First of all, I suck at creating short/to the point titles (let alone short blog entries). :p
I came across a recent video made from a long time Guild Wars 2 (GW2) player and content creator outlining their top 5 reasons for why they are quitting.
He mentions having at least 4K hours in the game which is a pretty significant amount of game time. For contrast, I logged around 2K hours in Diablo III by 2014 (I played much less frequently after Reaper of Souls until I quit in November 2015). Devilian, I can’t really say exactly but that was well over 4K hours across Korea, Thai, and NA servers. ArcheAge, I logged around 1K hours. TERA, I’m currently over 3K hours, and I have around 700 hours in MapleStory 2 (though I stopped playing before the level 70 expansion; I plan to resume later). I already know that I will end up playing GW2 for at least 1K hours given my current pacing.
But it’s some of the reasons stated in the video that made me want to comment on this. Generally speaking, you could replace the game name with most any other (along with the game specific problems that one has with it), and it will come across as applicable to that title. The issues that players have in most of these games are pretty common especially once you’ve racked up this amount of time in just one particular game. It goes up by a magnitude for the more hardcore end game player though. It is easy to get jaded; I admit this often when it comes to the games that I play (which is why I constantly rail against some of the design choices in TERA and before that, Devilian, Diablo III and to a lesser extent, StarCraft II; different complaints since it is an RTS). It’s partly why I try not to get fully involved in the end game (especially for MMO’s).
I soloed most of my way through Devilian (NA) and was always a tier below end game gearing. Likewise, I’m slightly less than a tier below end game gearing in TERA for my main character and will end up falling at least two tiers behind when the new gear system is launched towards the end of the year). Playing the way I do always gives me something to strive for though where I make small dents in progression by just playing (doing the activities I enjoy). But this doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the problems (I play the way I do to avoid being dragged daily into those game design issues).
The perception differences between new and veteran player is key since I myself am in the former where I am experiencing that facet (in GW2) of everything being fresh. However, I am very cognizant of this fact and have very specific reasons for why I ended up settling on GW2 as my alternative game to play (exploration is core to the open world design). That exploration hook is very strong for me (in any game) but I am also under no illusion that the end game is the same (I actually have no desire to go deep into GW2’s end game). I’ll be satisfied completing my characters personal story, both expansions story lines while also exploring every nook and cranny that was purposely designed, and ticking off achievements and masteries. That is still a ton of entertainment hours. I’m currently at 52% world completion on my revenant and see that most of the remaining places are level 50-80 (with parts of those locations tied to the stories in each respective expansion).
I do know that once I hit closer to 95% completion, there is going to be that point where I personally won’t have much of anything new (non end game related) to do (and where my actual player engagement will begin dropping). I’m fine with that because this is exactly what I signed up for when deciding to purchase both expansions (I could’ve just settle on playing the core game for free since that is pretty much the available content while leveling to 80). Because of how I am playing and my personal objectives, I’m not going to engage in the whole feedback loop with some of the issues that I do also see (like most vanity cosmetics/skins being primarily acquirable from the cash shop). If ArenaNet drops a new expansion, I’ll probably purchase it.
But I do get the frustrations that long time players of any title often feels. It seems feedback falls on deaf ears (where communication from the developer and publisher is lacking). With Korean designed MMO’s that are published in other regions, I expect this. But it does not hurt to try to effect change. With En Masse Entertainment (TERA NA), I really don’t bother (they’ve gone downhill from a competence level point of view since 2016 where it would be a waste of time). When it came to Blizzard Entertainment games though, I expected a bit more consistency and transparency in their communications. Some teams were better than others; Diablo III’s was consistently inconsistent (where on several occasions, they admitted to needing to do a better job); this one from 2017 and the most recent one (there were other forum postings similar to the 2017 ones that had similar mea culpas which never amounted to much change).
With ArenaNet, they are a western studio that was acquired by NCSoft (one of the larger Korean studios with various worldwide subsidiaries) so they should be able to do a better job with their community. However, lot of game companies have often times found transparent communications being more problematic than helpful (where the community takes everything as verbatim and end up derailing actual constructive discussion with concern troll postings (everything from ad hominem attacks to memes). I personally don’t have any history with how ArenaNet handles things (only from what I’ve read or heard in videos such as this) but can see it’s not much different on the PR front. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss (and I really am taking this approach where I am not concerning myself with the company related stuff for this game).
Unsurprisingly, long time GW2 players (who have put in a lot of hours) have experienced all of the common issues that happens to most every single game; bugs, exploits, miscommunication, failure to communicate, bad designs, lack of content, etc. Basically, this comes across as “par for the course” where if you stick around in any game for too long, whatever initial facade or illusion that previously existed is going to give way to the flaws. This is why I tend to play the way I do since I know there is no specific game out there which matches all of my personal criteria (game world aesthetics, combat, non-combat activities), while being mostly problem free. Likewise, the best thing any player can do is to step away from that game (like the above) when it is clear that the enjoyment is no longer even there for the parts which they did like.
