Anet needs to move away from Open World design and make new dungeons.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

6 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

What is the opinion you think I'm pushing here? I'm not the one that is skeptical, you are. Of course it applies to me ... and I'm not the one trying to shame Anet with a negative narrative to do ... something I want. Anet is gonna do what they want. Yes HoT wasn't that great ... and as you can see, Anet changed how they did PoF because of it. Just another example of Anet making changes good for their business that you somehow twisted into the image they can't do anything right to justify your skepticism. 

Anyways, the truth is that I see more good than bad going on, and the fact the game is still here being developed supports that narrative more than your 'Anet can't do anything right" one.  Which goes to the original topic ... no, Anet shouldn't be de-focusing from OW content ... it's the foundation of this game. That's ridiculous. 

Eh?  I brought up HoT because it was bad and you kept saying "Two successful Expansions" and now you're backpedaling on that.  I didn't like it when it first released because to explore you needed to do a laundry list of mastery grinding that was a pain in the butt.  Imagine working your way up a jumping puzzle, getting to the skillpoint at the end and then being told "You must train  this mastery to Rank 6 in order to use this" because that was commonplace.  Not to mention needing 400 skillpoints to unlock an elite spec (That was all of the skillpoints in the expansion or at least half of the skill points if you had core tyria map comp+WvW  skillpoints done) with no way for WvW players (Which I was at the time) to really gain the spec  without doing pve.  If you want my viewpoints on PoF, I thought it was better to explore, but  there's not  really much to do on the maps once you're done  with the achievements.  The mount mastery system felt like smooth unlocks rather than gliding which wasn't nearly as exciting as the trailer made it out to be (Where's my diving,  momentum based gliding?) or the few map specific traversal  methods (Mushrooms, nuhoch wallows, etc).

As for  met twisting that, I believe that's a you thing at this point.  You're trying to twist my skepticism and criticism into some sort of negative axe-grinding BS to fit your narrative about me.  Maybe start following that Forum Moderators advice and stop attacking me but actually address my points.

The truth of the matter is that ANet's poorly managed releases in the past, over promised, under delivered on content I enjoy playing and I will remain skeptical of their promises  until they can consistently deliver on systems and content that I'll enjoy playing.  I'm willing to give them another chance with EoD  strikes, but if I and everyone else who enjoys difficult instanced content suddenly has to wait  a year or more for another strike CM, then ANet's just doing the same thing they did  with fractals and raids, just now with Strikes.

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

address my points.

I addressed your points, starting with your first 'point' where you implied that you seemed to know better than Anet on how to run their business by shuffling around Anet's staff based on likely inaccurate Wiki numbers to help Anet not ...

waste their time and money on side projects that went nowhere and actually invested  that money and profit into making GW2 sustainable beyond just LW, we'd have an actually well-rounded game with content release cadences that don't have any section waiting literal years for another piece of content and said content wouldn't have to be rebranded every other living world release

The fact is that you don't know better than Anet how to run their business even if  your hypothesis there is true. 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

On 12/17/2021 at 12:03 PM, Mungrul.9358 said:

I'd prefer it if they added instanced content that was designed for and balanced towards drop-in play, so you didn't have to be too concerned about build or profession.

 

One of my favourite things about Destiny 2 when I played it was the Strike playlist, where you could drop in with randoms at any time, even midway through a mission, and just play together, without it being too difficult and not requiring voice comms.

 

That you could continue playing strikes as long as you liked, and completing one would just advance the playlist to the next one was the icing on the cake.

I was hoping GW2 strikes would be similar to that, but they really aren't.

 

This may come across as too casual for some people, but I genuinely believe there's a proportion of players who would enjoy playing instanced content like this; interesting mechanics, but not so complicated that they can't be picked up with minimal to no communication; a requirement for more than one player, but maybe topping out at three; and automatic replacement of players should they drop mid-mission.

I don't have much time so . In the beginning Gw2 was much more causal friendly then most MMO I had know until then and the buy to play concept was great  I came here a few months after HoT start certainly HoT from all info I gathered was a scism  but people also enjoyed raids and new people came .

 

Certainly we will get new content with EoD but the drought is real and Arena.NET tries to hard to be cheap with just reworking strike missions. People love this game here and  they bet even if Gw2 fails there will be a GW3.

 

I also looked at other MMOS recently I watched FF14 and played Warframe. Long story short everything Gw 2 and Arena.NET sought out to do other beat them.

 

1.Casual

Warframe like you drop in anytime too so long you in phase 1 and you don't need voice(even if it is build in). It is much more casual. The be frank there is also much more grind but nobody stopping you. I think DF2 is the same.

 

2.System/Balance

The problem is in GW2 the meta is stuck hard Metabattle doesn't reflect that at all and your  classes/elite specs while they do each something  different they don't feel after x round of balance not so different anymore. Basically when you go competitive in Gw 2 . You have in each  mode 2-3 classes/builds and the rest is sugar atm.

 

Basically from what I have seen in games you have 2 options

A. Have a limited number of options and fine tune them what this means you decide as developer what is meta.

B. Have a big number of free options and tune them after whats happens in the game. Actually this doesn't work great for PvP but it is awesome because the players can always found something new.(GW1,WF)

 

Gw2 started as B but over time it became A because there are too many options which aren't options. Okay I don't think I can nail that today 100%.

 

3. PvE Endcontent /raids

FF14 is there really nice multiply difficult level for everyone and delivery with each expansion.  You all know what here is.

 

The point is many MMOs : WF/FF14/PoF were a at some point smaller then GW2 only to let it eat their dust now. It is sad.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

7 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

Eh?  I brought up HoT because it was bad and you kept saying "Two successful Expansions" and now you're backpedaling on that.  I didn't like it when it first released because to explore you needed to do a laundry list of mastery grinding that was a pain in the butt.  Imagine working your way up a jumping puzzle, getting to the skillpoint at the end and then being told "You must train  this mastery to Rank 6 in order to use this" because that was commonplace.  Not to mention needing 400 skillpoints to unlock an elite spec (That was all of the skillpoints in the expansion or at least half of the skill points if you had core tyria map comp+WvW  skillpoints done) with no way for WvW players (Which I was at the time) to really gain the spec  without doing pve.  If you want my viewpoints on PoF, I thought it was better to explore, but  there's not  really much to do on the maps once you're done  with the achievements.  The mount mastery system felt like smooth unlocks rather than gliding which wasn't nearly as exciting as the trailer made it out to be (Where's my diving,  momentum based gliding?) or the few map specific traversal  methods (Mushrooms, nuhoch wallows, etc).

As for  met twisting that, I believe that's a you thing at this point.  You're trying to twist my skepticism and criticism into some sort of negative axe-grinding BS to fit your narrative about me.  Maybe start following that Forum Moderators advice and stop attacking me but actually address my points.

The truth of the matter is that ANet's poorly managed releases in the past, over promised, under delivered on content I enjoy playing and I will remain skeptical of their promises  until they can consistently deliver on systems and content that I'll enjoy playing.  I'm willing to give them another chance with EoD  strikes, but if I and everyone else who enjoys difficult instanced content suddenly has to wait  a year or more for another strike CM, then ANet's just doing the same thing they did  with fractals and raids, just now with Strikes.

Just to be fair, the 400 Hero Points were only required for a total of 4 days. The only Mastery I remember was the poison one for moving the Story along.  But, if there were more, there were the same kind of ones in Path of Fire to obtain Mounts in some cases (which were stated to be 'smooth unlocks').  🤷‍♂️

[Hume.2876]

GW2 seems to lose a lot of good players to FFXIV.  This is bad for business because they lose the streamers and influencers.  If you make most of the game no skill open world grinds - you can keep the super casuals happy to only some extent.

 

If there is nothing to aspire to - no difficult content to potentially play through your games popularity diminishes. It's a balancing act for Arenanet as obviously like many have posted most of their player base enjoys the open world content.

 

But we cannot overlook the fact that other games are far more popular and profitable then GW2 - and this is what will happen if you totally neglect the aspirational aspects of your game.

 

WoW has suffered greatly from this as well.  As you make your content more casual you run the risk of making your good/talented player base checkout.  I think it's fair to say Arenanet has catered too much to the extreme casual grinder and too little to the competent skilled PVE players.

 

It's fine to be on that grinder/ow side of the spectrum but they need to renew emphasis on fractals and strike missions or raids.  Or they will continue to suffer greatly in the modern market compared to other more successful games that offer balanced content.

 

This EOD is pretty much the last hurrah for the game.  If they screw up again they are going to go the way of Wildstar.  I like GW2 and wish them luck - but they need to cater to the good players or run the risk of death by casuals.  

 

I love Arenanet but they are hanging on by a thin rope.  I don't think they should give up on Open World stuff or anything like that.  But they really need a way to entertain the good PvE players of the world. 

 

It goes back to the original vision. Do they really want to make a real MMO with all kind s of activities? Or do they want some kind of korean style grind fest for cosmetics?  judging by how well korean games do - I suggest they steer away from that and look to the leaders.

 

 

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

When I look at the reaction on all the posts I have the feeling the Gw2 community is confused about what is going on in the MMO market and in other MMOs xD

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Hume.2876 said:

GW2 seems to lose a lot of good players to FFXIV.  This is bad for business because they lose the streamers and influencers.  If you make most of the game no skill open world grinds - you can keep the super casuals happy to only some extent.

 

If there is nothing to aspire to - no difficult content to potentially play through your games popularity diminishes. It's a balancing act for Arenanet as obviously like many have posted most of their player base enjoys the open world content.

 

But we cannot overlook the fact that other games are far more popular and profitable then GW2 - and this is what will happen if you totally neglect the aspirational aspects of your game.

 

WoW has suffered greatly from this as well.  As you make your content more casual you run the risk of making your good/talented player base checkout.  I think it's fair to say Arenanet has catered too much to the extreme casual grinder and too little to the competent skilled PVE players.

 

It's fine to be on that grinder/ow side of the spectrum but they need to renew emphasis on fractals and strike missions or raids.  Or they will continue to suffer greatly in the modern market compared to other more successful games that offer balanced content.

 

This EOD is pretty much the last hurrah for the game.  If they screw up again they are going to go the way of Wildstar.  I like GW2 and wish them luck - but they need to cater to the good players or run the risk of death by casuals.  

 

I love Arenanet but they are hanging on by a thin rope.  I don't think they should give up on Open World stuff or anything like that.  But they really need a way to entertain the good PvE players of the world. 

 

It goes back to the original vision. Do they really want to make a real MMO with all kind s of activities? Or do they want some kind of korean style grind fest for cosmetics?  judging by how well korean games do - I suggest they steer away from that and look to the leaders.

 

 

You're right, but the state of denial in this thread is next level.  Apparently a game announcing that they will not be developing future expansions isn't enough of a wakeup call.  Yeah, they turned around on that but even the whitest of white knights must be aware that if EoD does poorly this game's future is questionable.

I happen to agree that it will take more than fishing, skiffs, and open world content to succeed and I'm worried for the future because that isn't reflected in development focus from what we've seen so far.

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, Hume.2876 said:

GW2 seems to lose a lot of good players to FFXIV.  This is bad for business because they lose the streamers and influencers.  If you make most of the game no skill open world grinds - you can keep the super casuals happy to only some extent.

 

There is only two questions here:

1. What demographic is easier to keep happy

2. Where is the revenues coming from

The idea the game will die a 'death by  casuals' is just sensational ... Anet knows who's spending money on the game and what content those spenders are doing. If they know how to run a business, that will tell them what content to make ... and NOT make. If most revenues are sourced from 'super casuals' doing 'super casual' things ... then the mindset that the game shouldn't appeal to those players doesn't make sense. If anything, the current state of the game should be a good indicator for the answers to those questions. 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

There is only two questions here:

1. What demographic is easier to keep happy

2. Where is the revenues coming from

The idea the game will die a 'death by  casuals' is just sensational ... Anet knows who's spending money on the game and what content those spenders are doing. If they know how to run a business, that will tell them what content to make ... and NOT make. If most revenues are sourced from 'super casuals' doing 'super casual' things ... then the mindset that the game shouldn't appeal to those players doesn't make sense. If anything, the current state of the game should be a good indicator for the answers to those questions. 

1) Whatever demographic seems to be flooding FF14 to the point where they literally had to shut down creation of new accounts to catch up on making new server hubs for the new players.
2) Happy customers.  Ones that recieve the content they  enjoy playing.

The idea that games can survive and still be engaging to play is silly.  GW2 doesn't even have the advantage of being playable on a touch screen on your phone.  Even casuals will eventually get bored of any easy game grind that ANet introduces and move on.

[robertthebard.8150]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

You're right, but the state of denial in this thread is next level.  Apparently a game announcing that they will not be developing future expansions isn't enough of a wakeup call.  Yeah, they turned around on that but even the whitest of white knights must be aware that if EoD does poorly this game's future is questionable.

I happen to agree that it will take more than fishing, skiffs, and open world content to succeed and I'm worried for the future because that isn't reflected in development focus from what we've seen so far.

I only have one real issue with this, Guild Wars 1.  It's still up, and even has people playing it.  I haven't reinstalled since I recently had to rebuild my PC, but the last time I was on, the hubs were bustling.  When I'm in DR or LA, there's lots of people, and lots of chat scrolling by.  When I'm out working on maps, I see other players quite frequently, even if the map isn't one of the daily event maps.  So I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be in denial about when I say "I'm not sure where anyone is getting that the game is dying".

Maybe what they mean is "all of their friends", or "everyone they know"?  These are nebulous numbers, at best, and usually don't amount to a fraction of a fraction of the actual player base.   So I'll go ahead and ask, how many thousands of players are on the way out if they don't get a new raid?  Is it even hundreds, maybe 10s?

I'm reminded of a discussion about PvP in DDO, where a poster tried to claim that PvP was the only thing keeping the lights on.  PvP in DDO is limited to duels, and tavern brawls...

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

13 minutes ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

I only have one real issue with this, Guild Wars 1.  It's still up, and even has people playing it.  I haven't reinstalled since I recently had to rebuild my PC, but the last time I was on, the hubs were bustling.  When I'm in DR or LA, there's lots of people, and lots of chat scrolling by.  When I'm out working on maps, I see other players quite frequently, even if the map isn't one of the daily event maps.  So I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be in denial about when I say "I'm not sure where anyone is getting that the game is dying".

Maybe what they mean is "all of their friends", or "everyone they know"?  These are nebulous numbers, at best, and usually don't amount to a fraction of a fraction of the actual player base.   So I'll go ahead and ask, how many thousands of players are on the way out if they don't get a new raid?  Is it even hundreds, maybe 10s?

I'm reminded of a discussion about PvP in DDO, where a poster tried to claim that PvP was the only thing keeping the lights on.  PvP in DDO is limited to duels, and tavern brawls...

At the same time; who makes the guides?

Newbies, casuals? Not really, they'll usually just pop on to do their dailies and play for an hour.

It's the people who have time invested in this game and game knowledge as well.  Spite the veteran players enough and you lose out on cohesive guides and strategies coming out in a timely manner with releases.  It doesn't matter if it's 100 players or 1,000,000 players  leaving in that case.  A game with very little people passionate about it and speaking well of it suffers a silent death.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

The idea that games can survive and still be engaging to play is silly.  GW2 doesn't even have the advantage of being playable on a touch screen on your phone.  Even casuals will eventually get bored of any easy game grind that ANet introduces and move on.

Again, the question here is if Anet can make a business case out of appealing to people with content they make so they spend money on the game. If they couldn't do that, the game wouldn't be here now so obviously they are competitive with their products in the market, regardless of your down-vote narratives. 

GW2 doesn't need to be playable on a touchscreen on a phone to be successful and there are strategies to address people getting bored with content that we already see Anet implementing. 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[AliamRationem.5172]

23 minutes ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

I only have one real issue with this, Guild Wars 1.  It's still up, and even has people playing it.  I haven't reinstalled since I recently had to rebuild my PC, but the last time I was on, the hubs were bustling.  When I'm in DR or LA, there's lots of people, and lots of chat scrolling by.  When I'm out working on maps, I see other players quite frequently, even if the map isn't one of the daily event maps.  So I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be in denial about when I say "I'm not sure where anyone is getting that the game is dying".

Maybe what they mean is "all of their friends", or "everyone they know"?  These are nebulous numbers, at best, and usually don't amount to a fraction of a fraction of the actual player base.   So I'll go ahead and ask, how many thousands of players are on the way out if they don't get a new raid?  Is it even hundreds, maybe 10s?

I'm reminded of a discussion about PvP in DDO, where a poster tried to claim that PvP was the only thing keeping the lights on.  PvP in DDO is limited to duels, and tavern brawls...

If your standard for success is a game that hasn't released new content in years then we're not even having the same conversation.

Also, it's not as simple as how many players might leave only because of raids.  I'm an open world/story player primarily, but if every time I start to tire of that or just feel like a change of pace I have no alternative for new content, that's when I go find another game.  Maybe I come back or maybe that other game becomes my new thing.

I don't think you have to be a hardcore player to appreciate some variety in content.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

On 12/18/2021 at 1:30 PM, Astralporing.1957 said:

You sure want Steve from accounting, Bob from marketing, and that nice cleaning lady (all employees of Anet) working on instanced content?

Can you stop being disengenious. Final fantasy 14 has 350 employees working on that game. Jagex has 337 employees working on runescape. Amazon studios has around 230 working on New World. ESO has 74, that is a truely small dev team. If you compare arena net to any other game studio that is not blizzard, it is a large dev team.  

Its not an issue of number of employees when you miss management the company. I suspect that the company is too heavy on middle management and model artists.

[Sarm.5923]

7 hours ago, Hume.2876 said:

WoW has suffered greatly from this as well.  As you make your content more casual you run the risk of making your good/talented player base checkout.  I think it's fair to say Arenanet has catered too much to the extreme casual grinder and too little to the competent skilled PVE players.

Admittedly I didn't do any difficult content in WoW myself while I played it, but everything I've heard about that level of play there is that the high-end content has been sucking lately because it's too draining for players, not because WoW's failing to provide a good challenge. The barrier-to-entry for difficult content keeps going up as the playerbase becomes more demanding about performance (which might be unavoidable), but the excessive expected grinding to keep yourself optimal is causing tons of burnout. That's not even taking into account the game's population issues from its faction divide.

WoW's casual content has been suffering too, in part because world quests are mostly recycled from the leveling content you've already done to get there, and everything feeling designed around making players feel obligated to log in every day. Their incredible patch delays have only made this worse.

[robertthebard.8150]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If your standard for success is a game that hasn't released new content in years then we're not even having the same conversation.

Also, it's not as simple as how many players might leave only because of raids.  I'm an open world/story player primarily, but if every time I start to tire of that or just feel like a change of pace I have no alternative for new content, that's when I go find another game.  Maybe I come back or maybe that other game becomes my new thing.

I don't think you have to be a hardcore player to appreciate some variety in content.

The point was that it's still not dead.  We get events swapped in and out here, along with new content upcoming, not to mention all the mail I keep getting about LW stuff, in game.

The other side to this is that people do what you're worried about doing all the time.  My guild leader's girlfriend absolutely hated Assassin's Creed Origins, because I let them know I'd be off for at least a couple of weeks playing it when it first released.  I'm sitting on nearly 3 TBs of games, because when I get bored with one, I go to another, and sometimes even come back to really old games.  I just quit Fall Out 4, about 15 minutes ago.  We're gamers, it's what we do.  I've been in a guild that game hopped for progression raiding.  That was a lot of jumping ship on a game for the next one with new content for us to play.  This wasn't some new thing that started a year or so ago either, I've been out of that for 5+ years.  So, I'm not sure why you're concerned about "I might want to play something else"?  Of course you might, and probably will.  I'd be more surprised if people weren't doing that.

2 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

At the same time; who makes the guides?

Newbies, casuals? Not really, they'll usually just pop on to do their dailies and play for an hour.

It's the people who have time invested in this game and game knowledge as well.  Spite the veteran players enough and you lose out on cohesive guides and strategies coming out in a timely manner with releases.  It doesn't matter if it's 100 players or 1,000,000 players  leaving in that case.  A game with very little people passionate about it and speaking well of it suffers a silent death.

The same people that are making them now.  These same people that are also making guides for other games as well.  When we're doing complicated events on a map, there's no shortage of people that know what they're doing.  As it stands right now, GW 2 is in the top 10 across multiple sites.  I checked on this recently, because someone in this thread thought it was a good idea to list the "top 7" games.  I was curious about why only 7, since most go with either 5, or 10.  Come to find out that GW 2 is hovering around 8th, including one where it was most likely to find people playing it, so no wonder they stopped at 7, when they were trying to deride ANet, right?  Maybe, when they started their list, they didn't expect to find it consistently in the top 10 across multiple sites?

Then there's the "casuals" thing.  While I don't doubt that there are casuals that just log in for their dailies, I'm willing to bet that there's vets that do the same.  Is logging in for dailies now an activity that is limited to casuals only, so that someone can say "see, the game is dying" on a forum?  At what stage of "newbie" do they start just doing dailies and logging out?  After they finish the main story?  Maybe they finish it a few times, one for each faction?  If it's even one time through the vanilla story, are they really still "newbies"?  Where do we draw the line?

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Can you stop being disengenious. Final fantasy 14 has 350 employees working on that game.

And how many employees Square-Enix has?

Besides, you seem to have missed the point i was making and duplicating the error i was commenting on: You are mixing up the amount of employees and devs. In case of Anet, for example, the higherst amount of employees we've heard this company had was well over 400, but in case of devs, that number was at around 220. Nearly half that number. And that's devs in general, which, again, is misleading, because developers are not exchangeable. You cannot, for example, replace a boss fight design team with people from narrative team, map designers or asset artists. In fact, you cannot even replace one dev "employment slot" with another, because devs of different specialties and experience do not earn the same.

All the theoretical assignments of developers to different roles someone makes on those forums, based on pure numbers alone, without knowledge of their individual specialties and experience are not worth much even if that someone does not try to count non-dev employees. When they do that too, it becomes completely worthless.

[AliamRationem.5172]

32 minutes ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

The point was that it's still not dead.  We get events swapped in and out here, along with new content upcoming, not to mention all the mail I keep getting about LW stuff, in game.

The other side to this is that people do what you're worried about doing all the time.  My guild leader's girlfriend absolutely hated Assassin's Creed Origins, because I let them know I'd be off for at least a couple of weeks playing it when it first released.  I'm sitting on nearly 3 TBs of games, because when I get bored with one, I go to another, and sometimes even come back to really old games.  I just quit Fall Out 4, about 15 minutes ago.  We're gamers, it's what we do.  I've been in a guild that game hopped for progression raiding.  That was a lot of jumping ship on a game for the next one with new content for us to play.  This wasn't some new thing that started a year or so ago either, I've been out of that for 5+ years.  So, I'm not sure why you're concerned about "I might want to play something else"?  Of course you might, and probably will.  I'd be more surprised if people weren't doing that.

The same people that are making them now.  These same people that are also making guides for other games as well.  When we're doing complicated events on a map, there's no shortage of people that know what they're doing.  As it stands right now, GW 2 is in the top 10 across multiple sites.  I checked on this recently, because someone in this thread thought it was a good idea to list the "top 7" games.  I was curious about why only 7, since most go with either 5, or 10.  Come to find out that GW 2 is hovering around 8th, including one where it was most likely to find people playing it, so no wonder they stopped at 7, when they were trying to deride ANet, right?  Maybe, when they started their list, they didn't expect to find it consistently in the top 10 across multiple sites?

Then there's the "casuals" thing.  While I don't doubt that there are casuals that just log in for their dailies, I'm willing to bet that there's vets that do the same.  Is logging in for dailies now an activity that is limited to casuals only, so that someone can say "see, the game is dying" on a forum?  At what stage of "newbie" do they start just doing dailies and logging out?  After they finish the main story?  Maybe they finish it a few times, one for each faction?  If it's even one time through the vanilla story, are they really still "newbies"?  Where do we draw the line?

The concern is player retention and my point was that too little focus on organized PvE doesn't just impact players who focus primarily on that content.  In reality, most players engage in more than one type of content to varying degrees.  If you don't support those tastes with development resources, player retention suffers.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

ArenaNet currently posts 248  employees.  Employees, not Devs.  Not sure how large that makes it. 

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

5 minutes ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

The point was that it's still not dead.  We get events swapped in and out here, along with new content upcoming, not to mention all the mail I keep getting about LW stuff, in game.

The other side to this is that people do what you're worried about doing all the time.  My guild leader's girlfriend absolutely hated Assassin's Creed Origins, because I let them know I'd be off for at least a couple of weeks playing it when it first released.  I'm sitting on nearly 3 TBs of games, because when I get bored with one, I go to another, and sometimes even come back to really old games.  I just quit Fall Out 4, about 15 minutes ago.  We're gamers, it's what we do.  I've been in a guild that game hopped for progression raiding.  That was a lot of jumping ship on a game for the next one with new content for us to play.  This wasn't some new thing that started a year or so ago either, I've been out of that for 5+ years.  So, I'm not sure why you're concerned about "I might want to play something else"?  Of course you might, and probably will.  I'd be more surprised if people weren't doing that.

The same people that are making them now.  These same people that are also making guides for other games as well.  When we're doing complicated events on a map, there's no shortage of people that know what they're doing.  As it stands right now, GW 2 is in the top 10 across multiple sites.  I checked on this recently, because someone in this thread thought it was a good idea to list the "top 7" games.  I was curious about why only 7, since most go with either 5, or 10.  Come to find out that GW 2 is hovering around 8th, including one where it was most likely to find people playing it, so no wonder they stopped at 7, when they were trying to deride ANet, right?  Maybe, when they started their list, they didn't expect to find it consistently in the top 10 across multiple sites?

Then there's the "casuals" thing.  While I don't doubt that there are casuals that just log in for their dailies, I'm willing to bet that there's vets that do the same.  Is logging in for dailies now an activity that is limited to casuals only, so that someone can say "see, the game is dying" on a forum?  At what stage of "newbie" do they start just doing dailies and logging out?  After they finish the main story?  Maybe they finish it a few times, one for each faction?  If it's even one time through the vanilla story, are they really still "newbies"?  Where do we draw the line?

 

Indirect this is one of the points I wanted to point out. GW2 was by metric way better then it is now . We can talk about game balance & design and missing content a lot . The numbers show it lost a lot of hype and some players to MMO which aren't that much younger then Gw2 (most of them 2 years)

 

Google Trend

 

You can also ask sites like MMO population in 2015 it was on place 2 after WoW in 2021 it is place 13 Okay lets try again because 2015 was the highest an earliest rating . 2018 place 4 .

 

Hm even adding Path of Exile doesn't look good.(atm twice as good as Gw2)

Google Trend

 

Maybe I should compare it to 'failed' MMos

Google Trend

 

Maybe people see now why people are worried , I personally take the dopple stance . I see those number , I feel the game became boring  and  I see the balance isn't what it should be . Basically you don't feel rewarded in the game anymore for what you are doing. (y this is similar to WoW).

 

There is certainly a why and how this is so to talk about and what you can do. I personnly wish people would see this is not a good direction

 

-Merry christmas.

[Hume.2876]

46 minutes ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

The point was that it's still not dead.  We get events swapped in and out here, along with new content upcoming, not to mention all the mail I keep getting about LW stuff, in game.

The other side to this is that people do what you're worried about doing all the time.  My guild leader's girlfriend absolutely hated Assassin's Creed Origins, because I let them know I'd be off for at least a couple of weeks playing it when it first released.  I'm sitting on nearly 3 TBs of games, because when I get bored with one, I go to another, and sometimes even come back to really old games.  I just quit Fall Out 4, about 15 minutes ago.  We're gamers, it's what we do.  I've been in a guild that game hopped for progression raiding.  That was a lot of jumping ship on a game for the next one with new content for us to play.  This wasn't some new thing that started a year or so ago either, I've been out of that for 5+ years.  So, I'm not sure why you're concerned about "I might want to play something else"?  Of course you might, and probably will.  I'd be more surprised if people weren't doing that.

The same people that are making them now.  These same people that are also making guides for other games as well.  When we're doing complicated events on a map, there's no shortage of people that know what they're doing.  As it stands right now, GW 2 is in the top 10 across multiple sites.  I checked on this recently, because someone in this thread thought it was a good idea to list the "top 7" games.  I was curious about why only 7, since most go with either 5, or 10.  Come to find out that GW 2 is hovering around 8th, including one where it was most likely to find people playing it, so no wonder they stopped at 7, when they were trying to deride ANet, right?  Maybe, when they started their list, they didn't expect to find it consistently in the top 10 across multiple sites?

Then there's the "casuals" thing.  While I don't doubt that there are casuals that just log in for their dailies, I'm willing to bet that there's vets that do the same.  Is logging in for dailies now an activity that is limited to casuals only, so that someone can say "see, the game is dying" on a forum?  At what stage of "newbie" do they start just doing dailies and logging out?  After they finish the main story?  Maybe they finish it a few times, one for each faction?  If it's even one time through the vanilla story, are they really still "newbies"?  Where do we draw the line?

 

I don't know about you - but I would like to see the game do well..  So we can have more expansions and such.

 

Final Fantasy XIV despite catering to a more "hardcore" audience is doing much better than this game.
 

Quote

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn's increase in subscriptions has seen the MMO section's revenue grow from $80 million two years ago to $105.8 million in this quarter. Subscriber numbers have grown this year, driven in part by World of Warcraft biggest streamer bringing attention to the game and players looking to prepare for the upcoming Endwalker expansion.

 

 

So spare me the 'they must exclusively cater to casuals' to maximize profits.   It is simply not true.

 

I don't really agree with the original poster entirely.  I just think they would do well to offer better/more instanced content so people will not have to leave for final fantasy XIV.  

 

There is a balance - and they are going too far in the wrong direction. This threatens the whole game.

 

I don't raid in this game, but the instance PvE content is an important draw for the real influencers and high level players.  It's not that they are sufficient for success - but they are necessary for it.  

 

Look how few views GW2 gets in youtube - how few twitch streamers they have etc etc.  They brought back in the big guns to save the game to restore it to its initial glory.  Well crafted instance content needs to be part of the package.  

 

Again what is going on here is a last ditch effort to save the game by the people that made it originally and loved it.  I want that effort to succeed.  What the OP is feeling a lot of people are..

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Obtena.7952]

14 hours ago, Hume.2876 said:

 

I don't know about you - but I would like to see the game do well..  So we can have more expansions and such.

Final Fantasy XIV despite catering to a more "hardcore" audience is doing much better than this game.

So spare me the 'they must exclusively cater to casuals' to maximize profits.   It is simply not true.

I don't really agree with the original poster entirely.  I just think they would do well to offer better/more instanced content so people will not have to leave for final fantasy XIV.  

There is a balance - and they are going too far in the wrong direction. This threatens the whole game.

This is just ... weird. Anet has made a very DIRECT commitment to providing endgame group content to players of ALL levels in this game in EoD. What direction are you referring to that Anet is 'too far' in going in? The direction where they are going to provide 10 man instanced Strike content at least at two different levels to appeal to a wider range of people engaging in that content? Sounds like the right direction to me. Sounds like the direction that people have been asking for many years now. This development sounds like the widest range of player consideration for endgame instanced content we have ever had in GW2. I really can't see how developing content of this type to capture this wide range of players is a threat to the game. 

No one here is saying Anet shouldn't have instanced content and yes there is a balance. It's just very strange that somehow, some people concludes that balance isn't enough instanced content because clearly up until this point, there isn't any question that instanced content hasn't exactly been that popular with players of this game. Sure, that's a result of how it's implemented but this isn't Field of Dreams here ... It's not a case of if Anet builds this content, people will come. They tried that, it didn't actually work. The content, whatever it is, need to primarily take into account the demographics of the game as they are now. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[robertthebard.8150]

9 hours ago, Hume.2876 said:

 

I don't know about you - but I would like to see the game do well..  So we can have more expansions and such.

 

Final Fantasy XIV despite catering to a more "hardcore" audience is doing much better than this game.
 

 

So spare me the 'they must exclusively cater to casuals' to maximize profits.   It is simply not true.

 

I don't really agree with the original poster entirely.  I just think they would do well to offer better/more instanced content so people will not have to leave for final fantasy XIV.  

 

There is a balance - and they are going too far in the wrong direction. This threatens the whole game.

 

I don't raid in this game, but the instance PvE content is an important draw for the real influencers and high level players.  It's not that they are sufficient for success - but they are necessary for it.  

 

Look how few views GW2 gets in youtube - how few twitch streamers they have etc etc.  They brought back in the big guns to save the game to restore it to its initial glory.  Well crafted instance content needs to be part of the package.  

 

Again what is going on here is a last ditch effort to save the game by the people that made it originally and loved it.  I want that effort to succeed.  What the OP is feeling a lot of people are..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Show me where I've said they must cater to any group.  It's really easy to defeat arguments that you make up in a post, but let's talk about what I said, instead of what you want me to have said.  Sound fair?  Excellent.

Did you know that I found GW 2 game hopping from another MMO, because I was bored?  "Which MMO", one may ask, ESO.  I played ESO because I was bored, and had seen that Malukah was doing the female bards in the Vanilla release, so I went ahead and got it.  I wasn't looking for Skyrim Online, so I wasn't overly disappointed with it, played for a year or so.

In the time I've been playing here I've been distracted by a lot of other games, some new releases, like AC Valhalla and CP 2077.  Others not so new, like Horizon Zero Dawn, when it released for PC.  I've even been distracted by Baldur's Gate, the first one.  The list goes on, but what's the point?  Here I am, logging in and playing, and even on the forums discussing it.  I've had to wait an hour for updates to install on some of my older MMOs too, swtor is really "good" at that.

These trends existed long before GW 2 and will continue to exist long after it's on maintenance mode, if it's even online at all at that point.  "The grass is always greener" after all.  I mentioned above that I used to be in a raid guild, that jumped games for new raids in other games.  I was there for about 2 years, and I left 5 years ago.  So that trend was well established, even back then.  I've seen the "but people are playing other MMOs instead" argument in a lot of those MMO forums too.  Guess what:  People jumped ship from another MMO, in a lot of cases, to play here too.  I cited GW earlier, to show that retention is a thing for this franchise, even when the game is technically on Maintenance Mode.

This is akin to pointing to Steam charts for a game that doesn't require Steam to launch and claiming it's dead.  I've seen that too.  I've seen a lot in the last 15 or 16 years of playing MMOs a lot.  I've seen "no updates will be the last nail in the coffin for this MMO" and "that update will be the last nail in the coffin for this MMO", in the same MMO, from the same player.  Nearly 12 years later, they were, eventually, right.  So hey, there's hope for the doom and gloom, just stick with it, after all, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

[Tails.9372]

9 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

there isn't any question that instanced content hasn't exactly been that popular with players of this game. Sure, that's a result of how it's implemented but this isn't Field of Dreams here ... It's not a case of if Anet builds this content, people will come. They tried that, it didn't actually work. The content, whatever it is, need to primarily take into account the demographics of the game as they are now.

And that's the important thing to remember, most instanced content is not designed for the enjoyment of the average casual player and unsurprisingly the one that is (namely story content) has the highest amount of engagement (at least initially, the issue here is a lack of replay value). On the flipside at the beginning of HoT they tried to introduce significantly more difficult OW content which most people also couldn't stand and OW maps which are neither a profitable farm nor a requirement for important collections are just as dead as some of the instanced content in this game.

2 hours ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

It's really easy to defeat arguments that you make up in a post

Indeed, but you were doing the exact same thing earlier in this thread so you're not the one to talk.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Tails.9372

[Shadowmoon.7986]

11 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And how many employees Square-Enix has?

How many employees does ncsoft have? 

See it is a pointless question. Because ncsoft does nothing for this game besides marketing and CS. 

I am sick in tired of people giving anet a pass because they claim it is a small game studio with no sub fee, when in fact it is the same size as its competitors that are not blizzard, and it probably rakes in more money from the whales than it could ever do with a sub fee.