LW5 and new expansion.

[Thornwolf.9721]

@mercury ranique.2170 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@mercury ranique.2170 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:How is this poll even possible to answer? No one knows what season 5 holds yet, do they?

Or did I miss the reveal??

Expansion >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any other content

But why??

In the end a studio creates content and releases it in some sort of bundle (e.g. living world release or expansion). There are two factors important in this.1: Price of the bundle.2: amount of content within.

looking at the cummulative of season 4, I see more content then in e.g. HoT and it was all released for free. You might argue that some content was missing (new guildhalls, elite specs, new mechs like mounts and kiting), but there has been a massive change of direction at arenanet with massive lay offs and focus back to GW2 instead of side projects. After this the game lead promised us that the living world teams are allowed to work on more then just traditional living world releases as we are used to. So the content of the upcomming packages are unknown and we will likely not know about it for atleast 3-4 releases. So I am carefull to judge it just by the label on it and want to wait for the actual content.

More content? O you count content based on maps? Because ive spend 10x the amound of time ive spend in some lw maps in hot maps.

Plus i got all the content at once instead of having micro content droughts of 3-4 months between each trickle of content.

I personally count content on the amount of story, the amount of maps, the amount of stuff to do like raids, fractals and meta events.When you compare PoF and Season 4, Season 4 scores higher on almost all of these.

PoF has about 7 meta events and 5 maps. Season 4 has 6 maps and 8 events. Season 4 has 3 fractals and 3 raid wings.Season 4 was developped in a time that GW2 was not the core business of Arenanet, they had significant focus on another game. there has been a massive lay offs (about 40% of the company) but as I understand about 50-60% was working on the abanded mobile game. So, they have more time to invest in season 5

Gonna stop you right there, Because you're wrong about one thing. HoT WAS the largest content dump we ever had; Because it set up the systems which PoF used and the living world now uses. Masteries, Elite specs, it came with the revenant, It also brought in Gen 2 legendaries which are still tied to dragon stand, it brought in gliding, it brought in raids and it brought in the meta-maps as we know them. Dragons fall would never of existed if not for Dragons stand showing that those type of maps can be successful if done properly.

And expansion should be just that, an expansion. Whether that be of systems, the combat engine or just the fidelity of the game ontop of the story and the baser content we consume relatively quickly. HoT did just this, PoF did not which is why PoF failed where HoT at least somewhat succeeded. The only thing PoF brought outside of mounts (Which used the same system HoT created so not that much in terms of tech needed to make it work, outside of the mount models themselves.) Are bounties and if dragons fall is anything to go by those are on their way out because most of the community would prefer meta events over bounties.

So the next expansion needs to bring new things outside of just the story, and some vanity to be successful. It needs to bring in additions to the systems, revisions to the engine and some QoL that is desperately needed. I wouldn't mind if it also brought in class overhauls/redesigns of the core classes as a whole to make them bigger, badder and better than ever before to bring them in line with the current designs of the A-net of today. Because some stuff on some of the classes feels dated (Weapons, traits and some trait lines as well as specific skills. Im looking at you necromancer daggers... Im looking at you...) These changes could even be things that could be used to make their job easier in the future, similarly to how HoT did for progression going forward so that way we had some form of it. (At the End of Core we really didn't once we had ascended gear.)

[Cronospere.8143]

@Danikat.8537 said:I don't mind either way. To me the only differences are that an expansion is released all in one go and then it's other factors which mean it takes me months to play through it all and I have to pay for it. I don't mind paying for new content but I certainly won't complain about getting it free and because it takes me months to finish it either way it doesn't really matter to me if it's released all at once or gradually.

Although I do enjoy the speculation that happens when everyone is going through the story an episode at a time and that can't happen when some people are able to finish it in a few days and then know all the answers to the questions slower players are coming up with, or those questions never come up because even slower players like me will just do the next bit instead of wondering what's going to happen.

You look at it the same way i do. Im glad im not the only one.So much people complain about the difference. PoF for me felt like 3 episodes of LW with new elite specs released in one go. I was hyped at the start. And spend some months doing the content but i felt like i was forced to go through the story because other people finished it within a week.Living story gave me more hype because it feels like an episode of a tvshow. I felt more connected to the community purely because of all the speculation.

Unless they add new races, professions or huge content. (Gw1 expansions had like 8 maps of gw2 in one go.) I dont mind what the devs will bring up. I trust them to give me joy either way.

[Gintoki.3957]

I voted other because as long as I get new and interesting features and content in an enjoyable story, i would be fine with the throwing out of expansion for a Revamped Living world especially since you would not be required to pay for it unlike expansions (assuming they don't change the free aspect of LWS if you log in at the time). This would be fine especially if Anet would still run a profit as I personally believe that Anet has best Cash shop which always makes me want to support Anet for their hard work and good game when I'm able. Saying this I would not be opposed to an Expansion as I know its a method of obtaining money for the game and I know that I will generally get my money worth from the purchase.

Ultimately as long as they continue to provide quality content, expansion or LW is fine by me.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:I don’t mind either way. A living story season is pretty much the same as an expansion anyway except it’s just spread out over time. As long as the quality remains high then I can’t complain.

No, it isn't, or at least it hasn't been in the past. Not by a long shot. I'm sincerely hoping they change that for LW5.

Quality is subjective but I haven’t noticed a difference between the quality in an expansion and an LS episode. I haven’t felt any content release so far to be of low or mediocre quality.

It depends on how you define quality in a video game. For example a heavy and very noticeable reuse of assets is almost universally considered a sign of lower quality in a video game.

In GW's case, expansions bring a plethora of brand new assets, from new enviroments/biomes to new character models, monsters etc. LW usually employs older assets with pretty obvious reskins. That alone is a pretty big difference in quality between the two. At least in my view.

[Asum.4960]

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@mercury ranique.2170 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@mercury ranique.2170 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@"Opopanax.1803" said:How is this poll even possible to answer? No one knows what season 5 holds yet, do they?

Or did I miss the reveal??

Expansion >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any other content

But why??

In the end a studio creates content and releases it in some sort of bundle (e.g. living world release or expansion). There are two factors important in this.1: Price of the bundle.2: amount of content within.

looking at the cummulative of season 4, I see more content then in e.g. HoT and it was all released for free. You might argue that some content was missing (new guildhalls, elite specs, new mechs like mounts and kiting), but there has been a massive change of direction at arenanet with massive lay offs and focus back to GW2 instead of side projects. After this the game lead promised us that the living world teams are allowed to work on more then just traditional living world releases as we are used to. So the content of the upcomming packages are unknown and we will likely not know about it for atleast 3-4 releases. So I am carefull to judge it just by the label on it and want to wait for the actual content.

More content? O you count content based on maps? Because ive spend 10x the amound of time ive spend in some lw maps in hot maps.

Plus i got all the content at once instead of having micro content droughts of 3-4 months between each trickle of content.

I personally count content on the amount of story, the amount of maps, the amount of stuff to do like raids, fractals and meta events.When you compare PoF and Season 4, Season 4 scores higher on almost all of these.

PoF has about 7 meta events and 5 maps. Season 4 has 6 maps and 8 events. Season 4 has 3 fractals and 3 raid wings.Season 4 was developped in a time that GW2 was not the core business of Arenanet, they had significant focus on another game. there has been a massive lay offs (about 40% of the company) but as I understand about 50-60% was working on the abanded mobile game. So, they have more time to invest in season 5

Gonna stop you right there, Because you're wrong about one thing. HoT WAS the largest content dump we ever had; Because it set up the systems which PoF used and the living world now uses. Masteries, Elite specs, it came with the revenant, It also brought in Gen 2 legendaries which are still tied to dragon stand, it brought in gliding, it brought in raids and it brought in the meta-maps as we know them. Dragons fall would never of existed if not for Dragons stand showing that those type of maps can be successful if done properly.

And expansion should be just that, an expansion. Whether that be of systems, the combat engine or just the fidelity of the game ontop of the story and the baser content we consume relatively quickly. HoT did just this, PoF did not which is why PoF failed where HoT at least somewhat succeeded. The only thing PoF brought outside of mounts (Which used the same system HoT created so not that much in terms of tech needed to make it work, outside of the mount models themselves.) Are bounties and if dragons fall is anything to go by those are on their way out because most of the community would prefer meta events over bounties.

So the next expansion needs to bring new things outside of just the story, and some vanity to be successful. It needs to bring in additions to the systems, revisions to the engine and some QoL that is desperately needed. I wouldn't mind if it also brought in class overhauls/redesigns of the core classes as a whole to make them bigger, badder and better than ever before to bring them in line with the current designs of the A-net of today. Because some stuff on some of the classes feels dated (Weapons, traits and some trait lines as well as specific skills. Im looking at you necromancer daggers... Im looking at you...) These changes could even be things that could be used to make their job easier in the future, similarly to how HoT did for progression going forward so that way we had some form of it. (At the End of Core we really didn't once we had ascended gear.)

Yea, people grossly underestimate the value of an expansion.

Without expansion we never would have had Elite specs, Guild Halls, Gliding, Mounts, the Mastery System utilized by those features to begin with, Raids, as well as many more minor features and QoL improvements like cross Guild Chat, a new Borderland and PvP gamemode (not all new features can be winners), Fractal rework, Action Camera and on and on.

An expansion has the ability to build systems all future content releases build upon.It's not just a few hours of Story and some new maps.But even in that department, a new expansion usually means a host of new assets, models, enemy types, mechanics etc. to diversify future content more, which are then simply repurposed for much of the LW.

Can they deliver some of that with just more LW? Sure. But expansions are going to push a game forward by much bigger leaps, and in a lot of cases the idea of an "Expansion seller" feature pushes devs to create completely new creative features, namely things like the mentioned Elite Specialisations, Gliding and Mounts, which are new features on a scale you are most likely just not going to get with continuous small releases like LW, which is just more of the same of what a previous expansion introduced.

Completely new mechanics, reworks of fallen behind core features and new tools and ways to play the game are so much more exciting to me at this point than more of what we already have slightly rearranged with a different coat of paint, especially if that's not even challenging and repeatable content but just more places to press F in.

[Kodokuna Akuma.9570]

@"Pomdepin.7068" said:Expansion all the way. LW is slow, boring, and repetitive. Even with "expansion-like" content, it will probably still be slow on releases and not engaging. Won't make my friends and I come back any time soon I think.

Please prove me wrong.

You think developing an expansion will be quicker than an episode of living story? Please tell me more about how you dont understand how development works.

[zealex.9410]

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@"Pomdepin.7068" said:Expansion all the way. LW is slow, boring, and repetitive. Even with "expansion-like" content, it will probably still be slow on releases and not engaging. Won't make my friends and I come back any time soon I think.

Please prove me wrong.

You think developing an expansion will be quicker than an episode of living story? Please tell me more about how you dont understand how development works.

I think he/she means that an expansion is superior because its not being spoonfed to you over 12-18 and only looking behind at the end of the season you can say "yeah thats a fair chunk of content" meanwhile while the lw is still running the amount of content and replayability is an entirely diff story.

In the context of this poll i too would prefer an expansion over another 18 months of spoonfeeding.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

With the way things been expansion will be slated for 2022 than it will be coming "soon" until it finally releases in 2025 if it does. That's if the game makes it past 2020 lol

[Teratus.2859]

Season 4 was a finale to a fair few storylines.

Jumping into a expansion right now wouldn't really feel very good, there's no real setup for it so I'd expect much of the expansion would be figuring out what to do next and then by the time we're halfway through the expansion the story would only be starting to pick up.

I think we need Season 5, it'll hopefully be the foundation for the next expansion.if we go straight into Season 6 afterwards i'll be pretty annoyed and disappointed.. Gw2 needs both living world and paid expansions imo and I for one as a customer and fan of the game prefer that the game have both.

[Amaranthe.3578]

@maddoctor.2738 said:The answer depends on the kind of content we'll get in Season 5.If it's the same as Season 4, they I'd prefer an expansion, if it contains expansion-like features, like elite specs, a new mastery similar to mounts/gliding and so on, then I'll be happy with having LW season instead of an expansion.

We will never see especs outside of expacs.They are one of the main selling points of expacs.

[Kodokuna Akuma.9570]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@"Pomdepin.7068" said:Expansion all the way. LW is slow, boring, and repetitive. Even with "expansion-like" content, it will probably still be slow on releases and not engaging. Won't make my friends and I come back any time soon I think.

Please prove me wrong.

You think developing an expansion will be quicker than an episode of living story? Please tell me more about how you dont understand how development works.

I think he/she means that an expansion is superior because its not being spoonfed to you over 12-18 and only looking behind at the end of the season you can say "yeah thats a fair chunk of content" meanwhile while the lw is still running the amount of content and replayability is an entirely diff story.

In the context of this poll i too would prefer an expansion over another 18 months of spoonfeeding.

And yet people already complain at how the rate of releasing content is too slow. At thats at a 2-3 month gap, lets instead not release content during that time and instead have to be generous an 12 month waiting period for exapansions. So you get content once per year, how do you recon we would retain players?

[FrizzFreston.5290]

I dont really mind, but expect another expac. Somehow I also find it more fair than mostly relying on whales and gemstore tactics.

[Obtena.7952]

It's all just labeling ... I would actually prefer the things we get in expansions rolled out slowly as LS. I mean, it's just semantics what it's called. Anet could put 'expansion-like' content in LS's if they wanted. Well, actually, they already do, all the time.

[zealex.9410]

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@"Pomdepin.7068" said:Expansion all the way. LW is slow, boring, and repetitive. Even with "expansion-like" content, it will probably still be slow on releases and not engaging. Won't make my friends and I come back any time soon I think.

Please prove me wrong.

You think developing an expansion will be quicker than an episode of living story? Please tell me more about how you dont understand how development works.

I think he/she means that an expansion is superior because its not being spoonfed to you over 12-18 and only looking behind at the end of the season you can say "yeah thats a fair chunk of content" meanwhile while the lw is still running the amount of content and replayability is an entirely diff story.

In the context of this poll i too would prefer an expansion over another 18 months of spoonfeeding.

And yet people already complain at how the rate of releasing content is too slow. At thats at a 2-3 month gap, lets instead not release content during that time and instead have to be generous an 12 month waiting period for exapansions. So you get content once per year, how do you recon we would retain players?

2-3 month gap? You are refering to se3 right, that wasn't what we got in se4.

And no i dont believe its best to go fully on the expansion front and not do any more lw, living world serves a purpose and expacs servw another and both imo are needed.

[Knighthonor.4061]

LW5 will have the Build Saver feature.

[Kodokuna Akuma.9570]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@"Pomdepin.7068" said:Expansion all the way. LW is slow, boring, and repetitive. Even with "expansion-like" content, it will probably still be slow on releases and not engaging. Won't make my friends and I come back any time soon I think.

Please prove me wrong.

You think developing an expansion will be quicker than an episode of living story? Please tell me more about how you dont understand how development works.

I think he/she means that an expansion is superior because its not being spoonfed to you over 12-18 and only looking behind at the end of the season you can say "yeah thats a fair chunk of content" meanwhile while the lw is still running the amount of content and replayability is an entirely diff story.

In the context of this poll i too would prefer an expansion over another 18 months of spoonfeeding.

And yet people already complain at how the rate of releasing content is too slow. At thats at a 2-3 month gap, lets instead not release content during that time and instead have to be generous an 12 month waiting period for exapansions. So you get content once per year, how do you recon we would retain players?

2-3 month gap? You are refering to se3 right, that wasn't what we got in se4.

And no i dont believe its best to go fully on the expansion front and not do any more lw, living world serves a purpose and expacs servw another and both imo are needed.

Yeah I agree with that. Im sure its a fairly common opinion but anet makes lots of great content that sadly is comsumed as more one-shot wonders. If they can get more use out of such content they can either decrease they development time of content patches or increase the amount of time players are interacting with it thus decreasing the feel of waiting for content.

[Linken.6345]

@Witch of Doom.5739 said:One thing that I wish they'd work on re: Living World episodes, maps, etc. is the ridiculous number of different currencies. There are too many and they're too confusing. Let's see, I need a bunch of Volatile Magic... no, wait, I mean Unbound Magic.... wait, what's the difference?

Well if they used a currency we always had like karma old timers would buy up anything they wanted from day one on every release.

[hostileskeleton.7364]

I would like to see a new LW where they give us a little taste of what's to come. If it's underwater mounts or new specs then hint at that. Don't give us too much cuz then people will complain about not having everything at once but a substantial teaser would be appreciated. Just something to say "more exciting content is on the way." Personally I want racial specs to be considered if even just to provide an option for rp purposes. I saw a thread on reddit that was talking about the norn and how unimportant their culture is to the story even though the only thing keeping them from just being "large humans" is the cultural difference. I thought the norn transformation into their spirit animal was sick until I realized it is completely useless in combat(why can't you make it something like necro where they have a transform bar but bind it to a rage meter like warrior?). A LW that introduces new racial specs would be excellent. This could introduce a whole expansion story where we find some land where the races are all in discord and the commander has to sort it out. Would be a bit complicated making the story different depending on the race of the player but that's the kind of effort I want to see ANet put into new content. They gave us branching stories in vanilla, I want to see them do it again.

[Vision.7265]

I don't care either way. Both represent something new I can play.

[Ghetx.1752]

Expansion,normal one for a change.We have 2 expansions jumping puzzle based just to compensate no jumping in gw.Elite spec change.I don't want to buy expansion and not being able to play specialization i bought game for,moment i purchase game.Content difficulty tune down.Meta events should obviously be for grouping up,but rest of the content should be solo-able.Every single thing.It should be an option to play in group or not.

Map progress should NOT be as it is now.

I don't want to get hard pushed into the story just so i can open my wallet and purchase previous seasons.

Game content should NOT be locked behind gold (cough jackal mount)

[Divine Monk.2401]

I think it is fine that they are going into LW5 right after LW4 mostly because 4 was a huge chapter close, and 5 opens and begins a new Chapter. I am hoping that during S5 there will be abit more depth and detail to various aspects of the game then lead into 3rd Expansion. To me that would be ideal.

[Pomdepin.7068]

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

@"Pomdepin.7068" said:Expansion all the way. LW is slow, boring, and repetitive. Even with "expansion-like" content, it will probably still be slow on releases and not engaging. Won't make my friends and I come back any time soon I think.

Please prove me wrong.

You think developing an expansion will be quicker than an episode of living story? Please tell me more about how you dont understand how development works.

I think he/she means that an expansion is superior because its not being spoonfed to you over 12-18 and only looking behind at the end of the season you can say "yeah thats a fair chunk of content" meanwhile while the lw is still running the amount of content and replayability is an entirely diff story.

In the context of this poll i too would prefer an expansion over another 18 months of spoonfeeding.

And yet people already complain at how the rate of releasing content is too slow. At thats at a 2-3 month gap, lets instead not release content during that time and instead have to be generous an 12 month waiting period for exapansions. So you get content once per year, how do you recon we would retain players?

That's indeed what I meant. Never said an expansion takes less development time than LW. For me at least, an expansion I can spend hours playing and progressing through, with various maps, a sense of progression is faaaar superior to a poor 1-hour LW episode with a map which will be empty after the first month.

I think people are happy with the 3-month schedule between every episode.

But remember what they said with HoT? LW would close the gaps between expansions, and they wanted to follow that LW - xpack - LW - xpack idea I think. I was happy with that, but it never happened after PoF.

Sorry to say, but I don't think the game can attract, retain more players or make people come back without expansions.

[mercury ranique.2170]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Tanith.5264 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:I guess another month and we will find out more in a preview

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/join-us-for-a-special-live-event-on-august-30/

Seeing that. And wondering: Are we to place any significance on the slightly altered shift in the LW logo's color?

Asking for a friend.

;)

Prob not. There's a few colours in there - blue, red, a touch of green. There's no Dragon logo, so it appears to confirm their recent statement about trying to briefly move away from Dragons/World ending threats.

It could indicate the remaining dragons (blue for Jormag, red for Primordus, sea green for Bubbles) and the colours swarm a globe, but it could equally be just striking colours. I totally expect a lot of Jormag/Primordus speculation coming up though for the next few weeks

Hope that helps your friend

The logo itself has been the same since season one.This shows all the logo's (scroll down to the different seasons) used. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World#Season_3 Only the colouring has been different.Season one and two had a black and white version of the logo.Season three (after HoT) was green, like HoTSeason four (after PoF) was purle-pink (like the PoF) logo.Season five is red-purple-red. All colours from the PoF logoSo the form has no indication of the course of the story, it has always been the same logo.

The colour still uses colour schemes from the PoF promotional material like the logo. Sobest bet is that it only is different to make it different from season 4

[zealex.9410]

@Ghetx.1752 said:Elite spec change.I don't want to buy expansion and not being able to play specialization i bought game for,moment i purchase game.

I assume u never then buy sp games because you cant beat the final boss the moment u buy it. Or order anything from the web because it wont be there the moment u buy it?

[Witch of Doom.5739]

@Linken.6345 said:

@Witch of Doom.5739 said:One thing that I wish they'd work on re: Living World episodes, maps, etc. is the ridiculous number of different currencies. There are too many and they're too confusing. Let's see, I need a bunch of Volatile Magic... no, wait, I mean Unbound Magic.... wait, what's the difference?

Well if they used a currency we always had like karma old timers would buy up anything they wanted from day one on every release.

That's not what I meant. I just think having a different currency for each LW map is too much.