theSacred.1942

My guess is that it would've been much lower since the game would have far less players. As opposed to a game that charges for content through expansions? Expansions are usually "worth" the money, LW episodes are not. I can't think of a single LW episode that I'd pay for. Expansions and seasons are essentially the same thing. If I split HoT and PoF into episodes, would you consider them to not be worth paying for?Depending how it got split, i'm sure there would be parts that wouldn't get bought. Also, no, seasons are not "essentially the same thing". Or at least i haven't seen a single season yet that i would consider to be equivalent to HoT or PoF. Content-wise they’re pretty much the same. The only area that they’re difference is in features such as elite specs. Let's do a comparison.Heart of ThornsHeart of Thorns has 16 story steps.Added 4 new maps, one of them a big meta event, but still a new map.A way to "compare" maps is by the amount of exploration options (points of interest, vistas and waypoints)VB: 39, AB: 35, TD: 33, DS: 42, Total: 149 exploration points plus 40 hero challengesVB has 45 events that are part of the five main chains (the outposts), plus the 5 Night Events for a Total of 50 "story" Events. There are 17 secondary events.AB has 41 events as part of the four chains (the outposts), 4 challenges and 4 Octovines for a total of 49 "story" events. There are 13 secondary events.TD has 30 events as part of the four chains and the 5 events at the Chak Gerent fight for a total of 35 "story" events. There are 33 secondary events in TD.DS has 46 events as part of the three chains plus the fight with the Mouth of Mordremoth. There are 5 secondary events in DS.180 "Story" events, 68 secondary events. Heart of Thorns added 15 Adventures. Revenant Profession, 9 elite specializations, 3 Core Tyria Mastery abilities with 13 steps, 4 Mastery abilities with 23 steps.1 new PVP Mode (Stronghold) with 3 Mist Champions. 1 new WVW Map (Desert Borderlands), 1 new WVW Siege weapon.2 Guild Halls, 1 new crafting discipline (Scribe). Defiance bar mechanic, Action Camera mode. Season 3Season 3 has 36 story steps.Added 6 new maps. BFe: 14, EB: 34 + 5 hearts, BFr: 20 + 4 hearts, LD: 28 + 6 hearts, DM: 30 + 4 hearts, SL: 22 + 5 hearts, 148 exploration points + 24 heartsSince there aren't always very clear meta events in Season 3 maps, I will count all of their events:BFe: 24, EB: 20, BFr: 14, LD: 36, DM: 23, SL: 24, Total Events: 165 events, all combined less than the "story" events in the expansion.1 Mastery with 6 steps, Ammunition mechanic 14 Legendary items, 4 Raid Wings, 3 Fractals, 3 PVP Maps. Not sure if these you want to come bundled with the Season episode or not, as they are not unlocked by the episode.This is MMO, no one cares about story. Story should be only excuse to push more actual content. HoT: elite specializations, 4 raid wings (first 3 even in good pace), fractals, gen 2 legendary weapons, legendary armor, gliding, 4 maps with metas we do everydayPoF: elite specialization: 3 raid wings (released in just horrible pace), fractals, mounts, rest of gen 2 legendary weapons, one map have meta that is done everyday (Crystal Oasis with its pinata event)Icebrood saga: nothing despite promising expansion level content. No raids, no fractals, no elite specializations, no new legendary weapons, no good metas. Literally nothing. ANet biggest mistake was fully focusing on casuals that log in every few months to do story, simply ignoring players that actually play game everyday and so GW2 lost many of veteran players since ANet was disregarding PvP, WvW and end game PvE content. It's veteran players keep game alive, they're most vocal playerbase. You think what we would answer when someone ask us about GW2 now? End game is simply not supported, fractals are dead (judging from last message they still didn't even started working on new one), we were getting one raid a year and now they're probably fully dead and replaced by strike mission that are just a joke, while PvP will get huge balance patch WvW still gets nothing. Second mistake was dropping expansions for even more living world. Then there was also announcement stream, hyped for long time just to show us more... single player story for casuals login in every few months, and only that. Third mistake was build loadouts, They could just make official version of arc templates with maybe 200 or 400 gems per slot account wide (new template slot = gear + traits + legendary) but we all know how it ended. And we still didn't get a single "expansion level" features. None.

So in short: It seems they don't even started working on next fractal. Even if this will be on same level as Nightmare and Shattered Observatory (last good fractals that got released) it will take a long time before they got releaseRaids are really dead content now since they're focusing on strike missions. Strikes are already failure since they're too hard for casual players, too easy for raiders and not rewarding at all so no one really play them and since strikes already failed chances to get content that we actually want are close to zero nowIf they would deliver end game content at normal pace, one wind per 3 months and fractals at least every 2 months, there would not be even this problem at first place. One raid and two fractals per year is not enough to keep engagement in game. It's simply not even acceptable in MMO on any level. Best part of all of this is ANet first disregarded raids to the point where people were leaving game since there was nothing new to do for whole year between new wing releases and now they're wondering why raid population is low, and on top of that they created strike missions (that simply no one wants to play) as bridge to content that is already dead because they didn't supported it for years. No it's not. Its people simply refusing to put any effort in game. You simply search for build online and learn rotation and search for bosses mechanics. Gear is not a problem since you can use exotic gear. There are raid training guilds. And how situation looks? People don't want to even check metabattle to see if their build is good or read what their skills do and this is why we ended with over 10x difference in damage between open world players and raiders.

It's bare minimum. We got promised "expansion level content" but we got nothing from this and game is in worst state ever. Season 4 felt like maintenance mode already but now we're getting only half of episodes with "walking simulator" story, we didn't got new fractal since over year now, we have no idea if next raid is even coming at all (and both fractals and raids were not even mentioned in season 5 announcement stream or in any "road map"), no new elite specializations and we didn't get any new legendary weapons to craft. Only new thing we got are Strike Missions but they're not fun and not even worth doing, but they're seems to be only a replacement for bounties from PoF. In short, we're getting only half of hour single player story every few months. If anyone thinks this is not bare minimum put in game then... that person is simply lying himself.

Yep, it's modified GW1 engine that use DX9. Saddest part is ANet is not saying anything about moving to Vulkan API or even any performance updates. Your best chance to get more fps is setting character model limit to lowest possible (medium in WvW) and character model quality to lowest.

No. This means they're currently not working on any mount and elite specializations. CTRL+F for raids: found info about. Found in strike missions answer: I read this whole interview as: no new elite specializations, there will be new raids but they will be joke/easy mode as Wing 7, no mention about fractals but since last good ones were Nightmare and Shattered Observatory with their CM's I don't really care anymore.

Very dissatisfied and I just wanted new elite specializations. That's all. I knew it will be typical season announcement but they failed even on that. There was not only no new elites mentioned, they forget about other usual staff that comes with episodes like new legendary weapons, fractals and raids. And that was most painful in all of this. Fractals and raids are only thing I still enjoy in this game and they were not even mentioned in show. They were not even mentioned at all "The Icebrood Saga Begins" post. We need to wait half of year for new fractal, one small map that take you 10 minutes to complete at most and around 9 months for raids with just 3 bosses. This is simply unacceptable release speed on any level and of top of that we don't even know IF they will make any new fractal or raid. Instead on saying don't worry, they will come, they simply ignore that completely, doubling down on single player 2 hours story every month that is killing game. They can't keep players at game like this, it's just impossible. From friends that I started playing with only one is still in game, from my guild only two people left. Some of them log in every few months to do story and then log off for another few months, some never came back. ANet seems don't understand this is MMO, not single player game. You need to push repeatable content at good speed to keep veterans interested. They're the ones streaming game on Twitch, they're the ones that promote game to others. Game is at point where veterans are leaving game since there is nothing to do, not only that, even streamers are leaving. And what they show us in such dire situation? More non repeatable "content" for 2 hours. That was not big content announcement that I waited for, that was just announcement of GW2 funeral. Honestly I felt like I'm simply not welcomed here anymore. It was just like that they just showed me middle finger yelling just leave and play something else. And that's what I will most probably do now.

This could be really great outfit that GW2 really needs if not 2 things: Celestial infusion effect on whole body (that is much higher resolution than celestial infusion itself so if someone want to pair them resoults will look just bad). Without it outfit would look much better.It's locked behind lootbox black lion chest. Let us just buy it please...

That's nice idea So what is even a point of this event? We're doing all 3 HoT (well 4 with Dragon Stand) and (some are still doing) Palawadan metas daily anyway.