On Player Interaction: The Main Achilies Heel of GW2

[Asum.4960]

On 5/31/2021 at 1:37 PM, Rasimir.6239 said:

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.

 

Okay, let's be clear here, I don't like to be forced to group/interact - although "forced" is really already a dishonest way to put it, a wider array of group content existing would "force" you just as little to group and do it as the existence of achievements doesn't "force" you to be a completionist and do all of them, whether you like it or not. 

They would just provide more optional opportunities for community interaction and growth. 

 

And that's the crux of it. I don't want another game and my personal desires or issues (such as social anxieties) are not what I'm advocating for or arguing around, rather than the game health. 

I've been playing the Guild Wars franchise since 2005, for better or worse, it's been a pretty big part of my life - I want Guild Wars to keep existing and even prospering, not keep watching it fall to the wayside, being overtaken one after the other until it withers away because it can't hold an audience, and I understand that what keeps a majority of MMO players around is the communities, social groups and friends they have and want to play with in those MMO's. 

Little story patches to get short term bursts of (largely single player) players back may slow the fall, but in order to stabilize and grow, you need a healthy community - GW2 currently doesn't foster that, at all. 

 

Finding things to do with as a group is exceedingly difficult after some time in GW2. The Guild Missions are poor, outdated content all of the vets have done quite too many times trying to keep Guilds alive, just to do.. something, anything. WvW has been on life support almost as long as the game has been out, and even Dungeons, Fractals and Raids, as highly repeatable as they are, eventually lose their hold after the 100-1000th time without major updates or additions to them - making everybody playing those modes, rightfully, feel like they don't have a future playing and engaging with that content, leading to lack of interest and burn out. 

And then what do people do? Play around solo for a bit until they get bored, and then maybe come back for a week or two with every patch - as slowly both they themselves as well as their friends with whom they used to share amazing group experiences slowly fall away from the game? 

That's not exactly financially sustainable for an MMO, as GW2 has shown pretty clearly over the last ~3 years, with revenue dropping to concerning record lows, mass layoffs and the like in the age of Living World only. 

 

I don't have an itch for "forced" grouping, I have an itch for GW2 (or at least the franchise) to stay around and healthy for years to come, and I can look past my personal struggles with grouping to recognize that that is where player growth, memorable moments and prosperity for MMO's lies. 

 

But besides that, as a proficient player, I also strongly disagree with that the game caters to a wide variety of skill levels. Once you reach a certain point of proficiency with GW2, aside from a handful of instanced away pieces of content (amounting to a total of ~10h of unique gameplay in 8 years), there is next to nothing in the game that you can't just walk through solo with a yawn. 

 

Not providing many, ultimately optional, challenges and grouping opportunities to encourage connections and long term engagement is one, if not the biggest shortcoming of GW2 and why other, much worse, games who do in fact still do that have overtaken it handily.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Asum.4960

[voltaicbore.8012]

2 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Not providing many, ultimately optional, challenges and grouping opportunities to encourage connections and long term engagement is one, if not the biggest shortcoming of GW2 and why other, much worse, games who do in fact still do that have overtaken it handily.

 

I agree with most of your post here (especially about dungeon/fractal repetition running stale... there's only so many times you can carry and train new folks before you just get sick of it all), but I think this ending bit here is off the mark.

 

I think the primary things any game needs for long-term success is to (1) know why their players play their game, and (2) keep delivering it. There are many other titles that are vastly inferior to GW2 in a lot of important ways yet are financially healthier with decent player population - but some of these games also lack 'grouping opportunities to encourage connections'. I'd rather not get into a list of specifics, but these games always know how to course-correct after losing on a few gambles, and they don't need to foster player-to-player interaction to stay alive.

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by voltaicbore.8012

[Zephire.8049]

9 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

Online interactions are not rated.

Which doesn't matter if you're a teen being grouped with adults, or vice versa, when you now have to be on high alert and/or deal with a huge difference in maturity and experience, or have your gameplay impacted because someone was sent to bed by their parent. Or someone had to go deal with their infant that just woke up and now you're stuck starting content from scratch or PUG a partially complete instance during the game's off hours.

 

That disclaimer exists solely so a company can't be fined because players are using harsh and/or explicit language in chat and so they can do as much or little chat moderation. It's the exact same reason why forums and social media say they're not responsible for what users post. It doesn't mean there needs to be forced group content because technically there's no rule against it.

 

And seriously, as someone who dealt with crap as a teen, being forced to group up with strange adults in games was terrible for my mental health. You don't know people's backstories and there are so many reasons why someone would be uncomfortable being forced to group up with strangers in a game that is otherwise very friendly to solo players while giving them the option to play with others if they want.

 

Forced group content and competitive group content caters to a certain mentality at the exclusion of everyone else. The game can certainly improve some social functions and streamline others but without any examples of brand new systems can be added, it just seems like you want content or features that punish people for not being as social as you think they should be.

[mikansei.5742]

Of all GW2's many, many issues (lack of dev attention given to PvP/WvW, the seeming serial abandonment of group PvE modes such as dungeons/fractals/raids/strikes/DRMs, extremely infrequent balance patches, long stretches of unadvertised and poorly explained events like Champions' faction weeks, etc. etc.)... "not enough opportunity for player interaction" doesn't even make the list, tbh.

[Kurrilino.2706]

Why do we need to change anything just for the sake of change?

 

I enjoy not to interact with other people.

Let's leave it at that. Whoever wants to roleplay etc. in GW2 feel free but don't make it mandatory for other people.

 

If any we need more single player content and the removal of the chat system. We have a lfg tool. Go and chat there

[Goettel.4389]

The best player interaction in GW2 is joining in when you see someone doing events. No talk needed. It's one reason why I play.

[Arnox.5128]

7 hours ago, Zephire.8049 said:

Which doesn't matter if you're a teen being grouped with adults, or vice versa, when you now have to...

 

Online interactions not being rated means you probably shouldn't be playing this game as a teen in the first place. And if you are playing MMOs like this one, you better know what you're doing and your parents should know as well. ArenaNet is not and should not be your momma.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Arnox.5128

[Rasimir.6239]

4 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

 

Online interactions not being rated means you probably shouldn't be playing this game as a teen in the first place. And if you are playing MMOs like this one, you better know what you're doing and your parents should know as well. ArenaNet is not and should not be your momma.

Whether or not something is rated doesn't release you from behaving like a decent human being when interacting with people, especially people you don't know. Learning social interactions happens through interacting with lots and lots of different people. It's not some abstract knowledge your parents implement into you. Lock the teens away, and you'll eventually end up having to deal with a lot of adults who don't have a clue how to properly interact with people either (as you can very well see in today's society already).

 

That said, the kind of interaction you seem to be hinting at up here (the one that might not be considered ok when interacting with teenagers) is something I don't care for, either, and I'm a good 30 years past being a teenager. I have however accompanied both of my daughters for their first steps of online interaction, in this game among others. There are a lot of people in this game that are fun to play with, no matter if you're 15 or 50, and most of them are considerate and welcoming to people of all ages.

 

Asking for more "tools for interaction" and at the same time telling people to not play this game because of interactions makes it look like you're not really asking for more interactions in general, but only for tools that make people interact in the exact way you want to interact without consideration for other people's preferences and playstyles.

[Arnox.5128]

4 hours ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

Whether or not something is rated doesn't release you from behaving like a decent human being when interacting with people, especially people you don't know. Learning social interactions happens through interacting with lots and lots of different people. It's not some abstract knowledge your parents implement into you. Lock the teens away, and you'll eventually end up having to deal with a lot of adults who don't have a clue how to properly interact with people either (as you can very well see in today's society already).

 

It doesn't matter what you or I think or say on the matter. People are gonna behave badly. That's just how it goes. So your point on how people should behave is idealistic and entirely irrelevant to how any MMO actually is, not just GW2. Even further, the more you try to censor, the more people will try to find ways to act out. (see: Club Penguin) And finally, yeah, teens obviously have to interact with others, but guess what. MMOs aren't the place to do that. GW2 is not made to be a place for teens. Can they perhaps play it responsibly anyway? Sure, absolutely. But asking for ANet to design around and hamstring the game for them is ludicrous, regardless of what you think about more or less player interaction in GW2.

 

[White Kitsunee.4620]

Map chat has been dead in most maps during any period of the for a long time. Even in LA its just silence. If you ask a question maybe you'll get a wisp but the point is people just aren't talking.

They talk in WvW map chat, PvP map chat. But I never see conversations going on in LA. 

This is the easiest example of gw2's non-interactive player base.

[AgentMoore.9453]

1 hour ago, Arnox.5128 said:

GW2 is not made to be a place for teens.

The ESRB rating for this game is "Rated T for Teen"; just throwing that out there. I get that you don't think a game should play the role of a parent, but the game literally is made for kids, and so it's not unreasonable for people to consider them when contemplating features and their potential impact.

 

What I'd really like to know is what sort of interactions you think are missing from the game and why you consider their absence to be the Achilles' heel (Yes, Achilles; I'm a nerd. The thread title was driving me up the wall, and he's the main guy in the Iliad - worth the read if you haven't) of GuildWars2. Personally, I think the company's biggest weak spot is its inability to cohesively market, package, and curate their product but that's a whole separate topic.

 

A bit earlier you said something like 'I want to see if people think we need more interaction options full-stop', but mostly I see a whole bunch of 'no' answers and you getting irritated by them. If all you wanted was to know whether people think we need more or not, a simple yes/no poll might have served you better.

 

It might help if, instead, you directly listed some of what you want to see so people could get a better idea of what you're talking about. Bonus points if you can come up with pros and cons for your ideas.

[Luthan.5236]

Dueling wouldn't really add a lot of interaction since most players would not use it. The main "problem" is that a lot of stuff can be soloed and most stuff can be bought at the TP. (Even for legendaries that you can not craft ... you can buy the resources for some gifts. And other ones from achievements you just do solo.)

 

And in zergs for farming there is not much interaction needed.

 

While this first seems like a downside ... it has the very positive effect of reducing toxicity. Imagine a game like WoW where you all you had to play was repeated raids where super rare drops only dropped once and had to get distributed in the raid squad/team. Could lead to fights.

 

Main thing where GW2 needs to make adjustments: Making PvP/WvW better - I'm strongly in favor of a mid sized PvP mode: 10-20 vs 10-20 with bigger maps and interesting mechanics for interesting matches. As compared to WvW that runs endlessly where it is mainly about zerging. And compared to the usual PvP where deathmatch would be plain boring ... and the conquest also is alwas the same and people mainly focus on fighting (combat strong builds and less trying for overall strategy and map awareness).

 

For PvE there should be meta events that need coordination of players at more than 1 place. (Only 1 really comes to my mind: Triple Trouble. Even for stuff like Dragonfall meta the commander just moves with all the players and tries to prolong the meta for farming instead of 3 groups trying to speedily to each of the 3 camps.)

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, White Kitsunee.4620 said:

Map chat has been dead in most maps during any period of the for a long time. Even in LA its just silence. If you ask a question maybe you'll get a wisp but the point is people just aren't talking.

They talk in WvW map chat, PvP map chat. But I never see conversations going on in LA. 

This is the easiest example of gw2's non-interactive player base.

Come to Divinity's Reach.  Conversations going on all of the time there.

[Anchoku.8142]

GW2 was designed to allow people to do everything alone, together, if that makes sense.

 

Compare that to MMOs with profession systems dependent on each other to complete content. If tanks, support and dps were distinct professions, players would be forced to rely on others to fill out a mandatory group composition. GW2 has no such strict comp formula so groups are more ad hoc with much less profession dependencies.

[Xanadrine.4352]

On 5/31/2021 at 1:55 AM, sajah varel.9261 said:

The problem with dueling isn't dueling. It's that if you put it in the game, you need to do the balancing job around it. That means another layer of pvp balancing complaints.

 

We already have enough with spvp modes and wvw, having to account for another mode is just asking for trouble they don't need right now.

And don't start with the "they don't need to balance it, it's just for fun". I tell you, if they put dueling in the game, you'll see posts every day asking for nerfs because people won't be able to win their duels.

Naw wow has people crying about losing duels all the time, they have stated they dont balance anything around duels. Thats just something they let players do for fun if they want. So I dont think anet needs or has to balance anything around it.

Quote

 

GW2 was designed to allow people to do everything alone, together, if that makes sense.

 

Compare that to MMOs with profession systems dependent on each other to complete content. If tanks, support and dps were distinct professions, players would be forced to rely on others to fill out a mandatory group composition. GW2 has no such strict comp formula so groups are more ad hoc with much less profession dependencies.

 

 Well thats true to a point, all open world is done by anyone, same as wow. But even in high end fracs raids and dungeons you have a group that has a healer a quasi tank some bosses a true tank and dps, same as wow. Open world in either game dont require a role, but instanced content mainly does.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Zuldari.3940
added

[Arnox.5128]

10 hours ago, White Kitsunee.4620 said:

Map chat has been dead in most maps during any period of the for a long time. Even in LA its just silence. If you ask a question maybe you'll get a wisp but the point is people just aren't talking.

They talk in WvW map chat, PvP map chat. But I never see conversations going on in LA. 

This is the easiest example of gw2's non-interactive player base.

 

This is far from my experience. Yeah, map chat isn't going every time, but if you ask the right questions, you can easily spark a long conversation. For example, ask in LA what people want to see for EoD and you'll probably get at least a 15 min. conversation out of that with multiple participants. And that's not even mentioning all the event notifications people make in map chat outside of cities such as appearances for bloodstone-crazed bosses.

 

9 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

The ESRB rating for this game is "Rated T for Teen"; just throwing that out there. I get that you don't think a game should play the role of a parent, but the game literally is made for kids, and so it's not unreasonable for people to consider them when contemplating features and their potential impact.

 

The game content itself is rated T for teens, which is about right. But again, all the online interactions themselves are not rated, which makes up about 60-75% of the game. Maybe more.

 

9 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

What I'd really like to know is what sort of interactions you think are missing from the game and why you consider their absence to be the Achilles' heel (Yes, Achilles; I'm a nerd. The thread title was driving me up the wall, and he's the main guy in the Iliad - worth the read if you haven't) of GuildWars2. Personally, I think the company's biggest weak spot is its inability to cohesively market, package, and curate their product but that's a whole separate topic.

 

A bit earlier you said something like 'I want to see if people think we need more interaction options full-stop', but mostly I see a whole bunch of 'no' answers and you getting irritated by them. If all you wanted was to know whether people think we need more or not, a simple yes/no poll might have served you better.

 

It might help if, instead, you directly listed some of what you want to see so people could get a better idea of what you're talking about. Bonus points if you can come up with pros and cons for your ideas.

 

Yes, I do plan to make a separate topic outlining the specific ideas I had in mind. As to my irritation, most of it comes from the fact that people are constantly misunderstanding and thinking I want to make the game completely dependent on other players. Definitely not. I've already addressed these concerns in this post. While there are arguments to make the game more challenging (and not annoying) as others have already mentioned in this thread, that's not really what I'm talking about at the end of the day.

 

And if it's not that, it's strong pushbacks against dueling, of which, all the arguments I've read against it make no sense, and even if it wasn't a good idea, again, it's not that important for this thread.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Arnox.5128

[Biermeister.4678]

Reading the posts and reply's on this thread about community interaction open world  dueling is a no no

1 ANET needs to bring alliances online like they promised that way guilds and individuals can interact 

2 Make a international battle space like Hall of Hero's like Guild Wars had international community interaction

3 Make a GvG tournament based on PPK with a ranking system for the Guilds at 20 man squads original Guild Wars had GvG ranking 

 

[Anchoku.8142]

8 hours ago, Zuldari.3940 said:

... all open world is done by anyone, same as wow. But even in high end fracs raids and dungeons you have a group that has a healer a quasi tank some bosses a true tank and dps, same as wow. Open world in either game dont require a role, but instanced content mainly does.

Healers are not required for any group content. Neither are tanks. Raids and fractals can be completed without these functions.

 

Consider that Druid and Chronomancer were both created as support to facilitate content completion only after HoT release and any profession can load up on toughness for boss positioning, however inefficiently, and the difference between triad systems and GW2 is clear. Healing, buffing and tanking helps but are not required.

[Arnox.5128]

5 hours ago, Biermeister.4678 said:

Reading the posts and reply's on this thread about community interaction open world  dueling is a no no

 

Keep in mind, that's what everyone said about mounts too back in the day.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The Devs never said 'no' to Mounts.

The Devs have said 'no' to open-world dueling. 

[Arnox.5128]

3 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

The Devs never said 'no' to Mounts.

The Devs have said 'no' to open-world dueling. 

 

I'm not talking about the devs, but whatever. Since everyone's so insistently bringing it up, where did ANet say there would be no dueling?

Edited June 4, 2021 by Arnox.5128

[kharmin.7683]

29 minutes ago, Arnox.5128 said:

 

I'm not talking about the devs, but whatever. Since everyone's so insistently bringing it up, where did ANet say there would be no dueling?

Forums search is a thing....

[Arnox.5128]

22 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Forums search is a thing....

 

That isn't a flat denial. Just that it's a lot of work.

 

Also, forum searching in general can be pretty questionable. (see: Reddit searching) Don't berate people for not automatically trying the search on a site.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Arnox.5128

[kharmin.7683]

39 minutes ago, Arnox.5128 said:

 

That isn't a flat denial. Just that it's a lot of work.

 

Also, forum searching in general can be pretty questionable. (see: Reddit searching) Don't berate people for not automatically trying the search on a site.

I literally typed "open world PVP" in the search bar and found that post in the first page of results.  I only berate for those who don't even try.  It's just plain laziness.

[Arnox.5128]

17 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I literally typed "open world PVP" in the search bar and found that post in the first page of results.  I only berate for those who don't even try.  It's just plain laziness.

 

No, it's like berating people for not looking at something that 90% of the time isn't useful (speaking generally and not specifically about the GW2 forums search system). "Oh, well this one time, the site search is actually well built, so you're stupid and/or lazy."

Edited June 4, 2021 by Arnox.5128