EoD expansion should have new RAID

[yukarishura.4790]

@"Luthan.5236" said:I'd rather have them spend their resources on other stuff that I like. (I do not like raids.) Also keep in mind: There are even whole game modes that (WvW, PvP) that only received minor updates since the release in 2012. That they even added raids and strikes and stuff to PvE ... already was a big deal. Can't expect much more - especially if it does not make them profit.

The raiders probably only care about the challenge/difficulty - not buying that much in the gem store. While the other "average" player enjoy open world and the "Fashion Wars" and stuff. The core philosophy of the game always had been - since the beginning - to have no gear treadmill and to generate most content in a way that new players can play it directly without farming.

Ascended stuff therefore did not add much stats increase compared to exotics. (Most stuff can be playec with exotics - which are cheap.) Legendaries only for convenience. No "holy triad".

All good. And raids are just more difficulty - you don't need to farm tons of gear like in WoW. Once you have your ascended set. But the community itself seems to create close/small hardcore groups where it is hard for new players. (Or raids aren't just for everyone and only a small playerbase. Even if the new players tried ... not many might stick with it.) They (and strikes and high level fractals) also seem to create some kind of player generated "holy triad" where - while everyone can heal themselves, etc. - players and groups try to enforce certain "roles". This is in contrast to the core philosophy of the game.

Naturally you will end up with less players wanting to play raids here ... cause ... you know ... the people that like raiding already focus on other games whikle GW2's strenght specifically is that it is made for people that do not like the other "your usual MMORPG". Focusing stronger on raids (instead of fully focusing on that other players) might scare away other other players while not really winning new players that like raids. (Cause for them there are already other games.)

It actually seems like they tried a lot of stuff in PvE - not only with the instanced content but also with open world group content. Where it failed and they stopped with it. (Bounties. Very boring.) The solution probably is to try totally now stuff every time. Just add more strikes or DRM ... or some totally new type of thing in the next expansion.

And let's be honest: The Cantha expansion in GW1 was focused on PvP. PvP (and WvW) did not have any real major updates since release. They should work there. Could also cost a lot while not generating new players for that content. But with correct advertising (needs maps in the PvE maps like the Jade Quarry and stuff had border in the normal maps in Cantha in GW1) ... it could at least get PvE p layers to try out PvP.

Edit: Also you can't compare some sales/revenue numbers over the different years and quarters. Near christmas ... people might buy more. Then in later years we have the mobile trend - people more playing on mobile and other stuff. And of course other games and the general lack of interest and need for something new (=totally new game with other system/professions/races/lore). You can't just say in 2019 it was low and in 2013 when they addec fractals it was high ... lol. (I mean: The fractals and stuff ... is still there - for those that like it. And tons of other reasons make people stop playing.)

Typical utter selfishness comment. "i don't like raids therefore they should not release more, screw the guys that like them"

[yukarishura.4790]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:... he does NOT even know what diversity means

I'm certain it doesn't mean release content that only a small subset of the population will engage in. Just because everyone can has access to raids does NOT mean raids are implemented so everyone can do them.

I mean, you still haven't reasonably explained how diversity is necessary or that raids achieve it anyways ... the revenue data definitely doesn't show it.Like somehow we DIDN'T have diversity for the first pile of raids that were released? it's not even true we need diversity for the game to be successful; it's just something that sounds good and vague. You just say ridiculous stuff, pretend it's true and then brush of real questions and challenges. That's not being honest.

You still don't understand what diverse content means, it means having a bit of everything, not only the same

[Luthan.5236]

@"yukarishura.4790" said:Typical utter selfishness comment. "i don't like raids therefore they should not release more, screw the guys that like them"That's wrong. I just want them to spend the resources on better stuff. Of course if there were endless resources ... they could still spend some on raids. But resoruces aren't endless.

• for the people that like to raid ... there area alraedy raids. They can just play them repeatedly. I mean ... you'll probably never get them satisfied. Even if they made a new raid some players would cry if not regularly every 1-2 years a new one would get released. Heck ... there are even some that expect every few months a new one ... as if ArenaNet only existed to mass produce raids for them lol.

---

Regarding the numbers (had this in my edit in the previous post): I found some numbers from WoW - that MMORPG probably is one of the longest existing ones. They showed that subscribers went down a lot ... even though after the peak (12 million were mentioned) afaik Blizzard still released new stuff ... it could not stop the decline. Probably some are just bored and want new/other games. And the new releases just get some of the players that are still interested ... back in the game to check it out. Not really stabilizing the numbers long-term. Just giving them a minor kick where they go up a bit ... but then downwards trend again.

[Sigmoid.7082]

@Luthan.5236 said:

@"yukarishura.4790" said:Typical utter selfishness comment. "i don't like raids therefore they should not release more, screw the guys that like them"That's wrong. I just want them to spend the resources on better stuff. Of course if there were endless resources ... they could still spend some on raids. But resoruces aren't endless.

• for the people that like to raid ... there area alraedy raids. They can just play them repeatedly. I mean ... you'll probably never get them satisfied. Even if they made a new raid some players would cry if not regularly every 1-2 years a new one would get released. Heck ... there are even some that expect every few months a new one ... as if ArenaNet only existed to mass produce raids for them lol.

I think that's their point? It's still completely subjective. You can make this statement about any demographic of players in the game.

"They have X so just keep playing X. I would rather then introduce Y because I like it more" is inherently a selfish statement. Cater to me, I don't care about others is how it comes across.

But you have to consider that your Y is someone else's X. There's some form of content you enjoy that someone else doesn't like and sees absolutely no point in developing.

[Luthan.5236]

It is not totally selfish if you take the overall philosophy of the game into account. (And that ArenaNet wants to make money.) If this was WoW and people wanted story only and not raids ... this would be a differen thing. WoW is all about raiding and doing the same raid 100+ times to farm gear to be able to even join the next raid. And people want this. The game attracts mostly this type of players.

They do not even add new stuff to SAB (for years people wanting the next world) and PvE and WvW cause it probably (or "likely") does not even bring new players to the game. It just satisfies a small percentage of the playerbase. And they prefer to do stuff that satiesfies (probably also not bringing in new players) a bigger percentage of the playerbase.

My first sentence in the first long post actually as a remark/joke cause players often bring this up. (I want them to spend their resources on other stuff.) But I actually did not mention minor stuff I personally like - which a lot of players do not like. I tried to mention that the raids are actually the thing that are played by a minority.

It would be a good idea to get more people into playing the existing raids but I do not know how. I just wat the other thread about this. And I'm not a raider myself. Fractal Rush got me into fractals and they are short. A "Raid rush" won't workf if raids need some time to complete them. Strikes - i mean they could make hardcore encoutners there as well - are probably a better solution. Hardcore boss fight without any trash mobs before it. Straigh jumping to the boss. Then some even to like "strike rush" to get players to do them. It needs to be short. For long duration stuff already the duration scares away players when they want to do other stuff as well.

[Cyninja.2954]

@"Luthan.5236" said:It is not totally selfish if you take the overall philosophy of the game into account. (And that ArenaNet wants to make money.) If this was WoW and people wanted story only and not raids ... this would be a differen thing. WoW is all about raiding and doing the same raid 100+ times to farm gear to be able to even join the next raid. And people want this. The game attracts mostly this type of players.

Except every metric which we have access to, mostly gw2efficiency, shows that most players are not interested in story.

The completion % for story living world content is just as bad as raid participation. In fact, as seasons progress, completion % drop significantly more. Now if we also factor in for dedicated players, like myself, who do everything in this game and not only raid leaving the game, those % look even worse.

So, do we cut story and living world content too?

Also you might want to revisit your comment about "raiders spending nothing on the game". To claim that any niche content spends nothing on the game eventually extends to ALL content and groups, because given completion %, we know NOTHING is not niche. Not even story or meta content. The most likely factor for player spending on the game is ability to spend, dedication to the game and interesting items for purchase. None of which is unique to any niche.

[Luthan.5236]

How do you know how much story they complete? Did you check for the story "meta achievement"? Or for the individual achievements. meta achievements probably are harder to complete than just the one for completing the story step once normally.

Also when comparing to raid you should compare it to the normal bosses for completing it normally + taking into account that probably the weakes of all bosses will have higher completion cause people might "buy" the completion to just unlock the mastery track to increase their mastery number to max.

Then there is the open world content. The new maps. Exploring and stuff. (+ also story told there in events.) ArenaNet probably know what they are doing - and they have more number.s More detailed. I mean ... that company exists since GW1 and they managed to successfully survive. Not realeasing new raids for a longer time surely must have it's reasons. I doubt they made some randome decision here.

Edit: And percentage on gw2efficiency could only mean 1 completion. People could have stopped raiding while still enjoying other content. And yeah: For raids people might buy template slots and stuff. But the skins aren't needed when it is just about maximizing dps. ArenaNet probably also has more insight in the sales numbers to run some check for people that only have raid completion on their account but nothing else - then seeing how they spend gems.

[Cyninja.2954]

@"Luthan.5236" said:How do you know how much story they complete? Did you check for the story "meta achievement"? Or for the individual achievements. meta achievements probably are harder to complete than just the one for completing the story step once normally.

There is literally achievements for just finishing the story.

Meta achievement completion is even below that.

@"Luthan.5236" said:Also when comparing to raid you should compare it to the normal bosses for completing it normally + taking into account that probably the weakes of all bosses will have higher completion cause people might "buy" the completion to just unlock the mastery track to increase their mastery number to max.

Then there is the open world content. The new maps. Exploring and stuff. (+ also story told there in events.) ArenaNet probably know what they are doing - and they have more number.s More detailed. I mean ... that company exists since GW1 and they managed to successfully survive. Not realeasing new raids for a longer time surely must have it's reasons. I doubt they made some randome decision here.

Edit: And percentage on gw2efficiency could only mean 1 completion. People could have stopped raiding while still enjoying other content. And yeah: For raids people might buy template slots and stuff. But the skins aren't needed when it is just about maximizing dps. ArenaNet probably also has more insight in the sales numbers to run some check for people that only have raid completion on their account but nothing else - then seeing how they spend gems.

You can assume and justify however you want. It won't magically make those completion % go up.

For example, the season finale of season 4, which by now released nearly 2 years ago, has a completion of 45% for Heart to Heart (the achievement gained for finishing the story). That's sub 50%, for a season finale, which is mandatory for a ton of other things like the skyscale. On gw2efficiency, a website where already more dedicated players are registered.

Let's look at the current season shall we? The achievement "One Charr, One Dragon, One Champion", gained for completing the Jormag Rising episode, released on July 28, 2020 near;t 3/4 of a year ago, the last episode before the Champions tidbits, sits at a completion % of a whooping 21.5%.

Meanwhile, the achievement "...With Feeling!", which is granted upon replaying that same episode AFTER the addition of voice acting, is sitting at a whooping 6.6%. So there goes your theory about players "replaying" this content. Again, on a website where more dedicated players are signed up.

Story content is a niche, just like most other content. NOTHING in this game is larger than approximately 30% of the player audience (and even that is pushing it).

The irony in all of this is literally, the most expensive content to make (living world and story episodes) which takes nearly the entire studio currently, sees terrible replay, is still only niche and loses players left and right as time moves on. The only thing of value remaining is farm metas where players "farm" away at best. Yet, some dare criticize raids with the dev team of 5-10 developers working on them.

PS: Oh and FYI: I have both, the story up to date and "...With Feeling!" and I am an avid raider. Why? Because I play all types of content in this game, even the one that is not most appealing to me.

[Luthan.5236]

And some raid boss from the latest released raid has just for the kill achievement (no special mote or other stuff mentoined) less than 10 percent. So story participaton is not "just as bad as raid participation".

Then let's say everything in this game is a niche - should the stop developing at all? Or trying to do the story niche stuffe to get still 20-30 percent of players interested intead of the raids where <10 percent are interested - according to gw2efficiency.

Someone on Reddit (google found it for me) posted this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/c2okm6/raid_encounter_completion_rate_according_to/Seems a decline over time - instead of raids bringing more players (like someone thought).

Same with other content - the story which later has lower completion than the previous story steps. But still more than the later raids. (And that raid existed even longer than the latest story content.)

For gw2efficiency you also have ot keep in mind: Not all the players are using it. There might be players that totally have stopped playing the game ... this ist not completion percentage of the still active players. Maybe of the active players a lot are playing the story. Only ArenaNet knows that. Maybe 50 percent aren't playing the game anymore at all. 20 percent of the remaining 50 ... is 40. Then people might have secondary accounts using gw2efficiency with them as well - while only playing different stuff on that secondary account. (Some afaik use alt accounts for WvW a lot.)

[Cyninja.2954]

@Luthan.5236 said:And some raid boss from the latest released raid has just for the kill achievement (no special mote or other stuff mentoined) less than 10 percent. So story participaton is not "just as bad as raid participation".

Raids took around 5-10 developers. Living world episodes take nearly the entire studio. Notice the difference?

@Luthan.5236 said:Then let's say everything in this game is a niche - should the stop developing at all?

No, but if we go by the argument flung at raids, they would have to.

@Luthan.5236 said:Or trying to do the story niche stuffe to get still 20-30 percent of players interested intead of the raids where <10 percent are interested - according to gw2efficiency.

Story content sees near no replay.

@Luthan.5236 said:Someone on Reddit (google found it for me) posted this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/c2okm6/raid_encounter_completion_rate_according_to/Seems a decline over time - instead of raids bringing more players (like someone thought).

That graph literally shows that difficulty of encounter means nothing for completion, given some of the later bosses like CA are very easy.

What that graph does show is how the population participating in raids declined over time, yet remained stable for W1-4. Which is what most players who are in favor of raids have been explaining in this thread. Hint: after W4 the release cadence of raids slowed to a crawl.

@Luthan.5236 said:For gw2efficiency you also have ot keep in mind: Not all the players are using it.

I am keeping that in mind. At the same time, most semi or dedicated players are signed up on g2efficiancy. Most even more casual players are likely not. Something which does NOT support the argument that casual players are doing a lot of play or sticking with the game long-term.

PS. before this goes on, since these arguments have been brought up in the past over and over. All I am saying is: story and episode content is NICHE (and takes a kitten ton of more resources to develop). Let's not pretend that is not the case.

[Luthan.5236]

Yes. It might take up the entire studio. But they also use that stuff as "flagship" - to announce the game to new players. I remember when they released Icebrood when they bundled PoF with HoT - to get new players into the game to straight play latest story content.

I doubt they could use raids for advertising. I mean it would be like "hey we have raids that other games are much better in .... can still a few people come and check it out maybe". Story and expansions seem to be the big thing - where they also try to sell older stuff (previous expansions they tried to sell when releasing Icebrood).

And yes: When they released less raids ... players hungry and waiting for more ... should actually have rushed and played them. The decline in numbers means they are less interested. Maybe they even just totally stopped playing the game instead of enjoying the other parts and then playing new raids once they got released.

More casuals not using GW2efficiency can mean that a lot more casuals are playing story and stuff. Which does not show in the numbers. Would in the end mean that the gap between people doing raiding and people playing story ... is even bigger.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Luthan.5236 said:Yes. It might take up the entire studio. But they also use that stuff as "flagship" - to announce the game to new players. I remember when they released Icebrood when they bundled PoF with HoT - to get new players into the game to straight play latest story content.

I doubt they could use raids for advertising. I mean it would be like "hey we have raids that other games are much better in .... can still a few people come and check it out maybe". Story and expansions seem to be the big thing - where they also try to sell older stuff (previous expansions they tried to sell when releasing Icebrood).

Sure, all of that might be true, but the argument put forth in this thread is constantly: raids do not pay for themselves and are niche.

It is pretty clear that this applies to more than just raids. So that argument goes out the window.

As far as "flagship" stuff. Sounds great, until you think about what you just said: they use this stuff to "get new players into the game:. That's hardly of value if those players do NOT stick around now is it? (oh and FYI on visibility, the raid tournaments by Mightyteapot have had the biggest visual and advertise effect for this game beyond ANY official trailer or story content. Thought you might want to know).

@Luthan.5236 said:And yes: When they released less raids ... players hungry and waiting for more ... should actually have rushed and played them. The decline in numbers means they are less interested. Maybe they even just totally stopped playing the game instead of enjoying the other parts and then playing new raids once they got released.

That's not how lack of content affects players. It neither has for raids, nor has it done the same for living world episodes. We have had lack of living world content in the past, the player base diminished and people did not "start playing more".

@Luthan.5236 said:More casuals not using GW2efficiency can mean that a lot more casuals are playing story and stuff. Which does not show in the numbers. Would in the end mean that the gap between people doing raiding and people playing story ... is even bigger.

No, you have that backwards. You can assume what ever you want obviously, but the notion that completion increases with less dedication is flawed.

It is far more likely that completion % diminishes even further, and probably more for raid content, as more of the entire player base is taken into account. That is insignificant to my argument though: story and living world content remains niche.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Luthan.5236" said:How do you know how much story they complete? Did you check for the story "meta achievement"? Or for the individual achievements. meta achievements probably are harder to complete than just the one for completing the story step once normally.

Somebody called for gw2efficiency data?

It's not the story meta achievement, it's the achievement for finishing the last story part.This is the list (first instance / last instance):Heart of Thorns: 91% / 65%Season 3Out of Shadows: 64% / 57%Rising Flames: 59% / 56%A Crack in the Ice: 61% / 53%The Head of the Snake: 57% / 49%Flashpoint: 54% / 46%One Path Ends: 51% / 45%Path of Fire: 84% / 66%Season 4Daybreak: 61% / 52%A Bug in the System: 54% / 48%Long Live the Lich: 55% / 47%A Star to Guide Us: 50% / 44%All or Nothing: 47% / 41%War Eternal: 49% / 46%Icebrood SagaBound by Blood: 43% / 36%Whisper in the Dark: 39% / 36%Shadow in the Ice: 34% / 32%Forging Steel: 30% / 29%No Quarter: 32% / 25%Jormag Rising: 25% / 22%

Gonna provide just the list now and let people draw their own conclusions, other than the two obvious ones:Heart of Thorns has such high number because gw2efficiency got more popular/known around the launch of HOTPath of Fire caused a considerable upwards trend compared to the Living World, but that's I guess normal for an expansion

[Luthan.5236]

Yeah. That seems to indicate that the expansions are important. Other content is just to keep the players "busy" until a next expansion. (But at one point the game will be "finished" and no more stuff gets added.)

"No, you have that backwards. You can assume what ever you want obviously, but the notion that completion increases with less dedication is flawed." I wouldn't say they are less dedicated to playing the story and stuff at least once. They are less dedicated to be a "pro gamer" maxing dps and stuff. How many games are out there where 3rd party sites aren't even common? Casual players can still play with their friends. Or by themselves and using guides and wiki and stuff. They just might need detailed stats.

Less hardcore dedication just means less hardcore content to be played. Doesn't mean they are not playing other stuff. I never really use gw2effieciency unless it is a bit about achievement completion. Where I'm somewhat semi-hardcore ... I know I can't get everything but I try to do a lot of stuff and check out where stuff is missing. The site is useful for this.

For the average playre just exploring and having fun not to maxizize/optimize such sites (well it is even in the name: efficiency) is not important. Doesn't mean he ignores all the content.

"That's not how lack of content affects players. It neither has for raids, nor has it done the same for living world episodes. We have had lack of living world content in the past, the player base diminished and people did not "start playing more".Then actually adding 1 more raid won't help. Unless they started to release regularly again. (And people would pressure and pressure for even more and more and faster releases rushing them and being bored after 1 playthrough. This happens for the other content as well already. Story chapters cause they rush it.)

Imo it makes more sense to say: Those who stopped for a while ... can just come back and try it again. (While they stopped some content got released so they still have a bit to do.) Those that didn't complete the later raids cause they stopped at some point after the first ones when it took them too long for the later ones ot get released .... could try to prove that they are interested. So ArenaNet sees that it is worth to produce more. They could come back to play the other stuff that now exists.

---

Edit: + there is also new players that might start with the older content first. Taking ages to get to the later stuff. I came back 2019 (played from release until end 2013) and played most older stuff in release order. Just recently got Skyscale and started with Icebrood Prologue. The Fractal Rush last year got me into fractals. Playing T1+T2 regularly and willing to give T3 and higher and strikes (not as time consuming as raids) a try. (Afaik strikes were intended to get players into raiding?)

New players that start with the latest stuff maybe try 1-2 chapters ... then playing older stuff? Though I guess a lot quickly want mounts (instead of playing older maps as intended without mounts) - and at least the PoF story first chapters (mounts not too grindy to get there) are a good indicator. After that they might go to older stuff. I'm actually surprised that a high number got Skyscale (I think the first achievements there I checked were in 30+ percent.) Considering that this is a lot of work. After all the crying about how grindy it is I though the numbers would be a lot lower having scared away players. Even Riding Skyscales (last overall achievement step) has 30 percent completion.

[Jilora.9524]

Of course there should be a new raid or raids. Like why did the bother with strike missions if no plans. Can't believe how long this thread and how many it sucked in arguing more then that point. I don't raid but I def want EoD to have content for everyone even if only 10 percent of the base that raids deserves something new.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Killthehealersffs.8940" said:

• And if 250k people that are signed to the Facebook...i mean Gw2efficiency >its a sample of the the community

Well it's a very good sample, at least when it comes to activity. gw2efficiency accounts on average have 2100 hours of playtime. While the global average (official) is about 95 hours, or at least it was in August 2018, but I doubt much changed since then. The difference is overwhelming. So, although gw2efficiency accounts are "only" 314688 accounts, which is a small number of accounts compared to the total, they do contain about 50% of this game's global actual playtime.Meaning where that "sample" spends their time, is where the game does.

[Asum.4960]

If we look at the amount of Raiders just registered on GW2E (let's say 150 LI+), check the amount of devs that worked on the Raid team at any given time, and then reference their salary on something like Glassdoor, we get to a point where the average Raider (just registered on GW2E) would have to spend about >6$ per year extra because of Raids, to make Raids profitable.That Raids weren't profitable, or even burning a huge hole into Anet's pockets, with how little resources/devs they put into them, is imo extremely unlikely.

While purely anecdotal, most Raider's I personally know, while they stayed for Raids, also played most other aspects of the game. Some few of them I know spend hundreds, often in a single month, on things like Black Lion Lootbox gambling (as much as I personally disagree with that). All of those specifically I know have since quit the game completely due to lack of hardcore content and Raids especially with those communities falling apart.How do you trace that revenue to Raids without knowing those players intimately?

Another, personal example, would be me buying the PoF Ultimate Edition, because I was so engaged by Raids and my Raiding community at that time, being fairly fresh into them still at that point and not suffering much from the slow cadence yet. I certainly would not have done that purchase if it wasn't for the exciting and fun time I was having in that part of the game, likely having gone for standard again, like with Core or HoT.With how little the resources were on Raids, that little extra purchase alone would have been my personal fraction of what it takes to make Raids profitable for 8+ more years, or compensation for 8 other non spending Raiders for one year.Tying purchases like me going for the Ultimate edition because I was having so much fun raiding to Raids as revenue they generated is downright impossible for Anet though, no matter how good their analytics are.

Let alone measuring the increased engagement, marketing and visibility that things like Raid events , tournaments general Streams etc. offered, being not only the highest, but pretty much only large scaled viewed GW2 content with a possibility to ride the algorithm to appear to and peak the interest of not yet GW2 players.

Why was all this and much more cancelled then?We have sheer countless amounts of evidence at this point that ANet was wrapping up GW2 and moving to other projects , from writers talking about having written the ending for GW2 and where it was placed, the massive layoffs of which most devs weren't working on GW2 since they had been moved to other projects, Art and project titles of the other games they were working on leaking, to devs letting slip on even official streams what a surprise it was to be told to make another expansion for GW2 after all - this is not an obscure "conspiracy", to still deny this just to not have to admit that other content than LW like Raids had value, and that LW was in fact not carrying the game to massive success, but was just the biggest single small niche left before the light would have went out is getting silly.

And I'm not even trashing Anet for that. You never tell your players, who you want to keep engaging with and spending on your game, that you are moving on, at least not way before your next shiny is ready, that just common business sense. Every shut down game I know had vague statements of commitment to the game until months before the end, along with justifications for the stuff that was slowly falling away, that's just how it's done.Although as someone who loves GW2 and has been with the franchise for 16 years and wants to see it keep going and growing, that was pretty sad ofc.Yet as we now know, they mismanaged fairly drastically and most of those other projects did not work out, and now an Expansion is in the works.The question with that is not if hardcore content, like Raids for example, has merit to be continued. The question is, does Anet really want to go back to GW2 and grow it again, in which case it needs that sort of content to grow and keep a bigger audience for the long term again, or are they just buying some more time again for the remaining other project - it which case it likely will be just more once and done Story/OW, which will hopefully be enough time for them to finish up and release that something else.

That's why personally, I want the Expansion to have a diversity of content, and a future for the game that represents - a proper commitment to the game long term, rather than just more of the same to string people along to keep them spending for just a bit longer.

That's why so much rides on EoD, how much or little diversity of content will come along with it will be very telling for GW2's future, or lack thereof.

If you still don't get that, then there is really nothing I or anyone else can say that hasn't been already said (and ignored) in this thread.

[yukarishura.4790]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@yukarishura.4790 said:... he does NOT even know what diversity means

I'm certain it doesn't mean release content that only a small subset of the population will engage in. Just because everyone can has access to raids does NOT mean raids are implemented so everyone can do them.

I mean, you still haven't reasonably explained how diversity is necessary or that raids achieve it anyways ... the revenue data definitely doesn't show it.Like somehow we DIDN'T have diversity for the first pile of raids that were released? it's not even true we need diversity for the game to be successful; it's just something that sounds good and vague. You just say ridiculous stuff, pretend it's true and then brush of real questions and challenges. That's not being honest.

You still don't understand what diverse content means, it means having a bit of everything, not only the same

You aren't addressing the points in my post. You still haven't reasonably explained how diversity is necessary or that raids achieve it. You still didn't explain why having all this diversity didn't work the

first

time we had all this raid development before it was cancelled. You don't even know if diversity is as important as you say it is.

See, this is how it seems works. You say stuff ... I'm questioning that stuff because it needs ALOT of explanation ... you go off on some point that has no relevance to those questions. So those questions are still hanging in there, waiting for you to explain them.

My ask here is pretty simple: You want to paint the picture raids are really important to the game, except if that was true, Anet wouldn't have stopped developing them. Why do you think that is? I'm just asking you to think about the things you say instead of just saying anything to win an argument. Does that make sense that Anet would just drop content that is NEEDED in the game? No, it doesn't ... so SOMETHING you are saying here isn't correct. It can't be.

Others have provided the data and you ignore it.....There is no need for me to provide you with data at this point.

You want to paint the picture raids are really important to the game, except if that was true, Anet wouldn't have stopped developing them. Why do you think that is?

Simple. Because anet is really bad at managing this game it seems. They stopped developing them, which is not a good thing, and neither is the direction this game is headed to

[yukarishura.4790]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@"Luthan.5236" said:How do you know how much story they complete? Did you check for the story "meta achievement"? Or for the individual achievements. meta achievements probably are harder to complete than just the one for completing the story step once normally.

There is literally achievements for just finishing the story.

Meta achievement completion is even below that.

@"Luthan.5236" said:Also when comparing to raid you should compare it to the normal bosses for completing it normally + taking into account that probably the weakes of all bosses will have higher completion cause people might "buy" the completion to just unlock the mastery track to increase their mastery number to max.

Then there is the open world content. The new maps. Exploring and stuff. (+ also story told there in events.) ArenaNet probably know what they are doing - and they have more number.s More detailed. I mean ... that company exists since GW1 and they managed to successfully survive. Not realeasing new raids for a longer time surely must have it's reasons. I doubt they made some randome decision here.

Edit: And percentage on gw2efficiency could only mean 1 completion. People could have stopped raiding while still enjoying other content. And yeah: For raids people might buy template slots and stuff. But the skins aren't needed when it is just about maximizing dps. ArenaNet probably also has more insight in the sales numbers to run some check for people that only have raid completion on their account but nothing else - then seeing how they spend gems.

You can assume and justify however you want. It won't magically make those completion % go up.

For example, the season finale of season 4, which by now released nearly 2 years ago, has a completion of 45% for Heart to Heart (the achievement gained for finishing the story). That's sub 50%, for a season finale, which is mandatory for a ton of other things like the skyscale. On gw2efficiency, a website where already more dedicated players are registered.

Let's look at the current season shall we? The achievement "One Charr, One Dragon, One Champion", gained for completing the Jormag Rising episode, released on July 28, 2020 near;t 3/4 of a year ago, the last episode before the Champions tidbits, sits at a completion % of a whooping 21.5%.

Meanwhile, the achievement "...With Feeling!", which is granted upon replaying that same episode AFTER the addition of voice acting, is sitting at a whooping 6.6%. So there goes your theory about players "replaying" this content. Again, on a website where more dedicated players are signed up.

Story content is a niche, just like most other content. NOTHING in this game is larger than approximately 30% of the player audience (and even that is pushing it).

The irony in all of this is literally, the most expensive content to make (living world and story episodes) which takes nearly the entire studio currently, sees terrible replay, is still only niche and loses players left and right as time moves on. The only thing of value remaining is farm metas where players "farm" away at best. Yet, some dare criticize raids with the dev team of 5-10 developers working on them.

PS: Oh and FYI: I have both, the story up to date and "...With Feeling!" and I am an avid raider. Why? Because I play all types of content in this game, even the one that is not most appealing to me.

I honestly never find people to do story achievements with so they rot away there, there is like no motivation for people to play that

[yukarishura.4790]

@Luthan.5236 said:

@"yukarishura.4790" said:Typical utter selfishness comment. "i don't like raids therefore they should not release more, screw the guys that like them"That's wrong. I just want them to spend the resources on better stuff. Of course if there were endless resources ... they could still spend some on raids. But resoruces aren't

What better stuff? What is "better" that requries their resources to be put in? What is better than the only unique aspects of the game (the combat style which you get to experience in pvp/wvw/dungeon/fracs/raids). What is better than that? The story is mediocre, so is the voice acting, there are way better games for story for example.

[Asum.4960]

@"Luthan.5236" said:Yes. It (LW) might take up the entire studio. But they also use that stuff as "flagship" - to announce the game to new players. I remember when they released Icebrood when they bundled PoF with HoT - to get new players into the game to straight play latest story content.

I doubt they could use raids for advertising. I mean it would be like "hey we have raids that other games are much better in .... can still a few people come and check it out maybe". Story and expansions seem to be the big thing - where they also try to sell older stuff (previous expansions they tried to sell when releasing Icebrood).

GW2's skill based combat system and non gear grind endgame is one of the few (but very important) unique things that GW2 does, and way better than any competitor, and can be effectively advertised on, along with PvP and WvW.I'm not saying they shouldn't do more Story or that it's not a big and important part of GW2, but it's not the big thing or flagship.Most of GW2's competitors are literally build on Story rich single player game franchises, from FF XIV, ESO or SWTOR, and many GW2 players who want more story focus frequently leave to FF XIV especially from what I've seen.

Whenever I check a Website, video, what have you, comparing MMO's and their strengths and weaknesses, GW2's story is either not even mentioned, called adequate at best, or on the negative side when compared to it's competitors. Even more so with parts of the Story, like S1, which introduces many of the main characters people are supposed to get to know and care about, not even being playable anymore - Story has been a problem point to sell people on GW2 for, not it's strength.What's is always praised though is it's skill based combat and unique non gear grind (or pay to win) approach to both PvE and it's PvP formats.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Killthehealersffs.8940" said:

• And if 250k people that are signed to the Facebook...i mean Gw2efficiency >its a sample of the the community

Well it's a very good sample, at least when it comes to activity. gw2efficiency accounts on average have 2100 hours of playtime. While the global average (official) is about 95 hours, or at least it was in August 2018, but I doubt much changed since then. The difference is overwhelming. So, although gw2efficiency accounts are "only" 314688 accounts, which is a small number of accounts compared to the total, they do contain about 50% of this game's global actual playtime.Meaning where that "sample" spends their time, is where the game does.

Ok .... and how many did wing 5/6/7 ?PvE 60% ? Raid 4% ?

(i am notkidding when i sa y ... the other3 , haven't changed since 2015 , and i bored to clean their mess . They keep reminding the rest pf the population why they stopped Raids + defend each other , to protect their "brother in arm" . I could go in circular conversation to submission and hopefully , the population after summer >re-covid might>re-locked down might forget it , but the mod wont like it :PLets instead release more 1-bosses Strikes with "mote" dificulty opyion . The one offer KP and the other LI :P)

[Luthan.5236]

@Asum.4960 said:

@"Luthan.5236" said:Yes. It (LW) might take up the entire studio. But they also use that stuff as "flagship" - to announce the game to new players. I remember when they released Icebrood when they bundled PoF with HoT - to get new players into the game to straight play latest story content.

I doubt they could use raids for advertising. I mean it would be like "hey we have raids that other games are much better in .... can still a few people come and check it out maybe". Story and expansions seem to be the big thing - where they also try to sell older stuff (previous expansions they tried to sell when releasing Icebrood).

GW2's skill based combat system and non gear grind endgame is one of the few (but very important) unique things that GW2 does, and way better than any competitor, and can be effectively advertised on, along with PvP and WvW.I'm not saying they shouldn't do more Story or that it's not a big and important part of GW2, but it's not the big thing or flagship.Most of GW2's competitors are literally build on Story rich single player game franchises, from FF XIV, ESO or SWTOR, and many GW2 players who want more story focus frequently leave to FF XIV especially from what I've seen.

Whenever I check a Website, video, what have you, comparing MMO's and their strengths and weaknesses, GW2's story is either not even mentioned, called adequate at best, or on the negative side when compared to it's competitors. Even more so with parts of the Story, like S1, which introduces many of the main characters people are supposed to get to know and care about, not even being playable anymore - Story has been a problem point to sell people on GW2 for, not it's strength.What's is always praised though is it's skill based combat and unique non gear grind (or pay to win) approach to both PvE and it's PvP formats.

Yes, you are not wrong here. Also thanks for the other longer post above - that gave a bit more insight. The thing is: ArenaNet does seem to like to use story to advertise it to new players. Even if it does not make sense. They seem to also have tried other PvE stuff (open world: stuff like bounties) that seems "dead" where they moved on to try other stuff. I wonder if it actually is more profitable trying to experiment with totally new stuff. Some totally new stuff might easily get a lot of people interested for a short time - while it probably is a lot harder to keep people interested in the same stuff. (So always "new types" of content happen and older types of content stop getting releases.)

For the WvW/PvP they entirely seem to have failed. Even though this as well can get attention by streamers playing tournaments in PvP and stuff. (Since people have mentioned streaming and attention from twitch and stuff.)

For the combat (and movement - older MMORPG did not even have jumping lol) we have differen types of content. I mean it already is interesting for certain older story achievements to try to use different builds and stuff - specifically for one achievement. (Someone mentioned there aren't many players available to do story achievements together: Probably because most stuff there can be soloed.)

The "accessibility" - which makes them hard ot advertise to new playres. (Cause new players can't just jump straight into them.) Which makes them harder to learn/get into for already existing players if it takes some time and you can't just take 10-15 minutes like you do when trying 1 fractal.)

Diversity is a good thing. And I do not think that it is too unlikely to get 1 new raid for EoD. (Especially if there are going to be new elite specs where older raids also will get played differently - if new builds become "meta".) But I do not think they suddenly will start to release regularly (or more often than they did since PoF release).

The communication thing seems - as always - to be the biggest problem. Even if they did release a new raid ... it will get less attention that it could get with better advertising. (Announcing it earlier could get the still active raiders ot gather their old friends to already play a bit before the next espansion comes up.) With ArenaNets communication policy ... we'll suddenly know about the expansion a few weeks before release. Once it is released everyone will do the PvE stuff to unlock (if there are new ones) new elite specs + rushing story maybe. Then playing new raids if there are any. And by the time older players that stopped playing before are coming back ... the still active players already might be bored wanting another new raid.

I wonder if there are not ways to make older content more interesting. Imo for PvP and WvW the replayability comes from fighting against other players. (They do not behave like a scripted AI - which makes it interesting.) PvE - regardless of which content - always will have people crying for more/new stuff. And some will be pretty fast with it (when rushing new content) and ArenaNet needs to balance so also a good amount of the slower players will have played stuff. (We see this for living story often when people want faster releases and others think slower is okay.)

For me interaction with others and trying do do minor achievements ... is the long-term interesting stuff. (And besides of that I do WvW and PvE as well.) But of course that is not for everyone. Players playing only a very limited amount of stuff ... will have it harder. (But you mentioned that a lot of raidery you knew also played other stuff. But they probably were not interested in the other stuff that much .... otherwise they would still play it - I doubt they did all the other achievements n stuff. Probably only trying it a bit to bridge the time until new raids - for which they hoped - might have gotten released.)

Leaderboards (measuring time) and stuff ... and special mechanics (new challenge motes and stuff) could be an easy way to make existing content harder and replayable again. Fractals already had a good system with lots of unlocks and different tiers. (Also easy accessible cause of the easy low tiers and short time needed for 1 fractal.)

Maybe "straight to the boss" instances (no previous trash mobs and only 1 boss per instance) are the way to make it easy accessible (not taking a lot of time) - aren't strikes like that? (Have not tried them yet.) And I guess you could vary the difficulty just as good as in raids - so people would not get bored. ArenaNet might stay with strikes instead of raids - having a similar thing as raids (10 man content) which they still can make hard by just making harder bosses so people that like hard content won't be bored.

I actually liked the way the first strike (I am just playing story in release order and I'm in Grothmar valley) was tied to the map. (You even got a mail after story completion - hinting at the strike - similar to the dungeon mails back then in core story.) That is an interesting way to tie stuff to the other content. (And people actually might just be interested for the little story/plot the raid offers. The raids seem to be outside of the normal story I think? (Wiki mentions some relation to the other story that got released when the raid was released. But ingame it isn't tied to it. Just by reading the wiki ... or by actually playing the raid ... you might notice this.)

ArenaNet's communication policy is the biggest issue for me. They can't decide on anything ... keeping all options until shortly before they release stuff. (Who knows how much they are changing shortly before a release.) Planning/comunicating early would make their options limited if players expected certain communicated/announced stuff ... but would be better for keeping players.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

• And if 250k people that are signed to the Facebook...i mean Gw2efficiency >its a sample of the the community

Well it's a very good sample, at least when it comes to activity. gw2efficiency accounts on average have 2100 hours of playtime. While the global average (official) is about 95 hours, or at least it was in August 2018, but I doubt much changed since then. The difference is overwhelming. So, although gw2efficiency accounts are "only" 314688 accounts, which is a small number of accounts compared to the total, they do contain about 50% of this game's global actual playtime.Meaning where that "sample" spends their time, is where the game does.

Ok .... and how many did wing 5/6/7 ?PvE 60% ? Raid 4% ?

Well let's have a look at the Raid completion rates, although using only Wing 5/6/7 when the release cadence was already so abysmal isn't a very good idea. So looking at the earlier Raids, when the cadence was more stable is better:

I will use the same system as the living world episodes, first boss and last boss, to compete with first instance and last instance.Heart of Thorns: 91% / 65%Spirit Vale: 30% / 21%Salvation Pass: 20% / 18%Stronghold of the Faithful: 26% / 15%Considering only 65% finished HOT, those Raid kill numbers aren't half bad, especially for the first boss.

The Head of the Snake: 57% / 49%Bastion of the Penitent: 25% / 16%Compared to the episode it was released with, Bastion numbers are quite good, half of those that started the episode, killed the first boss.

Daybreak: 61% / 52%Hall of Chains: 11% / 8%This was indeed a tough one.

A Star to Guide Us: 50% / 44%Mythright Gambit: 11% / 7%I think we can see here that the living world lost more players than Raids did, at this point.

War Eternal: 49% / 46%The Key of Ahdashim: 10% / 7%Oddly enough War Eternal didn't experience the same losses over time, but neither did Wing 7, with very similar results, maybe the playerbase finally stabilized at that point. At least until the Icebrood Saga started

Well there you have it. HOT Raids had a vastly superior popularity compared to POF Raids. HOT raid bosses were between 1/3rd and 1/4th of those that finished the respective episodes. POF Raids were closer to 1/5th - 1/6th.

[Krzysztof.5973]

@"Luthan.5236" said:The communication thing seems - as always - to be the biggest problem. Even if they did release a new raid ... it will get less attention that it could get with better advertising. (Announcing it earlier could get the still active raiders ot gather their old friends to already play a bit before the next espansion comes up.) With ArenaNets communication policy ... we'll suddenly know about the expansion a few weeks before release. Once it is released everyone will do the PvE stuff to unlock (if there are new ones) new elite specs + rushing story maybe. Then playing new raids if there are any. And by the time older players that stopped playing before are coming back ... the still active players already might be bored wanting another new raid.

Maybe "straight to the boss" instances (no previous trash mobs and only 1 boss per instance) are the way to make it easy accessible (not taking a lot of time) - aren't strikes like that? (Have not tried them yet.) And I guess you could vary the difficulty just as good as in raids - so people would not get bored. ArenaNet might stay with strikes instead of raids - having a similar thing as raids (10 man content) which they still can make hard by just making harder bosses so people that like hard content won't be bored.

ArenaNet's communication policy is the biggest issue for me. They can't decide on anything ... keeping all options until shortly before they release stuff. (Who knows how much they are changing shortly before a release.) Planning/comunicating early would make their options limited if players expected certain communicated/announced stuff ... but would be better for keeping players.

It's also worth point out that we never know if the next thing besides story is coming. Wing 8? It's on the table. New fractal? It's on the table. Alliances? It's on the table. Not talking about the exact date of release here. Just the simple fact of "Can we expect X thing to be released?". If release schedule for wvw/pvp/raids/fractals would have been consistent, the playerbase would definitely appreciate it.

Adding 2 difficulties would also be a good idea. Similar to Sunqa, where you get more dialogue and story on normal mode and on CM it's skips to challenge and boss received new mechanics and makes the fight longer. This could be implemented in raids as well. You get more story and exposition on "story mode" and on normal which was meant to be cleared every week for rewards. I'd love the latter to be much harder than current raids but that's personal preference. But that's in itself is discussion for another time.

We could surely get more info from anet regarding release cadence, but that's for people who still have hope left.