Studio update makes it look like the game is abandoned

[Kozumi.5816]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/studio-update-september-2023/

Nothing new to announce or show off. More false promises over alliances. Referencing fractal rush when fractal CMs have been bugged since SotO release with no sign of fixes in sight. Not even discussing how you've removed all rewards from it, too.

Not talking about how everything post-EOD has been extremely unrewarding and SotO is even less rewarding.

Not discussing how badly received Rifts are - a major new form of content. They are considered boring and (as usual) unrewarding. No plans to improve them, or anything.

Zero talk about the new strikes being extremely easy and (again ,as usual) even LESS rewarding than the already anemic EoD strikes.

Nothing about 49k DPS specs and the extreme power creep basically destroying any semblance of difficulty this game had left, on top of a ranged spec with insane utility and braindead rotation doing the most DPS in the game.

You don't even tell us about upcoming relics!

You spent a lot of words and told us nothing to look forward to or to tease us about. None of the current game concerns are mentioned at all. That looks really bad. It makes it look like the game isn't even being actively developed by a full dev team.

[SentriX.3209]

I haven't touched the expansion since it came out...just kept doing Dragon Storm, Drakkar and WvW lol

[Sobx.1758]

The update plans were already shared here:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-secrets-of-the-obscure-launches-today/

Are they supposed to keep reposting them just so you can remember that there's still something planned exactly like it was when they told us about it almost month ago?

[Futa.4375]

Having played FFXI for 19 years, I remember living the same turning point as in GW2 where the game basically became a cash cow while the company made the least effort possible on the game. Square Enix has already started doing it with FFXIV too, ANet and GW2 are no exceptions.
The rest is PR talk for gullible players.

[vares.8457]

No, studio update does not make the game look abandoned. Why do you people always come up with such nonsense? 

I have everything legendary so I couldn’t care less about rewards. If you only play for the rewards maybe better go back to WoW. 

Edited September 16, 2023 by vares.8457

[Mrs Lana.2506]

As much as I like hitting a golem, at the very least I'd like for fractal cm bosses to not afk halfway through the fight.

[Ashantara.8731]

11 minutes ago, Mrs Lana.2506 said:

As much as I like hitting a golem, at the very least I'd like for fractal cm bosses to not afk halfway through the fight.

Yes, I really hope those Fracs will get fixed on Tuesday. This is getting ridiculous.

[Izzy.2951]

52 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I’ll bait. I shouldn’t, but I will. Maintenance mode has zero content. None. We are not anywhere near that.

 

OP, SoTo has been widely praised out of the forums and in the game. Be careful about making sweeping statements about how everyone considers it. I agree there have been some issues around the features and the content being spread about isn’t necs increasing content across other modes. But I have no issues with rifts (beyond the motivation implementation) and we only have the starter sets so far.

I do think relics need addressing, but that’s it. I’m very happy otherwise and I didn’t expect to be

IBS was a living world release. IBS maps had way more quality and new assets/enemy models and animations. We had way more strikes with actually new bosses not reused ones like Boneskinner just as an example. IBS metas are still way more played and better than the Metas in SoTo.

So basically having in mind that IBS (aside masteries and DRMS) is x10 times better than SoTo is concerning at least. Specially since we know a dev stated they ordered to do an open end for gw2 with the ending of LWS4 and ppl called IBS the worst era of gw2 even maintenace mode.

People can keep dreaming, but the resources put on gw2 and the state of the game is pretty bad and concerning. Actually we are going down the the same path as gw1 did until gw2: QoL updates, balance, automated bonus events, outfits and some story (gw:beyond) now we get reused maps for it at least.

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Kozumi.5816]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

The update plans were already shared here:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-secrets-of-the-obscure-launches-today/

Are they supposed to keep reposting them just so you can remember that there's still something planned exactly like it was when they told us about it almost month ago?

None of that answers a single question in the OP.

[Sobx.1758]

6 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

None of that answers a single question in the OP.

It sure answers your sensationalized thread title (and the "nothing to announce" at the beginning of the post), because having plans laid out for next year is hardly an "abandoned studio" look. 🤷‍♂️

Also yes, it does answer when we get what (including balance chagnes and new relics). Just because you want more details that you won't get doesn't make this baity thread in any way correct.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Randulf.7614]

6 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

IBS was a living world release. IBS maps had way more quality and new assets/enemy models and animations. We had way more strikes with actually new bosses not reused ones like Boneskinner just as an example. IBS metas are still way more played and better than the Metas in SoTo.

So basically having in mind that IBS (aside masteries and DRMS) is x10 times better than SoTo is concerning at least. Specially since we know a dev stated they ordered to do an open end for gw2 with the ending of LWS4 and ppl called IBS the worst era of gw2 even maintenace mode.

People can keep dreaming, but the resources put on gw2 and the state of the game is pretty bad and concerning. Actually we are going down the the same path as gw1 did until gw2: QoL updates, balance, automated bonus events, outfits and some story (gw:beyond) now we get reused maps for it at least.

 

It’s not the same path. We are getting new expansions and new content. Sure it’s smaller, but GW1 abandoned all content. When nothing new is made that’s the end.

Is the reduction in content concerning? Potentially, but if they are seeing further population uplifts like they said when SoTo dropped, then it’s a good thing. It’s not like the game is starved in pve either. Maps from core, to ls3, to new are bustling. I even saw 2 other people doing episode 2 of LS1 story at the same time I was yesterday. There is a downtick in production for sure, but asset reuse is absolutely normal and there’s an abundance of people having fun. 
 

I have my own concerns, but they seem always mitigated by the reality which isn’t as bad as many want to make out

[Izzy.2951]

38 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

It’s not the same path. We are getting new expansions and new content. Sure it’s smaller, but GW1 abandoned all content. When nothing new is made that’s the end.

Is the reduction in content concerning? Potentially, but if they are seeing further population uplifts like they said when SoTo dropped, then it’s a good thing. It’s not like the game is starved in pve either. Maps from core, to ls3, to new are bustling. I even saw 2 other people doing episode 2 of LS1 story at the same time I was yesterday. There is a downtick in production for sure, but asset reuse is absolutely normal and there’s an abundance of people having fun. 
 

I have my own concerns, but they seem always mitigated by the reality which isn’t as bad as many want to make out

I respect that you are positive about the game. What i cannot agree is being in denial.

They can tell you they are doing mini expansions, and those mini expansions can be low effort, add nothing new and just milking money while they do their new project. If we were in HoT-PoF expansion era, even EoD a bit... i would say okay they are somehow sticking with the game with expansions but thats not the case.

IBS was a very depressing era for gw2 players and you havent answered my questions. We all know they had "small team on gw2 in IBS" while they were doing other projects, just as now they are fully making another project. Then if we compared both, why are IBS maps so unique (new assets), nice to traverse, with good metas, more strikes, way more unique enemies models and animations than SoTo? (sunqua peak fractal too was way better than kanaxai) It was a living world release not even an expansion and the quality was way better. I wouldnt mind if this 2 maps were good but analyzing every aspect they are a truly downgrade to gw2. 1st map its basically chunks of old maps, 2nd map and outpost is a bunch of copied assets (maybe from old ones even), enemys are all reused ones, rifts until we see T4 are the most un-exciting thing to do, metas are one of the worsts in game and i can expect the 3rd map of the expansion to have all these problems too. (Even Nayos: the real of dreams is basically an EoD Kurzick Cathedral..)

Even EoD quality went down significally, but still you didnt see so much this kind of problems. And saying that IBS added way more new stuff and unique feeling than SoTo its pretty depressing. (aside masteries wich SoTo wins)

For not having in mind PvP is completly abandonned, WvW its just embarrasing to talk about, Raids abandonned, Fractals broken and could get lots of updates (last fractal wasnt even the best to say the least), LFG overhal going to happen anyday?

The game is not in a decent state, its pretty concerning. And is miles away from a ideal state to truly belive they are thinking on GW2 in the longterm and to fight its competitors. More like the same path gw1 had until gw2, but this time with gw3 or gw1 remaster on UE5 or whatever they are working on.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Burnfall.9573]

4 hours ago, Futa.4375 said:

Having played FFXI for 19 years, I remember living the same turning point as in GW2 where the game basically became a cash cow while the company made the least effort possible on the game. Square Enix has already started doing it with FFXIV too, ANet and GW2 are no exceptions.
The rest is PR talk for gullible players.

Please do not try to find similarities between Square Enix: Final Fantasy 14 and Guild Wars 2. Where players experiences matters vs players experience never matters for the past 11 years+.....will never be the same thing.

Thank You!

-update-

"Yoshida pulled up one final slide, entitled: "What we have learned." Its bullet point lessons were the exact opposites of the mindset that went into building the original FF14:

1. Never forget the fans. Without them, there would be no 'us'
2. Fun comes first. If it isn't fun, you're doing it wrong
3. Never back down. Always aim to amaze
4. Don't forget your roots. It's what fans crave

"Breaking a promise is the worst thing that you can ever do, and I promised the people that I would make this game happen," Yoshida said. "The fact I was able to deliver on that promise is a great relief."

Edited September 16, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I’ll bait. I shouldn’t, but I will. Maintenance mode has zero content. None. We are not anywhere near that.

 

OP, SoTo has been widely praised out of the forums and in the game. Be careful about making sweeping statements about how everyone considers it. I agree there have been some issues around the features and the content being spread about isn’t necs increasing content across other modes. But I have no issues with rifts (beyond the motivation implementation) and we only have the starter sets so far.

I do think relics need addressing, but that’s it. I’m very happy otherwise and I didn’t expect to be

I like SotO and I've been more active in the game since it released.  That's because it delivered some things that I like.  I'm always up for new maps, new story, new collections, achievements, and skins and other rewards to unlock.  However, I can agree with a lot of what the OP says. 

Alliances has become an embarrassment to this studio.  They've been stringing us along on it for years.

Releasing a fractal rush event without fixing the fractals they broke is likewise embarrassing.  It's even worse as the followup to the buggy, unfinished mess they gave us for a new fractal after 3 years of nothing.

I'll grant you that not everyone hates rifts, but in my opinion this is pretty uninspired content that they've for some reason decided to attach excessive levels of grind to.  I'm not looking forward to snoozing my way through these for various collections.

Strikes also seem very weak.  The fights aren't interesting enough to justify those beefy health bars.  Compare to HT, which at least had variety.

So I'd say that while SotO isn't bad and well worth the price, this studio continues to drop the ball in a big way in too many areas of the game.

 

[Persnicketous.5903]

45 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Then if we compared both, why are IBS maps so unique (new assets), nice to traverse, with good metas, more strikes, way more unique enemies models and animations than SoTo? (sunqua peak fractal too was way better than kanaxai) 

If we compare the period that IBS was out with how long SotO was out, we would have a single map and 1 strike mission at this point.SotO hasn't been out for a month yet.

You are comparing something that was rolled out over a period of a year and a half with something that has just been out for a month. I hope you get how ridiculous that makes your point here.

Also, the SotO maps do use quite a lot of unique assets... I get why people are coming up with "asset reuse", but in reality... other games have a lot more asset re-use and it is still resulting a quite unique (but still similar feeling, which is good) style.

Also, the amount of story content released with SotO blows the enterity of IBS out of the water. It's not even close. 
And don't get me started in terms of rewards...

[Kozumi.5816]

3 minutes ago, Persnicketous.5903 said:

And don't get me started in terms of rewards...

Drizzlewood is still the most rewarding map in the game. SotO metas are < 3g/hr and if you don't need legendary armor they're never worth doing outside achievements/collections.

Rifts offer zero rewards if you don't need legendary armor.

SotO strikes are 5g/week(lol).

Edited September 16, 2023 by Kozumi.5816

[Izzy.2951]

9 minutes ago, Persnicketous.5903 said:

If we compare the period that IBS was out with how long SotO was out, we would have a single map and 1 strike mission at this point.SotO hasn't been out for a month yet.

You are comparing something that was rolled out over a period of a year and a half with something that has just been out for a month. I hope you get how ridiculous that makes your point here.

Also, the SotO maps do use quite a lot of unique assets... I get why people are coming up with "asset reuse", but in reality... other games have a lot more asset re-use and it is still resulting a quite unique (but still similar feeling, which is good) style.

Also, the amount of story content released with SotO blows the enterity of IBS out of the water. It's not even close. 
And don't get me started in terms of rewards...

Grothmar Valley alone is better than the 2 maps they have released already in the expansion. + Bjorja Marches and Drizzelwood.

Sunqua Peak is miles away in quality and new content than the poor fractal they released some months ago (Kanaxai).

Boneskinner alone is better than any reused kryptis we have seen so far.

IBS maps are still active 4 years after their release, SoTo and EoD maps wont be played as much in 4 years. Maybe SoTo just cos the legendaries collections, even tho rifts are one of the most unexicing thing they have come up with.

All of the metas in IBS are way more fun, engaging than SoTo ones.

Yeah we are still missing 1 map of the expansion, you are true about that. But all we have seen is pretty low quality and nothing new. Story can be better lets say, but paying 25 euros for 8 hours of story, and 3 of those hours are basically hunting rifts... idk.. the replayability is down the floor.

PD: EoD strikes are also quiteee better than SoTo ones.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Kozumi.5816]

1 minute ago, Izzy.2951 said:

idk the replayability is down the floor.

This is the biggest issue with EoD and especially SotO. They released "one and done" expansions for a live service MMO. Their leadership does not know how to make a MMO and never will, it's been 11 years and they're still incapable of learning.

[vares.8457]

5 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Grothmar Valley alone is better than the 2 maps they have released already in the expansion.

Not really, Grothmar Valley is a beautiful but very boring map with not much going on. I prefer the two new maps. 
 

 

5 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

All of the metas in IBS are way more fun, engaging than SoTo ones.

Nah, only Drizzlewood meta is better, the metas in Bjora marches are one the most boring metas. 

Edited September 16, 2023 by vares.8457

[Hindenburg.3415]

9 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Drizzlewood is still the most rewarding map in the game. SotO metas are < 3g/hr and if you don't need legendary armor they're never worth doing outside achievements/collections.

Rifts offer zero rewards if you don't need legendary armor.

SotO strikes are 5g/week(lol).

 

Yes-yes , aside from Storm's weapons still being 17g for 1 meta.

But dunno why I even bother...

[Nimris.3781]

3 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

the game is on maintenace mode.

ah yes, game with content planned for the next year as well as fifth expansion to be released in 2024 is now considered a maintenance mode...

i wish there were "timeouts" on forum for trolling....

3 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/studio-update-september-2023/

Nothing new to announce or show off. More false promises over alliances. Referencing fractal rush when fractal CMs have been bugged since SotO release with no sign of fixes in sight. Not even discussing how you've removed all rewards from it, too.

Not talking about how everything post-EOD has been extremely unrewarding and SotO is even less rewarding.

Not discussing how badly received Rifts are - a major new form of content. They are considered boring and (as usual) unrewarding. No plans to improve them, or anything.

Zero talk about the new strikes being extremely easy and (again ,as usual) even LESS rewarding than the already anemic EoD strikes.

Nothing about 49k DPS specs and the extreme power creep basically destroying any semblance of difficulty this game had left, on top of a ranged spec with insane utility and braindead rotation doing the most DPS in the game.

You don't even tell us about upcoming relics!

You spent a lot of words and told us nothing to look forward to or to tease us about. None of the current game concerns are mentioned at all. That looks really bad. It makes it look like the game isn't even being actively developed by a full dev team.

1) balance patch is planned for 26.09, they did specificaly mention that they will look into overperforming specs

2) devs are aware of fractal bugs and are preparing fixes for them. i guess they focused first on new content

3) also arent EoD metas one of the most rewarding? i am looking at fast farming and your statement is just false, Skywatch Archipelago is fien as well

i looked at the OP name and everything became clear. if you did slight reasearch instead of constantly creating multiple complain threads, this forum would be slightly better.

[Izzy.2951]

7 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

Not really, Grothmar Valley is a beautiful but very boring map with not much going on. I prefer the two new maps. 
 

 

Nah, only Drizzlewood meta is better, the metas in Bjora marches are one the most boring metas. 

Yeah i guess fighting an Epic Drakkar that actually uses skills and have some sort of mechanics is worst than collecting essences and being afk on the 1st SoTo meta, or hitting an afk boss that does nothing with skyscale on the 2nd meta. Yeah... very true. (or even the storm meta is way better with that giant new creature)

Meh even the concert meta is more fun that this two metas. And after seeing Gyala Delve metas and this two, i expect the 3rd map meta to be as bad (same probably for the new fractal).

Edited September 16, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[babak.3654]

It's not maintenance mode by any reasonable definition. But it does seem to be a case of the minimum development necessary to maintain a level of income from the game. I assume the studio calculates that will work out fine because the average GW2 player seems to be very easily satisfied these days.

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Izzy.2951 said:

IBS was a very depressing era 

I thought that the IBS, not counting the unfortunately rushed ending, was some of the best that GW2 had seen in quite a while.

[Marikus.1875]

Listen everyone.

More content does NOT equal a better playing environment. Nor does it mean the game is healthy or not on a decline.

WoW right now is pumping out "content" at a rediculous pace. Something they have never done to this scale.

Want to know what the problem is? All it did was speed up the gear treadmill and now EVERY patch brings in new armor to farm. They just keep dangling that dirty rotten carrot in front of your face that you will NEVER get. That goalpost will forever keep shifting. 

The worst part about this "content" is that it is invalidated the moment a new patch comes out...the entire season 1 map was pretty much invalidated after a week of farming mobs. 

It's also uninteresting...most of the "open world" modes they have introduced are just so bland and a rehash of one another with just slightly different mechanics. 

This isn't content. This is just throwing more of an incline on your treadmill so that it artificially feels like you're progressing and getting stronger...when in reality, you're still weak af and it'll be made known to you the moment another major patch/expac launches and you're back to feeling like a wet noodle.

 

So stop complaining about the content here. At least it's unique and interesting. I rather have interesting thought out content than refreshed samey crap thrown at me every 3 months.