Enough with the Gimmicks

[Helgaley.3619]

Gimmick - something that is not serious or of real value that is used to attract people's attention or interest temporarily.

Anet - please stop with the gimmicky profession and weapon design. It is not fun. Mesmers getting greatswords and revenants getting hammers as ranged weapons? These examples are innovative, and they are fun. But the EoD elite specs, slapping quickness and alacrity on every profession irrespective of whether it makes sense, and these new weapon proficiencies? These are gimmicks - they're definitely different and might attract attention, but they don't seem to offer much value, and unlike the HoT & PoF elite specs, the EoD specs haven't exactly improved with time.

If elementalists spend years asking for staff buffs or a long-bow or a rifle, maybe don't give them another bruiser type elite spec followed by a pistol and layer them with gimmicks on top of gimmicks that increase the complexity of the class but not the reward for mastering that complexity. It's also disappointing to see how many profession forums are complaining that feedback was not incorporated into these new proficiencies despite your messaging claiming that it was. Your messages should match your actions, otherwise it's just gaslighting at worst & poor marketing at best.

Obviously we as players don't know GW2s total player count, but now that it's on Steam, we can at least see how many people are playing via the Steam client. Steam Charts peaked at 8,042 players in August 2022, but as of today, that number is now 5,214. Steam Chart probably only represents a fraction of the total player base, but that's still a 35% decrease.

TL;DR - Anet's innovation has turned gimmicky, feedback is getting ignored, and it isn't fun. Enough with the shtick - please just listen to the feedback and give players what they are asking for instead of trying to be different just for the sake of being different.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Even giving Eles a Trident on land with slightly changed skills would be better than pistol.

[Gendalfs.7521]

5 hours ago, Helgaley.3619 said:

Obviously we as players don't know GW2s total player count, but now that it's on Steam, we can at least see how many people are playing via the Steam client.

We dont have nummbers, but my gut feeling is that theres maximum of maybe 50k players overall.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

It's all good, the most important change was Piercing Pebble now Pierces

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, Mini Crinny.6190 said:

It's all good, the most important change was Piercing Pebble now Pierces

Are you sure they're using real pebbles? Maybe that's the problem. 

[Mini Crinny.6190]

7 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Are you sure they're using real pebbles? Maybe that's the problem. 

probably just a sprinkle

[Puck.3697]

15 hours ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

We dont have nummbers, but my gut feeling is that theres maximum of maybe 50k players overall.

game has more then 50k Players lol, I dont think gw2 would be worked on anymore if it seriously had dropped to such drastically low numbers, 

[Kaizz.7306]

49 minutes ago, Puck.3697 said:

game has more then 50k Players lol, I dont think gw2 would be worked on anymore if it seriously had dropped to such drastically low numbers, 

Multiple sites put GW2 anywhere between 540K-900K ACTIVE lol idk where people get the most random sub 100k numbers from.

[Puck.3697]

20 minutes ago, Kaizz.7306 said:

Multiple sites put GW2 anywhere between 540K-900K ACTIVE lol idk where people get the most random sub 100k numbers from.

TBH audiences of every mmorpg love to say their games dead it seems normal in this day and age

[DeanBB.4268]

11 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Are you sure they're using real pebbles? Maybe that's the problem. 

The real question is: Cocoa or Fruity? 🤔

So is this really just about ele pistols? You say gimmick, they say mechanics, what's the difference?

Edited March 2 by DeanBB.4268

[Asum.4960]

On 3/1/2024 at 6:23 AM, Helgaley.3619 said:

Gimmick - something that is not serious or of real value that is used to attract people's attention or interest temporarily.

Dude, you don't understand -  Necro Sword Skills Cost Life to use and have Flipover skills - so it's like getting double the skills! So thematic and crazy, right?

I mean, do the weapons do more damage than other's without Life cost? No. Do the Flipover's have any interesting new Utility or decision making to situationally use? Well not really. Are they mostly just more buttons to spam for damage? Yes. 

Could both new weapons been better as just a slight Dagger and Focus Rework instead, without the flipover- or healthcost gimmicks? Probably.

Oh.. who would have thought.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

On 3/1/2024 at 9:45 PM, Kaizz.7306 said:

Multiple sites put GW2 anywhere between 540K-900K ACTIVE lol idk where people get the most random sub 100k numbers from.

Define 'active'

Pretty sure I count as 10 of those active accounts...

[Tanachi.3951]

They listened to the feedback, not OUR feedback, mind you, but the feedback of some benchmark guild or some subreddit group or whatever. But it's the expected consequence, to be honest. Since EoD the current balance team has been taken on even harder ordeals. They couldn't even make a decent elite spec for each class and now they tried to balance giving every spec not only a new weapon, but other spec's weapons too. And they're completely lost, that's why they need this group of select elite players to literally tell them what to do. Because we have to maintain the sacred 40k dps on unrealistic golem setup, or whatever.

Getting back on topic, new weapons used to make sense because they were literally made for the elite spec. Now that there will never be an elite spec weapon, all new weapons will be gimmicky garbage. For the rest of this game's lifetime.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

On 3/2/2024 at 2:45 AM, Kaizz.7306 said:

Multiple sites put GW2 anywhere between 540K-900K ACTIVE lol idk where people get the most random sub 100k numbers from.

I think some people may be conflating active accounts with concurrent logins.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Tanachi.3951 said:

Getting back on topic, new weapons used to make sense because they were literally made for the elite spec. Now that there will never be an elite spec weapon, all new weapons will be gimmicky garbage. For the rest of this game's lifetime.

Eh, they did manage to make a couple of non-gimmicky weapons. Warrior staff is basically warrior's equivalent to revenant staff. Mesmer rifle has the portal, but you don't need to use the portal to be a good rifle healer.

Annnnnd that's about it.

I think one message that ArenaNet hopefully gets is that a weapon doesn't have to have some gimmick to be cool. A solid set of skills that just provides a new way to play is perfectly fine. They can throw in a few gimmicks, but even EoD managed to do just fine with only 3 or 4 weapons being built around a gimmick (the two hammers, scepter, and maybe warrior pistol) rather than 7/9. It's fine to keep things simple and just focus on making a good set of skills.

[Mell.4873]

23 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Eh, they did manage to make a couple of non-gimmicky weapons. Warrior staff is basically warrior's equivalent to revenant staff. Mesmer rifle has the portal, but you don't need to use the portal to be a good rifle healer.

Annnnnd that's about it.

I think one message that ArenaNet hopefully gets is that a weapon doesn't have to have some gimmick to be cool. A solid set of skills that just provides a new way to play is perfectly fine. They can throw in a few gimmicks, but even EoD managed to do just fine with only 3 or 4 weapons being built around a gimmick (the two hammers, scepter, and maybe warrior pistol) rather than 7/9. It's fine to keep things simple and just focus on making a good set of skills.

Why come back and play if there is nothing new to master or learn. If you had the same old weapon and it doesn't fit your role then what is point. At least now you have some gimmick as you call it to master. 

You never know maybe Mesmer rifle is exactly what you need on your Power DPS Mesmer to pull off some cool Raid or Strike trick. 

[Helgaley.3619]

On 3/4/2024 at 7:20 AM, Tanachi.3951 said:

They listened to the feedback, not OUR feedback, mind you, but the feedback of some benchmark guild or some subreddit group or whatever. But it's the expected consequence, to be honest. Since EoD the current balance team has been taken on even harder ordeals. They couldn't even make a decent elite spec for each class and now they tried to balance giving every spec not only a new weapon, but other spec's weapons too. And they're completely lost, that's why they need this group of select elite players to literally tell them what to do. Because we have to maintain the sacred 40k dps on unrealistic golem setup, or whatever.

Getting back on topic, new weapons used to make sense because they were literally made for the elite spec. Now that there will never be an elite spec weapon, all new weapons will be gimmicky garbage. For the rest of this game's lifetime.

Making weapons gimmicky garbage is a deliberate design choice though, and it isn't necessary. They just need to stop adding unnecessary gimmicky nonsense on top of otherwise simple weapons and mechanics, and they'll be fine. All the gimmicks do is punish the player for not mastering them because, as Anet has said and demonstrated, they don't think complexity should be rewarded. 

It's just so stupid seeing it typed out lol - their design philosophy basically revolves around gimmicks that add no value and complexity that yields no reward.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

On 3/1/2024 at 9:45 PM, Kaizz.7306 said:

Multiple sites put GW2 anywhere between 540K-900K ACTIVE lol idk where people get the most random sub 100k numbers from.

Unless those sites have active access to the specific data metrics in the game that track individual account activity those numbers can't be substantiated...mostly those sites likely track website traffic if they can't track actual traffic on the game itself.

GW2 does a good job of getting players playing together with how their sharding works and how they move players around when shards get too small in player size, it can kind of create the illusion of "high population". Not that the game is dead or even close to it, but near 1 million players? Probably not.

[Puck.3697]

1 hour ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

GW2 does a good job of getting players playing together with how their sharding works and how they move players around when shards get too small in player size, it can kind of create the illusion of "high population". Not that the game is dead or even close to it, but near 1 million players? Probably not.

Considering WoW reach’s peaks of 11million at launch’s and ffxiv break 30 million players, honestly almost 1 million is nothing, gw2 likely does but big games of today have 10-20x the numbers so it will naturally be small comparing 

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Why come back and play if there is nothing new to master or learn. If you had the same old weapon and it doesn't fit your role then what is point. At least now you have some gimmick as you call it to master. 

You never know maybe Mesmer rifle is exactly what you need on your Power DPS Mesmer to pull off some cool Raid or Strike trick. 

Except that at least some of the gimmicks are actively interfering with the weapon doing something new. The much-derided elementalist pistol, for instance, actually has a decent variety in their 2 and 3 skills... but it doesn't matter because 90% of the time, the player is only going to be focusing on pressing their buttons in the right order to make sure that bullets are being consumed for DPS. The gimmick has actually made the weapon less interesting overall.

This isn't always the case - sometimes a gimmick can make for a good weapon - but in this round it really feels like the tail is wagging the dog.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

3 hours ago, Puck.3697 said:

Considering WoW reach’s peaks of 11million at launch’s and ffxiv break 30 million players, honestly almost 1 million is nothing, gw2 likely does but big games of today have 10-20x the numbers so it will naturally be small comparing 

WoW hasn't reported concurrent (meaning currently/consistently active) player numbers in years, they stopped doing so after the Cataclysm expansion. FFXIV also doesn't even report concurrent player numbers. Registered accounts just means registered accounts, not consistently active players. Whatever those sites you're visiting are reporting is likely not accurate and is simply, as I said, reporting on website traffic or even google search trends which is not concurrent active playerbase. They quite honestly do not and could not have access to that kind of data unless they are getting it from the studios and they are certainly not getting it from the studios.

WoW and FFXIV might hit 1 million concurrent players, maybe even a bit more, during expansion launches and big content release months, but certainly not in the numbers you are suggesting. WoW isn't even available in China anymore either so their numbers probably took a big hit just from that.

What big games do you even think are hitting 10 or 20 times those numbers? Even big releases on Steam, which are only available on Steam, hit 1 or 2 million concurrent players on their launch days/weeks. Elden Ring hit 1 million during its launch weeks, Baldur's Gate 3 hit 900k during its launch weeks, and for a more recent example Counter Strike maintains concurrent daily numbers of 1.3 million on Steam.

WoW and FFXIV are big, sure, but no...they aren't that big to maintain 10 million or more players online, at once, daily. Again, whatever sites you are looking at are not validated. Also I think it would probably be a good idea to stop visiting them...just for the safety of your own data.

[Puck.3697]

3 hours ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

WoW and FFXIV might hit 1 million concurrent players, maybe even a bit more, during expansion launches and big content release months, but certainly not in the numbers you are suggesting. WoW isn't even available in China anymore either so their numbers probably took a big hit just from that

Both games actually release launch numbers, and while they don’t have concrete numbers over the course of the expansion the tech exists to track estimated numbers 

 

[Cyninja.2954]

On 3/1/2024 at 6:23 AM, Helgaley.3619 said:

Gimmick - something that is not serious or of real value that is used to attract people's attention or interest temporarily.

Anet - please stop with the gimmicky profession and weapon design. It is not fun. Mesmers getting greatswords and revenants getting hammers as ranged weapons? These examples are innovative, and they are fun. But the EoD elite specs, slapping quickness and alacrity on every profession irrespective of whether it makes sense, and these new weapon proficiencies? These are gimmicks - they're definitely different and might attract attention, but they don't seem to offer much value, and unlike the HoT & PoF elite specs, the EoD specs haven't exactly improved with time.

Those balance changes were direct results of player complaints of "I don't get to play my class in content XYZ". Now we can agree on that how this balance or change was achieved was not ideal, given maybe a new set of elite specializations with certain boons in mind could have been better, but that would have taken years at best.

As to gimmicky, the support roster has increased drastically. You might not mind as "hi dps", but many players that enjoy playing supports might.

As far as balance, the game is in some of the best balance it has been in years, as far as PvE is concerned. Well except for open world content which just gets annihilated by now with any type of semi sensible build, but that's what many players were complaining about too, so fixed (pages upon pages upon pages of Dragon's End being to hard, open world content should be easy, etc).

Quote

If elementalists spend years asking for staff buffs or a long-bow or a rifle, maybe don't give them another bruiser type elite spec followed by a pistol and layer them with gimmicks on top of gimmicks that increase the complexity of the class but not the reward for mastering that complexity. It's also disappointing to see how many profession forums are complaining that feedback was not incorporated into these new proficiencies despite your messaging claiming that it was. Your messages should match your actions, otherwise it's just gaslighting at worst & poor marketing at best.

I fail to recall a single time where profession forums for this game were right on anything. Ever.

The best and most fun example I always like to remember is the Signet of Inspiration "nerf" where it was not subject to boon duration any longer. Two days of cheering and jubilee by most players on these boards about how chrono was finally nerfed. Followed by the realization that now pink class was being run exclusively (because no boon duration means NO BOON DURATION).

Was the perfect example of how limited most players understanding of this games mechanics are. I could name dozens more btw.

So, who should the developers listen to exactly? Because different understanding and priorities make for very different recommendations and expectations. Another great example: power mech and how some players were vehement in arguing that it was balanced at the time.

Quote

Obviously we as players don't know GW2s total player count, but now that it's on Steam, we can at least see how many people are playing via the Steam client. Steam Charts peaked at 8,042 players in August 2022, but as of today, that number is now 5,214. Steam Chart probably only represents a fraction of the total player base, but that's still a 35% decrease.

That's a decent retention rate tbh. It's not as good as expanding numbers, which is always the ideal, 35% is above average retention. We also don't know how many of those players might have moved from switch to the stand alone client (probably just a few).

That said, MMORPGs usually take time to attract new players, most often with hype cycles. FF14 is a great example here, for anyone who wants to check that games steam numbers. Oh I am not referring to the Hype and exploding numbers with Shadowbringers. I'm talking about the YEARS before that from 2014-2019.

You are correct though in that GW2 might be lacking those big expansion moments due to their new development model. So we will have to wait and see if any of their new mini expansions make big headlines.

Quote

TL;DR - Anet's innovation has turned gimmicky, feedback is getting ignored, and it isn't fun. Enough with the shtick - please just listen to the feedback and give players what they are asking for instead of trying to be different just for the sake of being different.

I'm in agreement that a lot of focus is on gimmicks since IBS and EoD. More importantly the main gimmick being legendary gear. As to listening to player feedback, again, you seem to believe any player feedback is of value, when in fact the reality is more likely: the feedback which was listened to is/was not to your liking.

Edited March 6 by Cyninja.2954

[Helgaley.3619]

9 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Those balance changes were direct results of player complaints of "I don't get to play my class in content XYZ". Now we can agree on that how this balance or change was achieved was not ideal, given maybe a new set of elite specializations with certain boons in mind could have been better, but that would have taken years at best.

As to gimmicky, the support roster has increased drastically. You might not mind as "hi dps", but many players that enjoy playing supports might.

As far as balance, the game is in some of the best balance it has been in years, as far as PvE is concerned. Well except for open world content which just gets annihilated by now with any type of semi sensible build, but that's what many players were complaining about too, so fixed (pages upon pages upon pages of Dragon's End being to hard, open world content should be easy, etc).

I fail to recall a single time where profession forums for this game were right on anything. Ever.

The best and most fun example I always like to remember is the Signet of Inspiration "nerf" where it was not subject to boon duration any longer. Two days of cheering and jubilee by most players on these boards about how chrono was finally nerfed. Followed by the realization that now pink class was being run exclusively (because no boon duration means NO BOON DURATION).

Was the perfect example of how limited most players understanding of this games mechanics are. I could name dozens more btw.

So, who should the developers listen to exactly? Because different understanding and priorities make for very different recommendations and expectations. Another great example: power mech and how some players were vehement in arguing that it was balanced at the time.

That's a decent retention rate tbh. It's not as good as expanding numbers, which is always the ideal, 35% is above average retention. We also don't know how many of those players might have moved from switch to the stand alone client (probably just a few).

That said, MMORPGs usually take time to attract new players, most often with hype cycles. FF14 is a great example here, for anyone who wants to check that games steam numbers. Oh I am not referring to the Hype and exploding numbers with Shadowbringers. I'm talking about the YEARS before that from 2014-2019.

You are correct though in that GW2 might be lacking those big expansion moments due to their new development model. So we will have to wait and see if any of their new mini expansions make big headlines.

I'm in agreement that a lot of focus is on gimmicks since IBS and EoD. More importantly the main gimmick being legendary gear. As to listening to player feedback, again, you seem to believe any player feedback is of value, when in fact the reality is more likely: the feedback which was listened to is/was not to your liking.

Players are good at identifying problems, but not necessarily coming up with ways to fix them. My frustration isn't necessarily related to balance as much as it is related to design. Yes, the professions are all well balanced in terms of output, but there are disparities in terms of how they are designed to achieve that output. 

Some professions have more gimmicks that inherently increase the complexity of the profession without adding much value, and because Anet doesn't think complexity should be rewarded, it just ends up feeling bad to play. You can't deny that something like quickness FB is easier to play than something like quickness catalyst, and even though they are capable of achieving the same thing, one is noticeably more difficult than the other. 

What I would like is for Anet to either move away from adding unnecessary mechanics that feel gimmicky because they increase the complexity without adding any value, OR to begin rewarding mastering that complexity with greater output in terms of healing or DPS or whatever. 

I'm not disagreeing with all of your points, but you have to acknowledge that even though the rosters have increased, certain professions are still not being played as much because they have more gimmicks and complexity that isn't rewarded. 

[KryTiKaL.3125]

11 hours ago, Puck.3697 said:

Both games actually release launch numbers, and while they don’t have concrete numbers over the course of the expansion the tech exists to track estimated numbers 

 

Well consider me curious, where exactly are these launch numbers? Are you referring to sold copies of the digital licenses?

Also those estimated numbers don't fall anywhere close to what you asserted earlier of "big games of today have 10-20x the numbers".

19 hours ago, Puck.3697 said:

Considering WoW reach’s peaks of 11million at launch’s and ffxiv break 30 million players, honestly almost 1 million is nothing, gw2 likely does but big games of today have 10-20x the numbers so it will naturally be small comparing 

Copies sold does not equal to concurrently active players either if this is the data you're referring to. GW2 has 16 million accounts registered, as they advertise, but that in no way means there are 16 million players online all at once at peak times in a given day.