Elena.8734

Not arguing against but, why would you in the first place? As for the the second part, even tho clearly hyperbolic, i'm pretty sure most players would not even notice it happening. It would be dramatic to have this as the only content of an update XD

Still, from all the profession i play on a regular basis (Ranger, Warrior, Thief), the warrior riffle is the only weapon that still has this archaic feel to it, mostly due to the way weapon skills are cast on this weapon, in the same way than some siege weapons feel sluggish to use (it's not as responsive as most weapons are). And even if the spear fill a similar niche than the riffle, the fantasy isn't the same and one should not be obviously better in every situation than the other from a gameplay standpoint. Riffle pretty much never had a rework and is as problematic and unusable than the ranger sword was prior to it's rework (even worse i'd argue). In the wake of having a third range option for the warrior, i think it would be overdue to see a rework on this weapon, else it will stay as the third obviously worse in every situation never picked weapon for those who'd liked to play range warriors. Also, we litterally have a gun-blade spec that has next to zero synergy with the riffle. Thematically, it's criminal, in my opinion. They already confirmed there will be a new legendary spear on the first Quaterly update and that raids difficulties will come out with those. Yet i'm also wondering what could come out of those quarterly updates outside of that that could be selling enough to reignite interest enough for players to stay a while. Let's hope that's not just a legendary spear skin on the two other quarters (like Gen3). To be honest, what made me come back in QU2 of Soto was mostly the new weapons and the fresh builds and gameplay that came with 'em. The legendary armor is nice to farm if you're already playing, but if, like me, you play here and there, that's gameplay and big features (and story when it's really good, let's hope it's better than Soto) that makes you log back. At least, with the inclusion of housing, i know that while i'm not fully satisfied with what i've built, i'll be coming back to the game just for that. I really hope we'll have access to the old LA building blocs or chars ones at some point.

Zones design and Open World Add Activities (mount races, challenges) much sooner in the patch cycle Additions of random events in the first two maps released to create variations and change the flow of random events (outside of meta) each patch. In Soto Nayos felt like it evolved with each patch but Skyreach and Amnytas Stayed pretty much the same from the start to the end of the expansion. Also use the two first zones in the story of chapters 2-3-4 so we do not feel like the story of 3/4 of the expansion is confined in only one zone. I don't want a useless currency. Unusual coins in SOTO are totally useless once you get recipes and have done the legendary grind you need. I don't know why we don't have a currency sink for this one currency. Arcane chest are still profitable to loot from a gear/recycling stand point, but it feel bad to have thousands of a currency you can't do anything with. Housing Constant additions each patch of recipes for new goodies to build in our house in Older Maps (theme around them) either as Meta currencies rewards or as new achievements rewards. It could be a new category of achievements that plays out in a similar way than the legendary Neck Return to X Chapter. A chest in which you can put a bunch of rewards in for your visitors to gather (daily or weekly). Getting to/finding that chest would allow visitors to get a single random reward in those deposited by the owner of the instance. This could allow us to reward visitors for doing our jumping puzzle or finding it's way in our self made maze, and incentivize visits from you friends, while staying a pure social player-driven initiative. QoL Buff management rework. I would like to have a control on what buff i see and where it's screened Warriors A Riffle numerical and fluidity rework. I can always hope for it to come one day, but really, modernizing the casts of Riffle2 and Riffle3 so those feel less clunky, adding a way to generate self quickness (in a rework of Riffle4 maybe or through Crack Shot Discipline talent) and a little numerical adjust and the riffle could become a pretty good weapon for all Specs instead of an OK tier-ish weapon, only with Berserker. Rangers I would love for Anet to think about giving Soulbeast a way to become a Boon DPS and rework Eternal bound so it can heal other players. With the Maces/Staff and a Healing Pet, we kinda can heal currently, but the lack of boon is pretty harmful to being able to play it that way. I think a Qheal playstyle would be quite fitting, so you could have Druid AHeal, Soulbeat QDPS/QHeal and Untamed QDPS/QHeal (did not know it existed before today, but it seems it's a thing, not meta, but a thing non the less). Spears and Fashion I would like to see Anet create new skins for old weapon collections than do not have spears in it, especially those tied to in-game non-shop related rewards, like the Auric weapon set. Another reason to play older content is always great. A new armour set on every quarter patch to chase should be baseline in my opinion, especially if the gear is the same visualy in the 3 armour type.

Imagine how casual a FF14 player must be if the expac caters to their most hardcore players. In a way I understand what he means. FF14 has what they call Relic Weapons that are what's the closest you can get to a Legendary weapon grind in FF14 and is considered to be one of the most time consuming thing a player can do in this game. In a way, it's the same concept than Aurene's Legendaries with a skin for each Xpac (instead of each patch). The Legendary armour being at the core of every content in Soto, i can see the obvious comparison. Still, in a way, this is a pretty softcore grind from a GW2 player point of view, while it's considered prestigious in FF14 as it's the pinnacle of what a non high end raider can aspire to.

I'm not quite sure about that. I personnally do play full Aheal currently and i have far more fun than i had in pure DPS cause there's so few dedicated healers that i feel i'm very useful in Metas or even of Rifts (so people can slack as they like to DPS). Furthermore, the harder Metas/Strikes/Raid i do became more successful since i've swap from DPS to Full Heal (i Can solo heal pretty much every strike aside Boneskinner and DS). I remember as well leveling my Warrior with a shield, assuming i would tank (this is laughable now that i know the game much better). To be honest, the reason we don't have tanks in the game is more a matter that they're not required than the fact the role do not exist. There's traits and weapons clearly designed for tanks in mind. There is just not enough damage on the character who tank a boss to justify having one, especially when you have hybrid supports or DPS with a lot of defensive (My friend play reaper and always keep aggro, so he pretty much tank with his veil and it's far than enough). There would be people who would tank if there was a reason to. As it is, not DPSing while you tank is just reducing DPS on boss without any benefit in term of group survival. I dont think a queue would work well neither, but even tho some roles are useless they still exist, even tho nobody play them out of absolute necessity. But assuming they would do this kind of system, it would be possible to hook roles to things like ''Do you have a trait to provide this boon?'' Or ''Do you have a trait that taunt and more than X Toughness''.

It's not hard to access neither once you understand the proper way to make a group by yourself. You can fill any group for instanced content in a matter of seconds. The playerbase for those activities exist, but most players just don't make the move to create their own group. To be fair, the biggest part of the problem come from the fact that the Commander Tag isn't very accessible to a new player. It's the single best upgrade you can buy to upgrade your account, but it cost 300 gold, which require to understand and play the game for a while to get this much of disposable income (a couple of days for an experienced player, but probably a couple of years for a new casual one), and without it, making and leading a group is kind of a pain. This should be addressed. But in a world where we got Wow Classic 2019 and where Wow players regularly use the same kind of LFG system than GW2 for any content over Normal/Heroic dungeon and LFR Raids, i really don't think your claim about this is right. Yes, maybe there's a bigger step to make as a FF14 player, but LFG like that isn't a new or an enigmatic system for most MMO players (still, there is too many tabs for it own good and it could easily be made clearer by removing a bunch of useless tabs). Then most Normal strikes and even raids could be easily done by them. They have the interest in it (they do 24/8), and sincerely, those activities are not hard neither. But the facts are: Anet do not advertise their instanced content, which result in most player not even knowing it exist. There is an abusive Gatekeep in those activities, from the community (Requirements in 50-150+ LI or KP) as well as the game (commander tag costing 300gold). As result, even the playerbase that knows it exist but never tried it because of one of the two walls think that those content are so hard they should not even try to get into it. The rewards from strikes and raids are not clear (/cool) enough to make the playerbase ask how they could get those. The fixs to most of those problem, aside the Gatekeeping from community are pretty easy in perspective: As you said... This is what's missing in those activities to Grab player into trying them or at least helping players to project themself into trying them, which is the first step most player never ever do in GW2. Old lion Court and Soto strikes weapon skins are a step in the right direction, but much more should be done in that regard and it should be advertised as ''prestigious'' rewards on social medias and in their patch announcements. Don't expect players to bump into a random NPC hidden in a corner of the main city to know those rewards exist, most won't. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I did managed to get through that Gatekeeping wall a while ago (honestly by lying about requirements i did not have). Getting into it makes you question those practice from the community. Since then, i've made this investment of getting the Commander Tag, that was previously not as required since mentor tag did the job in most cases in Open World, and create my groups daily without requirements. Weirdly enough, the content is easily done, even when there's players with no experience or underDPSing in the group, flawlessly most of the time. I understand not wanting to struggle, but the reality is that aside Old Lion Court (CC/NotCC must be known) and Boneskinner (when your healers struggle) there's no normal strike that require any kind of skills over knowing you should stack with your Commander and get away when you're targeted by an AOE. Raids are a little more touchy-ish, but really, when you're running raids in other MMO's, it's not hard to figure out. Really, this content should be run by more people. Thinking it's hard in result of the Gatekeeping or not knowing it even exist are the real problems causing this content to not be run more regularly.

ESO is very strong in promotion, twice a year, when they announce their expansion (it should come in a couple of weeks) and in the summer when they launch it. And all their efforts in that regard paid as the last expansion was one of their greatest success since the launch of the game. I don't play much of this game, still i always know what's the current expansion is about and if the theme hypes me enough to play it. SWTOR is not, but let's face it, this game is on maintenance mode since 5-6 years, launching a micro-expansion every 2 years with nothing more than a very small story content and a couple of Dailies/Weeklies. It was comparable to GW2 a couple years ago. Now it's more comparable to LOTRO, to be fair. And this is why there still so many people thinking the game is in the same state it was when it launched. It's always confusing and funny to see the reaction to a Streamer's audience from another MMO trying the game as you see comments like ''Wait! There's Raids in this game?'' or ''Meh! They added mounts and look how they're awesome!'' or ''Those events are so cool!'' (cause they've seen only the boring events from the base game before). In the Wow sphere, we've had Bellular and Preach that tried the game which gave so much spotlight on GW2 since 2 years. You could argue that's Word of mouth being successful, but the context is that those Streamers were playing the game because Wow did messed up so badly that their own community were pushing back every time they talked about the game so they tried other games and this is why FF14 got is biggest influx in the last 2 years. How bad must it be to count on sexual allegations scandals combined with the worst patch cadence/content quality of a competitor to make people know your game still exist through word of mouth? Yes, GW2 is successful in a way, but it could be so much more if they would have more people to play (and pay). If the leak about their yearly revenue is to be believed, it means there's between 10 000 and 80 000 recurring paying customer on the game per year, depending on the amount of money spent by player on average. This is not much. I'm not quite sure they should count only on Word of mouth with that few.

Of course they are bigger and can achieve to have better advertising. But Anet themself have made far far far better advertising than what they've done with Soto in the past. HoT Trailer is a real banger. PoF one is kind of bad, but around the launch, it was everywhere. This added to the mouth work from the community about how GW2 had the best mount ever made in any videogame, made this expansion viewed by a ton of people (and it's still what most people outside the game knows about it). Even Icebrood Saga had a very atmospheric awesome trailer to hype the fight against Jormag and the stakes at hand. EoD had one too, i'd say it was the weakest as it didn't conveyed anything aside ''it's the last chapter of the dragon arc and it's in Cantha''. In comparison to those, the weak Trailer Soto had was comparable to a random LW episode trailer, with the only shot being not too bad be in the last 3seconds of the trailer when they reveal Cerus. Worse, if i wasnt playing at that moment, none of my friends would have known it was to launch and they play a bunch of MMO's. It gives an idea of the reach they've had with this campain. On an expansion as focused on new player experience, they should have advertised it far more with a much more appealing and approachable Trailer for players who don't know about the game or old players that could return. But it was as if they didn't want to sell Soto at all, or only to their current players (Then why make so much gameplay effort to appeal new player then). They've done a great job on other expansions, even in time where their employee count was dropping drastically, Soto is just an anomaly in that regard, even tho GW2 never reached the same level of advertising than FF or Wow (That also got it's movie 🤢 in 2016)

In a world where other ''bigger MMO's'' are drastically reducing the scope of things asked to players in order to keep up with the pace of the game, i'm not quite sure if that's still true, as more and more people have time to play more than one MMO those days.This is the answer you get everywhere when you ask for more content, an iteration of: ''If you are unsatisfied with the content here, go play this or this or this. This (in my entitled opinion) is not the focus of the game, deal with it.'' GW2 has the unique opportunity to bait a ton of lost semi-hardcore players left out by their game into high end content, as we speak (Wow as taken a super raid-log casual turn and FF14 aswell as wow are actually in a pretty bad spot for the 6 next months). Yet, Anet continue betting on the casual player and, as usual, not being great at advertising their game. If i wasn't playing during summer, cause Wow was in a low point, i would probably never have seen that there was a new expansion to launch. To be honest, if i were in their shoes in September-October, i would again have pushed back the WvW stuff (and i know i wont make friends with this statement) and i would have developed 4-5 Strikes with their CM's for Soto to launch with next patch and heavily advertised them. Kryptis are cool looking enough enemies to catch the eyes on a good trailer. Problem is not that GW2 lacks Raid-like content, it's that most players (even in those playing the game) either don't know it even exist or tried to get into it and hit their nose on the wall of unnecessary requirements elitist groups have in LFG. Anet expressed and teased plans to be revealed soon for the next expansion for more PVE end content in a recent interview, but in 6 month from now FF14 and Wow launch their own expansions in the same window than GW2, which will close this unique opportunity of having a large influx of players to revitalize this content. It only needs content for at least 21 days straight to develop an habit. But timing and Anet... Let's be clear, i like Meta Events. I think they're the best thing Anet is doing and that no other game come close to their expertise on this. But this does not means it must be the only focus of the game for one expansion straight, while having some of the weakest of them be under the spotlight. I dont dislike them doing Metas, i dislike having clearly underdevelopped Metas on an expansion focusing on the casual content. Those should be epic to do, but they achieved to make them pretty much dull.

I wouldn't say i do. Yet i like the way they made clearer some goals, being by completing Wizard's Vault stuff or by showing how's made legendaries through Lyrh. It made my goals clearer, less abstract and working toward them is fun. Still it's mostly old content. Yet dont you feel like Archipelago Meta should be more than Kill mobs and collect essence. Amnytas has spectacle in it, but the end is so anticlimactic and the zone is so awful to traverse that's very bad in my words. Nayos is Ok, because it's the first part of the Zone. We'll see in 50-ish days what's the full picture of this Meta. I bet they made something like Drizzlewood Coast where one part feed into the other. For now it is fine, just not great. The fact there' only two strike this Expac make the Daily Strike be more repetitive as we get them 3-4 times a week instead of 1-2. Let's not talk about Rifts that just lacks a spark of excitement, while asking player to farm them for hours of mindless farm to get the required essence (being for Mog or for Legs). I don't mind farming, but let's say that there could have been means to make them less repetitive by changing the challenge, have different kind of rifts, have a special ''Treasure goblin'' spawn before you close a rift... This is an unfinished product as the Gameplay loop of SOTO is pretty dull. GW2 is awesome, but SOTO could not live by itself if it wasn't living in the context of the whole game.

I truly hope it will be. Still i find the lack of polish of this expansion to be unforgiving, especially when they do not fix clearly broken stuff behind (French translation, as example, is still missing half of it's voicelines for 6 months now. They're supposedly working on a fix since 3 months and the fix is nowhere to be seen. Worse, it affected Nayos too behind.). I get they are in restructuration and probably some steps are to be refined. Still, SOTO feel like an unfinished product even before talking about the amount of content and lack there is for parts of the community. For me it's a shame that they best content of SOTO is to play old expansion content with some new weapons in your arsenal. This is the funniest part for me.

Let's be honest. From an Artwork point of vue, there is not much new stuff in this expansion. - 3sets that have the same skin, wetter being Light, Medium or Heavy (7 next patch, three being the leg Armor, one seems to be a last set from the second part of Nayos) - 2 Weapon set with a recolor - Two sets of environmental assets (Nayos and Wizard's Tower) - A Set of Monster - Two Boss Arenas. This is pretty much it. Compare it to any expansion and its pretty underdeveloped. Metas are also pretty bare bone compared to previous ones. I'm not saying they cant do anything, but clearly, they can't do much more neither, which mean there will again be a ton of reuse next expansion. If Gameplay comes out to be great, i don't care much about reusing stuff, but it need to take a step further in it creative direction to achieve us having a ''Wow that was awesome'' moment we had with other Expacs where everything felt fresh. In another tone, there's no new archetypes of enemies. EoD had this problem too, Kryptis are cool visually, but they are not different from a gameplay perspective than previous expansions mobs (and they picked the easiest to deal with), which made the Kryptis kind of boring to fight. At least it's been a while since we faced Harpy archers. On this point, i really hope they'll raise the bar next xpac. Having new archetype to learn their timings was a big reason i liked HoT and PoF at start.

I was talking about my spending in the context of this: ''It’s worth noting that the GW2 team is fairly small compared to many of our direct competitors – in some cases, we’re less than half the size of other studios. We’re scrappy! This isn’t new for us – our player-friendly monetization philosophy and lack of subscription fees create some tight constraints for us to work within that others don’t necessarily have to contend with. But this is a trade-off we’re happy to make.'' That's also why i compared it to Wow. Of course, i know that some are spending stupid amount of money on loot boxes and i'm far from being a real spender. Still, i'm spending about the same on GW2 than on Wow in a year. This said, i maintain it, if i was to be a regular player, i would only buy my expac, which means i would be less worth for Anet in terms of revenue. Those who pay for gold are most likely casual who don't know where to get gold and want their stuff immediately. And as you said, there's so many people buying gold that the trade rate stay pretty much stable. How would you justify anyone engaged with the game buying gold when it's such a noob trap?

Yes, i'm making assumptions from my personal experience and from what i see from friends who also play the game pretty much the same way. GW2 is not meant to be played as main MMO. Not from a business model point of view. Think about it. I'm a casual. I'm doing endgame easy content. Still, i make 12-20gold a day without even thinking about it. Assuming i got invested in the game and played about the same kind of everyday. It means i do 16 gold per day, which result in about 5700 gold a year. It enough to buy about 13000 gems at the current rate, which is FAR more than what i use in a year by buying it. Any engaged player isn't worth a dime. And imagine, I'm not even raiding or actively gold farming. Plus, i keep all my comps to craft Legos. I could easily go over 50-70 gold per day by selling everything.

A part of it is Rose tinted glasses effect, another is just that a pretty big part of the community isn't playing the game full time. I personally play 2-4 times a year for about a month before leaving for a while and have done that since the first year. During LWS 3-PoT-4, i remember i was doing between 1-2 episode each time i was coming back. It never felt like a content drought for me the way i play GW2 (even tho i totally understand a player who main GW2 to complain). I've never seen the game as one to main, but as the single best secondary MMO to play. Ironically, while GW2 is always my second MMO to play, the main MMO i play changed quite often, which means that maybe apart WoW, GW2 is the MMO i played the most. With my way to play, LW S4 was pretty good, The story was nice, maps were pretty fun to play in for a while (even tho the first half was weaker than the second) and it kind of released a patch around each moment i was thinking about coming back. I had a very good time at that time with the game. I had a much bigger problem with the draught after Icebrood saga Honestly, i don't know about your way to spend in the Gemstore, but the fact i dont have a subscription on this game makes me not having any regret when it comes to spend here and there on the store. I'm even happy to help financing the game doing so. Pretty much each time i come back, i found something worth buying. I must have something like 30$ worth of buying each time. Considering i'm playing 2-4 times a year, it means it's kinda about 60-120$ per year. Add to that an expac a year now and it's about 140-200$ a year. In comparison, in Wow i pay 120$-ish in subscription +1-2 things (20$ each) in the store when something really awesome come out. Add the Expansion (Now about 90$ per 1.5 year) and it come to about 200-220$ per year. To be fair, if i was to main GW2, i would not even pay that, cause i would farm it in Gold (which i already do sometimes even without playing that much). I do it on Wow to pay many things. Ive bought some Expansions, my Blizzcon virtual tickets and other blizzard games (Overwatch and D4) that way. I would argue that Regular Returner players are probably more profitable to Anet than someone staying on the game H24, especially on GW2 where gold farming rapidly becomes the main objective once you've done the main content.