Losing my friends

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Emberstone.2904" said:

> If your points are true, then every profitable farm should get nerfed until it is near-worthless like Istan is.

No, that's not what my points are. I'm saying that it's a problem for a single farm to be far, far superior to all others.

 

> No event or location should be more profitable than the 2-4g per 15 minutes you get from your average Tequatl. We can't have any outliers, can we? Why have purpose-made locations in a giant world? Everything needs to be equal; nothing should be special or outstanding, and let nothing be farmable.

"Outlier" isn't the same as "unequal."

 

> If we're going to use the "everyone benefits but those using the outlier" line of thinking, let's even put raid tokens into world bosses. Right now, only raiders can benefit from them. There's some massive inequality in that system!

On the contrary: raids are limiting to once per week per boss and they are a different form of content; they compete only with fractals for attention.

 

> In my opinion, "everyone benefits" isn't a valid reason to make a change. Istan went on like this for over a year, and for some reason it's a problem now, right when Anet is going through financial trouble.

The nerf to Istan was planned _before_ ANet had to layoff 143 people. There's no chance they put that together in a week. They did the first nerf weeks ago, and, assuming they were sensible, had several additional tweaks plotted out, depending on what the data showed after. This particular change was almost certainly in the code before the layoffs, because it was part of the release scheduled beforehand.

 

> Sure, I've got no evidence, but it's one hell of a coincidence.

It's not even a remarkable coincidence. They've been talking about a nerf to Istan; it's not something out of the blue.

 

> That's why I can't accept that Anet's intent supposedly wasn't to take Istan from me, because it might have been. That isn't farfetched in today's gaming industry.

It's not farfetched in the _gaming industry_. But this isn't the entire industry; it's a particular game from a particular studio. We have some knowledge of what their intent was before.

 

I'm really sorry that the thing you liked the most is no longer available. Regardless of the reasons, whether good or bad, that's frustrating. And difficult to accept. That doesn't mean that there aren't equally or more plausible explanations, especially since the nerf to Istan is consistent with past practices, was discussed before, and even the farm itself isn't a weak farm (it's just weaker, a lot weaker than before, so it's no longer a "must do" farm).

 

[Emberstone.2904]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Emberstone.2904" said:

> > If your points are true, then every profitable farm should get nerfed until it is near-worthless like Istan is.

> No, that's not what my points are. I'm saying that it's a problem for a single farm to be far, far superior to all others.

>

> > No event or location should be more profitable than the 2-4g per 15 minutes you get from your average Tequatl. We can't have any outliers, can we? Why have purpose-made locations in a giant world? Everything needs to be equal; nothing should be special or outstanding, and let nothing be farmable.

> "Outlier" isn't the same as "unequal."

>

> > If we're going to use the "everyone benefits but those using the outlier" line of thinking, let's even put raid tokens into world bosses. Right now, only raiders can benefit from them. There's some massive inequality in that system!

> On the contrary: raids are limiting to once per week per boss and they are a different form of content; they compete only with fractals for attention.

>

> > In my opinion, "everyone benefits" isn't a valid reason to make a change. Istan went on like this for over a year, and for some reason it's a problem now, right when Anet is going through financial trouble.

> The nerf to Istan was planned _before_ ANet had to layoff 143 people. There's no chance they put that together in a week. They did the first nerf weeks ago, and, assuming they were sensible, had several additional tweaks plotted out, depending on what the data showed after. This particular change was almost certainly in the code before the layoffs, because it was part of the release scheduled beforehand.

>

> > Sure, I've got no evidence, but it's one hell of a coincidence.

> It's not even a remarkable coincidence. They've been talking about a nerf to Istan; it's not something out of the blue.

>

> > That's why I can't accept that Anet's intent supposedly wasn't to take Istan from me, because it might have been. That isn't farfetched in today's gaming industry.

> It's not farfetched in the _gaming industry_. But this isn't the entire industry; it's a particular game from a particular studio. We have some knowledge of what their intent was before.

>

> I'm really sorry that the thing you liked the most is no longer available. Regardless of the reasons, whether good or bad, that's frustrating. And difficult to accept. That doesn't mean that there aren't equally or more plausible explanations, especially since the nerf to Istan is consistent with past practices, was discussed before, and even the farm itself isn't a weak farm (it's just weaker, a lot weaker than before, so it's no longer a "must do" farm).

>

I don't believe that their financial troubles were made known to them only in the restructuring notice. I'm sure the writing was on the wall for a while, at least to top management. That's how it's worked in every company I've been a part of, at least. Just as you say the nerfs to Istan aren't out of the blue, neither are layoffs to over a third of your company.

 

NCSoft probably gave them a chance to turn things around.

 

At the end of the day, both of us are making some assumptions. I wont be able to convince you that Istan is worth keeping in its original state, and you probably can't convince me that it should stay nerfed.

 

Dunno why I'm still here after the game was taken off my hard disk anyway. It's best that I just go if my opinions aren't wanted by Anet or the community, instead of getting riled up even more.

 

At least Bill Freist/Steve CW effectively said they won't "fix" Guild Wars 1 anymore.

 

Enjoy your more equal world, and yet another empty LW map.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Emberstone.2904" said:

> I don't believe that their financial troubles were made known to them only in the restructuring notice. I'm sure the writing was on the wall for a while, at least to top management. That's how it's worked in every company I've been a part of, at least. Just as you say the nerfs to Istan aren't out of the blue, neither are layoffs to over a third of your company.

It's how it works in most cases, but apparently not in this one.

There might have been indications to O'Brien of impending cuts, but he clearly didn't expect to lose 1/3 of the staff.

 

Even so, the nerf to Istan has been discussed by ANet for a while.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

> @"Emberstone.2904" said:

>

> I liked having a chill place to earn gold so I can enjoy the occasional gem store item without having to pull out my credit card. No, I didn't play Istan 24/7. I played it maybe two hours max if I was going to do more than one or two GH's in a given session.

>

> That's how this change feels to me: a push toward eliminating a large source of gold that I'm sure many people used on gems as I did. It feels like they're killing the farm off so we spend our dollars instead of our game time on stuff we want. It especially feels like that when they make a change that affects gameplay itself six years after the game released to push people toward gem store items (I'm referring to removing a Salvage Kit's ability to extract upgrades at a high chance of success, and instead forcing us to use overpriced Upgrade Extractors if we want to do that anymore).

> [snip]

> And that staple of my enjoyment in this game was taken from me, and don't give me kitten like "it wasn't taken from you. It's still there!" You know what I meant. Makes me feel like I wasted my time on this game.

 

To me, this is a problem with letting outlier methods of gold generation go unchecked for so long. People had plenty of time to get used to a certain amount of gold per hour, and now feel deprived. You can still get an "occasional gem store item without having to pull out [your] credit card," you just might have to spend a bit more time in game to do so. Had ANet pulled the plug earlier, you would not have gotten used to that level of return, and would not have the sense that you are entitled to that level of return.

 

I might believe that ANet saw sales of Upgrade Extractors or BL Salvage Kits as a side effect of the rune/sigil changes. It was by no means the only benefit to ANet. It's unrealistic to think that a farm nerf was aimed at playing on player impatience to boost gem sales. ANet gets revenue when you exchange gold for gems and gems to gold conversion looks better with a higher exchange rate in favor of getting gold.

[Zenith.7301]

People leave because this game provides content updates on organized PvE at a glacial pace. When most of the LS updates involve maps you can complete on your own via low replay value zerging, there is very little incentive to form cohesive groups of players around content you beat immediately instead of other games where you form groups to set goals in clearing raids over the span of months and usually they don't even complete the challenge mode raids before the next raid tier content is released.

 

GW2 needs restructuring of content provision for PvE.

[ElectricGoat.8253]

Look we get it, you are feeling lonely. Add me in game and we can pal around like old times if I'm online.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Of course the playerbase is dwindling. MMOs are not popular anymore, there is hardly enough content and it's quite boring. After 13 years of Guild Wars I finally can say I am pretty much done. Especially with the news of layoffs and of course the lack of a new expansion. 2 tiny expansions (one of with was advertised as 'content heavy') in 7 years isn't just enough. Learn from it: this won't work and you know it.

[Vayne.8563]

My guild is 7 years old. Yep, we were a prelaunch guild. We usually hover around the 400 player mark, with people coming and going all the time, but many in my guild have been here since launch or a bit after. I don't have exact numbers, but it doesn't seem to me that I'm getting people more slowly than before or losing people more quickly.

 

It could just be your guild isn't as appealing as it once was, or that the people running it aren't spending much time recruiting, or that there are more guilds recruiting. It's just your guild. I can't tell you how many guilds I've seen die in other games. It didn't mean anything there either.