EoD Main Features look like they were done in a week......

[Janitsu.6284]

On 9/10/2021 at 11:24 PM, Crono.4197 said:

No, legendary gear shouldn't be stronger than ascended. Maybe you want this game to become another game in which players with the best gear are looking down on the ones with a lower tier, but many of us don't. It's not bad enough that many people can't even do the whole game content because of elitism, now you want that elitism to go even further. You want this game to become like other games where top geared players don't even bother talking to lower geared players because they think they're more special?

Sure, let's make this game another player ego boosting game, it's not like we don't have enough of them already, right?

There is literally no content in this game that you can't do due to "elitism".

[drmadison.1385]

The problem here is that I keep seeing the word "content" but we haven't seen the content yet. We've seen a couple "mechanics" (which is what skiffs and fishing are). But the "content" is the 5 (I believe that's what I heard?) new maps worth of story missions, and public events, and the rest. And then the living story you'll get tacked on top of that assuming you keep playing regularly.

Each living story installment (looking across previous seasons as I've been catching up on missed ones) are about the size of your average WoW patch. Those patches that come ~every 6 months, and each of those months you pay for. But here? Here you just keep playing (without a sub) and get more content added along the way.

 

As for some of the OP suggestions...

Housing... how would this differ from your personal instance? I mean its my place... with the nodes I've put there. Do you want ANOTHER personal space? Or maybe just a couch you can shove next to the candy-corn node?

 

Vertical progression... legendaries CANNOT be more powerful than the more accessible gear. There is such a cliff there to acquire them that would destroy a huge portion of the way this community plays together.

 

WvW we're getting updates to, and apparently a new team behind making it better. Time will tell how successful it is but good news, you're getting this WITHOUT any expansion...

 

Esports are a lost cause sadly in the MMO space, we have the new classes (or this game's equivalent) and races while cool are basically just skins and hard to justify properly to introduce them (new home town? new personal story steps?)

 

Overall I DO see the PvPers complaints as we haven't yet heard anything there... but we haven't heard everything yet so sure, let's hang on to hope 🙂

[Jukhy.2431]

9 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

Actually fraudulent would mean I am presenting lies. And the only thing I've stated as fact is that the current design choices have resulted in the population trending downward.

 

So...are you telling me the games population is actually going up and is currently at its highest point? Higher than PoF or HoT launch? If that's the case then you're correct.

 

But seeing as that's not the case....it would seem you're simply wrong.

 

Sorry, I gave you a chance to make an argument.....

Here are some official numbers from Anet: https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/celebrating-nine-years-of-guild-wars-2/

Last time they released some (when PoF launched): https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-path-to-the-desert-in-numbers/

So from 11 million (players) to 16 million (accounts). I'd say that is an increase.

[Crono.4197]

3 hours ago, Janitsu.6284 said:

There is literally no content in this game that you can't do due to "elitism".

Raids, some strikes and high level fractals.

[shrew.3059]

12 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

Unfortunately it's player like you that cause GW2 to be in the state that it is today, not even ranked in the Top 10 in NA population.

 

Some people are so obsessed with Top 10 NA population as a metric. Frankly, I care if ANet has the resources to make the game they want, a game I’ll enjoy. If they changed that game to make it more “Top 10 NA”, it’s possible it would be a better game, it’s possible it would be worse. You’re basically suggesting that every game that isn’t the most popular is by definition mediocre. Do you ever see movies that don’t make a billion dollars or do they suck too?

[shrew.3059]

11 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

First, I wouldn't consider layoffs and content downgrades sustainable.

 

Do you have information about the nature or these layoffs or ANet’s balance sheet in general?

 

It’s easy to speculate, and even easier to find evidence to support a position you’ve already established for yourself, but that doesn’t make that evidence credible to others. There are a number of reasons a company may lay off staff, especially if they are owned by another company that controls the purse strings. I wouldn’t begin to speculate on the financial health of the game, but if that’s something I was going to do, I’d at least provide some hard numbers, a business plan, forecasts, budgets… you know, actual stuff adults use to make commercial decisions.

 

You argument may not need any of that to be persuasive, so make claims you can support, not claims based on speculation.

 

11 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

Sorry, I gave you a chance to make an argument.....

 

Discussions are not dependent on your indulgence, your grace.

[yann.1946]

11 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That's nice but it doesn't change what I'm saying. You are claiming an MMO with 100K daily players needs to change ... and you don't know that. You also don't know enough about how the GW2 business model works to make claims about how or if it needs to change or if the content being delivered will impact it negatively. Clearly, the model for GW2 works because it's 9 years now of sustainable business. 

 

So the fact is ... you really don't know much about your talking about and just creating fiction as a very bad fearmongering tactic to discourage other people from adopting the new content because, your OWN WORDS you would "rather have it be sucky GW2 content and die"

A small correction, but that quote you made about sucky gw2 content was them paraphrasing another person. 

 

This is not me agreeing with anything the op wrote though

[yann.1946]

1 hour ago, Crono.4197 said:

Raids, some strikes and high level fractals.

This is false, as you can perfectly enter those without those "elitist" groups. 

On top of training groups set up for some raids. 

[Gehenna.3625]

14 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

You mean like the vertical progression they added with ascended gear which set the new bar for gearing in raids?

Well raids came after fractals for which they created ascended gear. So to create raids based on exotic gear would be ridiculous.

14 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

 

And also, Fractals, which required ascended gear in order to reach certain agony resistance to achieve higher levels.....

I remember that people were complaining about there not being content to progress with. So they came up with fractals. The idea was to progress via agony resistance as you said, so they made that exclusive and came out with ascended gear. I think it was a good idea because agony resistance doesn't affect any other content, so it's a stat that only has a benefit in fractals.

14 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

You know....two of the biggest PvE aspects of the game? Take those two away and the main PvE feature left is boss trains.....

Well the game started with Dungeons but they abandoned those for fractals. I'm not sure how big those aspects are though. I would think that the vast majority doesn't play either. They created strike missions after all as a softer entry into raiding. That wouldn't have been necessary if raids were successful. You should know that meta's are very popular and boss trains are as well. 

14 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

So yes....vertical progression is already a major part of the game, it's just not the only part like most other MMO's.

So I don't know if this is true. As I said, I don't share your conviction that these two aspects are as big as you think. 

14 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

This doesn't mean new areas of vertical progression couldn't help keep players long term.

There is some truth in that, however, I would think that a lot more people would leave this game if they added more vertical progression. The lack of vertical progression is one of the main things why a lot of people play this game. And yes, there is ascended gear but you don't need those in the content that more casual players do and it was a one-time deal. So the vertical progression is very flat and there is no gear treadmill.

14 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

The fact that you don't understand this basic gameplay loop to keep players long term is reason enough that you should avoid posting on forums and embarrassing yourself any further.

I think this is unfair and unnecessarily rude. You don't seem to understand that the GW2 player base consists primarily of casual players. So the group of players that you represent isn't as big as you think. Anet do satisfy the long term with legendary gear and collections, masteries etc. It's something different but there are long-term goals in GW2. Further vertical progression will only make the gap bigger with exotic gear and that's something that's not desirable in GW2.

 

The only thing I could think of is creating a new tier in fractals with even more agony resistance. But then the question remains, how many players participate in the highest tier of fractals today? And that may not be a big enough group to warrant the resources it takes to create that (with new rewards etc).

[Sesaline.6705]

3 hours ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

Here are some official numbers from Anet: https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/celebrating-nine-years-of-guild-wars-2/

Last time they released some (when PoF launched): https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-path-to-the-desert-in-numbers/

So from 11 million (players) to 16 million (accounts). I'd say that is an increase.

 

random thought but I wonder how many of those accounts are owned by active players that log in and do things. Apparently it is a thing that players purchase accounts en masse during sales, owning anywhere from 1 extra account to 20, 40, or even 200+ accounts to sign-in on with a program for relatively passive gold income. There are some players making a 15k+ gold per month doing this just off the login rewards alone.

[Turial.1293]

On 9/10/2021 at 8:44 PM, Luclinraider.2317 said:

ANet just doesn't seem to be able to deliver a proper expansion this time....which is a huge disappointment considering PoF was one of the best MMO expansions I've ever played.

 

A lot of us held out hope, thinking that fishing would have some real depth to it as mounts did, what we got was a mini-game where you press left and right that I've seen flash games program in a day.......

 

Skiff's, turned out to be exactly what we were afraid of....just a multi person skimmer that you can stand on....this is literally a reskins.

 

They didn't even do proper animations for any of this. Watching them fish, their character models are having sharp spasms that look like they have a seizure. Further, getting into your skiff, or moving seats, has no animations at all. You just pop into a seat and just teleport from seat to seat.....do they not have any animators on their team?

 

Watching the streamers desperately try to make these basic features from 1999 look engaging or interesting was hard to see after the fantastic PoF reveal we got four years ago.

 

There is so much that this expansion could bring to help this game push from 10-12 at its current population into the Top 5.....

-Housing

-WvW expansion

-No downed state in PvP to help the Esport Scene revive

-Permanent 2v2 and 3v3 Arena brackets for the same as above.

-A new class

-A new race

-Some form of vertical progressions. We saw this Agony resistance and fractals, but tons of us have been capped out there for some time. Could use a new form. (Legendary gear should be 5-10% stronger stat wise and ascended)

 

Now....does everyone care and want ALL of the above? No, of course not, these are things I would prioritize. But I think we can all agree that these would appeal to more people and would help the game more than, flash game fishing, which will be over and done for 99% of players after a week. And that small percentage that go for every fish achievement....what will that take, a month?

 

This expansions needs some REAL features to keep people playing after they finish the story and have gone through the new zones, because as of right now all we have are the Elite Specializations....it's the only feature of this expansion so far...and it's not enough.

 

As I said before....EoD seems like a $30 DLC patch, not an expansion.

I'm not gonna read through 6 pages of posts and I'm sure all of these points has been hit on but I'll throw in my 2 cents also.

• You say they can't deliver an expansion (EoD is not finished) and base it on PoF as the best expansion of any game you played which is not a very large sample pool. You are comparing an unfinished, unreleased upcoming expansion to a completed expansion with DLC (living world) and that's just not comparable.
• A lot of us had no clue fishing was going to be a thing until about a month ago so that is a bit of a stretch. GW2 is not a flash game so the development time is a bit longer than Henry Stickman. How many years of development experience do you have btw?
• Skiffs, speak for yourself; we have no clue how skiffs will feel once they are released. Skimmer can dodge, dive and heal players so unless skiffs can also do that I would say they are entirely different. You don't know what re-skin means.
• I don't know for sure if you watched the skiff video but they mentioned EoD is a work in progress, everything you see is in development so animations and the like are not end products. As for teleporting, they don't have animations for sitting in chairs or climbing mounts either, what did you expect?
• They looked very comfortable showing off the upcoming features. The nostalgia or hype is affecting your view of the PoF release, as I recall people being worried after HoT being a letdown.
• 10-12 in the population of what? Your personal favourite games?

-Housing ~~ we have home instances, they may not be to everyones liking but that's what we got unless you want them to just copy another game?

-WvW expansion ~~ alliances are coming, did you pay attention to their streams?

-No downed state in PvP to help the Esport Scene revive ~~ sounds like a personal preference for a dead game mode with a dead scene.

-Permanent 2v2 and 3v3 Arena brackets for the same as above. ~~ this I actually like, temporary content is a waste of resources, they should also add 1v1 arena to WvW so we don't have people begging for dueling to be added to the game.

-A new class ~~ never gonna happen, this game does specialisations

-A new race ~~ never gonna happen, if tengu does not release with EoD then it will nevvvver happen

-Some form of vertical progressions. We saw this Agony resistance and fractals, but tons of us have been capped out there for some time. Could use a new form. (Legendary gear should be 5-10% stronger stat wise and ascended) ~~ pretty sure this will never happen again, they marketed as a horizontal skill-based game and when they did fractals for a small vertical jump it fractured the community. Raids didn't have a vertical progression but that also splintered it some more so I hope they have learned their lesson but it's Anet and they make dumb choices sometimes.

• You think they will allow the grind to be done under a week/month? That's quite an assumption. We have no idea what the use of fishing is yet.
• You say it has no features yet it covered multiple in the last stream alone and not to mention there is several months until the game releases but you have decided that the end game is dead before you have even played it.... Dude, don't be so negative.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Turial.1293

[Janitsu.6284]

5 hours ago, Crono.4197 said:

Raids, some strikes and high level fractals.

If you can't get into ANY groups to do those, then it tells more about you than your perceived elitism. Content being at least somewhat challenging is not an issue when the game itself is extremely casual in its core.

[Obtena.7952]

4 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

A small correction, but that quote you made about sucky gw2 content was them paraphrasing another person. 

 

This is not me agreeing with anything the op wrote though

Yeah I'm aware of that ... that doesn't change the intent of the whole post. The fact that the poster was asked to clarify his meaning and reasoning for that post ... and did not ... is a good indicator he wasn't mis-speaking when he wrote that. 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[yann.1946]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Yeah I'm aware of that ... that doesn't change the intent of the whole post. The fact that the poster was asked to clarify his meaning and reasoning for that post ... and did not ... is a good indicator he wasn't mis-speaking when he wrote that. 

Tbh his original post gives the completely different meaning though. 

Their op is basically arguing that he'd prefer gw2 stops being gw2 if that means it survives. 

[Obtena.7952]

5 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Tbh his original post gives the completely different meaning though. 

Their op is basically arguing that he'd prefer gw2 stops being gw2 if that means it survives. 

Yeah I know ... that 's the problem with the OP ... he's not consistent in how he presents his ideas. He shouldn't be making a thread like this and trying to argue whatever side of the coin to get the result he wants. This tells me this is more of a badly pieced-together rant about how he didn't see features he wants than a well approached argument for the value of the expansion. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[shrew.3059]

37 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

This tells me this is more of a badly pieced-together rant

 

So par for the course on these forums?

[Loules.8601]

8 hours ago, Turial.1293 said:

-A new race ~~ never gonna happen, if tengu does not release with EoD then it will nevvvver happen

 

it's not that I wait for new race but if... IF it would be added, then after EoD - pretty good moment too. We have lore-story that introduced Revenants and some sort of prequel to them, so Tengu after IBS... 

 

On 9/10/2021 at 10:44 PM, Luclinraider.2317 said:

-Some form of vertical progressions. We saw this Agony resistance and fractals, but tons of us have been capped out there for some time. Could use a new form. (Legendary gear should be 5-10% stronger stat wise and ascended)

 

About the main topic...
I played WoW for about 14 or 15 years: 2200+ arena, completed mythic raids and even achieved top-10 gear-score (not for long, but...) in my (minor) region and etc/etc/etc, so I think that I can talk about vertical progression with some credibility.
And nope - I don't think that's a good idea. 
Vertical progression in its core - a completely useless mechanic: just a plain time-gate to complete end-game content. 
Vertical progression will only work if all players obey it and the content is balanced around it. You can already achieve the same 100% crit chance that you can only achieve with top-tier things in other MMOs.
WvW will immediately find itself in a huge crisis when players with a new vertical progression go there. And no, I believe that the balance of WvW should not go after PvP and PvE items should be used in it.
What about my opinion - I'm tired of useless vertical progression, the whole point of which is to satisfy myself with new big numbers.
Your character does not become stronger, because the ratio of enemy health/your damage remains the same (game balance). You don't acquire anything unique, like new abilities or capabilities-in the current form, this will only simplify the passage of content, which is already built around the existing balance.
I myself played my share of vertical progress and therefore left for GW2 after a decade and a half in WoW, because the continuation of the game in WoW, with its vertical progression, seemed meaningless to me. Endless repetitive work, for which you get nothing but a bunch of poorly spent time. I'd rather farm legendary items in GW2 that look cool than items in WoW that don't give anything and even look bad (new items in WoW are drawn by the 10-year-old nephew of the game designer).
GW2 is my form of MMO retirement, where I explore the world, collect beautiful characters and, as soon as I'm done with this, I'll do WvW, PvP, the guild base and other pleasant (for me) things. And I can do them at any time, without being afraid that I will "globally lag behind" in equipment from everyone else. I have played my share of vertical progression and I want to play MMO, where I can enjoy content at my own pace, and not feel like I'm at another job.
... such an MMO, in fact, GW2 has always been. I've seen a lot of hardcore players from the same WoW who left for GW2 for the same reason. By the way, this is why GW2 has more paying audience than many other MMORPGs. And the average age of the players is higher.
Vertical progression is a way to make the game easier, nothing more.
Horizontal progression gives much more "real power" to players, as it gives new opportunities without corresponding restrictions from the balance.
We need more hardcore content, not ways to make it easier or create the need to spend a lot of time trying to access it. Hardcore content should be based on the skill of the players, and not the need for certain stat values (which is the same WoW). It is enough to look at the WoW raid passes first in the world - the whole difficulty lies only in the fact that they pass raids with a bad level of things. As soon as they pass through the vertical progression further , all the raids are passed on the first attempt with a banal stat check. Vertical progression allows you to actually ignore many mechanics at a certain stage - and this is an inevitable component of any vertical progression.
tl;dr - vertical progression does not make your character stronger and does not add new features. It adds only new "time gates" that restrict access to content, or, with a high level of equipment, it allows you to ignore many mechanics and make them easier. Vertical progression = time gates and easier to pass PvE content, nothing more. It is better to spend months on beautiful wings obtained from fractals, rather than spending months trying to get access to these fractals.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Loules.8601
typos

[Xanadrine.4352]

I think the point is fishing should be an aside not a main course of the expansion. I dont mind fishing, and in games that do it right I did a heck of a lot of fishing. But is disingenuous for people to lambast the OP for wishing they added the very things we have seen numerous threads and support for on these very forums. I think people just go against him because of the tone of the message, not the ideas.  

[Gazrul.3086]

Regarding the esports, I think this game is in a very unique position in the MMO genre, mainly because it could experiment with something else than classic PvP or raids/dungeons. What if they actually fully embrace the mounts they've created and make mount racing the real esport? Players are already doing it themselves, and it is pretty awesome in my opinion. Imagine races for different mounts being made into serious, officially-sponsored tournaments. It would propel this game way above most other MMOs in regards to esports in my opinion. No balancing needed, no waste of time with gearing or other mundane stuff. Just new and exciting race tracks being built each season. 

 

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Zuldari.3940 said:

I think the point is fishing should be an aside not a main course of the expansion. I dont mind fishing, and in games that do it right I did a heck of a lot of fishing. But is disingenuous for people to lambast the OP for wishing they added the very things we have seen numerous threads and support for on these very forums. I think people just go against him because of the tone of the message, not the ideas.  

That might be true but we have to again look back at previous expansions to see the similarities here. Do you think Gliding was a main course? Because if you do, then how do we not accept Skiffs then? Do you think Raids mastery is a main course? Because if you do, then how do we not accept Fishing as one as well? I mean, we have 3 race masteries in HoT that are extremely limited in how they are applicable in the game that are sold as 'features' ... but somehow fishing and skiffs are a no go? The only problem here is player expectations. 

The fact is that whether people like or don't like a feature, Fishing IS comparable to other features we had in the past expansions. 

Another thing ... OP is getting lambasted because he's willing to say anything to crap on the features he sees, even if that anything is incorrect or nonsensical or completely made up. Maybe if his messaging was more consistent and less fictional, he would have less issues. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Cyndercat.7615]

33 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

 

The fact is that whether people like or don't like a feature, Fishing IS comparable to other features we had in the past expansions. 

 

I have no idea how you could ever say that and genuinely think its true. It cannot compare to other main features from past expansions. Its equivalent to adventures in HOT. A side feature.  Its a minigame. Bizarre how people defend this. 

[Obtena.7952]

9 minutes ago, zombyturtle.5980 said:

I have no idea how you could ever say that and genuinely think its true. It cannot compare to other main features from past expansions. Its equivalent to adventures in HOT. A side feature.  Its a minigame. Bizarre how people defend this. 

If you have no idea how I could say that, you aren't paying attention to the post you are quoting then. Again, whether you LIKE the content or not has nothing to do with it being a relevant feature similar to somethings we had in the past. I don't get what is so bizarre that a minigame, or whatever you want to label it, is a feature of an expansion. Why is this so offensive to people? Like adventures, etc ... that we see in previous expansions and LS and festivals DON'T offend you, but this does? Somehow a WHOLE EXPANSION of mount masteries in PoF doesn't bother people, but a skiff with a single mastery line ... that's totally offensive? 

People aren't being being objective here .. or they are applying some very short memories. They are just deciding they think the content is trash ... so it's not relevant as a expansion feature. That's nonsense. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Cyndercat.7615]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

If you have no idea how I could say that, you aren't paying attention to the post you are quoting then. Again, whether you LIKE the content or not has nothing to do with it being a relevant feature similar to somethings we had in the past. I don't get what is so bizarre that a minigame, or whatever you want to label it, is a feature of an expansion. Why is this so offensive to people? Like adventures, etc ... that we see in previous expansions DON'T offend you, but this does? Somehow a WHOLE EXPANSION of mount masteries doesn't bother people, but a single skiff with a mastery line ... that's totally offensive? 

 

People aren't being being objective here. They are just deciding they think the content is trash ... so it's not relevant as a expansion feature. That's nonsense. 

Because there is no main feature to go alongside the side feature. Thats the whole point. I have no issue with fishing or skiffs in their current form being a side feature of an expansion like adventures were in HOT. But EOD lacks the actual main feature which is the problem. Dont see how u cant understand that. 

 

 

[Sobx.1758]

9 hours ago, Crono.4197 said:

Raids, some strikes and high level fractals.

You can easly do that content in pugs, not sure why you'd suggest otherwise.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Obtena.7952]

4 minutes ago, zombyturtle.5980 said:

Because there is no main feature to go alongside the side feature. Thats the whole point. I have no issue with fishing or skiffs in their current form being a side feature of an expansion like adventures were in HOT. But EOD lacks the actual main feature which is the problem. Dont see how u cant understand that. 

You're going to have to define what you mean by 'main' and 'side' features ... and why they can't be relevant expansion content ... and also explain where the rules are that explain how expansions and these various 'features' have to exist. BUt I will do you the favour ... don't bother, because they don't exist and they aren't relevant to Anet's expansion decisions. 

Even if EoD doesn't have this 'main' feature, t's NOT a problem. These player-created feature rules aren't relevant to Anet's game design approach ... that's a PLAYER EXPECTATION problem. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952