New boss release rate

[Malediktus.9250]

@nsleep.7839 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@"Krzysztof.5973" said:With each new week I stand stronger in my conviction that they should make an announcement they officially stop spending resources on raids. It's been 261 days since release of Hall of Chains and 294 days between 4 and 5. The view of waiting another 300 days for Wing 7 makes me get the rope. Community suggested a million ways how to sort this out so the wait would not be so painful. Sometimes the right thing to do is just give up, and maybe that's what Anet should do. It's not working out for them or us. Casual part of the community cant be bothered with raids and veterans like myself who is here since wing 1 release has no reason to stay. I've seen guilds die out because there is no new content to satisfy us. It's the right time to think things through and stop pretending that everything is fine.

Yes, guilds/statics dieing because of slow release cadence is the main problem. There needs to be one new raid wing per LS episode or the raid community will fall further and further apart instead of growing.

New fractals that are easy even on T4 without any CM are no help either.

1 raid wing per episode seems quite unbalanced with the rest of the game. If the story patches where at the 2 month cadence I think one each third patch seems fair

One each 3rd patch would be at best every 6 months, sometimes 9+ months. You know as good as me that Anet will never be even close to consistently release a LS episode every 2 months. And even if they could do 6 months for the current wing size of 1 easy boss, 1 hard(ish) boss and 2 boring events is unacceptable for many people. 2-4 months per raid wing would be ideal to keep the raid community alive. Everything else will keep it stagnating at best, probably degenerating like now. Especially if each new expansion does not bring something big such as a new legendary raid armor to look forward to. The ring is not keeping many people interested. The 9+ months to even see the next collection for it is probably killing the rest of any motivation.

I also do not see how it is unbalanced in any way to have a new raid wing every LS episode. The raid wings are already tiny and probably just need a fraction of the development effort they spend on the LS episode itself.

We'll honestly 2-4 months is probably to much for the general community to handle.i agree that expecting arenanet to have ls every 2 months is quite a high hurdle but i consider 7.5 months per wing barely acceptable.

The bigger problem is the not knowing. it probably is also a mayor reason for the decline.

The reason it's unbalanced is because then we would need a new fractal also and a patch for PvP and WvW (i know these last ones now also don't happen but that is what would be balanced) and i don't believe they would be able to sustain that.

What do we not know? We know Anet did not cancel raid development, they are just super slow about it. And 7.5months is unsustainable for groups. In my 1600 LIs I saw many guilds/statics raise and fall again because a lot of people just cannot stay interested if they get nothing new for half a year or more. And when there is something new it is usually so easy that you full clear it on the first week already and after a month you are just working on perfecting the strategy.I really miss having bosses which take dozens of hours to figure out. Even the top groups should not be able to full clear a new raid wing in the first week (unless they were beta testers maybe). But if I recall right even Dhuum CM was beaten on first week.Are you talking about GW2? Because the raid bosses have always been this easy, what changed is that we, the players, figured out how to do sustained damage way above the requirements for each fight and got better at the game on top of that. The average raider from today would be considered a higher tier player back in 2016. Because of that, without a significant difficulty spike in both mechanics complexity or dps checks we won't be seeing any raid wing last more than 48 hours. The fact that Dhuum CM wasn't downed first day is probably because it took longer to figure a comp than actually executing the fight and the fact that some mechanics ij this fight are "hard" because they feel janky af.

Not talking about GW2, but talking about older games I used to play before GW2. It often took quite a while until the newest raid was full cleared for the first time.

There are a lot of reasons why current raids burn raid interested players out, not all will apply to every kind of raider:

• low difficulty, so it gets boring fast
• drops are literally just ascended with skins you might like or not
• missing longterm sinks for magnetite shards, gaets crystals and LI
• achievements are basically all done on first or second clear, none that reward constat raiding except maybe the one for building all 3 armors. How about rewarding full clearing a wing for the 100th time? A collection for all the skins and minis of a raid wing? Lots of possibilities that probably would not cost all that much dev time.
• only one difficulty (with some bosses having a cm you can do once per account, usually not really much harder than nm) for all players
• release cadence becoming worse

Leftover you only have some players that do not have their legendary armor yet or some people who really enjoy the current raids (possible also just because they like the people in their static/guild).

[nsleep.7839]

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@nsleep.7839 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@"Krzysztof.5973" said:With each new week I stand stronger in my conviction that they should make an announcement they officially stop spending resources on raids. It's been 261 days since release of Hall of Chains and 294 days between 4 and 5. The view of waiting another 300 days for Wing 7 makes me get the rope. Community suggested a million ways how to sort this out so the wait would not be so painful. Sometimes the right thing to do is just give up, and maybe that's what Anet should do. It's not working out for them or us. Casual part of the community cant be bothered with raids and veterans like myself who is here since wing 1 release has no reason to stay. I've seen guilds die out because there is no new content to satisfy us. It's the right time to think things through and stop pretending that everything is fine.

Yes, guilds/statics dieing because of slow release cadence is the main problem. There needs to be one new raid wing per LS episode or the raid community will fall further and further apart instead of growing.

New fractals that are easy even on T4 without any CM are no help either.

1 raid wing per episode seems quite unbalanced with the rest of the game. If the story patches where at the 2 month cadence I think one each third patch seems fair

One each 3rd patch would be at best every 6 months, sometimes 9+ months. You know as good as me that Anet will never be even close to consistently release a LS episode every 2 months. And even if they could do 6 months for the current wing size of 1 easy boss, 1 hard(ish) boss and 2 boring events is unacceptable for many people. 2-4 months per raid wing would be ideal to keep the raid community alive. Everything else will keep it stagnating at best, probably degenerating like now. Especially if each new expansion does not bring something big such as a new legendary raid armor to look forward to. The ring is not keeping many people interested. The 9+ months to even see the next collection for it is probably killing the rest of any motivation.

I also do not see how it is unbalanced in any way to have a new raid wing every LS episode. The raid wings are already tiny and probably just need a fraction of the development effort they spend on the LS episode itself.

We'll honestly 2-4 months is probably to much for the general community to handle.i agree that expecting arenanet to have ls every 2 months is quite a high hurdle but i consider 7.5 months per wing barely acceptable.

The bigger problem is the not knowing. it probably is also a mayor reason for the decline.

The reason it's unbalanced is because then we would need a new fractal also and a patch for PvP and WvW (i know these last ones now also don't happen but that is what would be balanced) and i don't believe they would be able to sustain that.

What do we not know? We know Anet did not cancel raid development, they are just super slow about it. And 7.5months is unsustainable for groups. In my 1600 LIs I saw many guilds/statics raise and fall again because a lot of people just cannot stay interested if they get nothing new for half a year or more. And when there is something new it is usually so easy that you full clear it on the first week already and after a month you are just working on perfecting the strategy.I really miss having bosses which take dozens of hours to figure out. Even the top groups should not be able to full clear a new raid wing in the first week (unless they were beta testers maybe). But if I recall right even Dhuum CM was beaten on first week.Are you talking about GW2? Because the raid bosses have always been this easy, what changed is that we, the players, figured out how to do sustained damage way above the requirements for each fight and got better at the game on top of that. The average raider from today would be considered a higher tier player back in 2016. Because of that, without a significant difficulty spike in both mechanics complexity or dps checks we won't be seeing any raid wing last more than 48 hours. The fact that Dhuum CM wasn't downed first day is probably because it took longer to figure a comp than actually executing the fight and the fact that some mechanics ij this fight are "hard" because they feel janky af.

Not talking about GW2, but talking about older games I used to play before GW2. It often took quite a while until the newest raid was full cleared for the first time.

There are a lot of reasons why current raids burn raid interested players out, not all will apply to every kind of raider:

• low difficulty, so it gets boring fast
• drops are literally just ascended with skins you might like or not
• missing longterm sinks for magnetite shards, gaets crystals and LI
• achievements are basically all done on first or second clear, none that reward constat raiding except maybe the one for building all 3 armors. How about rewarding full clearing a wing for the 100th time? A collection for all the skins and minis of a raid wing? Lots of possibilities that probably would not cost all that much dev time.
• only one difficulty (with some bosses having a cm you can do once per account, usually not really much harder than nm) for all players
• release cadence becoming worse

Leftover you only have some players that do not have their legendary armor yet or some people who really enjoy the current raids (possible also just because they like the people in their static/guild).

These older games had some different aspects to them that are obsolete now and should stay like this in my opinion. In these older games there was a steep gear gating when it came to raids, some fights were just unbeatable at their release, in some cases they were even outright mathematically impossible to beat even after gearing because nobody bothered with playtesting or at least simulating the fight. Many modern games still have gear progression but content is theoretically clearable from day one with the gear available at that point and according to playtest/simulations. GW2 has this done wrong, we were always fully geared from the get go and the fights are way undertuned for that.

All these things you point I fully agree with, specially CMs, they being repeatable in Fractals but not in Raids seems like a huge mistake in my opinion.

[Malediktus.9250]

Yes, but it seems like having no gear progression is a boon and a problem at the same time. While your stuff never becomes obsolete it will be much harder to encourage people to play specific content (in this case raids). If you do not like the new skins (or just 1-3) a raid wing has to offer you are done with it in no time.Even if you need some LI for the new ring (my guess 100 LI, if lucky 250), it will take only a fraction of the time to earn those than waiting for the new wing.

[zealex.9410]

i think the main problem with raiding in gw2 is the speed they release the content. rewards are ok and difficulty for now is fine.

[Amineo.8951]

Challenge Motes should be repeatable just like in Fractals for lvl99 and lvl100.

[Etheri.5406]

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@Krzysztof.5973 said:With each new week I stand stronger in my conviction that they should make an announcement they officially stop spending resources on raids. It's been 261 days since release of Hall of Chains and 294 days between 4 and 5. The view of waiting another 300 days for Wing 7 makes me get the rope. Community suggested a million ways how to sort this out so the wait would not be so painful. Sometimes the right thing to do is just give up, and maybe that's what Anet should do. It's not working out for them or us. Casual part of the community cant be bothered with raids and veterans like myself who is here since wing 1 release has no reason to stay. I've seen guilds die out because there is no new content to satisfy us. It's the right time to think things through and stop pretending that everything is fine.

Yes, guilds/statics dieing because of slow release cadence is the main problem. There needs to be one new raid wing per LS episode or the raid community will fall further and further apart instead of growing.

New fractals that are easy even on T4 without any CM are no help either.

1 raid wing per episode seems quite unbalanced with the rest of the game. If the story patches where at the 2 month cadence I think one each third patch seems fair

One each 3rd patch would be at best every 6 months, sometimes 9+ months. You know as good as me that Anet will never be even close to consistently release a LS episode every 2 months. And even if they could do 6 months for the current wing size of 1 easy boss, 1 hard(ish) boss and 2 boring events is unacceptable for many people. 2-4 months per raid wing would be ideal to keep the raid community alive. Everything else will keep it stagnating at best, probably degenerating like now. Especially if each new expansion does not bring something big such as a new legendary raid armor to look forward to. The ring is not keeping many people interested. The 9+ months to even see the next collection for it is probably killing the rest of any motivation.

I also do not see how it is unbalanced in any way to have a new raid wing every LS episode. The raid wings are already tiny and probably just need a fraction of the development effort they spend on the LS episode itself.

We'll honestly 2-4 months is probably to much for the general community to handle.i agree that expecting arenanet to have ls every 2 months is quite a high hurdle but i consider 7.5 months per wing barely acceptable.

The bigger problem is the not knowing. it probably is also a mayor reason for the decline.

The reason it's unbalanced is because then we would need a new fractal also and a patch for PvP and WvW (i know these last ones now also don't happen but that is what would be balanced) and i don't believe they would be able to sustain that.

The players saying raid content isn't needed are the same ones saying WvW should be abandonned and PvP should be abandonned. They believe it prioritizes and creates them faster and higher quality LS content. Overall I don't even think this is true - considering howmuch other content we've stopped supporting since HoT and how little content the game has gained to replace it.

Somehow players think it's good for the game to let various minorities and subcommunities die completely because - presumably - they cannot be maintained or aren't the (biggest) target audience... Yet when not much later the gamemode really struggles due to lack of players and groups making the content difficult and less enjoyable even for casual users they realise it screws even then. Or maybe they don't.

I wonder how having many raiders quit, just as many pvp and wvw groups have quit, is a good decision. It makes the return on investment on content which was already developped - like W1 - W5 or like pvp / wvw drastically lower just because we couldn't provide ANY quality updates in ... 9 months for raids, a year + for pvp and wvw. Three living story teams yet clearly providing updates for other aspects of the game takes longer than some mmo's need to create a full expansion.

And expansions? Well those are focussed on the same living story concept too. Mounts were great, specializations were ok, but compared to HoT the amount of content was very very low and the replayability even lower.

[yann.1946]

@Etheri.5406 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@Krzysztof.5973 said:With each new week I stand stronger in my conviction that they should make an announcement they officially stop spending resources on raids. It's been 261 days since release of Hall of Chains and 294 days between 4 and 5. The view of waiting another 300 days for Wing 7 makes me get the rope. Community suggested a million ways how to sort this out so the wait would not be so painful. Sometimes the right thing to do is just give up, and maybe that's what Anet should do. It's not working out for them or us. Casual part of the community cant be bothered with raids and veterans like myself who is here since wing 1 release has no reason to stay. I've seen guilds die out because there is no new content to satisfy us. It's the right time to think things through and stop pretending that everything is fine.

Yes, guilds/statics dieing because of slow release cadence is the main problem. There needs to be one new raid wing per LS episode or the raid community will fall further and further apart instead of growing.

New fractals that are easy even on T4 without any CM are no help either.

1 raid wing per episode seems quite unbalanced with the rest of the game. If the story patches where at the 2 month cadence I think one each third patch seems fair

One each 3rd patch would be at best every 6 months, sometimes 9+ months. You know as good as me that Anet will never be even close to consistently release a LS episode every 2 months. And even if they could do 6 months for the current wing size of 1 easy boss, 1 hard(ish) boss and 2 boring events is unacceptable for many people. 2-4 months per raid wing would be ideal to keep the raid community alive. Everything else will keep it stagnating at best, probably degenerating like now. Especially if each new expansion does not bring something big such as a new legendary raid armor to look forward to. The ring is not keeping many people interested. The 9+ months to even see the next collection for it is probably killing the rest of any motivation.

I also do not see how it is unbalanced in any way to have a new raid wing every LS episode. The raid wings are already tiny and probably just need a fraction of the development effort they spend on the LS episode itself.

We'll honestly 2-4 months is probably to much for the general community to handle.i agree that expecting arenanet to have ls every 2 months is quite a high hurdle but i consider 7.5 months per wing barely acceptable.

The bigger problem is the not knowing. it probably is also a mayor reason for the decline.

The reason it's unbalanced is because then we would need a new fractal also and a patch for PvP and WvW (i know these last ones now also don't happen but that is what would be balanced) and i don't believe they would be able to sustain that.

The players saying raid content isn't needed are the same ones saying WvW should be abandonned and PvP should be abandonned. They believe it prioritizes and creates them faster and higher quality LS content. Overall I don't even think this is true - considering howmuch other content we've stopped supporting since HoT and how little content the game has gained to replace it.

Somehow players think it's good for the game to let various minorities and subcommunities die completely because - presumably - they cannot be maintained or aren't the (biggest) target audience... Yet when not much later the gamemode really struggles due to lack of players and groups making the content difficult and less enjoyable even for casual users they realise it screws even then. Or maybe they don't.

I wonder how having many raiders quit, just as many pvp and wvw groups have quit, is a good decision. It makes the return on investment on content which was already developped - like W1 - W5 or like pvp / wvw drastically lower just because we couldn't provide ANY quality updates in ... 9 months for raids, a year + for pvp and wvw. Three living story teams yet clearly providing updates for other aspects of the game takes longer than some mmo's need to create a full expansion.

And expansions? Well those are focussed on the same living story concept too. Mounts were great, specializations were ok, but compared to HoT the amount of content was very very low and the replayability even lower.

While I agree on the point that not giving an update in as long as they have is a problem for the game modes. And the game as a whole. How would you split the resources then?

I am not saying I wouldn't enjoy some more raid content but I can't see a way to give that without screwing some part of the game over.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Etheri.5406" said:

Somehow players think it's good for the game to let various minorities and subcommunities die completely because - presumably - they cannot be maintained or aren't the (biggest) target audience...I'm not the one claiming the raid community cannot be maintained at the current release schedule. Some raiders are. The truth is, at their popularity level, raids won't get more resources to themselves. So, if the current level is still too small to sustain that mode, then there are only two alternatives to solve that problem. First is to cut the losses now, instead of trying to extend the agony and wasting resources on something that's going to die anyway. Second is to try to expand the community enough that it new size would justify more resources - that however would almost certainly require lowering challenge level. All of that however is true only if the premise (current release schedule is slowly killing raids) is true as well. And if the premise is false, then we don't have a problem.

Yet when not much later the gamemode really struggles due to lack of players and groups making the content difficult and less enjoyable even for casual users they realise it screws even then. Or maybe they don't.It's the other way around. It's when casuals get disouraged, and suddenly population in a mode plummets, only then hardcore players start complaining they have noone to play with.

I wonder how having many raiders quit, just as many pvp and wvw groups have quit, is a good decision.Probably none. Having them quit and not quit is not however the choice devs make. The choice is not on whether they should support players, but which players they should support. No matter the choice, somebody's going to quit over it after all. So, does it make sense, then, to sacrifice the core game population to keep some of the niche players or should it be the other way around? The answer is "it depends on how many we'd sacrifice from each group" - and only Anet knows the real numbers here.

Just so you know, though (and to address the rest of your post i have not quoted here) - new raid wings do not even make a blimp on income numbers. Expansions however are very noticeable.

[Malediktus.9250]

@Astralporing.1957 said:Just so you know, though (and to address the rest of your post i have not quoted here) - new raid wings do not even make a blimp on income numbers. Expansions however are very noticeable.

Yes, that is obvous because everyone is forced to buy the expansion if they want to get access to future content and raids are included the package. Just like stuff like precursor journeys they abandoned out of lazyness.You cannot play W1-4 without owning HoT. You cannot play W5-Wx without owning PoF.I would not mind if they would sell raids as DLC if that would mean much more frequent or considerably larger raid wings, but I doubt Anet will change their business model on that.

[Blaeys.3102]

a. Raids are side content that, in the developers' own statements, are designed for a smaller percentage of players. They have indicated they have no interest in changing that.

b. The resources do not exist to even get living story and open world (both of which are designed for the community as a whole) out in a timely manner.

c. Any new resources would logically need to be dedicated to open world - there is even an argument to be made for moving some of the existing raid/fractal resources to that content to improve its pacing/quality.

d. Even the raids that they are putting out now are typically completed for the first time a few hours after they are released and by most serious raiders within a few day. By trying to split the difficulty/engagement difference for the group they do target, they have to water them down to the point of making them nothing more than a short math problem.

Since the very beginning, a small group of us on these forums have made the point that as long as raid design is geared toward such a small subsegment of the playerbase, they wont be able to justify the resources to maintain the pacing that would appeal to raiders from other games (especially WOW, where raids are considered integral to the story/progression/playtime). And, without that pacing (which would be majorly unrealistic in this game), interest in raids, even from the hardcore raiders, will diminish significantly over time.

They even took the step of adding exclusive legendary armor to try and force interest from more people - and, while it worked for a period, it eventually became just another grind (people buying raids/achievements - rather than playing the content - to complete).

Raids, in there current form, are what we are all stuck with for the foreseeable future. And, given Anet's track record with other subeset focused content like this in the past (ever-changing living world, guild missions, esports, legendary weapon quests, etc), I think there is real potential new development in that area could (maybe even should)eventually just go away altogether.

[Malediktus.9250]

@Blaeys.3102 said:b. The resources do not exist to even get living story and open world (both of which are designed for the community as a whole) out in a timely manner.

I believe Anet is just horrible in using their resources instead of not having them. Part of that might be their broken spaghetti code and all but it is their fault that it is the way it is anyway, so I am not taking that as an excuse. As a multi million dollar business they definitely will not get any empathy from me for their own mistakes.

[Etheri.5406]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Etheri.5406" said:

Somehow players think it's good for the game to let various minorities and subcommunities die completely because - presumably - they cannot be maintained or aren't the (biggest) target audience...I'm not the one claiming the raid community cannot be maintained at the current release schedule. Some

raiders

are. The truth is, at their popularity level, raids won't get more resources to themselves. So, if the current level is still too small to sustain that mode, then there are only two alternatives to solve that problem. First is to cut the losses now, instead of trying to extend the agony and wasting resources on something that's going to die anyway. Second is to try to expand the community enough that it new size would justify more resources - that however would almost certainly require lowering challenge level. All of that however is true

only

if the premise (current release schedule is slowly killing raids) is true as well. And if the premise is false, then we

don't

have a problem.

Yet when not much later the gamemode really struggles due to lack of players and groups making the content difficult and less enjoyable even for casual users they realise it screws even then. Or maybe they don't.It's the other way around. It's when casuals get disouraged, and suddenly population in a mode plummets, only then hardcore players start complaining they have noone to play with.

I wonder how having many raiders quit, just as many pvp and wvw groups have quit, is a good decision.Probably none. Having them quit and not quit is not however the choice devs make. The choice is not on whether they should support players, but which players they should support. No matter the choice, somebody's going to quit over it after all. So, does it make sense, then, to sacrifice the core game population to keep some of the niche players or should it be the other way around? The answer is "it depends on how many we'd sacrifice from each group" - and only Anet knows the real numbers here.

Just so you know, though (and to address the rest of your post i have not quoted here) - new raid wings do not even make a blimp on income numbers. Expansions however are very noticeable.

Take a look from the other side.

You paid a lot of money creating content. You already paid this. It creates value for your game. Players who enjoy this type of content do other stuff, players who enjoy other types of content dabble into raids and the interaction makes BOTH contents more valuable, enjoyable and played.

Or you create the content, then do nothing in order to maintain it which quickly means rather than having years of revenue of earlier created content, this revenue stream quickly shrinks as the content dies off. Sound familiar? "PvP side project wvw side project pve side project guilds side project legendaries side project..." All of them abandonned yet did at any time we get drastically quicker or significantly more content somewhere else? Not even that.

You have a river with 2 bridges. You ALREADY built both bridges. They're quite literally there. But one of them is the smaller bridge, which was built with less budget and serves a smaller town. Money is required to maintain both bridges. You say "hey, this bridge is bigger and suits more people so clearly it's the most important. We should abandon the other one". The other bridge collapses and the costs made to build it dont even repay itself. This isn't "logical decisionmaking". It's shooting yourself in the foot.

Sound familiar? Just kidding I'm sure developping stronghold was free. I'm sure developping guild halls was free. I'm sure PvP and WvW were created for free. Oh wait they weren't - and they could have been far, far more valuable modes for the game had they not been abandonned and underfunded very early on. Creating content is by definition, always, an investment. How good do you think PoF content or HoT content would be if they had done NO updates to it afterwards, ever? If almost all the players that enjoyed this would have not received a SINGLE update since? Would it be worth the money it cost to produce? I doubt it.

Except where, for any aspect of hte game that isn't the dominant majority we'll pretend it's logical. IF you are correct, that they do not have the funds to maintain a healthy raid population then that's frankly quite alarming. Personally I think they're ... optimizing profits for a game approaching it's "lategame" ;)

[maddoctor.2738]

I'm a bit confused at those asking for a specific Raid release, like one wing per 2 months, 4 months or whatever else length of time you choose, when the rest of the game doesn't have a fixed release schedule either. Let's say that we go with 1 wing per 4 months. It took them 3 and a half months to release Long Live the Lich and another 3+ months to release A Bug in the System. Asking for Raids to have a fixed release schedule is futile, it won't happen.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Just so you know, though (and to address the rest of your post i have not quoted here) - new raid wings do not even make a blimp on income numbers. Expansions however are very noticeable.

Well to be fair, episode releases don't make a blimp on income numbers either, unless they are followed by a gem store skin update. Same goes with everything else they release, it's not there to make them money, it's there to keep players interested so they can invest money on the gem store updates. Content in between expansions is free and doesn't bring any money, but could they scrap the episodes and release only expansions? I don't think that would be a good move. The idea of content is to keep players in the game, so they see the gem store ads and buy those shinnies, that's why they need a good balance of content, to keep as many of their players busy as possible. The next step is to see which type of player is more likely to buy gem store items and focus on releasing more content for them instead.

[Blaeys.3102]

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@Blaeys.3102 said:b. The resources do not exist to even get living story and open world (both of which are designed for the community as a whole) out in a timely manner.

I believe Anet is just horrible in using their resources instead of not having them. Part of that might be their broken spaghetti code and all but it is their fault that it is the way it is anyway, so I am not taking that as an excuse. As a multi million dollar business they definitely will not get any empathy from me for their own mistakes.

Either way, the end result is the same. The resources required to bring raids in line with, or even close to, what we see in other games are not there - and even if they were, there are other areas of the game that need more attention right now.

[Torolan.5816]

@Etheri.5406 said:The players saying raid content isn't needed are the same ones saying WvW should be abandonned and PvP should be abandonned. They believe it prioritizes and creates them faster and higher quality LS content. Overall I don't even think this is true - considering howmuch other content we've stopped supporting since HoT and how little content the game has gained to replace it.

Somehow players think it's good for the game to let various minorities and subcommunities die completely because - presumably - they cannot be maintained or aren't the (biggest) target audience... Yet when not much later the gamemode really struggles due to lack of players and groups making the content difficult and less enjoyable even for casual users they realise it screws even then. Or maybe they don't.

I wonder how having many raiders quit, just as many pvp and wvw groups have quit, is a good decision. It makes the return on investment on content which was already developped - like W1 - W5 or like pvp / wvw drastically lower just because we couldn't provide ANY quality updates in ... 9 months for raids, a year + for pvp and wvw. Three living story teams yet clearly providing updates for other aspects of the game takes longer than some mmo's need to create a full expansion.

And expansions? Well those are focussed on the same living story concept too. Mounts were great, specializations were ok, but compared to HoT the amount of content was very very low and the replayability even lower.

I agree with being skeptic that if Anet abandons a form of content, another content will get propped up by default. That is always a conscious decision, and someone from the accounting department may very well prevail with the idea that less paycheck means more money and the ls system is running anyway.

I only partly agree with the rest of the post. I like WvW, have always been indifferent to PvP and have come to be indifferent to raids after the introduction of wvw legendary armor, so not everyone is up for the marginalization of all content beside ls.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Etheri.5406 said:You have a river with 2 bridges. You ALREADY built both bridges. They're quite literally there. But one of them is the smaller bridge, which was built with less budget and serves a smaller town. Money is required to maintain both bridges. You say "hey, this bridge is bigger and suits more people so clearly it's the most important. We should abandon the other one". The other bridge collapses and the costs made to build it dont even repay itself. This isn't "logical decisionmaking". It's shooting yourself in the foot.That's fallacy of the sunken cost. By the reasoning given by some people above, unless there are a ton more resources assigned to it, the bridge will collapse anyway. And the resources required to maintain it so it won't collapse just aren't there. As such, do you really want to spend more money on it? Especially if only a small amount of people use that bridge anyway? Or would you rather prop up the other bridge, or build a completely new one?

@Etheri.5406 said:Creating content is by definition, always, an investment.Yes, but a good number of businesses went down exactly by pouring money in investments they already knew wouldn't pay back, because they were unwilling to let them go.

So, if raids are unsustainable unless they receive massively more resources they already have, they do have to go. As soon as possible.Unless, of course, the premise is false.

IF you are correct, that they do not have the funds to maintain a healthy raid population then that's frankly quite alarming.No, that's expected. Pure raiders for the most part are an unsustainable community unless the game is really raid-heavy and most of the resources are given to them. And sometimes not even then. Basically, if you're in GW2 only to raid, and expect to get the content up on par with the core one, you missed the memo saying that's not a primarily raid game. You're expected to play other content in between raids, not just stick to them and only them. If you expected anything more, that's on you, not Anet - they never promised you they would go raid-heavy.

[felincyriac.5981]

GW2 is a more of a "filler" MMO, you log in when they release some new content, maybe that gives you about week or 2 of entertainment then you go back to your "main" MMO or whatever other game for 3-4 months and repeat the cycle. The gear progression fits in with this.

[Etheri.5406]

@Torolan.5816 said:

@Etheri.5406 said:The players saying raid content isn't needed are the same ones saying WvW should be abandonned and PvP should be abandonned. They believe it prioritizes and creates them faster and higher quality LS content. Overall I don't even think this is true - considering howmuch other content we've stopped supporting since HoT and how little content the game has gained to replace it.

Somehow players think it's good for the game to let various minorities and subcommunities die completely because - presumably - they cannot be maintained or aren't the (biggest) target audience... Yet when not much later the gamemode really struggles due to lack of players and groups making the content difficult and less enjoyable even for casual users they realise it screws even then. Or maybe they don't.

I wonder how having many raiders quit, just as many pvp and wvw groups have quit, is a good decision. It makes the return on investment on content which was already developped - like W1 - W5 or like pvp / wvw drastically lower just because we couldn't provide ANY quality updates in ... 9 months for raids, a year + for pvp and wvw. Three living story teams yet clearly providing updates for other aspects of the game takes longer than some mmo's need to create a full expansion.

And expansions? Well those are focussed on the same living story concept too. Mounts were great, specializations were ok, but compared to HoT the amount of content was very very low and the replayability even lower.

I agree with being skeptic that if Anet abandons a form of content, another content will get propped up by default. That is always a conscious decision, and someone from the accounting department may very well prevail with the idea that less paycheck means more money and the ls system is running anyway.

I only partly agree with the rest of the post. I like WvW, have always been indifferent to PvP and have come to be indifferent to raids after the introduction of wvw legendary armor, so not everyone is up for the marginalization of all content beside ls.

That is my point tho. Most players benefit from having content beside LS be qualitatively good. Yet WvW RELIES on its communities... which mostly left or are at the very least struggling. I think WvW as a product has drastically gotten worse due to the neglect it suffered over the last years. I think the same is true for PvP and currently for raids. The amount of groups on LFG are less and fewer in between. Finding players appropriate for your groups is harder and harder, especially during off-prime times which is a cycle that fuels itself.

And as these players leave - there is less funding which means less content overall. Never more. WvW was said to be unsustainable and the majority of players play and pay for PvE. It lost major parts of its population, resulting in even less funding, resulting in even less population, and resulting in all other content losing value as part of the total package too. We're doing that for... everything at this point yet somehow players still say everything is fine. No reasons to be alarmed or worry. It's great!

Or is it?

[Astralporing.1957]

@Etheri.5406 said:And as these players leave - there is less funding which means less content overall. Never more. WvW was said to be unsustainable and the majority of players play and pay for PvE. It lost major parts of its population, resulting in even less funding, resulting in even less population, and resulting in all other content losing value as part of the total package too. We're doing that for... everything at this point yet somehow players still say everything is fine. No reasons to be alarmed or worry. It's great!

Or is it?What is you solution, then? There's a limited amount of resources. There won't be more, so the only way to give more resources to some content is to take it away from others. Bearing that in mind, exactly how do you think they should divide that? Which content needs to suffer in order to give raids (and WvW, and SPvP) more resources?

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:What is you solution, then? There's a limited amount of resources. There won't be more, so the only way to give more resources to some content is to take it away from others. Bearing that in mind, exactly how do you think they should divide that? Which content needs to suffer in order to give raids (and WvW, and SPvP) more resources?

I can tell you my own "solution":We can all deduce that they have a very large number of artists, given how many new weapon sets, outfits and mount skins we get all the time, so that's the major resource problem right there. One "solution" is to tone down the amount of gem store skins and focus more on gameplay development (on all aspects of the game)To answer your question: the content that needs to suffer in order to give more varied content, is the gem store.

"Then how are they going to make more money?" is a valid question and the solution is by getting new players to play the game. There has been little to no effort in updating the game, the tutorials need to explain more, things like combos and break bars need to be explained. The early story experience is still bad, at level 2 you can't even access your story and there is little feedback on why. The game engine is still terrible and newer players with powerful machines see the lack of performance and leave. The free to play is very restrictive, and honestly I find that version of the game not fun at all. Those that start late have to pay extra to unlock seasons, the story makes no sense to them and in general find the game confusing and leave.

There are loads more that need to be improved in the early game to get more players playing the game. Releasing new gem store skins all the time to satisfy the veteran players, means having a very large artist team to provide that content with the pace we get. On the other hand, for new players everything that is on the gem store is brand new, so if there is an influx of new players, new gem store additions aren't as important anymore. For a new player, every single outfit is new and he is a potential customer for all of them. And how do we get new players to play the game? By offering diverse content to entice different types of players, and by having an early experience that is up to the rest of the game's standards.

[zealex.9410]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:What is you solution, then? There's a limited amount of resources. There won't be more, so the only way to give more resources to some content is to take it away from others. Bearing that in mind, exactly how do

you

think they should divide that? Which content needs to suffer in order to give raids (and WvW, and SPvP) more resources?

I can tell you my own "solution":We can all deduce that they have a very large number of artists, given how many new weapon sets, outfits and mount skins we get all the time, so that's the major resource problem right there. One "solution" is to tone down the amount of gem store skins and focus more on gameplay development (on all aspects of the game)To answer your question: the content that needs to suffer in order to give more varied content, is the gem store.

"Then how are they going to make more money?" is a valid question and the solution is by getting new players to play the game. There has been little to no effort in updating the game, the tutorials need to explain more, things like combos and break bars need to be explained. The early story experience is still bad, at level 2 you can't even access your story and there is little feedback on why. The game engine is still terrible and newer players with powerful machines see the lack of performance and leave. The free to play is very restrictive, and honestly I find that version of the game not fun at all. Those that start late have to pay extra to unlock seasons, the story makes no sense to them and in general find the game confusing and leave.

There are loads more that need to be improved in the early game to get more players playing the game. Releasing new gem store skins all the time to satisfy the veteran players, means having a very large artist team to provide that content with the pace we get. On the other hand, for new players everything that is on the gem store is brand new, so if there is an influx of new players, new gem store additions aren't as important anymore. For a new player, every single outfit is new and he is a potential customer for all of them. And how do we get new players to play the game? By offering diverse content to entice different types of players, and by having an early experience that is up to the rest of the game's standards.

A pass on the new player experience would be nice.

[Malediktus.9250]

@maddoctor.2738 said:I'm a bit confused at those asking for a specific Raid release, like one wing per 2 months, 4 months or whatever else length of time you choose, when the rest of the game doesn't have a fixed release schedule either. Let's say that we go with 1 wing per 4 months. It took them 3 and a half months to release Long Live the Lich and another 3+ months to release A Bug in the System. Asking for Raids to have a fixed release schedule is futile, it won't happen.

But they gave a clear time window of 2-3 months per living story episode. And the new map alone without the ~3 story instances per LS is already like 10 times larger than a raid wing.And I would say the LS episodes are wasted dev resources. Offer a few hours of new lore and achievements then you visit them never again because farming the map currency via WvW and PvP reward tracks is (despite the shortcomings of those game modes) more fun.

[ButterPeanut.9746]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Etheri.5406 said:And as these players leave - there is less funding which means less content overall. Never more. WvW was said to be unsustainable and the majority of players play and pay for PvE. It lost major parts of its population, resulting in even less funding, resulting in even less population, and resulting in all other content losing value as part of the total package too. We're doing that for... everything at this point yet somehow players still say everything is fine. No reasons to be alarmed or worry. It's great!

Or is it?What is you solution, then? There's a limited amount of resources. There won't be more, so the only way to give more resources to some content is to take it away from others. Bearing that in mind, exactly how do

you

think they should divide that? Which content needs to suffer in order to give raids (and WvW, and SPvP) more resources?

While I think the question you are asking is the perfect one and there definitely is a finite amount of resources, saying there couldn't be more is untrue. The expectation of a consumer and a company is that with increased profits comes increased resources. If the argument that most folks use is that the development resources will be assigned based how much money they make from that investment, then I would also expect to see them hire more people

[Astralporing.1957]

@ButterPeanut.9746 said:While I think the question you are asking is the perfect one and there definitely is a finite amount of resources, saying there couldn't be more is untrue. The expectation of a consumer and a company is that with increased profits comes increased resources. If the argument that most folks use is that the development resources will be assigned based how much money they make from that investment, then I would also expect to see them hire more peopleOnly if hiring more people would pay for itself. You seem to think it would. I think, that if the content was really generating that big of a a positive income, they'd have started investing in more resources for it long ago.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:Only if hiring more people would pay for itself. You seem to think it would. I think, that if the content was really generating that big of a a positive income, they'd have started investing in more resources for it long ago.

The content isn't generating positive income because last I checked all the content in the game (outside expansions) is free. So, they go the easy way and entice their current player base again and again to buy shinnies from the gem store. You know what else is finite, other than their resources? Customer money. There are two ways for them to make money, keep squeezing their current players, or for a change, try to find new customers.