Why does anet keep abandoning systems and mechanics?

[battledrone.8315]

its end game content, so very few casuals even want to give it a try. i tried the lowest level dungeon on my max lvl ranger once. if we didnt didnt have a hardcore to help us, we would had failed hard. it wasnt fun, and the reward sucked. never tried again.

end game content=work, and im not paying for that "pleasure"

[Randulf.7614]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > I think you should try strikes because for the most part, they are fun. I get your point though.

> >

> Problem with strikes is that there are insufficient reasons to do them. "fun" can be found in a lot of places in this game, and why would I spend my time doing strikes when I could do something else equally fun? Once the achievements are done, or if you don't care about APs, the rewards aren't worth the effort or time, assuming it's a one-shot kill (nevermind if you wipe and have to retry)

>

> HoT/PoF metas have legendary crafting mats + substantial T5/T6 mats, ecto, recipes, while bounties drop contracts + elegies. What do you get from Strikes? A very low RNG chance at a rare drop, Eternal Ice + Ingots or in the case of Groth, more chilies?

>

> I have a toon parked in Amnoon who does the Blitz/Casino at least once per day, sometimes more, despite having all the rewards you can get with Casino coins. But now that I'm finishing off my last piece of leggy armor, I intend to start on a Gen 2.5 Leg weapon, and I have thousands of contracts and elegies in storage, and more than enough amal gemstones.

>

> Killing the Pinata is just as 'fun' as killing Whisper, except that the former is actually worth the time.

>

> When ANET decides to have Legendary Insights drop from Gold chests in Strike Missions, then maybe they will be worth it, but ofc only a static group would be able to clear those anyways, so the majority of GW2 players will still have no reason to bother.

>

 

Fair. For me, they are a short burst of a fun fight. They achieve for me what a bounty does, plus some of them are easy and short enough for me to test different builds out in real time groups for more substantial instances. Not everyone will like them, but my main point is I don't they should be outright ignored because of ANets fickle history

[Friday.7864]

Assembling a team of 5 OK (not decent, or good) players for fractals can be a challenge.

I can't be bothered to do strikes with 10 randoms for meh rewards and a small chance at getting a good drop.

[battledrone.8315]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > This really has nothing to do with Anet, or GW2 specifically, is just a development problem in the MMO market in general. The silent majority simply doesn't care, so it becomes a waste of money to develop them instead of anything else.

>

> Yet most other mmorpgs do have such content. Weird how that works

 

yep, and it obviously led them into a golden era of prosperity and wealth.

the mmo market is BOOMING right now, i tell ya

[coso.9173]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > > This really has nothing to do with Anet, or GW2 specifically, is just a development problem in the MMO market in general. The silent majority simply doesn't care, so it becomes a waste of money to develop them instead of anything else.

> >

> > Yet most other mmorpgs do have such content. Weird how that works

>

> yep, and it obviously led them into a golden era of prosperity and wealth.

> the mmo market is BOOMING right now, i tell ya

 

Ffxiv and eso, 2 mmos that have new dungeons often are in the top 5 mmos and are doing pretty well. So I don't see the relation with not having dungeons.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > > I think you should try strikes because for the most part, they are fun. I get your point though.

> > >

> > Problem with strikes is that there are insufficient reasons to do them. "fun" can be found in a lot of places in this game, and why would I spend my time doing strikes when I could do something else equally fun? Once the achievements are done, or if you don't care about APs, the rewards aren't worth the effort or time, assuming it's a one-shot kill (nevermind if you wipe and have to retry)

> >

> > HoT/PoF metas have legendary crafting mats + substantial T5/T6 mats, ecto, recipes, while bounties drop contracts + elegies. What do you get from Strikes? A very low RNG chance at a rare drop, Eternal Ice + Ingots or in the case of Groth, more chilies?

> >

> > I have a toon parked in Amnoon who does the Blitz/Casino at least once per day, sometimes more, despite having all the rewards you can get with Casino coins. But now that I'm finishing off my last piece of leggy armor, I intend to start on a Gen 2.5 Leg weapon, and I have thousands of contracts and elegies in storage, and more than enough amal gemstones.

> >

> > Killing the Pinata is just as 'fun' as killing Whisper, except that the former is actually worth the time.

> >

> > When ANET decides to have Legendary Insights drop from Gold chests in Strike Missions, then maybe they will be worth it, but ofc only a static group would be able to clear those anyways, so the majority of GW2 players will still have no reason to bother.

> >

>

> Fair. For me, they are a short burst of a fun fight. They achieve for me what a bounty does, plus some of them are easy and short enough for me to test different builds out in real time groups for more substantial instances. Not everyone will like them, but my main point is I don't they should be outright ignored because of ANets fickle history

 

Yes, that's an apt description I think, and if I'm on the map or there is a call out in guild chat for LFM strike missions, if I'm not doing something else, I'll join, just like I would if I'm on map where a tag is doing a bounty nearby, or I happen to be in the neighbourhood when Teq jumps out of the water. But I don't have a goal of doing that content on a daily basis, nor do I schedule myself to ensure I can. Case in point, last time I did Teq was during the last boss blitz.

[particlepinata.9865]

They should have sticked with dungeons, improve them, and have different difficulty levels for them from light-mid-hard-titan level (just making up that last one, sounds good :-) ) Then it would have interested all sorts of players and a much bigger pool. And no more casual against hardcore polarising because everyone is catered. With difficulty appropriate rewards of course.

[Terra.9506]

I like dungeon and fractral but I'm not enjoy when my group try to speed run it (Even I understand balance of some dungeon didn't make any sense (like Arah)) while I didn't have much issue with fractral but I think dungeon simply too hard and too long for it own good and their reward can't turn into gold.

[sorudo.9054]

> @"Tman.6349" said:

> > @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > > @"Westenev.5289" said:

> > > > @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > > > > @"Substance E.4852" said:

> > > > ~snip~

> > > > >

> > > > > As to why Anet doesn't "get it", I can't really say other than to assume that they just didn't care until NCsoft came knocking

> > > >

> > > > You do know they've been a part of NCSoft since before the original GW was released, when the company was first formed it was called TriForge, then they changed the name and during development of GW became part of NCSoft West...and NCSoft has pretty much had a hands off approach the entire time, anything ArenaNet did management wise was of their own choosing or how it was done was of their own choosing(whether instructed to by NCSoft or not).

> > >

> > > The layoffs last year suggest that even if NCsoft were hands off durring Gw1, something changed. It's been a decade since gw1 started, for the most part the gaming experiment is over. Companies have statistics now, and they want to enforce them.

> >

> > I'll tell you what changed, mobile, that's what changed...NCSoft started making mobile games and saw what a cash cow they were, they didn't like any of the projects ArenaNet was working on and decided to tell MO to cut staff...that's what changed, just like the rest of the corporate world, they can't see beyond the next quarters earnings, no more 5, 10 and 20 year plans, it's all about the return to investors now, almost no one cares about long term growth(except for smart investors).

>

> What changed was GW turning from a passion project into a 'cashcow'. It's pretty easy to see how disasters happen in hindsight though...

 

exactly my thought, in all honesty they make GW2 way to much like WoW without actually adding the good parts and that just makes me sad.

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> I don't understand why they didn't make difficulty levels instead of strikes in the first place; it's a win-win. You have a casual mode like LFR and a harder mode for dedicated groups and you serve both play stiles. But no, now they just add strikes and raids are on hold. Make the strikes a raid with hard mode and the raid strikes with easy mode. It's mindblowing how Anet deconstructs themselves with doing everything wrong while wasting huge talent.

Andrew Gray explained that raids are done only by a small group of people. So they made Strike Missions as intermediate content as a stepping stone towards raids. In a way Strike Missions are their attempt to save the business case for making more raids. Essentially the point is that raids are dead content unless Strike Missions lead to more people doing raids.

 

I also think it's a bad idea but here's what I think will happen: either people won't do Strike Missions or they will but still not go do Raids. If people don't do the Strike Missions in high enough numbers then raids are dead and strike missions as well. If enough people do Strike Missions then I don't think it will lead to new Raids but more Strike Missions. I imagine Strike Missions are easier to make for them than Raids.

 

Personally I don't think that many people are interested in Strike Missions and for raiders it's an issue because if they do Strike Missions then ArenaNet will think they like them and therefore don't need more Raids. If they don't do them there will be no new Raids and no new Strike Missions.

 

There is a third option of course where people love Strike Missions and then go do Raids as well...however, I see that one as the least realistic or plausible because difficulty is not the only reason why a lot of people don't do raids. I think that in part it's also that a number of people don't like structured group content period and I also think that for the more casual player the character builds are a complex minefield they don't really (want to) understand. I personally feel that the types of builds that are needed for such content are builds and playstyles a lot of people don't enjoy. And as that's not addressed, I don't think that people are really going to start Strike Missions either. My opinion of course, but there it is.

 

[Terra.9506]

It's not difficult of game mode that scare me of but force me to be part of stranger is the main reason why I ignore both strike and raid. I'm more enjoy bounty where I can jump in and jump out freely and no one get blamed for anything if it fail... if only it have better reward...

[Rasimir.6239]

---

> @"Terra.9506" said:

> I like dungeon and fractral but I'm not enjoy when my group try to speed run it (Even I understand balance of some dungeon didn't make any sense (like Arah)) while I didn't have much issue with fractral but I think dungeon simply too hard and too long for it own good and their reward can't turn into gold.

Oh, dungeon rewards are both plenty and can be converted to a good amount of gold. Aside from the straight gold you get for both finishing a dungeon path and from the dungeon frequenter achievement (free 5g and 150 tokens of choice for every 8 unique paths), and the drops you can sell well on the trading post (butter from bandit bags in Caudecus Manor, t4 mats from Twilight Arbor and Sorrow's Embrace, fairly valuable jewellry from several dungeons), the dungeon tokens themselves also have good value. You can trade them for rare equipment that has a chance to salvage into ectos, for exotic equipment that has a chance to salvage into tradeable insignias and inscriptions, or (if you feel lucky) gather exotic weapons to try and mystic-forge precursors. gw2efficiency also has a

---

(https://gw2efficiency.com/currencies/dungeon-tokens) dedicated to how to make gold from your dungeon tokens.

[Gehenna.3625]

---

> @"Terra.9506" said:

> It's not difficult of game mode that scare me of but force me to be part of stranger is the main reason why I ignore both strike and raid. I'm more enjoy bounty where I can jump in and jump out freely and no one get blamed for anything if it fail... if only it have better reward...

Very well put. And this is indeed a big draw for this game....being able to just jump in and leave again withou needing to be in a squad group and rewards are a thing as well.

> @"Rasimir.6239" said:

> > @"Terra.9506" said:

> > I like dungeon and fractral but I'm not enjoy when my group try to speed run it (Even I understand balance of some dungeon didn't make any sense (like Arah)) while I didn't have much issue with fractral but I think dungeon simply too hard and too long for it own good and their reward can't turn into gold.

> Oh, dungeon rewards are both plenty and can be converted to a good amount of gold. Aside from the straight gold you get for both finishing a dungeon path and from the dungeon frequenter achievement (free 5g and 150 tokens of choice for every 8 unique paths), and the drops you can sell well on the trading post (butter from bandit bags in Caudecus Manor, t4 mats from Twilight Arbor and Sorrow's Embrace, fairly valuable jewellry from several dungeons), the dungeon tokens themselves also have good value. You can trade them for rare equipment that has a chance to salvage into ectos, for exotic equipment that has a chance to salvage into tradeable insignias and inscriptions, or (if you feel lucky) gather exotic weapons to try and mystic-forge precursors. gw2efficiency also has a

---

(https://gw2efficiency.com/currencies/dungeon-tokens) dedicated to how to make gold from your dungeon tokens.

What you say is right but with regards to the rewards but I think you'll find that not everybody likes having to do a research project to just make enough gold to enjoy the game. The truth in any MMO is that the things that make money in trading with other players are successful because most people don't do it. So it keeps the supply low while there still is a demand. So in fact if everybody did this, you wouldn't be able to make money with it.

 

But I think the more important comment from him is that he doesn't enjoy the speed running. That's a thing that keeps a lot of people out of structured group content because generally people just want to do it fast to increase their rewards vs time spent and more casual players just like to take their time, won't have optimised builds and just enjoy the experience. They don't want to do 10 runs in one evening and so this makes a big difference. That's why I think Strike Missions also will not draw a big crowd because all of the issues that are not about difficulty do exist but are not addressed by ArenaNet. So most barriers still stand if you will.

 

[battledrone.8315]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > > @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > > > This really has nothing to do with Anet, or GW2 specifically, is just a development problem in the MMO market in general. The silent majority simply doesn't care, so it becomes a waste of money to develop them instead of anything else.

> > >

> > > Yet most other mmorpgs do have such content. Weird how that works

> >

> > yep, and it obviously led them into a golden era of prosperity and wealth.

> > the mmo market is BOOMING right now, i tell ya

>

> Ffxiv and eso, 2 mmos that have new dungeons often are in the top 5 mmos and are doing pretty well. So I don't see the relation with not having dungeons.

 

i actually tried a couple of dungeons in FF, they weren much harder than OW, and easier than wows dungeons by a long shot

cant speak about eso, didnt make it far enough in that game

even if i could do them, they certainly werent keeping me in game. as i recall , i would have to do several dungeons more before even hitting level 20.

not gonna happen.

[Host Tar.8436]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> I think this is a common complaint among players. Guild halls, dungeons, fractals, raids, bounties, etc.

> I understand that if something isn't well received it makes some sense, but also have in mind that if you keep doing this people Will also stop playing most new things because they know it could be senseless and have it become never updated again.

> IMO we should be getting at least 1new guild hall with each expac and new lw season. And we should be getting around 3 new fractals per year.both are relatively small things to create, compared to a new zone. I won't talk about raids because I don't play them.

> I'm not too interested in trying strikes since they might as well become obsolete in a few months too.

> What do others think about it?

 

Yes!! Strike missions for me were like a final straw. Anet seems a bit obsessed with creating brand new "content" just so they can sell it as such, all the while some really great older content is neglected so much. Build on what you already have, expand and develop it. For me, IMO, all the new maps are no longer content, they're actually quite dull, some maps had a spark of something exciting, others are just really pointless. The new visions of the past thing is nice that its not just another bloody map, and some season 1 stuff. But again, I really don't get the need for a whole new area/system, whatever it's going to be; we have 2 (3 if you include your guild hall) personal instance areas, do we really need another? We have places from which to launch quests, stories etc. do we really need another? They just pile on this stuff which I never go to (except the handful of times I do the content in the 1st few weeks) and then never go back again. Sunspear refuge.... never ever been back once I'd done all there was to do there.

 

Build on what you have, don't keep adding things for the sake of it, only for those things to be totally abandoned by players & anet.

[Svarty.8019]

Oh I get a chance to wheel this old chestnut out... This is why Anet abandons systems and mechanics:

 

Remember that Arenanet is staffed by PEOPLE doing JOBS. Lots of those people move on, get fired or whatever. What happens is that the guys who made the old content move on and the new guys don't want to spend all their time working out how it all fits together. It's cheaper, easier and more productive to create new stuff all the time. As the video says, "Design Shark". Plus they get to put a "NEW" sticker on it, so they bring fickle deserters back on a regular basis.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> I think this is a common complaint among players. Guild halls, dungeons, fractals, raids, bounties, etc.

 

* Not abandoned, we get decorations every release. New guild halls come with new expansions (would be nice to get one during IBS though).

* Yeah, abandoned.

* Not abandoned, we recently got told there's work on new fractals.

* Again, not abandoned, we recently got told there's work on new raids.

* Not sure if abandoned - annoyingly with Thunderhead Peak, they said that their reasoning for no bounties was because lore reasons - bounties in PoF/S4 were all run by the Order of Shadows, who has no presence in Tyria. WOULD be nice to see them return, but it seems they decided no. Either because people didn't like (there was mass criticism that it's just champions when presented as new stuff) or because they're being too strict on lore. They **are** using bounty mechanics though, so that hasn't been abandoned.

 

So, I'm curious, what exactly is the abandoned content you refer to, that has been abandoned recently? Do note that "not made in a while" != "abandoned". ArenaNet has only so much manpower, after all.

 

Visions of the Past is a pure, full proof that "not made in a while" != "abandoned". How often is Season 1 touched, and yet we're getting 4 of the instances brought back.

 

> IMO we should be getting at least 1new guild hall with each expac and new lw season. And we should be getting around 3 new fractals per year.both are relatively small things to create, compared to a new zone. I won't talk about raids because I don't play them.

 

Technically we do! 2019 was a bad year for ArenaNet because of the mass layoffs and the need to reorganize because of such. Ignoring 2019, we've gotten a new guild hall every expansion, and a customizable solo hub every LW season, and 3 fractals *or raids* (made by the same team in 2017 onward iirc) a year.

[Substance E.4852]

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > @"Substance E.4852" said:

> ~snip~

> >

> > As to why Anet doesn't "get it", I can't really say other than to assume that they just didn't care until NCsoft came knocking

>

> You do know they've been a part of NCSoft since before the original GW was released, when the company was first formed it was called TriForge, then they changed the name and during development of GW became part of NCSoft West...and NCSoft has pretty much had a hands off approach the entire time, anything ArenaNet did management wise was of their own choosing or how it was done was of their own choosing(whether instructed to by NCSoft or not).

 

My point was that management of Anet didn't care that the game was degenerating over time until NCsoft took back the reins and ended what one can only assume was the shunting of funds from GW2 into vaporware at the expense of the game itself

 

Assuming Anet has done a massive about face in terms of taking GW2 seriously as an actual game, rather than dress up simulator, those changes wouldn't have happened until NCsoft took direct control back and won't be evident in the game for many months afterward

 

You can do big balance patches in quick time. Content requires much more time and effort

[Dante.1508]

I'm guessing because the general populations didn't find any of those fun.. And their rewards were not worth the hassle of doing them, also anything that entices the toxic elitist types generally pushes away the rest of the populations..

 

So really they only have themselves and their egos to blame in the long run.

> @"Svarty.8019" said:

> Oh I get a chance to wheel this old chestnut out... This is why Anet abandons systems and mechanics:

>

>

> Remember that Arenanet is staffed by PEOPLE doing JOBS. Lots of those people move on, get fired or whatever. What happens is that the guys who made the old content move on and the new guys don't want to spend all their time working out how it all fits together. It's cheaper, easier and more productive to create new stuff all the time. As the video says, "Design Shark". Plus they get to put a "NEW" sticker on it, so they bring fickle deserters back on a regular basis.

 

Great video this is why i stopped playing Guildwars 2 lol

[Zaklex.6308]

> @"Substance E.4852" said:

> > @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > > @"Substance E.4852" said:

> > ~snip~

> > >

> > > As to why Anet doesn't "get it", I can't really say other than to assume that they just didn't care until NCsoft came knocking

> >

> > You do know they've been a part of NCSoft since before the original GW was released, when the company was first formed it was called TriForge, then they changed the name and during development of GW became part of NCSoft West...and NCSoft has pretty much had a hands off approach the entire time, anything ArenaNet did management wise was of their own choosing or how it was done was of their own choosing(whether instructed to by NCSoft or not).

>

> My point was that management of Anet didn't care that the game was degenerating over time until NCsoft took back the reins and ended what one can only assume was the shunting of funds from GW2 into vaporware at the expense of the game itself

>

> Assuming Anet has done a massive about face in terms of taking GW2 seriously as an actual game, rather than dress up simulator, those changes wouldn't have happened until NCsoft took direct control back and won't be evident in the game for many months afterward

>

> You can do big balance patches in quick time. Content requires much more time and effort

 

However, NCSoft is the one that killed all those projects in development, not ArenaNet, so we'll never know whether or not they would have been good, marketable or even sellable since we'll never see them, let alone know what they were. In this case I think NCSoft is the problem and not the solution, as a matter of fact, I think the problem is you have a Korean game maker trying to run a Western studio and make games like they do in Korea for the Western market, those markets don't mesh, they're completely different. Yes, ArenaNet took funds that COULD have been directed towards GW2 and shunted them towards other projects, but how do you think most studios develop new IP's and/or products, you take the income from your existing game and divide it into the different pies, some has to go to continue development of the current game, some has to be funneled into R&D of new games/technology(if you develop your own tech that is), unless you have a parent company that funds the development of new projects, which is something I don't think NCSoft does with ArenaNet so ArenaNet had to fund it themselves out of the money they made from GW2.

[Solvar.7953]

It is all speculation on what Anet was working on - the side projects could very well have been cancelled because NCSoft had market data and said there was no market for them, or by the time they are completed would be outdated, etc. I've been at companies were a project keeps going because no one wants to take the responsibility to kill it.

Back to the topic at hand, in some ways, I think it is good that Anet stops developing content people are not playing - it would be foolish to keep developing it. It is a matter of debate whether they some content is not being played, and whether content they are still developing is being played be enough people to warrant it. There are lots of factors involved - some content may be fast/easy to develop, so the cost of doing it is quite low, even if few people play it, so the value per player is still reasonable.

Personally, my time to play GW2 is limited, so I don't really want to spend 5-10 minutes of it standing around, trying to form a group (which may never form) to do some instanced content, and then hope that those I formed the group with are reasonable players and not out to annoy me, want perfection, etc. I actually did a lot of group content as part of a guild, where events were scheduled so I could know with a high degree of certainty that a group would form and would be of reasonable people. But that can be a tougher one for new players (how do you even know a guild you join is reasonable?)

So like others, I prefer open world content - at least if I'm part of a group of 20, even if I'm not super effective, I'm unlikely to be the only reason why an event failed. But I can also easily come and go to such events - I wouldn't want to leave midway through a dungeon, but I can run bounties and then say 'Done for the night' without any real negative feelings.

 

[Hannelore.8153]

What's really confusing to me is, if you think about it, dungeons, Fractals, Strike Missions & raids are all the same content.

 

Even story missions are just soloable, single-player dungeons, more or less, so why they've forked the codebase so much just to recreate the same type of content repeatedly just with different difficulty levels and rewards are beyond me.

 

Tier 1 - Do you want to solo it or play story mode?

Tier 2 - Do you want dungeon-like difficulty and mechanics?

Tier 3 - Do you want Fractal & Strike Mission difficulty and mechanics?

Tier 4 - Do you want raid difficulty and mechanics?

 

You could've just put it all together and made it adjustable like this, and it would've likely been easier to maintain in the long run. But they keep making the same mistake over and over again, regardless of the game mode, which is fracturing the player base.

 

This game was built like it has millions of players like WoW, even though it really only has thousands.

[coso.9173]

> @"Svarty.8019" said:

> Oh I get a chance to wheel this old chestnut out... This is why Anet abandons systems and mechanics:

>

>

> Remember that Arenanet is staffed by PEOPLE doing JOBS. Lots of those people move on, get fired or whatever. What happens is that the guys who made the old content move on and the new guys don't want to spend all their time working out how it all fits together. It's cheaper, easier and more productive to create new stuff all the time. As the video says, "Design Shark". Plus they get to put a "NEW" sticker on it, so they bring fickle deserters back on a regular basis.

 

this is a realy interesting video and clarifies things a lot, thanks! now i understand why this keeps happening in so many games, and maybe it's not such a bad thing after all. :)

[Trise.2865]

Because you people keep demanding things to be added to the game instead of proper expansion.

[Dahkeus.8243]

I really wish they would start working on Guild Missions again...