Console Port of Guild Wars 2

[Skary.8956]

Hello folks!

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 on my Steam Deck  with a controller and it's not half bad especially when it comes to playing with action camera.
I also recently gave FF14 a go on console and there is nothing to write home about. It kinda lacks in every department from leveling, combat and how content is structured compared to GW2.
Especially with how many games on console support Keyboard and Mouse I think it should be possible to be competitive on console because performance is not going to be an issue.
Last thing there is no competition when it comes to MMos on console compared to PC and this might be something positive for the game in general.
I have few friends that are interested on Guild Wars 2 but all of them are on PS5 and Xbox and because they use Apple Silicon Macs its not user friendly to get GW2 to run.
I know we are on custom Havok engine and it might be complicated

[Atoclone.4810]

The main thing will be cost/reward.

I presume it's no simple thing to ensure the game works on consoles and can be 100% played with a controller and it's such it'll cost quite a lot to implement (and provide ongoing support) 

How many new players do they expect this to bring in? 

 

Based on absolutely no facts I'm going to presume those two don't balance out and it's just not cost effective. 

 

Or it could just be that the spaghetti code is just to much of a mess and it really can't be done.

[Skary.8956]

I just checked some stuff mentioned on the topic in the past.
It's actually related to monetization and how greedy console companies and their stores are.
Altho in the current moment Microsoft is desparate for new IPs on the console but in general Xbox platform is cooked

Edited June 17 by Skary.8956

[Liewec.2896]

1 hour ago, Skary.8956 said:

Hello folks!

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 on my Steam Deck  with a controller and it's not half bad especially when it comes to playing with action camera.

also playing with a controller here, been playing with a controller for the past year or so and its just became second nature now.

i can do everything with my controller all the way down to unnecessary things like activating chairs/tonics, toggling walk/run, using emotes and sheathing weapons.

the only reason i couldn't see a console port happening is patch schedules limiting when the devs can put out patches, and also performance,

GW2 isn't the most optimised game, and consoles don't have the "umph" of PCs.

[Skary.8956]

1 minute ago, Liewec.2896 said:

also playing with a controller here, been playing with a controller for the past year or so and its just became second nature now.

i can do everything with my controller all the way down to unnecessary things like activating chairs/tonics, toggling walk/run, using emotes and sheathing weapons.

the only reason i couldn't see a console port happening is patch schedules limiting when the devs can put out patches, and also performance,

GW2 isn't the most optimised game, and consoles don't have the "umph" of PCs.

PS5 and Series X and S will handle the game
I'm playing on Steam Deck 60fps 800p in the open world

[DreamyAbaddon.3265]

I rather ArenaNet add Japanese Input IME support and port the game to Japan & Korea tbh...

I'd love to play this game in Japanese.

Plus if they do add controller support for this game, I want an option to turn it off so we can continue to use our controller's keybinding using Steam's Input API and Xpadder. I dont want the game's native controller support to interfere with my keybinds. I am the first to play this game on the controller since 2012 beta so I put a lot of work into my keybinds. The last thing I want to see is ArenaNet mess that up.

[phandaria.4891]

Have you seen the New World players reaction for the new console release? It shows that most MMO playerbase don't care about console port, they care about new content/bugfix/balance. And console release takes precious development time away.

2 hours ago, Skary.8956 said:

Last thing there is no competition when it comes to MMos on console compared to PC and this might be something positive for the game in general.

This is false. A quick google shows you many current MMOs are already available on console.

Edited June 17 by phandaria.4891

[Skary.8956]

12 minutes ago, phandaria.4891 said:

Have you seen the New World players reaction for the new console release? It shows that most MMO playerbase don't care about console port, they care about new content/bugfix/balance. And console release takes precious development time away.

This is false. A quick google shows you many current MMOs are already available on console.

The catalogue is quite limited full of p2w kitten games and a lot of dead games.
In terms of competition POE and Diablo 4 if you count them as MMOs + FF14, ESO and BDO(it also fits in the p2w category)
New World players who complain about a console port is because the game is quite flawed so instead of fixing the flaws they are releasing a console port.
In general does not make sense to have an expensive game(cost to produce) and not be available on all platforms.
Ofc this is just a suggestion making GW3 is quite a lot more important especially if it is a direct upgrade from GW2 eg we keep all progression and content

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The Devs have stated, in the past, that they have no plans for any kind of console release. 

[Astralporing.1957]

Says

4 hours ago, Skary.8956 said:

The catalogue is quite limited full of p2w kitten games and a lot of dead games.

And then immediately mentions FF14...

4 hours ago, Skary.8956 said:

In general does not make sense to have an expensive game(cost to produce) and not be available on all platforms.

Blizzard seemed to disagree. Even though at this point they do not straight out deny the possibility of a console port, it's still at the level of "it's not impossible" rather than actual desire to do so. And FF XIV started with console version primarily because Square-Enix and Sony were always in close relations (and because SqEnix is a Japanese developer, and that market has always been more skewed towards consoles than western one).

[Ghostkat.9580]

On 6/17/2024 at 3:58 AM, DreamyAbaddon.3265 said:

I rather ArenaNet add Japanese Input IME support and port the game to Japan & Korea tbh...

I'd love to play this game in Japanese.

Plus if they do add controller support for this game, I want an option to turn it off so we can continue to use our controller's keybinding using Steam's Input API and Xpadder. I dont want the game's native controller support to interfere with my keybinds. I am the first to play this game on the controller since 2012 beta so I put a lot of work into my keybinds. The last thing I want to see is ArenaNet mess that up.

Couple of things... first is the game was actually bigger in Japan than FFXIV until NCSoft pulled the Japanese servers and support for the game. There has been a lot of demand in Japan to bring it back. If they do, I sincerely hope we get some fixes to the EoD story in new content as a lot of the references to GW Factions is actually incredibly wrong lore-wise (especially regarding the Ministry of Purity), and Ashu Yuudachi is completely forgotten about. The writers were trying to do a paint-by-numbers retread of the bullet-points of things from Factions and Winds of Change that they actually completely messed up the lore in the process. Luckily, this sort of thing is easily fixed with a "history was re-written by the victor, but here's what really happened" kind of narrative. I've shown EoD to my Chinese, Japanese and Korean friends/family (my mother is half-Korean) and they all vehemently dislike the way the Canthans were written, and found everything to be SUPER white-washed. The Ministry of Purity Samurai outfit from GW1 is probably my all-time favourite artwork from GW1 of all time, and I think it would definitely be a very popular gem store purchase if made available (moreso than the current Samurai outfit).

I've said this before, but I felt a smarter story would be to have the current Cantha basically be Korean-inspired, but then have two new locations based on Feudal Japan during the Tokugawa Shogunate, and China during the Han Dynasty, based on the two regimes that were forced out of Cantha proper. Say they all have historical beef with one another and point fingers at each other for who is at fault for what, but due to "fate of the world" circumstances  we (the Pact Commander) have to convince them to put their differences aside to join forces against a common enemy. Maybe Largos invasion, or a 7th dragon we don't yet know about? Plenty of water between the three nations to put to use, and get more mileage out of the skiffs.

Would be a good way to finally get some fists weapons, too, if ArenaNet were to finally implement all the other stuff they promised and decide they want to go back to adding in a few new elite specs to the game. Everyone says it should be on Guardian because GW1 Monk was similar to Guardian, but people forget the whole "Cynn marrying Mhenlo" thing with Elementalist and Monk both being light-armour classes, so 250 years later it would totally make sense in the lore for elementalist Monk to be a thing (and more on-brand with most martial artist power fantasies coming out of Far East Asia, where they  have element-based abilities; even Capcom does this in Street Fighter with lightning kicks and flaming uppercuts). We already have a lot of focus skins that look like the knuckles-style weapons we see in FFXIV (if not even better), and we already have plenty of cosmetics for gear that fits the bill... just not the weapon itself. I'd love to have a flaming Shoryuken, or Tifa Lockhart's Dolphin Flurry in water mode, for Overload-style skills! 🙂

My second point is I also play the game exclusively on controller due to nerve damage in my right hand from an accident that makes it impossible for me to play with kb/m, and am an ex-FFXIV player. I use ReWASD instead of XPadder, and the control scheme I made for it is actually way more natural-feeling for action-combat gameplay than FFXIV's native controller inputs. I've been thinking of trying to share it in the Accessibility Wars Discord server, since I think it might help people, but I think it would serve as a great guide for what GW2's controller support would look like if they ever implemented native gamepad support.

But in any case, you don't need to worry about controller support interfering with keybinds. Even the console version of FFXIV lets you use kb/m. There's a whole toggle between kb/m mode and control pad mode in the settings, so there's no need to worry about that. In all likelihood, the controls themselves for gamepad support would be rebindable/customizable, so you might be able to set it up how you want to within the software itself without having to use an external program.

Edited June 23 by Ghostkat.9580
spelling changes

[Ghostkat.9580]

On 6/17/2024 at 10:07 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

And FF XIV started with console version primarily because Square-Enix and Sony were always in close relations (and because SqEnix is a Japanese developer, and that market has always been more skewed towards consoles than western one).

This is correct, FFXIV was a PS3 game, though it's more fair to say that Sony loved to pay for a lot of exclusivity deals. Even some Japanese games that have cross-platform releases, like Guilty Gear, would get some sort of preorder bonus like exclusive skins or colour palettes that wouldn't be available on the PC or XBox releases, because Sony pays extra for that.

Though to say they are skewed towards consoles is perhaps the understatement of the century. Have you ever been to the Akihabara? If you walk into any store that sells games, and wander over to the PC games section, it's almost exclusively an "18+" area. It's a bit more fair to say that in Far East Asia in general, portable games and mobile games are more popular than console games, but for different (sometimes cultural) reasons depending on the country in question. In Japan, people spend more of their lives on trains than they do at home, since in that culture, the home is a place for sleep, not so much a place for recreation. That's not to say the console market there doesn't exist, but it's why things like the Nintendo Switch do very well there compared to other consoles. In places like Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, etc., internet speeds are TERRIBLE there (in Singapore, there are mainly two internet providers, one of which is Singtel, and available packages are AWFUL compared to what most of us have for internet speeds in the West), so while console gaming has a market there, most online gaming is done in places like internet cafes that shell out a lot of money for better and more competitive speeds. But this explains why PC games typically don't sell as well there.

I'm originally from Oceania, so when it comes to gaming on American or European servers, it can be rough without something like rollback netcode (which I totally wish GW2 would have implemented; GGPO is just a phonecall/e-mail away, ANet!). There's a lot of demand from gamers in my home region for stuff like this, because they usually don't get the dedicated server support, but the actual speeds and hardware itself aren't a problem on the local level.

But in either case, even if there was no console release, if the game is playable on Steam Deck (which appears to be the case), that would totally be doable for a place like Japan, so people can play it on-the-go during train commutes to and from work.

IIRC the Japanese servers for GW2 were pulled back in 2015 or so.

Edited June 23 by Ghostkat.9580

[Ghostkat.9580]

On 6/17/2024 at 5:20 AM, Skary.8956 said:

The catalogue is quite limited full of p2w kitten games and a lot of dead games.
In terms of competition POE and Diablo 4 if you count them as MMOs + FF14, ESO and BDO(it also fits in the p2w category)
New World players who complain about a console port is because the game is quite flawed so instead of fixing the flaws they are releasing a console port.
In general does not make sense to have an expensive game(cost to produce) and not be available on all platforms.
Ofc this is just a suggestion making GW3 is quite a lot more important especially if it is a direct upgrade from GW2 eg we keep all progression and content

Disagree with the first and second points. FFXIV is NOT a P2W game in the slightest.
Agree with the third and fourth points, though the fifth is unlikely to occur. The amount of work to rebuild 10+ years of content and to have that work in UE5 is such a high-cost endeavor, they're not likely to remake all the cosmetic content and have that carry over to a GW3. Believe me, as someone who has bought everything in the gem store and has money, I'd absolutely love that, but it's an unrealistic ask for a game that is as old as GW2.

[DreamyAbaddon.3265]

1 hour ago, Ghostkat.9580 said:

Couple of things... first is the game was actually bigger in Japan than FFXIV until NCSoft pulled the Japanese servers and support for the game. There has been a lot of demand in Japan to bring it back. If they do, I sincerely hope we get some fixes to the EoD story in new content as a lot of the references to GW Factions is actually incredibly wrong lore-wise (especially regarding the Ministry of Purity), and Ashu Yuudachi is completely forgotten about. The writers were trying to do a paint-by-numbers retread of the bullet-points of things from Factions and Winds of Change that they actually completely messed up the lore in the process. Luckily, this sort of thing is easily fixed with a "history was re-written by the victor, but here's what really happened" kind of narrative. I've shown EoD to my Chinese, Japanese and Korean friends/family (my mother is half-Korean) and they all vehemently dislike the way the Canthans were written, and found everything to be SUPER white-washed. The Ministry of Purity Samurai outfit from GW1 is probably my all-time favourite artwork from GW1 of all time, and I think it would definitely be a very popular gem store purchase if made available (moreso than the current Samurai outfit).

I've said this before, but I felt a smarter story would be to have the current Cantha basically be Korean-inspired, but then have two new locations based on Feudal Japan during the Tokugawa Shogunate, and China during the Han Dynasty, based on the two regimes that were forced out of Cantha proper. Say they all have historical beef with one another and point fingers at each other for who is at fault for what, but due to "fate of the world" circumstances  we (the Pact Commander) have to convince them to put their differences aside to join forces against a common enemy. Maybe Largos invasion, or a 7th dragon we don't yet know about? Plenty of water between the three nations to put to use, and get more mileage out of the skiffs.

Would be a good way to finally get some fists weapons, too, if ArenaNet were to finally implement all the other stuff they promised and decide they want to go back to adding in a few new elite specs to the game. Everyone says it should be on Guardian because GW1 Monk was similar to Guardian, but people forget the whole "Cynn marrying Mhenlo" thing with Elementalist and Monk both being light-armour classes, so 250 years later it would totally make sense in the lore for elementalist Monk to be a thing (and more on-brand with most martial artist power fantasies coming out of Far East Asia, where they  have element-based abilities; even Capcom does this in Street Fighter with lightning kicks and flaming uppercuts). We already have a lot of focus skins that look like the knuckles-style weapons we see in FFXIV (if not even better), and we already have plenty of cosmetics for gear that fits the bill... just not the weapon itself. I'd love to have a flaming Shoryuken, or Tifa Lockhart's Dolphin Flurry in water mode, for Overload-style skills! 🙂

My second point is I also play the game exclusively on controller due to nerve damage in my right hand from an accident that makes it impossible for me to play with kb/m, and am an ex-FFXIV player. I use ReWASD instead of XPadder, and the control scheme I made for it is actually way more natural-feeling for action-combat gameplay than FFXIV's native controller inputs. I've been thinking of trying to share it in the Accessibility Wars Discord server, since I think it might help people, but I think it would serve as a great guide for what GW2's controller support would look like if they ever implemented native gamepad support.

But in any case, you don't need to worry about controller support interfering with keybinds. Even the console version of FFXIV lets you use kb/m. There's a whole toggle between kb/m mode and control pad mode in the settings, so there's no need to worry about that. In all likelihood, the controls themselves for gamepad support would be rebindable/customizable, so you might be able to set it up how you want to within the software itself without having to use an external program.

Interesting first point. I'm not knowledgeable enough lore wise to add anything to it.

As for the 2nd point, as long as the game doesn't automatically detect my gamepad and start messing with my keybinds on Xpadder and Steam Input settings then I'm fine. But if it's anything like how TeraOnline was, were you couldn't stop certain keybinds on gamepad to be disabled within game, then no thanks. I do not want to use the built in keybind in game because it's always bad from my experience and nothing can be as good and in depth as how I have it setup on third party external program like Xpadder & Steam Input. I think not having controller support is better since we already have options using external programs and those programs are way more in depth than anything in game keybindings can do. Controllers are more customizable because of it and I don't want to lose that deep customization I already have on my xbox controller and steamdeck.

Edited June 23 by DreamyAbaddon.3265

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

2 hours ago, Ghostkat.9580 said:

IIRC the Japanese servers for GW2 were pulled back in 2015 or so.

I can't say I've heard of these 'Japanese Servers' before, only the Chinese client.  Can you provide some information from ArenaNet/NCSoft?

Edited June 23 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[Astralporing.1957]

7 hours ago, Ghostkat.9580 said:

IIRC the Japanese servers for GW2 were pulled back in 2015 or so.

As far as i know, there were never any japanese servers for GW2 at all.The game started with 2 zones/datacenters (NA and EU), and later added only separate chinese version.

[Blude.6812]

oops

 

Edited June 24 by Blude.6812
posted twice

[Blude.6812]

On 6/17/2024 at 12:55 PM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

The Devs have stated, in the past, that they have no plans for any kind of console release. 

Yep,, and still the uniformed and less knowledgeable keep fishing!

[Healix.5819]

4 hours ago, Blude.6812 said:

Yep,, and still the uniformed and less knowledgeable keep fishing!

To be fair, they were experimenting with a "console" (mobile) version of GW2 just a few years ago, as NCSoft ordered it. Also, fun fact, NCSoft originally announced that GW2 would come to consoles after launch, but ultimately consoles were too anti-MMO and ArenaNet confirmed it was abandoned after launch when people found references to it.

[Zera.9435]

Don't you guys have computers?

[Linken.6345]

8 minutes ago, Zera.9435 said:

Don't you guys have computers?

I think this thread is some kind of out of sesaon april fools joke😉

[Tinker.6924]

I don’t want gw2 to be dumbed down to become console ported. The last several pc games I’ve played that were console ported either resulted in a lackluster console game or the PC game got dumbed down to make targeting, especially ground targeting, controller friendly which made the pc game worse. 
 

PC games, with the mouse and keyboard (which are not standard for consoles), allow precise individual targeting (for example, being able to target a very specific enemy/friend in the middle of a group) and precise ground targeting for aoe abilities which you rarely put on a single target when fighting multiple enemies.   That precision and speed just isn’t second nature for a controller like it is with keyboard and mouse. Gaming companies that chase the console market make the games controller friendly and will do it at the expense of the PC game. 

Edited June 25 by Tinker.6924

[Avatar.3568]

i think it would help the game, people will struggle in raids and pvp, but they struggle their already so it doesn't make a difference. The controls should be nicely maped and maybe some sort of text to speach to text with others. (or a voice chat!!!!!!!!!)

[Zeivu.3615]

On 6/23/2024 at 10:42 PM, Zera.9435 said:

Don't you guys have computers?

Yeah, Here, let me tie up my monitor, keyboard, mouse, tower and cables into an easy to carry back pack. /s

[Rauderi.8706]

Before console support, GW2 needs native controller support.