You're the CEO. What do the next 5 years look like?

[loonatic.1689]

7 minutes ago, MalekithDG.6124 said:

You are right, I actually thought of casuals briefly but couldnt figure out where to fit raids then decided to go with original plan. A single raid could be a treat served somewhere during expansions thats about some side story going on to not interfere with the main story for casuals then.

I think the EoD strike mission approach works very well. They can take the story bosses and create strike/raid + CM versions of them. This is the best way to hit all demographics (except the anti-reuse asset crowd, which at this point we should just move past; reusing assets is a small price to pay for more repeatable content). This also hits a recurring criticism of adding more difficulty modes for content. 

[TexZero.7910]

Looks like getting paid for doing very little and having nice long walks on a beach with a cold hard beverage in hand.

Now i know what you're thinking, how is this any different than before. Answer, Yes.

[MalekithDG.6124]

47 minutes ago, loonatic.1689 said:

I think the EoD strike mission approach works very well. They can take the story bosses and create strike/raid + CM versions of them. This is the best way to hit all demographics (except the anti-reuse asset crowd, which at this point we should just move past; reusing assets is a small price to pay for more repeatable content). This also hits a recurring criticism of adding more difficulty modes for content. 

Anti-reuse-asset crowd was always there. They are everywhere in gaming industry. We never heard about their noises in GW2 until SotO because the reused assets werent as obvious before. Devs, up until this point, came up with decent new content.

Reusing story bosses etc on strikes are totally fine and Im %100 sure none would whine at least it will be a short lived whine. I enjoyed EoD strike mission concept. The thing about strikes is its eating away a resource much important than budget and etc. (its still chipping away at budget)

Its kind of my concern so I might be paranoid but imo... It eats the new ideas about boss mechanics. If every boss (raids, fractals, story, open world, strikes... whatever comes to your mind) were to be clone of each other than none would play PVE. They would be disgusted. So far both the NM and CM modes hold their own in providing the players with unique content but there is an end to it. At some point devs will run out of new ideas to come up with interesting mechanics because there are too many PVE modes that needs a boss. If a game has too many PVE modes to cater that means that many ideas has to be thrown into fire to satisfy the players of those contents. While this problem can be semi solved by making bosses thats released in certain time windows (expansion to expansion for example) share a common major trait. For example after an expansion it became possible for computer to drop AOE fields against players, or color/item/stat check. Then in that expansion all the bosses could incorporate that ability to their move set so bosses at contents share a theme with the expansion and possibly reused later.

Rifts and new metas for example plays very uninspiringly. Because with todays powercreep, audience and with the intent of cutting corners etc. its starting to become harder to come up with metas and activities that are unique. They are all starting to boil down to "6 waves of  huge amount of fodder enemies will come try to survive!". When, I am sure we would all appreciate, if the event was about a single enemy (not 6 waves of 500x small mobs) that has unique mechanics and visuals everybody would loved the show. But I understand with new maps comes the responsibility to produce enough content to justify those "new maps". Thats why I cut new maps from expansions. Not with every expansion.

I have nothing against strikes or fractals or raids or dungeons. I play them all. But the number of PVE content feels like an anomaly. Think about it. Lets say you went to a MC Donalds and requested french fries next to your burger and cashier asks you about your weight/height, health conditions, favourite colours and preferences about fries, your relationship, career and whatnot so he can come up with a french fries fit only for you. For casuals we have open world but for short timed casuals with an itch for instanced content we have Fractals, for casuals with moderate amount of time and challenge request we have Strikes. For casuals with high amount of time and challange request we have Raids... so on... There is too many choices in this game in terms of content that all to cater certain playerbases when the game clearly dont have the budget to support all of these. There should be only "small, medium and large size french fries". If you get what I mean.

The game created these "fractal fanatics", "strike fanatics", "raid fanatics" etc. by creating these modes with promises. Now players are getting sad and content types are bleeding into one another. Its the fault of the devs not the playerbase. When we say "Strikes cant scratch the same itch on Raids" people that like Strikes instantly jump and say "No it can, we want strikes, we enjoy strikes, hurrraa strikes 4ever, we are short on time" and I dont blame them. Strikes are introduced with certain intent and the effect shows that they were succesful but short sighted. Those strike fanatics wouldnt have existed if strikes werent created in the first place. They would have carried on. But now community is fractured and everyone wants their own content in the game when it is clearly not possible lol.

Edited October 11, 2023 by MalekithDG.6124

[Solvar.7953]

The premise of this subject can fall into 2 types of answers:

1) Actual job of CEOs, which is to maximize money.  This may include doing things which players may not really like, but it keeps them playing and spending money.

2) What features/changes as a player I'd like to see in the game.  This could be totally counter to #1 (eg, provide in game ways to earn all cosmetics would likely result in a big drop is sales of cosmetics, and thus big drop in money).  But what features one can do really depends on the resources one is given.

But if I was a new CEO, I'd probably send out a survey to every player (account?) in the game.  Maybe weigh the results differently based on the account types (this is a big spender - I care more about what they have to say vs someone who 30 minutes a day and never spends any money).  Maybe let those answering go for a long form with more questions.  Maybe give some minor in-game reward for those that answer.  This is likely to give better data than the very lopsided view the forums present.  And with current technology, it really shouldn't be hard to do such a survey.

Then take that data and figure out who your audience is.  Is it hard core raiders?  Fractal fanatics?  OW PvE players?  Roleplayers?  Look at the relative numbers and figure out what you biggest customer base is.   Work on giving the features those players want to them.  Communicate to the community about the vision and future of the game, and who you are targetting.  This may annoy/drive away some players (this game is not for me), but that might be better than pretending you care about them, and having them constantly complain that this is not well done, bugs not fixed, etc.  For stuff very few people care about, perhaps just remove it from the game.  There are comments that the GW2 code base is a mess - to keep adding stuff and never remove anything is one way it gets into that shape.  If only 0.01% of the players are doing some content, and even they don't care that much about it, maybe for code health, it is just better to remove it.

This doesn't ask people not currently playing the game what it would take to make them play.  But if you best a best in class game for some play mode, you will probably get those other players, which is probably better than trying to do 20 different things in a mediocre fashion.

 

[KawsMeCal.5923]

I can't answer this because what I'd do would be impacted by a lot of information given to me in the role that I do not have myself. 

[Burnfall.9573]

As a new CEO, I first would like to Congratulate my Support Team, Forum Moderation Team, Production Team, Program Team, Art and Design Team and other Team that I forgot to list aside from the ones whom I will be replacing. My first task of the day, is to Immediately replace the entire; Design Development Team. Balance Team, Marketing Team. Lastly; Immediately replace Guild Was 2 Philosophy, Implement The Holy Trinity System, remove Profession Specialization- Specter, Daredevil, Willbender, Revenant, Daredevil, Harbinger..., rework the remaining Professions, remove and re-assign traits, weapons, accessories, runes, builds, skills and mechanics to their appropriate Professions Roles and Identities, Implement a strict system that will enforce changes to the appropriate Professions, remove any exploit elements such as designs, traits, skills, mechanics, Immediately remove control effect: pull, stun, knockback, launch, blind, Immobilize and Reflect.

I will add my second task of the day tomorrow 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Marikus.1875]

7 minutes ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

As a new CEO, I first would like to Congratulate my Support Team, Forum Moderation Team, Production Team, Program Team, Art and Design Team and other Team that I forgot to list aside

This is precisely why you will never be CEO. Because you can't give credit or appreciation where it's due. Your fellow capitalist CEO colleagues will take one wiff of that humbleness and cast you out. You'll never get another golden parachute opportunity again after that.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Marikus.1875

[Mppa.3250]

- Stop the trolls with merchants/portals by making it impossible to spawn either over any other object

- Ban gradually serial afkers in pvp

- Remove any kind of gambling from the game

- Add a setting to get only gold and no other good or poopie loot (but less gold on that way)

- Improve UI and make it fully customisable

- Update LFG

- Create and allow spectate mode for raids/wvw/pvp/fractals.

- 1 vs all capture the flag and/or battle royale pvp

- Ingame arc dps with player consent to share or not ther performance with others

- AI bots for fractals/dungeons (even slow ones and/or with less loot)

- Stop changing the way a spec works for balance purposes. Warrior gives quick on banners that can be picked up, warrior gives quick on banners that cannot be picked up, warrior gives quick using a burst, scrapper with wells or scrapper with combo field, specter with wells or with shroud, firebrand f1 tome recharge, tomes regeneration and etc.

- Give quarterly (?) the ability to fully accesss the game as beta characters could for example during beta test before Eod (with gear in inventory), for 1 weekend, through steam and only for once per steam account.

- Have  community polls to decide for topics as cele in wvw or not , inspect gear or not and etc

- Update character customization with more hairstyles, tattoos, faces bla bla

- Update the given packages for purchace to include SotO and adjust the value. Do something with living world to be included in all packages.

- Player housing or at least movable nodes.

- Force the dev that put those pages inside the chest mini rooms in south drizzlewoods to participate weekly in one activity

- Force the dev that put daily acitivity in WV to participate daily in one activity 😘 😘

- Add a setting to cancel infusion effects of others and/or more graphic settings about contrast/coulours?

- Make crafting a bit more widely proffitable when it comes to options (maybe add more timegated stuff?)

- Fix fishing to be relaxing and not to have to sail around and to get trolled by the green bar that randomly spikes.

- Update the merch store products. Give us options to buy our character model, more t-shirts, posters, decoration etc

- Calculate and if possible give the option to purchace a QoL battle pass which gives all the equipment and build templates, all the bag slots and etc (any that affects the actual direct game experience). If the pass will not be renewed the said functions return to the original state. Or a bit more antigatcha, remove them totally from gem store, make them widely and from the start available and implement a battle pass to give new premium outfits with perma transmog, unique tonics, outfits, emotes, access and use of a new race, unique titles, access to all lounges and other small stuff

- Promote/share/upload funny videos of players in game on X, Steam, etc.

- See if possible to change maps without loading screen

- Make another way to get legy weapons insteaed of repeating world completion

- Make at least a type of legy armor purchasable on the TP

- Give us the option to complete a story with ingame gold/battle pass/gems/ 1k obsidian shards

- Allign the reset of stuffs in the game. Weeklies in wvw, WV's weeklies, (other too but not wvw related) reset later than weekly wvw match up.

- Give the option to have both pve/pvp/wvw dailies, weeklies and specials and more options inWV. Similar to the old style of dailies achievements can be combined no matter the game mode.

- File for bankruptcy ^^'

[Burnfall.9573]

7 minutes ago, Marikus.1875 said:

This is precisely why you will never be CEO. Because you can't give credit or appreciation where it's due. Your fellow capitalist CEO colleagues will take one wiff of that humbleness and cast you out. You'll never get another golden parachute opportunity again after that.

 

As a new CEO, I am not already there. I believe, there is always room for progress. 

[Marikus.1875]

Just now, Burnfall.9573 said:

As a new CEO

 Hi CEO, allow me to introduce AI CEO, a better version of you.

 

*beep boop beep*

Edited October 12, 2023 by Marikus.1875

[Burnfall.9573]

Just now, Marikus.1875 said:

 Hi CEO, allow me to introduce AI CEO, a better version of you.

 

*beep boop beep*

 

I will borrow a quote from Mppa, "Stop the trolls...."

[Eastwind.7209]

Put out one last expansion for GW2 that ties off plot threads and creates an endgame confrontation where the dragons lose for good. Focus most development on Guild wars 3. Advance the lore a few hundred years, gloss over a boring period of peace and introduce a new major threat. As with the Charr between GW1 to 2, the bad guys become playable allies - GW3 includes centaurs as a playable race, cooperating with everyone else to meet the threat-after-dragons. Maybe add a sixth newly-discovered race, like the advent of Asura in GW2.

 

 

 

[Linken.6345]

5 minutes ago, Eastwind.7209 said:

Put out one last expansion for GW2 that ties off plot threads and creates an endgame confrontation where the dragons lose for good. Focus most development on Guild wars 3. Advance the lore a few hundred years, gloss over a boring period of peace and introduce a new major threat. As with the Charr between GW1 to 2, the bad guys become playable allies - GW3 includes centaurs as a playable race, cooperating with everyone else to meet the threat-after-dragons. Maybe add a sixth newly-discovered race, like the advent of Asura in GW2.

 

 

 

Uhm you have not played end of dragons expansion have you?

Or SotO for that matter since there is a new major threat right there.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Linken.6345

[uberkingkong.8041]

1. Have people work on GW3

2. In GW2 have people work on LS that hypes goings into GW3

3. Final PvP tournament and WvW tournament, winners go into GW3 with special a title on top of a title everyone gets from being GW2 going into GW3.

 

UE5, VR, AI, theres a lot that has changed in past 10 years. It's a good time for GW3 now.

GW3 def going to be having VR, updated graphics, roleplaying definitely be there too, AI maybe in forms of companions,

lots of random NPCs AI's you can take as your companion, the NPCs are AI created. Be in the city with the AI long enough you'll find the perfect companion.

Def be WvW again

Def be PvP again and start it off #esports, like the fun times 2013 2014 GW2 #esports I remember!

[DarcShriek.5829]

As CEO, I would be too busy running the company to make decisions for this game.  That's why I hired experienced professionals to do it for me.

[Cirran.1429]

Everything that is presently locked behind a certain way to play (PvP, WvW, Raids, Fractals ect) are now available any way you want to play. Pick your rewards for the task you enjoy doing. 

Many more World Bosses. Modifiers that are randomly chosen when the World Boss spawns. This will change up the World Boss fights, different each time.

When you clear a map, you get a quest to fight a Map Boss for even more loot.

Forced Group Content is now doable at all difficulties using AI Companions.

Rifts added to every PvP and WvW map. If ignored continue to spawn mobs that increase in difficulty the longer the rift is in existence

Significantly expanded housing and utility of said housing.

Elaborate expansion of housing decorations that can be crafted or bought off the Trading Post.

Mount combat where your mount can be injured or even killed. (You don't lose it permanently but you have to quest to get items to heal your mount. These items are non tradeable.)

Not much I know but this is just off the cuff.

 

Cirran

 

[Cronospere.8143]

I would start out by creating a new pvp mode. I never play it, but its a long time since i saw a good content update for those players.

Improving wvw with actual new features. I dont know what exactly yet. But more ways to improve siege weapons and create more chokepoints. Because whenever i play in the wvw maps. Thats where its interesting. Also reduce time to return to combat. Now it sometimes takes 5 to 10 min to return to the battle. 

In pve i would create an easier way to implement new races and finaly fill the hole in the map that is the dominion of the winds. With both an interesting story line for new (tengu) characters and for older characters.

Also in pve i would improve the guild system. What now is abandoned, with new upgrades that should have been added long time ago. New content that improves playing together. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Cronospere.8143

[vares.8457]

I am really grateful none of you will become CEO 

[Burnfall.9573]

1 hour ago, vares.8457 said:

I am really grateful none of you will become CEO 

 

You'd be surprise

Sometimes all you need is a big leap of faith 

[zaced.7948]

shut down the servers, fire 90% of the staff, make a bunch of kittenous mobile gatcha games, roll around in all the money money.

[soul.9651]

Gw3 🙂

[Holmindeboks.3490]

I would put the game in maintenance mode. Make a gold cap of 25k gold. The rest will just vanish. I would delete and erase some ppl’s accounts because they think its nice to bully others with how rich they are. And an ex guild leader who used leader power without the members be able to say something back. 
and stop the greed. I would increase all droprates of infusions. And put gemstore skins on loot tables of events and meta’s. And i would add a subscription to the game. I would remove gems as a currency. I would remove the overweight condition of the skyscale and let him fly normally without losing half energy bar for just a jump on a cliff. I would make griffons fly like wow flying mounts. And a report option when ppl show off too much. A 3 week ban + lose their infusion. 
 

i would make asura’s a hostile creature. 
i would add an option so you can use 2 helm skins compared (exzample, elfen ears + a hat) i would make story trashtalk skip able. And all forced game things should i remove. Why forcing a story before you can use old LA. 
 

i remove elitism. Adding option to use addons like WoW does. I would add an option that tp fees are scaled on how rich you are. Items can no longer be mailed to others or through a guild bank. The only option would be trading post. Because the rich players are the reason why new players have a hard time making gold. Because from barons they dont earn money because all gems are bought from gold. There is already unfairness in the real world so ingame has to be relax. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Holmindeboks.3490

[SweetPotato.7456]

On 10/11/2023 at 5:51 AM, loonatic.1689 said:

I've had several speculation discussions with folks I have gamed with over the years. I find that most discussion is often negative rather than affirmative, ie, more people are willing to speak against content they DONT want rather than content they DO want.

So here's an exercise for all of us. What do the next 5 years look like ideally, for you specifically? This new mini expansion cycle makes it quite easy to formulate a plan. If you're feeling extra creative, you can even go further than 5 and discuss interim patches. I've got several ideas that I've discussed with my friends, which I'll come back with and reply to this topic when I have a little bit more time on my hands. I want to give people a chance to put their ideas out first so as not to skew the conversation by unloading my preconceived ideas at the beginning. 

Here's the format I'd be using:

Intro - Explain what you like and what you don't like, how long you've been playing, and how you came upon your general direction. 

Year 1 - 2024, 2nd mini expac

Year 2 - etc etc etc

3, 4, 5, and closing statement if you feel it necessary. 

(Don't feel like you have to stick to any guidelines, I'm just curious where peoples' minds are at, and would love to discuss further from a point of "yes and" rather than "no".)

Assuming you don't want to present your own ideas, what do you speculate Anet will be doing? Someone internally must have a 5 year vision. 

depends on how much you are paying me for laying out a 5 years profitable plan. 

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

At first, I would leave the rest of 2023 as it is scheduled. Spending the remaining months of the year to explore the company and do an internship in every section. As well as doing some deep discussions with NCSoft. That is necessary, because ANet is in a very tight corset at the moment. It is of utmost importance to understand what I am allowed to do and what not. As well as how far I can go with changes. In addition, discussing a few ideas of money-making with the game. What is tolerated? As a gamer, I think NCSoft has way more power over the studio than we might imagine.

Running an internal analysis of all non-SotO maps. Wether they would benefit from migrating to the new system they used in SotO or not. Mostly in terms of stability, performance and cost-efficiency. As a player, I have noticed that the maps in SotO are totally different from the rest of the game. They were created with some new kind of infrastructure and are capable of handling so much more. May it be parallel processes, graphical challenges, NPC limit. On the other hand, we have a couple of problem-maps in the game that cause problems since the first day. This includes Orr (core tyria), certain LW maps and a lot of instanced maps. Migrating these old maps into the new system would be quite challenging, if it was possible at all. In some cases, re-building the maps would probably be faster. Depending on how fast this can be accomplished, it might also be an option to move the entire catalogue into the new system. Especially when it comes to adding future content. Adding new stuff to core-tyria is always a pain. But the new design seems to be more flexible with adding and removing elements. It should also be possible to add features, which were said to be impossible with the old system. ... - VERY BIG TASK. Takes multiple years. Priority would be on the problem-maps that cause the most trouble.

Splitting up Team CmC/Balancing into three independent sections: PvE, WvW and sPvP. One team per game-mode. Strict separation. This should help to get the balancing done more efficiently and reduce extra work. It will take some time to expand the team and train the new members. In addition, I would request to add a helping hand from the narrative team, which visits the teams on request. Balancing should by all means still fit into the style of the game. Leaving the team(s) unattended would derail certain class-abilities into stuff that would not fit into this game anymore. They are free most of the time. The narrative just assists and does some proof-reading on the concepts.

The illustrious discord group and the leaks have brought a lot of chaos. I would not get rid of the system, but order some changes. At first I would ask any of the participating content creators to make summaries of every bigger session, which can be published. Those would not need to have all the details, but should calm the community down and feed them so hints about what changes 'could' come in the near future. This would lead to more diverse discussions on the social media platforms and advertise the game. I would however keep the identity of the members anonymous and also rotate the participants once in a while. Replace some old faces with new ones. Also add different playstyles and even some of the more controversial voices - the ones CmC would consider 'disturbing'. It is not about annoying him. He does a good job. But if you surround yourself only by likeminded people, you end up in a very narrow tunnel. Different people can bring up different ideas. Whether you listen to them or not is still your own decision. 

Community handling. This is one of the things, I would need NCSoft permission. Because my first order would be to get rid of X (formerly known as Twitter). This will happen sooner or later anyway. But the sooner we do it, the more flexible we are. Bluesky is currently coming up which looks very promising. I would also focus on the platforms that are more regulated. Makes planning ahead a lot easier.

They should schedule a weekly poll on the forums to collect feedback. About the game, the gemstore, the balancing and the overall feeling. Does not have to be very detailed. But it should be tracked without any breaks. In the long term, this will help us understanding our choices and their impact on the community. The data should also help us to plan ahead. I would directly link the game-accounts with the forum accounts. Who participates in the weekly poll gets another 50 Astral Acclaim on their account. That way we guarantee a high participation. NCSoft will smile about this idea for the obvious reasons, but let me continue with it. Because it improves our reputation among the community.

In addition, I would request the community-team to host an official discord-server, where we can broadcast important information and offer a couple of basic services for the community. Does not have to be much, but enough to show the community that we are present.

Gemstore and TP. Arranging a full analysis of an external contractor about the safety (hackers), user-friendlyness, stability, performance and efficiency. Addressing the most important problems and making the tool more stable. In addition, we have to get rid of the visible drops in the game. Every loot that is generated for a player is automaticaly moved into their inventory or a waiting-tab, which costs a small fee to access (depending on the size). I think the real drops in the game maps cause a lot of problems and performance issues and also impact the item management performance, probably also TP stability. If there are no more physical items on the maps, it should enhance the games overall performance significantly.

In addition, I would make gemstore-items pre-buffering the promoted items during the first login of the client. This would slightly slow down the login-process, but would make the gemstore items visible upon opening it. I think that would automatically increase the sales and reduce the loading issues with the normal TP.

Finances. Monthly subscription system, which rewards participants with gems worth their subscription-fee as well as a couple of freebies similar to Twitchdrops/Prime Gaming. In addition, they would have access to a special tab in the gemstore, where new skins are sold earlier and you can access the whole catalogue all year long.

Gemstore option for Gift of Battle and Gift of Exploration. That way the players can decide if they want to acquire them the normal way, farm gold and exchange it for gems or use cash to get the problem done instantly. 

Languages. Announce adding a new language to the game. Text only and later (soon TM) maybe with voice as well. This can take 1-2 years from the first announcement to collecting data from the community and making the final decision. Text only also means we can use volunteers from the community as writers. This would drastically enhance our public image.

Character images. Enforcing to re-write the mounting system. The community wants to play other races, which is not possible with our system. But if we could use transformations permanently, we could arrange new races through the backdoor. However one huge obstacle is how the mount-system was written. It is the only real flaw of the system, but it needs to be corrected. Everything else can be handled. But as long as this issue exists, our answer is always just NO. 

In addition, we should also take care of the character-image system directly. The way avatars for message-boxes are generated and other images for stuff like cutscenes. I think those are the two main obstacles that need to be taken care of. Both are probably highly complex and complicated to adjust, that is why I think re-writing them might be a better choice.

sPvP, WvW and PvE. With every new saga/lw-season/expansion/story-arc, sPvP gets a new map and WvW gets an new map-extension. For WvW, I want to get rid of EotM. Instead we add a mist-map that works similar to the Skywatch Archipelago, adding new fractals/islands/extensions of the map with every PvE content update. Each section gets a tower, two camps and three sentries. I would keep the reward-system in EotM at first and later adjust it separately to remain unique, but more worthwhile than it is now. 

-
I could write a lot more. But I feel my inspiration fading. Those topics are interesting and quite entertaining. Hope to make a few people smile or laugh. If not, feel free to stack confused-reactions. I take what I can get ;). 

[Raizel.1839]

Cut updating gw2, start making gw3.