No new raid?

[RaidsAreEasyAF.8652]

> @"Blaeys.3102" said:

>The first would be to compromise on quality - which isn't really an option.

 

Because KC is totally not a random bug generator and a top quality encounter.

 

Honestly, give me a box with a boss and cool mechanics and im happy. I dont need a story or fancy environment.

 

 

[ButterPeanut.9746]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"DutchRiders.2871" said:

> > No the reasoning that all resources of a company should go to the highest amount of customers in many business cases is not optimal. Niches can be important for a company.

> That's not what happens though. Raids still have their own dedicated team. It's just that doing raids requires resources from outside that team for peak performance - resources that are required also for other projects. So, Anet prioritizes, and assigns these resources in order of importance. This time, the next, already delayed LS chapter was more important.

>

> > 250 + days for 2 boss fights, is imo not justified by saying raids are niche.

> It's what the current raid team can do. If you want more/faster releases, you are basically asking Anet to assign more resources to raids. Resources that would have to come from somewhere else.

> So, what exactly do you want to sacrifice for this? And why non-raiders should be okay with it?

>

>

>

 

Been saying this for months around the 'easy mode' debate. Everyone wants more content, or content added to fit their needs, but doesn't want to give anything up :)

 

There also is a 3rd piece to delivering content more quickly, but it isn't something that the community can really give input on. That is efficiency. They could be using the same number of people on a team, but improve the process around developing/releasing content which could increase the release frequency...but that is only something ANET will know.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"maxwelgm.4315" said:

> Breaking the LW episode into its parts clearly didn't matter to Anet so far (and if they allocate the same resources to raids that they in average allocate individually to each of these components, I think the team would be even smaller, no?

What about all of them combined then? You can't possibly say that the numbers are from entirely different players. By the way, if the races, the adventures, the story achievements, the meta events (also parts of achievements), the little collectibles like sunspear caches, the bounties and all the collections don't take much development time, then I seriously wonder what is taking them so long to release an episode. Do they need more writers or more voice actors?

 

> This also has to do with Anet diminishing the number of Achievement points they reward over time, which would probably also see some increase in numbers if they fixed it.

This is actually false, since Path of Fire was released we are getting more achievement points, at least more than the Heart of Thorns era.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"ButterPeanut.9746" said:

> There also is a 3rd piece to delivering content more quickly, but it isn't something that the community can really give input on. That is efficiency. They could be using the same number of people on a team, but improve the process around developing/releasing content which could increase the release frequency...but that is only something ANET will know.

That's likely not applicable here, as up until now we heard that raid team is probably one of the most efficient ones already.

 

Besides, i'd think that the what's important here is the shared resources (like artists, for example), not the raid-dedicated ones.

 

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"maxwelgm.4315" said:

> > Breaking the LW episode into its parts clearly didn't matter to Anet so far (and if they allocate the same resources to raids that they in average allocate individually to each of these components, I think the team would be even smaller, no?

> What about all of them combined then? You can't possibly say that the numbers are from entirely different players. By the way, if the races, the adventures, the story achievements, the meta events (also parts of achievements), the little collectibles like sunspear caches, the bounties and all the collections don't take much development time, then I seriously wonder what is taking them so long to release an episode. Do they need more writers or more voice actors?

Well, the map itself and the story instances probably take a large part of the time. So does the art in general, as well as QA and bug-squashing. And while those minor trings likely don't take a lot of development time _individually_, when taken together this does add up.

 

 

[faceplant.5123]

> @"Kheldorn.5123" said:

> They should release just one raid per expansion and announce it so people will finally stop whining. Raiders are the mostunhappy, never satisfied group of players in this game. It was absolutely to be expected that Anet will never keep up with raiders' expectations but they made huge mistake - they released first 3 wings too fast and people hyped themselves up that it's going to be standard occurence. Reality 1 : 0 Raiders

 

If the main content you played only lasted you an hour once a week then you would be mad too. Lumping an entire demographic of players into some negative stereotype is toxic. I raid casually on the weekends with my static every week. We're not the best, we wipe, we don't run 6 weavers and 1 druid. We run whatever we want and have fun with it. But sadly, we killed Dhuum a few months ago and 1 shot wing 5 on a weekly bases for a bit now. We're bored out of our minds. How is it too much to ask for at least 2 raid wings a year? Just because you don't enjoy raiding and have found some bad apples in the community doesn't mean that you can get on your high horse and say that our expectations are not realistic. Anet has proven that they can release 3 raid wings (good raids too) quickly with no delays. They set the bar and our expectations are wherever they placed it. We're going off of reality not off of what some non-raiders think it should be like.

 

*tangent sorry* I do not understand this community. Some elitism shows up in a group and then all the open world casuals (nothing wrong with being casual) saddle up and ask for less of that content. Elitism is in any hardcore endgame for every game and there is no way of stopping it. Anet must keep releasing raids more consistently, quickly, and efficiently because when most people think of an MMO's endgame, they think of raids. Even though many players will not get to experience this content, they probably got into this game because they heard the endgame was good and want to experience it.

 

I don't know who hurt you but it looks like they did some damage when it came to raids. I've read your other posts and it seems you genuinely hate raids (hate is the proper word). It isn't that difficult to make 3 bosses in 6 months (I'm no game dev but Anet has shown they can do it and many other similar games too) and it isn't too much to ask for. 6 months is the ideal time for raid releases, 2 months per boss. If a wing has 4 bosses then make the release 8 months in between, very few will complain. The best of the best will speed right through everything in 2 weeks tops (just like with anything) but the other 99% of raiders are going to take their time to kill a boss. I can't imagine having 1 raid wing come out every expansion, it just seems like a nightmare to me. Us "raiders" wouldn't quit complaining (cause that's what we do) but if we got our preferred content at a decent rate then there would be less to complain about.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"faceplant.5123" said:

> > @"Kheldorn.5123" said:

> > They should release just one raid per expansion and announce it so people will finally stop whining. Raiders are the mostunhappy, never satisfied group of players in this game. It was absolutely to be expected that Anet will never keep up with raiders' expectations but they made huge mistake - they released first 3 wings too fast and people hyped themselves up that it's going to be standard occurence. Reality 1 : 0 Raiders

>

> If the main content you played only lasted you an hour once a week then you would be mad too.

No. If you were playing mainly for this type of content, you would not pick a game that supplied only a few hours of it per week, and where that type of content wasn't considered to be a core activity, and thus could not expect many resources and dev attention spend on it.

 

As has been said before, the main problem is not with Anet for not supplying raids at a rate some people expect. It's with said people to have unreasonable expactations in the first place.

 

> Anet has proven that they can release 3 raid wings (good raids too) quickly with no delays.

No, they didn't. They did a lot of work for the first three wings before HoT even launched. It's only wing 4 and wing 5 that shows us their real capability.

 

> They set the bar and our expectations are wherever they placed it. We're going off of reality not off of what some non-raiders think it should be like.

Then you have misinterpreted the reality and misread what it meant.

 

> Anet must keep releasing raids more consistently, quickly, and efficiently because when most people think of an MMO's endgame, they think of raids.

That's not a reason. That's merely thinking "things must be that way, because they always were that way".

Especially that what you said doesn't mean that most people _want_ that type of endgame.

Hint: most people, even in raid heavy games, don't play them, and either dislike them or don't care about them.

 

> Even though many players will not get to experience this content, they probably got into this game because they heard the endgame was good and want to experience it.

Actually, many people got into this game because they heard there's _no_ raids in it. It was a major selling point for many when GW2 launched. The type of players you think of is generally a minority. Even in raid heavy games.

 

> I don't know who hurt you but it looks like they did some damage when it came to raids. I've read your other posts and it seems you genuinely hate raids (hate is the proper word). It isn't that difficult to make 3 bosses in 6 months (I'm no game dev but Anet has shown they can do it and many other similar games too) and it isn't too much to ask for.

Do i need to bring up that Gaile quote about people claiming something is "easy to do"?

 

Do you seriously think that the raid team just sits on their hands, and intentionally slows down their release schedule? Because they don't want you to see the next wing yet? Because that's what you're implying now.

 

[Tyson.5160]

> @"faceplant.5123" said:

> > @"Kheldorn.5123" said:

> > They should release just one raid per expansion and announce it so people will finally stop whining. Raiders are the mostunhappy, never satisfied group of players in this game. It was absolutely to be expected that Anet will never keep up with raiders' expectations but they made huge mistake - they released first 3 wings too fast and people hyped themselves up that it's going to be standard occurence. Reality 1 : 0 Raiders

>

> If the main content you played only lasted you an hour once a week then you would be mad too. Lumping an entire demographic of players into some negative stereotype is toxic. I raid casually on the weekends with my static every week. We're not the best, we wipe, we don't run 6 weavers and 1 druid. We run whatever we want and have fun with it. But sadly, we killed Dhuum a few months ago and 1 shot wing 5 on a weekly bases for a bit now. We're bored out of our minds. How is it too much to ask for at least 2 raid wings a year? Just because you don't enjoy raiding and have found some bad apples in the community doesn't mean that you can get on your high horse and say that our expectations are not realistic. Anet has proven that they can release 3 raid wings (good raids too) quickly with no delays. They set the bar and our expectations are wherever they placed it. We're going off of reality not off of what some non-raiders think it should be like.

>

> *tangent sorry* I do not understand this community. Some elitism shows up in a group and then all the open world casuals (nothing wrong with being casual) saddle up and ask for less of that content. Elitism is in any hardcore endgame for every game and there is no way of stopping it. Anet must keep releasing raids more consistently, quickly, and efficiently because when most people think of an MMO's endgame, they think of raids. Even though many players will not get to experience this content, they probably got into this game because they heard the endgame was good and want to experience it.

>

> I don't know who hurt you but it looks like they did some damage when it came to raids. I've read your other posts and it seems you genuinely hate raids (hate is the proper word). It isn't that difficult to make 3 bosses in 6 months (I'm no game dev but Anet has shown they can do it and many other similar games too) and it isn't too much to ask for. 6 months is the ideal time for raid releases, 2 months per boss. If a wing has 4 bosses then make the release 8 months in between, very few will complain. The best of the best will speed right through everything in 2 weeks tops (just like with anything) but the other 99% of raiders are going to take their time to kill a boss. I can't imagine having 1 raid wing come out every expansion, it just seems like a nightmare to me. Us "raiders" wouldn't quit complaining (cause that's what we do) but if we got our preferred content at a decent rate then there would be less to complain about.

 

The difference is when you think about it is that ever since Living World Season 3 came out, Raids have been coming out less, which gives me reason to believe they are very resource heavy and probably take some resources from Raids.

[DutchRiders.2871]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"DutchRiders.2871" said:

> > No the reasoning that all resources of a company should go to the highest amount of customers in many business cases is not optimal. Niches can be important for a company.

> That's not what happens though. Raids still have their own dedicated team. It's just that doing raids requires resources from outside that team for peak performance - resources that are required also for other projects. So, Anet prioritizes, and assigns these resources in order of importance. This time, the next, already delayed LS chapter was more important.

>

> > 250 + days for 2 boss fights, is imo not justified by saying raids are niche.

> It's what the current raid team can do. If you want more/faster releases, you are basically asking Anet to assign more resources to raids. Resources that would have to come from somewhere else.

> So, what exactly do you want to sacrifice for this? And why non-raiders should be okay with it?

>

>

>

 

Anet said they are looking into releasing raids more frequently and they did train a 2nd team. So yeah I do expect faster releases, it is realistic (see w1-3) and they can increase production rates without cutting down on other projects. Altough would of be so bad to have 3 empty pof maps instead of 4 empty pof maps ?

 

Im always happy if the game gets updated regardless whether I like the content or not. Also most non raiders dont actually care. Believe it or not but your segment is a real minority.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Tyson.5160" said:

> The difference is when you think about it is that ever since Living World Season 3 came out, Raids have been coming out less, which gives me reason to believe they are very resource heavy and probably take some resources from Raids.

 

Less Raids?

 

W3 -> W4: 4 episodes, Bastion was released ~7 months after Season 3 started, we got 4 episodes in 239 days or ~60 days per episode

W4 -> W5: 3 episodes, Hall of Chains was released ~9 months after Bastion, we got 3 episodes in 293 days, or ~98 days per episode

Since W5: 2 episodes (including Long Live the Lich), ~7 months after Hall of Chains, we got 2 episodes in 209 days, or 104 days per episode

 

If the next Raid is released with the next Episode we are right on schedule.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"DutchRiders.2871" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"DutchRiders.2871" said:

> > > No the reasoning that all resources of a company should go to the highest amount of customers in many business cases is not optimal. Niches can be important for a company.

> > That's not what happens though. Raids still have their own dedicated team. It's just that doing raids requires resources from outside that team for peak performance - resources that are required also for other projects. So, Anet prioritizes, and assigns these resources in order of importance. This time, the next, already delayed LS chapter was more important.

> >

> > > 250 + days for 2 boss fights, is imo not justified by saying raids are niche.

> > It's what the current raid team can do. If you want more/faster releases, you are basically asking Anet to assign more resources to raids. Resources that would have to come from somewhere else.

> > So, what exactly do you want to sacrifice for this? And why non-raiders should be okay with it?

> >

> >

> >

>

> Anet said they are looking into releasing raids more frequently

it was "We are planning to release raids with more _regularity_ this season.". Not "more frequently". That's not synonymous.

 

> and they did train a 2nd team

_Raid_ team? Because from what i remember the people they trained _weren't_ supposed to work on raids, but on other (even if similar) stuff instead. Like fractals and LS instances.

 

> So yeah I do expect faster releases, it is realistic (see w1-3)

1-3 tells us nothing about their release capabilities. Lot of stuff they did for wings 2 and 3 were already ready when they released wing 1 (they worked on lot of it even before HoT launched).

 

> and they can increase production rates without cutting down on other projects.

Can they? anything to back it up? Because suggesting that they are lazy about their work is a bit of a serious accusation. And thinking Anet intentionally slows down on raid release cadence because of some inexplicable reasons you can't even seem to think of seems to me like moving deep into the conspiracy theory territory.

 

> Altough would of be so bad to have 3 empty pof maps instead of 4 empty pof maps ?

That's an issue with badly done PoF maps. If anything, it suggests they should divert even more resources to open world and living story

 

> Im always happy if the game gets updated regardless whether I like the content or not. Also most non raiders dont actually care.

Yeah, don't care if raids get updated every half a year or every two years. As long as it doesn't negatively impact the rest of the game. You are however talking about shifting the resources away from non-raiders. Do that, and see if they won't care.

 

> Believe it or not but your segment is a real minority.

What segment, players that aren't angry if raids don't get updated after half a year? I seriously doubt it. Even many raiders realize, that increasing raid schedule is not possible without heaping more resources on them. Which isn't possible without taking those resources from other parts of the game. It's only some people that think dev resources are infinite that are complaining.

 

 

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > Altough would of be so bad to have 3 empty pof maps instead of 4 empty pof maps ?

> That's an issue with badly done PoF maps. If anything, it suggests they should divert even more resources to open world and living story

 

Nah, not really. The living story maps are more or less intended as throwaway. See LS3 - once you get Aurora there's no real reason to revisit these, aside from the occasional vendor visit. Istan has potential to remain populated because of how good the farm there is, but that's all.

 

For the PoF maps I'd say the major issue there is the lack of high-level organization. People complained about the timers on HoT metas, but these timers mean people are always there for the meta. PoF doesn't have much of that aside from Serpent's Ire, and SI has seriously bad reward/effort ratio. So there. People don't go to PoF maps so much because there's simply no point to do it. Diverting more resources won't change a thing. At most you'd get more big, empty, pointless maps. It's not a resource problem, it's a direction one.

[Glider.5792]

Soo, some new feature came/is comming to raids, which will make some mechanics easier to tell (the post which was on reddit, screen getting yellow border when having sapper bombs, poison etc). A developer commented on that, saying it shouldn't have been in this update yet, but somewhere in around 1 month.

Due to that, there is a big chance next raid is coming in around 1 month, not guranteed though.

[Tyson.5160]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > The difference is when you think about it is that ever since Living World Season 3 came out, Raids have been coming out less, which gives me reason to believe they are very resource heavy and probably take some resources from Raids.

>

> Less Raids?

>

> W3 -> W4: 4 episodes, Bastion was released ~7 months after Season 3 started, we got 4 episodes in 239 days or ~60 days per episode

> W4 -> W5: 3 episodes, Hall of Chains was released ~9 months after Bastion, we got 3 episodes in 293 days, or ~98 days per episode

> Since W5: 2 episodes (including Long Live the Lich), ~7 months after Hall of Chains, we got 2 episodes in 209 days, or 104 days per episode

>

> If the next Raid is released with the next Episode we are right on schedule.

 

This is true, I was mainly talking about W1-3 though before S3.

[Tyson.5160]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > Altough would of be so bad to have 3 empty pof maps instead of 4 empty pof maps ?

> > That's an issue with badly done PoF maps. If anything, it suggests they should divert even more resources to open world and living story

>

> Nah, not really. The living story maps are more or less intended as throwaway. See LS3 - once you get Aurora there's no real reason to revisit these, aside from the occasional vendor visit. Istan has potential to remain populated because of how good the farm there is, but that's all.

>

> For the PoF maps I'd say the major issue there is the lack of high-level organization. People complained about the timers on HoT metas, but these timers mean people are always there for the meta. PoF doesn't have much of that aside from Serpent's Ire, and SI has seriously bad reward/effort ratio. So there. People don't go to PoF maps so much because there's simply no point to do it. Diverting more resources won't change a thing. At most you'd get more big, empty, pointless maps. It's not a resource problem, it's a direction one.

 

I mainly hop into the Hot maps to do the hour worth of Metas for AG. I wish PoF had something similar to draw me back to the longer meta chains.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > > The difference is when you think about it is that ever since Living World Season 3 came out, Raids have been coming out less, which gives me reason to believe they are very resource heavy and probably take some resources from Raids.

> >

> > Less Raids?

> >

> > W3 -> W4: 4 episodes, Bastion was released ~7 months after Season 3 started, we got 4 episodes in 239 days or ~60 days per episode

> > W4 -> W5: 3 episodes, Hall of Chains was released ~9 months after Bastion, we got 3 episodes in 293 days, or ~98 days per episode

> > Since W5: 2 episodes (including Long Live the Lich), ~7 months after Hall of Chains, we got 2 episodes in 209 days, or 104 days per episode

> >

> > If the next Raid is released with the next Episode we are right on schedule.

>

> This is true, I was mainly talking about W1-3 though before S3.

 

I think W1-3 were all created during Heart of Thorns development. Forsaken Thicket was part of expansion content, that's why it was so "large", they had a very very long time to create it. On the other hand, Bastion wasn't. So the next Raid will be more like Bastion, Bastion was released 4 episodes and 7 months after W3, while we are now at the 7 month mark, we are ONLY at the 2 episode mark. In terms of months we are running a bit late, in terms of episodes though, it's way too early for another Raid.

 

Unfortunately, the time between episodes has increased a LOT, which affects the entire game, and it's rather obvious that it also affects Raids. Hopefully, this "delay" was due to a restructuring, and future episodes will be released much faster.

 

Edit: To be exact, Bastion was released 238 days after W3, while we are now (June 27, 2018) at 211 days, so both episode-wise AND day-wise, it's too early for a new Raid. If we use days as our counter, we need 27 more days to reach the Bastion schedule and if we use episodes, we need 2 more episodes.

 

Btw, curiously enough, we will reach that 238 day mark on July 24, 2018, which is a Tuesday (Tuesdays are content/patch release days) so... that Tuesday next Raid wing? Although I'd love to see the next Raid on that day, it's at a time a lot of people will be on their summer vacation, or preparing to go. Not sure if it's a "good time" but we'll see.

[faceplant.5123]

> @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > @"faceplant.5123" said:

> > > @"Kheldorn.5123" said:

> > > They should release just one raid per expansion and announce it so people will finally stop whining. Raiders are the mostunhappy, never satisfied group of players in this game. It was absolutely to be expected that Anet will never keep up with raiders' expectations but they made huge mistake - they released first 3 wings too fast and people hyped themselves up that it's going to be standard occurence. Reality 1 : 0 Raiders

> >

> > If the main content you played only lasted you an hour once a week then you would be mad too. Lumping an entire demographic of players into some negative stereotype is toxic. I raid casually on the weekends with my static every week. We're not the best, we wipe, we don't run 6 weavers and 1 druid. We run whatever we want and have fun with it. But sadly, we killed Dhuum a few months ago and 1 shot wing 5 on a weekly bases for a bit now. We're bored out of our minds. How is it too much to ask for at least 2 raid wings a year? Just because you don't enjoy raiding and have found some bad apples in the community doesn't mean that you can get on your high horse and say that our expectations are not realistic. Anet has proven that they can release 3 raid wings (good raids too) quickly with no delays. They set the bar and our expectations are wherever they placed it. We're going off of reality not off of what some non-raiders think it should be like.

> >

> > *tangent sorry* I do not understand this community. Some elitism shows up in a group and then all the open world casuals (nothing wrong with being casual) saddle up and ask for less of that content. Elitism is in any hardcore endgame for every game and there is no way of stopping it. Anet must keep releasing raids more consistently, quickly, and efficiently because when most people think of an MMO's endgame, they think of raids. Even though many players will not get to experience this content, they probably got into this game because they heard the endgame was good and want to experience it.

> >

> > I don't know who hurt you but it looks like they did some damage when it came to raids. I've read your other posts and it seems you genuinely hate raids (hate is the proper word). It isn't that difficult to make 3 bosses in 6 months (I'm no game dev but Anet has shown they can do it and many other similar games too) and it isn't too much to ask for. 6 months is the ideal time for raid releases, 2 months per boss. If a wing has 4 bosses then make the release 8 months in between, very few will complain. The best of the best will speed right through everything in 2 weeks tops (just like with anything) but the other 99% of raiders are going to take their time to kill a boss. I can't imagine having 1 raid wing come out every expansion, it just seems like a nightmare to me. Us "raiders" wouldn't quit complaining (cause that's what we do) but if we got our preferred content at a decent rate then there would be less to complain about.

>

> The difference is when you think about it is that ever since Living World Season 3 came out, Raids have been coming out less, which gives me reason to believe they are very resource heavy and probably take some resources from Raids.

 

I don't see why they should. The one thing that is probably taking them so much time are the visuals. In my opinion, they should just re-use visual assets from other content (fractals, living world, etc) so that they can focus on making new loot (skins, back pieces, Sabatha minis) and cool looking bosses with even better mechanics. The arena around the boss doesn't matter that much. This should increase the amount of raids to come out without lowering quality as much. I doubt anyone will complain about this.

[faceplant.5123]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> No. If you were playing mainly for this type of content, you would not pick a game that supplied only a few hours of it per week, and where that type of content wasn't considered to be a core activity, and thus could not expect many resources and dev attention spend on it.

 

Sorry for the confusion. What I consider to be my main content is the same as my favorite content. I spend more times in fractals then I do in raids but I look forward to the weekends when I raid thann I do at reset for my daily fractals.

 

> As has been said before, the main problem is not with Anet for not supplying raids at a rate some people expect. It's with said people to have unreasonable expactations in the first place.

 

The problem I see is that we don't know what is reasonable expactations. Raids can be released quickly and they can be released slowly. People wouldn't be so radical with their expectations if Anet can give us a schedule release like living world and fractals (after all, their all PvE).

 

> No, they didn't. They did a lot of work for the first three wings before HoT even launched. It's only wing 4 and wing 5 that shows us their real capability.

 

All we know, is that wing 1 was worked on before HoT. I don't think W2 and W3 were worked on before HoT. (If they were, I would like a link to the source)

 

 

> That's not a reason. That's merely thinking "things must be that way, because they always were that way".

> Especially that what you said doesn't mean that most people _want_ that type of endgame.

> Hint: most people, even in raid heavy games, don't play them, and either dislike them or don't care about them.

> Actually, many people got into this game because they heard there's _no_ raids in it. It was a major selling point for many when GW2 launched. The type of players you think of is generally a minority. Even in raid heavy games.

 

You're right and wrong here. Yes, many people came here because you can mess about without having to do anything challenging. That's why Guild Wars 2 sales number the 1st month of release were so high. But if you look at the sales numbers after launch (pre-HoT that is) then you would see the sale numbers were only a tiny fraction of release (This represents the player count, I would use those numbers instead but Anet won't give those out). By those figures, it's clear that many people want some sort of hardcore endgame (raids or fractals) because the tiny minority that don't were the ones who stayed playing Gw2 after launch. Post-HoT sales remained higher than the core game ever did. People want raids, its evident in sales. They don't have to play them, they just have to attempt them.

 

> Do you seriously think that the raid team just sits on their hands, and intentionally slows down their release schedule? Because they don't want you to see the next wing yet? Because that's what you're implying now.

 

It would be nice if they were vocal about it. The raid team got a bunch of love for over a year after HoT released, now it feels like they barely exist. I have a theory: when something like the living world or expansion progress is in a rut and they need extra hands, they have the raid, PvP, and WvW teams donate some of their members to help them with their troubles. Nothing wrong with that. Those things are more important for the games identity and sales but at the same time, other content slows down.

 

 

[Tyson.5160]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > > @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > > > The difference is when you think about it is that ever since Living World Season 3 came out, Raids have been coming out less, which gives me reason to believe they are very resource heavy and probably take some resources from Raids.

> > >

> > > Less Raids?

> > >

> > > W3 -> W4: 4 episodes, Bastion was released ~7 months after Season 3 started, we got 4 episodes in 239 days or ~60 days per episode

> > > W4 -> W5: 3 episodes, Hall of Chains was released ~9 months after Bastion, we got 3 episodes in 293 days, or ~98 days per episode

> > > Since W5: 2 episodes (including Long Live the Lich), ~7 months after Hall of Chains, we got 2 episodes in 209 days, or 104 days per episode

> > >

> > > If the next Raid is released with the next Episode we are right on schedule.

> >

> > This is true, I was mainly talking about W1-3 though before S3.

>

> I think W1-3 were all created during Heart of Thorns development. Forsaken Thicket was part of expansion content, that's why it was so "large", they had a very very long time to create it. On the other hand, Bastion wasn't. So the next Raid will be more like Bastion, Bastion was released 4 episodes and 7 months after W3, while we are now at the 7 month mark, we are ONLY at the 2 episode mark. In terms of months we are running a bit late, in terms of episodes though, it's way too early for another Raid.

>

> Unfortunately, the time between episodes has increased a LOT, which affects the entire game, and it's rather obvious that it also affects Raids. Hopefully, this "delay" was due to a restructuring, and future episodes will be released much faster.

>

> Edit: To be exact, Bastion was released 238 days after W3, while we are now (June 27, 2018) at 211 days, so both episode-wise AND day-wise, it's too early for a new Raid. If we use days as our counter, we need 27 more days to reach the Bastion schedule and if we use episodes, we need 2 more episodes.

>

> Btw, curiously enough, we will reach that 238 day mark on July 24, 2018, which is a Tuesday (Tuesdays are content/patch release days) so... that Tuesday next Raid wing? Although I'd love to see the next Raid on that day, it's at a time a lot of people will be on their summer vacation, or preparing to go. Not sure if it's a "good time" but we'll see.

 

Probably why it takes so long is because they want to make unique experience per raid wing as well as have different encounters. Is it a quality over quantity? I think it is, but in this scenario, that’s a good thing or we would just have recycled mobs as raid encounters with not well thought out mechanics.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"faceplant.5123" said:

> You're right and wrong here. Yes, many people came here because you can mess about without having to do anything challenging. That's why Guild Wars 2 sales number the 1st month of release were so high. But if you look at the sales numbers after launch (pre-HoT that is) then you would see the sale numbers were only a tiny fraction of release (This represents the player count, I would use those numbers instead but Anet won't give those out). By those figures, it's clear that many people want some sort of hardcore endgame (raids or fractals) because the tiny minority that don't were the ones who stayed playing Gw2 after launch. Post-HoT sales remained higher than the core game ever did.

Err, no. If we discount the box sales (which are different from gemstore income), then after HoT income was dropping still on a steady rate, continuing from the point before HoT. It somewhat stabilized only after PoF (maybe, we're too short after the expansion to be completely sure).

That's what you're missing - the big spikes at launch, and later at HoT release, are mostly box sales. They are one-time income, not a stable one. The numbers later on, in between expansions, are mainly gemstore sales, and they represent the sustaining power of the game population.

The big drop after launch/expansion is because once someone buys their box, they won't need to do it again and again in next months. It's not a subscription game after all.

 

> People want raids, its evident in sales.

It's not. You're reading something in it that just isn't there.

 

>

> > Do you seriously think that the raid team just sits on their hands, and intentionally slows down their release schedule? Because they don't want you to see the next wing yet? Because that's what you're implying now.

>

> It would be nice if they were vocal about it.

Vocal about what? Not being lazy/not intentionally working below their capability? They don't have to, that's the assumed state. They make statements only when something happens that's out of norm. Like they stated recently that the episode 3 would be delayed, because they had to redirect resources out of it to other goals.

 

> The raid team got a bunch of love for over a year after HoT released, now it feels like they barely exist. I have a theory: when something like the living world or expansion progress is in a rut and they need extra hands, they have the raid, PvP, and WvW teams donate some of their members to help them with their troubles.

It's the opposite. It's the raid team that often draws upon extra hands. But they can do that only if those extra hands aren't actually too busy doing their own stuff. Like, for example, _working hard on a delayed LS episode_.

 

 

 

[Shikaru.7618]

Also with the accidental raid patch with the highlighted screens, we can also assume some amount of effort is being dedicated to clarity and lowering barrier of entry updates. While not massive in scope, these changes do take some velocity away from the new raid development.

[Tyson.5160]

> @"Shikaru.7618" said:

> Also with the accidental raid patch with the highlighted screens, we can also assume some amount of effort is being dedicated to clarity and lowering barrier of entry updates. While not massive in scope, these changes do take some velocity away from the new raid development.

 

Personally, I would benefit from some of those effects, especially sloth vomit circles.

[Ferus.3165]

and you still cannot turn the coalescenz (or whatever it is called) ring into a legendary. And the pre has only been around for seven months...