Where is the PvE game heading?

[Ashantara.8731]

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:Do you mean quests like Knight of the Thorn?

Yes, that sort of thing would be most welcome. :)

I agree on people quitting GW2 for the aforementioned reasons. My main guild is basically dead as no one was longer interested in repeating the same content over and over again (guild missions, fractals, raids). One officer tried to re-motivate people by creating a scavenger hunt in the guild hall, but you can't do that every month when you have a real life - also, if you have to create pseudo-content to keep people's spirits up, that says a lot about the game.

[kharmin.7683]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

4.) pve will grow stale. The only games who have successfully staved this off are ones with a dynamic world or player made content (Eve Online) or ones who force people to constantly regrind (FF14, WoW, etc.) or both (ESO). GW2 answer to this should be WvW, but that game mode needs a lot of love and new content and designGosh, I hope not. I despise WvW and am glad that I am not forced into doing it.

[Fallesafe.5932]

@Talindra.4958 said:I am just curious with where we are at with the game and where is it heading?I mean for pve. Pve contents split to normal world content where everyone can participate , 10 men raids and 5 men fractal/ dungeon, which dungeon is almost dead with no future update plans. To be honest, I am quite tired and bored with the small group challenge contents (raids and fractal cm). Many of my friends are on the same boat and many have quit. :(Look around you in your game and tell me your experience.. your in game friends, have they moved on? I find it hard to maintain a good friend circle for longer than 6 months with this game content. In the early days, when we had many updates for pve (exclude raids) we had friends around the world.. good for many years until raids came. tell me if you are experiencing the same. I just feel a little sad to see where the game is moving. I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on. I just feel that the game we had before raids were so much more relaxing to play with and people are friendlier. we lost that community.. if we cam make the game more relaxing to play with more open world content like the living story before and mini side games with new dungeon/fractals it will be awesome. and btw I feel that the mistlock doesn't really help to make fractal any interesting. This is just how I feel :) tell us your story and your thinking.oh and yes not forgetting PvP and WvW, i would like to see update on that part of the game mode too.

I agree with you. The game is boring. I quit for six months, and only log on anymore to chat with my brother over Discord when he has a chance to play. I have every item I could possibly get, or want, or need. I'll never get a single piece of loot that has any real impact on my gameplay again. And, I have only three possibilities for PvE content:

1) Mindless open world events where success is guaranteed, and the loot is garbage that I just delete and sell to vendors

2) Fractals that I've done hundreds of times already, and am sick and tired of.

3) The pure stomach-acid of PUG raiding... where I wont even get any loot that's a meaningful improvement over what I already have.

I've been playing MMO's since the late '90s. And I've NEVER played a game where I hit the wall this hard before. There's literally nothing compelling to do. And I have no reason to log on anymore unless there's somebody to talk to over voice chat.

[sorudo.9054]

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

@"sorudo.9054" said:for me, all they need to do is add quests and we're done, and no, hearts are miles from being quests replacers and DE's are more annoying side events then quest replacers.

Do you mean quests like Knight of the Thorn? Or the collections that have you do a series of related tasks? Or is there something more specific you want quests to be?

quests as in you need to help ppl with specific things throughout the world, possibly with a whole side story as consequence.when i see someone saying "but we have achievements" as an excuse i wonder how far ppl have fallen from true RPG, i don't want to collect X of Y like achievements do ( even while that's exactly why Anet doesn't want quests, all they did was making ppl to do exactly the same but without story or reason) but what i really want is a story driven world where ppl need help in all kind of ways.

it just frustrates me, Anet keeps on adding hearts which are (ironically) heartless time fillers while stubbornly keeping quests out of games.the instance stories are just minor time wasters that barely adds anything, some LS's are even frustrating because they just don't hurry up with boring dialogs and pointless pauses. (like everyone already finished talking but the story only continues till that one NPC arrives......)

a small example for a quest without it being generic:an asura had to flee because some ogre's stormed his lab while doing experiments, he just wants his tools back but it's still in the lab.all you need to do is go to the cave (which is an instance without loading screen, play SWTOR heroic missions to know what i mean) and gather the tools, but you find out that he has bit experimenting with ogre's to make them smarter.the worst part is that he actually succeeded but didn't anticipate that ogre's have a primal call to scream for help, now the smart ogre wants to "smarten" his species.to go even further, the asura fled and gathered his friends to kill the ogre, you in turn figure out that he partly works with the inquests.the ogre explains that he wants to develop a society with smart ogre's, eventually making a race to be recon with. (and maybe even go to war)

this story can go forever but you get the point, just this small side quests keeps you busy for hours and enriches the game.no hearts, no DE's, no achievements, just quests.

[MetalGirl.2370]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Remember, before Raids were introduced, the game experienced a long period of content drought. And, ever since then, we have had pretty regular content releases.

The only reason there was content drought before expansions was because they announced expansions and were working on raiding. Before that we had story every 2 weeks. Which just means that before raids were in the game they had time to work on actual content, now that there are raids we get less pve content - storywise and in LW maps.

Most of the models for raid bosses are new and made for the raids and they have new attack patterns, meanwhile in open world, we get copy-paste mobs with different color and size. It's all just copy-paste and they don't care

[Ardent Heretic.8216]

@"sorudo.9054" said:

a small example for a quest without it being generic:an asura had to flee because some ogre's stormed his lab while doing experiments, he just wants his tools back but it's still in the lab.all you need to do is go to the cave (which is an instance without loading screen, play SWTOR heroic missions to know what i mean) and gather the tools, but you find out that he has bit experimenting with ogre's to make them smarter.the worst part is that he actually succeeded but didn't anticipate that ogre's have a primal call to scream for help, now the smart ogre wants to "smarten" his species.to go even further, the asura fled and gathered his friends to kill the ogre, you in turn figure out that he partly works with the inquests.the ogre explains that he wants to develop a society with smart ogre's, eventually making a race to be recon with. (and maybe even go to war)

this story can go forever but you get the point, just this small side quests keeps you busy for hours and enriches the game.no hearts, no DE's, no achievements, just quests.

From what I am understanding, it sounds like you want Side Quests, or as it would be in GW2, "Side Stories." Note that we already have quest lines like what you describe in the forms of Personal Story and Living Story, the latter of which is updated as often as resources allow.

Side content like this requires a TON of development resources which anet's non-subscription model does not support; they would rather just get you the main content as frequently as possible. Trust me- I would love some extras too, but not at the cost of slowing main content.

But, anet came up with a way to add quest-like systems on the side which don't cost many resources: through the existing achievement system. Some "Achievements" require you to go on a journey and complete tasks or find hidden parts of the world. They even feature storyline elements if you take the time to read them and apply them to what you are doing.

I recently completed an amazingly fun side quest where I tamed a wild spirit, raised a raven chick, and bound them together to become my personal familiar, even gaining access to a powerful legendary staff in the process. Would I have loved a cinematic or in-game scene to tie everything together? Absolutely. But requiring those resources might have kept that quest from ever appearing in the game at all.

@MetalGirl.2370 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Remember, before Raids were introduced, the game experienced a long period of content drought. And, ever since then, we have had pretty regular content releases.

The only reason there was content drought before expansions was because they announced expansions and were working on raiding. Before that we had story every 2 weeks. Which just means that before raids were in the game they had time to work on actual content, now that there are raids we get less pve content - storywise and in LW maps.

Most of the models for raid bosses are new and made for the raids and they have new attack patterns, meanwhile in open world, we get copy-paste mobs with different color and size. It's all just copy-paste and they don't care

I highly doubt raids are to blame for this. That "every 2 weeks" cadence was never a year-round endeavor, and unlike recent releases were not intended to be accessible after the 2 week window closed. I'd much rather have a new map and big lasting changes on a regular but slower cadence than a burst of playable weeks followed by nothing.

[Blude.6812]

I am just going to reply to the OP-with how I feel the game is going--slowly moving to a Pay system, even more (useless) fashion wars, and extended grind.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

These "quests" you want sounds an awful lot like what happens in the Core game. Yes there should be more of that (there is an equal amount of dead space in the maps as there are other things), but its impossible to not have them tied to collections as the achievements is what the whole game is based around. Quests in any sense in any game is a check list. However there is plenty of continuity in this game that does tie content from maps to others without being part of a collection or check box. Its kind of a quest but the reward is that you noticed how they flow into each other.

GW2 doesn't have the boldness to bring out the kind of content (maybe a load of maps to just add to core) that it had at launch without some price tag attached to it. It doesn't seem to be the right game to do those kinds of things anyways.

[mauried.5608]

Basically the thrust of these types of posts isAnet keeps adding stuff to the game that I dont like , and not adding stuff that I do like .Lets now apply this complaint to all players.Or Anet should not add any new content to the game unless ALL players will like it.

[Tasty Pudding.3764]

@mauried.5608 said:Basically the thrust of these types of posts isAnet keeps adding stuff to the game that I dont like , and not adding stuff that I do like .Lets now apply this complaint to all players.Or Anet should not add any new content to the game unless ALL players will like it.

I think you are right about this but are drawing the wrong conclusion. In trying to make something for everyone, Anet is spreading itself too thin and the content ends up being too shallow and too slow to produce. I would prefer a return to a more niche product like gw1 where they could produce a whole campaign worth of pve and pvp content in 6 months with a smaller staff.

And yes, a significant part of being spread too thin is development time spent on gem store items. Return to buy to play content and get rid of the gem store!

[Ze Dos Cavalos.6132]

Guild wars 2 endgame is the gemstore.If anet rly needs money they should just make a guild wars mobile and be done with it..What?Don't you guys have phones?

[maddoctor.2738]

@MetalGirl.2370 said:The only reason there was content drought before expansions was because they announced expansions and were working on raiding. Before that we had story every 2 weeks. Which just means that before raids were in the game they had time to work on actual content, now that there are raids we get less pve content - storywise and in LW maps.

The reason there was a content drought before Heart of Thorns was because up until a certain point they weren't even sure they'd make expansions. Expansions aren't done in a month or two and to finish Heart of Thorns in a reasonable time frame they had to allocate everyone to it. Further, we don't get less PVE content, that's absurd, we get way more content now than we ever did. 2 weeks to press F to pay respects and fix signs and a 2-min story instance, compared to 2-3 months for an entire new map with multi-part story missions, new collections and a whole lot of improvements to the game. That we never got during the 2-week period.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"sorudo.9054" said:an asura had to flee because some ogre's stormed his lab while doing experiments, he just wants his tools back but it's still in the lab. all you need to do is go to the cave (which is an instance without loading screen, play SWTOR heroic missions to know what i mean) and gather the tools, but you find out that he has bit experimenting with ogre's to make them smarter.the worst part is that he actually succeeded but didn't anticipate that ogre's have a primal call to scream for help, now the smart ogre wants to "smarten" his species.to go even further, the asura fled and gathered his friends to kill the ogre, you in turn figure out that he partly works with the inquests.the ogre explains that he wants to develop a society with smart ogre's, eventually making a race to be recon with. (and maybe even go to war)

If you go to the south end of Lornar's Pass you can find an event chain similar to the one you outlined there... at least up to the partly working with the inquest bit. It gets overblown and unnecessary at that point, for an online setting.

no hearts, no DE's, no achievements, just quests.

Quests are dumb for an online setting because they are a one-off deal and they don't mix well with other people. I don't want to see that kind of crap from "traditional RPGs" in an online game ever again. You can't join your friends to play a story because you aren't at the correct "step" or some other nonsense found in traditional questing. This isn't a single player game, playing with others easily is what events have in advantage over quests. Further, the majority of mmorpg quests are Fetch, Kill, Defend or Escort, all those are done infinite times better in the GW2 system.

[kharmin.7683]

@maddoctor.2738 said:Further, the majority of mmorpg quests are Fetch, Kill, Defend or Escort, all those are done infinite times better in the GW2 system.+1I can't really count how many times I've been running around and stumbled across an escort and jumped in.

[MetalGirl.2370]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

The reason there was a content drought before Heart of Thorns was because up until a certain point they weren't even sure they'd make expansions. Expansions aren't done in a month or two and to finish Heart of Thorns in a reasonable time frame they had to allocate everyone to it. Further, we don't get less PVE content, that's absurd, we get way more content now than we ever did. 2 weeks to press F to pay respects and fix signs and a 2-min story instance, compared to 2-3 months for an entire new map with multi-part story missions, new collections and a whole lot of improvements to the game. That we never got during the 2-week period.

Content drought was after they started hinting and announcing expansion.Second, the sign fixing was back in either 2012 or 2013 (that was literally first episode of LW), so way before the lack of content, and even if we did look at specifically then - even that was more fun because soon after we got Molten Facility dungeon which people loved and farmed loads. We had SW which brought loads of content at a time and people very much liked and enjoyed it and also liked the fact that SW is not set on a timer. Now we have everything on timers and barely any content coming every 3 months. I run story within 2 hours and I'm done with achievements in 2 days at most. Maybe it's better for you if you play less than I do but to someone like me with almost 14.000 hours it's worse now with 3 months than it was with 2 weeks, back then I had something to look forward to with every patch and there was something new to do more often than now.

basically - I'd rather have a medium sized bag of chips once every 2 weeks than a large one once every 3 months. And if I calculate how many bags I've eaten every 2 weeks for 3 months, it'd be more than the large one I'd get once every 3 months. - I guess that sums it up

[sorudo.9054]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"sorudo.9054" said:an asura had to flee because some ogre's stormed his lab while doing experiments, he just wants his tools back but it's still in the lab. all you need to do is go to the cave (which is an instance without loading screen, play SWTOR heroic missions to know what i mean) and gather the tools, but you find out that he has bit experimenting with ogre's to make them smarter.the worst part is that he actually succeeded but didn't anticipate that ogre's have a primal call to scream for help, now the smart ogre wants to "smarten" his species.to go even further, the asura fled and gathered his friends to kill the ogre, you in turn figure out that he partly works with the inquests.the ogre explains that he wants to develop a society with smart ogre's, eventually making a race to be recon with. (and maybe even go to war)

If you go to the south end of Lornar's Pass you can find an event chain similar to the one you outlined there... at least up to the partly working with the inquest bit. It gets overblown and unnecessary at that point, for an online setting.

no hearts, no DE's, no achievements, just quests.

Quests are dumb for an online setting because they are a one-off deal and they don't mix well with other people. I don't want to see that kind of kitten from "traditional RPGs" in an online game ever again. You can't join your friends to play a story because you aren't at the correct "step" or some other nonsense found in traditional questing. This isn't a single player game, playing with others easily is what events have in advantage over quests. Further, the majority of mmorpg quests are Fetch, Kill, Defend or Escort, all those are done infinite times better in the GW2 system.

and this is exactly why GW2 is empty and shallow, because ppl like you seriously think GW2 is doing so well it can do without actual story and time filling quests.

[Sephylon.4938]

@sorudo.9054 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:an asura had to flee because some ogre's stormed his lab while doing experiments, he just wants his tools back but it's still in the lab. all you need to do is go to the cave (which is an instance without loading screen, play SWTOR heroic missions to know what i mean) and gather the tools, but you find out that he has bit experimenting with ogre's to make them smarter.the worst part is that he actually succeeded but didn't anticipate that ogre's have a primal call to scream for help, now the smart ogre wants to "smarten" his species.to go even further, the asura fled and gathered his friends to kill the ogre, you in turn figure out that he partly works with the inquests.the ogre explains that he wants to develop a society with smart ogre's, eventually making a race to be recon with. (and maybe even go to war)

If you go to the south end of Lornar's Pass you can find an event chain similar to the one you outlined there... at least up to the partly working with the inquest bit. It gets overblown and unnecessary at that point, for an online setting.

no hearts, no DE's, no achievements, just quests.

Quests are dumb for an online setting because they are a one-off deal and they don't mix well with other people. I don't want to see that kind of kitten from "traditional RPGs" in an online game ever again. You can't join your friends to play a story because you aren't at the correct "step" or some other nonsense found in traditional questing. This isn't a single player game, playing with others easily is what events have in advantage over quests. Further, the majority of mmorpg quests are Fetch, Kill, Defend or Escort, all those are done infinite times better in the GW2 system.

and this is exactly why GW2 is empty and shallow, because ppl like you seriously think GW2 is doing so well it can do without actual story and time filling quests.

Except it isn't empty and there are still alot of people running around doing random things, and a whole lot more doing meta event farms

[SkyShroud.2865]

Gw2 is a content base game. In other words, it simply pushing out contents that has little replay value. This is then packaged under lore or story.

However, such is expected for pve. What kind of replay value are you trying to obtain in pve anyway?

[Dami.5046]

I am begining to think that people just want this game to fail. I could of said this on numerous threads so apologies if this post seems out of context.

[Talindra.4958]

@alchemist.6851 said:i love the game... i bought it since it’s released and only in recent years i have been more active.. i don’t even play raids, personal story, pvp and wvw... i do have 9 classes and it’s enough to keep going ... like taking down the dragon over over again at dragon stand

There are actually quite a few of players like you in my guild. They seem to be around the game all the time and always join the guild mission.. they don't raid, fractal or PvP or wvw..I have to say they are very nice group of people in game. We never hesitate to help them with anything but very rarely they will bother/trouble us.. I think this is the group of players I'd say the core pver that will always be around in game for a long time...

[Talindra.4958]

@MetalGirl.2370 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

The reason there was a content drought before Heart of Thorns was because up until a certain point they weren't even sure they'd make expansions. Expansions aren't done in a month or two and to finish Heart of Thorns in a reasonable time frame they had to allocate everyone to it. Further, we don't get less PVE content, that's absurd, we get way more content now than we ever did. 2 weeks to press F to pay respects and fix signs and a 2-min story instance, compared to 2-3 months for an entire new map with multi-part story missions, new collections and a whole lot of improvements to the game. That we never got during the 2-week period.

Content drought was after they started hinting and announcing expansion.Second, the sign fixing was back in either 2012 or 2013 (that was literally first episode of LW), so way before the lack of content, and even if we did look at specifically then - even that was more fun because soon after we got Molten Facility dungeon which people loved and farmed loads. We had SW which brought loads of content at a time and people very much liked and enjoyed it and also liked the fact that SW is not set on a timer. Now we have everything on timers and barely any content coming every 3 months. I run story within 2 hours and I'm done with achievements in 2 days at most. Maybe it's better for you if you play less than I do but to someone like me with almost 14.000 hours it's worse now with 3 months than it was with 2 weeks, back then I had something to look forward to with every patch and there was something new to do more often than now.

basically - I'd rather have a medium sized bag of chips once every 2 weeks than a large one once every 3 months. And if I calculate how many bags I've eaten every 2 weeks for 3 months, it'd be more than the large one I'd get once every 3 months. - I guess that sums it up

Ohh. I love that molten facility. Love that toxic tower.. all those add on were actually great... Not sure why they can't do more of those and then fraction of that intergrate it into new fractal map.

[Obtena.7952]

I'm not sure that where PVE is heading is a relevant question ... where else could it possibly go?

You got:

1. Run of the mill OW content at various levels of difficulty
2. Standard raid format for 5 and 10 person
3. OW large people formats/events
4. Story line developments

Delivered all to people in a way that lets you play how you like and succeed with different types of carrots to chase

Is there anything else it could do to add to that? Seems to me that at this point, the reason the MMO genre, including GW2, is faltering a bit is because it's already been done and haven't found the 'new' for people to experience. The only 'new' is a different way to experience it, like how GW2 does things different without holy trinity, etc ...

@mauried.5608 said:Basically the thrust of these types of posts isAnet keeps adding stuff to the game that I dont like , and not adding stuff that I do like .Lets now apply this complaint to all players.Or Anet should not add any new content to the game unless ALL players will like it.

Bravo ... people have somehow forgotten that any MMO doesn't deliver content exactly to their liking. It never did, so either these players that makes the threads are new to the gaming MMO experience and just don't get it or for some reason, raised their standard for how and what content an MMO delivers to people. The latter might make sense if I was paying a hundred $ per month sub ...

[alchemist.6851]

@Talindra.4958 said:

@alchemist.6851 said:i love the game... i bought it since it’s released and only in recent years i have been more active.. i don’t even play raids, personal story, pvp and wvw... i do have 9 classes and it’s enough to keep going ... like taking down the dragon over over again at dragon stand

There are actually quite a few of players like you in my guild. They seem to be around the game all the time and always join the guild mission.. they don't raid, fractal or PvP or wvw..I have to say they are very nice group of people in game. We never hesitate to help them with anything but very rarely they will bother/trouble us.. I think this is the group of players I'd say the core pver that will always be around in game for a long time...

Yes I have seen really awesome folks where they will spend their saturday evenings taking the squad through HP and MP trains, i know guy/girl who does daily’s and fractals with such enthusiasm that feel really at ease playing ...

Also it’s a lot of fun helping a new player.. a level 78 exotic berserker greatsword may not mean much to me but it can really motive a new player to work towards that level.. there are plenty of content and good people playing them

[Gemnaid.4219]

It’s heading down the drain.

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:I still have hope that more fun contents will be added, instead of focus too much on raids and fractal which only minority of players are participating on.

Do you honestly believe that the game puts too much focus on raids and fractals? Are we talking about Guild Wars 2 here or some other game?

Well compare to other part of games it's either gemstore update or most popularly talked about -- raid.. but I still hope we get more community friendly update eg tequalt remake. Triple trouble.. map like dragon stance chak egg .. etc.Recently news about community group disbanded.. they have been around for a long time organising events.. now we can ask snow crow to come up with a triple trouble guide and build

Are you missing the 4 episodes released so far during Season 4? Or for some reason you don't count those? Nobody is talking about those?Triple Trouble was released in January of 2014, nearly 5 years ago. The gw2community that disbanded did so because in 5 years we never got anything like Triple Trouble which to this day remains the only content in the game that requires that kind of high level of organization. Dragon's Stand is nothing compared to it, you need 15 people spread on the 3 points and you can finish Dragon's Stand. Didn't you get the memo? This loud forum "playerbase" didn't like meta events and that's why they didn't add any large scale meta events in Path of Fire (even Serpent's Ire is tiny in comparison), the loud players asked for it, and they got it. Instead of saying that they are focusing on raids/fractals (which I find laughable) you can say that they focus on farm fiestas like Istan and lackluster open world metas like the Deathbranded Shatterer.Actually, what players were speaking agains was not big metaevents themselves, but mapwide metas

on 2-hour clock

, that affected pretty much the whole map.PoF maps havng no staying power was a result of Anet completely misreading the situation.