because they drop tons of ascended armor boxes and they give you heaps and heaps of sellable loot for gold.

As for the casual term. I did make a mistake on labeling what a casual is. I think that people who play PvE and PvP end game content are more hardcore while people who farm bosses, or trade the black lion auction house, or farm gold are more "relaxed". But i also want to say what i was saying earlier that ...

The trade exchange is typically 50 gold for 250ish gems. And the best farming practices do like 40-50 gold an hour ? but fractals can get a good 120 or more gold if you spam them. I think people who don't abuse fractals would need to buy gems for gold right ?

Also i have been farming materials. The thing that irks me is - there is diminishing returns and systems in place that block your exp and farming. So say i was farming vials of blood from beasts and animals, then the system would kick in and i would need to take a break. I don't like the system very much, but i know that it is there so i can spend gold on gems on buying vials of blood in the trade post. Which i don't mind, but i know that being self sufficient is not easy when systems block you.

Any ways, sorry i wrote this post this morning. I was watching streamers and just got the ideas from them. I also seen guild mates do fractals and fractals are very nice.

Well thanks for the reads you all <3

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I think this is veering towards a definition of "casual" that's so broad it's basically meaningless.

I've done Raids and T4s, I've maxed out all my Masteries, I've crafted and sold a Legendary to cash out Mystic Clovers, and I still buy some gems every time I want to pick up cosmetics. Why? Because I don't want to play chore-wheel: I want to see new things, I want to optimize my gear and make myself look pretty, I want to enjoy WvW. I'll do a bit of repetition in pursuit of those goals, but if I was looking at doing days of "RIBA" to get a single mount skin, I'd just straight-up quit the game instead — it's just not worth it, emotionally, at all.

Fractals in particular give you good loot but also tons of ways to spend that money and other currencies: full Ascended gear, +9 Infusions (later upgradable to +5/+9), optimal food, all the special things like Omnipotions, account-wide Attunements, grinding the Legendary backpack. (And saving up for some of that stuff directly conflicts with optimizing your Fractal key buys.) I don't think I've actually "paid off" my investment in Fractals yet, though it's been fun so I don't care.

And yet in other threads, when folks post about "casuals," they're suggesting that's a label specifically for people who don't know their way around a breakbar and have never set foot in Drizzlewood Coast.

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Right, so 95%+ of content released, both through LW and expansions, being casual Open World content doesn't count and Anet is clearly favouring the filthy hardcores who dared to learn the game, with their little content drops every 1-3 years...

You do realize that we discuss about MMO? Living world is solo play. If Living World is the best that one MMO can offer to a casual player ... I would rather play a single player game then. And btw you can clear all LW stories in 30 to 60 hours. And then? You gonna play them over and over again? I don't think so.MMO means that you do content that require a smaller or larger group of people most of the time. And doing stuff with others is not casual friendly at all, especially not PvP, WvW and instanced pve. So if you wanna do any serious content, this game is not casual friendly at all.But sure you can do quests and super easy events in open world, you can ride around on your mounts and pretend that this game is friendly to casual players.

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I think casuals are important because of their perspectives regardless of how "good" a player they are by whatever metrics you decide are important. I consider myself a casual player still after 5 years & I haven't let the "Savior of Tyria" title go to my head when it comes to the game or the way I treat other players for the most part unless they are a bit of a kittencanoe.

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When senior leadership of the company who directly works on this game all bail on the company around the same time to me it sends a clear message. That things to come are so bad that it would make them completely leave their job to work on something that may never even get anywhere over what is going to happen to this game. So anyone who is still playing after that is a casual player. Plus its so bad that ncsoft put cantha on their fishing hooks here fishy fishy.

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I do agree that there is not a great incentive to purchase things in the game with money besides the expansions, but that is the business model Anet has chosen. Maybe more releases of expansions would help this issue since they seem to attract a lot of purchases with money. But some might complain that they are not getting good value for their money in expansions if the expansions are not of high quality.

@Asum.4960 said:

@Atomos.7593 said:I think all the players in the game are important for long term success. Not just the whales or the hardcore, dedicated gamers.

Exactly, an MMO needs a healthy spread among it's population to be successful longterm.There aren't enough hardcore players to carry a game on it's own, so casuals and whales just by means of numbers (population for the former, spending for the latter) are generally the bedrock of any MTX game, but once a game only has casual players or whales without hardcore players to boost activity, generate guides, organise events, lead communities etc., games start to feel dead, and then usually go that way too.The amount of players a game would need to not appear like a ghost town if mostly what it's got are players who log in once or twice a week for a bit or even just every 3 months to check out new content, or some high spending whales, in astronomical - which then leads to those players slowly quitting too to greener pastures.

Yeah the active players are also important, even if they don't spend as much relatively. It's an MMORPG where certain activities require a group to complete, which means that there needs to be enough other players to do all of the content in the game. It's not a single player game where you can buy all of the DLC and just play everything solo.

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@Sifu.9745 said:

Right, so 95%+ of content released, both through LW and expansions, being casual Open World content doesn't count and Anet is clearly favouring the filthy hardcores who dared to learn the game, with their little content drops every 1-3 years...

You do realize that we discuss about MMO? Living world is
solo play
. If Living World is the best that one
MMO
can offer to a casual player ... I would rather play a single player game then. And btw you can clear all LW stories in 30 to 60 hours. And then? You gonna play them over and over again? I don't think so.MMO means that you do content that require a smaller or larger group of people most of the time. And doing stuff with others is not casual friendly at all, especially not PvP, WvW and instanced pve. So if you wanna do any serious content, this game is not casual friendly at all.But sure you can do quests and super easy events in open world, you can ride around on your mounts and pretend that this game is friendly to casual players.

WvW and Spvp are modes which pit you against other PLAYERS. There is not much in the way the developer can do to make up for your personal skill when facing more skilled opponents besides strait up just handing you an advantage. The question here is: how easy is it to get into the game mode, how low are the barriers? In case of Spvp very low given you can start pretty much strait away. In case of WvW it takes a tad longer, but even here with budget builds it is a fraction of what other games often require for their pvp modes. As such from an ease of entry approach, this game is again very casual friendly.

As far as PvE content, the vast majority is catered to a weaker skilled player base. It does not matter that in this case this is called open world (as a matter of fact, low tier fractals are also aimed at less skilled player successfully and dungeons by now are just face roll easy. Those 2 cover like 80% of all instanced content.). As such, the vast majority of instanced and pve content overall is catered to weaker players. You simply chose to focus on the remaining 5% of hardcore content which you lack the skill to participate in. Understandable that this might bug you, that does not mean this content makes up the majority of what this game has to offer.

The game is casual friendly in that you can achieve just about anything gear and play wise no matter how skilled you are, except in some cases it might take a bit longer. Being casual friendly is not synonymous with offering absolutely no challenge at all or catering to players who know nothing past their skill 1.

It then depends on the definition of casual player, for which many use play time. Suffice to say: there are some very skilled casual players, while there are some very unskilled hardcore players. The difference here is in each individuals players approach into bettering themselves at this game.

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@"Sifu.9745" said:

Right, so 95%+ of content released, both through LW and expansions, being casual Open World content doesn't count and Anet is clearly favouring the filthy hardcores who dared to learn the game, with their little content drops every 1-3 years...

You do realize that we discuss about MMO? Living world is
solo play
. If Living World is the best that one
MMO
can offer to a casual player ... I would rather play a single player game then. And btw you can clear all LW stories in 30 to 60 hours. And then? You gonna play them over and over again? I don't think so.MMO means that you do content that require a smaller or larger group of people most of the time. And doing stuff with others is not casual friendly at all, especially not PvP, WvW and instanced pve. So if you wanna do any serious content, this game is not casual friendly at all.But sure you can do quests and super easy events in open world, you can ride around on your mounts and pretend that this game is friendly to casual players.

Living World also means new maps, often ones with a mix of solo activities (like Skyscale collection or the light puzzles) and big metas that cause the players on the map to form ad-hoc groups (look at Dragonfall, Drizzlewood Coast, and Bjora Marches for example). That's not everyone's cup of tea -- I said upthread I get bored repeating content just to pick up 10 g worth of loot -- but there is a lot to do in the game just sorta tooling around at your own pace. I've been going out of my way to pick up mastery points recently, and I've found that I actually really enjoyed both the Bjora light puzzles and a bunch of the little HoT mini-games. There's lots of little things like that which have tangible rewards through the achievement system; most of them are quite "casual-friendly" in the sense that they don't require an organized group or a lot of repetition, don't impose any gear or build checks at all, and they're reasonably well-documented by the community as well.

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@Angel.3916 said:I did get some different perspectives but i still think that the easiest way to make gold is to do fractals or raids.

Well, technically they are the hardest way to make money, by miles in terms of gameplay. Which is why they should give a decent amount.

@Angel.3916 said:And the best farming practices do like 40-50 gold an hour ? but fractals can get a good 120 or more gold if you spam them. I think people who don't abuse fractals would need to buy gems for gold right ?

120g/h is vastly overestimated. Those numbers may have once been possible for a short time with things like Aquatic Farm, but these things have long been fixed.30g/h is much closer to the actual number you will pull in Fractals, which is exceeded by some brainless Auto Attack open world farms while requiring much more skill and investment to pull of effectively.

If you know someone casually making 120g per hour currently in Fractals, please give them my number.

On another note, to really make good money in Fractals (but still far, far from 120g/h) you need things like Fractal God for the extra Encryptions, but people tend to forget that that alone costs thousands of gold and months of effort to acquire, which really you are then just slowly getting back with the extra rewards.

@Angel.3916 said:Also i have been farming materials. The thing that irks me is - there is diminishing returns and systems in place that block your exp and farming. So say i was farming vials of blood from beasts and animals, then the system would kick in and i would need to take a break. I don't like the system very much, but i know that it is there so i can spend gold on gems on buying vials of blood in the trade post. Which i don't mind, but i know that being self sufficient is not easy when systems block you.

Farming materials directly from mobs usually is not the way to go in GW2. Profit is generally delegated to sea's of chests to loot after Meta Events or currencies like Volatile Magic, etc.

Diminishing returns mostly exist to combat botting as far as I'm aware.

@Sifu.9745 said:You do realize that we discuss about MMO? Living world is solo play. If Living World is the best that one MMO can offer to a casual player ... I would rather play a single player game then. And btw you can clear all LW stories in 30 to 60 hours. And then? You gonna play them over and over again? I don't think so.MMO means that you do content that require a smaller or larger group of people most of the time. And doing stuff with others is not casual friendly at all, especially not PvP, WvW and instanced pve. So if you wanna do any serious content, this game is not casual friendly at all.But sure you can do quests and super easy events in open world, you can ride around on your mounts and pretend that this game is friendly to casual players.

Just because you don't enjoy the casual content GW2 provides doesn't mean it's not by far and wide the absolute focus demographic of Anet and vast vast majority of content in the game.The fact that GW2 arguably more or less failed as MMO and is delivering mostly tutorial level difficulty single player content is a whole other issue, but to say Anet favours hardcore twitch gameplay content is blatantly wrong when they release 15 minutes of that type of content every 1-3 years max.

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@"Ayrilana.1396" said:Wouldn’t a non-casual player be more likely to spend more money on the game because they dedicate more time and are more invested?

So much this ^

I am not a casual and I am a whale.

This thread is another one of those "shower thoughts" someone had and has no data to back it up. Everyone is a potential supporter of the game, regardless of how invested they are and what they do in the game.

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@Sifu.9745 said:

@Sifu.9745 said:It's hard to stay casual in a game that favorises only pro players with super fast fingers. Game is just way too difficult for any kind of casual playstyle with exception of open world, which is irrelevant.

Wait, are you talking about THIS game? That's hardly the case; if it DIDN'T favour casuals, it wouldn't be here in the first place. The 'exception' you speak of is actually the majority of game content.

So what should i do in open world when i ding 80? I have no idea, really. After getting all 4 mounts, most mastery points, hero points, unlocked 2 elite specs i don't see a reason why should i ever get back to HoT and PoF maps? Oh yes, you can do some world bosses with 20 + people and get downed over and over again. Super casually!

Personal story i am not interested about. Also not interested about any kind of living story. I don't even know what living story is lol, not kidding.

I want to do PvP, WvW and do instanced pve but everything seems so difficult and hard core oriented. You can enter unranked PvP but it's not easy at all: one mistake and you get down within 1 - 3 seconds, if not max concentrated. Is this casual? WvW: not sure what to say here ..., Pve: one shot boss mechanics. Really? That's why i have never done even one single Fractal. I admit i have no courage to step into my first Fractal because i am pretty sure that i will be dying a lot + how to find a group for Fractal #1? No idea.

If this game is really made for casuals, then we would see way more players, don't you think? Why can't we play PvP, WvW and instanced pve with every weapon we like? Why no group would accept my Staff/Scepter condi Mirage in Raids and Fractals? Is this casual?

WoW is a typical casual game: you can play everything from super easy dangeons up to mythic raids and mythic dungeons. You can play every role you want with every weapon you want. You can play PvP where you don't get eliminated within 3 seconds, no matter how bad you are, even if you go AFK you will survive for 10 seconds at least vs one opponent. The only good thing about gW2 is that you don't need to endlessly farm gear: you can get exotic gear with almost no effort.

Casual means, that you can do random content with other people and have some fun with whatever build and weapon set you want, instead of being maximum concentrated and coordinated with your group 24/7. Some of us are a bit lazy, you know.Sorry for English ...

Every "Gripe" you have with the game was answered with how Core handled it, ever weapon had a place. All builds could be used "Optimally" and by skipping out on the living story (Not the narrative but the MAPS and content in those maps) you put yourself at a slight disadvantage. Some maps have stat sets (Plauge-doctors for example is in S4 within the domain of Kourna) which is good for some niche builds and can be fun to play with. WvW is not hard at all, click on a tag on your mini-map and join it then follow the zerg OR find a guild that runs normally or has members who do and join up with them and run with them. Same goes for PvP... its a multiplayer game and requires multiplayer experiences; WoW requires this if you want to "Get good" and begin really PvPing or doing Mythic raiding... why should that be different here?

Asking for that content to be easier kills that content, we had this when people asked for WvW to be dumbed down and it was. Siege was mad obsolete and various other mechanics scrapped; We have a beautiful map in edge of the mists neglected because people SCREAMED about it due to it requiring more thought that than alpine/Eternal battle grounds circle jerk zerg fest. Not ALL content is made for ALL players; If you can't adapt to the content then the content therefor might not be for you? Asking it to adapt to you is asking it to abandon and shun the people who DO enjoy it. Adding onto and innovating what exists? Sure. Bringing back what was ripped away to return rich and deep meaningful incursions? Sure, fine I am all down for that. Dumbing down the content to streamline it for people who adamantly REFUSE To learn? Im not about that. I never will be, and Im pretty casual honestly... been playing on and off since launch and while Im on at least once or twice a week its not for like all day sessions.

@Asum.4960 said:

@Sifu.9745 said:You do realize that we discuss about MMO? Living world is
solo play
. If Living World is the best that one
MMO
can offer to a casual player ... I would rather play a single player game then. And btw you can clear all LW stories in 30 to 60 hours. And then? You gonna play them over and over again? I don't think so.MMO means that you do content that require a smaller or larger group of people most of the time. And doing stuff with others is not casual friendly at all, especially not PvP, WvW and instanced pve. So if you wanna do any serious content, this game is not casual friendly at all.But sure you can do quests and super easy events in open world, you can ride around on your mounts and pretend that this game is friendly to casual players.

Just because you don't enjoy the casual content GW2 provides doesn't mean it's not by far and wide the absolute focus demographic of Anet and vast vast majority of content in the game.The fact that GW2 arguably more or less failed as MMO and is delivering mostly tutorial level difficulty single player content is a whole other issue, but to say Anet favours hardcore twitch gameplay content is blatantly wrong when they release 15 minutes of that type of content every 1-3 years max.

Id like to add to what Asum said here, because there is a relevance to what was said. Guild wars 2 did indeed fail as an mmo; It does not require you to interact with anyone unless you CHOOSE too and we know tons of people just wont. But putting content behind guilds it would make guilds mean something, something of value to those who like and even those who dont like them. Some people are biased due to ONE bad expierence, when there are tons of gamers out there and guilds out there of sweet and very helpful people who WANT to help people better themselves and SEE that content. They dont mind carrying people through raids, or fractals or whatever else.... and its a shame that A-net didn't put more effort into giving guilds a purpose outside of a glorified nod to the original game.

Also the complaints above are exactly WHY WvW/PvP/Raids/Fractals and likely soon to be strikes will never get more cadence because A-nets answer to the problems raised and the whining of very vocal minorities in the fan-base is "Just give them living world." And that is because living world can be easy, but grindy to give the players the feeling their are indeed accomplishing something. But this has drug the game down SOOOOO MUCH over the years, HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot. It required team-play and was the answer to everyone saying and meme'n it up with "guild wars 2 has no end-game... REEEE!" Then we got the complete dumpster fire that was PoF of which I've NEVER gone back too because it was a boring expansion, with a bad narrative and beautiful and well crafted but EMPTY HOLLOW MAPS. The game should NOT have to adapt to the player, the player should have to adapt if they want to complete X content. I can't go busting into raids with my WvW build because BOTH MODES require different things to be succesful, and both modes play 100% differently from one another.

WvW/PvP/Raids/Fractals and yes even strikes are in the state they are in not because of casual players. But because of lazy ones. Ones who dont want to play the game and want a mobile like expierence, where the game basically plays itself and you watch. I've watched a very beautiful game and one I loved dearly go to a place that is hard to follow or stomach, the game is not in a good place in content cadence FOR EVERYONE right now. And balance is ... well lmfao its not even close to applicable in anything other than a "Con". The more you cater to those who do not wish to play this game but another, the more you stray from what you were and what we all fell in love with... and that will only loose you both the ones who never intended to stay.... and those who wanted too but will no longer. From a Tyrian... focus on Tyrians... focus on those who STAYED for the long haul and have been here and continue to be here; New blood will come. New world is trying to be "hardcore" with its content but people will flock to it, ESO is even more hard core than guild wars (Honestly probably more than WoW right now.) Yet casual and "Lazy gamers" flock to it. Gamers of all calibers will come so long as a thriving ecosystem and community exists in which they can interact.... and guild wars 2? Well the closest you get to really interacting with the community, or being apart of it is reading map chat. Focus on keeping what works.... working... and work on innovating and building upon the foundations while minimizing what doesn't work so that the game can grow.

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@"Thornwolf.9721" said:

Also the complaints above are exactly WHY WvW/PvP/Raids/Fractals and likely soon to be strikes will never get more cadence because A-nets answer to the problems raised and the whining of very vocal minorities in the fan-base is "Just give them living world." And that is because living world can be easy, but grindy to give the players the feeling their are indeed accomplishing something. But this has drug the game down SOOOOO MUCH over the years, HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot. It required team-play and was the answer to everyone saying and meme'n it up with "guild wars 2 has no end-game... REEEE!" Then we got the complete dumpster fire that was PoF of which I've NEVER gone back too because it was a boring expansion, with a bad narrative and beautiful and well crafted but EMPTY HOLLOW MAPS. The game should NOT have to adapt to the player, the player should have to adapt if they want to complete X content. I can't go busting into raids with my WvW build because BOTH MODES require different things to be succesful, and both modes play 100% differently from one another.

I agree. I haven't seen another MMO change so greatly over time in terms of difficulty and open world. It kind of feels like GW2 has always lacked an identity that Anet felt confident to develop the game with.

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@"Thornwolf.9721" said:HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot.I would like to think that Anet made the decision to adjust HoT based on something other than your suggested "not the majority". To me, your point doesn't make business sense.

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@kharmin.7683 said:

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot.I would like to think that Anet made the decision to adjust HoT based on something other than your suggested "not the majority". To me, your point doesn't make business sense.

I‘d also like souces of the HoT nerf being due to a minority.If we look at revenue during pre-HoT content drought and post-HoT release it paints a clear picture to me how HoT content was initially recieved.

I‘d also argue that gerent has more player activity post-nerf than pre-nerf, in my own subjective experience, as we haven‘t recieved any numbers on playernumbers during events from Anet. So „left to rot“ is a strong statement to make, when I actually see more people doing it after the nerf than before.

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@Sifu.9745 said:

Right, so 95%+ of content released, both through LW and expansions, being casual Open World content doesn't count and Anet is clearly favouring the filthy hardcores who dared to learn the game, with their little content drops every 1-3 years...

You do realize that we discuss about MMO? Living world is
solo play
. If Living World is the best that one
MMO
can offer to a casual player ... I would rather play a single player game then. And btw you can clear all LW stories in 30 to 60 hours. And then? You gonna play them over and over again? I don't think so.MMO means that you do content that require a smaller or larger group of people most of the time. And doing stuff with others is not casual friendly at all, especially not PvP, WvW and instanced pve. So if you wanna do any serious content, this game is not casual friendly at all.But sure you can do quests and super easy events in open world, you can ride around on your mounts and pretend that this game is friendly to casual players.

I love how you define what PVE to you just so your narrow view of this game is correct; how contrived. I don't know how you have come to the conclusions you have ... but GW2 is about as casual a game as you can find ... even SOME of the instanced content (not all). ALL the content is 'serious' and your attempts to dismiss the parts of it that prove you wrong as not serious is a big blow to your credibility and your point. Just because LW is solo play doesn't exclude it as part of the experience of this game and its casual appeal. In fact, that's exactly part of the reason the game has such a strong casual feel to it ... because elements of it allow players to be successful on their own terms.

The label doesn't matter and no, MMO doesn't mean you do content that requires a group ... it means you are in a world with other players who are online that you CAN do content with if you choose to ... just like EVERY other MMO. If you are going to make arguments based on definitions ... get them right; don't just invent them to get the result you want. Just because the elements of this game that may be favoured by casual players isn't content you care for doesn't mean the game isn't a good casual experience.

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@Raknar.4735 said:

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot.I would like to think that Anet made the decision to adjust HoT based on something other than your suggested "not the majority". To me, your point doesn't make business sense.

I‘d also like souces of the HoT nerf being due to a minority.

There aren't any because the whole minority/majority argument is silly. The so called "nerf" of HOT wasn't even massive to begin with, in terms of difficulty and mob spawns. They changed champion hero points into veterans so new players in Verdant Brink could get their elite specs unlocked faster, they nerfed exactly one mob in terms of skills (Itzel Shadowleaper), and reduced mob density on walkways leading to different parts of areas. The actual mobs in event areas weren't even touched. It's that players eventually got better at playing the game and when they went back to HOT they found it easier and they... "blame" the nerfs. Oh well

The biggest change was how meta events work, rewarding players in steps and not only at the end of the meta, and that was a great change for everyone.@"Thornwolf.9721" is right about "left to rot" though, with the new meta reward system there is little reason to stay on HOT maps outside meta events and the population there is indeed very low, until the meta starts. But that's normal for every other map in the game, so not really a problem.

If we look at revenue during pre-HoT content drought and post-HoT release it paints a clear picture to me how HoT content was initially recieved.

Pre-HOT the game wasn't free, post-HOT the core game became free, which is the reason given by NCSoft themselves for the decline of revenue after the release of HOT. Gem store sales are stable, game sales are low because conversions are low. According to the data analysts and economists of NCsoft that is. Forum economists might have different ideas.

I‘d also argue that gerent has more player activity post-nerf than pre-nerf, in my own subjective experience, as we haven‘t recieved any numbers on playernumbers during events from Anet. So „left to rot“ is a strong statement to make, when I actually see more people doing it after the nerf than before.

Nitpicking: Chak Gerent nerf wasn't part of the "big HOT nerf", Chak Gerent was nerfed much much later

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot.I would like to think that Anet made the decision to adjust HoT based on something other than your suggested "not the majority". To me, your point doesn't make business sense.

I‘d also like souces of the HoT nerf being due to a minority.

There aren't any because the whole minority/majority argument is silly. The so called "nerf" of HOT wasn't even massive to begin with, in terms of difficulty and mob spawns. They changed champion hero points into veterans so new players in Verdant Brink could get their elite specs unlocked faster, they nerfed exactly one mob in terms of skills (Itzel Shadowleaper), and reduced mob density on walkways leading to different parts of areas. The actual mobs in event areas weren't even touched. It's that players eventually got better at playing the game and when they went back to HOT they found it easier and they... "blame" the nerfs. Oh well

The biggest change was how meta events work, rewarding players in steps and not only at the end of the meta, and that was a great change for everyone.@"Thornwolf.9721" is right about "left to rot" though, with the new meta reward system there is little reason to stay on HOT maps outside meta events and the population there is indeed very low, until the meta starts. But that's normal for every other map in the game, so not really a problem.

Can't be "left to rot" when the playerbase was already avoiding HoT maps like the plague to begin with. The increase in playernumbers came with the new rewards, like you stated.

If we look at revenue during pre-HoT content drought and post-HoT release it paints a clear picture to me how HoT content was initially recieved.

Pre-HOT the game wasn't free, post-HOT the core game became free, which is the reason given by NCSoft themselves for the decline of revenue after the release of HOT. Gem store sales are stable, game sales are low because conversions are low. According to the data analysts and economists of NCsoft that is. Forum economists might have different ideas.

I'd actually really like to see the source where NCsofts data analysts and economists outright state that it is due to F2P! Feel free to share.

I‘d also argue that gerent has more player activity post-nerf than pre-nerf, in my own subjective experience, as we haven‘t recieved any numbers on playernumbers during events from Anet. So „left to rot“ is a strong statement to make, when I actually see more people doing it after the nerf than before.

Nitpicking: Chak Gerent nerf wasn't part of the "big HOT nerf", Chak Gerent was nerfed much much later

Also nitpicking: neither me nor Thornwolf have mentioned a "big HoT nerf". We, or atleast I was just talking about nerfs to HoT content. So your nitpicking is kinda irrelevant.

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@Raknar.4735 said:

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot.I would like to think that Anet made the decision to adjust HoT based on something other than your suggested "not the majority". To me, your point doesn't make business sense.

I‘d also like souces of the HoT nerf being due to a minority.If we look at revenue during pre-HoT content drought and post-HoT release it paints a clear picture to me how HoT content was initially recieved.

I‘d also argue that gerent has more player activity post-nerf than pre-nerf, in my own subjective experience, as we haven‘t recieved any numbers on playernumbers during events from Anet. So „left to rot“ is a strong statement to make, when I actually see more people doing it after the nerf than before.

I dont have a source, this is entirely a subjective opinion. I loved HoT when it came out; And to this day I still hate PoF (Note I do not consider living world as part of the expansion, they are linked but I look at what we get for money spent on the expansion. HoT just brought more to the table.) A-net has and always likely will be knee jerky with their reactions; Id like for that to change but its just how they work. Im not saying all the changes were bad but I liked how difficult HoT was and back then I was not as much a WvW player or PvP as guild wars 2 as I've gotten older has offered me more in terms of competitive play. When I was young I just wanted to go out and kill monsters, have a minor story and have cool zones. HoT gave me that, the mastery system, the revenant and E-specs along with tons of really well designed zones and guild halls. PoF to me just handed mounts and some interesting E-specs (Spellbreaker, Renegade) But two out of nine just doesn't cut it for me, HoT had me excited for everything even classes I didn't play at the time.

Like I've said before if End of dragons is just PoF 2, electric bugaloo then imma skip out on it. PoF really opened my eyes to the fact that A-net is not offering what I as a consumer wants or what I feel is worthy of my money. PoF to me even though it was around thirty bucks, I still feel that is too much for what the inital launch constituted in and I want End of Dragons to be worthy and priced at 60$ so they can make some solid money. But I can't justify that when the expansions really don't feel like expansions; When compared to other games and even when compared to guild wars 1. The second expansion was just more of the same and felt like we were going through the motions and as much as I adore mounts now; We didn't need them and we all know this. PoF litterally was the "mount expansion" nothing more, story was meh and a lot of the content was meh. I have never once gone back to the PoF zones once I was done with them and likely I probably wont go back anytime soon if ever, S4 maps are a different story but again living world =/= expansion in my eyes.

Edit: Raknar's right, I never was mentioning Chakk Gerent specifically. I was more talking about ALL the other content that got pooped on and dumbed down because "iT ToO HaRd Reeee!" Because thats what happened. And I never meant that HoT was left to rot or that overworld pve in general has been left to rot; No when I say left to rot I mean all the other game modes. The argument in this thread from the OP is that "Hardcore" content has more cadence than Casual content but the focus, and all the drive is open world PvE which is as casual as you can get. You can do open world PvE with anything, even naked with just a weapon and jewlery with now issues once so ever? But all the modes that require some form of time investement, growth, social interaction and learning the game have been abandoned at levels that are baffling. Raids/WvW/PvP/Fractals and even Strikes have been left with little content cadence and yes we just had a fractal launch but after how freak'n long? How long until the next one? I dont even raid and haven't since HoT but I still feel for that portion of the player-base who is neglected, unwanted and left with nothing very similarly to how PvP and WvW are treated. You dont go "To the one pvper in the back!" At an event as a jab at that side of the player base, unless you REALLY dont care about them at all.

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@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:HoT was amazing but because of the backlash from people who were not the majority it was devastated with nerfs and was left to rot.I would like to think that Anet made the decision to adjust HoT based on something other than your suggested "not the majority". To me, your point doesn't make business sense.

I‘d also like souces of the HoT nerf being due to a minority.If we look at revenue during pre-HoT content drought and post-HoT release it paints a clear picture to me how HoT content was initially recieved.

I‘d also argue that gerent has more player activity post-nerf than pre-nerf, in my own subjective experience, as we haven‘t recieved any numbers on playernumbers during events from Anet. So „left to rot“ is a strong statement to make, when I actually see more people doing it after the nerf than before.

I dont have a source, this is entirely a subjective opinion. I loved HoT when it came out; And to this day I still hate PoF (Note I do not consider living world as part of the expansion, they are linked but I look at what we get for money spent on the expansion. HoT just brought more to the table.) A-net has and always likely will be knee jerky with their reactions; Id like for that to change but its just how they work. Im not saying all the changes were bad but I liked how difficult HoT was and back then I was not as much a WvW player or PvP as guild wars 2 as I've gotten older has offered me more in terms of competitive play. When I was young I just wanted to go out and kill monsters, have a minor story and have cool zones. HoT gave me that, the mastery system, the revenant and E-specs along with tons of really well designed zones and guild halls. PoF to me just handed mounts and some interesting E-specs (Spellbreaker, Renegade) But two out of nine just doesn't cut it for me, HoT had me excited for everything even classes I didn't play at the time.

Like I've said before if End of dragons is just PoF 2, electric bugaloo then imma skip out on it. PoF really opened my eyes to the fact that A-net is not offering what I as a consumer wants or what I feel is worthy of my money. PoF to me even though it was around thirty bucks, I still feel that is too much for what the inital launch constituted in and I want End of Dragons to be worthy and priced at 60$ so they can make some solid money. But I can't justify that when the expansions really don't feel like expansions; When compared to other games and even when compared to guild wars 1. The second expansion was just more of the same and felt like we were going through the motions and as much as I adore mounts now; We didn't need them and we all know this. PoF litterally was the "mount expansion" nothing more, story was meh and a lot of the content was meh. I have never once gone back to the PoF zones once I was done with them and likely I probably wont go back anytime soon if ever, S4 maps are a different story but again living world =/= expansion in my eyes.

That's fine! I just wasn't a fan of the majority/minority argument.Voting with your wallet is the best thing you can do as a customer, so if you didn't like PoF and EoD is similiar, what you intend to do (not buying it) is the best thing you can do to send a message. If enough people do that, Anet will notice that in their stats and change direction.

I liked the PoF story way more than HoT, PoF maps with their reward increase have gotten roughly the same playtime amount HoT maps have gotten from me (Nowadays I only do gerent and the occasional AB, haven't visited Dragon's Stand in months). Many of the PoF e-speccs however were my least favourite feature. I hope they can do better with EoD.

The only tip i can give you is waiting some time before buying EoD once it releases and checking what people say about it. If you like the direction and want to experience the expansion for yourself, buy it. If not, then don't.

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