What More Does Anet Need?

[Blackarps.1974]

> @"WhatLiesBeneath.9018" said:

> > @"Blackarps.1974" said:

> > Outside of daily resets or weekly WvW resets, it seems pretty rough in regards to player count. Even with megaservers, I see people running around but its not like it used to be. This game is losing people at an alarming rate and those who disagree are just in denial or don't play enough to see the reality of the situation.

>

> Just stop lying. There are people everywere, both in low-mid and high level zones.

> Been levling a new character and been doing high end stuff this week so just stop with these lies.

 

Yeah, of course you see people leveling because they are either just joining the game 7 years later or because they have nothing else to do on their level 80s. I'm not lying though. Look around. Don't be in such denial.

 

[Sojourner.4621]

> @"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

> > @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > > @"Adry.7512" said:

> > >Word of mouth was provided

> > Where?

> > Was it from Teapot dumping on this game for 4 months solid until he took his ball and ran home when he realized he couldn't wag the dog for more raids?

> > Was it the way members of this community went looking to that clod Jim Stirling to bury the game when they didn't like mount skin pricing?

> > Maybe it was all the positive word of mouth Jawgeous gave it?

> > Maybe it's the stream of ignorant senseless articles on MassivelyOP?

> > Could have been the 300 people typing "F" when they didn't like the recent LW announcement...

> > or you're talking about all the great word of mouth the game got from Brazil.

> > Maybe you're referring to the fact that 3 out of 4 members of the creative partner program have essentially stopped making content for this game and are just soaking up the free gems.

> >

> > I've never seen a community in all my life so willing to throw it's developers under the bus.

> >

> > While I largely agree with much of that you said regarding content delivery and feel that something is indeed wrong at Anet, let's not pat our backs as a community for spreading the word of mouth.

> > Our most vocal members have run this game through the mud time and time again.

>

> All of what you wrote point at the same thing though. Isn't it weird that a game of GW2's scope, one of the most acclaimed MMOs ever on launch, is struggling with content creator/media exposure? Because it really shouldn't be having any trouble. Not only it does, but we are at a point where well known creators or even Anet partners are expressing dissatisfaction and worry about the state of the game. This is not a common occurrence, usually these types are the first to defend, or as the buzzword is, "shill" a game. Same applies for media outlets like Massively.

>

> So how did we get here?

> Could it be that content creators need a steady stream of "watchable" game content at a known cadence to be able to do what they do?

> Could it be that media outlets need new big-time features and content packs (like xpacs) to generate clicks, in order to bother with featuring a game?And in the absence of click-worthy content, controversy fills the void.

> Could it be that a studio was so starved for money that chose to release their new shiny gambleboxes during the peak of hurricane "Battlefront"? Even a 5yo would expect the media reaction that followed.

>

> See a pattern here? Cause and effect.

 

I would say it's largely a result of the Guild Wars community that tends to overreact to every perceived sleight to such a massive extent that their manufactured outrage bleeds in to other online gaming communities. Every update ruins everything, is the worst content patch ever and ANet is an awful company that deserves to fail. And then two weeks later the community pats itself on the back and goes back to claiming itself as the friendliest community ever.

[Trise.2865]

> @"MisterDapper.5984" said:

> If you want a proper response, it would be on the gw2 subreddit. It's mostly an echo chamber here.

 

An almost universally negative echo chamber, and Reddit is no better.

 

Case in point:

[MisterDapper.5984]

> @"Trise.2865" said:

> > @"MisterDapper.5984" said:

> > If you want a proper response, it would be on the gw2 subreddit. It's mostly an echo chamber here.

>

> An almost universally negative echo chamber, and Reddit is no better.

>

> Case in point:

 

Believe what you want

[ugrakarma.9416]

its need love.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Tsakhi.8124" said:

> Let them do their jobs. Have empathy, if you have a problem or idea, you should put it in detail; I have seen some of the player's ideas brought into fruition. One must remember, we are thousands, but they are a few. I imagine reading some of these posts makes them anxious, because I just have a feeling that there are a _lot_ of deadlines to meet.

 

Empathy works both ways though. They've been squeezing the gem store harder as time has gone on, they've repeatedly failed to understand class dynamics in across all game modes, nearly all of the new PvE features and content lacks longevity, and the reason for the longevity issue is a misunderstanding of their own economy. When they moved to a more "direct reward" driven collection/achievement stricture for LS maps, they essentially dug their own hole. LS maps tend to live in partial isolation outside of its "wealth sink" aspects. A new currency unique to the map, often with a grind/time gate heavy collection to keep people there for a mandatory time length, a series of completionist achievements to get that increasingly scarce AP, and the possibility for a "gold farm" loop hole. That last bit is the ONLY thing that keeps maps alive longer then the normal 4-6 weeks it takes for most players to cycle through, and/or a new distraction that leads them to move on.

 

Aggressive Time gates are universally reviled by this community, and yet they are always the most egregious for the things we'd likely get the most. They try to resurrect old content by attaching it to a new One time high end reward, so completionists will go back and finish things they abandoned out frustration. Most of the vital QOL stuff is attached to various reward systems; and we promptly forget that fact once we clear the hurdle. There is a major and very legitimate concern that Build templates, which they are now marketing hard as a major feature, will need Legendary equipment to function in its proper capacity. These are part of a long history of ideas they've originally presented as being rather straight forward in concept, and tacks on these obtuse rules in the actual implementation to "correct" or drag down another (occasionally unrelated) system, in a "2 birds, 1 stone" mind set.

 

In short... they don't have "empathy", they have "Metrics". And seeing how some of their key project leads converse with the community, they have trouble reading between the lines of feedback, complaints, rants, and their own metrics. While I don't doubt they are paying attention, I do doubt they're properly comprehending whats going on. And those within the company that may, don't seem to have the capacity or authority to follow through, before "Pentagon Wars" type changes kick in. And as absurd as that sounds, it fits the bill to a lesser intensity.

 

500 Cooking and Garden Plots are just the most recent example; trying to arbitrarily add value to the plots (an existing gem store item) as a mandatory element for the new cooking system, use the free plot as leverage for selling the extra plots (by promising scaling), is trying to create a food sink with the Composter, time gates it with growing process, and didn't have the foresight to recognize what players were ALREADY DOING as an obvious loop hole to get around that limitation. Individually these elements wouldn't be particularly bad.... but in concert, its very clearly a bottle neck made to artificially inflate the value of Ascended food, which fails to offer real value between the high cost of production, the comparatively short duration, and the tediousness of a process that overtly prevents industrial scaling to offset the cost. They also uniformly nerfed the duration of other foods that would compete with it, but never addressed their already high cost of production and low sustained value. Primer Flasks failed in a similar way due to the various economics of material cost, and the 400-800g up front investment for the plots that (at best) produces 1 pair of primers every 4 days (half if you only have 1). Rather then go through the trouble of creating food expensive enough justify the primers, you can realistically find lesser, but far cheaper alternative foods. And this is fine because, ultimately, food only really offers 1 or 2% effective stat gains, and certain effect specific foods (like -10% damage reduction) have a very cheap version of it.

 

It also ignores another glaring issue with what would be the prime market for "Best in slot" food.... Raids. Raids are capped at 10 players, raid wings take longer then 1 hour to clear in most cases, and party comp demands a minimum of 3 different food types to match the core roles of Healer, DPS, and Tank/Kite. Those factors make Asc food not cost effective unless consumables can be brought down to less then 30g for the whole team. And thats not counting the effort for food production, as many hardcore raiders are weekend warriors.

 

WvW and boss trains have enough players to scale up the cost effectiveness of Asc food. A 3 hour run (which is typical for most organized guilds) calls for 6 - 9 trays of food. This doesn't run the risk of breaking the bank in gold, but essentially rides on the generosity of a few guild crafters putting in the effort for it. But at the same time, that number of people makes the food unnecessary to meet some aggregate performance threshold. Its everything that doesn't make sense about Ascended Gear, but none of the things that eventually offer a return on investment. [Like being permanent, having infusion slots, recycled to retain investment value, and zero opportunity cost to use]

 

 

Its like raising a kid..... if you have to question whether the investment of time, patience and money is going anywhere, it means theres serious problems happening that need to be addressed. These are also Professionals, that the market specifies are supposed to be good at their job.... And even if we ignore the fallacy surrounding that, there is a presumption of a decent batting average. The relationship between Developers and Players are highly dysfunctional right now. Not just with this game, but across the greater industry as a whole. So its hard to pitch empathy, when both sides have a very adversarial stance toward each other. The Devs manages the game like we're here to do a constant barrage of tasks that rival an actual job, and expect us to buy things while we do it. The audience is an insatiable, volatile, self-absorbed hoard that consumes all they encounter, in a quest to fill a Void that can't be filled by such things.

 

Empathy alone will not fix whats broken.

[Omernon.9762]

I wonder what people mean by saying “dead SPvP”. Dead SPvP is now in Guild Wars 1, as every mode, including RA is completely empty. Meanwhile Mists are full of people in GW2, queues for in Ranked take around 2 minutes, often less (even in CSGO people need to wait for around 5 mins to start a match) and Unranked is almost instant. I’m playing on EU server, which has more competitive players and guilds, maybe that is why my experience is so different to others.

[Adry.7512]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > > @"Adry.7512" said:

> > > > @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > > > > @"Adry.7512" said:

> > > > > You guys do know they have around 100k online most of the time right??

> > > >

> > > > How do you know that?

> > >

> > > Go to the options tab.....those every changing numbers at the bottom right are online players lol.

> >

> > What? FPS? Ping?

> >

> > Or are you looking at the Build number on the bottom left??

>

> Yeah, what Inculpatus Cedo said, you're confusing things here, I assume you're looking at the gw2 build number and don't have a FPS or ping of 100k. Currently Gw2: 99,050.

>

> (BTW you know it's the build number because the same number is shown on the launcher underneath the Play button as "Build: 99050").

 

Ahhhh ok! Well that clarifies that lmao thanks!

[Tsakhi.8124]

> @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> > @"Tsakhi.8124" said:

> > Let them do their jobs. Have empathy, if you have a problem or idea, you should put it in detail; I have seen some of the player's ideas brought into fruition. One must remember, we are thousands, but they are a few. I imagine reading some of these posts makes them anxious, because I just have a feeling that there are a _lot_ of deadlines to meet.

>

> Empathy works both ways though. They've been squeezing the gem store harder as time has gone on, they've repeatedly failed to understand class dynamics in across all game modes, nearly all of the new PvE features and content lacks longevity, and the reason for the longevity issue is a misunderstanding of their own economy. When they moved to a more "direct reward" driven collection/achievement stricture for LS maps, they essentially dug their own hole. LS maps tend to live in partial isolation outside of its "wealth sink" aspects. A new currency unique to the map, often with a grind/time gate heavy collection to keep people there for a mandatory time length, a series of completionist achievements to get that increasingly scarce AP, and the possibility for a "gold farm" loop hole. That last bit is the ONLY thing that keeps maps alive longer then the normal 4-6 weeks it takes for most players to cycle through, and/or a new distraction that leads them to move on.

>

> Aggressive Time gates are universally reviled by this community, and yet they are always the most egregious for the things we'd likely get the most. They try to resurrect old content by attaching it to a new One time high end reward, so completionists will go back and finish things they abandoned out frustration. Most of the vital QOL stuff is attached to various reward systems; and we promptly forget that fact once we clear the hurdle. There is a major and very legitimate concern that Build templates, which they are now marketing hard as a major feature, will need Legendary equipment to function in its proper capacity. These are part of a long history of ideas they've originally presented as being rather straight forward in concept, and tacks on these obtuse rules in the actual implementation to "correct" or drag down another (occasionally unrelated) system, in a "2 birds, 1 stone" mind set.

>

> In short... they don't have "empathy", they have "Metrics". And seeing how some of their key project leads converse with the community, they have trouble reading between the lines of feedback, complaints, rants, and their own metrics. While I don't doubt they are paying attention, I do doubt they're properly comprehending whats going on. And those within the company that may, don't seem to have the capacity or authority to follow through, before "Pentagon Wars" type changes kick in. And as absurd as that sounds, it fits the bill to a lesser intensity.

>

> 500 Cooking and Garden Plots are just the most recent example; trying to arbitrarily add value to the plots (an existing gem store item) as a mandatory element for the new cooking system, use the free plot as leverage for selling the extra plots (by promising scaling), is trying to create a food sink with the Composter, time gates it with growing process, and didn't have the foresight to recognize what players were ALREADY DOING as an obvious loop hole to get around that limitation. Individually these elements wouldn't be particularly bad.... but in concert, its very clearly a bottle neck made to artificially inflate the value of Ascended food, which fails to offer real value between the high cost of production, the comparatively short duration, and the tediousness of a process that overtly prevents industrial scaling to offset the cost. They also uniformly nerfed the duration of other foods that would compete with it, but never addressed their already high cost of production and low sustained value. Primer Flasks failed in a similar way due to the various economics of material cost, and the 400-800g up front investment for the plots that (at best) produces 1 pair of primers every 4 days (half if you only have 1). Rather then go through the trouble of creating food expensive enough justify the primers, you can realistically find lesser, but far cheaper alternative foods. And this is fine because, ultimately, food only really offers 1 or 2% effective stat gains, and certain effect specific foods (like -10% damage reduction) have a very cheap version of it.

>

> It also ignores another glaring issue with what would be the prime market for "Best in slot" food.... Raids. Raids are capped at 10 players, raid wings take longer then 1 hour to clear in most cases, and party comp demands a minimum of 3 different food types to match the core roles of Healer, DPS, and Tank/Kite. Those factors make Asc food not cost effective unless consumables can be brought down to less then 30g for the whole team. And thats not counting the effort for food production, as many hardcore raiders are weekend warriors.

>

> WvW and boss trains have enough players to scale up the cost effectiveness of Asc food. A 3 hour run (which is typical for most organized guilds) calls for 6 - 9 trays of food. This doesn't run the risk of breaking the bank in gold, but essentially rides on the generosity of a few guild crafters putting in the effort for it. But at the same time, that number of people makes the food unnecessary to meet some aggregate performance threshold. Its everything that doesn't make sense about Ascended Gear, but none of the things that eventually offer a return on investment. [Like being permanent, having infusion slots, recycled to retain investment value, and zero opportunity cost to use]

>

>

> Its like raising a kid..... if you have to question whether the investment of time, patience and money is going anywhere, it means theres serious problems happening that need to be addressed. These are also Professionals, that the market specifies are supposed to be good at their job.... And even if we ignore the fallacy surrounding that, there is a presumption of a decent batting average. The relationship between Developers and Players are highly dysfunctional right now. Not just with this game, but across the greater industry as a whole. So its hard to pitch empathy, when both sides have a very adversarial stance toward each other. The Devs manages the game like we're here to do a constant barrage of tasks that rival an actual job, and expect us to buy things while we do it. The audience is an insatiable, volatile, self-absorbed hoard that consumes all they encounter, in a quest to fill a Void that can't be filled by such things.

>

> Empathy alone will not fix whats broken.

When I read this reply, I regretted that you could only give one thumb up, when this post is worth a lot more than that. You hit every point dead on and it is something I personally adore. So thank you for this post. <3

[Halbarz.3854]

ArenaNet has an amazing game going with guild wars 2 but sadly over the years they have lost track of what they should do. It's not good to compare but games such as FF14 or ESO get a lot more content. Yes we might get every patch a new zone but that is not what will help out the game.

ArenaNet has amazing developers and honestly yes the story is really really awesome but sadly that will not be what keeps the game going.

 

ArenaNet has to:

- **Improve communication with the community**

- Setup a roadmap

- Launch the game on steam: I know it's taboo but it would bring in a lot of players and yes while they might have the share income on their sales I believe the profit out-ways the cost.

- Give more long-term content (dungeons, fractals, new pve features, ...)

 

Yes they might have had lay-offs earlier this year but it should also be awake up call for them to start working with the community instead of doing their own thing.

ArenaNet should know that we do not hate the game , we love it and just want to see it improve which is why a lot of people in this community are so vocal!