This has got to be the most underrated MMO ever...why?

[shrew.3059]

2 minutes ago, Clyan.1593 said:

abyssmal marketing. i can't fathom how much money they constantly lose by not advertising this game adequately.

 

This seems like the most likely culprit. Although, without knowing their budget, it’s hard to know if this is a strategy or a constraint. They might not be able to afford better marketing without sacrificing elsewhere. Perhaps they make enough without that additional expense to make it worth eschewing it. I wouldn’t want them to dump tons on marketing but be unable to keep those players because they gave up too many resources getting them.

[Dami.5046]

game isn't underrated. Game just has more people putting others off by having these kind of threads and streamers who diss it one minute and love it the next.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Dami.5046

[shrew.3059]

14 minutes ago, Dami.5046 said:

game isn't underrated. Game just has more people putting others off by having these kind of threads and streamers who diss it one minute and love it the next.

 

Also true.

[Gehenna.3625]

12 hours ago, SEED.9051 said:

SWTOR is even worse than Gw2, agreed! Both are P2W in some aspect. Ironically, both are heavy story focused and both have seemingly underperformed..... so seems you could make more of an argument in that regard.

Well, the issue that I see is that you seem to confuse correlation with causation. Many people do that, but the point is that GW2's story is entirely different from SWTOR. And with story I mean the story of the game, not the stories in the game. SWTOR started out wanting to emulate WoW but in a Star Wars setting. They failed to match WoW and therefore the game almost sunk in the first few months. It was called the TORtanic for a reason. It was a game with vertical progression and sub only. To save the game from crashing entirely they introduced F2P accounts and the Cartel Market (Cash Shop). That's very different from the story of GW2 and therefore you cannot put them in the same category.

12 hours ago, SEED.9051 said:

 WoW sells some cosmetics too! Where it all comes down to P2W is how much they offer to earn in-game in comparison to the offerings of the CS. 99% of all the cool cosmetics to obtain in Gw2 are through the CS....you cant even get mount skins via loot drops in dungeons, world bosses, raids, etc. Where as WoW and FFXIV both have multiple ways to obtain cool cosmetics in-game (mage tower in WoW was some of the most fun way to earn a skin and XIV always has cool cross-over events too to earn mounts and other cool gear) Gw2 would've just pushed it to the CS. No cool limited event to challenge yourself for a cool reward, just give us more $$$!

Well I think that GW2 has a lot of skins that you can obtain in game and things like infusions etc. So I do think that there is a fair balance between in game items and there is no sub. So you could easily spend gems every month and get at least one outfit or armor set. Right now we have the Halloween event going on and guess what? You can earn skins in that event. It's really a matter of taste what you find cool and what not. I have a few characters that actually wear armor sets that I composed (mix and match) that are available from in game sources and new ones get added regularly in game as well. Perhaps you are simply not aware of them all?

12 hours ago, SEED.9051 said:

I'm sure they did. Unfortunately, they are now hard up for some consistent cash flow to keep the game afloat. Which leads to an even greater IRL influence on the game and players.

I think that's just your personal bias speaking here. They aren't hard up for consistent cash flow now...this has been their challenge from the start. There is no now about it. You make it sound as if that's a recent thing and it's not.

12 hours ago, SEED.9051 said:

So I guess it's underrated because anet didn't want to grab MMO players and instead opted to cater to a niche playerbase that rather play shared world games solo.  Would explain the very anti-social nature of the game actually.

Sure, most players are casual players and the same goes for SWTOR. For me it works because I like being around people but not too close. So I do chat, but I don't join guilds or something like that. And from what I gathered all MMOs these days have lots of solo content. Games like FFXIV do as well.

So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make other than GW2 is very solo-friendly (which it's been from the start so no news there) and that your opinion is that the in game skins are crappy to you so you feel that all the cool skins come from the gem store. However, I don't agree because it's my opinion that there are enough skins in the game and that they are also cool and as such they strike a fair balance between in game skins and gem store skins.

But there's two more things: first the game has no sub, which allows people with smaller wallets to play this game and have others pay for it that can afford it by means of the gem store. AND you can get gems by playing because you can buy gems with gold. So that alone makes this game play to win.

[shrew.3059]

The argument about how solo-friendly MMOs should be comes up in nearly every MMO. The argument always ends up the same.

 

Community is important, but when it is narrowly defined to appeal to a small group (competitive, high-playtime users), that community becomes incredibly fragile. MMOs are not friend generators and cannot be sustainably designed to occupy all of a person’s free time for years (without becoming extremely toxic). WoW had a good run, and maybe FFXIV will have its day, but I don’t think the market can support too many games like this.

[mythical.6315]

6 hours ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

Based on the total percentage of a game’s population that could be identified as “hardcore”. Even in the most profitable MMOs, most players would be called “casual”. This data has been out there for awhile and has been discussed in pretty much every thread about raiding in every MMO worth mentioning.

 

There have been a number of debates about the relationship between these two numbers, for example, the extent to which hardcore population drives casual population. My suspicion is that it is a dangerous business proposition to depend on a very small player base that you essentially need to own for an extended period of time. Casuals can ebb or flow, but so long as they can always pick up and play as they want (and buy subs or cosmetics), the business model holds. Hardcore players need more stability and if they have a hard time getting a raiding group or if too much time passes without a carrot, they’ll start leaving and your raiding community death-spirals. The carrots also have to be frequent because raiders will play more often, and will leave once those carrots have been consumed. This is why WoW numbers after Cataclysm tended to be spiky after expansions; players would come in and devour all the content, and then leave.

 

This has always been a problem with MMO content creation: how do you keep people who play everyday locked in if they blow through your content almost as soon as you release it? You can make it super hard, but if it’s too hard for hardcore players to instantly beat, no casual will manage it. If you time-gate them, they’ll get impatient and leave. And if these are a minority of your customer base, how many resources should you expend to keep them?

 

Simply put: if you are going to cater to a small audience, that’s fine but they should be hugely profitable for you relative to the resources it takes to keep them engaged. “Small audience that requires a lot of attention” seems like a losing strategy in the long run. You need another, broader, customer base to support that: enter the casual.

And yet they said typical MMO population and not hardcore players.

[shrew.3059]

2 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

And yet they said typical MMO population and not hardcore players.

 

What constitutes a “typical MMO population”?

I suspect this term is going to be very carefully crafted to serve a very particular argument.

[Gibson.4036]

8 hours ago, Dami.5046 said:

game isn't underrated. Game just has more people putting others off by having these kind of threads and streamers who diss it one minute and love it the next.

Only a tiny portion of players read forums

Also

QQ on forums drives people away from the game

😄

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[mythical.6315]

26 minutes ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

What constitutes a “typical MMO population”?

I suspect this term is going to be very carefully crafted to serve a very particular argument.

What constitutes assuming the extreme when someone says “typical MMO population” without accounting for everyone in between?

[SEED.9051]

8 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I have a few characters that actually wear armor sets that I composed (mix and match) that are available from in game sources

All my toons use in-game mix n match gear. I prefer challenging myself and earning stuff in-game vs insta-grat CC. The best set they made available and had you acquire the right way was the Mistward armor set. My rev been rolling nothing but since I earned it all. 

 

8 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

you feel that all the cool skins come from the gem store

I said the MAJORITY comes from the CS which is true, considering how often they release new CS skins vs what in-game skins they release. The MAJORITY is always in the CS.

 

8 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

It was called the TORtanic for a reason

Agreed. People were expecting a real MMO and got singleplayer story telling in a shared world. That's not going to warrant a sub....ever.

 

8 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

For me it works because I like being around people

I can agree with this. Part of the reason I can enjoy Gw2 for what it is.

 

8 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

They aren't hard up for consistent cash flow now...this has been their challenge from the start

I've been here since launch and have preordered every xpac since. I try to support Anet to some compacity since the player base is overwhelmingly full of leeches.

[Borked.6824]

On 10/12/2021 at 1:07 AM, Vayne.8563 said:

Actually, you don't get to define what pay to win is in the first place.  As an example, my wife has a ton of gold which she farms, and she buys gems with it and gets everything on the gem store, without spending money (lately anyway).  She's bought thousands of gems with gold recently. Hell even I bought 4000 gems with gold recently.

There are a bunch of people who never spend a penny on the gem store and still get gem store items. They're simply trading time/energy/commitment for cash spent.  Admittedly I prefer to spend cash than grind most of the time, because that's what I prefer. But I never sell gems to get gold.  

The idea that looking a certain way is an advantage in game is ludicrous, even if you play fashion wars. Outfits are not mix and match, thus not really fashion wars (and they're mostly what's available in the gem store).  And most of the weapons are too ostentation (read glowly/over the top) for my tastes. 

With a number advantage you can look and say this number is higher than that number.  With a cosmetic "advantage" well that's just a matter of taste. No individual item in the gem store is objectively better than an item that you get in game (even ignoring the fact that farming gold gets you that gem store item anyway).

Guild Wars 2 just isn't a p2w game.

GW2 is definitely P2W.  In fact, I'm positive GW2 is a front-runner in this "redefinition" of what P2W actually means.  WoW even swiped the template from Anet years later.  It's all semantics, but really consider what "advantage" means, extrinsically and intrinsically.  There is no perspective other than your own, and your relative perspective of others.  If I gather endorphins from playing Fashion Wars just the same as dunking fools in PvP, is it not relatively the exact same thing?!  Winning is just achieving happiness, through and through.  If you poll the MMO population on what they enjoy the most in the game now vs 10 years ago, cosmetics will absolutely be part of that response.  Cosmetic "winning" is the same as competitive "winning".

 

And that is indellibly why GW2 will not match its competition, because it has coined a new definition of P2W, and locked it behind your credit card.  Yes you can make the case of using in-game gold to recycle into Gems, but let's be honest, that's a pretty bullsht way of justifying not having a better in-game pathway to cosmetic gearing.

[mythical.6315]

52 minutes ago, Borked.6824 said:

GW2 is definitely P2W.  In fact, I'm positive GW2 is a front-runner in this "redefinition" of what P2W actually means.  WoW even swiped the template from Anet years later.  It's all semantics, but really consider what "advantage" means, extrinsically and intrinsically.  There is no perspective other than your own, and your relative perspective of others.  If I gather endorphins from playing Fashion Wars just the same as dunking fools in PvP, is it not relatively the exact same thing?!  Winning is just achieving happiness, through and through.  If you poll the MMO population on what they enjoy the most in the game now vs 10 years ago, cosmetics will absolutely be part of that response.  Cosmetic "winning" is the same as competitive "winning".

 

And that is indellibly why GW2 will not match its competition, because it has coined a new definition of P2W, and locked it behind your credit card.  Yes you can make the case of using in-game gold to recycle into Gems, but let's be honest, that's a pretty bullsht way of justifying not having a better in-game pathway to cosmetic gearing.

Exactly what is P2W in GW2 and how do players win because of it?

[voltaicbore.8012]

53 minutes ago, Borked.6824 said:

And that is indellibly why GW2 will not match its competition, because it has coined a new definition of P2W, and locked it behind your credit card.  Yes you can make the case of using in-game gold to recycle into Gems, but let's be honest, that's a pretty bullsht way of justifying not having a better in-game pathway to cosmetic gearing.

What people also forget is that ALL gems that you acquire through the official gold-to-gem conversion comes from gems bought by someone for real money. That, to me, is what puts GW2 in the "new p2w" category that you described above.

Honestly I don't see this as a bad thing. Yes, like any non-sub game, this game depends heavily on whales for revenue. However, due to the official RMT system ANet put in place, those whales can help non-paying players still access goodies in the gem store quite directly by selling their excess gems to non-paying players in exchange for gold. I find this more efficient and less useless than the conversion system other games have, which generally require the whale to buy from a limited number of cash shop items that can be put up on the player-to-player market, and the sale of that item is what gets the whale their in-game gold. The GW2 way cuts out the needless pretending, and just lets whales convert gems to gold directly.

[voltaicbore.8012]

4 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

Exactly what is P2W in GW2 and how do players win because of it?

I think what @Borked.4273 is getting at is that the "win" condition varies from game to game, and may not be a straight win-or-lose binary at all. It's widely accepted in the GW2 player community that acquiring cosmetics constitutes a large portion of endgame enjoyment here. While everyone's tastes are subjective and there is no objective competition between players on this front, if cosmetic acquisition is a widely acknowledged goal for players and most of the desirable designs are put into the shop, then it's not that much different than pay-to-win. In other words, if the primary enjoyment in playing a game is locked behind cash shop purchases, it's pay to win, even if that "primary reason" isn't a competitive one.

That said, there's so much to like about this game outside of cash shop skins (most of which I utterly abhor). Even if we're talking purely about cosmetics, there's so much out there. I think Teapot did a video recently about the breakdown of skins earnable in-game vs. gem store, and in-game still dominates in terms of sheer proportion. Of the 20-some characters I currently have, I use only 2 cash shop skins through the wardrobe. Everything else is just a careful selection of armor/wep skins and dyes. Aside from build/gear loadouts, I consider GW2's cash shop structure to be one of the most player-friendly systems I've seen.

[shrew.3059]

2 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

What constitutes assuming the extreme when someone says “typical MMO population” without accounting for everyone in between?

 

It was an assumption, I’ll admit, based on his description of the things a “typical MMO player” desires. If he meant the average MMO player, then this seems to cover the perfectly happy GW2 players as well, and not some other underserved market.

 

Although at this point we’re just redefining terms for sport. Instead of arguing that GW2 is P2W, we can just change the definition of “winning” to align with things people pay for, and voilà, argument won. The problem with redefinition of this sort is that it’s not clear what “winning” is in Fashion Wars, and if it’s all based on individual subjective interpretation, then P2W utterly breaks down as a concept or complaint. The usual argument against P2W is that it allows some people to have an unfair advantage in a competition with fair and clear rules. How can I P2W something without there being any agree upon metrics for winning? More to the point, how could you possibly lose Fashion Wars?

[mythical.6315]

1 hour ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

It was an assumption, I’ll admit, based on his description of the things a “typical MMO player” desires. If he meant the average MMO player, then this seems to cover the perfectly happy GW2 players as well, and not some other underserved market.

 

Although at this point we’re just redefining terms for sport. Instead of arguing that GW2 is P2W, we can just change the definition of “winning” to align with things people pay for, and voilà, argument won. The problem with redefinition of this sort is that it’s not clear what “winning” is in Fashion Wars, and if it’s all based on individual subjective interpretation, then P2W utterly breaks down as a concept or complaint. The usual argument against P2W is that it allows some people to have an unfair advantage in a competition with fair and clear rules. How can I P2W something without there being any agree upon metrics for winning? More to the point, how could you possibly lose Fashion Wars?

How does someone buying a skin for their own use give them an advantage?

P2W is often twisted to include all online purchases through a cash shop. Considering that this game does not have a subscription, nor does it charge active players for living story releases, I don’t see the issue. Revenue needs to be earned somehow to support the free content and run the game. 
 

It’s similar to how ‘casual’ has so many different definitions as people have taken that word and tailored it to whatever complaint they were making. 

Edited October 13, 2021 by mythical.6315

[shrew.3059]

1 hour ago, mythical.6315 said:

How does someone buying a skin for their own use give them an advantage?

P2W is often twisted to include all online purchases through a cash shop. Considering that this game does not have a subscription, nor does it charge active players for living story releases, I don’t see the issue. Revenue needs to be earned somehow to support the free content and run the game. 

 

It doesn’t. I think we agree!

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

GW2 is definitely P2W.  In fact, I'm positive GW2 is a front-runner in this "redefinition" of what P2W actually means.  WoW even swiped the template from Anet years later.  It's all semantics, but really consider what "advantage" means, extrinsically and intrinsically.  There is no perspective other than your own, and your relative perspective of others.  If I gather endorphins from playing Fashion Wars just the same as dunking fools in PvP, is it not relatively the exact same thing?!  Winning is just achieving happiness, through and through.  If you poll the MMO population on what they enjoy the most in the game now vs 10 years ago, cosmetics will absolutely be part of that response.  Cosmetic "winning" is the same as competitive "winning".

 

And that is indellibly why GW2 will not match its competition, because it has coined a new definition of P2W, and locked it behind your credit card.  Yes you can make the case of using in-game gold to recycle into Gems, but let's be honest, that's a pretty bullsht way of justifying not having a better in-game pathway to cosmetic gearing.

Most of my characters don't use cash shop gear because I don't think it's better than most of the stuff in game.  So no, it's not pay to win.

Pay to win has always had a definition. The fact that you want to use pay to look good (again opinion) as a new definition if your problem. The problem with using the same word to mean something different is that people will think you can buy power in the cash shop that you can't get in game.  It's just not true.

You can say it all you want, but pay to win already HAS a definition and pay to look good has never been part of that definition.

WoW is a sub game. You have to pay $15 a month or you can't get any skins. That's over $150 a year every year.  Ten years is over $1500.  And you get all the stuff by playing.  It's not even pay to win, it's play to play but no one calls it pay to win. But it STILL has a cash shop and some mounts, including some of the most popular are only in the cash shop. Is that pay to win? No. No one calls it pay to win, because you can get mounts with the same skills/speed in game.

You don't get to change definitions just because you don't like the payment system.

Using in game gold which people farm to buy cash shop stuff isn't some loophole. It's a fact of the game.  Farm the gold, buy what you want. I have people in my guild who do this.

[Gibson.4036]

17 hours ago, shrew.3059 said:

The usual argument against P2W is that it allows some people to have an unfair advantage in a competition with fair and clear rules. How can I P2W something without there being any agree upon metrics for winning? More to the point, how could you possibly lose Fashion Wars?

Is this winning, or losing?

https://i.redd.it/dlv67xw4l5z31.jpg

Edited October 14, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Cyndercat.7615]

5 hours ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

It was an assumption, I’ll admit, based on his description of the things a “typical MMO player” desires. If he meant the average MMO player, then this seems to cover the perfectly happy GW2 players as well, and not some other underserved market.

 

Although at this point we’re just redefining terms for sport. Instead of arguing that GW2 is P2W, we can just change the definition of “winning” to align with things people pay for, and voilà, argument won. The problem with redefinition of this sort is that it’s not clear what “winning” is in Fashion Wars, and if it’s all based on individual subjective interpretation, then P2W utterly breaks down as a concept or complaint. The usual argument against P2W is that it allows some people to have an unfair advantage in a competition with fair and clear rules. How can I P2W something without there being any agree upon metrics for winning? More to the point, how could you possibly lose Fashion Wars?

I have no idea why you assumed my 'typical mmo' player meant only hardcore. Nowhere did I say that at all. IMO games need a good balance between both casual and hard content to be successful but again thats irrelevant to my point. 

 

Typical MMO players are used to quest based levelling and story, vertical progression and clear class roles, among other standard MMO features. Gw2 doesnt offer these and results in many MMO players feeling lost and not enjoying the game. Like I said its not a bad thing, just it doesnt appeal to the mass audience and keeps gw2 niche.

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by zombyturtle.5980

[Dawdler.8521]

11 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

GW2 is definitely P2W.  In fact, I'm positive GW2 is a front-runner in this "redefinition" of what P2W actually means.  WoW even swiped the template from Anet years later.  It's all semantics, but really consider what "advantage" means, extrinsically and intrinsically.  There is no perspective other than your own, and your relative perspective of others.  If I gather endorphins from playing Fashion Wars just the same as dunking fools in PvP, is it not relatively the exact same thing?!  Winning is just achieving happiness, through and through.  If you poll the MMO population on what they enjoy the most in the game now vs 10 years ago, cosmetics will absolutely be part of that response.  Cosmetic "winning" is the same as competitive "winning".

 

And that is indellibly why GW2 will not match its competition, because it has coined a new definition of P2W, and locked it behind your credit card.  Yes you can make the case of using in-game gold to recycle into Gems, but let's be honest, that's a pretty bullsht way of justifying not having a better in-game pathway to cosmetic gearing.

This just shows where your preference lies - style over substance, fashion over gameplay, etc.

You can keep living in your own fantasy world if you want, it doesnt change the undisputable fact there is nothing about the cosmetics in the gemstore that make you more competitive.

[shrew.3059]

4 hours ago, zombyturtle.5980 said:

Gw2 doesnt offer these and results in many MMO players feeling lost and not enjoying the game.

 

I don’t know that this is true. You don’t know this is true. I think the “typical MMO player” is flexible enough in their thinking to embrace changes to the standard formula given that the genre itself doesn’t have that many examples and hasn’t been around that long. It does seem likely that MMO players who expect a WoW-style game will be disappointed, and maybe the “typical MMO player” just means “player expecting WoW” to some.

[Cyndercat.7615]

52 minutes ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

I don’t know that this is true. You don’t know this is true. I think the “typical MMO player” is flexible enough in their thinking to embrace changes to the standard formula given that the genre itself doesn’t have that many examples and hasn’t been around that long. It does seem likely that MMO players who expect a WoW-style game will be disappointed, and maybe the “typical MMO player” just means “player expecting WoW” to some.

Yes I do know it is true. Right from the beginning this game had to be redesigned to add heart 'quests' because most of its players disliked the directionless of events only. The game even lost a huge portion of its players due to lack of progression when it launched.

WoW is not the only MMO with typical mmo features like vertical progression and questing, thats why they are typical mmo industry feature..not a wow specific feature. 

I dont know what weird issue you have with wow players or hardcore players from other MMOs but its still not relevant to what I was talking about.

Edited October 14, 2021 by zombyturtle.5980

[shrew.3059]

1 hour ago, zombyturtle.5980 said:

Yes I do know it is true. Right from the beginning this game had to be redesigned to add heart 'quests' because most of its players disliked the directionless of events only. The game even lost a huge portion of its players due to lack of progression when it launched.

WoW is not the only MMO with typical mmo features like vertical progression and questing, thats why they are typical mmo industry feature..not a wow specific feature. 

I dont know what weird issue you have with wow players or hardcore players from other MMOs but its still not relevant to what I was talking about.

I don’t have a “weird issue” with WoW players since I played WoW from launch, and I don’t think I have any weird issues with myself or those I played with. I like that GW1 was never a MMO and that its successor only made slight accommodations to fit into that market. I also played and enjoyed Wildstar, which did everything possible to be WoW, and it did not succeed. I don’t pretend to know exactly why that is, but I could guess. I’d probably be wrong since my area of expertise is not MMO market dynamics.

I like that there is some market diversity. Slight variations on a theme or wild departures, try everything and let the market decide. I agree with you in that GW2 is niche, and that’s okay. But to be honest, I don’t have enough data on what MMO players want, and what they are willing to give up. Maybe they need vertical progression, maybe they are just used to it and care more about the IP and the gameplay mechanics, maybe it’s the community or where their friends play.

I guess if I have a problem with anything, it’s the army of armchair/keyboard analysts who know with absolute certainty what players want, why they are leaving, how to increase revenue,  what the appropriate business model should be, etc. This is not a comment directed at you, I just quoted you as a jumping off point.

Edited October 14, 2021 by shrew.3059

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Fact is that gameplay wise GW2 is so superior to most established MMOs like WoW and FF. These games feel stiff and ancient. Coming from console games like Devil May Cry and God of War etc. WoW always felt stupid, ancient and stiff gameplay wise. The rest is great though. But GW2 feels so much better and fun combat wise and I compare other online games with the fluidity of GW2.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I remember when I played WoW for the first time. I was shocked how bad it felt. Horrible. I was really surprised how 'good' people though this game is. It was bad gameplay wise, bad graphics wise. I mean back then I had games like Ratchet & Clank or Jak & Daxter on the PlayStation 2. 

Edited October 14, 2021 by ProtoGunner.4953