I want content that is challenging and carries weight.

[Jawbreaker.5968]

I'd like to ask the devs at Anet if they've got plans for ramping up the actual threat-level of current events or what because no offense, the portal incursion events with Awakened dropping into the map feels like a feint. I WANT it to be a feint anyhow. If you can just give me and players here a clue that the wait will be worth it, please give us something! I know it's the start of a new year, and I know that you're going through the regular scheduled holidays still, but I've been playing other games because I played the crap out of this game. I'm nearly max mastery and I've got fully ascended/legendary gear. Besides sometimes joining WvW or playing a match or two of pvp, there's nothing /fresh/ to keep me enthralled like this game has done in the past with it's current events and living world teasers. I survived the content drought of 2015~2016 by playing other games. Right now I run a guild and I need stuff to build momentum. We're more PvE inclined, but the Awakened portal things are a joke, no offense. It's swarmed by die-hards and people desperate for content (like me) and the enemies die in an instant, and spawn half-way around the map with no established point to defend or purpose other than a mob-rush.

Thoughts? These half-baked events aren't giving me confidence right now, sorry but not sorry, it's the truth ;p

[Jawbreaker.5968]

You're doing a great job btw, just if you're releasing content, I would like the stuff to keep people 'satisfied until the next episode' to be a little more effort put into it, something that works as a backdrop and helps players feel like participating daily/weekly in the world carries value instead of "Oh there's Awakened... aaaaaand it's gone."

[Danikat.8537]

I don't think the Awakened invasion events are supposed to be difficult. Especially since they happen in starter maps. They're harder than the normal level 1-15 map events, but not by much. I highly doubt they're intended to keep hardcore players interested for long.

But we're due to get another Living Story release soon, which will almost certainly include a new map, and considering how many people have been asking for more big meta-events in PoF maps it's possible they'll add one (a more complicated one, not like Palawadan) this time.

And if not? There's no harm in taking a break if you're bored with the game. GW2 was designed specifically so players could come and go as they wanted to. Just make sure you log in once a month or so to pick up any new Living Story releases. (Not that they come out monthly, but it's better to log in when you don't need to than to miss one because you couldn't remember if it had been 2 or 3 months since last time.)

[Jawbreaker.5968]

oh I fully agree with you, I just wanted to start a conversation because I'd rather not have the next current event putter out like that bloodstone portal current event did. It was really cool but then it felt like it was just dropped entirely to focus on PoF. I'd rather see effort put fully into these sorts of things, give players a sense of "This is bad man" instead of holding back. I personally don't think that having a world in chaos would detract new players, I feel like if players knew that at any point they could be experiencing something no other player in gw2 went through, that would bring more traffic. There'd be this sense of urgency to play the content while it's still there, and draw in new players that still have held back by assuring them that they're not simply experiencing a 6+ year old game, that this particular spawn or that particular crisis going on there, is probably something relevant to the entire community. You'd get more traffic from veterans and new players alike. You'd get more people helping new players while having that uncertainty because the veteran has been thrown a curve ball itself. It's probably asking too much, but I think revamping existing maps would be less effort and help diversify the PvE population a bit more if there was just a tweak here and there to make things feel fresher. Idk, they've probably discussed this to the dirt already but I personally would love it if they were like, "Okay, nothing physically changes with this or that map, but because of such and such current event, we're gonna drop a bomb on this map and people can stand and fight or run away." just a little more "Oh shit" to my "Oh that's different." would be nice x3

[Jawbreaker.5968]

...they replaced the s word with kitten. I'm gonna die xDDD

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Been there, done that; enough of the community didn't like it that the Devs stopped doing it. Alas.

[Jawbreaker.5968]

To be fair, players don't know what they want and I think gw2 should take the b*tching with a pound of salt. Nintendo knows it, look what they did with Zelda. If you'd told that community, "Hey, we're changing the formula of this legacy of a game into an open-world." you'd get soooooo much backlash. Players and especially voices online are base and knee-jerky, people don't think, they just react, and humans are resistant to change. Wish the devs would stop treating us like kids and find a focus and go for it, for better or worse, there's a lot of times we simply do. not. understand. and the developers should acknowledge but follow their own direction. This isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship and I wish a number of times when people would cry about a change, the devs would have more confidence in their strategies instead of bending over.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

For players expecting challenge devs created raids and some world events that require minimum organisation. Current events are for everyone and are not supposed to be engaging. I don't think you gonna find much sympathy for your thread. Open world is what it is and from my point of view, there is no need to make everything challenging just to please miniorities.

[Dashiva.6149]

It's a constant pendulum.

Hot is too hard, PoF is too boring.Too hard meta-events, too few meta-eventsOpen world is too casual, Raids are too hardcore.

People all have different preferences and perceptions and arenanet try to make something for everyone which is understandable. Unfortunately it often feels that they please no one by trying to please everyone at the same time. Sometimes, like in this case with the Awakened invasion, it isn't always clear what part of the audience particular content is aimed at.For instance, I am very invested in the lore and story of the game. So finding out that a huge figure like Dhuum appears in a raid is hugely dissapointing for me, because I really don't enjoy raids.

[Iozeph.5617]

Not here to shoot down your fantasies. I just don't know what you're expecting. Anet's experimented and paid for it by hemorrhaging so many players that they no longer have the money to take the 'new and innovative' shotgun approach- hoping that at least one thing sticks. If a bunch of new things do come know that its probably due to their partially selling out to a holding/venture company to get the funding. They'll no longer be their own masters and the clock will be ticking. The changes to WvW should tell you all you need to know. First it was megaserver, now they're consolidating more. And what's worse WoW has just gone for level scaling. So that no matter where you are content scales to you -up or down. Why mention wow? Why should that matter? Player numbers here are what they are still due to the game being subscription free. If it wasn't...

Problem is everything new and innovative GW2 pioneered -their competitors have had time to catch up with, or even exceed in addition to maintaining their own strengths. In the mean time GW2 has deviated from its novel approach to pve by listening to people demanding more challenge. Challenge isn't bad, but to dip into into the well of competitors who are much longer entrenched in those modes of play -raiding for one- And doing this again at a time when their base was shrinking? They don't have dedicated test servers. And raiding guilds demand perfection and are even willing to test before things launch. Instead balance happens when it happens -often just to stomp on something that made game play easier. What content does come out is released -'whenever'- so that's a problem too.

And if that weren't enough then there's Anet playing calvinball by constantly fiddling with profession balance across all modes, in the face of pushing new professions out the door to keep the money coming in. You see where this is heading and why it consistently goes wrong for them, right? The money has to come from somewhere. There's only so many player bases to alienate before it's the serpent eating its own tail.

So that said, expecting absolutely nothing and wishing to be pleasantly surprised, if you want a challenge for the interim then perhaps organise five man groups to run dungeons with level eighty professions whilst wearing level appropriate greens for the given dungeon. Set up a full Tequatle - again with all players wearing level-appropriate greens for the zone. Make handicaps for better group cohesion by relying on skills/mechanics rather than raw gear attributes. This should be especially interesting with the elite professions as an exercise to see just how under or overdone they are.

[Tolmos.8395]

The whole open world living story event thing didn't work out well for them because players who came after the fact couldn't actually experience it, so it left this big gap in their storyline. Also, with instanced storylines, they are able to monetize it down the road by selling it as a playable package for players who came after. I greatly enjoying Living Story Season 1, or at least the parts of it I got to play (2013 was a busy year for me), but in the end Anet was simply unhappy with the long term results and decided against moving forward with that style of play.

At the very least, I can't imagine we'll be seeing one time events reshaping the map any time soon.

As for gear- they probably could do with some new legendary armors/weapons to keep folks busy. Not my cup of tea, but I definitely think some really amazing looking armor/gear that is ungodly tough to get your hands on would be a great head nod to the more hardcore among us.

Also, keep in mind, they are probably already hard at work on a new expansion. Eventually we'll have that going for us as well.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@Iozeph.5617 said:Not here to shoot down your fantasies. I just don't know what you're expecting. Anet's experimented and paid for it by hemorrhaging so many players that they no longer have the money to take the 'new and innovative' shotgun approach- hoping that at least one thing sticks. If a bunch of new things do come know that its probably due to their partially selling out to a holding/venture company to get the funding. They'll no longer be their own masters and the clock will be ticking. The changes to WvW should tell you all you need to know. First it was megaserver, now they're consolidating more. And what's worse WoW has just gone for level scaling. So that no matter where you are content scales to you -up or down. Why mention wow? Why should that matter? Player numbers here are what they are still due to the game being subscription free. If it wasn't...

Problem is everything new and innovative GW2 pioneered -their competitors have had time to catch up with, or even exceed in addition to maintaining their own strengths. In the mean time GW2 has deviated from its novel approach to pve by listening to people demanding more challenge. Challenge isn't bad, but to dip into into the well of competitors who are much longer entrenched in those modes of play -raiding for one- And doing this again at a time when their base was shrinking? They don't have dedicated test servers. And raiding guilds demand perfection and are even willing to test before things launch. Instead balance happens when it happens -often just to stomp on something that made game play easier. What content does come out is released -'whenever'- so that's a problem too.

And if that weren't enough then there's Anet playing calvinball by constantly fiddling with profession balance across all modes, in the face of pushing new professions out the door to keep the money coming in. You see where this is heading and why it consistently goes wrong for them, right? The money has to come from somewhere. There's only so many player bases to alienate before it's the serpent eating its own tail.

So that said, expecting absolutely nothing and wishing to be pleasantly surprised, if you want a challenge for the interim then perhaps organise five man groups to run dungeons with level eighty professions whilst wearing level appropriate greens for the given dungeon. Set up a full Tequatle - again with all players wearing level-appropriate greens for the zone. Make handicaps for better group cohesion by relying on skills/mechanics rather than raw gear attributes. This should be especially interesting with the elite professions as an exercise to see just how under or overdone they are.

I'm not sure if you know ArenaNet is a wholly-owned subsidiary, and has been nearly since inception. I don't think ArenaNet could 'sell out', even if they wanted to. Though, they have said they are pretty much their 'own Masters'. /shrug

[Iozeph.5617]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm not sure if you know ArenaNet is a wholly-owned subsidiary, and has been nearly since inception. I don't think ArenaNet could 'sell out', even if they wanted to. Though, they have said they are pretty much their 'own Masters'. /shrug

Yes, that's the part I never understood. Hence the confusion. How are you your master if you're an owned subsidiary? Unless it's some sort of doublespeak to keep even more players from jumping ship due to fears of another repeat of what happened with CoH.

[Raizel.8175]

@"Dashiva.6149" said:It's a constant pendulum.

Hot is too hard, PoF is too boring.Too hard meta-events, too few meta-eventsOpen world is too casual, Raids are too hardcore.

People all have different preferences and perceptions and arenanet try to make something for everyone which is understandable. Unfortunately it often feels that they please no one by trying to please everyone at the same time. Sometimes, like in this case with the Awakened invasion, it isn't always clear what part of the audience particular content is aimed at.For instance, I am very invested in the lore and story of the game. So finding out that a huge figure like Dhuum appears in a raid is hugely dissapointing for me, because I really don't enjoy raids.

• HoT isn't too hard; it's perfectly fine in its current form. For me, PoF is far more annoying than HoT due to monsters high aggro-range and too many projectile/sniper-based attacks.
• OW-Meta-Events aren't hard; they're fine. People just have to put some effort into them. A game should require you to play and not to spam auto-attacks semi-afk.
• Most raids aren't that hard/complex. The community just has some serious issues leading to a two-class society.

I'd really like to do more so called "hardcore"-content like raids, but there's kinda no accessibility to that kind of content due to some very weird community-problems.

[Dashiva.6149]

@Raizel.8175 said:

@"Dashiva.6149" said:It's a constant pendulum.

Hot is too hard, PoF is too boring.Too hard meta-events, too few meta-eventsOpen world is too casual, Raids are too hardcore.

People all have different preferences and perceptions and arenanet try to make something for everyone which is understandable. Unfortunately it often feels that they please no one by trying to please everyone at the same time. Sometimes, like in this case with the Awakened invasion, it isn't always clear what part of the audience particular content is aimed at.For instance, I am

very

invested in the lore and story of the game. So finding out that a huge figure like Dhuum appears in a raid is hugely dissapointing for me, because I

really

don't enjoy raids.

• HoT isn't too hard; it's perfectly fine in its current form. For me, PoF is far more annoying than HoT due to monsters high aggro-range and too many projectile/sniper-based attacks.
• OW-Meta-Events aren't hard; they're fine. People just have to put some effort into them. A game should require you to play and not to spam auto-attacks semi-afk.
• Most raids aren't that hard/complex. The community just has some serious issues leading to a two-class society.

I'd really like to do more so called "hardcore"-content like raids, but there's kinda no accessibility to that kind of content due to some very weird community-problems.

For clarification, those aren't necessarily my personal opinions. Just examples of topics that I feel comes up often reflecting different preferences.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@Iozeph.5617 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm not sure if you know ArenaNet is a wholly-owned subsidiary, and has been nearly since inception. I don't think ArenaNet could 'sell out', even if they wanted to. Though, they have said they are pretty much their 'own Masters'. /shrug

Yes, that's the part I never understood. Hence the confusion. How are you your master if you're an owned subsidiary? Unless it's some sort of doublespeak to keep even more players from jumping ship due to fears of another repeat of what happened with CoH.

Well, if it's double-speak, it's been working for 10-12 years...long before CoH. /re

[Biff.5312]

I'd like that too, but this just isn't the game to do it.A game where every encounter with a monster is risky and challenging would be fantastic. GW2 is one of the best for not wasting your time with trash mobs you HAVE to fight, but it is scattered with them and even the big fights are super-easy unless you find yourself alone. The scaling could be better but at least it exists. What I'd really like is champs that you CAN solo if you're really on your game, that scale up as you add players such that it doesn't get any easier. But that won't happen.

[Danikat.8537]

@Iozeph.5617 said:Not here to shoot down your fantasies. I just don't know what you're expecting. Anet's experimented and paid for it by hemorrhaging so many players that they no longer have the money to take the 'new and innovative' shotgun approach- hoping that at least one thing sticks. If a bunch of new things do come know that its probably due to their partially selling out to a holding/venture company to get the funding. They'll no longer be their own masters and the clock will be ticking.

I take it you're not aware that Anet has been a wholly owned subsidiary of NCSoft since before GW1 was released? They can't sell out to another company because they've already done it and both GW1 and GW2 were designed, built and run with the clock ticking as you put it.

But that also means they can do is what most studios do when they need extra funds - borrow money from their publisher (NCSoft) to tide them over while they work on their next release and then pay it back once that project (game, expansion, DLC, whatever it is) has been released.

@"Jawbreaker.5968" said:oh I fully agree with you, I just wanted to start a conversation because I'd rather not have the next current event putter out like that bloodstone portal current event did. It was really cool but then it felt like it was just dropped entirely to focus on PoF. I'd rather see effort put fully into these sorts of things, give players a sense of "This is bad man" instead of holding back. I personally don't think that having a world in chaos would detract new players, I feel like if players knew that at any point they could be experiencing something no other player in gw2 went through, that would bring more traffic. There'd be this sense of urgency to play the content while it's still there, and draw in new players that still have held back by assuring them that they're not simply experiencing a 6+ year old game, that this particular spawn or that particular crisis going on there, is probably something relevant to the entire community. You'd get more traffic from veterans and new players alike. You'd get more people helping new players while having that uncertainty because the veteran has been thrown a curve ball itself. It's probably asking too much, but I think revamping existing maps would be less effort and help diversify the PvE population a bit more if there was just a tweak here and there to make things feel fresher. Idk, they've probably discussed this to the dirt already but I personally would love it if they were like, "Okay, nothing physically changes with this or that map, but because of such and such current event, we're gonna drop a bomb on this map and people can stand and fight or run away." just a little more "Oh kitten" to my "Oh that's different." would be nice x3

As other people have said they tried that, it was actually the original design for the game, but it didn't work out. For a start because the majority of people had to be able to complete the majority of content within the 2-4 weeks it was available very little of it was difficult. Most of the time challenge came from getting onto a map that had enough people (this was before mega-servers and in some cases before the LFG tool) or from the time required to do "achievements" like kill 500 enemies or open 300 bags. A lot of people go on about how great the Marionette was but it was almost identical to the Vinewrath, the big difference is it wasn't around long enough for everyone to learn what to do.

On top of that it got to the point for a lot of people (myself included) where either it became a chore to keep up with it - planning everything to make sure you had time to do it - or you'd miss it and then...if you'd missed one what did it matter if you missed more? It got harder to care because it was all temporary anyway and sooner or later everyone would miss some stuff.

In theory it sounds like a really cool idea. There was an older game called The Matrix Online where the entire game was built around that stuff, with even more detail - for example the developers would role-play major characters from the films, so if you saw Trinity to Morpheus or someone it was a real person controlling them and they'd react to what you said. But it apparently had the opposite effect to what you hoped - new players were put off joining because they'd missed so much and because it was all one-time events there was no way for them to catch up, and veterans kept falling behind and quitting because again they couldn't catch up. Imagine if you just got GW2 and got told "well yeah, there were 6 dragons to fight, but you missed killing 2 of them and now it looks like we're not going to fight the other 4, one of the gods is dead - you missed that too - oh and zombies are attacking because we upset an enemy you've never even heard about. We might get to fight him but we're not sure yet." Doesn't sound quite as appealing as getting to do all that yourself does it?

[Khisanth.2948]

Open world and carries weight? You might want to go back to the drawing board.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

@Iozeph.5617 said:

Problem is everything new and innovative GW2 pioneered -their competitors have had time to catch up with, or even exceed in addition to maintaining their own strengths.

Good :)Rather than borrowing ideas from others games must waste some money and not follow the copy-Roman -style , that carried them over the years .

Now if various publishers , shutdown their projects/games in Alpha and w8 for stagmation , or not enought new games comes out that give an alternatives ''phycology reniew'' to the gamers .... well it will be interesting thing to see :P

Legend Popeye