Why Guild Wars 2 failed for me.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Faline.8795 said:

• No appreciable end game. Conquering the next raid or dungeon or working toward that cool looking weapon isn't enough of a draw. GW2's bread and butter is avoiding the power chase. Okay, fine. But what they do have doesn't work for enough people. Gamers want to chase something. What? I don't know. But what GW2 i

• Not enough new content. Have to keep rolling it out. Updates are too far between. That, as well, bespeaks a game that isn't doing well, perception-wise. Reality doesn't matter. Only perception.

These are clearly the main two reasons GW2 struggles, objectively speaking. I don't love vertical progression but I agree on point 1 - fashion wars are doing this game in. Most MMO players need more than that to keep them engaged. They also need more than story, especially since the story is kinda mediocre. The Mastery system is underutilized and character customization is too simplistic and too railroaded for a horizontally-oriented game. GW1 didn't have this problem and that was part of the reason it kept its players engaged.

On two, I can't really can't fathom how they can produce content so slowly with a dev team of their size. Something is majorly wrong with either the way the studio is run, the way the engine is built, or both.

[Faline.8795]

@"voltaicbore.8012" said:The sad reality is that the right answer in many of these situations is to either (A) shrink operations to fit what P is capable of bringing in without betraying its core uniqueness, or (B) abandon P in as financially efficient a manner as possible, and move onto the next thing. The layoffs indicate that (A) has already happened for GW2 to a great extent, and some seem to think that (B) is happening behind closed doors as well.

That certainly is the way it is looking to me. Though I am hesitant on (A). They've brought some people in, so my guess is that someone said "Give us X time and Y funds and give us one last chance to turn this around."

So what we're seeing today is GW2's last gasp for revival. If this doesn't work, (A) may become the reality.

The problem is, they are giving us pretty much the same thing they've given us in the past. So why they think the results will be any different, I don't know.

1) Give me something to chase that I want to chase. (Glam isn't it.)

2) Give me someone to talk to.

3) Give me a way to group for content that doesn't make me uncomfortable.

That will be the win for me.

[Bladestrom.6425]

The problem isn't the game.

1. There are endless goals to go after, more than any aaa mmorpg.
2. There are olenty of ways to speak to people, again no different to the typical aaa mmorpg. As for global chat, there are well established problems with this, yet again same issues as typical aaa mmorpg (imagine 10k people all talking at the same time)3.is really your issue, not the communities.

[Friday.7864]

Even if they enabled world chat it would likely be a gem shop item with a few uses to prevent spamming.People would complain about a new gem shop item and I, like many others, would disable world chat just so we don't see the guild recruitment spam.

And you not wanting to join a guild in a game that literally has "Guild" in its name is so comical it hurts.How in the world do you expect to have any kind of connection to a game if you don't have a few people you can get along with, talk to and do stuff with?

[FrizzFreston.5290]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Genesis.5169 said:None of the biggest MMO's or games on the market that are online prize solo play like the GW2 community does. Whilist FF14, WoW and WoW classic do better then GW2 and in both games you have to wait for people to do things.

Its not the world thats wrong here.And the community continuously push anet in that same direction that has been killing it since the nerf of HoT and al that remain left are the hopefuls and the players who pushed everyone else away with their false claims. It astounds me then in the current place GW2 is people continue to tow the same line that got us here. Its never been constructive and it isn't its just been a wave of people who complain about not being able to do things they don't even attempt like raids and fotm cms then they boycott it and complain on the forums.

People need to look at themselves you want to know why GW2 didn't hold on to you look no further then yourself, we have killed under water combat, raids, fotm cms, (strike missions soon), PoF (yes im saying this during pof launch more people where doing HoT maps even post nerfs because HoT was better), old orr, original HoT. Yet no one asks to refine any of the unique mechanics that make gw2 different either but instead would rather make GW2 play more like a traditional MMO then GW2, see the countless post about better usage of combo fields.

Hell when mounts came out a bunch of people demanded that they shouldnt be used in tyria because of jumping puzzles and this is single player content kitten does it matter to you if some one is having a easier time doing a jump puzzle.

That is worth a bump ... NO one signed up to this game wanting a WoW clone (or if they did, they found out FAST it wasn't) and for some reason, people think doing that is the only way to make GW2 great again.

So true.

[Zok.4956]

@"voltaicbore.8012" said:I work with a lot of businesses of various scale/scope irl, and it's a pretty consistent problem I see - some entrepreneur designs product P to appeal to consumer group C, and the initial numbers before launch suggest that you can make a profit doing so. But after launch, P is not actually doing so well, and very often the knee-jerk response is "let's do what works out well for our competitors." Problem is, what limited success P enjoys usually comes entirely from its characteristics that C finds meaningfully distinct from competitor products. Changing P in ways that betrays that distinctiveness almost always alienates a lot of the folks from C who did show up to support P, while the changes still leave P inferior in many regards to its competitors. In other words, you kitten off the folks who support you now, and usually fail to suck in enough new support to replace them.

I agree. The product defines/attracts the customer. If a product/service is changed significantly, existing customers will leave, and only later on, eventually, new customers will come that maybe can replace the revenue of the lost customers.

But trying to convince existing customers that the changed product is better than the old one usually does not work when major characteristics of a product are changed.

The sad reality is that the right answer in many of these situations is to either (A) shrink operations to fit what P is capable of bringing in without betraying its core uniqueness, or (B) abandon P in as financially efficient a manner as possible, and move onto the next thing. The layoffs indicate that (A) has already happened for GW2 to a great extent, and some seem to think that (B) is happening behind closed doors as well.

agreed.

[kharmin.7683]

@"Friday.7864" said:

And you not wanting to join a guild in a game that literally has "Guild" in its name is so comical it hurts.It's only so named to keep the franchise alive. I don't believe that it was ever set up that players had to be in guilds.

[Zok.4956]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"Friday.7864" said:

And you not wanting to join a guild in a game that literally has "Guild" in its name is so comical it hurts.It's only so named to keep the franchise alive. I don't believe that it was ever set up that players had to be in guilds.

Yes. Only the original Guild Wars had Guild Battles (GvG) including tournaments, a ladder/leaderbord of guilds etc.

[Thornwolf.9721]

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@Faline.8795 said:

• No appreciable end game.This actually is the reason why I play this game over any of the other MMOs out there > Alright so let me actually put a bit of effort to explain the other side of this.

...

Enter ESOI started playing this game toward the end of 2012, so a bit over 7 years now. I've played ESO on and off since beta. While I do enjoy ESO occasionally, it is exactly the fact that for most of the unique stuff you have to grind the same stuff day in day out that always turns me off quickly, and if you miss a couple of days for seasonal rewards for example you're out of luck.

In GW2 most things (nowadays) can be gotten at your own pace, whenever and however you feel like it. While you are missing the carrot, I play this game exactly for the same reason I gave in the post you quoted: I get to choose what to do (and in what timeframe). There's no need to for example repeat specific dailies each and every day since most rewards can be gotten through a variety of ways. If ESO were a bit more like GW2 in this way I'd be all over it, since I actually like a lot about that game, but their more conservative way to rewarding players for grinding very specific content turns me off every time.

@"aspirine.6852" said:You are in luck, there are lots of other games. Like the ones you mentioned. Good luck with them..

If guild wars doesn't adapt you'll be going to those games too, because the severs will go down and it won't exist (Until a private server comes around, if it does.)Do you have some insider knowledge about the actual motivations of this game's player base, or is this really just the usual doom and gloom because you and your peers don't get out of this game what other games have conditioned you to expect?

Its common sense that the game isn't doing as well as it used too, and its not chalked up to the fact that its old. It had a HORRIBLE quarter last quarter, but those of you who choose to ignore this glance over it and say its "A vocal minority" the fact that ESO has GUILD WARS REFUGEE guilds recruiting and the fact that they just hit 10 million active players as they stated during their anniversary event tells me they are on an incline, where as we have no clue on how many active players guild wars boasts.

Without expansions games like this do not do well, the sheer amount of hype and interest garnered by the reveal is enough. The fact we are in glorified content patch mode doesn't interest people because there is no Hook, they aren't getting as many new players as they would otherwise. And I know for a fact many old players are leaving, I've seen many whom I used to game with or at least see and run into no longer grace the game. There could be a multitude of factors and I don't claim to know everything nor have insider information im going based on previous experiences. The same thing began happening to warhammer online when its content slowed down, and we began to see just maintenance and balance fixes being the sole focus. While good they didn't offer the player-base much and the content cadence while fast with this saga its not offering enough meat and potatoes to really sate appetites. We are still playing the same type of content, the same way as we always have for the previous years since PoF launched and with no E-specs or new class, new weapons or new anything the gameplay loop is growing stale. We need new and that is the sad truth this game needs to constantly evolve, and they seem (Unless pax proves otherwise) to not believe or care about this fact.

You may dismiss me as someone who is just "doom and gloom" when in actual fact I hated PoF and hated all of last season outside of the interactions with joko and I am pleased we are finally focusing on Norn and charr (Wish we had more norn rather than fur-balls but whatever.) I am also hoping for racial reworks for norn to make them more in-line with lore and make them unique. I love eldritch horror and viking/norse/celtic things so this season is so in my genre, I could shill for them and turn a blind eye to the pains and issues I see and pretend it doesn't bother me (In actual fact Im more entertained than I ever was with PoF or season 4 outside of perhaps dragons fall). But I will need a new way to play my class in the future, Id like norn/charr themed E-specs or eldritch themed ones or a mixture of all of them so we can have our dark and or "Edge-lord" specs because that is what I like.

Im not saying guild wars should be more like ESO, Im simply saying they could offer similar rewards such as personalities which change how your character moves so you could tailor your character more. We desperately need more customization for our toons considering cosmetics are the end game, I want to be able to tailor my guy more than I can currently and that is one area that ESO utterly stomps any of these other games is the fact that the gameplay loop actively rewards you with more customization both through gear passives, skins, personalities and even mount skins/house decorations. (That and you can choose to be an evil edge lord, where as here you're kind of a goody goody no matter what.)

I don't suppose you can ignore that ESO came out with console versions. It greatly increases the pool from which players might be drawn from. It's great to attribute player numbers to specifics. But no one really knows what specifics cause players numbers to go up higher. Certainly having one or more console versions doesn't hurt.

This is true, which is why im unsure why A-net never bothered to enter that market with guild wars 2. Its got the build and could easily work, controllers already work with it as is so Im sure they could do it. It would definitely give them a bump in revenue and as well give them a foothold in an audience with little to no MMO's of worth, I mean sure ESO is there but that would be their only real competition on the market outside of maybe final fantasy. BDO and tera I doubt would even come in to competing with them.

[Thornwolf.9721]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Faline.8795" said:This is ANet's big problem. I don't know WHAT will make GW2 better. All I know is that what it is isn't working.

Eh, it works for me. Aside from

better

(not necessarily more) communication from the devs, I don't agree with any of your other points.

I do, however, understand that your broader point is that while it works for me and not for you, it must also not be working in general due to what you (reasonably) perceive as the rather precarious state of the game from a business standpoint. I agree that layoffs and not doing expansions signal a great measure of failure, but I don't think shifting away from the core uniqueness of the game is the right way out.

I work with a lot of businesses of various scale/scope irl, and it's a pretty consistent problem I see - some entrepreneur designs product P to appeal to consumer group C, and the initial numbers before launch suggest that you can make a profit doing so. But after launch, P is not actually doing so well, and very often the knee-jerk response is "let's do what works out well for our competitors." Problem is, what limited success P enjoys usually comes

entirely

from its characteristics that C finds meaningfully distinct from competitor products. Changing P in ways that betrays that distinctiveness almost always alienates a lot of the folks from C who did show up to support P, while the changes still leave P inferior in many regards to its competitors. In other words, you kitten off the folks who support you now, and usually fail to suck in enough new support to replace them.

The sad reality is that the right answer in many of these situations is to either (A) shrink operations to fit what P is capable of bringing in without betraying its core uniqueness, or (B) abandon P in as financially efficient a manner as possible, and move onto the next thing. The layoffs indicate that (A) has already happened for GW2 to a great extent, and some seem to think that (B) is happening behind closed doors as well.

Ill say this if the "next thing" is not a better product in the guild wars universe its a hard pass for me. I don't care about any potential other IPs they make and I couldn't be bothered to be hyped given how they have handled guild wars 2. Id like to see a darker guild wars 3, returning to its dark fantasy roots with the races mattering and there being good customization and end game with all they have learned from 2 and 1 making its way into a better product. But Im sure they will abandon the IP if they move on in favor of something new that they don't have to be tied down via lore or story.

I just want my norn to be cool again.... I want the race to mean something and not just be a glorified cosmetic with little to no customization.

[Dante.1763]

@Zok.4956 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"Friday.7864" said:

And you not wanting to join a guild in a game that literally has "Guild" in its name is so comical it hurts.It's only so named to keep the franchise alive. I don't believe that it was ever set up that players had to be in guilds.

Yes. Only the original Guild Wars had Guild Battles (GvG) including tournaments, a ladder/leaderbord of guilds etc.

And even then you didnt need to be in a guild. I wasnt in one for nearly the entire time i played. The game has since launch of GW1 moved away from the whole "Mando Guilds" idea, did GW1 allow for more stuff around guilds yea but it wasnt mandatory.

[Gehenna.3625]

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:The only thing I agree with is the lack of communication from the devs. The other stuff in my opinion would make the game worse, not better.Interesting, I probably agree with you on the world chat and matchmaking points but would you be able to elaborate on how more content and more things to do in endgame would make the game worse? I'm not convinced those points deserve such a generalised dismissal.

There's plenty to do at end game as long as you're not after traditional end game. I don't think a traditional end game has made this stuff better. End game in this game is dfferent because you don't have to raid to get BIS gear.From my experience when someone says there's nothing or too little to do at endgame, it's not actually about the factual amount of things to do but rather how many of these things you find worthwhile or fun to pursue. I also get bored quickly in this game because of that point. There's stuff I could do but don't enjoy. For example, collecting legendary weapons could be something to do. However, the effort compared to the output is insane and the vast majority of the skins are ugly in my view. Then they added things like Dragonblood weapons which would be a thing to do except they're pink, which I don't care for. Allowing us to pick colours for weapons would change that however. And then I would have something new to do.From reading the OP it seems he has a specific idea what end game is. Obviously more to do period ever would be beneficial in any game, but I like my end game in this game. Skin collecting, title collecting, achievement hunting, doing zone metas, making legendaries. I always have something I'm working on. By the same token, raids don't interest me at all and they could add all the traditional end game in the world and, in my opinion, it wouldn't make this game better.Perhaps it seems that way to you but he doesn't actually say that. I enjoy collecting skins, I did in GW1 but not so much here. Why not? Well, the examples above about legendary weapons and dragonblood weapons are reasons why not. And a lot of skins come from the gemstore or are extremely rare drops or whatever. I did collect the Auric weapons for example but the rest...meh. So it's not that I want the traditional gear chase, but I do want goals that I feel are fun to do. That means two things: reasonable effort and enjoyable reward. The same problem exists with the latest set of Boreal weapons. I would collect them all but I don't. They purposefully simplified the effects so they became devalued that way as soon as we saw the Drakkar drops but the Drakkar drops are rare and not something you can really work towards and they are yellow instead of blue so again, the colour means I don't want it. If the craftable ones had the same effects but in blue I would get them.I get the distinct impression the guy is looking for rewards that this game doesn't offer rather than just stuff to do. If skins don't turn you on, there's obviously nothing to do at end game here.Well I think your impression is more your impression than what he's saying. He already conceded that this game isn't about the traditional gear treadmill and that he doesn't know what form it should take but he wants something more. He's not asking for a treadmill.

I am like him...I like things to work towards. Skins can be that but the problem with skins is not skins but the way it's done in this game.

But even after all that....

You still haven't explained why more stuff to do and in general more content content is bad, because that's actually what you were saying. And that's what I was asking about.

If it's just based on your assumption that all he wants is a gear treadmill and nothing else, then I guess I have to say that's not what the op actually said.

I said more content is always good. But the term end game has come to mean something and when people ask for more end game content, in my experience it's taking the game exactly where I wouldn't want it to go. It will absolutely be bad for me. Whether it's bad for anyone else is their opinion. More content is not the same as the right content. As I said in my last reply of course more is good. But more of the wrong stuff doesn't help me or in my opinion the game. Obviously this is highly subjective. It's an issue with the term end game in and of itself. That's a whole different conversation.I did indeed miss your "more is better" content. Apologies for reading over that too quickly.

As far as endgame, my point is that he doesn't actually know what he wants. That much is clear. He wants something more but not sure what. And the definition of endgame is essential in discussing it, not in the sense of which definition is right, but making sure we use the same definition so we know what we're discussing specifically. And again, it's clear from his comments that he doesn't know what he actually wants.

What i find interesting is that I recognise the feeling of boredom, of not having anything to do in the game. And yet, I also know that factually there is a ton of stuff to do in the game. It seems contradictory but that's because feelings are not very precise and often are expressed in a way that doesn't represent the actual issue. What that means for me is that whenever I feel I have nothing to do in this game (which happens frequently) it's because of one or more of the following reasons:1) Low difficulty, high repetition2) Rewards not being interesting3) Effort far outweighing the outcome4) Lack of transparency

1) This is about the game using high repetition to get to a goal. So for example the new Bjora Marches map Mastery points require you to gain XP between spending mastery points for a mastery. The map has only a handful of events you can do there and they exist multiple times (like the events to clear Svanir camps on the east side). So this gets boring fast but the bar moves slowly so you have to do a lot of these events for each mastery point you want to spend. By the time I got the masteries done so I could get the better rewards, I was so done with the map that I actually never really bothered to take advantage of these new masteries. I clearly feel they just made the process longer for the sake of making it longer. When you see through that it becomes a chore rather than fun.

2) And then the game in general gives lots of trash loot and crafting costs are so high that any reward you get doesn't feel worth the effort. That gives a sense of pointlessness to me in going on. When I get an exotic drop it's not even exciting. And like my example of Dragonblood weapons, the appeal is too narrow of lots of rewards.

3) Legendary weapons, armour, trinkets...some of the most ridiculous costs are associated with this and also highly repetitious. Together with the fact that these weapons are really a matter of tastes and too few skins are available as such, it's really just not worth it. I have a few just to see what it takes but it wasn't a fun process at all. Also, I do craft ascended gear, not because I need it, but because it gives me something to do. Because exotic gear is too easy and cheap to get so there's no effort in that mostly and ascended is a LOT more work for so little gain. But what else am I going to collect? At least ascended gear I can decide what it looks like.

4) The irony is that the game has so much stuff in achievements that it can prevent people from seeing the forest for the trees or perhaps more aptly in this case to see the trees in the forest. Collections help but at the same time it's far from self-explanatory.

So any of these factors can lead me to feeling like there's nothing to do, not because there literally is nothing to do but because it's not rewarding, invisible, fully RNG dependent, not worth the effort etc. The stuff I mentioned.

If, for example, they added a way to determine/choose/change the colouring of weapon sets like the Dragonsblood weapons, I would have something to do because suddenly the reward is worth pursuing for me. You see, I'm not into pink so much, id rather have a different hue on the weapon and therefore the whole collection is pointless to me. And others might feel the same. I would think that making rewards appealing to more people in a game that is often referred to as fashion wars by giving them colour choices would be a given. We have it for armour after all. And considering the size and lavish effects we can have on weapons they certainly are part of the fashion.

In the end just adding more content when a lot of it's ignored by a lot of players seems a shame and I think that improving that can lead to fewer complaints about "not having anything to do" in GW2.

Then even from what you're saying here, the problem isn't more content, the problem is content you want to do or at least content that rewards you with the rewards you want. You said it yourself. The existing content isn't rewarding you with what you want, which I dare say isn't really a content problem so much as a rewards one.

For example adding ten-man content to this game is undoubtedly more content, but I seriously doubt it's made it a better game for most of the playerbase. By the same token, the time used to create that ten man content could have been used to create new five man content which would have possibly given more people something to do.

Having more isn't really enough. It's having the right stuff and the right rewards. We can keep throwing more and more content in the game, but if it's not content a large segment of the playerbase will consume then it's those people not consuming it won't see it as content. I don't see raids as content for me, because I'll not be doing them.

Oh yeah I totally agree. They introduced Strike Missions in the hope that this intermediate level content will get more people on board and grow towards raids because only a small group of players do raids. That tells me that raids aren't worth the investment currently and they're trying to see if they can make a better business case for it. Don't think it'll work but that's another matter. But there is little point in dedicating resources to more raids if only a small amount of people do them.

All in all, I have the feeling that a lot of people skip by or are unaware of a lot of things this game has to offer and therefore will say more quickly that they have nothing to do. Perhaps it's worth making some changes so that more people will do existing things in the game. Raiding, however, is kind of a niche thing, especially in GW2 so I think that's another thing that may end up proving not worth the effort. But just mindlessly adding new zones so that people abandon the ones that were released a few months before doesn't seem to be an effective way of dealing with the content issue.

Outside of raiding and such there are a lot of things that people would do under different circumstances I suspect. My feeling is that creating those circumstances might be more useful than just creating more disposable content.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@Gehenna.3625 said:

Outside of raiding and such there are a lot of things that people would do under different circumstances I suspect. My feeling is that creating those circumstances might be more useful than just creating more disposable content.

I 100% agree with this idea. Finding ways to direct players back to these other corners of content is something I'd like to see. Additionally, some of the core maps are sitting on great little gems that are completely undeveloped; the wizard's tower in Kessex Hills is the first thing that comes to mind. I'd like to see that someday, even if it's just in a fractal or something. Re-capitalizing on existing tidbits like that would be nice.