PyaKura.4895

I have a full time job and play GW2 as much as I can alongside other games on my free time, which makes my actual playtime rather limited. But even though I do feel like the original post is exaggerating things, I also feel like I'm running out of things to do in JW specifically. I do my daily hearts (still haven't capped them yet)... and then what? Spears and the OW Warclaw are definitely cool additions, but I have to admit I expected a bit more bang for my buck for an expansion release priced at 25€. Sure, there'll be more content later on, but a bit more meat with a long term tangible goal to work towards at launch would have been welcome I think. I play GW2 on and off, often taking long breaks, and I can say at the very least, with 2 of those mini-expacs now out, that I really don't get the same feeling of excitement and novelty I had back when any of the larger expansions and their corresponding Living World episodes released.

I absolutely don't mean this in a condescending way, I know communication is not all fun and games, it's my job too and it's deceptively delicate work. But it's a bit disheartening to see that there has been so little communication around the expansion post-launch, whether it's to get new players to join the fun or to keep the existing playerbase updated. It's been (a bit more than) two weeks since launch, which should have been the perfect time to strike while the iron is hot as they say.

Doubt there's a thing such as an A and B teams with such disparate skill levels. It just doesn't make sense in a game dev environment. Junior and senior devs work together in all roles. It's much more likely to be the usual culprits: lack of time, and/or lack of devs.

It's funny how I really liked SotO's first map, just like I love Lowland Shore, but both Amnytas and Syntri feel really undercooked in comparison, both in terms of game loop and mood/ambiance. Amnytas lacks points of interest (and I don't mean the gameplay POIs) with everything looking really same-ish. Syntri kind of suffers from the same issue. Sure, we have a bloodstone crater and cave, and the wasteland in north west (which to me is already way better than whatever Amnytas was), but there's barely anything of note around both of those areas. Despite Skywatch being really heavy on asset recycling, each island was its own POI with its own story, and it was really cool sticking around to learn more about them. Same with Lowland Shore, all of the areas are very unique and I felt compelled to stick around to see what was going on in the village, the forest, the tundra, the hotsprings, the fishing village... where the NPCs and the environment work hand in hand to immerse the player in each of the areas. I know Syntri is supposed to be a wasteland of sorts, but I don't think that's a good enough excuse for how barebones it is. If the goal is to explore, then make us actually explore alongside parties of Kodan and Astral Ward NPCs, set up camp near ruins, have us study them, collect artifacts, question ghosts to learn more about the area, defend camps from the oddly aggressive wildlife, etc... there's so much potential to make the map feel alive. As it stands, Syntri is a pretty decent looking map, but I don't know what the point of it is. We're barely scratching the surface in the story, but I don't really feel like the open world builds on top of what we're shown/told, unlike most other expansion/LWS maps. I know it's not that simple and there's a reason they've moved to one release a year, but I feel like another year to do some polish would make those second maps way better, on top of giving the more invested players more replayable content.

Bump because Syntri's hearts are the only thing I really have a huge issue with in an otherwise enjoyable expansion so far

And unlike Lowland Shore, where any event you do outside of the hearts’ range give you a token, Janthir Syntri gives you none for most events, like any of the White Mantle, Jade Construct or Bloodstone-related events...

Lowland Shore's fine, I enjoy completing my daily hearts there. The issue really is Janthir Syntri which seems to be... lacking, to say the least, in comparison to Lowland Shore. Since this thread is garnering more attention than mine, I figured I should copy paste what I posted over here as well. Seems like the NPC defense event near camp was fixed earlier today, according to the update notes.

Lowland Shore was a treat to play through, and I don't mind going back everyday to complete the hearts. There are plenty of events around, with a decent amount of diversity, and I have fun collecting more renown tokens after completing all 3 hearts just because the map is enjoyable with the sheer amount of events going on. Janthir Syntri on the other hand? It's an absolute slog. The event frequency is half - if that - of Lowland Shore's, and for some reason, half of them - most notably (almost?) all of the Bloodstone, White Mantle or Jade Armor-related events/events that are around the bloodstone crater - don't even give renown tokens. A good chunk of those events are copy pasted, like the elemental cull and foraging events, and speaking of the latter, I don't understand why the one south of the camp has such an abysmal drop rate for animal meat. There's also one NPC defense event close to camp that's just bugged and won't spawn any enemies, so progress can't be made. I think it's one that's supposed to only spawn during the meta, but then stalls if the meta isn't up (this one has since been fixed). There are barely any events in range of the hearts compared to Lowland Shore, so please fix those that are at least. The map design is alright, the meta is okay, but I absolutely hate doing my daily hearts in there. Highly doubt I'm the first one to complain about that map. Please do something to make it more bearable.

Ah alright, that's a shame. Thanks for the heads up!

Hi, sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. The question is in the title! I'm asking for a Steam friend who's looking to buy the expansions. We wanted to know whether buying HoT+PoF would adjust the price of the Complete Collection bundle, such that HoT+PoF's price is substracted from the bundle's price. Does anyone know? Thanks!

This again depends on whether GW3 - if it happens - is an MMO or not, and if it is, we don't know if it'll run concurrently to GW2, so I'm honestly not comfortable enough to draw any conclusions here. I think the closest thing we may have on the market nowadays is retail WoW vs Classic Wow, but as far as I know, both versions of the game are faring well! To a lesser extent, FFXI is still running (in maintenance mode, admittedly) concurrently to FFXIV and it has a large enough playerbase to keep running. If GW3 is also an MMO, people will either like it and move to it with the potential for it to grow even bigger than GW2, or they'll think it's not as good as they thought and go back to GW2. Nothing wrong with that, but if Anet is interested in staying in the MMO market then we'll have to expect a new one, eventually, whether it's GW3, GW4, or something else. It's a difficult issue to tackle for sure, but even when you're keeping the number of player models to the absolute minimum, the game is still choppy. Heck, even without talking about on-screen playercount, Amnytas as a zone can be somewhat of a lagfest even when nothing is happening. Now those are very specific issues and both you and I know GW2 just isn't the greatest at optimizing things, but the game is still enjoyable as you said. However the game does have plenty of issues that technically can be fixed or improved upon, but realistically cannot for a reason or another (I believe they'd have already done it, if they could!): lack of new raid wings, underwater combat, old but popular dynamic events/meta that get stuck... Sorry I might have not made myself very clear: I meant to say I didn't say GW2 was dying (as far as we know) so I didn't know why you made the point that I was saying it was dying. It's getting confusing lol I also absolutely love the changes they've made to the game so far and I absolutely think it's the right direction if they want to keep running GW2. We... don't actually know that. Any of them could be cooking up their next big multiplayer game, but I assure you at the very least they are all very intently watching what all the public MMO projects are up to. The only reason everyone here is up in arms is because GW3 has supposedly leaked, but if it didn't leak, all of us would be none the wiser and we'd all go about our day without suspecting anything.

Good thing I did say I wasn't just talking about the MMO genre, but I guess I should have specified production techniques, game design choices, and so on... Also, if you are even remotely following the MMO scene, there is actually a demand for a new MMO that isn't what we already have. And that's exactly why several studios, both well-versed in MMO development, and other new actors (such as Fantastic Pixel Castle - very interesting concept there), are rising up to the challenge! There's a reason Riot has very recently decided to scrap pretty much all of their work on their MMO and start from scratch because they were not convinced the MMO experience they were going to offer differed enough from what already exists on the market. Edit: You and I might be perfectly fine with what we already have, but gaming habits and trends have changed over the years, and I for one am willing to move with the times. If you aren't taking any risks, then there's no room for evolution.

Oh I agree that there will always be a few qualified people to work on what could be considered antiquated tech (thank god!), but the fact is that you're not drawing in new blood by sticking with it. I also haven't mentioned killing anything off since we still don't know anything about it, really. It boils down to GW3 potentially being a new product/service, and every business comes up with a new product/service every once in a while, without shutting down what's been working up til now unless deemed necessary. The tech and the industry know-how evolve constantly, and I'm not just talking about the MMO genre. But to answer your question about what everyone wants, how about some decent framerate to start with? I love GW2 for what it is but I don't see a world where Anet is able to fix the framerate shitting the bed as soon as more than 30 characters are on screen no matter how beefy your specs. Again I don't think GW2 is dying (as far as I can tell) so I don't know why you'd make that point. That being said, there are always new efficient ways to develop games, with technology that's unfortunately not always compatible with your current development process. Keeping up with the industry is vital, especially in one as fast-moving as video game development. I mean no offence, but pretending otherwise is pretty delusional to me. Simple example but consider the following: Long-time veterans that have long since reached endgame and accomplished most of their goals have been asking for more content A lot of new players never make it to the endgame because the new player experience is antiquated and objectively not very interesting when that's (arguably) the most important part of a game to hook new players in While admittedly Anet has made progress on both fronts, it still isn't enough and there comes a point where it's not just about not being able to please everyone, but spreading your resources too thin on a game that demands an ever increasing amount of care to succeed. At some point, it's just easier to start with a new blank slate on which you have a higher degree of control rather than trying to make something work and eventually fail.

There could be any number of reasons GW3 is being considered/made. A few off the top of my head: It is very risky for a studio to financially depend on a single title. While yes WoW has been around for a while, Blizzard has a multitude of other games to keep them afloat. Square Enix, same thing. Admittedly, I don't know enough about Jagex or CCP to take a guess at their financial status. Studios are made of people - very few people are willing to work on the same title for more than a decade. The tech is becoming older and older, meaning there will naturally be less and less qualified devs to work on it. As a dev, if you don't keep growing your skills because you keep working on obsolete tech, you might be killing off your career. In the same vein, tech in the industry is a continuous march forward, and like it or not, as a business you gotta keep up with the new industry standards if you even want to stay afloat. Just as focusing too much on user acquisition can be bad business practice, so is catering too much to an existing userbase made up of long time veterans as it inhibits growth and alienates new players. It's better to start working on the next big thing when you have money flowing in, rather than when your game's population dwindles too much that it cannot fund your next project anymore. As others have said before, maybe they want to reach a new audience by introducing the Guild Wars IP to the console and/or mobile market, and porting GW2 simply isn't a realistic option. As previously mentioned, GW3 could just not be an MMO at all. There are countless reasons why GW3 would be a thing, even if GW2 is still very much alive and kicking (as far as we, consumers, know).

Oh don't get me wrong I definitely understand where people are coming from. I myself am very enamored with the fictional world, lore, and characters of GW2 (and FFXIV since I've mentioned it as an example earlier) and would hate to see those go. That being said as long as it's the same IP, chances are the lore and world will remain. What I'm saying is if you're spending that much time (and money!) into a game, then you should be ready to see it come to an end eventually (as with all things in life), whether by you quitting, or the game shutting down. I just think the overly emotional responses I've seen in here are just... weird, you know?