The Fall of GW2

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Having played this game a lot over the last year, and on and off since launch, i cant help but feel like gw2 has outlived what it should have. Unless you are a newer player, i cant understand how people can put up with and defend the many poor decisions that have been made over the past months and years.

 

To start, the competitive gamemodes. I shouldnt have to say too much about this, but if you have been a serious wvw or pvp player over the last year, or even since HoT, you should understand the damage that the expansions have done to this game. Elite specs brought so much more power to each class, creating insanely powerful builds like the firebrand scourge combo that has dominated organized group play since the release of PoF. They are without equal, and have been mandatory in nearly every group composition, driving out all kinds of counterplay and build diversity. Other elite specs and the power creep of damage and sustainability have done more or less the same, where build diversity is crushed by the meta builds which are able to completely outperform others in all areas. This increase in power has reduced most fights to spamming aoe or focusing a target so your enemy dies nearly instantly with little to no ability to counterplay. It is commonly agreed upon by veteran players that pvp and wvw were forgotten with the introduction of HoT, and have been left to slowly degrade over time. Attempts at balance always fall short of what is needed, since they never will be able to fix fundamental problems with the class design. Because of this lack of attention, populations have declined to incredibly low numbers. Neglecting pvp and wvw is a huge mistake on anets part, since well designed competitive games provide nearly endless free content. Gw2 had the potential to be an amazing competitive game, but it has fallen short of even being acceptable to the majority of players.

 

Coming to pve, I personally havent gone back to it in many months but the same problems seem to always be present, which mainly are lack of content. Living world releases add minimal content for the average player, and raids and fractals rarely receive new additions, leaving the more hardcore players with old content they are forced to replay for years. The majority of this games development seems to be going into the living world seasons, which in my opinion is one of the worst places for it to go. Months of development time go into creating a free new zone, a handful of story instances, a meta event, and maybe a new set of skins with some achievements. For the majority of players, this is able to be finished in a few hours-days. Yes you could argue that farming meta events/achievements can provide weeks-months of content, but is farming really that satisfying for people, and do the majority of players even put up with that grind? Additionally is this kind of content reason enough to play this game for months and years to come? All this work for an incredibly small amount of content, that provides no income for anet to continue development. I get that many players follow the personal story very closely, however i cant understand how people seem to accept this model of content release that provides so little, and brings in next to no new players. It is without question unsustainable in the long term of gw2.

 

Looking ahead, we have no release plans, no information of what to expect except for season 5, and that makes me feel incredibly pessimistic about this games future. Only being able to look forward to the typical episode releases for over a year will do very little to hold players interest, and likely wont be enough to bring in any new ones. This game has had so much potential for a long time, and its incredibly disheartening to see so much of it go to waste.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Odd, every map I visit seems to have players completing content. It seems said content is enough to generate quite a bit of revenue, at least a few million per month.

 

FYI, there's already a thread discussing the issue.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Well it is getting around that time that new xpac should hit. Since it's not hitting, it's only natural player base is getting restless without "xpac" features. The new LS is said to deliver more of that type of content but that remains to be seen.

 

Pretty sure we're now at one of "hungrier" perdiods of GW2's lifecycle. Time will tell.

Two things we definitely need sooner then later is harsh rebalancing of professions and their elites for competitive modes and new profession content (it's that xpac time as mentioned before).

[Amaranthe.3578]

GW2 had been like that since release. Take it for what it is or go. It's a casual game for casual players. The target audience are players mainly interested in open world pve who might dabble in Instanced PvE/sPvP/WvW as a side thingy. Their releases tell you this much.

[Perihen the Thawk.9527]

As someone who plays a few hours a week, which I think is true for *most* of the playerbase, I still have tons of content to keep me busy for a long time. I work on collections, leveling alts, dip into sPvP and WvW from time to time. It's been a long time since I played some of the story, so occasionally I take an alt through some of that. Still plenty of skins I don't have, lots of jumping puzzles I haven't done yet, etc.,etc.

 

I'm... not sure if I'll have my Skyscale by the time Season 5 drops? And that's totally fine. I'm just picking at the collections at my leisure.

 

Honestly, I spend most of my time exploring and doing dynamic events. Open world is kind of looked down on by some people, but it's the vast majority of the game's replayability for me. The feeling of rushing in to save a downed player and then two-manning the group event back to back is so much fun. I'm glad Anet puts so much effort into the open world maps.

 

And I haven't even gotten into fractals or raids yet, which I hope to do someday when I'm feeling restless, but honestly I'm not even at that point yet.

 

The players who hyper-analyze all aspects of the game and post all of the complaint threads are genuinely a slim minority. Most players, I think, are pretty casual and have plenty of stuff to do.

 

I'm definitely looking forward to an expansion when it comes, but until then, I'm pretty content.

[crepuscular.9047]

> @"Paradoxoglanis.1904" said:> Elite specs brought so much more power to each class, creating insanely powerful builds like the firebrand scourge combo that has dominated organized group play since the release of PoF. They are without equal, and have been mandatory in nearly every group composition, driving out all kinds of counterplay and build diversity. Pretty much the only way to counter that combo is running duo power rev (other duo burst combo also works) to burst one of them downand that brought on the flow on effect of people calling revs to be nerfed... in its place they buffed scrapper to counter bursts, and now people hates how tanky scrappers... the cycle pretty much never ends...

> Coming to pve, I personally havent gone back to it in many months but the same problems seem to always be present, which mainly are lack of content. Living world releases add minimal content for the average player, and raids and fractals rarely receive new additions, leaving the more hardcore players with old content they are forced to replay for years.well... isn't that the case with any MMO? you are constantly grinding the same old content for rare drops to deck out your character in the best gears as possible; once you all deck out, what do you do next?it's like eating an ice block on a hot summer day, do you leave it in your mouth and let it slowly melt away, enjoy the icyness and the flavour from the melted ice, or do you chew it down in 2min and buy another oneI'd call myself a hardcore casual, around 3hrs a day, I still feel a lot of content to do everyday...I actually cannot wait until the current event to free up some space in my day, so I can do more grinding to prep to make more legendary weapons and my first set of legendary armor

> Looking ahead, we have no release plans, no information of what to expect except for season 5, and that makes me feel incredibly pessimistic about this games future. Only being able to look forward to the typical episode releases for over a year will do very little to hold players interest, and likely wont be enough to bring in any new ones. This game has had so much potential for a long time, and its incredibly disheartening to see so much of it go to waste.I agree... this from the perspective hardcore playersbut even for someone like myself who played for 5 years, I like to take my pace slowly, not rushing to the end

something I would like to add, WvW have a huge potential to be the end-game player driven content, but missing the mark totally

[Kattenpootjes.4291]

Gw2 has been a bottom of the barrel game since release, it came with big promises but in the end the higher ups just couldn't make up their minds what they actually wanted gw2 to be, it's not a wow killer, it's not a wow alternative, it's not a better wow, it's just another dime a dozen mmorpg that caters to a niche market, it won't die, it will just keep existing with a niche playerbase. Which is fine, I still like playing once in a while, just like dofus, wakfu, aion, and many other relics of the past. Besides it's been confirmed by an ex dev now that gw2 has been on low/non priority for a while before the layoffs happened, their stance is clear, the motivation is gone. And if you keep track of the glassdoor reviews it's pretty clear that it won't have a big future, no grand plans, just the same old easy milking tactics while probably trying to work on other projects yet again but this time under the pretense that gw2 is on the top priority list :x

[Oogabooga.3812]

As someone who has played this game almost from the start, I can share some brief historical tidbits of GW2 and its many many iterations.

 

PvP: it wasn't always the scourge/FB combo that dominated the matches. It used to be Mesmers. Skilled players could take on any 1v1 build in tournaments. I think one of the early broadcasted tournaments had the finalists of both teams all or almost all comprised of mesmers. So, "balance" happened (nerfbat). Tank builds then dominated, but since skilled tanks never died, "balance" happened (all defensive amulets gone). Since expansion packs, tremendous imbalance was introduced; subsequently, many many "balance" attempts have happened.

 

WvW: from the start, the 2 heavy classes (guards and warrs) were often the choice for leading large groups with necros and eles doing ranged dps. The medium classes were usually stuck roaming solo or havoc. Mesmers in zergs were utility (group stealth, portal bomb, try not to die) or roamers. Things did not change FOR YEARS until the expansion packs, where power creep, condi cancer, boon sharing, boon haters, and healers introduced a variety of different (yes, imbalanced) commander, Zerg and roam classes and specs. Although "balance" still happens, the sheer amount of variety of possible builds will never truly create balance; we will shift from flavor of the season to the next flavor of the season; from one OP team build to the next one.

 

PvE: GW2 prided itself on being a casual gamer's game. You could play a lot to get exclusive but not OP items. You could play on the weekends only and not feel too out of place. Dungeons and the World Boss tour were the main things people did for money and loot (world bosses didn't used to be on a strict timer; people would be in the area hanging out for an hour waiting for it). Back then, each server had its own exclusive population of players to fill maps; you could "guest" to another server for PvE maps temporarily if your server was empty. But since they incorporated the Megaserver, which squashed small populated maps into larger ones, you can now pretty much always be on a populated map. They tweaked a few of the world bosses to make them more challenging (SB, FE, Golem, Teq, Shat, Jormag, added Triple Wurm).

 

Misc: there used to be only exotics as the highest rarity other than legendary weapons. Ascended crafting came much later. Precursors could only be obtained by drop or chest. They added the legendary craftable aspect later too.

 

TL;DR: GW2 has been tweaking, changing, adding, and improving their game for years. It has come a long way and if it continues that trend, it will always have new things for its player base to do, learn, enjoy, and complain.

 

It's here to stay.

[Oogabooga.3812]

Forgot to add in the PvE section that raids started with HoT and fractals have undergone tweaks and additions as well.

 

Let's see what new variety in player builds come about in the upcoming balance changes.

[Luthan.5236]

Yes: I might have a different opintion ... since I have played 1 year from the release until end of 2013. Then a break and returned just a few weeks ago. There is tons of stuff from the last few years still to explore for me.

 

But then again: Isn't there already tons of content that even as end game player you can choose from? I saw in another thread someone complaining about "not enough new content"? What do those players expect? Do they want it like WoW with new item rarity tears and having to grind one dungeon 100 times to get gear needed for the next dungeon (then repeating the same stuff)? I don't see this as content. Borig crap.

 

If people tried to play every part of the game ... there should be enough stuff even with ArenaNet adding new things every 2 weeks. Try a bit PvP, then WvW ... then PvE. In PvE the dailies: Still seems fun when some mini dungeon or JP is in the daily and you know how to do it and others are struggling and new players are doing it. Then there are "activities". Like "game in the game".

 

I don't see why there should be more new stuff faster than a 2-3 months pace. (I guess some people would really like a new grindable tier of equipment every 14 days with vertical progression.) And aren't they planning on bringing more of the living story - which is content. If you rush this in the first few hours after release ... then logging off ... your problem. Take your time to enjoy it. Maybe do a bit other stuff and some part of the new content every now and then instead of rushing it.

 

Dragon Bash is still fun as event in between - that all the new players can do as well. Where you can get some skins to show of. Playing dailies to do Dragon Bash. Then running with the skin through other areas doing other stuff. (I bet there aren't that many people with every single achievement maxed - despite a lot of people crying for new content.)

[mauried.5608]

The single biggest problem with the game is the players who rush through all the content as fast as they possibly can , and then complain that there is nothing left for them to do , so Anet should churn out new content as fast as the players can keep up, which is simply dreaming.

Ive been playing since the game has started and I havnt even finished HOT yet , let alone POF.

I wont be ready or need an expansion for years.

 

[Danikat.8537]

Reading this post I can come to one of two conclusions: the OP is exaggerating the problem, or I am a below average player who for whatever reason takes far longer than most people would expect to get anything done. I'm not sure which of those is true, but I can tell you that I'm no where close to running out of things to do in this game, in spite of playing since release with no major breaks.

 

I keep hearing that it takes a couple of hours at most to complete a living world episode, and I'm willing to believe that's true for some people (because the alternative is to believe a large number of people on this forum are lying about it) but for me it usually takes 2-3 evenings to complete the story (so about 4-6 hours) if I focus on just that and don't get drawn into open world stuff any more than necessary. Then map completion would take me another few hours, depending on the map and how much I did during the story. I can't say how long it would take to complete all the achievements because...I've never done it. The only living world episodes I have 100% completion on are the second half of Season 2, which I did long after they were released because I wanted luminescent armour. I've done enough to get the meta achievement on a few other episodes, either because I wanted it or because I wanted to complete the individual achievements and did the meta as a result.

 

I'm confident I could complete all the achievements in an episode if I wanted to, but I've never gotten around to it because there's always more stuff to do. For example when War Eternal was released I missed the first day because I was away, completed the story by Friday, and then it took me until the day after Dragon Bash started to complete the skyscale collections. Since then I've been doing Dragon Bash achievements, a festival in my other MMO (which is pretty basic - for me it means doing 2 daily quests per day, but that stlll takes time) and a bunch of real life stuff. The only other thing I've had time for is a little bit of map completion/levelling on one of my alts on one evening.

 

Now like I said maybe I'm an exception and play much slower than absolutely everyone else in the game, but from talking to other people in-game (and on this forum) it wouldn't surprise me if the pace of releases isn't as much of a massive problem as some people make out and between people who play slowly like me and people who are happy to repeat at least some content (like the people who answered a recent poll listing off all the metas they do on a daily basis) a lot of the playerbase are capable of keeping ourselves occupied with the games current content for a while at least.

 

Add to that the fact that the current situation is not unusual. It's not like Anet normally give us a detailed road map of what's coming for years at a time. We usually only know the next thing that's coming, and only in general terms. HoT wasn't announced until the day Season 2 ended. PoF was announced shortly _after_ the end of Season 3 (I thought it was earlier but I looked up the dates and One Path Ends was released on 25th July 2017, PoF was announced on 1st August.) I think we were told there would be a new living world season following each expansion but both Season 3 and 4 weren't actually announced (meaning we knew nothing about them at all) until 2 weeks before the first episode was released. So it's not surprising that we currently don't know anything except that Season 5 is coming next, it's what we should expect from Anet given the way they've announced new releases over the years.

[finkle.9513]

It is failing

To many decisions that favour short term profit, instead of long term player retention - long term money

bad implementation of WVW mount - just for skin sales

bad Implementation of skyscale mount - behind a stupid time gate - impact on them not selling skins - just a example of bad decisions being made!

neglected PVP

neglected wvw - some changed but very little in years

Fractal - again very little

In-fact the recurring theme is that the bare minimum seems to have been done....

Story - become boring again short term content that is completed, then maps never again to be visited... its all just boring same old rinse and repeat content with unimaginative collections, achievements that seem pointless wastes of time inputted for the sake of creating a waste of time to try and keep players in game... added to that players now see the various different carrot dangling with loot box rewards being such a ridiculously low % that its a pointless use of time to be involved...

 

There have been so many bad decisions, all that seem driven by short term gains... that we are now seeing the long term impact as we are further down the line.

There needs to be some big business model changes by Anet, if they want to keep GW2 going.

[ZeroTheCat.2684]

Yeah I get a feeling this game is in maintenance mode.. You can only take so much of neglect to the game modes you are interested in. I think PvE is in a decent place but it is not enough to keep the game alive long term. Not for me at least..

[sigur.9453]

> @"mauried.5608" said:

> The single biggest problem with the game is the players who rush through all the content as fast as they possibly can , and then complain that there is nothing left for them to do , so Anet should churn out new content as fast as the players can keep up, which is simply dreaming.

> Ive been playing since the game has started and I havnt even finished HOT yet , let alone POF.

> I wont be ready or need an expansion for years.

>

 

there is no "rushing content".

there are people with different playstyles though.

some might soak in every tiny bit of lore related stuff lying on the floor, some are not interested in that.

for the later one, in fact there isn´t so much to do.

to add to that for me personaly, there are reasons why i want to "rush" content. namley,: content i do not enjoy , but i have to do it for reasons. (LS and collections are mostly horrible, in my opinion)

please acknowledge the fact that not everyone likes doing things the way you consider the "right way".

for example i was pretty much done with pof 3 days after release, so for me its not quite understandable that you are not finished with it yet.

yet im not calling you a "slacker" and telling you that you are playing the game incorectly.

 

"it doesn´t concern me, so it shouldn´t concern others" might not be the right attitude in a Multiplayer Game.

 

 

 

 

[Luthan.5236]

It is okay for people to have different playstyles. But then they shouldn't say "the game is dying" just because ArenaNet isn't tailoring the game just to satisfy their playstyle. I mean ... there is no subscription. So you should expect new contend less regularly. Especially if it is content that is expensive in terms of time and money to develop.

 

My question is: What to the people that always want new contend need to be satisfied in the end? If there is a new update/contend and they are going to play through it very quickly ... then we have the same problem.

 

If we talk about different playstyle we also need to talk about different types/styles of games. The solution is to keep the game as it is. There will be players that play very slow ... always being a "slacker". Others are "rushers". Can't satisfy everyone. Being in the middle - is a good idea and I like that for Guild Wars 2 to be like this. Slow players can still catch up.

 

Fast players aren't forced to play. And they can take breaks in between the releases. Or they can - this is still an option - play all the content that is still there that can be replayed. Like WvW/PvP (this needs improvements ... not endless dungeons).

 

So ... what to players that want new content need? I mean: New dungeon, new professions, new elite specs? Clearly that isn't the solution when they will have unlocked all the skills in the new professions/elite specs very fast and have finished the new dungeons/raids very fast. Can't be an option. That would lead to senseless repetition of endlessly adding new stuff that is exatcly the same/similar. Game would feel to "heavy-weighted". That would scare away more players (especially now ones). Not to talk about the balancing issues with even more professions n stuff when already players complaing about this now.

 

The only solution can be to make content that is replayable. Can be only PvP/WvW. Or some dungons that are sooo hard that they are still fun after months and you don't need add new ones every 2 weeks. Maybe an endlessly scalable raid-dungeon would be a solution. I don't now how much the fractals scale and if there is a limit of if they are endless. Like dungeon where you farm gear and boss has 1 million hp and with that gear you can go to an upscaled version x2 where the previously farmed gear does x2 damage but the boss has x4 hp ... taking even longer even with the farmed gear. Could all be pretty generic. But it would satisfy the players that only care about this.

 

Definitely needs a solution somehow. Or else they'll have to create new stuff endlessly and people never will be satisfied. Game will never reach a stable end of production state where the people say "this is nice, we can play this ... maybe not forever but for a pretty long time - and we only need bugfixes and balancing updates no new content". This state needs to be reached. This should be the goal of a good game. Bad games keep adding stuff endlessly. (Sign that the game is bad or that it does not fit to a specific player if he always keeps asking for new stuff.)

[Ototo.3214]

I'm honestly not sure what people expect...

There's only 1 other MMO I play, FFXIV, so maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see other games coming out with more "content" usually. What does FFXIV do? Every few months they add a little bit of story with a new dungeon or 2 and an extreme trial. That you then grind. Occasionally the release also includes a new raid section. That you can do once a week. Very rarely do they actually address glaring issues with classes. Etc.

Honestly doesn't sound much different from GW2 to me, yet tons of people still enjoy it....

[Ayakaru.6583]

Coming to pve, I personally havent gone back to it in many months but the same problems seem to always be present

 

So you're not talking out of experience here?

Sure PvE had its issues, like every mode, of every game

[Brother.1504]

Needlessly negative. Gw2 is a game. Lots don’t like it for whatever reason. Lots love it for whatever reason. Find some enjoyment somewhere else. Learn to bowling or something. It’s ok to say to yourself this isn’t for me without feeling the need to try and be the class downer person.

[sigur.9453]

> @"Luthan.5236" said:

> It is okay for people to have different playstyles. But then they shouldn't say "the game is dying" just because ArenaNet isn't tailoring the game just to satisfy their playstyle. I mean ... there is no subscription. So you should expect new contend less regularly. Especially if it is content that is expensive in terms of time and money to develop.

>

 

the game surley isn´t dying (its bleeding, but old games tend to do that without BIG updates *cough* expansions *cough*)

but the communities of those "hardcore rusher" for sure are.

 

> My question is: What to the people that always want new contend need to be satisfied in the end? If there is a new update/contend and they are going to play through it very quickly ... then we have the same problem.

>

 

thats only is true if we only get the same cookie cutter content (which we did since pof, or even before pof till anet found the formular,)

 

> If we talk about different playstyle we also need to talk about different types/styles of games. The solution is to keep the game as it is. There will be players that play very slow ... always being a "slacker". Others are "rushers". Can't satisfy everyone. Being in the middle - is a good idea and I like that for Guild Wars 2 to be like this. Slow players can still catch up.

>

catering to the middle is a right approach in generall. but if you release, as of latest, a content update for a niche audience (raids), you should at first try to fit "their needs".

trying to please everyone is doomed in a niche content.

 

> Fast players aren't forced to play. And they can take breaks in between the releases. Or they can - this is still an option - play all the content that is still there that can be replayed. Like WvW/PvP (this needs improvements ... not endless dungeons).

>

"just take a break" - a solo player.

First: taking a break in a multiplayer inviroment is hard. (if you treat it like a multiplayer game)

-you make life harder for your fellow gamers when you are part of static groups/pvp teams

-some people might even just come online to play with you since you are the last remaining friend playing this game

-when your break is over nobody you know is left

Second:

all content can be replayed, but the question is, is it fun?

-pvp/wvw are endless, but the communities there are also having touble for specific reasons - > less players -> less fun

-"endgame pve" have artifical mechanics to prevent playing it endlessly, i mean, you could, depending if you do these things for fun or the g/h. (this community prefers the later)

-open world? been there, done that. some people do simply not enjoy zerging everything down where personal contibution does not matter. replayvalue if not artificially bloated be collections or an insane g/h rate is close to zero in the fun department. (in my opinion)

 

> So ... what to players that want new content need? I mean: New dungeon, new professions, new elite specs? Clearly that isn't the solution when they will have unlocked all the skills in the new professions/elite specs very fast and have finished the new dungeons/raids very fast. Can't be an option. That would lead to senseless repetition of endlessly adding new stuff that is exatcly the same/similar. Game would feel to "heavy-weighted". That would scare away more players (especially now ones). Not to talk about the balancing issues with even more professions n stuff when already players complaing about this now.

>

 

HoT elite specs and masteries took a while, and boy, did i like the jorney (grind). Since PoF aquiring those sadly changed to filling empty spots on your map and triggering your dopamine center and give you the feeling of achieving something.

Regarding raids/fracs/dungeons, see my reply above. they are still to easy to please the hardcore/rusher audiance. Repeatable CM´s? More(Every) Fractal CM´s?

In Short:

its not always the quantity that matters. a lot of the same is not always better then "less but more specific". and sadly in niche content for a while its JUST less.

i know anet wants everyone playing/having fun with every part of the game they deliver, but that will rarely happen.

 

> The only solution can be to make content that is replayable. Can be only PvP/WvW. Or some dungons that are sooo hard that they are still fun after months and you don't need add new ones every 2 weeks. Maybe an endlessly scalable raid-dungeon would be a solution. I don't now how much the fractals scale and if there is a limit of if they are endless. Like dungeon where you farm gear and boss has 1 million hp and with that gear you can go to an upscaled version x2 where the previously farmed gear does x2 damage but the boss has x4 hp ... taking even longer even with the farmed gear. Could all be pretty generic. But it would satisfy the players that only care about this.

>

For PVE, just add damn weekly/monthly leaderboards to everything. even freaking beatle-racing. and if you feel super crazy add a reward of 5 mystic coins / week to it for the top spot. beeing rewarded for beeing better/the best in this game should have rewards. "that guy was 0,5sec faster then me? damn, 6 hours of fresh content to beat that time" instead of "ah, done with the achievments, that was a almost an hour of content"

 

 

> Definitely needs a solution somehow. Or else they'll have to create new stuff endlessly and people never will be satisfied. Game will never reach a stable end of production state where the people say "this is nice, we can play this ... maybe not forever but for a pretty long time - and we only need bugfixes and balancing updates no new content". This state needs to be reached. This should be the goal of a good game. Bad games keep adding stuff endlessly. (Sign that the game is bad or that it does not fit to a specific player if he always keeps asking for new stuff.)

 

just to clarify, im pretty sure for the majority of its players gw2 still is the perfect game, and won´t die anytime soon.

 

as a "hardcore" player i still don´t know if they want me to stay ot not. (or in my case return)

+one of the best combat systems in mmos! -content rarly makes use of it (just press 1, F for reward)

+good and fun raids, even more fun CM´s. - thanks for waiting 9 months, we needed that time to make the bosses easier. CM stays a one time thing, since we do not want

to split the community. oh, and you already have your clear this week and want to help your friend? that will be 1G please.

+a good dungeon like activity to do daylie! - yeah, we saw that there is already a splitt of people doing CM´s and non CM´s, so we trashed CM´s altogether so you can have

fun together again.

 

I do not know how its in WvW/PvP, but im getting some mixed signals here. Just say(!) your done with raids and challening endgame altogether, so i can "delete your phone number".

 

 

 

 

 

[Luthan.5236]

Thank you sigur - I think I understand a bit better what you mean. (Even though I'm a totally different type of player.) Now raids might have been already the wrong approach - something they wanted to make for "hardcore" players when the game never had been intended for them. (In my opinion. Since gear grinding never was important here and most stuff can be played with normal exotic gear which is easy to get.)

 

I understand that people that got "baited" by raids expect more in that direction. And as I'm not playing raids I'm not qualified to talk about improvements there. We still have to keep in mind that ArenaNet probably wants to keep the base idea of not turning the game into a gear grind game where certain content can only played by having grinded tons of the previous other stuff. (Like adding new harder dungeons/raids where you need to previously have grinded older dungeons/raids for beter gear. Starting this would lead to an endless cycle where new players would have to grind tons of days to be able to play the latest stuff. Now I think it is still fairly easy to get ready for most of the content - as a new player.)

 

So ... I guess leaderboards stuff might be an interesting idea. Even with small rewards. Or the skins. If people are happy with skins and leaderboard stuff. Endless cycle of grinding better/stronger items will never happen I think. Would ruin the game for others that don't want this. (Even if you don't play it it is hard to ignore and the feeling that you can still play most of the stuff without previously grinding is nice to have as base philosophy of the game. With fractals maybe an exception ... don't know about them. But if I remember correctly you need to improve agony resistance. But then again later fractals aren't that different/other content - just same but harder.)

 

Dungeon leaderboards with time ... or damage taken or other stats ... surely could be interesting. (Could get players to try different strategies based on which stats on the leaderboards they want to max.)

 

I agree on the combat system and that the game could make more use of it. Especially in open world PvE which I play a lot. Since I have returned a few weeks ago after a break (since end of 2013 - I still have lots of content to play not even bought expansions) I saw all those dailies and the megaserver system which gets the maps floode by players (maps where daily events are required) ... it basically is a zerging through the low level content PvE maps ... you even need to be fast to get event credit. Not as fun as before with a smaller playerbase where it could be fun to really do some events.

 

And on a side note: On Dry Top repair camp waypoint the defending event vs. skritt burglar that rewards an achivement if no stuff gets stolen was fun with my engineer that almost could solo it (lots of crowd control) - with 1-2 other players. (While some other times with even more players I failed to get the achievement cause they did not pay attention or didn't care - just wanted to complete the event not getting 0 stolen stuff..) But yeah .. basically it seems either dead older maps in regards to people that need achievements ... or zerging down a boss and just auto attacking.

 

Personlly I like defense events and I wouldn't mind if Lion's Arch got attacked regularly with small group instances (automatically sending players to them) requiring a bit defense and coordination. I remember having played a few months ago the Warhammer Online where PvP allowed to attack the enemy capital. (Here this could only be in terms of PvE.) And where certain stuff was not possible if you lost. (Like buying mounts and merchants for them.)

 

Could get a bit more away from the "farming" which I guess most people (especially the ones that "finished" their content) are doing: Logging in, harvesting, selling the stuff at trading post. Doing dailies and zerging the events and bosses to farm chests.

[Asum.4960]

> @"Luthan.5236" said:

> My question is: What to the people that always want new contend need to be satisfied in the end? If there is a new update/contend and they are going to play through it very quickly ... then we have the same problem.

 

Repeatable content.

I've been playing the same Fractal CM's daily since.. I don't even want to think about it, while watching the community engaged with that content dwindle away over time, coming closer and closer to the day when there's simply just no one around to play that content with any more.

It being group content, that would mean the death of that part of the game.

If that's the majority of what you play and enjoy, that in turn is the death of the game for you.

 

It's been 2 years since the last Fractal CM now, with Fractal CM's being the only 5 man endgame content in the game. With only 2 of them in total in the game.

 

Idk.. maybe that gives you a perspective of why hardcore players are slightly agitated about a lack of content, and why from their perspective the game is crawling to it's death.

Because those communities are indeed dying, and we haven't seen content in literally years.

 

There is only so much time the fantastic foundation of GW2 with it's combat system can keep people engaged, and a new open world map to press F on things in just doesn't do it for us for more than a few hours.

 

A new Fractal every 3-6 months with at least every other coming with a CM doesn't seems that outlandish or impossible, while it would have done so much for the people who enjoy challenging content, keeping at least some of us satisfied and engaged for years.

 

Now some say that with how GW2 went, the game just wasn't made for us, but then some communications on that would be nice.

If Anet comes out saying there will never be more Fractal (CM's), Raids and no updates to WvW and sPvP, aka anything sheer endless repeatable that is going to keep players like me continually engaged, then fair enough.

Maybe we can visit the game every 3-6 months for a few days and mess around with some new content and have a blast playing it super casually, but we need that clarity before burning out and being gone forever.

 

But being caught in a place where you love this game you have been playing since 7 years (and GW1 7 years before that), which has such great potential and some fantastic content, but just not getting any more of it with zero communication if it's worth sticking around for more while you watch all the people you loved playing with slowly disappear over the years is quite depressing, especially when you think what could have been.

 

I'm still here because I still have a sliver of hope for more of what I enjoy (and lack of similar alternatives), but it really needs to be (at least communicated) soon.

A whole other year of no content catering to me and the people and community I play with is a certain death sentence for that part of the game.

[spectrito.8513]

> @"finkle.9513" said:

> It is failing

> To many decisions that favour short term profit, instead of long term player retention - long term money

> bad implementation of WVW mount - just for skin sales

> bad Implementation of skyscale mount - behind a stupid time gate - impact on them not selling skins - just a example of bad decisions being made!

> neglected PVP

> neglected wvw - some changed but very little in years

> Fractal - again very little

> In-fact the recurring theme is that the bare minimum seems to have been done....

> Story - become boring again short term content that is completed, then maps never again to be visited... its all just boring same old rinse and repeat content with unimaginative collections, achievements that seem pointless wastes of time inputted for the sake of creating a waste of time to try and keep players in game... added to that players now see the various different carrot dangling with loot box rewards being such a ridiculously low % that its a pointless use of time to be involved...

>

> There have been so many bad decisions, all that seem driven by short term gains... that we are now seeing the long term impact as we are further down the line.

> There needs to be some big business model changes by Anet, if they want to keep GW2 going.

 

This is the reason that pushes me away from buying gems, Anet is too focused on the short term gain.

To me a company who prioritizes on short term its either greedy or its failling.

[Goettel.4389]

A hyperbolic thread title doesn't make it so. Don't worry so much, just enjoy playing (or don't).

From my experience since launch, game is alive and well, and I haven't seen any reason to think it won't stay that way.

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

> @"finkle.9513" said:

> To many decisions that favour short term profit, instead of long term player retention - long term money

 

Very subjective. They make their money on the micro transactions (aside from the original purchase price).

 

> bad implementation of WVW mount - just for skin sales

 

Subjective again, it wasn't a 'bad' implementation in my opinion. Though, I agree, it was done mostly for skin sales. But, that goes to the first point, they make money on micro transactions and they do have to pay their staff.

 

> bad Implementation of skyscale mount - behind a stupid time gate - impact on them not selling skins - just a example of bad decisions being made!

 

I dislike time gates and think its a stupid decision. I'm sure they sold a lot of skins - it just took people a little longer to get the mount and then buy the skins. Neither you or I know how successful it was.

 

> neglected PVP

 

Very little change from season to season and an incredibly slow trickle for new maps or game modes. Players attitudes in the game mode don't help promote the gameplay among general GW2 players (IMO) and that hurts more than anything.

 

> neglected wvw - some changed but very little in years

 

My favorite game mode by far. Very little love from Anet, but its not their money maker and I know it. I'll take what we can get.

 

> Fractal - again very little

 

This one confuses me. There have been a lot of fractal maps released since its introduction. We'll go with subjective again.

 

> In-fact the recurring theme is that the bare minimum seems to have been done....

 

Subjective conclusions are subjective.

 

> Story - become boring again short term content that is completed, then maps never again to be visited... its all just boring same old rinse and repeat content with unimaginative collections, achievements that seem pointless wastes of time inputted for the sake of creating a waste of time to try and keep players in game... added to that players now see the various different carrot dangling with loot box rewards being such a ridiculously low % that its a pointless use of time to be involved...

>

 

I go to all the maps over the course of a few weeks and there are always other players on them doing a variety of things. That alone debunks the 'never again to be visited'. The rest is right back to subjective.

 

> There have been so many bad decisions, all that seem driven by short term gains... that we are now seeing the long term impact as we are further down the line.

 

What? Because there wasn't enough ice cream on the Titanic, it got hit by an iceberg? A classic example of confirmation bias.

 

> There needs to be some big business model changes by Anet, if they want to keep GW2 going.

 

Maybe, but not based on your premises.