EoD expansion should have new RAID

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Obtena.7952" said:If anyone wants to justify Anet making new raids for EoD, they need to be on board with the idea that raids need to change so more (and enough) of that 'spend' voice participates in that game element.

Well the main problem of Raids (when it comes to revenue) is that they are essentially free. On the other hand, living world episodes are behind a paywall. Maybe a way to increase Raid profitability is to monetize them. Make them free when someone logs when they are released (just like episodes work) and require a payment (in gems of course) when someone logs at a later date.

Plus, they already tried that. Basically, I think there is already an established playerbase and they know what they want and the data shows Anet what they want.

Well the data tells them to players don't enter Raids because they are more difficult than other end game content, not that they don't want to run Raids. After all, according to their official data

We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.That's the reason why Raid participation isn't higher. So they are "fixing" this by providing content between Raids and other "endgame content" whatever that means, because according to the data, that's the problem with Raids.

[Obtena.7952]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:If anyone wants to justify Anet making new raids for EoD, they need to be on board with the idea that raids need to change so more (and enough) of that 'spend' voice participates in that game element.

Well the main problem of Raids (when it comes to revenue) is that they are essentially free. On the other hand, living world episodes are behind a paywall. Maybe a way to increase Raid profitability is to monetize them. Make them free when someone logs when they are released (just like episodes work) and require a payment (in gems of course) when someone logs at a later date.

Let's be careful here. Associating a price to content isn't going to entice the 'spender' voice to participate in content they don't already avoid. People spend because they like the content the game offers, so the content itself needs to change to capture spenders.

Plus, they already tried that. Basically, I think there is already an established playerbase and they know what they want and the data shows Anet what they want.

Well the data tells them to players don't enter Raids because they are more difficult than other end game content, not that they don't want to run Raids. After all, according to their official data

We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.That's the reason why Raid participation isn't higher. So they are "fixing" this by providing content between Raids and other "endgame content" whatever that means, because according to the data, that's the problem with Raids.

Sounds like a contrived reason if you ask me ... but hey, if that's the reason Anet has convinced themselves people don't play, I won't argue with it. The lack of a 'gap filling' content being developed isn't a good sign for raids.

[Vayne.8563]

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:Guys, let's not even focus on the past anymore, it is more about the future of this expansion and where the game goes, will EoD close the doors or open up with content for everyone? Meaning RAIDS too. A successful game provides content for everyone, and not just skins and story (with few DRMs thrown at us recently, I do them daily but still, misses many opportunities).

A raid is needed, Wvw rebalance is needed, more fractals are needed, new maps, new elite specs, maybe a new thing like private homes, BOTH open world and challenges, not just the casual living world stuff we are getting now, else the game can be considered dead to begin with, and your arguments kind of predict that this very lack of raid developing and other hardcore content that we see might as well just be a sign of expiration date for the game, just saying, a game that is fully focused on open world and skin collection is barely a game, raids/wvw/fractals and even the core dungeons, keep this game alive. (also HoT metas ngl)

There are different ways to be successful. There are successful niche games that don't offer something for everyone and there are broadly focused main stream successes. In a field with a number of broad MMOs already out there, specializing is absolutely an option. Had this game specialized at what it did right the first 3.5 years instead of expanding into raids, it would be stronger today in my opinion, albeit with a different audience.

Anet either doesn't have the staffing to provide everything for everyone or it doesn't have the organization. Either way, something always seems to suffer here. The solution, in my opinion, is to specialize. There are too many games competing with raids in them already for Anet to even hope of catching up.

You make it sound like Anet did this huge investment into and sacrifice with Raids.The entire endgame team, Fractals and Raids, were 5-10 people of the, at the time around 400 people company. LW being developed by 4 fully stocked content teams.

What did ArenaNet so hugely sacrifice for Raids? Let's put those 5 people into LW instead, and maybe they generate ~2 single story instances more a year, with the greatly increased budged on things like writing and VO, etc, maybe 3 since they need to be less concerned with actually adding and developing any mechanics in turn.

You really think GW2 would be in a better spot right now, if instead of all of Raids and Fractals, there would have been ~10-20 more story instances along the way over the years, which most people would have played once and mostly forgotten about by now?

How would that have been more value for the game than long term repeatable and community building content like Raids?

Especially since GW2 is widely known for it's serviceable Story at best, with Story focused players gravitating towards FF XIV, ESO and SWTOR - while the one advantage GW2 always had and has been praised for is it's unparalleled active combat system, as well as it's commitment to non gear grind or pay to win based endgame and PvP.

You really think GW2's niche, as a massively multiplayer online game, was more single player Story, when almost every single competitor is known for better Stroy content or even based on successful single player Story franchises and worlds that people want to immerse themselves in - while also providing other content avenues in which GW2 would be even more lacking in then?

Let's not forget, Fractals and Raid Wings are 5-30 minutes pieces of content, and largely carried by their difficulty and community aspect (as well as reward structure, like all other content), providing possibly hundreds if not in some cases thousands of hours of entertainment (and years of game/gemstore engagement) to some players.Take that same amount work (or more) with assets, voice acting etc., strip the community aspect and difficulty, and you got 5 to maybe 20 minutes of extra once and done single player content a year.

There is a reason every MMO, live service, online game in general, either launches with and develops onto some sort of "endgame" to keep people hooked, or largely fail horribly. It's a no-brainer to at least somewhat invest in. Yes, it's more niche content that you likely can't exclusively focus on, but it's also by far the highest value for investment.

I really think GW 2 would be in a spot if raids had never been introduced. In fact, I think GW 2 would have been in a far better spot had raids not been introduced.

Let's look at the history. For 9 months after HoT launched (an expansion already seen as hard core by the casual player base, trained by this very game to be the casual player base), we only had PvP tournaments and raids as releases. Nine entire months, after an expansion that largely drove casuals from the game. You might not remember how fast the income fell, but Anet must have seen something there, because they spent one entire quarterly update just to make HoT more causual. They didn't do it because raids were keeping the playerbase going. Look at the quarterly figures for those months as the months passed when pretty much only hard core content was coming out. It was abysmal. And it never really recovered after that. He stabilized at a new low, because casuals walked away from this game.

Raids don't exist in a vacuum. Raids are visible. The raids themselves didn't drive those casuals from the game, but the idea that this game used to be for me and now it's not is a big factor for a lot of people. People tend to invest and take ownership of their hobbies. When the Yankees win a game fans don't say they won. They say we won. Because they can relate to the team. It's their team. This game was a casual players paradise, HoT came out and raids were the poster for hard core content.

Raiders don't exist in larger numbers than casuals but they post more. They talk more in forums. And so even though only a small percentage of the community is raiding it's a very loud small percent. Casuals who lurk mostly and see this raid talk going on could easily think I'm not going to raid. I might as well not play this game. It's not my game anymore. Because I can assure you that's what happened for a lot of people. I said it before raids came out and and I'm saying it now and the numbers seem to reflect the fact that harder core stuff didn't help or save this game. It cost this game.

This game has an end game, just not a standard end game. People are hooked on meta events and collections and making legendary weapons, and zone metas, more than raids. How do I know. Because an Anet dev said not enough people are raiding for them to put effort into making more raids. That's how I know. If not enough people were doing the other stuff, they wouldn't be focusing on it.

GW2 would have been dead if raids were not introduced, like I said, most watched content on twitch from gw2 is raiding, not auto attacking on metas where your fps struggles on high-end hardware

Guild Wars 2 was busier and more successful before raids were introduced and it never really had twitch coverage then. I'm not sure in what world twitch coverage = success, but there are many successful games that don't do well on twitch.

[Vayne.8563]

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

I have raid skins and I'm not a raider. Shrugs.

Yes but unlike you, there are people who actually want to feel that they deserved and earned those skins with their work in the game, I would never buy raid skins. It kills the entire feeling of achieving something in the game...

I never bought a raid . I did the escort with my guild early on over and over again to unlock that mastery track, and I got some from wardrobe unlocks I'm pretty sure. As for earning rewards, I earned them by doing the escort and buying skins with currency and even getting a drop from that one chest. But that said, it's okay that people want to earn their hard fought rewards. What's not okay is making rewards for 5% of the population when Anet doesn't have the staff to do other stuff like WvW and PvP updates as well. Those were in the game from launch, raids were added. Let's upgrade what's already there, instead of catering to a new market that the community itself rejected.

There you go:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/107451/thanks-anet-for-the-changes-to-the-zone-meta-in-drizzlewood-coast#latest

@Vayne.8563 said:I have a raid boss achievement (just 1) that i paid for, and another raid boss achievement I was carried through and one that I did on my own. 2 out of 3 of my raid achievements I didn't really achieve. You have no way of knowing the percentage of the people who were carried.

I paid for the raid boiss achievement for me and my wife, on her birthday as a birthday gift to her. I paid for myself only because I knew she wouldn't go alone with a bunch of strangers. That's how we work. I never bought a raid just for myself.

I have done the escort at least a dozen times, but I haven't raided since. It doesn't make me a raider. It makes me a PvE casual who tried to get his guild through enough of a single raid, just one part, to unlock achievements for raids in the days before raids were hidden. Not even sure what you're trying to prove here.

Edit: If you were trying to prove i was lying, that raid buy was so long ago, I'd completely forgotten about it. Not sure what difference you think that makes.A simple correction of previous statement or an apology to the person you wronged would suffice, making more excuses like this doesn't really convince here.

Exactly what would I be apologizing for? I didn't get a raid skin on the one raid run I bought, so why would an apology be necesssary. People DO buy raids and have raids skins from them. There are raid sellers advertising so frequently in LFG that raiders complain about them and use filters to get by the people selling raids. They're not selling them to no one.

The concept that there are a lot of raid skins so there are a lot of raiders was my point and my point remains. Nothing is changed at all, whether I forget the one single raid run I bought five years ago or not. Shrugs.,

[WindBlade.8749]

The thing is that this mmorpg have amazing fight mechanics and synergies, the problem is that openworld contents will never do justice to it (openworld is really good but for different reasons that target others things even if they are less repeatable), only high lvl pvp, high lvl mcm, fractals t4/cms, and we can see a faint light of it in strikes can do her justices.

But mcm and pvp is played in a totaly different way then pve for obvious reasons.

So if you want to really play gw2 with it's full potential in the pve side you must go to fractal t4/cm before raids, but it's also it's own thiing since it's a 5 player gamemode.Raids introduce a new kind of play since it's 10 men, it's more heavy mechanics and use more of the game features than cms since they have more players to work with.

That why raids, fractals, mcm and pvp are important to this game, what the point of having a good fighting if you never fight, ffxiv, wow have better instanced contents surely, but i have more fun in gw2 in less good instanced contents (even if they are still really good) since the fighting system is better (or just different but anyway).

I know so much guilds composed of hundreds of people each that will just leave the game if raids get removed or not updated after too much time as i know so much guild that have hundred of people in the same situation for mcm, (don't know too much about pvp even if i live it i need to find a team to play it)).

Raids in this game is not even raids like in others mmorpg, it's even his thing which derive from classic raids like fractal derive from classic 5 man contents, i think it's will been better if like fractal which is own thing it's was called something else.

[Vilin.8056]

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

I have raid skins and I'm not a raider. Shrugs.

Yes but unlike you, there are people who actually want to feel that they deserved and earned those skins with their work in the game, I would never buy raid skins. It kills the entire feeling of achieving something in the game...

I never bought a raid . I did the escort with my guild early on over and over again to unlock that mastery track, and I got some from wardrobe unlocks I'm pretty sure. As for earning rewards, I earned them by doing the escort and buying skins with currency and even getting a drop from that one chest. But that said, it's okay that people want to earn their hard fought rewards. What's not okay is making rewards for 5% of the population when Anet doesn't have the staff to do other stuff like WvW and PvP updates as well. Those were in the game from launch, raids were added. Let's upgrade what's already there, instead of catering to a new market that the community itself rejected.

There you go:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/107451/thanks-anet-for-the-changes-to-the-zone-meta-in-drizzlewood-coast#latest

@Vayne.8563 said:I have a raid boss achievement (just 1) that i paid for, and another raid boss achievement I was carried through and one that I did on my own. 2 out of 3 of my raid achievements I didn't really achieve. You have no way of knowing the percentage of the people who were carried.

I paid for the raid boiss achievement for me and my wife, on her birthday as a birthday gift to her. I paid for myself only because I knew she wouldn't go alone with a bunch of strangers. That's how we work. I never bought a raid just for myself.

I have done the escort at least a dozen times, but I haven't raided since. It doesn't make me a raider. It makes me a PvE casual who tried to get his guild through enough of a single raid, just one part, to unlock achievements for raids in the days before raids were hidden. Not even sure what you're trying to prove here.

Edit: If you were trying to prove i was lying, that raid buy was so long ago, I'd completely forgotten about it. Not sure what difference you think that makes.A simple correction of previous statement or an apology to the person you wronged would suffice, making more excuses like this doesn't really convince here.

Exactly what would I be apologizing for? I didn't get a raid skin on the one raid run I bought, so why would an apology be necesssary. People DO buy raids and have raids skins from them. There are raid sellers advertising so frequently in LFG that raiders complain about them and use filters to get by the people selling raids. They're not selling them to no one.

The concept that there are a lot of raid skins so there are a lot of raiders was my point and my point remains. Nothing is changed at all, whether I forget the one single raid run I bought five years ago or not. Shrugs.,

Isn't that another excuse for lying? Trying to nitpick some very niche exceptions of a context won't make any justifications to that. Especially when the honesty in that is questionable at most.And who's to say that casuals are the primary audience for raid selling? they hardly browse raid LFG and hardly have a gain from buying one boss kill. You really never understood the interest of the casual community, just because you spent hundred(s) of gold buying raid achievement doesn't mean that idea isn't ridiculous to the majority of casuals.As said over and over, your interest do not represent the majority of the casual community.

[Vayne.8563]

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

I have raid skins and I'm not a raider. Shrugs.

Yes but unlike you, there are people who actually want to feel that they deserved and earned those skins with their work in the game, I would never buy raid skins. It kills the entire feeling of achieving something in the game...

I never bought a raid . I did the escort with my guild early on over and over again to unlock that mastery track, and I got some from wardrobe unlocks I'm pretty sure. As for earning rewards, I earned them by doing the escort and buying skins with currency and even getting a drop from that one chest. But that said, it's okay that people want to earn their hard fought rewards. What's not okay is making rewards for 5% of the population when Anet doesn't have the staff to do other stuff like WvW and PvP updates as well. Those were in the game from launch, raids were added. Let's upgrade what's already there, instead of catering to a new market that the community itself rejected.

There you go:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/107451/thanks-anet-for-the-changes-to-the-zone-meta-in-drizzlewood-coast#latest

@Vayne.8563 said:I have a raid boss achievement (just 1) that i paid for, and another raid boss achievement I was carried through and one that I did on my own. 2 out of 3 of my raid achievements I didn't really achieve. You have no way of knowing the percentage of the people who were carried.

I paid for the raid boiss achievement for me and my wife, on her birthday as a birthday gift to her. I paid for myself only because I knew she wouldn't go alone with a bunch of strangers. That's how we work. I never bought a raid just for myself.

I have done the escort at least a dozen times, but I haven't raided since. It doesn't make me a raider. It makes me a PvE casual who tried to get his guild through enough of a single raid, just one part, to unlock achievements for raids in the days before raids were hidden. Not even sure what you're trying to prove here.

Edit: If you were trying to prove i was lying, that raid buy was so long ago, I'd completely forgotten about it. Not sure what difference you think that makes.A simple correction of previous statement or an apology to the person you wronged would suffice, making more excuses like this doesn't really convince here.

Exactly what would I be apologizing for? I didn't get a raid skin on the one raid run I bought, so why would an apology be necesssary. People DO buy raids and have raids skins from them. There are raid sellers advertising so frequently in LFG that raiders complain about them and use filters to get by the people selling raids. They're not selling them to no one.

The concept that there are a lot of raid skins so there are a lot of raiders was my point and my point remains. Nothing is changed at all, whether I forget the one single raid run I bought five years ago or not. Shrugs.,

Isn't that another excuse for lying? Trying to nitpick some very niche exceptions of a context won't make any justifications to that. Especially when the honesty in that is questionable at most.And who's the say that casuals are the primary audience for raid selling? they hardly browse raid LFG and hardly have a gain from buying one boss kill. You really never understood the interest of the casual community, just because you spent hundred(s) of gold buying raid achievement doesn't mean that idea isn't ridiculous to the majority of casuals.As said over and over, your interest do not represent the majority of the casual community.

You can say it over and over again but it doesn't make it true. It's a fact I run a casual guild and I've played with lots of those people for many many years. You think you have a pulse on the casual community. I think I have a pulse on the casual community. And we're likely both right because they're not just one casual community speaking with one voice. There are all sorts of levels of casuals.

But the claim that Drizzlewood is somehow a hard core raider bastion, based on the idea that you saw a lot of raider skins or titles there is clearly flawed, because there are a number of people that buy raids, and there are some other ways to get raid skins. You simply don't know. As pointed out I have raid skins and and I don't raid, even though I did get through a couple of raids early on. I didn't enjoy what I was doing and stopped. Doesn't stop me from having skins.

This whole Drizzlewood is somehow a hard core meta that casuals don't know or run is not true.

I'm not just cherry picking facts here.

At any rate, my believe that raids don't help the game at all, remains my belief. The game didn't increase in popularity or business when raids were what was coming out. If it had Anet would have kept making them. Instead, what they did was making an apology about HoT to casuals, and make HoT more casual and went back to what actually worked for them.

If you didn't notice, POF is the like anti HoT. It has more soloable hero points. It has less confusing zones. It has content on demand like bounties. It's less about what HoT was about.

ALso if you didn't notice Anet stopped producing new raids at this time. They put strike missions as the stepping stone to raids, but I don't suspect they're going to be very effective.

And all this is really moot, because no matter what either of us says, Anet has the data and they're interpreting it. It doesn't matter if I say on the forums raids haven't helped the game. Anet has that data. They have some idea at least. My guess is if they thought raids had helped the game they'd make more of them.

And if they feel that raids will increase sales in EoD then they'll put them in EoD. I don't think that's the case, but it's not really my decision. Anet is going to do what the data suggests they do. No matter what we say in this thread.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Obtena.7952" said:Let's be careful here. Associating a price to content isn't going to entice the 'spender' voice to participate in content they don't already avoid. People spend because they like the content the game offers, so the content itself needs to change to capture spenders.

If a price is associated then more money will be earned from the content so they might not need more pople to participate in it in the first place. It's not like they ever allocated a ton of resources to the content.

Sounds like a contrived reason if you ask me ... but hey, if that's the reason Anet has convinced themselves people don't play, I won't argue with it.

Oh I agree that reason isn't... the best, or even the most probable. I just posted that to show what their "data" supposedly "shows".

The lack of a 'gap filling' content being developed isn't a good sign for raids.

I'd wager we only get filler DRM content because is working on the expansion. We'll see what types of content are developed after that launches.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Vayne.8563 said:The game didn't increase in popularity or business when raids were what was coming out. If it had Anet would have kept making them.

The game didn't increase in popularity or business when we were only getting Living World episodes for 2 years, yet Anet kept making them. And still does

[Vayne.8563]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:The game didn't increase in popularity or business when raids were what was coming out. If it had Anet would have kept making them.

The game didn't increase in popularity or business when we were only getting Living World episodes for 2 years, yet Anet kept making them. And still does

But they didn't decrease either. That is to say when the living world was coming out, Guild Wars 2 had roughly the same income as during the HoT drought. It was doing better before. That's the real issue. People walked away because they didn't like the new game and some people never looked back.

You set up a game centered around casuals for years. Then you listen to the hard core crowd, very loud, but not as large, you disenfranchise your core player base, of course it went down.

Anet never really went back to pleasing that core player base either. Everything had to get harder and more annoying. We still see posts sometimes that way Night of Fires is too hard. The zone metas are more annoying and more grindy. Anet is trying to thread a needle that works for both casuals and hard core players and in doing so truly pleases neither.

They should have kept zone metas where they were. Honestly I don't think Anet had any real clue what made the game so successful in the first 3.5 years. They moved away from it and never really found their way back.

We're never going to have that first success now. The population seems to have more or less stabilized. I don't really see any way of going back, unfortunately. But I do believe raiding isn't what's going to save this game, or improve it's fortunes. Again, that's just my personal opinion. Anet will do what they are going to do with raids based on their numbers.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Vayne.8563" said:But they didn't decrease either.

Let's check it out

Until Q4 2013, the game's revenue was ever decreasing quarter by quarter. Then after that Q4 2013 boost, it started going down again quarter after quarter until it hit bottom in Q4 2014. There is a rather vast difference between 2013 and 2014

You can check the yearly results as well:

From 2012 to 2014 the game was losing revenue and that only changed with the launch of HOT, so don't give me that "didn't decrease" because it's a fact (I provided the data) that there was a massive drop in the game's revenue. And statistics don't lie.

That is to say when the living world was coming out, Guild Wars 2 had roughly the same income as during the HoT drought. It was doing better before. That's the real issue. People walked away because they didn't like the new game and some people never looked back.

We already know the official reason for the lower revenue during HOT. The core game not being good enough in 2015 to convert players. There were over 2 million new accounts created when the game went free to play, same as the sales it got between Q1 2013 and Q4 2015, but that did not translate into higher revenue because those players did not convert into paying customers. The game was lacking box sales, not gem store revenue.

Before going free to play the majority of the game's revenue was from box sales, not the gem store. Going free removed that. The lack of gem store offerings during HOT, compared to the MASSIVE gem store focus during POF was also a factor. Even when not including mounts, POF had more gem store offerings than HOT, with mounts included the difference is just gigantic.

[Vayne.8563]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Vayne.8563" said:But they didn't decrease either.

Let's check it out

Until Q4 2013, the game's revenue was ever decreasing quarter by quarter. Then after that Q4 2013 boost, it started going down again quarter after quarter until it hit bottom in Q4 2014. There is a rather vast difference between 2013 and 2014

You can check the yearly results as well:

From 2012 to 2014 the game was losing revenue and that only changed with the launch of HOT, so don't give me that "didn't decrease" because it's a fact (I provided the data) that there was a massive drop in the game's revenue. And statistics don't lie.

That is to say when the living world was coming out, Guild Wars 2 had roughly the same income as during the HoT drought. It was doing better before. That's the real issue. People walked away because they didn't like the new game and some people never looked back.

We already know the official reason for the lower revenue during HOT. The core game not being good enough in 2015 to convert players. There were over 2 million new accounts created when the game went free to play, same as the sales it got between Q1 2013 and Q4 2015, but that did not translate into higher revenue because those players did not convert into paying customers. The game was lacking box sales, not gem store revenue.

Before going free to play the majority of the game's revenue was from box sales, not the gem store. Going free removed that. The lack of gem store offerings during HOT, compared to the MASSIVE gem store focus during POF was also a factor. Even when not including mounts, POF had more gem store offerings than HOT, with mounts included the difference is just gigantic.

I don't believe the core game wasn't good enough to convert players. In, fact, I feel like in many ways the core game is worse now than it was. Heart of THorns launched in 2015, new expansion, first expansion everyone was excited. It was a big deal. Announced at a big con. But 2016 dropped below 2014, before HoT launched. The core game was more successful. It had more casual players. I agree with your numbers, but your way of interpreting those numbers isn't better than my way. The truth is no one will ever really know, but if HoT and raids were a strong release, you wouldn't see the year before the expansion launched being much stronger than the year after it launched, particularly because it launched near the end of the year.

[yukarishura.4790]

@Vayne.8563 said:

Guild Wars 2 was busier and more successful before raids were introduced and it never really had twitch coverage then. I'm not sure in what world twitch coverage = success, but there are many successful games that don't do well on twitch.

Uhm ofc it was busier, that is because it was a new game, many fans from GW1 came to try GW2, having high expectations after GW1. Nothing to do with having raids or not having them. And yes, twitch coverage = visibility, I do not see any visibility for this game on youtube/twitch besides raids, which says enough

[yukarishura.4790]

@Obtena.7952

GW2 had no problems for the first three years when it didn't have raids and it hasn't died in the last two years since we stopped getting more.

Nothing to do with raids, GW2 had no problems in the first three years because it was a new game that sparked interest, especially people who were known with the franchise, now look at how the game is in 2021 and you will see it went downhill due to its incapacity to develop content regularly, including raids. Stop twisting the argument with the first years when the game was slow-paced, it took forever to get to level 80, it engaged people into finishing their world map and dungeons and some living world story, after that they tried to resurrect with the expansion etc So the argument of wow the game was doing well before raids has 0 value here

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Vayne.8563" said:I don't believe the core game wasn't good enough to convert players.

That's what NCSoft said. That's what getting 2 million new free accounts yet revenue not going up means. That's what 70% of the accounts of this game having 600 AP and under means. You can obviously believe whatever you want, but there are facts here that aren't easy to ignore. Including official comments. Funny how official data works on forum arguments, when the official stance "agrees" with your argument, it's true, when it doesn't, let's ignore it.

The core game was more successful.

Was more successful in what? Having more sales? Yes it was, the core game sold a lot of copies, espeically in the first year (2012) when it sold the bulk of the copies. Then it dramatically slowed down in sales, until it went free and those sales obviously stopped. But the question is how many of those sales remained with the game in long run.

I agree with your numbers, but your way of interpreting those numbers isn't better than my way.

So I got official comments, I got the official leaderboards, I got the numbers to back up my side, you have nothing and call my interpretation "not better than your way". Great, as I said above you can believe what you want, trying to change someone's opinion when they ignore facts isn't really gonna work.

The truth is no one will ever really know, but if HoT and raids were a strong release, you wouldn't see the year before the expansion launched being much stronger than the year after it launched, particularly because it launched near the end of the year.

Well since the game went free to play -before- the launch of the expansion, that drop can be rather easily explained. Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2: Heroic Edition was selling better than the Elder Scrolls Online, a much more recent game, on Amazon, before Guild Wars 2 went free to play. Yes, it's Amazon and both games have official stores, but it's indicative that the game was indeed still selling before going free, and that revenue was cut off.

[Obtena.7952]

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@"Obtena.7952"

GW2 had no problems for the first three years when it didn't have raids and it hasn't died in the last two years since we stopped getting more.

Nothing to do with raids, GW2 had no problems in the first three years because it was a new game that sparked interest,

No no, your claim is that the game needs new raids ... but it doesn't because for the majority of the time this game has existed, it hasn't had new raids and it's still being developed. I would actually be inclined to agree with the statement we need raids if the revenue charts have large increases during the time new raids were being released in the game ... except they don't. In fact, if you look at the charts and say "when were new raids being released" ... anyone would have a VERY difficult time identifying that time period based on the data alone.

Stop twisting the argument with the first years when the game was slow-paced ...

Except that's not twisting the argument ... that's the POINT. The game has an established playerbase BECAUSE of what it was when it was released, not because of content released 3 years in like raids. Raids CAN'T be successful because it doesn't entice that playerbase to engage in it. Anet needs to learn that the content they develop needs to address the desires of the playerbase their game caters to and entice those people to spend money if they want to be successful.

[maddoctor.2738]

@yukarishura.4790 said:@"Obtena.7952"

GW2 had no problems for the first three years when it didn't have raids and it hasn't died in the last two years since we stopped getting more.

Nothing to do with raids, GW2 had no problems in the first three years because it was a new game that sparked interest

Um GW2 had "no problems" in the first 2 quarters would be more accurate, not 3 years. And even that is very far streched. You are probably a much newer arrival to the game but let me tell you that the first signs of "trouble" for the game appeared as early as November 2012, which the developers responded to, by adding Ascended equipment (at the time Rings from Fractals). The reasoning was that players were leaving the game in giant numbers because they had nothing to do.

To get an idea of how bad the situation was, World Bosses and Champions were left alone because those extra shinny chests you get from killing bosses and the extra champion loot bags did not exist until August 2013. The novelty of the event system and exploration wore off, as it's amazing the first time, but after a few repetitions it loses it's charm. Following a (I admit GREAT) event chain in Snowden Drifts for over 20 minutes feels great while immersed in the story, but once finished you realize you earned less than 1 gold and 500 karma.

As early as November 2012, before the game closed 3 months alive, it had its very first mass crisis. And it wouldn't be the only one. As the revenue reports show, the drop between 2013 and 2014 was larger than the one between 2015 and 2016.

[Captain Kuro.8937]

@yukarishura.4790 said:@"Obtena.7952"

GW2 had no problems for the first three years when it didn't have raids and it hasn't died in the last two years since we stopped getting more.

Nothing to do with raids, GW2 had no problems in the first three years because it was a new game that sparked interest, especially people who were known with the franchise, now look at how the game is in 2021 and you will see it went downhill due to its incapacity to develop content regularly, including raids. Stop twisting the argument with the first years when the game was slow-paced, it took forever to get to level 80, it engaged people into finishing their world map and dungeons and some living world story, after that they tried to resurrect with the expansion etc So the argument of wow the game was doing well before raids has 0 value here

But the argument , that when raids/hardcore stuff can retain the players attention instead of snoozefest of Open world PvE is also wrong , shown by the graph .It got even lower (lol) , just like Wildstar

According to Raiders it was booming in-game (w1-3) , while dropping in the lowest revenue ever in the official site .Someone is wright , while the other is wrong . But in the end we cannot decide

(Can we have easy Raids , with the same Rewards , but -50% less gold ( we can bypass it by playing more and transform magne..something to liquid gold )(Edit: But even with easy mode people will lack expiriance and confidence to from their own group , while the LFG will be filled by KP . With 85-90% profitability , the same fate will repeat itselfEdit2: Dungeon team(no-paid-core players) , when they end their instance they can become a "beacon" and can choose to start a scale-able Strike/easy Raid , where EoD player can participate ?)

[Asum.4960]

@"Vayne.8563" said:I don't believe the core game wasn't good enough to convert players. In, fact, I feel like in many ways the core game is worse now than it was. Heart of THorns launched in 2015, new expansion, first expansion everyone was excited. It was a big deal. Announced at a big con. But 2016 dropped below 2014, before HoT launched. The core game was more successful. It had more casual players. I agree with your numbers, but your way of interpreting those numbers isn't better than my way. The truth is no one will ever really know, but if HoT and raids were a strong release, you wouldn't see the year before the expansion launched being much stronger than the year after it launched, particularly because it launched near the end of the year.

Didn't you just bring up the massive 9 month content drought that followed up HoT, consisting of most of 2016, explaining that drop?Player's left because there wasn't any content for the game for almost a year, except for the already largely preproduced 3 Raid Wings.Nobody is saying Raids can single handedly carry GW2, as if we needed proof of that, but 2016's revenue was it.

Similarly though, we know just LW/OW content can't carry GW2 alone either, which despite of constant content releases directly following PoF as well as a drastically more aggressive Gemstore monetization with Mount skins, Skin Gambling, "Templates", etc. dropped off even much harder, as people realised that's all they were going to get after a year of waiting for more and more frequent substantial content, 2019 in turn was proof of that.

If the year of constant and timely LW releases provided 25% less revenue than the year of the massive content drought with no content whatsoever except a few Raids, despite vastly more monetization, something doesn't quite work about your conclusion that HoT, which has both held up better and is and has been universally more favoured across the GW2 community - not just Raiders, was the problem.

It's almost like MMO's need a variety of content and communities, as that is precisely their strength over more focused, smaller games. The fact that they provide a platform to unify a great amount of different players, offering vast amounts of opportunities to go for in a shared world and progression.Something which has been my entire point, and case for having content like Raids, Fractals, Guild Missions, WvW still supported, along with OW, this entire time.

[Captain Kuro.8937]

@Asum.4960 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:I don't believe the core game wasn't good enough to convert players. In, fact, I feel like in many ways the core game is worse now than it was. Heart of THorns launched in 2015, new expansion, first expansion everyone was excited. It was a big deal. Announced at a big con. But 2016 dropped below 2014, before HoT launched. The core game was more successful. It had more casual players. I agree with your numbers, but your way of interpreting those numbers isn't better than my way. The truth is no one will ever really know, but if HoT and raids were a strong release, you wouldn't see the year before the expansion launched being much stronger than the year after it launched, particularly because it launched near the end of the year.

Didn't you just bring up the massive 9 month content drought that followed up HoT, consisting of most of 2016, explaining that drop?Player's left because there wasn't any content for the game for almost a year, except for the already largely preproduced 3 Raid Wings.Nobody is saying Raids can single handedly carry GW2, as if we needed proof of that, but 2016's revenue was it.

But in that Wing 1-3 era , we saw the lowest revenue drop of the history of the game .The same thing as WildstarOne might say , that both games tried hardcore stuff and something went wrong

[maddoctor.2738]

@Captain Kuro.8937 said:But in that Wing 1-3 era , we saw the lowest revenue drop of the history of the game .

Wing 1 was released in Q4 2015Wing 2 was released in Q1 2016Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 were the 4th and the 6th most successful quarters of the game yet.

The same thing as Wildstar

Wildstar made in its 2 last years less than what Guild Wars 2 made in its worst quarter ever (Q4 2019)

[Captain Kuro.8937]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Captain Kuro.8937 said:But in that Wing 1-3 era , we saw the lowest revenue drop of the history of the game .

Wing 1 was released in Q4 2015Wing 2 was released in Q1 2016Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 were the 4th and the 6th most successful quarters of the game yet.

People bought 30 euros accounts , to login to that Expanion .Just like 2012 , when the pre-persue 60 euros was activated (+ mail sent to you to log and record your pc specs)

[maddoctor.2738]

@Captain Kuro.8937 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Captain Kuro.8937 said:But in that Wing 1-3 era , we saw the lowest revenue drop of the history of the game .

Wing 1 was released in Q4 2015Wing 2 was released in Q1 2016Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 were the 4th and the 6th most successful quarters of the game yet.

People bought 30 euros accounts , to login to that Expanion .Just like 2012 , when the pre-persue 60 euros and the mail sent to you to log and record your pc specs , was activated

It was 60 euros for Heart of Thorns but that's besides the point, you said that in the Wing 1-3 era we saw the lowest revenue drop, I showed that wasn't true. During Wing 1 and 2 releases the revenue was 4th and 6th highest. It's the mistake of trying to correlate content released with revenue.

By the way Q4 2019 had exclusively open world content, no Raids, no Fractals, no WVW, no PVP releases AT ALL. Yet it was, and still is, the worst quarter in the game's entire history.

[Asum.4960]

@Captain Kuro.8937 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:I don't believe the core game wasn't good enough to convert players. In, fact, I feel like in many ways the core game is worse now than it was. Heart of THorns launched in 2015, new expansion, first expansion everyone was excited. It was a big deal. Announced at a big con. But 2016 dropped below 2014, before HoT launched. The core game was more successful. It had more casual players. I agree with your numbers, but your way of interpreting those numbers isn't better than my way. The truth is no one will ever really know, but if HoT and raids were a strong release, you wouldn't see the year before the expansion launched being much stronger than the year after it launched, particularly because it launched near the end of the year.

Didn't you just bring up the massive 9 month content drought that followed up HoT, consisting of most of 2016, explaining that drop?Player's left because there wasn't any content for the game for almost a year, except for the already largely preproduced 3 Raid Wings.Nobody is saying Raids can single handedly carry GW2, as if we needed proof of that, but 2016's revenue was it.

But in that Wing 1-3 era , we saw the lowest revenue drop of the history of the game .

So you are going to just ignore the massively detrimental 9 month content drought in which those 3 Wings happened to come out, having already largely been preproduced with HoT, just to make your point that they were, somehow, the cause of the drop (which was neither the biggest, nor barely bigger than the drop we had with constant LW releases - which also lead to a much deeper low)?

The amount of mental gymnastics, selective ignorance, making up sci-fi data collection methods all while ignoring, or depriving context of, real data that we have to justify this inexplicable hate against any and all content that as tiny exception in this game doesn't appeal to you, while arguably worse competitor products thrive with it in the same market, is truly something to behold.

[Captain Kuro.8937]

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vilin.8056 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

I have raid skins and I'm not a raider. Shrugs.

Yes but unlike you, there are people who actually want to feel that they deserved and earned those skins with their work in the game, I would never buy raid skins. It kills the entire feeling of achieving something in the game...

I never bought a raid . I did the escort with my guild early on over and over again to unlock that mastery track, and I got some from wardrobe unlocks I'm pretty sure. As for earning rewards, I earned them by doing the escort and buying skins with currency and even getting a drop from that one chest. But that said, it's okay that people want to earn their hard fought rewards. What's not okay is making rewards for 5% of the population when Anet doesn't have the staff to do other stuff like WvW and PvP updates as well. Those were in the game from launch, raids were added. Let's upgrade what's already there, instead of catering to a new market that the community itself rejected.

There you go:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/107451/thanks-anet-for-the-changes-to-the-zone-meta-in-drizzlewood-coast#latest

@Vayne.8563 said:I have a raid boss achievement (just 1) that i paid for, and another raid boss achievement I was carried through and one that I did on my own. 2 out of 3 of my raid achievements I didn't really achieve. You have no way of knowing the percentage of the people who were carried.

I paid for the raid boiss achievement for me and my wife, on her birthday as a birthday gift to her. I paid for myself only because I knew she wouldn't go alone with a bunch of strangers. That's how we work. I never bought a raid just for myself.

I have done the escort at least a dozen times, but I haven't raided since. It doesn't make me a raider. It makes me a PvE casual who tried to get his guild through enough of a single raid, just one part, to unlock achievements for raids in the days before raids were hidden. Not even sure what you're trying to prove here.

Edit: If you were trying to prove i was lying, that raid buy was so long ago, I'd completely forgotten about it. Not sure what difference you think that makes.A simple correction of previous statement or an apology to the person you wronged would suffice, making more excuses like this doesn't really convince here.

Exactly what would I be apologizing for? I didn't get a raid skin on the one raid run I bought, so why would an apology be necesssary. People DO buy raids and have raids skins from them. There are raid sellers advertising so frequently in LFG that raiders complain about them and use filters to get by the people selling raids. They're not selling them to no one.

The concept that there are a lot of raid skins so there are a lot of raiders was my point and my point remains. Nothing is changed at all, whether I forget the one single raid run I bought five years ago or not. Shrugs.,

Isn't that another excuse for lying? Trying to nitpick some very niche exceptions of a context won't make any justifications to that. Especially when the honesty in that is questionable at most.And who's to say that casuals are the primary audience for raid selling? they hardly browse raid LFG and hardly have a gain from buying one boss kill. You really never understood the interest of the casual community, just because you spent hundred(s) of gold buying raid achievement doesn't mean that idea isn't ridiculous to the majority of casuals.As said over and over, your interest do not represent the majority of the casual community.

When you try to defend Asum , by saying that Raids are a way to occupy the casuals , because Hard stuff increase their playtime and they will stay longer and might use real money in the future , is wrong . The moment the Wing 3 was released , we saw a drop to the lowest