Reflecting on Anet's recent blog post, what type of content do you find engaging, what deserves more emphasis from Arenanet?

[baseendje.8452]

Hi all! I wanted to have another look at Anet's recent blog update. In a nutshell, they stated that historically they have needed pretty much their entire team to push Living world and that other parts of the game received little attention as a consequence (we noticed). They say that they want to rebalance this and give some love to other popular parts of the game (I think that can be a good thing). Though I know there are a couple of other threads on this blog update, they all seem to be mostly by people being angry about there being fewer (living world) maps with future updates (though there are those that are thrilled to get some content after their game mode was forgotten for years).

I personally care far more about content quality and replayability than about how many maps this is distributed. I rather see a few dense and entertaining maps with some nice meta events and some engaging instanced content than 6 more living story maps people only grind for legendary trinket collections (looking at you Aurora). I still frequently play the original HoT maps for their meta-events, but I can hardly remember when I was last in the desolation and while I am sure I have played every fractal at least 50 times, I still get more enjoyment out of them than I get from collecting orchids on Draconis mons.

Rather than jumping into emotions directly just because there may be fewer new maps, I'll try to reflect on what Anet has actually announced. I've made a small chronological overview of their post to help with that. What do you think? can this be a case of "less is more"? What type of game content do you engage most with? What would you like to see more of?

General

• more support for popular game modes (WvW? Fractals? other?)
• quality-of-life improvements
• new features
• story updates

EOD

update 1 (Februari 28)

• new map
• new Jade sea “foe”

update 2 (a few months later: summer 2023)

• new map expanding
• meta-events
• boss encounters

Additional updates are neither announced or ruled out

Unnamed expansion (new story arc)

Release (Fall/winter or later if additional updates are added to EOD)

• 2 new maps
• 2 strike missions
• new gameplay and combat features (new system)
• new masteries
• new rewards

Updates (somewhere in 2024 probably)

• new map
• new story chapters
• strike mission CMs
• new fractal dungeon + CM
• new rewards
• additions to new system

Additional updates are not announced or ruled out

Second unnamed expansion (less than 2 years after the previous expansion). I would expect this to arrive no earlier than late 2024 but before 2026.

Edited February 15, 2023 by baseendje.8452

[Danikat.8537]

The main thing which interests me in most games, and especially GW2, is exploring the world, not just the geography but also the people and stories within it, so I voted both story and map events because to me they go together.

Stuff you can repeat for rewards is ok, and sometimes I do get into doing that if there's something I really want, but I'd much rather have new places to explore than little bits designed to be done over and over again.

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, baseendje.8452 said:

 

Release (Fall/winter or later if additional updates are added to EOD)

 

When he showed up in the chat in Teapot's stream, it sure looked like Grouch was hinting the expansion would be this year.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Infusion.7149]

1) WVW/PVP: Finish iterating on WVW rewards / alliances. If GW1 could have a whole Factions expansion focused on alliances and PVP I am sure it is a worthwhile investment as it sets GW2 apart from other MMOs, especially with level 80 boosts to circumvent grinding PvE to play WvW.
---> Possibly add map politics to PVP events or unranked by adding a 3 way arena similar to Heroes Ascent in GW1.
---> evaluate solo Q in PVP ranked to reduce manipulation of matches (see random arena in GW1).

2) PVE INSTANCES
(2A) Finish out the last four fractal scales at a gradual pace. Do not repeat the mistake of DRMs and dungeons where the difficulty is not as granular. Fractals and 5 man content are core to GW2 and not tacked on as 10 man squads.
---> probably rotate aquatic ruins out afterwards since most alacrity specs do not work underwater (mirage, chrono, mech, specter, etc) or are quite horrible to play underwater (willbender, any ranger with spirits).  Aquatic is part of the legendary armor collection however and multiple legendary collections
---> instead of things ignoring stability (Sirens Reef pushes on the boat, Sunqua Peak water pushes) which is not applicable in PVP/WVW , have boon rips that only remove stability and unblockable attacks (ignores aegis or channeled blocks) making it easier for players to identify what actually will work

(2B) Ignore the people whining about strikes "not being raids" and focus on strikes per expansion with story mode, normal (10 man), and CM. We already have seen what happens when long instances are made with Cold War and Forging steel, nearly nobody does those after the initial release. Ever since the merge of LI and LD we have also seen a massive drop-off of people completely doing Wing 5 through 7.
---> introduce more mechanic "tank" instead of toughness tank or close proximity which always seems to bug out
---> avoid any prolonged defend the NPC style of mission as people tend to hate those (see Escort, Trio, Forging Steel)
---> Stop making new content types with the same 10 man outline in a different naming scheme. Stick with strikes for 10 man.

3) OPENWORLD/STORY : Similar to Icebrood Saga, revisit the old core maps that are available to all players for any short non-essential portions of the story so we do not end up with map bloat. It also gives a chance to revise old core maps with improved collision detection with mounts and gliders. I do not think Icebrood Saga on the whole was as bad as people make it out to be. Case in point is Bound by Blood, I am almost certain the concert was well received. Drizzlewood sees plenty of play and is a good tie in to the WVW gameplay style (plus the otter garnered much attention), Bjora Marches is a fast way to obtain LS4 trinkets via Eternal Ice Shards and has replay value through the metas. What was universally hated was the earlier DRMs , the joke of a strike known as Shiverpeak Pass where the difficulty is in the jumping part, and Boneskinner because nobody seems to know how to properly do it the Arenanet intended way (we have tried but doing it the meta way is more effective , similar to the Vale Guardian result). Drakkar was a foreshadowing of the backlash that was to be seen with Dragon's End among openworld players.

 

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

I really enjoy fractal content.  As much as I enjoy that content (And would love to see more CMs and just normal fractals), I really, really wish ANet would focus a bit more on WvW.  I don't like my server and the politics that are all over the place in WvW (Who knew WvW would be so full of drama?)

[GEGEZZ.7563]

i'm sorry but i can't vote, because what i enjoy these days the most isn't there in your list.

 

I like fishing, cooking, gathering, collecting food recipes, work on my home instance and serve food to people, and use my gold to either buy things or run quizzes to make people more knowledgeable.

 

I have played over 60k hours of video games, with like 20-25k of GW2. In most games combat is everywhere and i have seen enough of it. So i'm mostly playing with the other things there are ingame now that don't involve combat.

 

Cheers

Edited February 25, 2023 by GEGEZZ.7563

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

PvP, WvW and instanced PvE. Anet could cut back a bit with Open World stuff and they'd have no issue working on other stuff as well.

[dXfile.2863]

3 minutes ago, GEGEZZ.7563 said:

i'm sorry but i can't vote, because what i enjoy these days the most isn't there in your list.

 

I like fishing, cooking, gathering, collecting food recipes, work on my home instance and serve food to people, and use my gold to either buy things or run quizzes to make people more knowledgeable.

 

I have played over 60k hours of video games, with like 20-25k of GW2. In most games combat is everywhere and i have seen enough of it. So i'm mostly playing with the other things there are ingame now that don't involve combat.

 

Cheers

I came back from BDO to GW2 hoping that those things you mentioned would have been worked on but I still don't find them very enjoyable to do. Anet could improve those areas so much... Gathering, cooking and "life-skills" in general (including home instances) are the only things making me miss other games. Besides the awful input lag I'm having in GW2, but that's another story.

 

I voted for everything except Story. I don't like the way Anet does it. I'm currently playing Living World Season 2 and finding it to be borderline torture. I hope it gets better, but from what I heard the story content just keeps having highs and lows. And I mean mechanically, not the story itself. Sometimes the mechanics and the way the story is presented are so bad that it almost seems like a bad joke. Plenty of great content in the game, though. Love doing metas and world bosses. WvW can be so much fun! Instanced group content, or any group content for that matter are awesome.

[Danikat.8537]

34 minutes ago, GEGEZZ.7563 said:

i'm sorry but i can't vote, because what i enjoy these days the most isn't there in your list.

 

I like fishing, cooking, gathering, collecting food recipes, work on my home instance and serve food to people, and use my gold to either buy things or run quizzes to make people more knowledgeable.

 

I have played over 60k hours of video games, with like 20-25k of GW2. In most games combat is everywhere and i have seen enough of it. So i'm mostly playing with the other things there are ingame now that don't involve combat.

 

Cheers

I go through phases like that every so often. Last time I wanted something without combat I ended up getting Spiritfarer and a point-and-click game called Roki, which are both great, but sometimes I try it with games I've already got as well.

I've considered doing a full 'pacifist run' of GW2, where I try to get to level 80 without any combat, but oddly enough I think there might be too many options, which would make it too easy. Obviously I wouldn't use tomes, but between crafting, gathering, city exploration, early hearts (most of which have non-combat options) and festival activities I think it would be relatively easy to do. That kind of thing is more fun when my first reactions is "What...how?"

But in general, when I'm not trying to turn it into a challenge I like that there's a variety of things to do in this game besides combat.

[Padrion.7382]

On 2/15/2023 at 9:13 PM, Danikat.8537 said:

The main thing which interests me in most games, and especially GW2, is exploring the world, not just the geography but also the people and stories within it, so I voted both story and map events because to me they go together.

Stuff you can repeat for rewards is ok, and sometimes I do get into doing that if there's something I really want, but I'd much rather have new places to explore than little bits designed to be done over and over again.

 

I'm in the same boat. I don't know any other mmo where exploration is so much fun. And while the story is hit and miss (Anet really does know how to write annoying characters), it is a vital part of the world.

 

Other game modes I found rather average all in all. Won't go into details here but if I was a big fan of PVP or raiding I would likely play other games.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

Some of my favorite moments in GW2 is when I'm just exploring around, and a event starts up, which leads to another event, etc. I don't mean the big map metas, I mean smaller stuff with a smaller amount of players showing up. I feel like I'm actually helping out a small community, and it's not an end of the world type of scenario.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

     At this point, I just want more combat options expanded or fixed. I am kind of done with the story since it would need a lot to excite me again. I don't care for 99% of the world metas since there is so much visual noise. I don't care for instanced content, so the focus on strikes, fractals, and raids is meh for me. I also don't care for PvP/WvW. 

     What I want is new elite specs which I doubt is happening, or they work on fixing old weapons and traits of existing specs to make them good. For example, if they they re-worked Thief's P/P to be meta level I would love that. A lot of old weapon combos need love which have been neglected.

[vares.8457]

3 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

I am kind of done with the story since it would need a lot to excite me again. I don't care for 99% of the world metas since there is so much visual noise. I don't care for instanced content, so the focus on strikes, fractals, and raids is meh for me. I also don't care for PvP/WvW. 

What do you even do in the game? Imagine playing a game and ignoring 99% of its content. 

[Doctor Hide.6345]

2 hours ago, vares.8457 said:

What do you even do in the game? Imagine playing a game and ignoring 99% of its content. 

     I play specific maps only which I like, and I fish a lot. Imagine knowing what you like and dislike about something in a game and not ending it on a snarky comment.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Doctor Hide.6345

[Yme.6145]

11 hours ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

Some of my favorite moments in GW2 is when I'm just exploring around, and a event starts up, which leads to another event, etc. I don't mean the big map metas, I mean smaller stuff with a smaller amount of players showing up. I feel like I'm actually helping out a small community, and it's not an end of the world type of scenario.

This, hundred times. Big metas by this point are just busy-work - get in, tag the boss, get the chest / currency. There is very little excitement when you know it's just a pinata with a handful of mechanics. I feel like for big metas there needs to be a real chance of failure. Not failure in terms of not enough people turning up to do it, but failure of coordination, DPS, mechanics. One leftfield idea would be to have perma-death in some instanced metas so that you have to pay attention and not just semi-AFK autoattack and get loot at the end.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Yme.6145

[Noah Salazar.5430]

i like trains

[Nephalem.8921]

On 2/15/2023 at 7:29 PM, baseendje.8452 said:

Second unnamed expansion (less than 2 years after the previous expansion). I would expect this to arrive no earlier than late 2024 but before 2026.

They have to release it this year to stay below the 2year mark. Late 2024 would mean almost 3 years. the time pof took.

Potentially getting a new fractal and 2cm strikes every 1.5years means at least two times the instanced content output. most of the living story maps are empty or only used for achievements. strikes and fractals are not.

[Valfar.3761]

More high fantasy PvE maps (hopefully with the sophisticated map design of HoT), fix WvW and add new maps.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

33 minutes ago, Valfar.3761 said:

More high fantasy PvE maps (hopefully with the sophisticated map design of HoT), fix WvW and add new maps.

     I need you to specify here. Are you referring to the actual metas on the maps or the designs of the landscape. Because a lot of people hate the verticalness of the HOT maps in landscape design.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Doctor Hide.6345

[Valfar.3761]

37 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

     I need you to specify here. Are you referring to the actual metas on the maps or the designs of the landscape. Because a lot of people hate the verticalness of the HOT maps in landscape design.

 

Both. I liked the multilayered design of the HoT maps and how that gave you a lot more playable area packed into the same space and how that challenged your movement (at least before Skyscale happened), and the meta event objectives took you through all the areas and different layers. Some post-HoT maps have verticality, like Bloodstone Fen or Draconis Mons or Istan, but the metas ignore that and only concentrate on a small area of the map.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

7 minutes ago, Valfar.3761 said:

 

Both. I liked the multilayered design of the HoT maps and how that gave you a lot more playable area packed into the same space and how that challenged your movement (at least before Skyscale happened), and the meta event objectives took you through all the areas and different layers. Some post-HoT maps have verticality, like Bloodstone Fen or Draconis Mons or Istan, but the metas ignore that and only concentrate on a small area of the map.

     Ah ok. Thank you for answering then. As you can tell, I personally hate the landscape design of them, but I also don't like the flatness of PoF. I kind of want a better middle ground in design where it is vertical some, but I am not lost all the time. As for the metas, those are some of the metas I do like in the game. I don't mind the tarir(sp) one. I find that one super fun.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I used to mostly enjoy exploring the world, but they kept nerfing it until you could take down entire packs of enemies with your autoattack, so these days I mostly prefer they update instanced content--especially Fractals, and maybe go back and do something with DRMs and other abandoned instances.

 

Alternatively, they could make open-world harder, but I think they're not going to do that. We're past even release-era Orr levels of difficulty into "Lv80 Queensdale" territory lately.

 

My dream is to one day have some kind of shared instant content hub, like the raid lobby but it goes everything, even dungeons, and has a shared LFG/group finder.

Edited February 27, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Gibson.4036]

On 2/26/2023 at 11:53 AM, Nephalem.8921 said:

most of the living story maps are empty or only used for achievements

Why doesn't "used for achievements" count?

Not that long ago I did my henge achievement, and there were enough players in Draconis Monsto to take down the bosses down in the boiling sea. A populated map is a populated map, whatever the reason people are there.

I've experienced people running events in Ember Bay, people are always circling Bitterfrost Frontier for berries and icebound chests. People do meta events in Lake Doric, Istan, and Kourna, Thunderhead Peaks, and bounties in Sandswept Isles.

Drizzlewood Coast is considered one of the best gold/hr metas, and people on these forums will regularly recommend Eternal Ice farming in Bjora Marches as a way to get currencies.

This idea that most LW maps are empty doesn't fit my experience in game at all.

[Madam Pussycat.6153]

This seems like a very good thing to ask all the players in the game, it should be asked at the log in screen whenever  we log in so everyone could vote on it.

[Cirran.1429]

Anything that is not PvP/WvW , Fractals, Dungeons or any forced group instanced content.

Also BIS and and FLOTM Builds are the bane of this game.

There is WAY too much of the all of the above and we can easily take a 5 to 10 year hiatus from all of it.

 

Cirran