Does abandoning modes and creating new similar modes with different names attract MMO players?

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

I was around since launch, i remember the personal story was not level gated but maybe i remembered wrongly

It was not level hard gated but you would not be able to do it after awhile since mobs was scaled to the story level not your character back in the day.

[Firebeard.1746]

6 hours ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

Do people think that doing so like creating strikes make guild wars 2 an attractive game to MMO players from other games? Will they come into this game with strikes in mind or with raids in mind then see that the last raid created is 4 years ago? 

 

Do they join the game with fractals in mind or dungeons in mind? only to find out that the last dungeon is created ages ago? So the idea is to attract players that like new sparkling things only to find out that they are essentially the same as other MMOs OR is it to attract players from other MMOs that join guild wars 2 and find out that dungeons and raids are abandoned later on? Do those actions entice the 2 groups of players to continue playing guild wars 2?

 

So the levelling experience requires you to go around killing boars,wolves,bats,wurms or carrying water to put out fire,helping with chores,basically like what every other MMOs ask you to do but disguised as hearts instead of quests, OR you go around exploring which is a new idea

 

Most of the expansion stories are locked behind level 80.

Why do the new players have to pay for the expansion only to find out that they could only play the story for expansion with the character they boosted and skip the levelling process in the process of playing the expansion stories? Why not remove the level requirement for stories or re-evaluate the story level requirements with a level designer or narrative designer and make story part of a progressive levelling experience?

 

TLDR: Why not name fractals as instanced dungeons and strikes as raids with instanced buff and redesign the level gates of stories to make it less confusing and more accessible for new players coming into the game? It's a RPG right, the story and questline should be the focus of a RPG. or you are just pushing players of that genre away from the game and have people like asmongold commenting that "yea, i think there's a few people that play guild wars 2"

O Op. I'm so sorry. I get what you're going for here, and I completely agree with you. Anet's penchant for abandoning game modes that are popular on other games makes this game more confusing and leaves newer players the impression Anet doesn't care and that they can't do things they normally enjoy in other games. Unfortunately the people reacting to your post are so used to Anet's MO that they don't recognize it as an issue. Tbh, if I wasn't hooked into this game by PVP at first, I probably would have dropped it like it's hot on my first try once people explained anet was done with dungeons. Anet can't rely on that any more. Pvp in this game is broken. Hopefully the OW and events are compelling enough to keep people in long enough to discover fractals and strikes, because it took me a while before I touched fractals I believe.

If I could give you a cookie I would.

There is a logical reason from Anet's perspective why they're doing this. It doesn't solve the issues I mention above, but they're reasons. Anet really really really doesn't like lying to their player base or walking back promises. They built up a lot of promises around raids that strikes violate. Revamping the raid system to include strikes that aren't as hard that contain CMs to make up for it violates that. So it's easier for them to just build a new system entirely.

Dungeons from what I hear is an even worse excuse. Apparently the primary dev(s?) working on dungeons left the company fairly early, so it wasn't a system they could easily expand, so they started over with fractals because apparently the dungeons were blobs of spaghetti code. I personally also believe the voice acting for the initial ones wasn't cheap, so they probably viewed them as too expensive anyway for a game without subs. Zojja is the internet celebrity Felicia Day.

I agree with you op. *Hunger games sign* enjoy responses from this community. You might just have to do the "laugh" emote at some of them and walk away for your own sanity.

[Tdub.7628]

12 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Anet's penchant for abandoning game modes that are popular on other games makes this game more confusing and leaves newer players the impression Anet doesn't care and that they can't do things they normally enjoy in other games.

 

Why would newcomers leave another mmo they enjoyed to come here? If people find something they like in the game they will stay and play.

Are fresh account level 80 characters in this game thinking the developer doesn't care?

Looking around the game, it seems like they are putting in some effort. Lol

[Firebeard.1746]

4 minutes ago, tswehr.2143 said:

 

Why would newcomers leave another mmo they enjoyed to come here? If people find something they like in the game they will stay and play.

Are fresh account level 80 characters in this game thinking the developer doesn't care?

Looking around the game, it seems like they are putting in some effort. Lol

Because they're sick of it maybe? Their community collapsed? I mean lots of people enjoyed WoW's game modes until it became the SL dumpster fire it is today. Just because they left an MMO doesn't mean  there weren't things they enjoyed about it. They played it before for a reason.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

Guild Wars 2 Endgame is very confusing…it’s really very much the opposite of Occam’s razor approach to a game…

 

Example: You want Legendary Armor? You must do XYZ where X requires ABC Y requires DFE and Z requires GHI and you have to do H and I before A in order to do B and so on…oh and you gotta play a number of different modes all with their own currencies…sometimes you have to use currencies to buy other currencies to buy transient items with no value in order to turn it into an item with value using RNG at the Whirlpool…
 

This sort of philosophy in design is generally how all systems in the game are designed. From crafting to endgame content…none of it really makes sense they are all just theme parks for players to ride until they figure it out and realize it’s just another convoluted way of getting the same rewards as another theme park. 

Edited October 1, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Danjorus.2671]

6 hours ago, Maikimaik.1974 said:

I'm so confused. When was Gw2 ever pvp focused? WvW and sPvP have always been niche content.

guild wars 2 was sold and advertised as a pvp focused MMO at launch and had esport scene which they said they want to make it special for a MMO. Since most of guild wars 2 original developers were from blizzard, this is why they had the idea of making a pvp focused MMO

[Danjorus.2671]

6 hours ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

Raids were introduced because of player demand.  Strikes were introduced in an attempt to get more players into raids.  If that had worked, then we'd likely have seen more raids.   How did that work out?  As an answer, when was the last strike put into the game?

 

The original intent behind GW2 was that there would be no quests, and no leveling.  However, this was changed due to focus group input which led ANet to believe that MMO players, a big part of their target audience, were uncertain what to do and didn't like the lack of progression what no leveling brought.

 

Dungeons as a concept had promise, but the execution was lacking.  A big part of this was that the "standard" MMO player will not, as a rule,  repeat content past a certain point unless there are rewards which they "have to have" for some reason.  As repeat content, dungeons were lacking rewards once you had the dungeon skins you wanted.  ANet learned that many skins don't appeal to a lot of people, so dungeons were found lacking as replayable content.  As challenging content, dungeons were also lacking.  Many boss encounters were subject to being cheesed, lacked challenge, or both.  The biggest lack, though, was lack of progression, which is the foundation on which MMO's rest -- at least in the minds of much of the target audience.

 

ANet sought to address the lack of progression issue first, by introducing Fractals and Ascended gear in late 2012.  This proved to be largely successful.  In 2013, ANet began the process of revamping dungeons, as well as adding harder dungeons as part of the Living Story.  However, their efforts were for the most part unappreciated by  players.  So, ANet decided to focus their small-scale instanced content development into Fractals rather than into dungeons.

 

tl:dr for all the OP's questions: Because players...

 

5 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Strikes wouldn't have been implemented if Crystal Reid (raid team lead) wasn't so insistent on "no easy modes" (no mention of even if the said easy mode had zero rewards). People that just want to play them "for the story" were locked out.

Comment didn't age well and they no longer work at Arenanet.
 

 

Also didn't age well:

http://dulfy.net/2015/09/26/gw2-twitchcon-designing-raids-in-heart-of-thorns/

 

See also https://www.pcgamesn.com/mmo-raids
 

Needing 10 players for content is a problem because optimal team size in general is 7 +/- 2 (so 5 to 9). GW1 teams were 8 players. In a 5 person group you have 20 relationships or "connections", while in a 10 person group you have 45 relationships. Robin Dunbar (a social anthropologist) actually suggested that people can only have 50 meaningful relationships and Dunbar's research is partly the basis for agile and scrum teams.
 

I agree with all of what you all said, what i am trying to say is, since strikes are easy raids, why not name them as raids instead of strikes so it won't be confusing to new players?

 

"breakthrough MMO World of Warcraft that first popularised the mode, in its 40-person incarnation" Even WoW name all their modes with different player requirements as raids, they don't name them as strikes or DRM.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Danjorus.2671

[Infusion.7149]

17 minutes ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

 

I agree with all of what you all said, what i am trying to say is, since strikes are easy raids, why not name them as raids instead of strikes so it won't be confusing to new players?

 

"breakthrough MMO World of Warcraft that first popularised the mode, in its 40-person incarnation" Even WoW name all their modes with different player requirements as raids, they don't name them as strikes or DRM.

Well raids have gained a stigma.
Also strike instancing is different. If you want to do Boneskinner for example you can do Boneskinner. You don't need someone with an instance to open Boneskinner for you if you didn't do the other bosses. That to me is the main advantage.

[Danjorus.2671]

9 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Well raids have gained a stigma.
Also strike instancing is different. If you want to do Boneskinner for example you can do Boneskinner. You don't need someone with an instance to open Boneskinner for you if you didn't do the other bosses. That to me is the main advantage.

I get what you are saying and agree with the advantage. What stigma does raid have? elitist? well... you can always name strikes as easy raids you know because strikes are essentially still raids in disguise, boneskinner groups are asking for kp now so it is also kind of "elitist"

You don't go back to a bakery if they tell you they only have juice when you ask for bread but they are obviously selling bread behind the store front, nor do you go back to a hardware shop that tell you they are selling software when they are selling hardware, new names can instill confusion in new players, especially with the comment they made saying that they "abandoned raids and dungeons".

That marketing strategy can be quite dubious.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Danjorus.2671

[Obfuscate.6430]

13 hours ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

Do people think that doing so like creating strikes make guild wars 2 an attractive game to MMO players from other games? 

Do they join the game with fractals in mind or dungeons in mind? only to find out that the last dungeon is created ages ago? So the idea is to attract players that like new sparkling things only to find out that they are essentially the same as other MMOs OR is it to attract players from other MMOs that join guild wars 2 and find out that dungeons and raids are abandoned later on? Do those actions entice the 2 groups of players to continue playing guild wars 2?

 

So the levelling experience requires you to go around killing boars,wolves,bats,wurms or carrying water to put out fire,helping with chores,basically like what every other MMOs ask you to do but disguised as hearts instead of quests, OR you go around exploring which is a new idea

 

Most of the expansion stories are locked behind level 80. Why do the new players have to pay for the expansion only to find out that they could only play the story for expansion with the character they boosted and skip the levelling process in the process of playing the expansion stories? 

 

TLDR: Why not name fractals as instanced dungeons and strikes as raids with instanced buff and redesign the level gates of stories to make it less confusing and more accessible for new players coming into the game? It's a RPG right, the story and questline should be the focus of a RPG. or you are just pushing players of that genre away from the game 

TDLR:  The game has a lot of GREAT things that attract people and non of them have anything to do with dungeons or raids. However, core dungeons should be re-worked or incentivized to improve the new player experience.

In more detail: 
At launch Guild Wars 2 did not have a true 'end game'. While the core dungeons existed, the personal story's finale with the Zhaitan fight was so easy and anticlimactic that people quit the game, feeling there was nothing else left to do. Not only did they quit,  they told their friends that the game sucked and that's a stain that continued to persist up until very recently. 

What attracted people to the game in the past however, is still true today. Guild Wars 2 is a no-pressure game which is perfect for the aging gamer demographic. It has no subscription fee, it promotes community within the game instead of competition, it disguised it's grind but makes sure any grind present is not strictly necessary. It  also made sure that the "fun" was to be had throughout the entire game, not just at some point at the end. 

The purpose of the core dungeons is tell you the story of the first main NPCs: Rytlock, Logan, Zojja, Caithe and Eir while also allowing lower level characters to do fun, challenging group content. They are called 'dungeons' because they are dungeons in the traditional sense of having that underground/ fortress crawl feeling. 
Fractals feature their own story. They are called Fractals because like a fractal their pattern repeats but in ever growing scale  in terms of difficulty. They are also easier to add to without changing any of the main story of the game. You need unique gear called Agony Infusions for the higher tiers, and there are challenge modes to them. They are described in general as a type of dungeon but are ultimately their own thing.

The first expansion was to bring the challenge it's experienced player base was asking for. Most systems introduced past this point have been introduced to give players something to do that takes more skill and more time but also to entice newer players, or even players who had left.

The introduction of Raids was to give Guild Wars 2 the end game that people have wanted and needed.

However, this served only to divide the community in some regards. To mitigate this, the developers introduced Strikes which are basically a single Raid-style boss encounter to help people make the transition from casual pve in to the most difficult content in the game. They have stated however, that the majority of players are fairly casual and by that I mean - they avoid difficult content. I think the group was even smaller than those who play pvp almost exclusively.

There has been a drop in new content creation in general but ultimately in the best interest of the company the developers have turned their attention to releasing more open world things because that is where the main chunk of their players are playing.

As a new player - the core game is 100% free, and they should be taking their time to see what the game is about and learning how to play through that. On the surface there is no reason to boost a character to level 80, when you can achieve that in 2 days of dedicated play any way.

~

I will say though, that because core dungeons are abandoned, there are very few people playing them so new players don't get to experience them. Arenanet needs to address why new players feel the need to boost a character if they just started. They added new achievements to them but for the most part veterans go to Fractals for better rewards.

[Vidit.7108]

There are some very strange comments peppered throughout this topic but I'm only going to address a few things going on.
First, yes it was possible for a level 10 player to do what is now the level 60 story.  I don't remember it scaling down though and if I recall correctly the only way to clear that content was having a higher level player in party or using some bundles or exploits. The way it worked before is that you level matched a new story step like once every two levels and now you unlock a bunch of story steps once every 10 levels. Was it better the old way? I don't really think so. I knew people who got kinda stuck back in the old system and would go weeks without playing and forget the story as a result.

PvP/WvW weren't the biggest deal at launch, pvp was very different from how it is now, which isn't to say Arenanet didn't end up making a huge esports push on that content. They did, just not right away. WvW was new and interesting but at the beginning it was more like friendly competition or extended Open World  than compared to how it is treated now. Remember map completion used to include SMC and all the borderlands garrisons. 

Fractals of the Mist are dungeons, they appear in the dungeon list on the wiki. When you level from 79 to 80 the level up guide points them out to you as new dungeon content. Furthermore it says they are "a special type of dungeon" on their wiki page. The common shorthand is Fractals, like a lot of content they are given their own index category in the achievements panel because there is a lot going on there.

I think it's completely fair to say that DRMs and Strikes have made the nomenclature more complicated than it needs to be. But DRMs are basically already dead, I'm not going to tell new players to even really care about IBS except to go to Mystic Clover Coast. The future for Raids/Strikes is really hazy at the moment and I don't have much of a response. A lazy fix to this is to rename Strike Missions to Strike Raids, but having even typed this sentence out is going to get me a response from a raider saying "No" or several confused emojis.

As long as no one gives a new player the very bad advice of using the level 80 boost most content in the game is adequately introduced to them. EXP bonuses and just some general changes made over the years have made it much much less of a grind than it was years ago. I don't think from seeing posts by WoW Refugees that new players are having a hard time understanding which PvE content is which.

[Obtena.7952]

22 hours ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

You can meet new people in any game. You rename raids to strikes when they are essentially the same thing and how does that appeal to new players? Read what I said about the first impression you are giving the new players coming into guild wars 2

There is a bit of a fallacy here ... what makes you think new players are only attracted to this game because of that content in the first place? I would argue it's probably not that high a factor on their reasoning to choose this game. 

[Adamixos.6785]

23 hours ago, Klowdy.3126 said:

I think in the case of strikes vs raids, they made a good choice. They have created a game that doesn't follow the WoW standard in so many aspects. Raids were just that. They were created pretty much like all other games' raids. Strikes are more like events. They force you through an instanced story. This is a better fit for GW2. They're raids with a GW2 twist.

You know that the vast majority of strike missions are literally just an arena with a boss, right? Of the two, the instances with progressive storylines are, in fact, raids. The only actual story-instance strike mission is Forging Steel, which is needlessly long, kind of clunky, stupid easy, and barely rewards you for the invested time - it's nothing more than an achievement grind. 

[voltaicbore.8012]

On 10/1/2021 at 10:34 AM, Danjorus.2671 said:

It's fine if they want to make DRMs,strikes,fractals but why not name them as dungeons and raids or names that other MMOs used when they are the same model?

It's not so much what they're called that is the problem. For instance, I used to play SWTOR religiously. In that game, dungeons are called "flashpoints." But the weird name doesn't really matter, because they stuck with the system, iterated on it, and regularly add new flashpoints that remain relevant and keep pace with new releases. The issue is, as you point out, that ANet is not shy about abandoning an existing system and adding on a new one. Unfortunately, just "re-unifying" the related systems would be terrible, as each system is indeed distinct.

Dungeons vs. Fractals is a good example. "Dungeon" is a term used universally in MMOs, and everyone knows that refers to instanced small-group content (usually 4-5 players) that have a bit of their own story, their own unique little map, a few bosses, and some decent (probably not BiS) rewards. They are generally not the hardest content in the game, and are usually designed to be done at specific levels (with stat scaling to adjust for people outside those levels). Dungeons in GW2 fit this model pretty much exactly.

Fractals are different - they're not meant to be done as you level, they have a new thing you need to grind a bit for (agony resistance), and they are a good source of BiS gear (if you're ignoring legendaries, which are arguably just a nice bonus tier of BiS gear fairly unique to GW2). Not only that, Fractals run off a hub model, while dungeons are spread out all over the game world. Finally, as someone already noted, dungeons are just coded differently and the current team hasn't seen the value of revisiting that spaghetti code. Just calling Fractals "dungeons" would be a terrible idea.

A similar breakdown can be done for Strikes vs. Raids, much of which has been alluded to throughout the thread already. Different rewards, different time and effort investment expected, entirely different structure, etc. I won't bother adding more to the wall of text than that.

[Vancho.8750]

5 hours ago, Adamixos.6785 said:

You know that the vast majority of strike missions are literally just an arena with a boss, right? Of the two, the instances with progressive storylines are, in fact, raids. The only actual story-instance strike mission is Forging Steel, which is needlessly long, kind of clunky, stupid easy, and barely rewards you for the invested time - it's nothing more than an achievement grind. 

Forging Steel was actually the first attempt at instanced Meta maps, and it works great if you think about it as a Map meta event. 

[Danjorus.2671]

19 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

There are some very strange comments peppered throughout this topic but I'm only going to address a few things going on.
First, yes it was possible for a level 10 player to do what is now the level 60 story.  I don't remember it scaling down though and if I recall correctly the only way to clear that content was having a higher level player in party or using some bundles or exploits. The way it worked before is that you level matched a new story step like once every two levels and now you unlock a bunch of story steps once every 10 levels. Was it better the old way? I don't really think so. I knew people who got kinda stuck back in the old system and would go weeks without playing and forget the story as a result.

PvP/WvW weren't the biggest deal at launch, pvp was very different from how it is now, which isn't to say Arenanet didn't end up making a huge esports push on that content. They did, just not right away. WvW was new and interesting but at the beginning it was more like friendly competition or extended Open World  than compared to how it is treated now. Remember map completion used to include SMC and all the borderlands garrisons. 

Fractals of the Mist are dungeons, they appear in the dungeon list on the wiki. When you level from 79 to 80 the level up guide points them out to you as new dungeon content. Furthermore it says they are "a special type of dungeon" on their wiki page. The common shorthand is Fractals, like a lot of content they are given their own index category in the achievements panel because there is a lot going on there.

I think it's completely fair to say that DRMs and Strikes have made the nomenclature more complicated than it needs to be. But DRMs are basically already dead, I'm not going to tell new players to even really care about IBS except to go to Mystic Clover Coast. The future for Raids/Strikes is really hazy at the moment and I don't have much of a response. A lazy fix to this is to rename Strike Missions to Strike Raids, but having even typed this sentence out is going to get me a response from a raider saying "No" or several confused emojis.

As long as no one gives a new player the very bad advice of using the level 80 boost most content in the game is adequately introduced to them. EXP bonuses and just some general changes made over the years have made it much much less of a grind than it was years ago. I don't think from seeing posts by WoW Refugees that new players are having a hard time understanding which PvE content is which.

I agreed with what you said, fractals could also be named instanced dungeons for example but they didn't do that... strikes renamed to strike raids would at least make transition of players from other MMOs much easier since they can recognise that strike raids would then be a mode they can farm for end game gear(crystal for ascended) instead of another piece of content

Edited October 2, 2021 by Danjorus.2671

[Danjorus.2671]

9 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

There is a bit of a fallacy here ... what makes you think new players are only attracted to this game because of that content in the first place? I would argue it's probably not that high a factor on their reasoning to choose this game. 

For hardcore gamers who care about endgame those factors are important.

For casual players who play from time to time and don't have much time to read up about end game,telling them strikes is an easier form of raids and give ascended gear as well will save them time and not skip easier content to skip to raids immediately THEN QUIT the game due to it being too HARD like criticnatic.

 

For those who say criticnatic didn't quit the game because it was too hard,he quitted after raiding on vale guardian undergeared firstly. Secondly,  EVEN IF he did not quit due to game being too hard, wiping over and over and over again on any piece of content is not a good feeling like what mightyteapot said. 

[Danjorus.2671]

8 hours ago, Adamixos.6785 said:

You know that the vast majority of strike missions are literally just an arena with a boss, right? Of the two, the instances with progressive storylines are, in fact, raids. The only actual story-instance strike mission is Forging Steel, which is needlessly long, kind of clunky, stupid easy, and barely rewards you for the invested time - it's nothing more than an achievement grind. 

I agree with what you said but the main part of a raid is the boss, you do know that right? In FFXIV, some raids also have very little trash mobs and heavily focused on the boss itself.

[Danjorus.2671]

3 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

Forging Steel was actually the first attempt at instanced Meta maps, and it works great if you think about it as a Map meta event. 

I already see the problem in this thread itself, you call it a map meta event, another person thinks its more similar to a raid. Now you look at the new players,what are they going to think? they don't know it but you expect them to try it without knowing what it is? It is also confusing to them. In some places like Singapore where the uncertainty index is higher they might try it, but in other parts of the world, i doubt so.

[Danjorus.2671]

3 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

It's not so much what they're called that is the problem. For instance, I used to play SWTOR religiously. In that game, dungeons are called "flashpoints." But the weird name doesn't really matter, because they stuck with the system, iterated on it, and regularly add new flashpoints that remain relevant and keep pace with new releases. The issue is, as you point out, that ANet is not shy about abandoning an existing system and adding on a new one. Unfortunately, just "re-unifying" the related systems would be terrible, as each system is indeed distinct.

Dungeons vs. Fractals is a good example. "Dungeon" is a term used universally in MMOs, and everyone knows that refers to instanced small-group content (usually 4-5 players) that have a bit of their own story, their own unique little map, a few bosses, and some decent (probably not BiS) rewards. They are generally not the hardest content in the game, and are usually designed to be done at specific levels (with stat scaling to adjust for people outside those levels). Dungeons in GW2 fit this model pretty much exactly.

Fractals are different - they're not meant to be done as you level, they have a new thing you need to grind a bit for (agony resistance), and they are a good source of BiS gear (if you're ignoring legendaries, which are arguably just a nice bonus tier of BiS gear fairly unique to GW2). Not only that, Fractals run off a hub model, while dungeons are spread out all over the game world. Finally, as someone already noted, dungeons are just coded differently and the current team hasn't seen the value of revisiting that spaghetti code. Just calling Fractals "dungeons" would be a terrible idea.

A similar breakdown can be done for Strikes vs. Raids, much of which has been alluded to throughout the thread already. Different rewards, different time and effort investment expected, entirely different structure, etc. I won't bother adding more to the wall of text than that.

I agree with what you said and like what you have said, dungeons is a terms used universally in all MMOs. Instead of saying we "won't be updating dungeons anymore" which gives the impression to new players that the MMO is on life support like HotS where they said they stopped with esports scene, why not say fractals are the new dungeons we have made?

 

For the latter, it doesn't tell the new player that their game is doing badly such that they need to reallocate resources for players who read up on news about games, which is a sizable portion these days.

[Vancho.8750]

8 minutes ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

I already see the problem in this thread itself, you call it a map meta event, another person thinks its more similar to a raid. Now you look at the new players,what are they going to think? they don't know it but you expect them to try it without knowing what it is? It is also confusing to them. In some places like Singapore where the uncertainty index is higher they might try it, but in other parts of the world, i doubt so.

See I didn't say it is not confusing and bloated, I just pointed out that it is not Bad content, Also the label Arenanet put on it  is Visions of the past, It is a full story episode, and by all means and purposes it is separated from Strike missions and yet it is lumped together with them on the reward chest since it was the Strike mission Reward mode patch or something. They will be revamping it again in EOD with the new set of Strikes. At some point it would be a good idea to put a content guide like WoW has. 

[Danjorus.2671]

36 minutes ago, Vancho.8750 said:

See I didn't say it is not confusing and bloated, I just pointed out that it is not Bad content, Also the label Arenanet put on it  is Visions of the past, It is a full story episode, and by all means and purposes it is separated from Strike missions and yet it is lumped together with them on the reward chest since it was the Strike mission Reward mode patch or something. They will be revamping it again in EOD with the new set of Strikes. At some point it would be a good idea to put a content guide like WoW has. 

I agree, a content guide would be good or another way out would be just use standardized names like raids and dungeons, open world and story instead of diverging into many different names

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

They really do need to stop reinventing the wheel every few years.

 

For example, many players think Steel & Fire is a Strike Mission when in reality its just a dungeon under a different name. In fact its the closest thing we've had to a dungeon since launch.

 

And Fractals and DRMs are extremely similar, one just in a different setting and lacking the Agony mechanic. They should've been merged together from the start; after all this is the way they delivered stories like Thamanova Reactor. (But of course, the answer here is they split them up as one is F2P content and the other isn't.)

 

And raids and Strike Missions should've just remained one single game-mode as well, using the same reward structure just with the rewards you get from Strikes added in; they're both 10man content. This would've even given the more casual PvE players a path to Legendary Armor without much fuss from the community.

 

I really wish they'd go back and merge some of these systems together into a coherent structure.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[voltaicbore.8012]

2 hours ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

Instead of saying we "won't be updating dungeons anymore" which gives the impression to new players that the MMO is on life support like HotS where they said they stopped with esports scene, why not say fractals are the new dungeons we have made?

 

For the latter, it doesn't tell the new player that their game is doing badly such that they need to reallocate resources for players who read up on news about games, which is a sizable portion these days.

I think they might have considered saying that at some point, but felt unable to because of the reasons I mentioned. Like we agreed on, everyone has a pretty good idea of what a "dungeon" is supposed to be. Fractals have quite a few meaningful differences (restricted to level 80, scale up to be some of the hardest pve content for small groups, drop the best gear, etc). They'd basically be telling new players, "you can't touch dungeons in GW2 until 80." Not sure that would help.

But overall, I do see your point, and many of us have been complaining about this for a while. ANet's willingness to just abandon systems and toss new ones at us has led to odd overlap, dead content, and a harder-than-necessary-to-explain endgame.

On the flip side, there being so many things (fractals, strikes, raids, ....possibly DRMs..., meta events, soloing dungeons, etc) to mention is a good thing too. It (correctly) gives the impression that there is a lot to choose from when it comes to repeatable content.

Edited October 3, 2021 by voltaicbore.8012

[Danjorus.2671]

6 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

They really do need to stop reinventing the wheel every few years.

 

For example, many players think Steel & Fire is a Strike Mission when in reality its just a dungeon under a different name. In fact its the closest thing we've had to a dungeon since launch.

 

And Fractals and DRMs are extremely similar, one just in a different setting and lacking the Agony mechanic. They should've been merged together from the start; after all this is the way they delivered stories like Thamanova Reactor. (But of course, the answer here is they split them up as one is F2P content and the other isn't.)

 

And raids and Strike Missions should've just remained one single game-mode as well, using the same reward structure just with the rewards you get from Strikes added in; they're both 10man content. This would've even given the more casual PvE players a path to Legendary Armor without much fuss from the community.

 

I really wish they'd go back and merge some of these systems together into a coherent structure.

 

4 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

I think they might have considered saying that at some point, but felt unable to because of the reasons I mentioned. Like we agreed on, everyone has a pretty good idea of what a "dungeon" is supposed to be. Fractals have quite a few meaningful differences (restricted to level 80, scale up to be some of the hardest pve content for small groups, drop the best gear, etc). They'd basically be telling new players, "you can't touch dungeons in GW2 until 80." Not sure that would help.

But overall, I do see your point, and many of us have been complaining about this for a while. ANet's willingness to just abandon systems and toss new ones at us has led to odd overlap, dead content, and a harder-than-necessary-to-explain endgame.

On the flip side, there being so many things (fractals, strikes, raids, ....possibly DRMs..., meta events, soloing dungeons, etc) to mention is a good thing too. It (correctly) gives the impression that there is a lot to choose from when it comes to repeatable content.

I agree with most of what's being said, or it will most probably end up being too complicated for new players on end game content without guides. Quite a number of casual players don't like to read guides and like to discover things for themselves(remember when ANET posted a link to snowcrow on twitter and people bashed them for it?), if there's too many different things without a guide, it can be overwhelming.