On Player Interaction: The Main Achilies Heel of GW2

[Rasimir.6239]

4 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

that exciting risk

For every person that finds risk exciting, there's a person out there that gets anxious over risks.

For every person that likes to compete, there's a person that prefers to cooperate.

 

GW2 is the MMORPG that favors cooperation over competition. It's the game that caters to the kind of personality for whom risk is negative rather than positive.

 

4 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

 

more player interaction tools

There's much more to interaction than competition and risk. This game offers me many ways to interact with others, more really than most other MMORPGs out there (and I've played plenty of them ever since I first discovered the world of online RPGs back when MUDs were a thing in the early 90s).

 

More important to me though is that in GW2 I am free to choose who to interact with, and when. I am not forced to deal with the competitive, risky kind of player if I don't want to, because there are easy ways to find layed-back, cooperative, friendly people to play with for any kind of content I could want to play.

 

4 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

You couldn't join another guild unless you left your current one. ... it also meant everyone in the guild was forced to stick together and interact with each other.

Now you're not advocating for more interaction, but for less. I am a member of several guilds in GW2, and regularly interact with all of them. Why restrict the in-guild interactions to just one community? My dungeon-loving, international guild would never mesh with my casual language-specific one, even though I am an active part of both communities, and any "suggestion" that restricts me on choosing either of them is severely restricting me in my ability to interact with people in-game.

 

Force never improves the quality of interaction, and more often than not doesn't improve the quantity either. If you are missing interactions, go out and interact, find people you mesh with, and enjoy their company. Don't force others to interact with you that are perfectly fine interacting with tons of like-minded people in-game right now.

 

3 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

The game as a whole is too afraid to force people out of their comfort zone, to challenge it's players and to provide healthy inconveniences that force engagement that can result in memorable experiences, bonds and a sense of accomplishment.

And again were are on the subject of forcing people to interact. If that's what you like, there's lots of games out there that can scratch that itch. Personally I very much prefer that this game lets me choose my own challenges, when, how, and with whomever I choose.

 

GW2 is very good at offering content for a wide variety of players, both play-style and ability-wise. This allows me to interact with interesting people of all levels of abilities. Many of my friends may not be equipped to tackle the kind of challenges I like to tackle in-game, but there is a ton of content we all like to do together. It's enough content to not make them feel left out and drop the game. To me this opens the doors to a lot more interaction (thanks to a lot more accessibility of content) than any of the similar games I have played.

[Holy Shadow.1672]

I just want to chip in with my personal experience and perception of the topic at hand, namely player interactions. I, too, feel that this is the game's achilies heel, and especially more so when there are ongoing speculations that raid development is to perish, as this is such a central part of the game which requires play interaction to a more direct degree than most other activities. 

Coming from the original Guild Wars, I quickly found myself more isolated in what was supposedly portrayed as a more open and living world, than I had in a game which was fundamentally designed to be isolative with the exception of cities and outposts. What I have noticed being the biggest difference, is that everything tied to the story has somewhat become a solo-player experience. In contrast to its predecessor GW, story is experienced alone, and one can argue that "you can just find someone to do the story with", and that may be very well true, but when the design is centered around the possibility to solo it without any struggles, you end up having to really look hard for people to team up with. One example is the returning of LS2, and I know that this is a highly subjective experience and there are certainly people out there with more luck than me - but to sum it up short, I ended up standing outside all of the chapters and asking if anyone wanted to join for, for over an hour in total, without a single reply heh.

This is the absolute opposite of how it was designed in GW. There, you had to go from the very beginning of the story and all the way until the very Ring of Fire, together with your fellow players and humans, experiencing it together. Sure, you did have the option to bring henchmen aka NPC's, but they were before the day of heroes, very inferior to an actual player. This might just sound like a trip back memorylane of greener pasture, but I sincerely think that isolating the story means also isolating the player experience, and this cannot be compared to joining a guild, no for these encounters are a lot more random than an established guild and its framework.

But again, maybe this has to do with generations, we are after all in times where things are changing more rapidly than ever, maybe it is a human collection psychological "thing" and not strictly game design? Who really knows, I for one can not provide any answers, only thoughts and ideas and experience of the old Tyria.

It somewhat feels that we are also more consumers in this game than in the original Guild Wars, the game feels more designed around grind elements that are again very often based on zergs where things take on a very mechanical nature, in my opinion at least. No, perhaps I just want to hold onto what once was, who knows really heh ^^' 
I hope you all have a wonderful day and week moving on, and that you will find both light and magic in your adventures here in Tyria!

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Malitias.8453 said:

I agree.
Difficulty and challenge fosters socializing.
It's baffling to me how MMOs and even a lot of people try to justify the low difficulty of MMOs with "lowest common demoninator", to attract the highest number of people, even though the low difficulty is what makes so many people bored enough to leave. It's not a common demoninator if it makes people quit.
Games that offer a challenge are by no means "niche", so I don't understand why MMOs never offer players a decent challenge as part of the main experience.

Many people get bored and leave if the game is too easy. Many people get frustrated and leave if the game is too hard. Finding the sweet spot is tough because everyone has different lines.  Some people, raiders for example, love banging there head against the wall over and over again till they win, but even in games centered around raiding the hardest raids are never the most popular.

It's easy to say that people leave games because they're bored. That would be players like you.  But I've known people who leave games because they're too hard or because people can't do stuff solo....even MMOs.

 

I'm pretty sure a ton of people left the game when HoT came out and that's why PoF was designed as the anti-HoT.

[mindcircus.1506]

5 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

Ok, so let's turn our attention back to Guild Wars 2. How can we interact with other players in GW2 besides simple public and private communication? Let's list them. We can,

 

- Form groups and squads (the latter with a commander is incredibly powerful)

- Form permanent groups (guilds)

- Engage in structured PvP

- Engage in structured huge-scale PvP (WvW)

- Buy and sell via a trading post

- Send mail and/or items directly (no trading functionality)

- Play music publicly

- Do the (very scattered around) structured mini-games

- Costume brawl

 

Activities like Deathrolling are very niche activities in a game that were popularized by guys like Uberdanger and picked up on by guys like Asmon for stream/Youtube content. They aren't truly popular and they aren't indicative of the social health of a game.

People duel in this game all the time in WvW, and there are many dedicated sPvP hotjoins for Dueling.

 

They real question is: If you think this content is so sorely lacking from this game why don't you go buy a Belcher's Bluff kit and publicly challenge people and make bets on it?

[mindcircus.1506]

45 minutes ago, Holy Shadow.1672 said:

This is the absolute opposite of how it was designed in GW. There, you had to go from the very beginning of the story and all the way until the very Ring of Fire, together with your fellow players and humans, experiencing it together. Sure, you did have the option to bring henchmen aka NPC's, but they were before the day of heroes, very inferior to an actual player. This might just sound like a trip back memorylane of greener pasture, but I sincerely think that isolating the story means also isolating the player experience, and this cannot be compared to joining a guild, no for these encounters are a lot more random than an established guild and its framework.

At what point do the GW1 apologists concede the fact that this game, years after release is more popular than the first ever was and that the lack of forced grouping is a big part of that?

[Malitias.8453]

14 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I'm pretty sure a ton of people left the game when HoT came out and that's why PoF was designed as the anti-HoT.

A lot of people (including me) left the game for several years before  HoT even came out, because it was too easy.
The difficulty of HoT is a weird example to give, because GW2 first filtered out anyone looking for a challenge (and still do for the most part) before you get to experience a challenge. So most of the people who stayed were accustomed to PVE content that allowed them to only use skills if they felt like it and use trait lines based on how much they liked their icons.

[Fuchslein.8639]

47 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Many people get bored and leave if the game is too easy. Many people get frustrated and leave if the game is too hard. Finding the sweet spot is tough because everyone has different lines.  Some people, raiders for example, love banging there head against the wall over and over again till they win, but even in games centered around raiding the hardest raids are never the most popular.

It's easy to say that people leave games because they're bored. That would be players like you.  But I've known people who leave games because they're too hard or because people can't do stuff solo....even MMOs.

 

I'm pretty sure a ton of people left the game when HoT came out and that's why PoF was designed as the anti-HoT.

 

 

Yep, and a lot of people left because of POF. 

 

----

You can't really please anyone and I think in GW2 the ship has sailed anyway. Few risks were taken and quickly nerved again, which shows only too well that the game simply has its solid core community where everything is developed around.

Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, everyone has to decide for themselves.

In the end, there are hundreds of games out there, so there will be something for everyone.

[Malitias.8453]

3 minutes ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

In the end, there are hundreds of games out there, so there will be something for everyone.

I want an MMO with a combat system like the one GW2 has, the build depth GW1 has and occasionally enemies with a difficulty/learning curve similar to Monster Hunter and player-driven content along the lines of Eve Online with a crafting system that has enough depth and player skill involvement to allow someone to be a dedicated crafter.
Where's my game!? 😭

[Fuchslein.8639]

15 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

I want an MMO with a combat system like the one GW2 has, the build depth GW1 has and occasionally enemies with a difficulty/learning curve similar to Monster Hunter and player-driven content along the lines of Eve Online with a crafting system that has enough depth and player skill involvement to allow someone to be a dedicated crafter.
Where's my game!? 😭

 

Well, nowadays you always have the possibility to fulfill your dreams yourself if you have very specific wishes for something. And who knows, maybe you'll develop the next hit game xD.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Malitias.8453 said:

A lot of people (including me) left the game for several years before  HoT even came out, because it was too easy.
The difficulty of HoT is a weird example to give, because GW2 first filtered out anyone looking for a challenge (and still do for the most part) before you get to experience a challenge. So most of the people who stayed were accustomed to PVE content that allowed them to only use skills if they felt like it and use trait lines based on how much they liked their icons.

The cash the game was making faded pretty quickly after the HoT leap. Arguably the game was more successful after all you guys left than it was after all the casuals left.  If you think it's not true, just look at ANet's actions since. They're not focusing on harder content, they're focusing on easier stuff over all. They're lowered the difficulty cap as time has gone on. It's not because the harder core players are in higher number or paying more money.  The casuals, in my opinion, are where the money is.  And Anet's actions seem to back that up.

[mindcircus.1506]

20 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The cash the game was making faded pretty quickly after the HoT leap. Arguably the game was more successful after all you guys left than it was after all the casuals left.  If you think it's not true, just look at ANet's actions since. They're not focusing on harder content, they're focusing on easier stuff over all. They're lowered the difficulty cap as time has gone on. It's not because the harder core players are in higher number or paying more money.  The casuals, in my opinion, are where the money is.  And Anet's actions seem to back that up.

Catering exclusively to a low effort playstyle is what this company did through the bulk of 2019.

The results were the worst financial quarter this game has ever seen.

The results were so bad, the game director responsible for this course was sent packing and a large statement was made that included a capitulation that the more engaged players were not being well served as an audience.

 

Since then we've been delivered a much wider variety of content and the game is in a much better financial place. The game has actually offered a much better variety of content that appeals to those who want an actual compelling gameplay experience via challenging content such as the  WoJ and Boneskinner strikes , DRMs with Challenge modes ect...

The game has offered progressively harder content for the past year and a half.

 

An MMORPG by it's very nature needs to cater to a wide variety of players. It cannot survive going all in on what you are labelling as "casuals". This game has proven full well that you cannot sustain your game that way.

 

Arguing against this with divisive language,  labels such as "casual" and baseless rhetoric does this game no service.

Particularly when the reality of the content and financial numbers do not back it up.

[Malitias.8453]

46 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The cash the game was making faded pretty quickly after the HoT leap. Arguably the game was more successful after all you guys left than it was after all the casuals left.  If you think it's not true, just look at ANet's actions since.

Again, this is largely due to how GW2 has already established a playerbase, which was accustomed to the low difficulty.
If a restaurant becomes known for only serving burgers, their regulars will of course be furious if they suddenly decide to serve pizza instead. Of course this doesn't mean that pizza is overall a less popular, just that your regulars have come to expect burgers and those who prefer pizza have already gone because they didn't get it there.

 

3 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The casuals, in my opinion, are where the money is.  And Anet's actions seem to back that up.

 

Monster Hunter World has sold over 16 million copies in less than 3 years.
That's more than the combined Guild Wars franchise has sold in 10 years (11.5m).
The Dark Souls franchise has sold over 27m copies.
Games that feature a combat system and most of what you do involves combat seem to be doing a lot better if they offer a meaningful challenge. Again, no idea why MMOs don't do that. GW2 certainly has the combat system which would justify more engaging encounters, but they decided against utilizing that right from the start.
This, of course, makes it very difficult to steer the game towards more challenging content, but would certainly increase players communicating and interacting with each other.
Too much of an increase and you scare away too many of the current playerbase, but I don't think the current difficulty level the game has, which is close to none, is healthy either. It certainly doesn't help the game grow or attract new people.
I think encounters, which are not as mandatory as HPs, but still offer a good reward can be tuned and placed in the open world in a way that they don't interfere with low-skill solo players, while still offering an incentive to group up and provide a challenge to those who seek it.

[Swagger.1459]

9 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

You know, WoW Classic has always had a certain appeal for me (hold on, guys, don't get your pitchforks out yet), but I couldn't quite nail down why for the longest time. And then, after watching UberDanger's WoW review, it suddenly became very clear. Guild Wars 2, ever since launch, has suffered from a major problem that it's generally done a great job of working around, but at the end of the day, no matter what ANet added in the past, the problem remained. It's a problem that I feel even GW1 didn't have quite as badly.

 

There is one thing that all MMOs have in common, and this is also what they live and die on. How much and how deeply that MMO allows you to interact with others. Now, keep in mind, interactions don't necessarily have to be "positive". The quickest example of this is PvP dueling. In dueling, there is, of course, a loser at the end. But does that mean that dueling is, overall, a terrible thing? No. That's just how things go. Losing gives that exciting risk. It gives definition to winning. Let's also look at a minigame that the WoW community created called "deathrolling". Basically, if you lose the gamble of deathrolling, you lose money and/or an item.  But again, that's the risk that gives excitement to the whole thing.

 

Now, let's examine these two things. For deathrolling, you need a public random number generator tool accessible to the players. For dueling, the game needs to be able to temporarily switch the PvP flag on and off on an individual basis on player request. Without the public RNG, deathrolling could not be a thing. Without the dueling system, the duels could not take place. The point here is that, regardless of what you personally think about deathrolling or dueling, these player interactions could never occur without the systems that were put in place by the devs to make them so. But because they put in the work for these seemingly small things, these interactions COULD occur. And because they could occur, great stories and experiences were had that many MANY other games could simply not replicate.

 

Ok, so let's turn our attention back to Guild Wars 2. How can we interact with other players in GW2 besides simple public and private communication? Let's list them. We can,

 

- Form groups and squads (the latter with a commander is incredibly powerful)

- Form permanent groups (guilds)

- Engage in structured PvP

- Engage in structured huge-scale PvP (WvW)

- Buy and sell via a trading post

- Send mail and/or items directly (no trading functionality)

- Play music publicly

- Do the (very scattered around) structured mini-games

- Costume brawl

 

Unless I'm not mistaken here, that's really about it. Now, that's not really a bad list per se. It's actually pretty respectable. But there's still a big problem. GW2 is competing with games that have much better player interaction tools and opportunities. I honestly think this is why GW2 to this day has issues keeping its playerbase really high. It's easy to fall into the trap, both as a developer and as a player, that what the game needs is more content (stories, dungeons, fractals, PvP maps, etc.) but content is always finite, and tools that offer more player interaction, in essence, offer potentially infinite content. But it's even more than that. Talk to anyone about their favorite MMO experiences and 9 times out of 10, it's probably gonna be based around an amazing player interaction they had. Not, "Yeah, that map they made five years ago was so pretty and balanced!"

 

Of course, this is all not to say that content isn't important. It absolutely is. But player interaction is even more important. After all, we are in the MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER genre. That is the main part of WoW and FF14, and it's the main part of GW2. We need to start realizing this. And when we do, amazing things will happen for this game and its lifespan will be GREATLY extended. And hey, if you want another good example of good player interaction that was in the Guild Wars franchise, just look at Guild Wars 1's Guild vs. Guild. Because of that mode, GW1 still has a decently sized active playerbase and it's why I harp on about that mode being missing in GW2 so much. Another thing is WvW could be super attractive if it had REAL stakes to it. Right now, I don't even think the game tracks WvW rankings permanently. If you win, nobody cares because nothing really happens. There's nothing you can compare your server to. There's no goal to shoot for.

 

So, let's keep all this in mind when we next ask ourselves, "What does GW2 really need right now?"

@Vayne.8563 is correct. 
 

Player to player interaction is what you make of it. 
 

The devs aren’t going to add dueling to pve maps, and that was confirmed. And most players don’t need or want pvp in their pve. 

 

You don’t have the finger on the pulse of this game if you think that additional player interaction tools are what the game is in dire  need of to grow and survive. 

Gl

Edited May 31, 2021 by Swagger.1459

[frareanselm.1925]

The main achilles heel is that you cannot have guild wars in guild wars 2.

[Malitias.8453]

1 hour ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Catering exclusively to a low effort playstyle is what this company did through the bulk of 2019.

The results were the worst financial quarter this game has ever seen.

The results were so bad, the game director responsible for this course was sent packing and a large statement was made that included a capitulation that the more engaged players were not being well served as an audience.

I guess you're referring to Q4 of 2019.
Just out of curiosity, which game director are you talking about?

[Astralporing.1957]

26 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

Monster Hunter World has sold over 16 million copies in less than 3 years.

That's more than the combined Guild Wars franchise has sold in 10 years (11.5m).

Not combined Guild Wars franchise - those are Guild Wars 1 combined sales. Guild War 2 does not account into it.

 

26 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

The Dark Souls franchise has sold over 27m copies.

While Civilization franchise sold over 33m, and Minecraft over 70m. GW franchise in total (1 and 2 together) should also be significantly above 20 millions. So, you were saying?

 

26 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

Games that feature a combat system and most of what you do involves combat seem to be doing a lot better if they offer a meaningful challenge.

No. Combat games? Yeah, they are like that. Other games that just feature a combat system however? Not necessarily so.

 

26 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

Again, no idea why MMOs don't do that. GW2 certainly has the combat system which would justify more engaging encounters, but they decided against utilizing that right from the start.

From what we heard from devs during the original GW2 beta, they had to limit the mobs AI because mobs murdered players, and they realized they would end with no players left. Too much challenge is not always a good thing.

 

26 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

This, of course, makes it very difficult to steer the game towards more challenging content, but would certainly increase players communicating and interacting with each other.

No, thank you very much (you can see my sig what i think about content forcing players to socialize).

 

26 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

Too much of an increase and you scare away too many of the current playerbase, but I don't think the current difficulty level the game has, which is close to none, is healthy either. It certainly doesn't help the game grow or attract new people.

That's the fault of the combat system you praised before - it does not really allow for slow, gradual increases in difficulty.

 

26 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

I think encounters, which are not as mandatory as HPs, but still offer a good reward can be tuned and placed in the open world in a way that they don't interfere with low-skill solo players, while still offering an incentive to group up and provide a challenge to those who seek it.

Tequatl had become popular only after it got nerfed to the point when people could just join in and do the event without too much of interacting. Triple Trouble however on EU existed as an event mostly due to efforts of a single community group. Outside of that it is a dead event people avoid when it starts. The difference is that TT still requires a level of coordination that makes it impossible to do without some advanced levels of communication.

 

Same with everything else - once the coordination levels that are required pass certain threshold, you suddenly see people just starting to avoid said content. And then the content sort of dies, with devs seeing that there's no point making more of that kind of stuff anymore.

[Holy Shadow.1672]

4 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

At what point do the GW1 apologists concede the fact that this game, years after release is more popular than the first ever was and that the lack of forced grouping is a big part of that?

In what way can you conclude that the lack of forced grouping is the very reason for this game's popularity? GW was the first game for the studio ArenaNet, and the lack of marketing power and general exposure might as well be the very reason that the game never grew to the same scale as of GW2. Further more, the game was released at a time where WoW's dominance as so strong that no other MMOs during the same time, had a chance at competition. I really don't consider myself an apologist either, and I find that to be quite a labelling you got going on there, mate.

Also....

Quote

The publisher informed us that the original Guild Wars has now sold over 6.5 million units..

Doing this good in a time where WoW took nearly the entire stage of the MMORPG market.. do I need to say more? Time's are different, you cannot simply put two games, 10 years apart, and boil it down to pure sales numbers. That is just mind boggling wrong in my eyes.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Holy Shadow.1672

[Holy Shadow.1672]

1 hour ago, Swagger.1459 said:

@Vayne.8563 is correct. 
 

Player to player interaction is what you make of it. 
 

The devs aren’t going to add dueling to pve maps, and that was confirmed. And most players don’t need or want pvp in their pve. 

 

You don’t have the finger on the pulse of this game if you think that additional player interaction tools are what the game is in dire  need of to grow and survive. 

Gl

 

This is the beautiful thing with forums, the absolute lack of openness to one person's perception, which does not align with your own. Seeing you boast your confidence about him not having the "finger on the pulse of this game" - then tell me, what do you exactly see as more needed for this game as a whole? And why exactly is his thoughts wrong, because you sure as kitten did not state that in your reply.

[Khisanth.2948]

That is just a debate over what demographics the game should focus on. It is a pointless debate since there is no right or wrong answer.

 

The problem with GW2 is that it decided the answer is "everyone" so it ends up having no focus.

[Malitias.8453]

Just now, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not combined Guild Wars franchise - those are Guild Wars 1 combined sales. Guild War 2 does not account into it.

6.5m are from GW1 and 5m from GW2
https://www.engadget.com/2010-08-31-guild-wars-surpasses-6-5-million-sales-sequel-will-be-released.html
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-08-27-arenanet-explains-guild-wars-2-going-free-and-the-addition-of-raids
 

 

12 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

While Civilization franchise sold over 33m, and Minecraft over 70m.

Those are not combat focused games.

 

13 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

GW franchise in total (1 and 2 together) should also be significantly above 20 millions. So, you were saying?

see above
 

13 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No. Combat games? Yeah, they are like that. Other games that just feature a combat system however? Not necessarily so.

GW2 and most MMOs certainly fall in the category of combat focused games. I mean, most of what you do involves combat in some way.

 

18 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

That's the fault of the combat system you praised before - it does not really allow for slow, gradual increases in difficulty.

What? Why would you think that? Damage can be tuned gradually, the frequency of attacks, which need to be avoided can also be tuned very gradually and the complexity of mechanics that do not directly involve combat skills is entirely up to implementation
 

 

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Tequatl had become popular only after it got nerfed to the point when people could just join in and do the event without too much of interacting.

I couldn't find any source to a nerf to Tequatl.
Onl the opposite: "This event was completely reworked September 17th, 2013 as a part of the Tequatl Rising release. Previously, Tequatl the Sunless was a typical world boss that could be easily defeated by a few players without coordination or use of event mechanics."
Can you show me how they nerfed him?

[Khisanth.2948]

6 minutes ago, Malitias.8453 said:

I couldn't find any source to a nerf to Tequatl.

Because it was not a Teq specific change. It was when they the condition stack changes were made and  "structure" world bosses were made susceptible to crits.

 

There is also general power creep. I remember there was a point when the top end of DPS benchmark was around 23k. Looking at the same place right now it is at 42k ...

[Krzysztof.5973]

11 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

 

Don't get me wrong, GW2 is a fantastic game, but it's an awful MMO. 

 

12 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Every player can teleport anywhere at any time and solo walk through any content.

That's the Achilles Heel of GW2.

GW2 Open World is as convenient as it is unengaging, and as easy as it is unsatisfying to overcome.

 

11 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

the GW2 community more so than anyone, having been tremendously spoiled in it for years with a growing sense of entitlement.

  

6 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The casuals, in my opinion, are where the money is.  And Anet's actions seem to back that up.

Pretty much sums it up. Anet caters to exactly those people who left other games. Not really inclined to interact with one another, doing their most thing most of the time. Anet is focusing on specific demographic ignored by companies like Blizzard. 

[Astralporing.1957]

3 hours ago, Malitias.8453 said:

I couldn't find any source to a nerf to Tequatl.

Onl the opposite: "This event was completely reworked September 17th, 2013 as a part of the Tequatl Rising release. Previously, Tequatl the Sunless was a typical world boss that could be easily defeated by a few players without coordination or use of event mechanics."
Can you show me how they nerfed him?

Sure.

 

(edit: notice, that all those changes happened after the rework, and when i say "nerf" i do mean a nerf to the reworked version, not to the original one. Original one was somewhere around the level of Claw of Jormag, maybe even slightly easier, but the rework happened so long ago that almost noone actually remembers it anymore)

 

First, there was the condition rework. That was a massive nerf, because it suddenly allowed a large part of the playerbase to actually deal damage (before that, condi stacks were capped globally, which means that one-two players could already reach that cap and prevent any additional condition players from dealing any damage). It was so big that Anet went and inflated HPs of all bosses (Teq's HPs, for example, were doubled). That however was too much in the other direction, so Anet compensated (again) by allowing world bosses to receive critical damage (before that, most of world bosses could not be crited, as they are coded as structures rather than mobs). All those three things taken together ended up being a net nerf to world bosses.

 

Second, there were several adjustments to event scaling. cannons defence spawn waves were changed to key only off people that were actually at that specific cannon group, instead of scaling to the size of the whole event. Same with each battery defence zone - each was turned into a separate event with separate scaling. That change drastically decreased number of mob spawns.

 

Third, event has been designed before ascended gear proliferated. In general, with the exception of some much later events meant only for veterans, all core world is tuned for gear of certain level (and even for level 80 areas, at most for rares. Not even for exotics). Now when practically everyone is running in at least exotics, and full ascended gear is common, this obviously was  an indirect nerf.

 

Fourth - if my memory serves me right, i'm quite sure there were some slight "adjustments" (nerfs) to Teq's hps later on that never actually made it into the patchnotes. It happened so long ago however, that i can't be 100% sure of it. I might be wrong here, so you can ignore that one.

 

Fifth (and the last) adjustment is an absolutely major one however. Originally, the megalaser shot only brought Teq down, and stunned him for a while. After a while Anet however announced a "bugfix". Since that fix, each megalaser shot dealt actual damage to Teq, shaving his hps by the whole 5% of its total value. This not only means that suddenly 15% of total hps in damage was added into equation. It also meant that effectively the amount of hps needed to deal to him to push him into the next defence phase decreased by one-fifth (from 25% to 20% of total hps). This is what allowed zergs to push Teq right from burst into another battery defence phase (which means that once you shave the initial 25%, Teq basically deals no damage anymore and for the remaining 75% of his hps turns into nothing more than an oversized loot pinata). All the additional mechanics that appear in later combat phases (like whirlpools)? They just don't show up at all.

(and about it being a bugfix... well, let's just say that before the change the megalaser never actually dealt any damage. Not even in the original version of the fight, before rework)

 

The Teq of today is nothing like the version that was introduced in the rework. It is way, way easier.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Khisanth.2948]

47 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

allowing world bosses to receive critical damage

and the result of that change is not just about damage as it also allows various things that trigger on crit to occur

 

 

[Malitias.8453]

@Astralporing.1957 Wow, thank you for taking the time to write all that.
I remember the condition stack limit, which I thought at first was a bug, before realizing Power is the only reliable damage stat.
I am very glad they changed that.
The fifth point you brought up really does sound like a nerf that was just disguised as a bugfix. 😅
So even if most of what you describe is more related to powercreep rather than nerfs to the boss itself, the result is that players can now deal with him a lot easier. Different route, same result.
I wonder if they intentionally do the powercreep, because of their decision to not have a gear treadmill.. 🤔*grabs tinfoil hat*
Again, thank you for writing all that down.