Can we get challenge yet not dps check content please

[Poormany.4507]

3 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

Yes, 4 skill games have "rotations" and combos. But players quickly move beyond that because it's not hard to remember 4 abilities and the handful of ways you can use them. The games become more about positioning, decision making and coordinating with others. That's why 150 million people play League of Legends each month and 150 play GW2 sPvP. Nobody wants an unintuitive game where you have to practice for hours and hours and hours so you're not absolutely trash on a DPS meter or boon meter. You and others can keep deluding yourself that there's some inherent skill to putting in countless hours learning dozens of different 15-25 step rotations and that is what makes a player skilled... but then there's reality. The reality that none of you matter in a game like League of Legends, none of you matter in the raids scene in World of Warcraft. If you were as good as you think, why couldn't you succeed in these games? Why is your only success in Guild Wars 2?

Soccer could add all sorts of stupid rules. You must hop on one foot without the ball, you must tie a hand behind your back. You need to clap 5 times before you take a shot. But they keep it simple. They keep it accessible. And despite being simple, soccer is extremely competitive and I'm nowhere near the level of Messi.

Arena Net needs to ask themselves - should we continue to cater to this extremely small group of self-deluding gamers or should we try to make a sustainable game and game modes?

The vast majority of GW2 players (definitely not an "extremely small group of self-deluding gamers") are causals who primarily play PvE (hence why it gets almost all dev attention). While I do agree that WvW and PvP do deserve more dev focus than what they're getting, essentially remaking the combat system to suit PvPers is simply not going to happen in GW2 because most players aren't hardcore PvPers. Comparing GW2 PvP to sub games like WoW with huge time/money investments or games that are primarily PvP-focused like LoL is comparing apples to oranges and doesn't have much merit.

Edited February 4 by Poormany.4507

[Nephalem.8921]

21 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

Look at an optimal rotation on snow crow. If you want your problem that's it, right there. Nothing is as consequential as maintaining a decent rotation of your abilities. Does anyone deep down honestly believe that's a good game design? That the game is better served with a player remembering a 20 step rotation than making active decisions?

The answer to why this game's end game content and pvp has not and will never succeed comes down to this. There is literally nothing rewarding or engaging for a player. Nothing. You memorized the rotation or you did not. It's that simple. The only reason people do these game modes is for gear or because they want to feel like somebody and they failed to be a somebody in the games with bigger communities like pvp mobas or World of Warcraft raids.

The combat design in this game was so fundamentally flawed from day 1 and then their first expansion they quadrupled down on every bad decision from launch. The state of the game right now should surprise no one. The only thing people care about is open world pve where combat matters the least.

Until this basic reality is addressed (with a Guild Wars 3) expect to be making another post like this in the future.

Let me burst your casual bubble.

EVERY rpg has an optimal rotation. The only active decision would be a parry punish if the attack pattern has a lot of rng. You would still do a rotation outside of these attacks. Monster hunter speedruns plan out the entire fight in advance. The weapons itself have optimal dps combos.

Can you please try to explain how a game without rotations would look like? I seriously don't understand how this is supposed to look like. "Active decision" always makes it sound like people want button mashing being rewarding.

There can be adjustments to rotations and good dps players do them all the time. these are active decisions no?

[ArchonWing.9480]

4 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

The reality that none of you matter in a game like League of Legends, none of you matter in the raids scene in World of Warcraft. If you were as good as you think, why couldn't you succeed in these games? Why is your only success in Guild Wars 2?

This is the equivalent of losing in checkers  and being like "Why are you only good at checkers? Why can't you be good at a real game like chess? I could totally beat you there!"

Also if you really do think this game is not a skillful game,  and you are are a skilled enough gamer I feel like you should also see the results (such as dps) as irrelevant and nonsensical. And certainly not have to write so much dismissing it, which should be so casually dismissed you were indeed a good LoL or whatever player. I don't write paragraphs explaining why my placement in Monoply doesn't affect my status as a gamer, the exact same as dps results in this game.

Edited February 4 by ArchonWing.9480

[Vayne.8563]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:06 AM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

DPS Checks are a player invented thing. ANet has no DPS meters in game. Third party developers made a DPS meter and some players who installed them are being an kitten over them.

Join a friendly group or raiding guild and you don't have to worry about getting offended over DPS meter readings.

 

Yes, some read bosses have timers and deadly events when the entire group is putting out low DPS. But this is far less of an issue now there has been quite some power creep since the release of the raids and now many players know the raid mechanics very well.

Stay away from CMs, join a friendly guild or group and you will be fine.

I'm sorry but this is factually wrong. A DPS check has nothing to do with players, and everything to do with mechanics. Some fights have DPS checks and some don't.  In world bosses you have a limited time to kill them, and if you don't kill them within the time limit, you fail. That said, world bosses are not set up so that you can fail often. However, DE is a DPS check in so far as it's completely possible to run out of time if you don't do enough DPS. Not you personally, but your side. If enough people don't do enough DPS, you run out of time and the event fails. That's a DPS check.

Strikes don't really have DPS checks in normal mode, but they do in challenge mode. Almost all raids have a DPS check in the form of an enrage timer, and if one guy is only doing 5k DPS it means everyone else has to pick up the slack.  You don't have to play with arc DPS to do decent DPS, but if you're not doing enough DPS, you're making everyone else in the team work harder.

It should be pointed out that not every enrage timer leads to an automatic wipe in raids, but most of them do. And some strikes as well.  If the game didn't require people to do enough DPS is something like raiding, people would be more relaxed about it. But DPS checks are not a player invented thing. They're something the game requires to be successful at certain points and when people use that term, it's what they're referring to.

[Leger.3724]

4 hours ago, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

...and that's bad? 👀

Weird, of all my problems with MMOs, DPS checks isn't one of them. MMOs are also scarcely the only games with "DPS checks." Ever played RPGs with things like "turn limits"? Those are DPS checks. Turn DPS check to skill check, and you have the Civ games. Even action RPGs can have enrage timers on the bosses or time limits to achieve goals. What kind of changes are you looking for to make MMO combat "better"?

Yes, it's bad. The goal is to have players play the game and do the content, is it not? The goal if your a game developer is to have people playing your game.

why do you and others feel it is so necessary for anyone who wants to participate to memorize a 15-25 step rotation? Why is that necessary for your enjoyment? I'm still waiting for someone, anyone to explain this. Nobody can. Because it's not necessary.

[Sobx.1758]

12 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

why do you and others feel it is so necessary for anyone who wants to participate to memorize a 15-25 step rotation? Why is that necessary for your enjoyment?

There's no such necessity, once again all you're showing by writing things like this one is that you have absolutely not clue what you're talking about. In that case it would be smarter for you to ask questions about things you don't know instead of constantly -and glaringly obviously- repeating this nonsense.

12 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

Because it's not necessary.

Exactly, it currently is not necessary to follow any specific high-end rotation to enjoy content. That's literally your answer and it's not the first time you're getting it.

Edited February 5 by Sobx.1758

[Leger.3724]

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

This is the equivalent of losing in checkers  and being like "Why are you only good at checkers? Why can't you be good at a real game like chess? I could totally beat you there!"

Also if you really do think this game is not a skillful game,  and you are are a skilled enough gamer I feel like you should also see the results (such as dps) as irrelevant and nonsensical. And certainly not have to write so much dismissing it, which should be so casually dismissed you were indeed a good LoL or whatever player. I don't write paragraphs explaining why my placement in Monoply doesn't affect my status as a gamer, the exact same as dps results in this game.

When you are good at video games it translates. The people very good at Guild Wars 1 were also very good at League of Legends. We're not talking about radically different skillsets here. 

I think a 15-25 step rotation is a barrier and not an indication of skill so if Arena Net is working on their next game that should be consideration #1 so you know... people play the game, people try the pvp, people try the end game content. The goal is to have people play the game. The goal is to have them do content together. The goal is to have them stick around and spend money and create communities.

I'm trying to give some perspective here. We have some egos out there who want to think they're hot stuff. Okay so you're above average on an active playerbase of what? 1,000-5,000? How many millions play a game of League of Legends in a day? How many go through a World of Warcraft raid in a day? If you want to claim you're skilled and competitive... generally you go to where the competition is. You don't sit in the MMO with the smallest pvp and end game pve playerbase lording over the community. Well you do if........ and I've already explained why.

 

 

[Sweetbread.3678]

34 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

why do you and others feel it is so necessary for anyone who wants to participate to memorize a 15-25 step rotation? Why is that necessary for your enjoyment? I'm still waiting for someone, anyone to explain this. Nobody can. Because it's not necessary.

Jesus. People like you are literally why normal mode strikes exist in their essentially unfailable state and why brain dead kitten like cVirt is balanced at the same power level as things that take 10 times the effort. The game is already handing you exactly what you're looking for but NOOOOOO that's not enough. NOOOOOOO we have to dumb every single other thing down to your level or you'll feel persecuted and insecure. God forbid you just, you know, just ignore the 1000% optional challenge mode content or make a microscopic effort to improve or actually read your skills or something. Nope we better get rid of the like less than 5% of the game catering to people with just moderately advanced gaming skills, because 95% of the game being balanced for the most basic player imaginable isn't enough for your sugar glass ego. Pathetic.

[Shiyo.3578]

On 2/3/2024 at 4:06 PM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

DPS Checks are a player invented thing. ANet has no DPS meters in game. Third party developers made a DPS meter and some players who installed them are being an kitten over them.

Join a friendly group or raiding guild and you don't have to worry about getting offended over DPS meter readings.

 

Yes, some read bosses have timers and deadly events when the entire group is putting out low DPS. But this is far less of an issue now there has been quite some power creep since the release of the raids and now many players know the raid mechanics very well.

Stay away from CMs, join a friendly guild or group and you will be fine.

theres literally bosses with dps checks

[ArchonWing.9480]

40 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

When you are good at video games it translates. The people very good at Guild Wars 1 were also very good at League of Legends. We're not talking about radically different skillsets here. 

I think a 15-25 step rotation is a barrier and not an indication of skill so if Arena Net is working on their next game that should be consideration #1 so you know... people play the game, people try the pvp, people try the end game content. The goal is to have people play the game. The goal is to have them do content together. The goal is to have them stick around and spend money and create communities.

I'm trying to give some perspective here. We have some egos out there who want to think they're hot stuff. Okay so you're above average on an active playerbase of what? 1,000-5,000? How many millions play a game of League of Legends in a day? How many go through a World of Warcraft raid in a day? If you want to claim you're skilled and competitive... generally you go to where the competition is. You don't sit in the MMO with the smallest pvp and end game pve playerbase lording over the community. Well you do if........ and I've already explained why.

 

 

The skills do carry over, and I do see people that play these competitive games or even stuff like WoW/ff14, think that Gw2 raids are easier, but that kinda counts against your argument IMO.

Because they usually think the rotations are trivial, and rotations are not skill... they're just the basic entry point.

Like almost every high level game is mapped out. People in RTS's like Starcraft and Age of Empires will even know what their enemy's base and army will look like X minutes into the game without even scouting  because they have played hundreds if not thousands of games where the same thing happened. And the same happens with nearly every other game. There's a reason why highlights are highlights... most of the time it's going to be standard typical stuff.

 

There's always these benchmarks and every game is going to get "solved". Especially PvE. The only issue is do we all have to do that.

The other thing is that Gw2 already has a simplified rotation because the autoattack represents a good chunk of the damage. Many builds can reach a good % of efficiency just by autoattacking.... and that also happens to be enough to clear nearly all content in this game. Most people don't struggle in content because of their rotation, but because their builds aren't right or they don't understand the fight.  I don't think there's a single fight in this game that requires 15k+ dps, and 15k dps is nowhere near the potential of any dps build. It barely is the potential for some support ones.

As for people that think they're hot stuff. Well, maybe there are those people in here. But I also would wager most of this thread haven't spent 10 minutes practicing any rotation much less "hours and hours and hours so you're not absolutely trash on a DPS meter or boon meter". I would wager even more that most players outside this thread wouldn't do more than 3.

So you aren't wrong that the game shouldn't be balanced around sweaty super min max optimal rotations, but that's already the case.

 

Edited February 5 by ArchonWing.9480

[Leger.3724]

5 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Like almost every high level game is mapped out. People in RTS's like Starcraft and Age of Empires

 

Do you think the RTS genre is in a healthy place? 

They struggle for a very similar reason, my first games were also RTSes, I played Age of Empires 1 and 2 on The Zone. I remember playing Random Maps, joining VoE (Villagers of Eternity) when you had a bronze age consistently under 13 minutes, I remember playing Archer War deathmatches. Yamato had half gold cost and were a favorite as a result.

But people don't like the RTS genre much anymore for their pvp experiences. They don't like having to memorize build orders. Having to manage a bunch of different things all at once. Sound familiar to where we are today with MMOs? You can almost track the progress. RTSes and FPSes were the big games in town. And then MMOs came out and millions flocked to the MMO instead of the RTS. And then MOBAs based on DOTA (from the Warcraft RTS series) came out like League of Legends and the people playing MMOs for their pvp moved to MOBAs. The one consistent genre over the years has been FPSes where it's almost exclusively about reaction times and tactics. You don't have 20 abilities in Counterstrike. It's very simple, very intuitive and yet still extremely competitive and fun for the people who play it.

[Poormany.4507]

1 hour ago, Leger.3724 said:

I think a 15-25 step rotation is a barrier and not an indication of skill so if Arena Net is working on their next game that should be consideration #1 so you know... people play the game, people try the pvp, people try the end game content. The goal is to have people play the game. The goal is to have them do content together. The goal is to have them stick around and spend money and create communities.

Plenty of players would argue otherwise. Look up the countless players complaining about being able to complete most combat encounters in the main game (excluding raids, strikes, and other side content etc.) by bashing 1. If combat were made more difficult, players who do play by bashing 1 would complain, if it's made easier, hardcore players with 15-25 step rotations and optimal DPS would complain. There's no way to satisfy everyone by making drastic changes to the combat system as proposed this late in the game's development, which imo is a good thing, as it allows for a more diverse playerbase.

Edited February 5 by Poormany.4507

[Nephalem.8921]

1 hour ago, Leger.3724 said:

Do you think the RTS genre is in a healthy place? 

They struggle for a very similar reason, my first games were also RTSes, I played Age of Empires 1 and 2 on The Zone. I remember playing Random Maps, joining VoE (Villagers of Eternity) when you had a bronze age consistently under 13 minutes, I remember playing Archer War deathmatches. Yamato had half gold cost and were a favorite as a result.

But people don't like the RTS genre much anymore for their pvp experiences. They don't like having to memorize build orders. Having to manage a bunch of different things all at once. Sound familiar to where we are today with MMOs? You can almost track the progress. RTSes and FPSes were the big games in town. And then MMOs came out and millions flocked to the MMO instead of the RTS. And then MOBAs based on DOTA (from the Warcraft RTS series) came out like League of Legends and the people playing MMOs for their pvp moved to MOBAs. The one consistent genre over the years has been FPSes where it's almost exclusively about reaction times and tactics. You don't have 20 abilities in Counterstrike. It's very simple, very intuitive and yet still extremely competitive and fun for the people who play it.

You don't have to do any of these things in rts games. You will simply perform worse than people who do these things.

A jungler in lol doesn't have to optimize the jungle route in higher tier play? Are you sure about that? The gameplay you describe only applies to low level play and you can play like that in gw too.

You dont have 20 abilities in cs but you have to memorize a lot of other things to be good. good aim alone is not enough.

The one thing the ultra casual crowd in gw2 does not want are fast reaction mechanics. they tried that once with the eater of souls in pof. forum was on fire.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

3 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

Yes, it's bad. The goal is to have players play the game and do the content, is it not? The goal if your a game developer is to have people playing your game.

why do you and others feel it is so necessary for anyone who wants to participate to memorize a 15-25 step rotation? Why is that necessary for your enjoyment? I'm still waiting for someone, anyone to explain this. Nobody can. Because it's not necessary.

I am still confused at what point you're trying to make.

I play cVirt with one hand while watching a movie on my second monitor. Can literally never swap weapons and still easily be top DPS. What rotation? Sword 5, some bladesongs, autoattack, maybe dagger 2 and 3 if I feel fancy? Maybe throw in the elite skill if I'm bored enough. If I want to min/max, then I could do the "complicated" rotation, and that doesn't take hours to learn. You don't need a 15-25 step rotation to git gud in this game. There are LI builds for GW2 that are super effective and don't require 15-25 step rotations, that even work well for people with various disabilities. Most of the content in the game can be cleared if everyone just keeps autoattacking, even with enrage timers.

(And if we're still weirdly discussing 15-25 step rotations: FFXIV and WoW both required you to not only know class rotations, but also the precise timing of boss rotations and other things, or you will insta fail and die, and everyone will rage, and you'll get kicked out of the group.)

50 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

You don't have to do any of these things in rts games. You will simply perform worse than people who do these things.

A jungler in lol doesn't have to optimize the jungle route in higher tier play? Are you sure about that? The gameplay you describe only applies to low level play and you can play like that in gw too.

You dont have 20 abilities in cs but you have to memorize a lot of other things to be good. good aim alone is not enough.

Yup! If you don't know every single inch of the CS maps and how to use them to your advantage, you're gonna have a real bad time in high level competitive play. Even mid level play gets rough if you don't have knowledge to go with your pewpew. Kinda same with MOBAs, too.

[Leger.3724]

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

You don't have to do any of these things in rts games. You will simply perform worse than people who do these things.

A jungler in lol doesn't have to optimize the jungle route in higher tier play? Are you sure about that? The gameplay you describe only applies to low level play and you can play like that in gw too.

You dont have 20 abilities in cs but you have to memorize a lot of other things to be good. good aim alone is not enough.

The one thing the ultra casual crowd in gw2 does not want are fast reaction mechanics. they tried that once with the eater of souls in pof. forum was on fire.

You don't have to do anything in any game. If you want to be competitive in RTS you'll need to memorize the optimal build order and assign each villager/worker in the correct order. Your early games are going to look extremely similar every game if you want to be competitive.

Of course you have to optimize and remember things in League of Legends and Counterstrike. Are you arguing you don't need to do any of this in a typical MMO like Guild Wars 2?

You're making my point for me. League of Legends and CS are incredibly difficult games to master. But they're still way more accessible to a casual player. Guild Wars 2 is not. MMOs more generally are not. You don't need 20+ skills on a bar. You don't even need 1. Players don't need 20+ skills on a bar to show off that they're better than others. They can do that with no skill bar at all.

The ultra casual crowd in GW2 doesn't do strikes either. Should Arena Net just abandon strikes like they did with raids? I would say if it's an option - tear up combat and come up with a better and more accessible system so people will actually play the content. But this game is so far gone we're really talking about a GW3 or some future game they have in development. This has to be the take away message. You don't need to throw massive amounts of abilities at people. Your first expansion doesn't need to be "yeah 15-20 skills on a bar is too few, lets add even more to confuse the casual player".

I just want to point out one argument another person was making is you can just hit 1 repeatedly with a few other abilities here or there and get to ~15K DPS. Again, is that fun for a casual player? They go around spamming 1? Why do we need 20-30 abilities on a bar to confuse the casual playerbase? Why is this game's combat so bad?

And this is why you get posts about DPS checks and stuff. The combat is brutally bad. It's not accessible or understandable to the casual playerbase, it doesn't feel very good when you put in effort either. And nothing is going to change until the combat fundamentally changes (which I don't think it will). The reason this matters is because Arena Net has abandoned content in the past - raids, spvp, wvw and it's forever alliances that are essentially just a server merge due to low pop. I get there are people here who really love raids or whatever else. The business model is not sustainable. They're taking from Peter (casual players) to pay (give content) to Paul. And with SOTO they slowed down on that. If you're a Strike/Raids enjoyer you should be very concerned about the future. 

Edited February 5 by Leger.3724

[Sweetbread.3678]

15 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

I get there are people here who really love raids or whatever else. The business model is not sustainable. They're taking from Peter (casual players) to pay (give content) to Paul. And with SOTO they slowed down on that. If you're a Strike/Raids enjoyer you should be very concerned about the future. 

Lol yup. Those 2 strikes and 1 fractal per expac are really overwhelming the amount of casual content available (the other 99% of the game). Better race to the bottom chasing the absolute lowest-common-denominator imbecile demographic and remove all buttons from the game before some casual tries to read a skill tooltip and has a brain aneurysm. This is the absolute dumbest thread.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

I like the combat design in GW2 and find it reasonably rewarding (movement is awesome, dodge is awesome) and completely doable for even the most casual of casual players (hi, that's me, am casual). 99.9% sure I'm not the only one. And it 1-0 with the occasional F-key is too many keys for someone, definitely don't play Aion, FFXIV, WoW, etc.

Go play Genshin Impact if you want to only have to worry about 4 total skills while still getting to run around and PvE. Star Rail if you only want to worry about three while having something closer to a FFXIII combat experience.

[Astralporing.1957]

10 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

The problem with the "DPS check" complaint in the game is that majority of the content is less than 50% of potential DPS, so, that's already not much.

It's not much for the top few percenters. It is however, at the same time, a lot in a game where most players do not even come close to that 50% (hovering more in the 10 to 20% range).

[Cyninja.2954]

On 2/4/2024 at 1:21 AM, Leger.3724 said:

Look at an optimal rotation on snow crow. If you want your problem that's it, right there. Nothing is as consequential as maintaining a decent rotation of your abilities. Does anyone deep down honestly believe that's a good game design? That the game is better served with a player remembering a 20 step rotation than making active decisions?

The answer to why this game's end game content and pvp has not and will never succeed comes down to this. There is literally nothing rewarding or engaging for a player. Nothing. You memorized the rotation or you did not. It's that simple. The only reason people do these game modes is for gear or because they want to feel like somebody and they failed to be a somebody in the games with bigger communities like pvp mobas or World of Warcraft raids.

Any system designed with output based on actions will have an optimal output. The question at hand would be: how important is reaching the maximum output?

In case of GW2 the answer is simple: not at all for PvE. In case of Spvp: depends on what your goal is given all rewards are achievable with very subpar play.

Some players engage with this game for fun, others obsess as to why other players engage with the game in what way. Not sure either approach allows any conclusions or assumptions to be drawn about how much of a failure some one is in "real life". My take would be: obsessing over others is the unhealthier approach, but I'm sure you would disagree.

Quote

 

The combat design in this game was so fundamentally flawed from day 1 and then their first expansion they quadrupled down on every bad decision from launch. The state of the game right now should surprise no one. The only thing people care about is open world pve where combat matters the least.

Until this basic reality is addressed (with a Guild Wars 3) expect to be making another post like this in the future.

 

There will never be a GW3, likely not in the distant future or foreseeable future.

If GW2 was only about open world, the developers would have doubled down on their approach to satisfy only that demographic, which they did during season 4 when the game nearly went belly up. Instead they are reworking their monetization model (now ensuring continuous revenue via mini expansions) and trying to deliver a minimum of diverse content at the cost of open world content. So far with a better financial success.

The revenue information for this game and the current approach of the developers to content delivery seem to disagree with your hot take.

Edited February 5 by Cyninja.2954

[Astralporing.1957]

2 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

If the game was only about open world, the developers would have doubled down on their approach to satisfy only that demographic, which they did during season 4 when the game nearly went belly up.

Again, correlation does not equal causation. There were many good reasons for GW2 to run into problems after LS4 that had absolutely nothing to do with the casual course it took. Like, you know, taking away a significant part of the resources to feed other projects, and cancelling an expansion.

[Cyninja.2954]

15 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Again, correlation does not equal causation. There were many good reasons for GW2 to run into problems after LS4 that had absolutely nothing to do with the casual course it took. Like, you know, taking away a significant part of the resources to feed other projects, and cancelling an expansion.

True, that's why I made mentioned of the current design (which is a result of a longer process of change). I could also have gone over the underwhelming IBS announcement, the move of NCSoft to intervene with Anet leadership in the past, etc.

You are correct though, all of that is not definitive proof of what I said. It just lets us speculate. It does throw shade on the common belief that open world content is the only content needed to keep the game relevant.

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

True, that's why I made mentioned of the current design (which is a result of a longer process of change). I could also have gone over the underwhelming IBS announcement, the move of NCSoft to intervene with Anet leadership in the past, etc.

You are correct though, all of that is not definitive proof of what I said. It just lets us speculate. It does throw shade on the common belief that open world content is the only content needed to keep the game relevant.

Let's just say that i do not agree with your interpretation of that situation. I'd say that it was less about the content, and more about perceived future of this game.

In general, MMORPG players tend to react very badly to any signs of perceived drop of the game health (and potential future). And so it happens that expansions for many (if not most) of said players are the main factor of judging that.

The news that there won't be an expansion after LS4 started surfacing as early as mid-season, and were ultimately confirmed even before final chapter. I remember some players still had some hope leading to infamous IBS reveal event, but all those hopes got crushed when many realized the high point of that event was funko toys...

I feel that this was the primary issue with IBS. Not switching from raids to strikes or not releasing new fractals.

Edited February 5 by Astralporing.1957

[Cyninja.2954]

49 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Let's just say that i do not agree with your interpretation of that situation. I'd say that it was less about the content, and more about perceived future of this game.

In general, MMORPG players tend to react very badly to any signs of perceived drop of the game health (and potential future). And so it happens that expansions for many (if not most) of said players are the main factor of judging that.

The news that there won't be an expansion after LS4 started surfacing as early as mid-season, and were ultimately confirmed even before final chapter. I remember some players still had some hope leading to infamous IBS reveal event, but all those hopes got crushed when many realized the high point of that event was funko toys...

I feel that this was the primary issue with IBS. Not switching from raids to strikes or not releasing new fractals.

Sure, except that the slouch and drop in revenue from living world content (and completion rates of story missions) is not a singular event. It happens over and over. That said, story missions are probably THE biggest cost factor development wise, and they are played by only a fraction of the player base. If there is any discussion as to what would have to be cut cost versus play wise, it's story not question about it.

In the end, the future will tell. If the current model of offering more diverse content and repeated mini expansions proves fruit-full and successful, that's what the developers will stick to.

They've tried the open world, log in every 3 months for a free episode, offer a ton of gem store items with minimal in game skins in the past. Now we are in the offer more diverse content, more grind, recurring mini expansions and make players chase legendary gear while offering more in game skins cycle.

Maybe you'll get to claim that offering no diverse content besides open world content was the better approach down the road, maybe not. Let's see.

Edited February 5 by Cyninja.2954

[Ashen.2907]

16 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

Yes, 4 skill games have "rotations" and combos. But players quickly move beyond that because it's not hard to remember 4 abilities and the handful of ways you can use them. The games become more about positioning, decision making and coordinating with others. That's why 150 million people play League of Legends each month and 150 play GW2 sPvP. Nobody wants an unintuitive game where you have to practice for hours and hours and hours so you're not absolutely trash on a DPS meter or boon meter. You and others can keep deluding yourself that there's some inherent skill to putting in countless hours learning dozens of different 15-25 step rotations and that is what makes a player skilled... but then there's reality. The reality that none of you matter in a game like League of Legends, none of you matter in the raids scene in World of Warcraft. If you were as good as you think, why couldn't you succeed in these games? Why is your only success in Guild Wars 2?

Soccer could add all sorts of stupid rules. You must hop on one foot without the ball, you must tie a hand behind your back. You need to clap 5 times before you take a shot. But they keep it simple. They keep it accessible. And despite being simple, soccer is extremely competitive and I'm nowhere near the level of Messi.

Arena Net needs to ask themselves - should we continue to cater to this extremely small group of self-deluding gamers or should we try to make a sustainable game and game modes?

For what its worth, people trying to execute long rotations in SPvP are easy kills. The game mode is much more about timing, positioning, hard counters, build, teamwork, and the like. Rotations are a great way to lose a match.

You also do not need them in PvE. Sure they can help squeeze a little more DPS out of an optim8zed build but there isnt any content for which a failure to execute such a rotation is a barrier to entry. You are overstating, to a veey high degree, the importance of long rotations in this game.

Edited February 5 by Ashen.2907

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

22 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Soo Won became doable on daily basis basically only through excluding majority of the population. At first by literally excluding them by forming highly controlled organized squads, and later by the sheer convenience of most of those players just no longer coming to the event at all.

DPS check does not need to be anywhere close to the benchmarks to stop most of this game's population. Not with the average player's damage hovering in the 4-6k range.

I wonder if you would have said the same thing about Tequatl back when that meta event was first changed and started getting regular kills. 🤔