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

[Vancho.8750]

8 hours ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

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

Well the names come from the player base, the company can trick people to say them in a manner they want like strikes, no one is using the the missions part for shorthand. Like people gave example for fractals being marked as dungeons on the wiki, cause they are Fractal dungeons, the special mechanic takes over the base mechanic for example people call it M+ in WoW.

The best thing Arenanet could do is add content guide and roll the similar content in brackets in the LFG and change the labels a bit, but they can't slap this is a raid on strikes since the mechanic takes over the base.    

[Danjorus.2671]

17 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

Well the names come from the player base, the company can trick people to say them in a manner they want like strikes, no one is using the the missions part for shorthand. Like people gave example for fractals being marked as dungeons on the wiki, cause they are Fractal dungeons, the special mechanic takes over the base mechanic for example people call it M+ in WoW.

The best thing Arenanet could do is add content guide and roll the similar content in brackets in the LFG and change the labels a bit, but they can't slap this is a raid on strikes since the mechanic takes over the base.    

They could tell people that strikes are raids and dungeons are fractals for sure, the mechanics are largely similar if you realise...

And  i don't really understand what you mean when you said mechanic take over the base ,name comes from player base, no one is using the missions part for short hand. Are you using google translate?

Edited October 4, 2021 by Danjorus.2671

[Vancho.8750]

14 hours ago, Danjorus.2671 said:

They could tell people that strikes are raids and dungeons are fractals for sure, the mechanics are largely similar if you realise...

And  i don't really understand what you mean when you said mechanic take over the base ,name comes from player base, no one is using the missions part for short hand. Are you using google translate?

Ok, i will make it simpler for you. Fractals are dungeons, but people can't call them that since they have extra mechanics tied to them over the dungeon part and people will use short hand writing of Fractals to say they want to do them, cause it is its own thing on top of being dungeon and that part defines it .The same can be said about Strikes but in reverse since they can't be called Raids since they only have a part of raids, the boss fight.

[Obtena.7952]

On 10/2/2021 at 6:59 PM, Danjorus.2671 said:

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. 

Those things might be true, but that doesn't really answer my question to you. 

The name of the content and the existence of similar modes has nothing to do with attracting players ... or not. I get the sarcasm of the thread title and the discussion, but it's not going to change the path the game is on. Not really sure what the point of this thread is. I don't think Anet is trying to trick anyone into playing the game by 'abandoning modes and creating new similar modes with different names' if that's what you are implying. My point is that it's questionable that those kinds of specific content are even attractive to most people that adopt GW2 in the first place, considering the struggle Anet has had with the long term development of instanced group content. 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[maddoctor.2738]

It's more about organization and code. Fractals have many different mechanics compared to dungeons, this means there must be a way to tell the two apart. You can't simply call them all dungeons. Same with Strikes and Raids. Although it might sound better to use the same name on different, but similar, types of content, in the end it's gonna simply cause extra confusion.

 

Imagine how internal discussions would look like if both Fractals and Dungeons were named "instanced dungeons" and the developers wanted to add some new rewards to Fractals. "Will add some new rewards/mechanics, on the dungeons you can play from THAT portal, not the other ones"

 

And then there is the actual code. Developers can apply a "type" to each instance, Dungeon, Fractal, Raid, Strike, and by using this one definition the game's code will know exactly what mechanics to add there. From a database perspective it's much simpler to have all these content types (or rather, the maps) have a variable that easily tells their type, than coding each one individually, it's bad design that way.

 

For example, it was confirmed by the developers that each dungeon can only have 3 explorable paths, which is why when they added Aetherblade they had to scrap one of Twilight Arbor's prior paths. Fractals were designed as something entirely new to avoid that problem. In a lot of cases in programming it's easier to make something entirely new, than fix (or add to) something old.

 

So to answer the question of the OP, it's not about attracting players, but rather a necessity based on how coding works, and how hard organizing a large project like a video game, especially an mmorpg, can be. The exception being when they first added Raids with Heart of Thorns, they could've picked ANY name, but picked one that would indeed attract players from other mmorpgs. But other than that, I don't think attracting players has anything to do with naming modes.

[Firebeard.1746]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Those things might be true, but that doesn't really answer my question to you. 

The name of the content and the existence of similar modes has nothing to do with attracting players ... or not. I get the sarcasm of the thread title and the discussion, but it's not going to change the path the game is on. Not really sure what the point of this thread is. I don't think Anet is trying to trick anyone into playing the game by 'abandoning modes and creating new similar modes with different names' if that's what you are implying. My point is that it's questionable that those kinds of specific content are even attractive to most people that adopt GW2 in the first place, considering the struggle Anet has had with the long term development of instanced group content. 

Your overall point might makes sense, but you're also assuming anet only wants that demographic, i.e. the same people they've normally attracted. If someone who is fed up with their current MMO googles things about other MMOs and thinks GW2 might be a good fit, if they're a raider, they might google "gw2 raids" and if the results say all development ceased on them, they may not see other results saying they've been replaced, and feel the game isn't for them. 

Anet does release new instanced content but it tends to happen in bursts with nothing in between. Like there were no raids for a long time, but then we got all those strikes at the beginning of the IB saga. Though i think you have a point that no matter what they pick, they should have goals as far as new content for their instanced content, communicate them with the player base and follow through. Part of the reason OW has kept so many players here is it's something they've consistently added, so people who enjoy it, have stuck around. 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Obtena.7952]

14 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Your overall point might makes sense, but you're also assuming anet only wants that demographic, i.e. the same people they've normally attracted. 

I'm not assuming anything  to have that sensible point; Anet probably already has a REALLY good idea who this game appeals to and what content they want and most importantly, who spend money on the game. 

So as to this topic, does messing about with instance content affect new players attraction? Probably not. Does it affect current player attraction? Probably not much either, considering it never has. 

As for the demographic Anet wants ... well, that doesn't really make sense. The game is already developed to appeal to a demographic. It's not like they are starting over here. 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Xanadrine.4352]

Honestly killing off modes is something that will chase off most mmo players than are used to playing in dungeons and raids, even those coming from other games.