If we still get new elite specs, I'm fine with no expansions. They could roll them out one at a time. If we do not get new elite specs, I am done. "Balance" is not a valid reason to not add new skills to a game that has too few skills.
Concur 100%. The main saving grace for me as a hardcore PvPer in GW2 was its combat and ES. The games pvp scene is really lacking and ES keep things exciting and fun. I already swapped back to WoW for its pvp content, but if they cut ES and continue to have the pvp community be second rate, i probably will not go back...
Making Core F2P was a huge mistake for them. They should have kept the B2P model.
What they needed to do is keep the old model and take out all the living world nonsense. It should have been their plan from the start. Package everything in a yearly release, new classes, new specializations, 1 box price, just like GW1.
Belt out the holiday junk like they do, but make any real content an expansion, one with a focus.
They are where they are because there's just not much to spend money on. Players that play the game religiously... yeah they have enough gold to convert to gems. People who only come in every few months? Yeah, they aren't going to spend money on frivolous cosmetics.
They are creating content.. they just aren't creating compelling content. If they compiled everything into a single release and sold it periodically, maybe they wouldn't have had to lay off so many people.
I think you are right that they should have had a plan in place to put out an expansion every year. It would have been better than what they did.
Which is kinda funny, because when I started . which was like 3 years after launch, I suggested that as opposed to giving it away for free in little bits they made Living Story paid content, and sold it in larger blocks and bundles, and used that to replace an expansion plan, but also used that to expand the game, like a quarterly "Expansion", just, smaller blocks, but if you add them up, they make a full expansion to the game. The little shits on the forums lost their minds so hard, they reported every post I made.
And while, I think their first Expansion, HoT, was a catastrophic mistake, that could have been caused by waiting too long to finally make it. If they had followed your plan of having a series of Expansions planned so they could put one out every year, it would have gone much better.
At the same time, given their development, I don't really think they had a long term plan in place.
I'd bet like GW1, that behind the scenes they were working on GW3, to replace GW2, and just never said anything to keep the hype on GW2. Which, this huge shut down and whole mess was that venture taking too long to develop.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Announcing Guild Wars 2 Battle Arena!!!!
Join 100 players in a fight to the death in a giant coliseum filled with danger, traps, and excitement!
I appreciate that there are positive, upbeat posts about why we should still care about GW2 but let's face it - the ship is going down. Now all I am waiting to hear is that they get bought out by Gamigo and have more exciting cash shop items...
I uninstalled GW2 yesterday. It's a real shame in general. I have no idea what they could have done better; I think its not a problem with the game but with the market. Players are changing and the way they consume MMOs are changing too.
Announcing Guild Wars 2 Battle Arena!!!!
Join 100 players in a fight to the death in a giant coliseum filled with danger, traps, and excitement!
I appreciate that there are positive, upbeat posts about why we should still care about GW2 but let's face it - the ship is going down. Now all I am waiting to hear is that they get bought out by Gamigo and have more exciting cash shop items...
I uninstalled GW2 yesterday. It's a real shame in general. I have no idea what they could have done better; I think its not a problem with the game but with the market. Players are changing and the way they consume MMOs are changing too.
To be honest, I am kinda amazed they haven't done some BR addition to the game yet.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Announcing Guild Wars 2 Battle Arena!!!!
Join 100 players in a fight to the death in a giant coliseum filled with danger, traps, and excitement!
I appreciate that there are positive, upbeat posts about why we should still care about GW2 but let's face it - the ship is going down. Now all I am waiting to hear is that they get bought out by Gamigo and have more exciting cash shop items...
I uninstalled GW2 yesterday. It's a real shame in general. I have no idea what they could have done better; I think its not a problem with the game but with the market. Players are changing and the way they consume MMOs are changing too.
To be honest, I am kinda amazed they haven't done some BR addition to the game yet.
Southsun Survival was one of the first BR modes ever, introduced in Q3 2013. This predates H1Z1, the Culling, PubG, etc. by years. And if you count the beta battle royale events, it had two of them a year before that.
Announcing Guild Wars 2 Battle Arena!!!!
Join 100 players in a fight to the death in a giant coliseum filled with danger, traps, and excitement!
I appreciate that there are positive, upbeat posts about why we should still care about GW2 but let's face it - the ship is going down. Now all I am waiting to hear is that they get bought out by Gamigo and have more exciting cash shop items...
I uninstalled GW2 yesterday. It's a real shame in general. I have no idea what they could have done better; I think its not a problem with the game but with the market. Players are changing and the way they consume MMOs are changing too.
To be honest, I am kinda amazed they haven't done some BR addition to the game yet.
Southsun Survival was one of the first BR modes ever, introduced in Q3 2013. This predates H1Z1, the Culling, PubG, etc. by years. And if you count the beta battle royale events, it had two of them a year before that.
Guild Wars 2 has a lot of fun mini games that are almost never promoted. I remember during the first year my guild would have keg brawl tuesdays and they would be a lot of fun. Only problem is; there isn't much reason to do any of them outside of a few achievement points and maybe a title.
The problem is that asking people to buy additional content doesn't work unless you actually add additional content. The game launched more than 6 1/2 years ago. Meanwhile:
81% of the renown hearts that are in the game now were in at launch. 83% of the waypoints that are in the game now were in at launch. 71% of the skill/hero point challenges that are in the game now were in at launch. 60% of the vistas that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the dungeons that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch. 89% of the classes that are in the game now were in at launch.
That's what you might expect of a game that went into maintenance mode a year after it released. Or maybe it's what you'd expect if the game laid off nearly everyone except customer service at launch and a shoestring team is responsible for all further updates. It's not what you'd expect of 6 1/2 years of additional development by a large team.
The news story said that they had 400 employees and just laid off a bunch of them. Which leads me to ask, what were all of those employees doing? Presumably not making new content for Guild Wars 2 (or Guild Wars 1, for that matter). This is wild speculation, but that's what you might expect if ArenaNet's main focus was on creating some other game entirely and that game got canceled.
The problem is that asking people to buy additional content doesn't work unless you actually add additional content. The game launched more than 6 1/2 years ago. Meanwhile:
81% of the renown hearts that are in the game now were in at launch. 83% of the waypoints that are in the game now were in at launch. 71% of the skill/hero point challenges that are in the game now were in at launch. 60% of the vistas that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the dungeons that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch. 89% of the classes that are in the game now were in at launch.
That's what you might expect of a game that went into maintenance mode a year after it released. Or maybe it's what you'd expect if the game laid off nearly everyone except customer service at launch and a shoestring team is responsible for all further updates. It's not what you'd expect of 6 1/2 years of additional development by a large team.
The news story said that they had 400 employees and just laid off a bunch of them. Which leads me to ask, what were all of those employees doing? Presumably not making new content for Guild Wars 2 (or Guild Wars 1, for that matter). This is wild speculation, but that's what you might expect if ArenaNet's main focus was on creating some other game entirely and that game got canceled.
Can we be sure there were 400 staff? It does seem a little for so many.
The problem is that asking people to buy additional content doesn't work unless you actually add additional content. The game launched more than 6 1/2 years ago. Meanwhile:
81% of the renown hearts that are in the game now were in at launch. 83% of the waypoints that are in the game now were in at launch. 71% of the skill/hero point challenges that are in the game now were in at launch. 60% of the vistas that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the dungeons that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch. 89% of the classes that are in the game now were in at launch.
That's what you might expect of a game that went into maintenance mode a year after it released. Or maybe it's what you'd expect if the game laid off nearly everyone except customer service at launch and a shoestring team is responsible for all further updates. It's not what you'd expect of 6 1/2 years of additional development by a large team.
The news story said that they had 400 employees and just laid off a bunch of them. Which leads me to ask, what were all of those employees doing? Presumably not making new content for Guild Wars 2 (or Guild Wars 1, for that matter). This is wild speculation, but that's what you might expect if ArenaNet's main focus was on creating some other game entirely and that game got canceled.
This shit is one of the most intellectually dishonest, cringe-inducing comments I've ever read.
Renown hearts were abandoned for much of the game's lifespan because they were considered bottom of the barrel content and actively disliked by a vocal segment of the community. The only reason the game even launched with renown hearts to begin with was because traditional MMO players complained about lack of direction - and caving to those players was a mistake. New renown hearts have since been redesigned to be replayable content instead of one-and-done roadmarks.
The new content contains fewer waypoints as a purposeful design decision. The core Tyria maps contain an excessive number of waypoints, and it leads to the core Tyria maps (and the world as a whole) feeling smaller than it actually is as a direct consequence. Moreover... waypoints aren't content.
Post-launch skill challenges were shifted towards fewer, often more challenging/rewarding ones explicitly to cut down on grind and encourage group play. And even with the emphasis on fewer, higher reward skill challenges, people STILL complained that unlocking skills took too long. The community wanted this. They asked for it.
Vistas aren't content, and the launch game was absolutely full of pointless vistas that didn't really showcase impressive scenes. The modern ones tend to do a far better job at actually showing an expansive look at the most visually impressive parts of the new maps.
Dungeons were abandoned. Because they sucked. Badly. They should have been removed in their entirety, because they give new players a disproportionately bad image of the game experience.
100% of personal story episodes were in at launch because they don't call it personal story anymore. We still get the same kind of instanced story content, and at a higher quality. This point is you being actively disingenuous.
89% of the classes were in the game at launch, and all of those classes have been further expanded upon by advanced class options.
Now here are some actual metrics: 25 maps were available at launch. Another 23 have been added post-launch. Almost doubling the open world maps available. The entire Fractals of the Mists content stream was added post launch. There are currently 20 unique fractals. The entire raids content stream was added post launch. We are currently at 4 raids with a combined 18 boss fights.
An additional class was added.
18 advanced classes were added.
94 new living world story instances as free content via 19 living world episodes.
The problem is that asking people to buy additional content doesn't work unless you actually add additional content. The game launched more than 6 1/2 years ago. Meanwhile:
81% of the renown hearts that are in the game now were in at launch. 83% of the waypoints that are in the game now were in at launch. 71% of the skill/hero point challenges that are in the game now were in at launch. 60% of the vistas that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the dungeons that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch. 89% of the classes that are in the game now were in at launch.
That's what you might expect of a game that went into maintenance mode a year after it released. Or maybe it's what you'd expect if the game laid off nearly everyone except customer service at launch and a shoestring team is responsible for all further updates. It's not what you'd expect of 6 1/2 years of additional development by a large team.
The news story said that they had 400 employees and just laid off a bunch of them. Which leads me to ask, what were all of those employees doing? Presumably not making new content for Guild Wars 2 (or Guild Wars 1, for that matter). This is wild speculation, but that's what you might expect if ArenaNet's main focus was on creating some other game entirely and that game got canceled.
This shit is one of the most intellectually dishonest, cringe-inducing comments I've ever read.
Renown hearts were abandoned for much of the game's lifespan because they were considered bottom of the barrel content and actively disliked by a vocal segment of the community. The only reason the game even launched with renown hearts to begin with was because traditional MMO players complained about lack of direction - and caving to those players was a mistake. New renown hearts have since been redesigned to be replayable content instead of one-and-done roadmarks.
The new content contains fewer waypoints as a purposeful design decision. The core Tyria maps contain an excessive number of waypoints, and it leads to the core Tyria maps (and the world as a whole) feeling smaller than it actually is as a direct consequence. Moreover... waypoints aren't content.
Post-launch skill challenges were shifted towards fewer, often more challenging/rewarding ones explicitly to cut down on grind and encourage group play. And even with the emphasis on fewer, higher reward skill challenges, people STILL complained that unlocking skills took too long. The community wanted this. They asked for it.
Vistas aren't content, and the launch game was absolutely full of pointless vistas that didn't really showcase impressive scenes. The modern ones tend to do a far better job at actually showing an expansive look at the most visually impressive parts of the new maps.
Dungeons were abandoned. Because they sucked. Badly. They should have been removed in their entirety, because they give new players a disproportionately bad image of the game experience.
100% of personal story episodes were in at launch because they don't call it personal story anymore. We still get the same kind of instanced story content, and at a higher quality. This point is you being actively disingenuous.
89% of the classes were in the game at launch, and all of those classes have been further expanded upon by advanced class options.
Now here are some actual metrics: 25 maps were available at launch. Another 23 have been added post-launch. Almost doubling the open world maps available. The entire Fractals of the Mists content stream was added post launch. There are currently 20 unique fractals. The entire raids content stream was added post launch. We are currently at 4 raids with a combined 18 boss fights.
An additional class was added.
18 advanced classes were added.
94 new living world story instances as free content via 19 living world episodes.
30 story instances via expansions.
Yeah I think his comment was extremely misleading, especially when considering that there were two paid expansions since launch. People didn't buy these expansions because they were devoid of content.
A lot has been added, but their focus on what they added was different than what was created at launch.
The problem is that asking people to buy additional content doesn't work unless you actually add additional content. The game launched more than 6 1/2 years ago. Meanwhile:
81% of the renown hearts that are in the game now were in at launch. 83% of the waypoints that are in the game now were in at launch. 71% of the skill/hero point challenges that are in the game now were in at launch. 60% of the vistas that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the dungeons that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch. 89% of the classes that are in the game now were in at launch.
That's what you might expect of a game that went into maintenance mode a year after it released. Or maybe it's what you'd expect if the game laid off nearly everyone except customer service at launch and a shoestring team is responsible for all further updates. It's not what you'd expect of 6 1/2 years of additional development by a large team.
The news story said that they had 400 employees and just laid off a bunch of them. Which leads me to ask, what were all of those employees doing? Presumably not making new content for Guild Wars 2 (or Guild Wars 1, for that matter). This is wild speculation, but that's what you might expect if ArenaNet's main focus was on creating some other game entirely and that game got canceled.
This shit is one of the most intellectually dishonest, cringe-inducing comments I've ever read.
Renown hearts were abandoned for much of the game's lifespan because they were considered bottom of the barrel content and actively disliked by a vocal segment of the community. The only reason the game even launched with renown hearts to begin with was because traditional MMO players complained about lack of direction - and caving to those players was a mistake. New renown hearts have since been redesigned to be replayable content instead of one-and-done roadmarks.
The new content contains fewer waypoints as a purposeful design decision. The core Tyria maps contain an excessive number of waypoints, and it leads to the core Tyria maps (and the world as a whole) feeling smaller than it actually is as a direct consequence. Moreover... waypoints aren't content.
Post-launch skill challenges were shifted towards fewer, often more challenging/rewarding ones explicitly to cut down on grind and encourage group play. And even with the emphasis on fewer, higher reward skill challenges, people STILL complained that unlocking skills took too long. The community wanted this. They asked for it.
Vistas aren't content, and the launch game was absolutely full of pointless vistas that didn't really showcase impressive scenes. The modern ones tend to do a far better job at actually showing an expansive look at the most visually impressive parts of the new maps.
Dungeons were abandoned. Because they sucked. Badly. They should have been removed in their entirety, because they give new players a disproportionately bad image of the game experience.
100% of personal story episodes were in at launch because they don't call it personal story anymore. We still get the same kind of instanced story content, and at a higher quality. This point is you being actively disingenuous.
89% of the classes were in the game at launch, and all of those classes have been further expanded upon by advanced class options.
Now here are some actual metrics: 25 maps were available at launch. Another 23 have been added post-launch. Almost doubling the open world maps available. The entire Fractals of the Mists content stream was added post launch. There are currently 20 unique fractals. The entire raids content stream was added post launch. We are currently at 4 raids with a combined 18 boss fights.
An additional class was added.
18 advanced classes were added.
94 new living world story instances as free content via 19 living world episodes.
30 story instances via expansions.
Very well then. I did have some cherry-picking, but if you want a more complete accounting:
55% of the points of interest that are in the game now were in at launch. 68% of the world map sub-zones that are in the game now were in at launch. 70% of the jumping puzzles that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count living world and expansion story instances as the successor to the personal story, then I'll believe your count of 124. In that case, 72% of the story instances that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count raids as the successor to dungeons, then 85% of the raid/dungeon wings that are in the game now were in at launch.
I've excluded fractals from that last count. I didn't play right at launch, but fractals were in before I did pick up the game, so I mistakenly assumed that they were in at launch. From the wiki history, it looks like fractals were added a few months after launch.
Any other major chunks of content that I've missed? I'm tabulating stuff on the wiki, and haven't actually played the game in years. But I have been looking through it considerably in preparation to give the game another go, as I didn't finish everything that was available when I last played.
The problem is that asking people to buy additional content doesn't work unless you actually add additional content. The game launched more than 6 1/2 years ago. Meanwhile:
81% of the renown hearts that are in the game now were in at launch. 83% of the waypoints that are in the game now were in at launch. 71% of the skill/hero point challenges that are in the game now were in at launch. 60% of the vistas that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the dungeons that are in the game now were in at launch. 100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch. 89% of the classes that are in the game now were in at launch.
That's what you might expect of a game that went into maintenance mode a year after it released. Or maybe it's what you'd expect if the game laid off nearly everyone except customer service at launch and a shoestring team is responsible for all further updates. It's not what you'd expect of 6 1/2 years of additional development by a large team.
The news story said that they had 400 employees and just laid off a bunch of them. Which leads me to ask, what were all of those employees doing? Presumably not making new content for Guild Wars 2 (or Guild Wars 1, for that matter). This is wild speculation, but that's what you might expect if ArenaNet's main focus was on creating some other game entirely and that game got canceled.
This shit is one of the most intellectually dishonest, cringe-inducing comments I've ever read.
Renown hearts were abandoned for much of the game's lifespan because they were considered bottom of the barrel content and actively disliked by a vocal segment of the community. The only reason the game even launched with renown hearts to begin with was because traditional MMO players complained about lack of direction - and caving to those players was a mistake. New renown hearts have since been redesigned to be replayable content instead of one-and-done roadmarks.
The new content contains fewer waypoints as a purposeful design decision. The core Tyria maps contain an excessive number of waypoints, and it leads to the core Tyria maps (and the world as a whole) feeling smaller than it actually is as a direct consequence. Moreover... waypoints aren't content.
Post-launch skill challenges were shifted towards fewer, often more challenging/rewarding ones explicitly to cut down on grind and encourage group play. And even with the emphasis on fewer, higher reward skill challenges, people STILL complained that unlocking skills took too long. The community wanted this. They asked for it.
Vistas aren't content, and the launch game was absolutely full of pointless vistas that didn't really showcase impressive scenes. The modern ones tend to do a far better job at actually showing an expansive look at the most visually impressive parts of the new maps.
Dungeons were abandoned. Because they sucked. Badly. They should have been removed in their entirety, because they give new players a disproportionately bad image of the game experience.
100% of personal story episodes were in at launch because they don't call it personal story anymore. We still get the same kind of instanced story content, and at a higher quality. This point is you being actively disingenuous.
89% of the classes were in the game at launch, and all of those classes have been further expanded upon by advanced class options.
Now here are some actual metrics: 25 maps were available at launch. Another 23 have been added post-launch. Almost doubling the open world maps available. The entire Fractals of the Mists content stream was added post launch. There are currently 20 unique fractals. The entire raids content stream was added post launch. We are currently at 4 raids with a combined 18 boss fights.
An additional class was added.
18 advanced classes were added.
94 new living world story instances as free content via 19 living world episodes.
30 story instances via expansions.
Very well then. I did have some cherry-picking, but if you want a more complete accounting:
55% of the points of interest that are in the game now were in at launch. 68% of the world map sub-zones that are in the game now were in at launch. 70% of the jumping puzzles that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count living world and expansion story instances as the successor to the personal story, then I'll believe your count of 124. In that case, 72% of the story instances that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count raids as the successor to dungeons, then 85% of the raid/dungeon wings that are in the game now were in at launch.
I've excluded fractals from that last count. I didn't play right at launch, but fractals were in before I did pick up the game, so I mistakenly assumed that they were in at launch. From the wiki history, it looks like fractals were added a few months after launch.
Any other major chunks of content that I've missed? I'm tabulating stuff on the wiki, and haven't actually played the game in years. But I have been looking through it considerably in preparation to give the game another go, as I didn't finish everything that was available when I last played.
Raids aren't the successor to dungeons, fractals are.
Where do the masteries factor in?
The thing is, you're looking at it from an outside observer. You don't know what you don't know. You said it yourself, you haven't been playing the game, so it's hard to know every new bit of content they've added or changes they've made. Earning skill points now is much different than earning skill points from before. Earning Mastery Points is a big portion of PvE content completion, and a major part of their post HoT plans for progression.
What about the mount system and the different ways to earn them?
I'm all for being critical on ANet for what they have and haven't done, but I do that as someone who has played the game since launch. When I say that they should have released focused Buy to Play content periodically, it comes from someone who has played through the new areas, the new seasons of the living world, and knows that if they would have held living world content off in lieu of a focused expansion like Path of Fire, or Heart of Thorns, every year, they would have been in a better position.
55% of the points of interest that are in the game now were in at launch. 68% of the world map sub-zones that are in the game now were in at launch. 70% of the jumping puzzles that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count living world and expansion story instances as the successor to the personal story, then I'll believe your count of 124. In that case, 72% of the story instances that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count raids as the successor to dungeons, then 85% of the raid/dungeon wings that are in the game now were in at launch.
I've excluded fractals from that last count. I didn't play right at launch, but fractals were in before I did pick up the game, so I mistakenly assumed that they were in at launch. From the wiki history, it looks like fractals were added a few months after launch.
Any other major chunks of content that I've missed? I'm tabulating stuff on the wiki, and haven't actually played the game in years. But I have been looking through it considerably in preparation to give the game another go, as I didn't finish everything that was available when I last played.
Points of interest don't require any effort and don't actually constitute content. They could literally mark anything on the map as a "point of interest" without context, which is precisely what they did throughout much of core Tyria. It's a common nitpick that a majority of the points of interest aren't actually of interest and have no reason for being.
I'm not sure what you're constituting as a "sub-zone." I'm assuming you mean like mini-dungeons akin to Vexa's Lab. In which case, I think the relative lack of new ones is understandable. It's actually difficult to find people willing to do these, and they hardly bring much replayability given their lack of popularity. They exist as more of a cool exploration novelty.
I'll give you the jumping puzzles, however, the newer jumping puzzles do tend to be a lot lengthier and more difficult/complex on average.
Quantity isn't tantamount to quality. The raid content in Guild Wars 2 is actually quite challenging (mostly), and presents a level of engagement that dungeons really don't. The problem with dungeons was that they tended to be farmed quickly and safely through stacking exploits, which made them not only trivial, but also unfun to play. And even when they went out of their way to make a more challenging dungeon, like Aetherpath, the effort didn't lead to a content stream that people played.
Even if you were to compare dungeons/raids based on the length of play, one boss in a raid can take longer than entire runs of certain dungeon paths. Assuming you have a good raid team that can clear a boss on the first try, a single boss fight can take somewhere in the realm of 8-10 minutes, which is comparable to an average speed run of one of the more commonly farmed dungeon paths. Put together, each raid wing takes far longer than a dungeon path. (And of course that's ignoring the length of time it takes to train on a boss to make progress. From my subjective experience, it tends to take my raid group anywhere from 3-5 weeks of 2-3 hour Friday night raid runs to beat a new boss, and it took my first raid group 2-3 months of such runs to beat the Vale Guardian back when raids were new).
Fractals are more comparable to dungeons. The length of fractals varies wildly, but I find that each fractal is basically equivalent to a dungeon path in length. And these do tend to be more engaging/better designed than the dungeons were.
As far as other new content streams....
Well, there have been 10 new world bosses at my count, and 2 reworked Core Tyria world bosses.
So let's assume that everything you're saying about newer content being better is true. Does that really contradict my argument that giving away 2/3 of the content for free and then asking people to pay for the other 1/3 isn't likely to work very well? Even if the 1/3 is secretly better than the rest and you don't find that out until you pay for it and try it?
So let's assume that everything you're saying about newer content being better is true. Does that really contradict my argument that giving away 2/3 of the content for free and then asking people to pay for the other 1/3 isn't likely to work very well? Even if the 1/3 is secretly better than the rest and you don't find that out until you pay for it and try it?
That I won't argue. Their expansion model hasn't been optimal.
But it's also not uncomparable to something like Runescape's payment model. They have a large free to play trial content, and then set aside the rest behind a subscription barrier. Seems to have worked out fine for them.
As far as development time vs. quantity goes, keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 was announced 7 years prior to launch. Meaning that it's launch content development timeframe is not only roughly equivalent to its post launch window, but was likely better funded as well.
The game's core mechanics are and have always been its problem, in order to capture a larger audience? The lack of trinity, making a LOT of encounters virtually the same, or handled the same. The few abilities available to the player during combat. How you spend a lonnnnnnnnng time without what makes or breaks your class? Say you play a Ranger and you really like the Shortbow. You're in for quite a surprise, my friend. This all relates to the core mechanics argument. Why can't Shortbow work later on? Cause you have to pick 2 weapons and shortbow just doesn't have a second weapon to synergize with, where the combo would be as amazing as another type of build. Also, let's not get into Elite specs and how they completely MAKE some classes, and are borderline irrelevant for others.
So no matter how much more content you slap on, or what that content costs: People quit for a reason in the first place: The game's "innovative" core mechanics. It's really funny because the things I can easily think of, that would turn off a lot of players, are "of their own innovative making". On the other hand, the thing I know some people never stopped playing for, WvW, is from DAoC.
Conclusion: Sometimes it's good to borrow if you can't make anything right yourself
So let's assume that everything you're saying about newer content being better is true. Does that really contradict my argument that giving away 2/3 of the content for free and then asking people to pay for the other 1/3 isn't likely to work very well? Even if the 1/3 is secretly better than the rest and you don't find that out until you pay for it and try it?
I look at it like this... the living world is kind of a weird way for them to try to facilitate revenue.
If we were playing GW2 on a subscription basis.. maybe they might have something... but that's not the case.
Think of it like trying to watch a season of a show, but instead of an episode every week, you get a new episode, what, every couple months? With each release, they have a new area, where they basically rationalize the areas alongside the focus of the story.
There are rarely any additional, game changing features added, a new mount here, some interesting additional mastery sets there. In terms of month to month content, it paints a picture of the same old content tropes introduced on the new expansions, without much of a focus on creating interesting content and more along the lines of chain blasting content out on a deadline.
Take that same content, and focus it into a single overarching story... and it goes from being a once-every-couple-months experience, to a single, cohesive story that players can binge, without the immediate requirements to make the content available immediately.
They kind of shoot themselves in the foot too, because they lock out that living world content if you don't log into it, and require you to pay for it. But I'd make the argument that most players don't. There's no reason to... the story picks up wherever you are. There's no reason to go back and do it... players already know what happens afterwards because they just played it, and it just hurts them more by locking it away as it turns into wasted content.
100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch.
This is misleading, as the "Living Story" is the continuation of the "Personal Story"
But there was 0% Living Story at Launch as there is now.
They Added Elite Spec. Mounts for PvE Mounts for WvW Mastery Lines - For Several Different Game modes, not just the Expansions Reward Tracks for PvP and WvW. A full new Set of Legendary Weapons. Legendary Trinkets Legendary Armor Raids New Fractal Levels Edge of the Mists - for WvW a Whole new WvW Map Several PvP Maps a Whole new PvP Game Mode Seasonal Festivals Mad King Wintersday Adventure Box Queens Jubilee
So they have been kinda busy.
I even ran Questionnaire on their Old Forums, and asked what players would pay for.
Damn near 30% said they would spend money to have better festivals.. other top contenders were more Living Story and More Dungeons.. and the ability to kill Braham.
I admit, they really dropped the ball canceling Dungeons, they also didn't do themselves any favors putting in Raids.
But they have been busy.. and have definitely put in enough work to be asking for money for it.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Just give me an expansion with a unique class and they've got me.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Just give me an expansion with a unique class and they've got me.
You mean like Revenant?
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Just give me an expansion with a unique class and they've got me.
You mean like Revenant?
Yes, I love playing a new class in a new expansion. As long as the new map dosen't look like HoT.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Comments
Concur 100%. The main saving grace for me as a hardcore PvPer in GW2 was its combat and ES. The games pvp scene is really lacking and ES keep things exciting and fun. I already swapped back to WoW for its pvp content, but if they cut ES and continue to have the pvp community be second rate, i probably will not go back...
Witty & Wicked
Which is kinda funny, because when I started . which was like 3 years after launch, I suggested that as opposed to giving it away for free in little bits they made Living Story paid content, and sold it in larger blocks and bundles, and used that to replace an expansion plan, but also used that to expand the game, like a quarterly "Expansion", just, smaller blocks, but if you add them up, they make a full expansion to the game. The little shits on the forums lost their minds so hard, they reported every post I made.
And while, I think their first Expansion, HoT, was a catastrophic mistake, that could have been caused by waiting too long to finally make it. If they had followed your plan of having a series of Expansions planned so they could put one out every year, it would have gone much better.
At the same time, given their development, I don't really think they had a long term plan in place.
I'd bet like GW1, that behind the scenes they were working on GW3, to replace GW2, and just never said anything to keep the hype on GW2. Which, this huge shut down and whole mess was that venture taking too long to develop.
Announcing Guild Wars 2 Battle Arena!!!!
Join 100 players in a fight to the death in a giant coliseum filled with danger, traps, and excitement!
I appreciate that there are positive, upbeat posts about why we should still care about GW2 but let's face it - the ship is going down. Now all I am waiting to hear is that they get bought out by Gamigo and have more exciting cash shop items...
I uninstalled GW2 yesterday. It's a real shame in general. I have no idea what they could have done better; I think its not a problem with the game but with the market. Players are changing and the way they consume MMOs are changing too.
81% of the renown hearts that are in the game now were in at launch.
83% of the waypoints that are in the game now were in at launch.
71% of the skill/hero point challenges that are in the game now were in at launch.
60% of the vistas that are in the game now were in at launch.
100% of the dungeons that are in the game now were in at launch.
100% of the personal story episodes that are in the game now were in at launch.
89% of the classes that are in the game now were in at launch.
That's what you might expect of a game that went into maintenance mode a year after it released. Or maybe it's what you'd expect if the game laid off nearly everyone except customer service at launch and a shoestring team is responsible for all further updates. It's not what you'd expect of 6 1/2 years of additional development by a large team.
The news story said that they had 400 employees and just laid off a bunch of them. Which leads me to ask, what were all of those employees doing? Presumably not making new content for Guild Wars 2 (or Guild Wars 1, for that matter). This is wild speculation, but that's what you might expect if ArenaNet's main focus was on creating some other game entirely and that game got canceled.
Renown hearts were abandoned for much of the game's lifespan because they were considered bottom of the barrel content and actively disliked by a vocal segment of the community. The only reason the game even launched with renown hearts to begin with was because traditional MMO players complained about lack of direction - and caving to those players was a mistake. New renown hearts have since been redesigned to be replayable content instead of one-and-done roadmarks.
The new content contains fewer waypoints as a purposeful design decision. The core Tyria maps contain an excessive number of waypoints, and it leads to the core Tyria maps (and the world as a whole) feeling smaller than it actually is as a direct consequence. Moreover... waypoints aren't content.
Post-launch skill challenges were shifted towards fewer, often more challenging/rewarding ones explicitly to cut down on grind and encourage group play. And even with the emphasis on fewer, higher reward skill challenges, people STILL complained that unlocking skills took too long. The community wanted this. They asked for it.
Vistas aren't content, and the launch game was absolutely full of pointless vistas that didn't really showcase impressive scenes. The modern ones tend to do a far better job at actually showing an expansive look at the most visually impressive parts of the new maps.
Dungeons were abandoned. Because they sucked. Badly. They should have been removed in their entirety, because they give new players a disproportionately bad image of the game experience.
100% of personal story episodes were in at launch because they don't call it personal story anymore. We still get the same kind of instanced story content, and at a higher quality. This point is you being actively disingenuous.
89% of the classes were in the game at launch, and all of those classes have been further expanded upon by advanced class options.
Now here are some actual metrics:
25 maps were available at launch. Another 23 have been added post-launch. Almost doubling the open world maps available.
The entire Fractals of the Mists content stream was added post launch. There are currently 20 unique fractals.
The entire raids content stream was added post launch. We are currently at 4 raids with a combined 18 boss fights.
An additional class was added.
18 advanced classes were added.
94 new living world story instances as free content via 19 living world episodes.
30 story instances via expansions.
A lot has been added, but their focus on what they added was different than what was created at launch.
55% of the points of interest that are in the game now were in at launch.
68% of the world map sub-zones that are in the game now were in at launch.
70% of the jumping puzzles that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count living world and expansion story instances as the successor to the personal story, then I'll believe your count of 124. In that case, 72% of the story instances that are in the game now were in at launch.
If you want to count raids as the successor to dungeons, then 85% of the raid/dungeon wings that are in the game now were in at launch.
I've excluded fractals from that last count. I didn't play right at launch, but fractals were in before I did pick up the game, so I mistakenly assumed that they were in at launch. From the wiki history, it looks like fractals were added a few months after launch.
Any other major chunks of content that I've missed? I'm tabulating stuff on the wiki, and haven't actually played the game in years. But I have been looking through it considerably in preparation to give the game another go, as I didn't finish everything that was available when I last played.
Where do the masteries factor in?
The thing is, you're looking at it from an outside observer. You don't know what you don't know. You said it yourself, you haven't been playing the game, so it's hard to know every new bit of content they've added or changes they've made. Earning skill points now is much different than earning skill points from before. Earning Mastery Points is a big portion of PvE content completion, and a major part of their post HoT plans for progression.
What about the mount system and the different ways to earn them?
I'm all for being critical on ANet for what they have and haven't done, but I do that as someone who has played the game since launch. When I say that they should have released focused Buy to Play content periodically, it comes from someone who has played through the new areas, the new seasons of the living world, and knows that if they would have held living world content off in lieu of a focused expansion like Path of Fire, or Heart of Thorns, every year, they would have been in a better position.
I'm not sure what you're constituting as a "sub-zone." I'm assuming you mean like mini-dungeons akin to Vexa's Lab. In which case, I think the relative lack of new ones is understandable. It's actually difficult to find people willing to do these, and they hardly bring much replayability given their lack of popularity. They exist as more of a cool exploration novelty.
I'll give you the jumping puzzles, however, the newer jumping puzzles do tend to be a lot lengthier and more difficult/complex on average.
Quantity isn't tantamount to quality. The raid content in Guild Wars 2 is actually quite challenging (mostly), and presents a level of engagement that dungeons really don't. The problem with dungeons was that they tended to be farmed quickly and safely through stacking exploits, which made them not only trivial, but also unfun to play. And even when they went out of their way to make a more challenging dungeon, like Aetherpath, the effort didn't lead to a content stream that people played.
Even if you were to compare dungeons/raids based on the length of play, one boss in a raid can take longer than entire runs of certain dungeon paths. Assuming you have a good raid team that can clear a boss on the first try, a single boss fight can take somewhere in the realm of 8-10 minutes, which is comparable to an average speed run of one of the more commonly farmed dungeon paths. Put together, each raid wing takes far longer than a dungeon path. (And of course that's ignoring the length of time it takes to train on a boss to make progress. From my subjective experience, it tends to take my raid group anywhere from 3-5 weeks of 2-3 hour Friday night raid runs to beat a new boss, and it took my first raid group 2-3 months of such runs to beat the Vale Guardian back when raids were new).
Fractals are more comparable to dungeons. The length of fractals varies wildly, but I find that each fractal is basically equivalent to a dungeon path in length. And these do tend to be more engaging/better designed than the dungeons were.
As far as other new content streams....
Well, there have been 10 new world bosses at my count, and 2 reworked Core Tyria world bosses.
But it's also not uncomparable to something like Runescape's payment model. They have a large free to play trial content, and then set aside the rest behind a subscription barrier. Seems to have worked out fine for them.
As far as development time vs. quantity goes, keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 was announced 7 years prior to launch. Meaning that it's launch content development timeframe is not only roughly equivalent to its post launch window, but was likely better funded as well.
The game's core mechanics are and have always been its problem, in order to capture a larger audience? The lack of trinity, making a LOT of encounters virtually the same, or handled the same. The few abilities available to the player during combat. How you spend a lonnnnnnnnng time without what makes or breaks your class? Say you play a Ranger and you really like the Shortbow. You're in for quite a surprise, my friend. This all relates to the core mechanics argument. Why can't Shortbow work later on? Cause you have to pick 2 weapons and shortbow just doesn't have a second weapon to synergize with, where the combo would be as amazing as another type of build. Also, let's not get into Elite specs and how they completely MAKE some classes, and are borderline irrelevant for others.
So no matter how much more content you slap on, or what that content costs: People quit for a reason in the first place: The game's "innovative" core mechanics. It's really funny because the things I can easily think of, that would turn off a lot of players, are "of their own innovative making". On the other hand, the thing I know some people never stopped playing for, WvW, is from DAoC.
Conclusion: Sometimes it's good to borrow if you can't make anything right yourself
If we were playing GW2 on a subscription basis.. maybe they might have something... but that's not the case.
Think of it like trying to watch a season of a show, but instead of an episode every week, you get a new episode, what, every couple months? With each release, they have a new area, where they basically rationalize the areas alongside the focus of the story.
There are rarely any additional, game changing features added, a new mount here, some interesting additional mastery sets there. In terms of month to month content, it paints a picture of the same old content tropes introduced on the new expansions, without much of a focus on creating interesting content and more along the lines of chain blasting content out on a deadline.
Take that same content, and focus it into a single overarching story... and it goes from being a once-every-couple-months experience, to a single, cohesive story that players can binge, without the immediate requirements to make the content available immediately.
They kind of shoot themselves in the foot too, because they lock out that living world content if you don't log into it, and require you to pay for it. But I'd make the argument that most players don't. There's no reason to... the story picks up wherever you are. There's no reason to go back and do it... players already know what happens afterwards because they just played it, and it just hurts them more by locking it away as it turns into wasted content.
It's just a very weird system...
Yeah am going back aswell , haha
But there was 0% Living Story at Launch as there is now.
They Added
Elite Spec.
Mounts for PvE
Mounts for WvW
Mastery Lines - For Several Different Game modes, not just the Expansions
Reward Tracks for PvP and WvW.
A full new Set of Legendary Weapons.
Legendary Trinkets
Legendary Armor
Raids
New Fractal Levels
Edge of the Mists - for WvW
a Whole new WvW Map
Several PvP Maps
a Whole new PvP Game Mode
Seasonal Festivals
Mad King
Wintersday
Adventure Box
Queens Jubilee
So they have been kinda busy.
I even ran Questionnaire on their Old Forums, and asked what players would pay for.
Damn near 30% said they would spend money to have better festivals.. other top contenders were more Living Story and More Dungeons.. and the ability to kill Braham.
I admit, they really dropped the ball canceling Dungeons, they also didn't do themselves any favors putting in Raids.
But they have been busy.. and have definitely put in enough work to be asking for money for it.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey