Guild Wars 2 should have harder content.

[Vayne.8563]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

Right ... but what is their process for testing things? Nothing is a better testing ground than how it actually works. It's not about being proactive because IIRC, there isn't a test server with a full population to ensure the numbers are right. We have to recognize that WE are the test server.

There has to be a middle ground somewhere. I'm cognisant that ANET isn't Blizzard and doesn't have the same resources, and even with their PTR realm, very often a patch goes live with bugs and features that are obviously flawed.

But I'll refer to the example I gave already: It didn't take long for ANET to announce they were changing the time gating from 24hrs to 2hrs. They also quickly addressed the issue that XP was locked behind mastery points we couldn't get until after completing a lengthy and timegated collection. The community raised these issues within 24 hrs of the patch going live, and ANET obviously agreed with the objections.

So why didn't the devs think of that in the first place? I don't believe we as the player base are like the Skritt, and therefore have a collective intelligence that magnifies with our population.

And again, had they discussed the time gating as part of the sneak preview, do you not think the community reaction would have been identical? ANET could then have changed the time gate before releasing the patch, saving the players a good deal of frustration.

It seems like the devs think they are doing us a favor by keeping everything a secret and springing new content and features on us, but lately it seems that philosophy is doing more harm than good, as once these features go live, the players discover flaws that ANET then scrambles to fix - and I'm not talking specifically about bugs, but about design choices. In the meantime players can lose out on time and resources, and it fosters negative feelings - all of which is bad for business.

I don't have a solution, but I'm not going to pretend like I don't see a problem, and one that seems to manifest more and more of late.

I think this is where Anet has missed a step ... they forgot there was a content difficulty between 'scrub' and 'hard'. Nothing a casual player experiences prepares them for Fractals, Raids, Dungeons, etc... How they continue to fail to bridge that disconnect ... amazing.

Low level fractals are actually fairly easy for the most part. Or there are certainly easier ones among them. I take new groups into low level fractals quite frequently as in TIer 1 fractals and if you practice the easy ones, you get better at them until you're ready to move up to the next one.

The real issue here is training. People who want the game to hold them by the hand, instead of learning from someone else is more a problem than the game not feeding you. There are plenty of people who'll teach you how to do stuff in this game. I'm one of them.

I offer people help all the time. Only a small percentage of people ever accept the offer, but I offer.

Unfortunately, this illustrates the problem. While it's great people like you offer training, based on the industry experience, Anet should have anticipated this gap was present in their game. What do I know .. .maybe Anet doesn't care if there isn't a large population of people doing raids or high level fractals, or any content for that matter. What I do know is that the gap exists and if people want harder content, something needs to bridge it to justify further hard content development. Offering training is good, but doesn't do that effectively for a large part of the players.

Actually Anet has ALWAYS had the philosophy that they want the community to come together for this stuff. That they don't want to put everything out in a sliver platter. You may not agree with the design but it's always been intentional.

I first became aware of this in Guild Wars 1, when Hearts of the North was introduced as part of the Guild War Beyond content. They had a bunch of stuff scattered around the world that you had to find with no clues. And they said it straight out. We wanted to create buzz. We wanted the community to come together and figure this stuff out and share it and pass it on. It was the same with Nicholas the Traveler. No one expects to hunt him down in the huge world every week. Someone would find him and it would get posted to the wiki.

Not everyone needs to be personally trained. Some people watch videos or look up stuff online which is yet another way of sharing info. But if you're playing an MMO and you insist on soloing and you insist on not doing research, you're never going going to be as good or get as far as people who do. And this is by design. You may not like it, but that's the game.

All true. I'm just saying, if people want more hard content, that bridge needs to be gapped. If Anet isn't going to do it, more people need to get a hell of a lot more tolerant.

It might be a problem that Anet sees this as okay. I'm not sure I see it as okay. Just the design is intentional. I spend a huge amount of my time teaching game basics to people playing, because so much basic stuff isn't out there in the open, and most people don't go to sites and read. Tons of people don't know about skill combs, or break bars, or even not to use knockback when people are meleeing because it slows down kills. At any rate, the game could do with a break bar tutorial and a combo tutorial if nothing else.

[Chichimec.9364]

@Stephane Lo Presti.7258 said:Hi everyone,...Discussing about the Guild Wars 2 community as a whole is always tricky, because each player has a partial view of it. Depending on what you read, what Guild Wars 2 content you play and who you play it with, you’ll see a particular slice of the global community. Case in point, we’re now on the forums and not everyone participates here (but a lot of people do read them), meaning that the picture you paint of the community is incomplete...

Agreed. Let me just add another reminder that not everyone wants to play hard content in a game. Back in the day I was an adrenaline junkie irl, one who thrived on high intensity/high danger activities. That's when I felt most alive - when life was most definitely not boring. Those days were a long time ago though. These days, at age 70, adrenaline and intensity just feel tiresome to me. A relaxed and casual tempo is my preferred pace at this point. Moreover, given my current health and physical issues, no amount of effort is going to make me an alpha player. My physical and mental reflexes are simply too slow and clunky to master fast, complicated game play and that's not the way I want to play anyway.

Now I wouldn't argue that Anet needs to dumb down all the game content to my level. Nor can I agree with anyone who want the company to raise the general difficulty level to their level. To me, the best option is the one Anet is already pursuing - having a variety of game modes that can accommodate a range of skill levels. Within that framework, adding harder content for those who want it and easier to medium content for those who want that makes sense to me.

[Wanderinlost.7964]

GW2 does difficulty better than most since day one with the way they scale things. Not that being scaled down makes it hard but many games compeltely lack this feature and result in rolling over everyhting with no chance of death. Having said that it is a universal problem in most games. Many games I played always result in overleveling areas to they point of making mobs gray and easy, which really kills the enjoyment of playing. I like to win, but if I am not dying almost every pull it is boring. You can play games iron man style, fighting in inferior gear. I used to do this n WoW a few expansions leveling in grey armors, however it is not fun then getting one shotted by other players or slowing your progress when everyone is powerleveling around you.

There is no size fits all. There is even no size that will alway fit the individual. People get better, people get worse over time for any number of reasons. What is the heart of the problem is you cannot scale the difficulty to your current skill. I think thier is an answer though that I have yet to see implemented in any game. Allow players to choose a self-imposed and incentized handicap along with normal scaling like in GW2. This way people always have a reason to progress their gear and skill, and have reason to try and challenge themselves to become better players. Perhaps like equipping a cursed stone. (-50% damage, -50% HP, +50% gold) or something simlar to that effect and have those handicaps scale from super easy to impossible. The incentives do not even need to be large if any at all. Its worth challenging yourself simply to counter the boredom.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

GW2 already has hard content. It is called:

• High level ranked PvP
• Dungeons
• Raids
• High level fractals

And all of these, except dungeons are planned to be supported and expanded over time. Most is this content is so hard that the vast majority of the player base won't ever reach it. In my personal opinion, this is enough choice of hard content already. And I hope that the majority of the new content will be made for a larger player base than this top 5%.

[Khalisto.5780]

Buy hot without buying pof, or at least not using the mounts or pof specs, have fun

[Xar.6279]

Raid wings (with 3/4 bosses) should be released once per 3/4 months. As it worked in ~2016. Not slower.Right now its just not worth for alot of pure raiding guilds and teams (so alot of them quit raiding) to raid in gw2 if t means for them to login once per year to clean everything in one week. And then wait another year for something new. Its too casual to form raiding guilds. Also with that "speed" of releasing new content you can do everything with pugs w/o any problem.

Or maybe new wings once per year as it works right now, but with alot more bosses. Like 12. And release 3 bosses per 3 months. So you keep interest for the whole year. And problem is solved.

[Taygus.4571]

@"Xar.6279" said:Raid wings (with 3/4 bosses) should be released once per 3/4 months. As it worked in ~2016. Not slower.Right now its just not worth for alot of pure raiding guilds and teams (so alot of them quit raiding) to raid in gw2 if t means for them to login once per year to clean everything in one week. And then wait another year for something new. Its too casual to form raiding guilds. Also with that "speed" of releasing new content you can do everything with pugs w/o any problem.

Or maybe new wings once per year as it works right now, but with alot more bosses. Like 12. And release 3 bosses per 3 months. So you keep interest for the whole year. And problem is solved.

Have you thought...that maybe.. there's less support for raiding, because its not popular enough to invest such resources?

[Xar.6279]

@Taygus.4571 said:

@"Xar.6279" said:Raid wings (with 3/4 bosses) should be released once per 3/4 months. As it worked in ~2016. Not slower.Right now its just not worth for alot of pure raiding guilds and teams (so alot of them quit raiding) to raid in gw2 if t means for them to login once per year to clean everything in one week. And then wait another year for something new. Its too casual to form raiding guilds. Also with that "speed" of releasing new content you can do everything with pugs w/o any problem.

Or maybe new wings once per year as it works right now, but with alot more bosses. Like 12. And release 3 bosses per 3 months. So you keep interest for the whole year. And problem is solved.

Have you thought...that maybe.. there's less support for raiding, because its

not

popular enough to invest such resources?

Haha. Ofc. I already knew that some1 will mention about it. So I wrote it:

Also people complain that raiding community is so small. So its not worth to develop it more etc, etc.But it just can't grow if new raids are released so slow. Its simple.Ofc raiding community always will be smaller than open world community. Its nothing revealing.And it dont mean open world content brings more money. Its a lie.

Money these days are in live-streams for example. And what gets most popularity? Hardcore content.So maybe its about very few hardcore players, but not completely, cause they bring thousands of viewers / players. And money. For the game.Also any gaming media likes to write and talk about hardcore content. So game is getting more and more popular because of that.While right now if media talks about gw2 its just about layoffs or some boring stuff. And casual content isnt interesting for them.

Hardcore content is made for a smaller audience. But it brings big audience.

[Taygus.4571]

What makes you think that raiding community brings more money than openworld community?

Don't raiders earn the most gold? so are the least likely to need to buy gems with cash...

You assume livestreams from raiders bring in more players than gw2 advertising thats an assumption you have no evidence for.

And what facts do you have to support that hard-core brings in a big audience? when it has fewest people interested in it...

[maddoctor.2738]

@Taygus.4571 said:Don't raiders earn the most gold? so are the least likely to need to buy gems with cash...

I hope you aren't serious. The answer is a resounding no. Open world farmers earn the most gold, which obviously isn't the majority of open world players.Those that run Silverwastes RIBA, old Auric Basin ML, Istan meta and so on. Those activities got nerfed in their rewards for a reason, that reason being very very profitable.

[Klipso.8653]

If they reduced the target number for every attack, made AOE smaller, stopped adding passive CC to everything to reduce the need for stability. Bam, WvW could be that harder content.

[Xar.6279]

@Taygus.4571 said:What makes you think that raiding community brings more money than openworld community?

Don't raiders earn the most gold? so are the least likely to need to buy gems with cash...

You assume livestreams from raiders bring in more players than gw2 advertising thats an assumption you have no evidence for.

And what facts do you have to support that hard-core brings in a big audience? when it has fewest people interested in it...

No one knows the numbers. Just ArenaNet.

I just notice that hardcore content (raids, pvp) may be created for smaller audience. But it don't matter because it brings big audience (by streams, videos, artices on games sites etc, etc) .And that's fact.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@Xar.6279 said:

@"Taygus.4571" said:What makes you think that raiding community brings more money than openworld community?

Don't raiders earn the most gold? so are the least likely to need to buy gems with cash...

You assume livestreams from raiders bring in more players than gw2 advertising thats an assumption you have no evidence for.

And what facts do you have to support that hard-core brings in a big audience? when it has fewest people interested in it...

No one knows the numbers. Just ArenaNet.

Unless a developer is insane, they will always develop content at a proportionate amount and pace to its popularity in-game. They pushed raids a bit more in 2016 because they wanted to promote their new "child" and see if it "sticks". Since they didn't keep that pace, it's safe to assume that it didn't, or at least not as much as they wanted.

Content development doesn't have infinite resources, there is a specific pool everything comes from and the studio has to decide how to allocate it. An increased focus on a certain part of the game , likely means reduced focus on another, unless Anet suddenly has a bigger pool of resources. Which at this point is unlikely.

I just notice that hardcore content (raids, pvp) may be created for smaller audience. But it don't matter because it brings big audience (by streams, videos, artices on games sites etc, etc) .And that's fact.

Your "facts' mean jack when we are talking about different games, with different audiences etc. Yes, hardcore content might get viewers but that is of no benefit to the studio, if the bulk of its playerbase is casual and doesn't care about that. Anet is a game studio not a twitch streamer, the numbers that matter to them the most, are the ones in-game. And those are not in favor of your argument.

[Josiah.2967]

I just wanted to remind people that WOW/Rift Peaked when they made it easier. Then when they made it "harder" they plummeted and never recovered.You will lose the open world casuals (that spend hundreds on this game like me) if open world becomes as hard or harder than HOT.

[kharmin.7683]

@Xar.6279 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:What makes you think that raiding community brings more money than openworld community?

Don't raiders earn the most gold? so are the least likely to need to buy gems with cash...

You assume livestreams from raiders bring in more players than gw2 advertising thats an assumption you have no evidence for.

And what facts do you have to support that hard-core brings in a big audience? when it has fewest people interested in it...

No one knows the numbers. Just ArenaNet.

I just notice that hardcore content (raids, pvp) may be created for smaller audience. But it don't matter because it brings big audience (by streams, videos, artices on games sites etc, etc) .And that's fact.

If it is indeed a fact, then please provide the supporting factual evidence to support your claim. Please show us the detailed, relevant statistics from Anet and the gaming business community.

[Kal Spiro.9745]

I come at this, not from a unique perspective, but not necessarily a common perspective. I have 27 characters currently, between two accounts. I generally do the content with my main, but over time I tend to get to it with my other characters. I've found most of the content to be very easy because my main is in full clerics, and as such is extremely difficult to actually kill. It takes him longer to finish a fight because he's not doing ideal damage, but I also get to experience the full impact of the fight without tearing through it. However, I have other characters that are much better specced for damage and burn through things easily, they're typically more squishy, though, and suddenly the content becomes more challenging.

I get the feeling that a lot of the contention about content is the idea that specs have different degrees of compatibility and capability within each combat, and there are far more people that have few to one character vs those of us with many many characters. They don't experience the content from a different perspective and it's either hard or easy without any deviation.

[maddoctor.2738]

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:Unless a developer is insane, they will always develop content at a proportionate amount and pace to its popularity in-game.

To quote another poster:

@kharmin.7683 said:Please show us the detailed, relevant statistics from Anet and the gaming business community.

Regarding popularity.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:Unless a developer is insane, they will always develop content at a proportionate amount and pace to its popularity in-game.

To quote another poster:

@"kharmin.7683" said:Please show us the detailed, relevant statistics from Anet and the gaming business community.

Regarding popularity.

The quote from my comment pretty much answers the second quote you used to refute(?) it. Unless we assume Anet is really, really bad at allocating development focus, while there is such a big crowd starving for more raid content. Given their track record in the business, I won't make that assumption and will insist the "numbers" are implied by the way they are developing their game.

[XatraZaytrax.2601]

@Game of Bones.8975 said:I asked about this a while back.Most of the answers I got back revolved around me using armor and weapons that were ... well ... beginners at best.I responded I was having challenge enough with one of my cats climbing on my keyboard. I should be glad it's not one of my dogs.

My young cat likes to sink her claws in my hand if I move the mouse too much and has been known to unplug the mouse, sje likes to block the screen so I have to play blind, and loves to unplug my periferials -- mouse and keyboard -- eslecially it seems when I'm playing with a group like fractals. For any one who wants a challenge, I would recommend cat mode.

[Xar.6279]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Xar.6279 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:What makes you think that raiding community brings more money than openworld community?

Don't raiders earn the most gold? so are the least likely to need to buy gems with cash...

You assume livestreams from raiders bring in more players than gw2 advertising thats an assumption you have no evidence for.

And what facts do you have to support that hard-core brings in a big audience? when it has fewest people interested in it...

No one knows the numbers. Just ArenaNet.

I just notice that hardcore content (raids, pvp) may be created for smaller audience. But it don't matter because it brings big audience (by streams, videos, artices on games sites etc, etc) .And that's fact.

If it is indeed a fact, then please provide the supporting factual evidence to support your claim. Please show us the detailed, relevant statistics from Anet and the gaming business community.

I can't, because there's no hardcore content in GW2. So we just can't tell how big audience it may make.

But we can check it in other games. As I know esport tournaments are fine. And popular as hell. Also WoW for example. They had ALOT viewers when method (top1 raiding guild) were progressing new raid.

But it require alot of work. Its not enough to make 1 raid wing per year and expect that it will suddenly work. Nope. it wont. It requires regularity.While GW2 already has been labeled by gaming community as game without raids and pvp. And untrusted company. So it don't help also.

[Josiah.2967]

@Xar.6279 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Xar.6279 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:What makes you think that raiding community brings more money than openworld community?

Don't raiders earn the most gold? so are the least likely to need to buy gems with cash...

You assume livestreams from raiders bring in more players than gw2 advertising thats an assumption you have no evidence for.

And what facts do you have to support that hard-core brings in a big audience? when it has fewest people interested in it...

No one knows the numbers. Just ArenaNet.

I just notice that hardcore content (raids, pvp) may be created for smaller audience. But it don't matter because it brings big audience (by streams, videos, artices on games sites etc, etc) .And that's fact.

If it is indeed a fact, then please provide the supporting factual evidence to support your claim. Please show us the detailed, relevant statistics from Anet and the gaming business community.

I can't, because there's no hardcore content in GW2. So we just can't tell how big audience it may make.

But we can check it in other games. As I know esport tournaments are fine. And popular as hell. Also WoW for example. They had ALOT viewers when method (top1 raiding guild) were progressing new raid.

But it require alot of work. Its not enough to make 1 raid wing per year and expect that it will suddenly work. Nope. it wont. It requires regularity.While GW2 already has been labeled by gaming community as game without raids and pvp. And untrusted company. So it don't help also.

You brought up WOW to support your claim, but WOW went on a downward sub/income slope ever since they made the content harder. They lost casuals for good and never rebound.... They did this twice..both times had the same outcome. The second time was less cataclysmic than the first time.

pun intended

[zealex.9410]

@Chichimec.9364 said:

@Stephane Lo Presti.7258 said:Hi everyone,...Discussing about the Guild Wars 2 community as a whole is always tricky, because each player has a partial view of it. Depending on what you read, what Guild Wars 2 content you play and who you play it with, you’ll see a particular slice of the global community. Case in point, we’re now on the forums and not everyone participates here (but a lot of people do read them), meaning that the picture you paint of the community is incomplete...

Agreed. Let me just add another reminder that not everyone wants to play hard content in a game. Back in the day I was an adrenaline junkie irl, one who thrived on high intensity/high danger activities. That's when I felt most alive - when life was most definitely not boring. Those days were a long time ago though. These days, at age 70, adrenaline and intensity just feel tiresome to me. A relaxed and casual tempo is my preferred pace at this point. Moreover, given my current health and physical issues, no amount of effort is going to make me an alpha player. My physical and mental reflexes are simply too slow and clunky to master fast, complicated game play and that's not the way I want to play anyway.

Now I wouldn't argue that Anet needs to dumb down all the game content to my level. Nor can I agree with anyone who want the company to raise the general difficulty level to their level. To me, the best option is the one Anet is already pursuing - having a variety of game modes that can accommodate a range of skill levels. Within that framework, adding harder content for those who want it and easier to medium content for those who want that makes sense to me.

Not every parts of the game needs to be harder just like not every part needs to be easier. Theres still room to make harder content.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:The quote from my comment pretty much answers the second quote you used to refute(?) it. Unless we assume Anet is really, really bad at allocating development focus, while there is such a big crowd starving for more raid content. Given their track record in the business, I won't make that assumption and will insist the "numbers" are implied by the way they are developing their game.

Let's take a look at Anet's "development focus".

Heart of Thorns was released October 23, 2015We got 3 Raid wings in-between the release and the start of Season 3, this period lasted from November 2015, up to June 2016 or 3 Wings in 8 monthsSeason 3 started on July 26, 2016 and ended on July 25, 2017We got a single Raid wing in that time, or 1 Raid wing in 12 monthsCombined, the total is 4 Raid wings in 20 months, from November 2015 up to July 2017

Path of Fire was released September 22, 2017Season 4 started on November 28, 2017 (unless you count the Halloween repeat event)Until the end of Season 4 we got 2 Raid Wings, or 3 including the upcoming one which is still part of Season 4That's 3 Raid Wings in one Season, or 3 Raid Wings in 20 Months (November 2017 - June 2019)

Interesting data here. In the Heart of Thorns era we got a burst of many wings quickly, then very little wings afterwards (3 wings in 8 months, then 1 wing in 12) really messy.In the Path of Fire era the raid releases are more "stabilized".

Worth noting that Season 3 had 6 episodes and it lasted 12 months while Season 4 also had 6 episodes but it lasted 20 months, which means ALL releases for the game slowed down after Path of Fire, so that 3 Raid wings compared to 4 Raid wings isn't really a bad metric, given how their entire development process slowed down considerably. Based on the development focus maybe Raids aren't as unpopular as some on these forums make them out to be. Or at least their popularity isn't going down.

Meaning your quote:

They pushed raids a bit more in 2016 because they wanted to promote their new "child" and see if it "sticks". Since they didn't keep that pace, it's safe to assume that it didn't, or at least not as much as they wanted.

Is misleading. The pace of raid releases is better than the Season 3 period, but worse than the post-Heart of Thorns period.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:The quote from my comment pretty much answers the second quote you used to refute(?) it. Unless we assume Anet is really, really bad at allocating development focus, while there is such a big crowd starving for more raid content. Given their track record in the business, I won't make that assumption and will insist the "numbers" are implied by the way they are developing their game.

Let's take a look at Anet's "development focus".

Heart of Thorns was released October 23, 2015We got 3 Raid wings in-between the release and the start of Season 3, this period lasted from November 2015, up to June 2016 or 3 Wings in 8 monthsSeason 3 started on July 26, 2016 and ended on July 25, 2017We got a single Raid wing in that time, or 1 Raid wing in 12 monthsCombined, the total is 4 Raid wings in 20 months, from November 2015 up to July 2017

Path of Fire was released September 22, 2017Season 4 started on November 28, 2017 (unless you count the Halloween repeat event)Until the end of Season 4 we got 2 Raid Wings, or 3 including the upcoming one which is still part of Season 4That's 3 Raid Wings in one Season, or 3 Raid Wings in 20 Months (November 2017 - June 2019)

Interesting data here. In the Heart of Thorns era we got a burst of many wings quickly, then very little wings afterwards (3 wings in 8 months, then 1 wing in 12) really messy.In the Path of Fire era the raid releases are more "stabilized".

Worth noting that Season 3 had 6 episodes and it lasted 12 months while Season 4 also had 6 episodes but it lasted 20 months, which means ALL releases for the game slowed down after Path of Fire, so that 3 Raid wings compared to 4 Raid wings isn't really a bad metric, given how their entire development process slowed down considerably. Based on the development focus maybe Raids aren't as unpopular as some on these forums make them out to be. Or at least their popularity isn't going down.

Meaning your quote:

They pushed raids a bit more in 2016 because they wanted to promote their new "child" and see if it "sticks". Since they didn't keep that pace, it's safe to assume that it didn't, or at least not as much as they wanted.

Is misleading. The pace of raid releases is better than the Season 3 period, but worse than the post-Heart of Thorns period.

You are right, everything slowed down after PoF. But the hit raids took was considerably bigger than say, LS. If I'm not mistaken the average release time from w3 to w6 was 275 days. Even for Anet's standards of late, that's still too much for content that supposedly has sizeable audience.

How is that quote misleading since still nothing compares to post-HoT raid schedule? I never claimed that raid acitivity is shrinking, I think that it's relatively stable but small. If anything, I consider that HoT push an anomaly that contributed to some players asking for a disproportionate focus right now, thinking those glory days should be the norm.

[maddoctor.2738]

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:You are right, everything slowed down after PoF. But the hit raids took was considerably bigger than say, LS. If I'm not mistaken the average release time from w3 to w6 was 275 days. Even for Anet's standards of late, that's still too much for content that supposedly has sizeable audience.

Living World episode slowdown:Season 3: 6 LS episodes in 12 months, 1 episode every 2 monthsSeason 4: 6 LS episodes in 20 months, 1 episode every 3.33 months~66% increase in time between Episode releases

Given how the team was fixing the mess of release HoT between Hot release and the start of Season 3

Raid wing slowdown:Heart of Thorns: 4 wings in 20 months, 1 wing in 5 monthsPath of Fire: 3 wings in 20 months, 1 wing in 6.66 months~32% increase in time between Raid wings

How is that quote misleading since still nothing compares to post-HoT raid schedule? I never claimed that raid acitivity is shrinking, I think that it's relatively stable but small. If anything, I consider that HoT push an anomaly that contributed to some players asking for a disproportionate focus right now, thinking those glory days should be the norm.

Heart of Thorns raids were developed during the expansion and they were released alone without any episodes around them. The mistake they did with Path of Fire was releasing Raid wings at the same time as episodes, and since episodes got that massive slowdown, raid releases were affected too. I'm hoping that now they learned their lesson and they finally make sure they'll release Raids outside living world episodes, same with Fractals. Hopefully this will lead to more of both in the future as they won't have to wait for a late episode release.