About future expansions, a question for ANet.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

54 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

I'm not sure what point you are arguing here? 

As I said in my original post in this thread: 

 

Sorry i should have inluced this "phrase" also :

3 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

And that was before the gold mines of Mount Skins and co., with a very conservatively monetized Gemstore. lay the ground work for future expansions, to be more focused on content.

So we see, putting expanion features behind a forced content(need to do moredps) , didn't work . We should do what HoT +PoF did (unlock casually) . And the company can make money

The majority didnt have a problem with EoD content mechanics  but wanted 5-10% less hp reduction .

And if they dont whine about the mechanics or one-shots, then the "general community have improved you see . Forcing them to more dps is  a worthless stategie

 

 

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You can have both challenging OW and Raid-like content, and not have advertised headline features of the expansion locked behind them (not that I think the Turtle at all ended up being a major deal, nor that it's skins generated much revenue - but I get players want that main feature set completion). 

Yeah from  now on we avoid putting expansion features behind "forced content"(that it need to improve your dps) and should do what HoT +PoF did(casually -but deadly ) .

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That said, I also think it's an issue that Anet caves to players not just expecting, but demanding to be able to complete all an expansion has to offer in one week of solo play. Same with players having figured out that it's literally easier to demand Anet nerf content than it is to learn a game mechanic like breakbars (see Eater of Souls with PoF). Anyway, that's a tangent. 

As far as HoT goes :

Snipers didnt have a tell , when i t was going to fire .

And you couldnt keep track of the 3 sec time , while you where bombarded with other mobs .

Other maps where not affected.

 

As far as PoF goes, Clearing Ire should have the the "meta event" that each expanion should have and recycle the community  , but like EoD , "pros" wanted the casual to "git gud" .

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Again I'm not really sure where that came from or what point you are arguing - but I don't think anyone is recommending defensive gear (unless you count Celestial, Marauder and the like). 

It's pretty well known that highly defensive gear = no damage = way longer fights = getting lower value out of active defensive CD's and limited defensive resources like dodges = taking more damage = having a way harder time with the game. 

Equipping Defensive gear is an "easy mode" for older people . While new people can equip Berseker Gear and speed throught it .

So if the mobs/bosses have low HP , but hit very hard , both parties will have a great time

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If anyone is having problems with the game, it's exactly because they are running overly defensive setups that don't really do anything, rather than investing into Might, Fury, Vuln, etc. access - as well as lacking fundamental understanding of the game mechanically with things like Breakbars, dodge timing, circle strafing and the like.

The problem isn't gear, it's lack of understanding of the games mechanics and ability to make functioning builds - because the game so rarely checks for it, especially outside of instanced away content.

I dont see people whine about EoD breakbars Heart Event(teach them to break bars)

In HoT end boss  , there a notion that shouldn't break the breakbar too fast ? It seems people know what a breakbar is .

 

They can make functionls builds . They choose defensive ones , while they try to keep it with 80% crit chance with fury

As far as rotation goes > use the spells that deal the most dps > just like PvP

Spoiler

(edit:If the companywants to help the lower casuals , they should choose 1-2 spells , to do extremly amount of damage . The casual will use it and their dps wil improve trementously.)

Otherwise keep the HP of the bosse/mobs low and their damage extremly high

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Leger.3724]

9 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Iirc HoT/2015 is still by far the highest revenue year since launch year/2012, and still the highest revenue jump compared to it's previous year.

And that was before the gold mines of Mount Skins and co., with a very conservatively monetized Gemstore. 

I've also never seen a representative community poll anywhere in which HoT didn't win as overall favourite Expansion.* 

 

 

I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of reality here.

 

Heart of Thorns was purchased because of people's experiences with the base game.

 

By that same logic Path of Fire was purchased because of people's experiences with Heart of Thorns.

 

You can't trash the sales numbers of expansion packs after Heart of Thorns without understanding their abysmal sales are because people bought Heart of Thorns and then quit because it was such a horrific experience.

 

And of course community polls will rate Heart of Thorns highly - again, you can interpret a community poll as success... but if over half of the community has left the game, another 40% don't participate on the forums or wherever the vote was held and 10% who do vote they liked Heart of Thorns the most, is that a success? I doubt it.

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Leger.3724

[Asum.4960]

36 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

 

I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of reality here.

 

Heart of Thorns was purchased because of people's experiences with the base game.

 

By that same logic Path of Fire was purchased because of people's experiences with Heart of Thorns.

 

You can't trash the sales numbers of expansion packs after Heart of Thorns without understanding their abysmal sales are because people bought Heart of Thorns and then quit because it was such a horrific experience.

 

And of course community polls will rate Heart of Thorns highly - again, you can interpret a community poll as success... but if over half of the community has left the game, another 40% don't participate on the forums or wherever the vote was held and 10% who do vote they liked Heart of Thorns the most, is that a success? I doubt it.

 

Where was I "trashing" sales numbers of other expansions? I just stated the fact that HoT was the biggest revenue height since launch. 

PoF wasn't terrible either (~80% of what HoT reached, and a direct continuation of LW and mount skins, unlike with HoT, helped to stabilize revenue in it's following year), so your whole train of logic of abysmal expansion sales post HoT, because it was so bad, breaks right there. 

The only thing that really collapsed GW2's revenue was post PoF with the Icebrood Saga in 2019-20, and the general feeling at the time that the Game had no future with just some LW releases without tangible long-form engaging content or expansions, until EoD's announcement. 

 

I was also not referring to a singular poll, but I'm going to leave you to conjuring up random numbers and stats to shape things after your bias while you throw out accusations like "fundamental misunderstandings of reality". 

All you really said right there was "I didn't like HoT!", along some unnecessary and nonconstructive hostility.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

On 8/27/2022 at 9:04 AM, Asum.4960 said:

Where was I "trashing" sales numbers of other expansions? I just stated the fact that HoT was the biggest revenue height since launch. 

PoF wasn't terrible either (~80% of what HoT reached, and a direct continuation of LW and mount skins, unlike with HoT, helped to stabilize revenue in it's following year), so your whole train of logic of abysmal expansion sales post HoT, because it was so bad, breaks right there. 

The only thing that really collapsed GW2's revenue was post PoF with the Icebrood Saga in 2019-20, and the general feeling at the time that the Game had no future with just some LW releases without tangible long-form engaging content or expansions, until EoD's announcement. 

 

I was also not referring to a singular poll, but I'm going to leave you to conjuring up random numbers and stats to shape things after your bias while you throw out accusations like "fundamental misunderstandings of reality". 

All you really said right there was "I didn't like HoT!", along some unnecessary and nonconstructive hostility.

Edit: Ehmm mister old  gg , may i take a leave till January 2021? Tell Mister Moderator ("good morning , keep it civil") not to shred a tear  for me .

This song is for you mister Mod . You can draw me like your French girls anytime

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Yeah , open world of HoT till this day saved the game .

People were not forced to do instance content (exept the lock spirit shard part , where you had to kill 1 boss)or  do more dps to kill a World Boss(Soo-WOn) 

 

(we really gotta stop pushing the casuals to do more dps or get in istances.

More living stories > more CMs

More accesibility to Turtles > more easy money for the gameto progress . Who cares about some people that are trying to force other to hard content . They canot support their game mode with Templates)

Edited August 29, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Ashen.2907]

5 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

PoF wasn't terrible either (~80% of what HoT reached

I don't know of a business that would not consider a 20% revenue shrink without comparable operational cost reduction to be terrible. 

[Asum.4960]

44 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I don't know of a business that would not consider a 20% revenue shrink without comparable operational cost reduction to be terrible. 

It stabilized revenue at a slight increase - while that's not great for an expansion (although granted, we are talking about single game revenue for an aging MMO), if that's already "terrible", then you are running out of descriptors for the post-PoF Icebrood Saga era. 

[Ashen.2907]

4 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

It stabilized revenue at a slight increase - while that's not great for an expansion (although granted, we are talking about single game revenue for an aging MMO), if that's already "terrible", then you are running out of descriptors for the post-PoF Icebrood Saga era. 

I tend to primarily compare expansions because it would take longer than IU am willing to spend to analyze the gemstore offerings during a between expansions period. Expansions are expensive, and may even be loss leaders considering their cost to develop and so a revenue drop of 20% is a big deal. A lot of people, in my opinion, bought HoT because it was a continuation of the core game that they enjoyed. A lot of people, also in my opinion, held off on PoF because they were not satisfied with the previous product release (HoT). We didn't know whether or not we would like HoT until we bought it. If there was some way for the player base as a whole to have known how HoT would play out I do not think it would have done anywhere near as well as it did..'

Ultimately the only people with access to detailed metrics regarding player retention, player satisfaction, etc, around HoT are the ones who decided to veer very very sharply away from its design for their next release.,

[Asum.4960]

43 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I tend to primarily compare expansions because it would take longer than IU am willing to spend to analyze the gemstore offerings during a between expansions period. Expansions are expensive, and may even be loss leaders considering their cost to develop and so a revenue drop of 20% is a big deal. A lot of people, in my opinion, bought HoT because it was a continuation of the core game that they enjoyed. A lot of people, also in my opinion, held off on PoF because they were not satisfied with the previous product release (HoT). We didn't know whether or not we would like HoT until we bought it. If there was some way for the player base as a whole to have known how HoT would play out I do not think it would have done anywhere near as well as it did..'

Ultimately the only people with access to detailed metrics regarding player retention, player satisfaction, etc, around HoT are the ones who decided to veer very very sharply away from its design for their next release.,

Which granted, would be a compelling argument if revenue didn't then drop in a free fall on the back of that new design direction - with HoT content still largely considered the games golden age, even by a community shaped by 7 years of alienating that preference. 

 

Even if HoT content would have been so universally despised to negatively affect PoF though, one would expect a at least slow revenue recovery/increase over the years following a change of direction, not a free fall the likes of which we didn't see post HoT and it's content drought instead (at least considering the drastically more aggressive ingame monetization since). 

 

But yes, ultimately it's a pointless argument to have in which injected bias replaces detailed metrics. 

Regardless of that though, my original point really was just that people have different preferences which imo both are valid and could be catered to to some extent, without much or at all detracting from each other, nor being much extra work.

 

I really don't want to be roped into another "HoT killed the game" or "everything bad is the fault of Raids" circle.. over constructive conversations about what to do better in the future.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Ashen.2907]

4 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

Which granted, would be a compelling argument if revenue didn't then drop in a free fall on the back of that new design direction - with HoT content still largely considered the games golden age, even by a community shaped by 7 years of alienating that preference. 

Keep in mind that HoT doesn't need to be universally despised to have had a negative impact on the game.

The argument still works if the new design did not bring people back after they left due to HoT, This is all speculation of course. but regaining a customer that you have alienated ranges from difficult to nigh impossible in most industries where there are alternatives to your product.

As to the golden age aspect, well the people who liked HoT didn't leave. It may have been a golden age for you, and some others, but that, "largely," means nothing without numbers to support that a large percentage of the player base (past and present) who feels the same. If 90% of your customers hate an aspect  of your product and leave as a result, the fact that 100% of those who remain love that aspect is meaningless (numbers chosen to demonstrate a point, not to argue that GW2 actually lost that much of its player base).

 

To be clear, I do not think that HoT killed GW2. I do think that it impacted the follow up expansion in terms of design as well as sales. I also think that the fact that the only people who have actual numbers not based on speculation chose to NOT repeat the design choices of HoT is telling. We can speculate but the people with access to the metrics said, "not again."

 Personally I didn't care for HoT because I don't care for the map designs. The increased difficulty of mobs and events was nice, but not enough to offset  the annoyance (and dislike of the visuals and design choices) of the maps themselves. If I had my druthers I would love PoF map designs with HoT (at launch, not post nerfs) difficulty.

[Asum.4960]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I also think that the fact that the only people who have actual numbers not based on speculation chose to NOT repeat the design choices of HoT is telling. We can speculate but the people with access to the metrics said, "not again."

The reason I don't put too much stock in this argument is because it assumes way more knowledge and (objective) data interpretation than is usually present and going on. 

The people who looked at the metrics and said "not again" to HoT design are the same people (or people with the same availability of data) who looked at the metrics and said the Icebrood Saga/no expansion would be a good idea for the game - leading Anet into it's biggest financial crisis yet. 

 

Usually it's mostly confirmation bias - and Anet has a history of abandoning generally fine design/game modes prematurely, rather than supporting and iterating on them. 

Their tendency to overreact with course correction, lack of strong design vision in management/leadership and inability to support content until it has a chance to find it's audience, leading to the whittling down of most content and design to the lowest common denominator which will never grow the game - has always been one of the, if not the, biggest harm factors for the game. 

 

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

As to the golden age aspect, well the people who liked HoT didn't leave.

While largely anecdotally, most of them did - throughout PoF&S4 and especially the Icebrood Saga.

 

Anyway, I appreciate your PoV, and it's not like that I don't understand or empathise with those who didn't like HoT's design (especially after watching a design direction that I don't agree with for ~7years now) - nor do I think was perfect either.

 

I just much rather look into the future at this stage and how Anet could capture and cater to a wider array of audiences - which is the bread and butter of MMO's. 

This whole casuals vs. hardcore players, PoF design vs. HoT design and so on debate is just such a reductive and toxic reflection of the GW2 community which has been nothing but unproductive for the game. 

There is merit in and room for both.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Renegated.4132]

23 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

The reason I don't put too much stock in this argument is because it assumes way more knowledge and (objective) data interpretation than is usually present and going on. 

The people who looked at the metrics and said "not again" to HoT design are the same people (or people with the same availability of data) who looked at the metrics and said the Icebrood Saga/no expansion would be a good idea for the game - leading Anet into it's biggest financial crisis yet. 

 

Usually it's mostly confirmation bias - and Anet has a history of abandoning generally fine design/game modes prematurely, rather than supporting and iterating on them. 

Their tendency to overreact with course correction, lack of strong design vision in management/leadership and inability to support content until it has a chance to find it's audience, leading to the whittling down of most content and design to the lowest common denominator which will never grow the game - has always been one of the, if not the, biggest harm factors for the game. 

 

While largely anecdotally, most of them did - throughout PoF&S4 and especially the Icebrood Saga.

 

Anyway, I appreciate your PoV, and it's not like that I don't understand or empathise with those who didn't like HoT's design (especially after watching a design direction that I don't agree with for ~7years now) - nor do I think was perfect either.

 

I just much rather look into the future at this stage and how Anet could capture and cater to a wider array of audiences - which is the bread and butter of MMO's. 

This whole casuals vs. hardcore players, PoF design vs. HoT design and so on debate is just such a reductive and toxic reflection of the GW2 community which has been nothing but unproductive for the game. 

There is merit in and room for both.

 

The problem of "This whole casuals vs. hardcore players, PoF design vs. HoT design and so on debate is just such a reductive and toxic reflection of the GW2 community which has been nothing but unproductive for the game" it's due to ANet, atleast the casual vs hardcore part.

 

PoF and HoT are completely opposite expansions, therefore it's completely logic that they are different, with HoT you went to the literal unknown, it's logic for it to be hard, more if we take in consideration that an entire fleet of FLYING SHIPS was destroyed BY VINES, in PoF you have civilization, you have allies, you can build an army to fight... in HoT no, it's you and the survivors against the world. The issue is that despite being so different, if you look at PoF and HoT both have still things to do, in HoT you can do metaevents on the 4 maps it gives you, and on PoF you can do bounties to get rewards by taking down bosses, and on the future that content will still be worth doing if they update the rewards to keep it a bit alive.

 

And when it comes to the casual vs hardcore players, when W1 was released people was asking for 3 LI and KP ON WEEK 2 and the commies where kicking people for doing 1-3K less damage than qT and SC, because we all know that with 3-4 hours we can reach the same dps than people that have rotations calculated to the point of having muscular memory, and ANet did nothing, instead of punishing elitist behaviours they looked away, ¿Result? People that could not enjoy the content due to this pests ended up leaving. And we are talking about elitism to the point of making you ping your gear to see if everything was ascended.

 

Raids are hardcore content by default, you can't go inside a raid expecting the same level of difficulty as the one we had on dungeons, that 95% of the battles were either stacking at a corner and kill or just nuke the boss as soon as it spawned. And when it comes to OW, this have to be difficult in base of what they are, it can't be the same the random troll that appears on Queen's Vale than a kitten shadow behemoth trapped in another dimension trying to return to our world to kill everybody.