Erise.5614

Out of curiosity. Which maps are more profitable than Kaineng in your experience? And what is the rough value you were talking about when calling EoD maps Because as far as I can tell. Kaineng really is struggling in multiple ways. Besides being long and with little rewards at the end I can not think of a good explanation why the statuette might be several times more valuable than any other.

It was meant to be read as direct reply, picking up on the last words. So in response to "knowing how profitable EoD maps are". Considering you are coming from this perspective This statement really does not match up with my numbers or the numbers of others (e.g. fast farming community). While also clashing with the perception a lot of players have while playing (see this thread). The response "because I play OW and I just know" suggested to me that we probably didn't overlook anything. But that it is rather more likely you misjudged the profitability.

...I mean. Evidently you do not^^ I mostly play OW and do benchmark my own findings against fast farming and against each other. It usually is fairly close to the detailed results fast farming achieves (in terms of which items drop and in what amount, the values and durations can be off by a lot). Kaineng is bottom 5% of all OW metas. Echovald is the same but half as long. So it's just a bit below average. Seitung is about average for all metas (which isn't great considering HoT and most LW maps are above average). And Dragon's End is about fine if you spend ~1h or less for the entire process. This may change if they give writs or favor a different use in the future. So it may actually be fine in the long run. But as of today, EoD maps in general are not particularly appealing reward wise. And half of them are genuinely bad.

FastFarming has a bug, overvaluing Imperial Favor. If you look at the context for the number you'll see that out of 17 gold it claims for a Kaineng Run, 14 gold are directly from imperial favor. It even recommends you to get Writ of Kaineng from the Hero's Choice chest because it thinks it's worth almost 3 gold. However, besides A.S.S. (1 per week), the only way to convert favor is through a vendor who sells stuff for Imperial Favor and Research Notes. FastFarming calculates with a Research Note value of 0. Aka, it assumes you got those for free. (Edit: Also, the value is driven by selling specific exotic armor on TP. If a lot of people would do it, the value would drop very quickly. Right now there's less than 20 trades per day of the most valuable piece of armor. To get the value assumed by FastFarming you'd need to sell more than 5 by yourself per run) Seitung is a little better. Especially because Ambergris. Making it worth about 6-7 gold for 30 minutes. So more gold in less time. But even Seitung is below several core tyria world bosses.

DE is competitive if you succeed and get on a map as close to the event start as possible. But Keineng, for example, is ~4-5 gold for 40 minutes. Including all currencies and mats you earn turned into gold. That is below most base game world bosses and the value is even inflated currently because so few people are doing it. Meaning the statuette you get is over 4 times as valuable as any of the others. It would be appropriate it was ~10-15 minutes long from start to finish. Then it would be in line with other meta events. But as it stands, it really is a lot below other events.

They were talking about GW2 Tactical Overlay (short, taco). It's technically not an addon but an independent application that just runs in the background. And when GW2 runs it will display an overlay above the game client. Usually just works after an ANet update.

One quick clarification. When I was talking about failed experiments I was talking about open world events. Whether it be TT, the HoT metas before the rework or now Dragon's End. That difficulty in open world has failed to cause significant change again and again. Not instanced content. I actually think instanced content fulfills its purpose well. It's just not attractive to a lot of players. But that poses the question why? Is it really just unawareness? Or prejudice? Do most people who try instanced content really enjoy their time there? It feels like you skipped right over that question. Answering it for yourself as "these players just don't have contact with that kind of content and therefore they don't enjoy it". When there are a whole bunch of players who do know the content but don't enjoy it. The focus on solo content is interesting but is that really the way to go in open world? There could be 50 people helping with the solo challenge. Or no one. Not all classes have the same kind of access to skill effects. Defiance damage is reasonably well distributed but teaching the game this way gets real weird once you try to bring in alacrity, quickness, stability or, worst of all, DPS. Which is very dependent on a good synergy between traits, equipment and skill usage. So now you need one mob that is balanced around 27 elites and 9 base classes which teaches 3 entirely different things in one combat scenario. That is one hell of a challenge. I do agree that better education and information in game is extremely important. I just wonder whether the focus on simply forcing players into challenging content solves the problem. Or if that just causes more rifts, more prejudice while also having more players burn out. Which would be the case if your base assumption is wrong (that everyone will enjoy that style of content when they only start playing it).

I can understand the perspective you are coming from. But the thing I don't understand is why the only way to "show [the fun of the system] to [players]" and "teach these players how to succeed in those formats and have fun with them" must mean "force them to play content they dislike and find frustrating". Everything you say here is perfectly sensible. But we know for a fact that implementing difficult content does not result in what you are promoting. It has not in the past, it has not this time. There are always some. And there's usually a small community or two who stick with the content. But nothing changes in the grand scheme of things. How is more of the same gonna improve things? Why is the only way to get people to have fun in the content to force them through frustration? And why isn't the problem with the fact that such frustration is necessary to get there?

Would that really be the right way around though? In effect, that means they deliberately implement frustration to foster a desire for a way to overcome that frustration. And then eventually offering such a tool. To me it feels more like the reason it has a negative reception is because a lot of players aren't as interested in having to try hard. In my opinion, implementing difficulty in open world just deters those audiences. Which is a pattern we have seen play out a good handful of times by now. They don't convert. It's not building a desire to improve. They mostly just avoid it. My interpretation of that is, they leave it be because they fundamentally don't look for that kind of experience. Edit: In my humble opinion. The best way towards higher conversion rates is to teach in a low pressure environment that will always remain low pressure. With a clear path towards more challenging content that ramps up very gradually. Easy to judge from afar how difficult certain content is. Have an environment where it's easy to succeed with any build or setup. But introduce challenges that teach certain mechanics. And then testing them regularly as well. So people do train most relevant skills in a low pressure environment. Having a clear intended path for where they can go for smoothly increasing challenge when they feel ready for it.

To be fair. For example, Seprents Ire has very low participation rates. Yet nothing happens. Something being unattractive doesn't necessarily mean ANet will change it. Sometimes the content isn't in a good state / isn't popular but they are fine with most players ignoring it.

Please don't misunderstand me. The point I'm making is not about succeeding when you intentionally play terribly. The point is that despite trying a lot of players end up with setups that perform far below expectations you'd have in instanced content. Seriously trying is enough for (most of) OW though (shoutout to DE). You don't necessarily have to succeed at making a decent build in order to have any chance at succeeding at the content. The point is. Poor build choices don't make success impossible. Good choices just make it easier.

Now I'm curious. For what content did you need a build dealing medium to high DPS in OW? This is an open question! I'm happy about anyone answering!

I said "almost" thinking specifically about TT. I'm pretty sure it's not possible to beat it if all players have poorly preforming builds. Though that did not exist upon release. But good to know you can't think of any either!

What OW content wasn't possible to do with any build back when the game released?

Not always everywhere. But that is how it played out for story and almost all of OW. You can play in the way you want. Using any build and any trait setup. And you'd still have a good time. It is a quite small amount of players who want to have a completely different OW experience, which is indistinguishable from any other while being, necessarily, exclusionary to the people who enjoyed the above mentioned style of content and gameplay. You know. It might actually be different. Coming from programming optimizing means to improve performance. To improve an aspect of something. Though looking it up it is also defined as perfecting the use / perfecting the efficiency. When I say optimizing beyond the OW average I mean one has to make choices that are more optimal in regards to DPS output than most players end up making.

I'm sorry. But which is it? Does the build include DPS? Is it optimized to deal DPS beyond what poor builds deal? All I'm saying is, it does focus on dealing a significant amount of DPS. More than average players are capable of in OW. It is optimized to do that. Which requires understanding of the general combat system, of the stats and the traits. Players who run these builds have 0 issue setting up builds capable of raiding either. They are not the ones who struggle performing highly. I'm criticizing this statement You generalize and blame players who are often unaware more so than consciously lazy and malicious.

I mean. This statement is very informative about you and the communities / environments you usually play with. But those numbers are not normal. Achievements are more than twice as high as in AB. Mastery is a bit closer more around 180%. Am I understanding this right. You want more content exactly like this, with absolutely no separation to the rest of OW? Nothing to be changed at all? Just different spectacle and some new mechanics? So you want next time to play out exactly like this time? With all the worst experiences that were made included? Serious frustration and the majority of the playerbase entirely avoiding the event just two months after release? What kind of wish is that?

I feel like I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say. The best open world builds provide DPS because decent DPS is vital for success. These best open world build still do 10k+ DPS. So because of that one can clearly see that these optimized OW builds can easily clear the necessary DPS. And therefore optimizing builds is unnecessary!? But these are optimized builds. For DPS. It's not maximized. There is room for even more DPS. But it's still optimized for DPS.

Organization works exclusively because of who organizes. Of who participates. Some inexperienced players can join and succeed right now only because all runs can be hosted by dedicated groups with enough high performance players. Rewind to the activity 7 weeks ago and the win rate would drop once again like a rock. It caters to everyone only so long as "everyone" is mostly extremely experienced players. Hence the ridiculous average achievement scores and mastery levels. 25k AS and above 400 mastery average is ridiculous for open world. And, as one would expect, the average DPS is related to those numbers. Soo Won can not be improved. True. It's too rigid in how it exists within the game and the negative aspects it causes have mostly played out already. So, sure. Anyone who enjoys it can keep doing that. But what about the next time ANet implements such an event? It's just gonna be the same thing all over again or what? That is not good for the game nor is it good for its community. If one does not enjoy raid wing 1, it's easy to understand that raid wing 7 probably isn't gonna be fun either. This is lacking for OW events that require above average player performance. If this is to be a regular thing aimed at a limited target audience, it should be easy to distinguish as such without participating in everything, every time first. If ANet entirely abandons that approach to open world metas then sure. That's fine too. Unfortunate for the people who enjoy it but it wouldn't cause more of the issues I'm concerned about either.

DPS meter is more a question of who the game wants to cater to. If ANet wants everyone to end up with high performance then yes. It would be a good addition. Group DPS meters do have a problem with toxicity but at the very least personal ones would be important. It clarifies that performance is the goal everyone has to strive towards and makes it drastically easier to make that progress. However, there's a significant audience who do not enjoy the game for that reason. And if they are a relevant market then ANet can not implement a DPS meter into the game without antagonizing that audience. The special forces training area is a good change. It's a bit mind numbing to experiment there but making it more accessible for the players who might want to use it was an excellent change. Forcing awareness is more difficult again. Same problem as DPS meter. But both the fractal golems and the training area could be more prominently featured around their associated content (e.g. first visit to aerodrome). Yes. And this freedom leads, in reality, to most players not optimizing well enough. The difference is that in most RPGs you can not fail at theory crafting. You can be more or less efficient. But you can not fail. In GW2 it's easy to fail at setting up a build for your character. In which case you are not just a bit less efficient but genuinely inefficient. But it's not as obvious to understand that the game allows you to be slow enough to fail by default. Games like Dark Souls can be beat with lower stats than you are expected to start out with. God Of War, Assassin's Creed are balanced so you can consistently beat enemies a few levels above you. And make it basically impossible to damage enemies that are too far above you. Making sure you do not even attempt fights you may not be ready for. Even in FF14, low DPS by a player who doesn't really know what they are doing is 4-5k. Good DPS is 15k (benchmarked with all team buffs) GW2, inexperienced, unoptimized is about 4k. Good DPS is 25k-30k (assuming team buffs). So if you were to take the build of someone who deals 3k DPS average. Equip an entire squad with exactly that build, no changes to utility skills, traits or equipment. You could beat Soo Won? I'd love to see that!

Maybe. But. If that's the goal, it should be separated from the rest of the open world in some way. A unique method of access. A unique icon or something to clearly set it apart. So everyone who enters or at least after they played it once or twice they know exactly this is the experience they have to expect. If it's not supposed to cater to everyone, then it should be clear what to expect. Easy to opt in, easy to opt out. More like raids.

This is true for solo instances. Mostly true for small group instances. And a strawman in the context of meta events. Because obviously no one is thinking "hmm. I survived easily but it didn't die. Maybe less DPS will do the trick!" But a normal player will also not understand how much damage they deal, how much is normal, how much is necessary and that the event failed because they personally are lacking damage. GW2 gives no feedback about these kinds of things. Heck, they may even deal far more than the necessary damage themselves and still fail. You already have to understand exactly how everything works and what exactly happened during the encounter to notice this. The difference is, a good build has maybe 200%-300% the performance of a bad one and games are generally balanced around ~150% base line. And, again. Can be beaten a bit slower but more consistently with higher defensive stats. GW2 is built to have the right choices perform at 1000% the damage output and encounters like Soo Won are balanced at ~250%-300% base line. And in most situations defensive choices are just an objectively terrible choice. Both defensive traits and defensive stats. It's not just good to optimize DPS output. It's mandatory. Edit: For an even like Soo Won it's certainly not like you need to optimize to the absolute maximum. But an inexperienced player giving an honest attempt at coming up with a build can realistically end up with a setup where they are literally incapable to perform to the necessary degree.

It really is though. If you look at action RPGs like Assassin's Creed, The Witcher 3 or others. They do have choice but everything makes you stronger. It merely informs your playstyle. If you overlook a synergy you take a bit longer during combat. If you have a hard time you can take a bit longer still and go super defensive. GW2 does the exact opposite. Instead of allowing for fallbacks and for players to primarily focus on their personal preference in gameplay it necessitates a very coherent setup to be any effective at all. Toughness is, besides raid tanks, an objectively wrong choice. Vitality is basically only useful in WvW. Defensive stats are mostly a trap in GW2. Despite individual choices still seeming reasonably sensible at first sight you will end up at down to ~10% the efficiency of high performance players. A good example for the mindset I was referring to though!

Is it really timing that causes the damage to be at that level? I don't think it's possible to cause the huge difference even if you tried. While a lot do seem to run non ideal trait combos and run gear that may look fine if you come from RPGs but is, in that combination, thoroughly useless in GW2. As far as I can tell the "1111" statement is meant as "it's worse than when I auto attack". Half statement of superiority and half mocking the lack of knowledge and poor performance.

5 - 10 is normal for a day. Obviously I don't advertise daily. There's guild limits after all and the new people need to settle or drop off first. If there's too many at once we can't onboard properly. Also, psst. But there's a secret tea party every night. As well as daily fractal and strike runs outside of the guild. One group made it to T3 already! Do you seriously believe it's different on DE? Most players don't use chat either or have any more complex interactions. The difference is, there's easily 4 times as many players doing AB. So the raw volume of interaction is drastically higher. Plus more memes that keep small talk going more easily. Leading to more chat in general (and no, this isn't just a feeling. If you insist I'm happy to count the specifics for the last couple of runs with FG & DBS in full. It's noticeably less on DE)