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HoT = Dark Souls ? Casual Gamer perspective.


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@robertthebard.8150 said:

@"battledrone.8315" said:i said pof sold 500k in the first MONTH.

In 8 days (the first month) POF sold 500k then?

This is not a very convincing way to make an argument, since everyone knows, I thought, that a month can just be 30 days?

month noun

\ ˈmən(t)th \plural months\ ˈmən(t)s , ˈmən(t)ths \Definition of month1: a measure of time corresponding nearly to the period of the moon's revolution and amounting to approximately 4 weeks or 30 days or ¹/₁₂ of a year2: months plural : an indefinite usually extended period of timehe has been gone for months3: one ninth of the typical duration of human pregnancyshe was in her eighth month

Not really, there is the word "first" in there. The "first month" of POF was September 2017. The "first month of the year" is January, not the first 30 days of the year.

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@"robertthebard.8150" said:That was my question, along with "How do you quantify"

Then direct your question to @"battledrone.8315" who was the one that posted how many copies were sold in what amount of time.

I'm not the one that's trying to claim that a month, as period of time, is only defined by the name of the month

I didn't "claim" anything. I told you what "first month" means, the definition you provided was for a month, not the first month of release. You can argue all you want words instead of staying on the topic but that's where the "focus on the tree, miss the forest" applies

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@maddoctor.2738 said:There are some very simple questions, did HOT cause thousands/millions of players to quit the game?

According to NCSoft, yes. The game gained millions of accounts during HoT (2 million between F2P and HoT, 4 million between HoT and PoF), but people weren't actually buying the game. In the quarterly reports, they ultimately blamed HoT for this due to failing to meet the players' expectations, called it a learning experience and that they would get out the next expansion ASAP.

Did POF sell lower than HOT?

It's impossible to accurately say how many copies were sold. Both earned roughly the same amount in the equivalent amount of time (between HoT and PoF), but PoF went on to be more beneficial for ArenaNet.

From NCSoft's perspective, PoF met sales expectations and was a success, whereas they expected much more out of HoT - the first expansion is a major milestone (Steam and consoles are their last chances) and much better for marketing. PoF also continued on to see an increase in quarterly sales, which was a first of its kind. Previously only the hype of HoT's pre-launch advertising campaign had accomplished that, but HoT ultimately couldn't keep it up.

Were POF sales affected by the population drop caused by HOT being too challenging?

Once you lose people, you're only able to get a portion of them back, so regardless of the reason why people quit, there's no debating that it affected PoF.

If they didn't rush out HoT and had done the equivalent of HoT+PoF, it would have likely been a much greater success. If they would have increased the level cap in HoT or offered vertical progression in some form, it would have also likely been more successful, and topics like this wouldn't have been a repeated occurrence.

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@Healix.5819 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:There are some very simple questions, did HOT cause thousands/millions of players to quit the game?

According to NCSoft, yes. The game gained millions of accounts during HoT (2 million between F2P and HoT, 4 million between HoT and PoF), but people weren't actually buying the game. In the quarterly reports, they ultimately blamed HoT for this due to failing to meet the players' expectations, called it a learning experience and that they would get out the next expansion ASAP.

What am I not understanding here? If people didn't "buy the game" then they weren't plating anything else than core content, right?

Did POF sell lower than HOT?

It's impossible to accurately say how many copies were sold. Both earned roughly the same amount in the equivalent amount of time (between HoT and PoF), but PoF went on to be more beneficial for ArenaNet.

Time between HoT and PoF = ~2yearsTime before PoF and now =~3 years and from what I remember, but won't bother to check to be sure, currently buying PoF is buying both expansions, so it's a better deal than anything before. Doubt these facts are irrelevant, so it's not exactly surprising if it went on to be more beneficial.

From NCSoft's perspective, PoF met sales expectations and was a success, whereas they expected much more out of HoT - the first expansion is a major milestone (Steam and consoles are their last chances) and much better for marketing. PoF also continued on to see an increase in quarterly sales, which was a first of its kind. Previously only the hype of HoT's pre-launch advertising campaign had accomplished that, but HoT ultimately couldn't keep it up.

Is it partially because they've adjusted their expectations for the release of second expansion after the realise of the first one or...?Also regardless of the rest of the content if I'd have a choice with limited information between the expansion that adds gliding and the expansion that adds mounts -including the ones that fly- then... are we going to pretend there's even a contest here? :D Still I don't think that's exactly relevant to the difficulty levels of either of the expansions.

Were POF sales affected by the population drop caused by HOT being too challenging?

Once you lose people, you're only able to get a portion of them back, so regardless of the reason why people quit, there's no debating that it affected PoF.

Sure, but how many players kept leaving anyways even before HoT? How does it compare to the post HoT numbers? Was core really so successfull and then "that super hard HoT came and destroyed everything"?

If they didn't rush out HoT and had done the equivalent of HoT+PoF, it would have likely been a much greater success. If they would have increased the level cap in HoT or offered vertical progression in some form, it would have also likely been more successful, and topics like this wouldn't have been a repeated occurrence.

"If the amount of content in the first expansion would consist of TWO expansions instead, it would most likely be a greater success!" -well... you don't say. If gw2 at release was at today's state and be f2p, it would also most likely have more players and kept them for a longer time. I don't understand what is this supposed to show?

The claim about increasing level cap is a weird one to me, seems like it's based on absolutely nothing. It also changes nothing about the difficulty level that could -and most probably would- easly be scaled appropriately, so pretty sure it doesn't change anything in relation to this thread (and subsequently "topics like this one" would keep appearing exactly like now -but this time you'd also have new ones with "YOU'VE PROMISED NO GEAR TREADMILL!"). So... for now I disagree.

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Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

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@oceansofmars.6894 said:HoT doesn't seem harder than normal, you just can't stand on bad stuff. If your reaction time is bad then play a defensive class or build with defensive armor and runes. You can't go glass cannon with potato reaction time and complain.

GW2 at release, play whatever you like, its your story..

but only if you not overseas with 400ping time.. according to you.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"robertthebard.8150" said:Because the total registered accounts, according to the information provided, only makes up about 3% of the total game sales. Since people like to do math, what percentage of 11 million is 300K? A small percentage, yes?

Total game sales is 5 million, just before the game went F2P in August 2015

11 million is the total players (do note: players not sales, likely includes free accounts) the game announced in September 2017

Curiously they still advertise 11 million players:

The real question is what percentage of HOT/POF sales are HOT/POF gw2efficiency users, the accounts that stopped playing are irrelevant.Someone claimed 1 million / 500k respectively, which prompted the posting of gw2efficiency data.Do you think HOT sold 1 million and POF 500k?

Those were 500k at release and even then we have no idea how accurate they were.. its been years since then. Fun fact i only bought hot at the beginning of this year as well as living story 2,3,4 because of how bad HOT was for me at release i said i'd never buy another expansion at full wack.. I probably will wait on Cantha as well if its anything like how hard everything else was.

@ASP.8093 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:out of 12 mio. and casuals would never use it either. it is echo chambering and fart sniffing par excellence.

It takes 10 seconds to upload an API key; you don't even need to create an account.

People recommend gw2efficiency all the time to casual players asking "How do I make money??" because it is by far the easiest way for people who
DON'T
play the market, and
DON'T
farm, and maybe don't even craft at all to find hidden valuables just sitting uselessly in their bank and material storage.

It's very helpful for a lot of fun, low-effort stuff like birthday presents or starting a cat collection. (Try it out: go to gw2efficiency and collect some cats for your home instance.)

You're absolutely married to the idea that "casual players" are know-nothing louts who can barely figure out how to play a dang video game — because that puts you in the position of being able to speak for the faceless masses who would never be caught dead
pressing the dodge button at the right time
or
experimenting with their character abilities
or
using a website
— when the reality is that there isn't a hard-line division between these categories and a lot of the player base is doing both "casual" stuff and "hardcore" stuff at the same time.

i am still in top 10% of APS. so im prolly better, than most players here. so much for "barely knowing how to play a game". yep, the line can be blurry, but hot went far beyond it.and why would i want cats in my home instance? i am never there anyway.PS "all the time" still ended up 300k users. thats 2,5 % of the official number of players. pretty close to the industry standard for raiders. yep.

Grinding APs is not a way to measure someone's game knowledge or ability to play the game."I have more AP so I'm better" is quite a disconnected conclusion to draw.

isnt that the normal way to measure success in an mmo? playing the content? im not claiming the title or anything, but i have still played more thanmost other players. if PLAYING THE GAME isnt enough, then what is?

For gamers it is yes but for companies its how much money they spend deems how much of a success it is.. The thing is if casual gamers (players that play for friends, social, story and whatever build they like, Not PvP, WVW or Raiding, Not meta min/maxers at all) drop it because its to hard before they spend any money then its not a success at all.

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@Dante.1508 said:

@oceansofmars.6894 said:HoT doesn't seem harder than normal, you just can't stand on bad stuff. If your reaction time is bad then play a defensive class or build with defensive armor and runes. You can't go glass cannon with potato reaction time and complain.

GW2 at release, play whatever you like, its your story..

but only if you not overseas with 400ping time.. according to you.

@"robertthebard.8150" said:Because the total registered accounts, according to the information provided, only makes up about 3% of the total game sales. Since people like to do math, what percentage of 11 million is 300K? A small percentage, yes?

Total game sales is 5 million, just before the game went F2P in August 2015

11 million is the total players (do note: players not sales, likely includes free accounts) the game announced in September 2017

Curiously they still advertise 11 million players:

The real question is what percentage of HOT/POF sales are HOT/POF gw2efficiency users, the accounts that stopped playing are irrelevant.Someone claimed 1 million / 500k respectively, which prompted the posting of gw2efficiency data.Do you think HOT sold 1 million and POF 500k?

Those were 500k
at release
and even then we have no idea how accurate they were.. its been years since then. Fun fact i only bought hot at the beginning of this year as well as living story 2,3,4 because of how bad HOT was for me at release i said i'd never buy another expansion at full wack.. I probably will wait on Cantha as well if its anything like how hard everything else was.

@"robertthebard.8150" said:Because the total registered accounts, according to the information provided, only makes up about 3% of the total game sales. Since people like to do math, what percentage of 11 million is 300K? A small percentage, yes?

Total game sales is 5 million, just before the game went F2P in August 2015

11 million is the total players (do note: players not sales, likely includes free accounts) the game announced in September 2017

Curiously they still advertise 11 million players:

The real question is what percentage of HOT/POF sales are HOT/POF gw2efficiency users, the accounts that stopped playing are irrelevant.Someone claimed 1 million / 500k respectively, which prompted the posting of gw2efficiency data.Do you think HOT sold 1 million and POF 500k?

Those were 500k
at release
and even then we have no idea how accurate they were.. its been years since then. Fun fact i only bought hot at the beginning of this year as well as living story 2,3,4 because of how bad HOT was for me at release i said i'd never buy another expansion at full wack.. I probably will wait on Cantha as well if its anything like how hard the first two expacs were.> @battledrone.8315 said:

@ASP.8093 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:out of 12 mio. and casuals would never use it either. it is echo chambering and fart sniffing par excellence.

It takes 10 seconds to upload an API key; you don't even need to create an account.

People recommend gw2efficiency all the time to casual players asking "How do I make money??" because it is by far the easiest way for people who
DON'T
play the market, and
DON'T
farm, and maybe don't even craft at all to find hidden valuables just sitting uselessly in their bank and material storage.

It's very helpful for a lot of fun, low-effort stuff like birthday presents or starting a cat collection. (Try it out: go to gw2efficiency and collect some cats for your home instance.)

You're absolutely married to the idea that "casual players" are know-nothing louts who can barely figure out how to play a dang video game — because that puts you in the position of being able to speak for the faceless masses who would never be caught dead
pressing the dodge button at the right time
or
experimenting with their character abilities
or
using a website
— when the reality is that there isn't a hard-line division between these categories and a lot of the player base is doing both "casual" stuff and "hardcore" stuff at the same time.

i am still in top 10% of APS. so im prolly better, than most players here. so much for "barely knowing how to play a game". yep, the line can be blurry, but hot went far beyond it.and why would i want cats in my home instance? i am never there anyway.PS "all the time" still ended up 300k users. thats 2,5 % of the official number of players. pretty close to the industry standard for raiders. yep.

Grinding APs is not a way to measure someone's game knowledge or ability to play the game."I have more AP so I'm better" is quite a disconnected conclusion to draw.

isnt that the normal way to measure success in an mmo? playing the content? im not claiming the title or anything, but i have still played more thanmost other players. if PLAYING THE GAME isnt enough, then what is?

For gamers it is yes but for companies its how much money they spend deems how much of a success it is.. The thing is if casual gamers (players that play for friends, social, story and whatever build they like, Not PvP, WVW or Raiding, Not meta min/maxers at all) drop it because its to hard before they spend any money then its not a success at all.

I wana throw this out there, there are players out there who dont even play it for what you listed. I have friends who only ever made it to level 30 but the spend tons of money on cosmetics just so they can look "cute". Those players never buy anything, they usually stick to the free account but sometimes they do cross over and yet and still they dont do the content. Im sure there are people out there who think core is too hard, or that core was so hard they quit? Should we then cater to those people too? Im sorry but I hope cantha is harder, and more daring with its approach. PoF was garbo easy.... And Im saying this as a long time guild wars player, been playing since the original factions release and I personally really enjoyed the HoT days. Other than that Gw2 has been a wash with me most of the way~

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@Atomos.7593 said:Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

yea, wow and wildstar totally proves that point. and swtor. and dcuo. and EVE. even STO arent afraid to swing the nerfhammer.steam players in swtor actually get their first companion at lvl 1 now.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@Atomos.7593 said:Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

yea, wow and wildstar totally proves that point. and swtor. and dcuo. and EVE. even STO arent afraid to swing the nerfhammer.steam players in swtor actually get their first companion at lvl 1 now.

The so called casual players that purchase things for a few days and then disappear once their solo fix has been satisfied doesn't seem to be helping the MMO market either, so there's not much point in trying to satisfy them other than a quick short-term profit that will mean little in the long run.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:The core game failed to keep 90% of the players90%?

Arbitrarily high number to emphasize how core kept much less percentage of players active than HOT (or POF) ever did.

they are actually roughly the same. and 20% of 5 mio is still significantly more, than 20% of 1 miofurthermore, the first loss is pretty much unavoidable, but the second was PLANNED

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@Sobx.1758 said:

when a player choses to use the same build through the whole core game, its pretty safe to say, that they LOVE that build.even worse, it is the build, that they KNOW how to play. changing the rules so late in the game is sheer stupidity, and its going tokitten off most players. they chose that role for a good reason. and if it is wrong, then it has to be so from the start

First of all, that last line was not in my original quote, so I presume it was meant to be the first line of your argument (corrected above). You may have made a minor mistake when assembling your post, so that one of your sentences got added to the end of your quote of my post. Regardless...

To address your argument darling, I think it is fair to say that most players don't choose a role when they play the game. They put together some skills that they like, and then play through most of the game with that build. Since the core game barely challenges anyone, it is quite possible for that build to be a really REALLY bad build. Even if it is a build they "know how to play" and "love", it might simply be terrible. So when such a player then tries HoT, they run into a brick wall.

Before the release of HoT, these forums were full of people asking for better and more challenging combat. They weren't wrong, the core combat is pretty shallow and boring to be honest, mostly due to lack of interesting mechanics. A lot of those concerns were addressed in HoT and further refined in PoF and Living Story. Breakbars became a thing, bosses received phases, enemies received attacks and abilities that heavily punish players when they hit. Basically a huge overhaul of GW2's combat system.

I think this change was badly needed to keep players interested, but it does mark a sudden change in difficulty. Especially players who didn't experience Living Story season 1 and 2 will be ill prepared for HoT throws at them. Plus HoT also seems more designed with groups of players in mind, rather than a solo experience. The tutorials of the game weren't updated to reflect these changes either, making HoT into this brick wall of difficulty for lots of players. It's understandable.

"putting some skills together" is acually how you make a character in this game, no? and dont get me started on the breakbar.yep, they listened to the content locusts, and they have been chasing dogs tail ever since.

They listened to people that actually want to understand game's meechanics, not some "content locust" like you keep calling it. If you want to smile at dying mobs after you hold 1 key then stay in starting zones or just core maps in general and continue being happy.

"putting some skills together" is how you make a character in this game, sure -which doesn't mean that any combination of traits and skills is a coherent one, not sure what you're trying to argue here. All you're showing is your lack of understanding of the basics of the game. Maybe if you've put in that direction HALF of the effort you're showing on the forum to complain, you wouldn't actually have a reason to complain.

Now that I think about it... maybe that's your issue? Maybe you don't want solutions, you just want to keep complaining instead?

Also just a reminder that you forgot to answer some questions about what you mean here:

if they can get to end game content in a few days, then they ARE content locusts, no dev team could ever keep up with them

No, they're not and it has nothing to do with this thread in the first place.

they literally devoured YEARS of work in a few days, and then they start complaining

???Wrong thread? Or what's exactly your point here?

listening to their demands is a sure way to make it into another niche mmo

What "demands"? You think anet consulted anyone before/while making expansions? Stop with your silly baseless claims.

And another reminder that you forgot to answer some questions about what you mean here:

hot was made for "replayability", so it doesi stand by my first commentyes, they clearly listened to the hardcores, when designing hot, why are you even trying to to argue this?

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@Atomos.7593 said:

@Atomos.7593 said:Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

yea, wow and wildstar totally proves that point. and swtor. and dcuo. and EVE. even STO arent afraid to swing the nerfhammer.steam players in swtor actually get their first companion at lvl 1 now.

The so called casual players that purchase things for a few days and then disappear once their solo fix has been satisfied doesn't seem to be helping the MMO market either, so there's not much point in trying to satisfy them other than a quick short-term profit that will mean little in the long run.

it is not only to fill the pockets of the devs, but also the GAME. when an mmo starts feeling empty, the game will go into a death spiralhaving a good levelling experience is like having a good kindergarden. it will repopulate the game with well motivated players.and NOT having one will do the opposite.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@Atomos.7593 said:Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

yea, wow and wildstar totally proves that point. and swtor. and dcuo. and EVE. even STO arent afraid to swing the nerfhammer.steam players in swtor actually get their first companion at lvl 1 now.

The so called casual players that purchase things for a few days and then disappear once their solo fix has been satisfied doesn't seem to be helping the MMO market either, so there's not much point in trying to satisfy them other than a quick short-term profit that will mean little in the long run.

it is not only to fill the pockets of the devs, but also the GAME. when an mmo starts feeling empty, the game will go into a death spiralhaving a good levelling experience is like having a good kindergarden. it will repopulate the game with well motivated players.and NOT having one will do the opposite.

The solo casual players that only play for the story and then leave barely make any MMO seem more populated, especially when there are solo instances that must be completed. I'm sure the players that get involved in the open world through events such as meta events in HoT have a much greater impact on the perceived player population in the game.

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@Atomos.7593 said:

@Atomos.7593 said:Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

yea, wow and wildstar totally proves that point. and swtor. and dcuo. and EVE. even STO arent afraid to swing the nerfhammer.steam players in swtor actually get their first companion at lvl 1 now.

The so called casual players that purchase things for a few days and then disappear once their solo fix has been satisfied doesn't seem to be helping the MMO market either, so there's not much point in trying to satisfy them other than a quick short-term profit that will mean little in the long run.

it is not only to fill the pockets of the devs, but also the GAME. when an mmo starts feeling empty, the game will go into a death spiralhaving a good levelling experience is like having a good kindergarden. it will repopulate the game with well motivated players.and NOT having one will do the opposite.

The solo casual players that only play for the story and then leave barely make any MMO seem more populated, especially when there are solo instances that must be completed. I'm sure the players that get involved in the open world through events such as meta events in HoT have a much greater impact on the perceived player population in the game.

yep, the key word is "perceived". cramming 40 solo drivers into one bus would have the same effect. so of course group play looks more populated.but the shorter solo missions are still the bread and butter of mmos, if they fail, then the whole game suffers

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@Atomos.7593 said:Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

yea, wow and wildstar totally proves that point. and swtor. and dcuo. and EVE. even STO arent afraid to swing the nerfhammer.steam players in swtor actually get their first companion at lvl 1 now.

The so called casual players that purchase things for a few days and then disappear once their solo fix has been satisfied doesn't seem to be helping the MMO market either, so there's not much point in trying to satisfy them other than a quick short-term profit that will mean little in the long run.

it is not only to fill the pockets of the devs, but also the GAME. when an mmo starts feeling empty, the game will go into a death spiralhaving a good levelling experience is like having a good kindergarden. it will repopulate the game with well motivated players.and NOT having one will do the opposite.

The solo casual players that only play for the story and then leave barely make any MMO seem more populated, especially when there are solo instances that must be completed. I'm sure the players that get involved in the open world through events such as meta events in HoT have a much greater impact on the perceived player population in the game.

yep, the key word is "perceived". cramming 40 solo drivers into one bus would have the same effect. so of course group play looks more populated.but the shorter solo missions are still the bread and butter of mmos, if they fail, then the whole game suffers

I'm also sure that people who group up (or pseudo-group) to do harder content make up a big (probably larger) proportion of the game population than the purely solo players that play for only the story. Unless you have the evidence to prove otherwise of course.

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@Healix.5819 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:There are some very simple questions, did HOT cause thousands/millions of players to quit the game?

According to NCSoft, yes.

You have a source for that? That specifically stated players quitting the game was the reason for reduced revenue?

The game gained millions of accounts during HoT (2 million between F2P and HoT, 4 million between HoT and PoF), but people weren't actually buying the game.

True, the game gained millions of accounts and people weren't buying the game. But is that a fault of the expansion?Is the expansion at fault if one of those million free accounts quit the game after beating the tutorial?Is the expansion at fault if one of those million free accounts quit the game before reaching level 50?I don't dispute that people weren't converting, I'm disputing that HOT was to blame for that.

In the quarterly reports, they ultimately blamed HoT for this due to failing to meet the players' expectations, called it a learning experience and that they would get out the next expansion ASAP.

Did they? In which quarterly report did they mention that because I can't find any mention of HOT failing to meet player expectations, but rather the game (as a whole) being unable to convert free players into paid players, which, as I stated above I don't believe it's because of HOT. The core game is to blame for lack of conversions, not the expansion. The game went free to play, meaning players no longer had to buy it to try it, which is also why post HOT revenue was lower than pre HOT revenue

From NCSoft's perspective, PoF met sales expectations and was a success, whereas they expected much more out of HoT - the first expansion is a major milestone (Steam and consoles are their last chances) and much better for marketing. PoF also continued on to see an increase in quarterly sales, which was a first of its kind. Previously only the hype of HoT's pre-launch advertising campaign had accomplished that, but HoT ultimately couldn't keep it up.

Are you forgetting that HOT was selling when POF launched? When they bundled HOT for free with purchase of POF, their revenue tanked to its lowest point ever. Was that just a coincidence? Or it was a fact that during the POF era, HOT was still selling, that 2 year old "failure" still contributing to the game in a meaningful way, considering the great revenue drop when they made it free.

As for the increase in quarterly sales, was it because POF was more casual than HOT and better received by the players, or maybe it was because Mount skins sell better than Glider skins? Because that's the question of the thread. Not which expansion had better revenue, but why.

There are 232 mount skins in the game and 90 glider skins, just by the seer number difference we can see a serious driving force for revenue. Furthermore, for the first time in its history, Guild Wars 2 added "gambling" for those mount skins, and we all know how that went, and even though tweaked, mount licenses still exist. 2k gem "deluxe" mount skins were made available, and outfit/weapon bundles also priced at 2k were introduced to the game disallowing players the ability to pick individual items.

As with free players converting into paid players, I don't dispute that POF sold better than HOT, the revenue reports are readily available. However, I dispute the idea that it was because POF was more casual friendly than HOT and "better received" by the players. We are talking about the expansion that had empty meta events and maps shortly after release, I'm not sure how such a failure can be called "better received". Rather, the success of POF was made possible due to monetization changes, much much heavier focus on the gem store and mounts being much more lucrative than gliders.

Were POF sales affected by the population drop caused by HOT being too challenging?

Once you lose people, you're only able to get a portion of them back, so regardless of the reason why people quit, there's no debating that it affected PoF.

Yes but the follow up question is: did the population drop of HOT affected POF sales more, or less than the population drop caused by the Core game? Which drop affected the game more, the drop due to it being too casual (core) or the drop due to it being too hardcore (HOT)

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@Atomos.7593 said:Honestly it seems like that some players want to auto-attack everything to death with 1 skill so that they can finish the story in 6 hours of gameplay and not touch the game again for a couple of months. IMO catering to these types of players is not healthy for longer-term player population and success.

yea, wow and wildstar totally proves that point. and swtor. and dcuo. and EVE. even STO arent afraid to swing the nerfhammer.steam players in swtor actually get their first companion at lvl 1 now.

The so called casual players that purchase things for a few days and then disappear once their solo fix has been satisfied doesn't seem to be helping the MMO market either, so there's not much point in trying to satisfy them other than a quick short-term profit that will mean little in the long run.

it is not only to fill the pockets of the devs, but also the GAME. when an mmo starts feeling empty, the game will go into a death spiralhaving a good levelling experience is like having a good kindergarden. it will repopulate the game with well motivated players.and NOT having one will do the opposite.

That's true. It's a shame the core game offers such a poor leveling experience. It's one of GW2's biggest failings.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:There are some very simple questions, did HOT cause thousands/millions of players to quit the game?

According to NCSoft, yes.

You have a source for that? That specifically stated players
quitting
the game was the reason for reduced revenue?

The game gained millions of accounts during HoT (2 million between F2P and HoT, 4 million between HoT and PoF), but people weren't actually buying the game.

True, the game gained millions of accounts and people weren't buying the game. But is that a fault of the expansion?Is the expansion at fault if one of those million free accounts quit the game after beating the tutorial?Is the expansion at fault if one of those million free accounts quit the game before reaching level 50?I don't dispute that people weren't converting, I'm disputing that HOT was to blame for that.

In the quarterly reports, they ultimately blamed HoT for this due to failing to meet the players' expectations, called it a learning experience and that they would get out the next expansion ASAP.

Did they? In which quarterly report did they mention that because I can't find any mention of HOT failing to meet player expectations, but rather the game (as a whole) being unable to convert free players into paid players, which, as I stated above I don't believe it's because of HOT. The core game is to blame for lack of conversions, not the expansion. The game went free to play, meaning players no longer had to buy it to try it, which is also why post HOT revenue was lower than pre HOT revenue

From NCSoft's perspective, PoF met sales expectations and was a success, whereas they expected much more out of HoT - the first expansion is a major milestone (Steam and consoles are their last chances) and much better for marketing. PoF also continued on to see an increase in quarterly sales, which was a first of its kind. Previously only the hype of HoT's pre-launch advertising campaign had accomplished that, but HoT ultimately couldn't keep it up.

Are you forgetting that HOT was selling when POF launched? When they bundled HOT for free with purchase of POF, their revenue tanked to its lowest point ever. Was that just a coincidence? Or it was a fact that during the POF era, HOT was still selling, that 2 year old "failure" still contributing to the game in a meaningful way, considering the great revenue drop when they made it free.

As for the increase in quarterly sales, was it because POF was more casual than HOT and better received by the players, or maybe it was because Mount skins sell better than Glider skins? Because that's the question of the thread. Not which expansion had better revenue, but
why
.

There are 232 mount skins in the game and 90 glider skins, just by the seer number difference we can see a serious driving force for revenue. Furthermore, for the first time in its history, Guild Wars 2 added "gambling" for those mount skins, and we all know how that went, and even though tweaked, mount licenses still exist. 2k gem "deluxe" mount skins were made available, and outfit/weapon bundles also priced at 2k were introduced to the game disallowing players the ability to pick individual items.

As with free players converting into paid players, I don't dispute that POF sold better than HOT, the revenue reports are readily available. However, I dispute the idea that it was because POF was more casual friendly than HOT and "better received" by the players. We are talking about the expansion that had empty meta events and maps shortly after release, I'm not sure how such a failure can be called "better received". Rather, the success of POF was made possible due to monetization changes, much much heavier focus on the gem store and mounts being much more lucrative than gliders.

Were POF sales affected by the population drop caused by HOT being too challenging?

Once you lose people, you're only able to get a portion of them back, so regardless of the reason why people quit, there's no debating that it affected PoF.

Yes but the follow up question is: did the population drop of HOT affected POF sales more, or less than the population drop caused by the Core game? Which drop affected the game more, the drop due to it being too casual (core) or the drop due to it being too hardcore (HOT)

I think an important consideration in deciding whether the HoT or PoF expansion was more of a success is the decline of the game in 2019. From all the information I have been able to gather, 2019 seemed like an especially poor year for GW2 both in financial and player population terms. Yes it's true that all MMOs will wane over time as some players will lose interest, but that year was exceptionally bad. It was also suspiciously soon after the PoF expansion released.

The ideal expansion in my mind would be somewhere in between the HoT and PoF expansions. The events in the HoT maps were more fun, challenging and rewarding than the ones in the PoF maps. But the PoF expansion had a better story imo.

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@Sobx.1758 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:My narrative? What are you talking about? :lol: The question is how the number of copies sold during the first month is relevant to this thread, you couldn't answer and then you continued arguing about that very same thing that's irrelevant in this thread. Both of you should stop unless any of you specify what's the point -in relation to this thread- of that argument in the first place lmao.

I didn't answer because it's not my argument. The only position I've had on it is "what difference does it make", with the "fansites are irrelevant" caveat. Something you've been railing against since I posited it. So which is it, does it matter, or not? Since this whole chain is dedicated to me explaining that "first month" isn't limited a particular month, but 30 days, a comment refuted in this very post by the person I quoted to put that forward, what part of that are you so vehemently disagreeing with?

Here's the post, what is it that I have wrong here?

Link to my posts where I'm "railing against it since you posited it".

I'll just keep it to this page, since this is the page where most of this "but a month is only the name of that particular month" I've been refuting in this particular exchange. I guess we can count this quote as well, since it's "but you're wrong, even though you didn't bring it up, but are just questioning the validity of the points raised".

What are you even talking about?I'm asking how the thing that you're consantly arguing about
to which you tell me
and add some pseudo-intellectual snarky
.

I asked you:
to which you responded
.
[note that you still didn't tell me what "
my narrative
" is
(that apparently somehow clashes with your copy-pasted definition of a month??)
, which is a rather simple question about something you wrote about me in the previous post]

Now, after I asked you when I've been railing against your "fansites are irrelevant" caveat (because that's what you wrote about when you said I "have been railing against", right? That's usually how context works), you link to the posts of me... asking "how is this even relevant to this thread"?

Let me repeat again: What are you even talking about right now?If your stance is that the "number of copies sold during first month is irrelevant" (because btw that's what I wrote and -from what I understand- that claim is NOT used by maddoctor to support anything, instead it's used by people like the author of this thread as was explained to me
), then feel free to
drop this worthless argument
and write more-or-less:
"hey, I agree, bringing first-month sales of the expansions by people complaining about HoT and PoF is irrelevant, so they need something else to support their opinion"
. Yup. That's all. Whether a month is 365 days, 30 days, a week or an hour is irrelevant. What's relevant is that it doesn't show anything and it's an argument used by OP (or people sharing his point of view, whatever).

Which I have done, more than once, perhaps even in the post you quoted here. But let's go back to the post that got this little side tizzy started, yes? I said "That's not a very convincing way to frame an argument etc. etc." This was the reply to that:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1344704/#Comment_1344704

Note, I did not try to leverage the time period as having any significance to the game, just an abstract English lesson, both in how the word is actually used in conversation, and in how to frame an argument against something, or, more accurately, how not to. I provided a definition, so the poster I was quoting could see that their stance was incorrect, and subsequently even cited a particular example, in the actual definition, and yet, I still get this type of response, accusing me of all kinds of things outside the scope of what I actually said. I can only see this as deliberate, posted in support of the person I was quoting. Why else add context to something I post, when what you're trying to add, and then argue against, is clearly not in any of my posts?

Now, since our interactions on this page have been over how the word month is used in conversation, my actual point of contention with the poster I quoted, exactly what is it that you feel I have wrong here? I have already provided links to your attempts to refute what I initially claimed, that "a month" can be used to signify 30 days, and not just a particular month. It's that you feel I have something wrong, or that you're blindly defending the other poster, for whatever reason. I do, however, agree; if you can't actually discuss something I actually said, we should be done here. It's hard for me to argue against a straw man that can change based on which way the wind is blowing at any particular moment, especially when it's being built in such a way as to assign positions to me that I don't hold, and can't even make a logical leap to based on what's actually provided in text.

Note: I was clear on what I was responding to in the post that can be read in the link I provided in this post that I snipped everything else out of that poster's comment to provide the definition of month. To wit:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1344702/#Comment_1344702

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@"Sobx.1758" said:What am I not understanding here? If people didn't "buy the game" then they weren't plating anything else than core content, right?

Yes. There was no major drive to buy HoT.

Time between HoT and PoF = ~2yearsTime before PoF and now =~3 years and from what I remember, but won't bother to check to be sure, currently buying PoF is buying both expansions, so it's a better deal than anything before. Doubt these facts are irrelevant, so it's not exactly surprising if it went on to be more beneficial.

To clarify, in the same time span, PoF made more, a lot more if you normalize it (I didn't). I was being generous to HoT and included the influx from its nearly year-long advertising campaign, which makes both roughly equal. After HoT's ~2 year mark, PoF continued on to have higher sales that are still strong today. They wouldn't have been able to pull off 4 years without an expansion back in 2015, or shift focus to side projects, so blame PoF for that.

Is it partially because they've adjusted their expectations for the release of second expansion after the realise of the first one or...?Also regardless of the rest of the content if I'd have a choice with limited information between the expansion that adds gliding and the expansion that adds mounts -including the ones that fly- then... are we going to pretend there's even a contest here? :D Still I don't think that's exactly relevant to the difficulty levels of either of the expansions.

HoT was the first expansion and had huge expectations with the f2p launch. For context, sales were initially predicted to be 3x what they were, rivaling the original launch. The question is, what happened to going f2p? Normally it'd cause a spike, but it wasn't even noticeable, probably because there was no real downside to only playing for free. If PoF was first or HoT had the huge draw of mounts, it could have gone very differently, however, the lack of a traditional experience will always be GW2's greatest flaw.

Sure, but how many players kept leaving anyways even before HoT? How does it compare to the post HoT numbers? Was core really so successfull and then "that super hard HoT came and destroyed everything"?

HoT was initially drawing people in leading up to its launch - sales stabilized and saw a slight increase the quarter HoT was announced. After launch, it was as if HoT never happened - they lost an equal amount to what they had gained (post-HoT is likely where sales would have been if they continued with the living world instead).

"If the amount of content in the first expansion would consist of TWO expansions instead, it would most likely be a greater success!" -well... you don't say. If gw2 at release was at today's state and be f2p, it would also most likely have more players and kept them for a longer time. I don't understand what is this supposed to show?

HoT and PoF are effectively half expansions. ArenaNet acknowledged that when they chose to sell PoF as such. The first expansion should be a big deal and they wasted it, just like they'll no doubt waste the Steam launch.

The claim about increasing level cap is a weird one to me, seems like it's based on absolutely nothing. It also changes nothing about the difficulty level that could -and most probably would- easly be scaled appropriately, so pretty sure it doesn't change anything in relation to this thread (and subsequently "topics like this one" would keep appearing exactly like now -but this time you'd also have new ones with "YOU'VE PROMISED NO GEAR TREADMILL!"). So... for now I disagree.

Fun fact, they originally talked about increasing the level cap in expansions and ascended gear was intended to become more powerful over time, which was only continued in China. The game wasn't not supposed to have a treadmill, it was just supposed to be stretched out, rather than every few months, which they now do with masteries.

If HoT would have increased the level cap, the first half of HoT would have been a lot easier and players could have been given an appropriate set of gear, rather than coming out of the personal story with a set of rares and nothing else. Proper vertical progression also changes the perspective - you just need better gear and will eventually succeed, vs you may never succeed.

 


 

 

@"maddoctor.2738" said:You have a source for that? That specifically stated players quitting the game was the reason for reduced revenue?

Them specifically stating that? No. You have to read between the lines. They simply stated that there was gap between what HoT offered and what people wanted. Now look at it from a business perspective - they lost millions of potential customers - what would you do? They wanted the next expansion out ASAP. If core was costing them so much, they should have at least made it a new campaign, making that the new core, but instead they will no doubt re-launch on Steam with nothing changed and repeat all of the past complaints.

Are you forgetting that HOT was selling when POF launched? When they bundled HOT for free with purchase of POF, their revenue tanked to its lowest point ever. Was that just a coincidence? Or it was a fact that during the POF era, HOT was still selling, that 2 year old "failure" still contributing to the game in a meaningful way, considering the great revenue drop when they made it free.

Any sales for HoT at that point are because of PoF drawing them in. If HoT was actually selling well, they would have had no reason to bundle it for free, especially with Steam incoming, unless you want to say PoF wasn't selling, thus they had to bundle it because people weren't playing the current releases.

As for the drop, as someone who tracks activity, I can confirm activity dropped during that period (imgur), so it wasn't simply due to HoT. Also, see the image.

Yes but the follow up question is: did the population drop of HOT affected POF sales more, or less than the population drop caused by the Core game? Which drop affected the game more, the drop due to it being too casual (core) or the drop due to it being too hardcore (HOT)

That's not comparable, unless you want to pretend what it would have been like if HoT was the core game and PoF was HoT.

What HoT ultimately cost them was potential. MMOs only have a few of these big chances - the first expansion, going F2P, launching on Steam and launching on consoles/mobile.

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