ArenaNet: Halloween Weeklies violate the Design Manifesto

[Iiridayn.6109]

Quote

"Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill..."

- ArenaNet

Every day I do the festival dailies. This earns me around 100 points towards the festival weekly. If I then want the unique skins locked behind the full festival weekly, I must grind 100 additional points worth of Halloween events each week. I don't skip days, I log in every single day and every single day I do the festival dailies. I do not appreciate GW2 "fall[ing] into the traps of traditional MMORPGs" and "suck[ing] my life away and forc[ing me] onto a grinding treadmill" to get those skins.

The trap is the "engagement" KPI. Yes, I now "engage" more with the festival. However, KPIs are proxies for the underlying things that you really want to measure. Is the player having fun? Will they invite their friends? Most importantly, will they spend money, allowing us to continue making this game that we love? Increasing "engagement" by doubling the amount of events I have to participate in is not healthy for the game. I am not engaged in that content, I am grinding it out to complete a goal. It is not fun. It makes me less likely to recommend the game to friends, not more. The unpleasant grind makes me reconsider the value I place on completing skin collections - one of the major driving factors leading to my actual engagement in the game at present. If "engagement" leads me to disengage, perhaps this method of increasing "engagement" needs to be reconsidered. It is a trap many dead MMOs have fallen into.

[Cyninja.2954]

But the game doesn't force you into acquiring yet another random skin.

That's your personal preference.

The entire game is perfectly enjoyable without getting that halloween skin.

This is also completely subjective.  All those players farming away in the labyrinth will have probably no issue with clearing the weekly. 

You are correct, the dailies alone will not be sufficient to get 200 points. They are aproximately the half-way point.

The weekly and the second reward requires a bit more activity because it's not a daily plus, but an additional incentive on top (which again, is not needed unless for cosmetic reasons).

Increasing engegemant seems to work in increasing revenue and player retention. It's something the developers have been emphasizing more and more since IBS, especially for completionists. That indeed is a departute from the traditional "log in every 3 months and get most of the rewards for playing a few hours".

Edited November 7, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[kiroho.4738]

But... nobody forces you to grind these skins?
Nobody except for yourself. If you want them, you play the game and get them as a reward.

Aside from that the weekly activities are far away from "sucking your life". The "grind" is very low and spread to a row of activities.
There are multiple races, two versions of the JP, a dungeon, a meta event and the whole Labyrinth.
With that Anet stays at their manifesto and avoid traditional grinds -> "kill this mobs for hours for a chance to drop item xy".

You have to play the game to get rewards and thats absolutely fine. Would be stupid if it was not this way.
But you do not have to do the exact same content over and over again for a long time.
You have a long range of options to choose from and the 200 points are reached rather easy.  Plus - as you said yourself - you already get a good amount of points by just doing the dailys.

So all in all:
No it's no "grind that sucks out your life". It's a reward you have to play the game for. That's it.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It takes only 20-25 minutes to 'grind' that second 100 points in the Raceway.  Hardly 'life-sucking'.  🤦‍♂️

[Iiridayn.6109]

These two responses amount to a frame challenge - that instead of proposing changes to the game, that I choose to not engage with the content and/or game which presents frustrations. This is a valid perspective, and one I outlined in my original post (paragraph 2 sentence 11). However, I suggest that replies that amount to "then don't play" may not lead to a healthier game. In general, exclusionary communities do not grow, and growth is valuable for a MMOG like GW2 which delivers value according to Metcalf's Law. While I appreciate the responses, I feel they do not add much value beyond the original post.

[Iiridayn.6109]

4 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

It takes only 20-25 minutes to 'grind' that second 100 points in the Raceway.  Hardly 'life-sucking'.  🤦‍♂️

Indeed, and that is what I did. 30 minutes of disengaging, mind-numbing tedium.

[Cyninja.2954]

45 minutes ago, Iiridayn.6109 said:

These two responses amount to a frame challenge - that instead of proposing changes to the game, that I choose to not engage with the content and/or game which presents frustrations. This is a valid perspective, and one I outlined in my original post (paragraph 2 sentence 11). However, I suggest that replies that amount to "then don't play" may not lead to a healthier game. In general, exclusionary communities do not grow, and growth is valuable for a MMOG like GW2 which delivers value according to Metcalf's Law. While I appreciate the responses, I feel they do not add much value beyond the original post.

What is healthier for the game is what keeps players overall more engaged. If this means having different types of grind, then that is what the developers will add (and I am using the word grind losely here, given the additional requirements are low). You have not shown that your proposition is the healthier approach unless you assume your subjective opinion is true for all players.

Also no, the replies did not recommend for you to "then don't play". That's your personal interpretation.

Another interpretation would be:"adjust your approach and expectations to find enjoyment again". You are talking about pixels in a video game after all.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[kiroho.4738]

45 minutes ago, Iiridayn.6109 said:

However, I suggest that replies that amount to "then don't play" may not lead to a healthier game.

The point is that your original claim "Anet violates their design manifesto" is simply wrong.
You have your own opinion about that specific content and you don't like it, everythign fine. But that has nothing to do with the problem you try to make out of it.

The halloween weeklies are playing the game to gain rewards. Nothing else.

 

44 minutes ago, Iiridayn.6109 said:

Indeed, and that is what I did. 30 minutes of disengaging, mind-numbing tedium.

Well, that's your own fault though.
There is content you may like or not like and there are rewards bound to content.
When you don't like that content, it's your choice to either just don't do it or to do it anyways, because you want the reward more.
That's no game issue, that's a you issue.

And btw. this issue exist in every single reward of the game. In every single reward of any other game. And literally everywhere in the real world.
You want something, you have to earn it.
It's that simple.

[Doggie.3184]

I'm just glad they put cats on... caps on things. 

like I unlocked all the daily skins and maxed the AP you can get from them so not much reason to do the dailies anymore, plus not many new AP things in general. I don't really have to do anything anymore for Halloween as a long-time account, aside from annual, and can just do what I actually want to.

There's no collection that I noticed for those weekly weapons so I don't really care about them. I got the Warhorn though in case it made a silly noise cuz I like collecting things with unique sounds but this one doesn't.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Dawdler.8521]

There is a festival event going on?!

Oh maybe that explains why I get my bags filled with more garbage loot in WvW 🤨

[Darklord Roy.2514]

I think you've misinterpreted that section of their design manifesto.

In no way did they mean "this game will not have any form of grinding whatsoever." That would be an incredibly bland and boring MMO design space, some level of grind *has* to be incorporated into MMO games to keep the playerbase coming back to it. Their goal is not to make content that their entire community can blast through in an hour.

What that quote is actually referring to is how they wanted to break away from *gear treadmills.* They didn't want to make a game where every content release brought new BIS gear with it that the community had to grind through in order to be "optimal." That's all.

Realistically, you'd be better off trying to make this argument against legendary gear, because the Halloween skin grind has absolutely nothing on making legendaries. And even then, the whole point of them was to be a long term goal that wasn't *necessary* for you to do all the content in the game.

TLDR - MMO's always have grind, you either live with it and only grind on your terms or don't do it at all and live with what you miss out on. All of that is subjective, doesn't mean it goes against Anet's original design philosophy.

[Grimmsblood.5231]

Another day another misinterpretation of the design manifesto.

To be fair, 10+ years later it's easy to not know/remember the MMO landscape at the time of release. The pain points GW2 went to tackle:

1. A subscription fee combined with time wasting mechanics. Crafting in GW2 compared to Vanilla WoW? Having to constantly back track to "" turn in quests

2. The gear treadmill where it was designed to be extremely difficult to ever fully gear your character for optimal stats.

3. Combined with 2, a role system that made it either tough or expensive to change roles on the fly based on group needs.

4. Max level being a long term goal for new characters versus an experience of leveling how you choose and extremely fast

 

As others have said, they never said there would be no grind. Just that it wouldn't impact power, max stat gear, roles can be interchangeable, there's not one class that has to heal because others can't, and max level is easy to obtain. With that in mind, Halloween doesn't break anything here. It falls right in line

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

People struggle with doing the second tier of the weekly and call it grindy? Are we playing the same game? Just going through the daily reset stuff gets me 45-50 points and consists of some racing, doing a JP and killing some Champs in the lab, all that is done in 30 or so minutes... that's hardly grindy.

If you consider these grindy you can go and play CoD or Battlefield instead, last time I played those games there was no such "life sucking grind" there.

[Moradiah.4572]

MT

Edited November 7, 2023 by Moradiah.4572

[Resident.7421]

I understand this. This design system doesn't bother me with festival weeklies so much as WvW weeklies, but the philosophy remains the same. As with dailies it's just another carrot-on-a-fishing-line, "do this much/this soon/or else you miss out" micro pressure. And the Grim Machine weps are way cool so if you miss a week because you have a life there's no other way to get them. When you can miss your chance for X rewards so quickly in a dozen different game modes it just results in a bad feeling in a game, because most people would rather not pound the pavement all at once, but they have this quota to reach. So this just makes you feel like "ooh, it's not that far off. Just a little more, just a little more" inching your way into a bad gaming experience.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Resident.7421

[Solvar.7953]

There is a huge amount of weekly content that could be grindy (WvW skirmish reward track, wvw weeklies, or pretty much any weekly).  And there are tons of achievement which simply put are just plain grind.  You can choose to do that content or not.

In the case of the Halloween festival, each day I'd just do the 3 raceway events, whether it was a daily or not.  Takes maybe 5 minutes.  One gets decent loot for the first run each day, and IIRC, each race is worth 5 points towards the weekly (so 3 * 5 * 7 = 105, the other half needed).

[hitfromtheboing.8361]

I have 2 kids and a job and had no difficulty completing the weekly. So whats the problem? Lol.

[Teknomancer.4895]

22 hours ago, Iiridayn.6109 said:

I am not engaged in that content, I am grinding it out to complete a goal. It is not fun. It makes me less likely to recommend the game to friends, not more. The unpleasant grind makes me reconsider the value I place on completing skin collections - one of the major driving factors leading to my actual engagement in the game at present

In that case I'm sure you'll be pleased to note that the Halloween event is now over, putting an end to "the unpleasant grind."

Another problem solved!

[Luthan.5236]

The only annoying thing is the last week (2 days) - here it was easy though because of the races you could do. Since in that chest there is no special other stuff besides the skins ... with only doing the 3 full weeks it will take just one more year to complete things I guess. They are not that different from the daily. Weekly you need to log in less often - could decide to do it at day 1 of the week. The daily needs you to log in every day. (And you need multiple dailies for the chest for the other skins.)

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

I guess if you think earning a weapon skin that you can already earn through other means is "forcing you on a gear treadmill" then sure. Personally I think that's a pretty enormous stretch.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

6 hours ago, Elricht Kaltwind.8796 said:

I guess if you think earning a weapon skin that you can already earn through other means is "forcing you on a gear treadmill" then sure. Personally I think that's a pretty enormous stretch.

Didn't you know that having to play the game is a horrendous gear treadmill that makes WoW's grind seem nothing?

[vandrefalk.6823]

On 11/7/2023 at 6:39 AM, Iiridayn.6109 said:

Indeed, and that is what I did. 30 minutes of disengaging, mind-numbing tedium.

In all honesty, the festival daily falls into that category too, so if you already did it for 5-10 minutes, another 20-30 to be done with the weekly activities, isn't much to complain about...

[Odin the exiled.5764]

For me it's more a matter of the festival weeklies not being consistent with each other. Halloween and the festival b4 doing the dailies barely gave you any points and it's just because of what the dailies were. Like for Halloween carve 5 pumpkins 0 points, kill 3 champs 0 points open 10 ToT 0 points. Where if the dailies actually gave you 5 points each, or 15 for the completionist one then no problem. I suspect for wintersday we will have similar issue as our dailies are gonna be 3 champs, snowball hit each other, donate to hobotron, with only the jp and ring the bell (snowball mayhem if u enjoy it) will give us the points. Where when you look at Sab and dragon bash most of those dailies had you doing something that counted towards the weekly. So if they tweaked that then sure you'll have to grind still specially to 200 points but would be less so. But its anet the only thing they're consistent in is not being consistent lol

[Ashen.2907]

Giving you the option to do something is not the same as forcing you to do that thing. Take ownership of your decisions.