Guild Wars 2

As in every other new MMO there appears to be a large portion of the playerbase that feels that there is not enough content at the “Endgame”. I’m confident that ANet is doing their very best to fix this for those players, but I’ve an idea that might be a great solution for that issue – and yet another!

Many of my guildmates and a whole lot of other proud Guildwars 2 players claim to miss the concept of Raids from other MMOs. Epic, large scaled dungeons involving a lot of players and specific tactics while rewarding those players with particularly great rewards (bare with me) while giving them an equally great challenge. The players felt that they where part of something epic and with the difficulty cranked up, dozens of players relying on each other, a huge boss-encounter and finally the glorious loot made it a tense and exciting experience!

The GW2 dungeons are of a 5-player format and for good reasons! While easily organized, it also gives the player a sense of responsibility since they’re no longer a face in a crowd.
But what is there in the PvE Endgame other than Dungeons? Fractals of the Mists is a great addition, but it’s yet another Dungeon – With a twist though.
Laurels are a sign that ANet are trying to make the lower-level content viable which is yet a great addition, but we’ve done that and (subjectively), it’s not enough.
What about Legendarys and other expensive items? Everyone isn’t up for the time required and what do you do when you’re done?
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To the point, I think that Raids was a great way for other MMOs to get a good and satisfying Endgame. GW2 isn’t a “Traditional MMO” and if this game is going to get raids, they need to follow the philosophy of the game and of the developers:

>The raids themself would have to be optional for everyone. The loot would have to be of cosmetic value which means that ANet would need to make alot more items to keep people interested (Exotics. Rare with some tweaking of the Fine Transm. Stones?). A randomized loot might be the way to go since it “always” keeps people interested, compared to the Tokens from most Dungeons.

>How do you avoid the issues that the 5-player format prevents? I’ve always been part of a Guild in GW2, all with an actively used voice-communication (TS, Vent etc.). This is a godsend when organizing a group and generally prevents the issues.
If you’re not with a Guild and in a PUG, the issue remains. A solution could be found in scaling to the number of players that are participating. Maybe all the PUGs chooses a format that’s somewhere between 7-11 players while a Guild would like to play with a larger number of players.

>The game isn’t supposed to start at level 80, but that doesn’t makes Ascalonian Catacombs any less an endgame experience. The Raids would probably be best of it they didn’t require a level 80 character. With proper scaling (which is being refined), it’s not even an issue.

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I’m not a game developer, nor a game designer and I don’t know the consequences of drastic changes like this one would have on the game. English is my second language so there will be grammatical errors and such. I do not like the Traditional MMOs and think that Guildwars 2 did a magnificent job evolving MMORPGs. (Just trying to prevent some comments)

Look around a bit, there are tons of posts from casual players claiming that dungeons are too hard, too many people required for a party (yeah 5 is too many now) and takes too much of their time. They demand solo dungeons, they feel they are entitled to see this content without meeting any requirements. This would happen to your raids as well, they will cry it’s too hard to get so many people, and that they NEED to see this content simply because they bought the game. Current dungeons also only give out cosmetic items, yet they just want to be able to see them and admire the scenic dungeon interior without actually playing them as they were intended to be played.

You used the R word. Hope you got a brolly for the impending storm.

GW had larger group content that were more fun, IMO, than your regular kill boss / move on linear raids. They were more like large areas than linking corridors, with quest chains that sent you all over the map.

Slaver’s Exile
Fissure of Woe
The Underworld
Sorrow’s Furnace

That being said, they said they’d be introducing Guild Missions, so who knows what that will entail?

You lost me in your title but I clicked just in case I was wrong but you again lost me before the end of the first sentence. Your idea won’t be received well by players, I would like to point out;

Example A:

As in every other new MMO

Example B:

Raids was a great way for other MMOs

Raids are not in GW2, GW2 does not have raids, GW2 is not every other MMO.

TheDaiBish.9735:

You used the R word. Hope you got a brolly for the impending storm.

GW had larger group content that were more fun, IMO, than your regular kill boss / move on linear raids. They were more like large areas than linking corridors, with quest chains that sent you all over the map.

Slaver’s Exile
Fissure of Woe
The Underworld
Sorrow’s Furnace

That being said, they said they’d be introducing Guild Missions, so who knows what that will entail?

You forgot ursogs warren and the deep. They where the closest thing to a raid Guild Wars ever got too. I only ever did the deep once. As you had to have the right builds for every class or you would fail. They are (as far as I know) the only content in the game you can not do with hero’s.

Turial.1293:

You lost me in your title but I clicked just in case I was wrong but you again lost me before the end of the first sentence. Your idea won’t be received well by players, I would like to point out;

Example A:

As in every other new MMO

Example B:

Raids was a great way for other MMOs

Raids are not in GW2, GW2 does not have raids, GW2 is not every other MMO.

If you would’ve read the whole post, you would’ve seen that I set GW2 apart from the Traditional MMOs and praise the Guildwars 2 philosophy as an evolution of the MMO genre.

Doomguard.5094:

Look around a bit, there are tons of posts from casual players claiming that dungeons are too hard, too many people required for a party (yeah 5 is too many now) and takes too much of their time. They demand solo dungeons, they feel they are entitled to see this content without meeting any requirements. This would happen to your raids as well, they will cry it’s too hard to get so many people, and that they NEED to see this content simply because they bought the game. Current dungeons also only give out cosmetic items, yet they just want to be able to see them and admire the scenic dungeon interior without actually playing them as they were intended to be played.

If there’s a reasonable amount of players that think Dungeons are too difficult or intimidating, then that’s something I didn’t know about. If it’s a big issue then it would indeed be a good idea to make more content accessible for those players. Maybe this could be solved by lowering the difficulty of Story Modes and adding them to these Raids.

I do think that this is somewhat off-topic and rather a “global” problem, but I’m sure that ANet can solve it if necessary!

Phadde.7362:

Turial.1293:

You lost me in your title but I clicked just in case I was wrong but you again lost me before the end of the first sentence. Your idea won’t be received well by players, I would like to point out;

Example A:

As in every other new MMO

Example B:

Raids was a great way for other MMOs

Raids are not in GW2, GW2 does not have raids, GW2 is not every other MMO.

If you would’ve read the whole post, you would’ve seen that I set GW2 apart from the Traditional MMOs and praise the Guildwars 2 philosophy as an evolution of the MMO genre.

GW2 sets itself apart, which is why I have to ask do you want to add raids (another games idea) to this? How can it continue to evolve if it just copies the tired old formats of what came before it?

Phadde.7362:

Doomguard.5094:

Look around a bit, there are tons of posts from casual players claiming that dungeons are too hard, too many people required for a party (yeah 5 is too many now) and takes too much of their time. They demand solo dungeons, they feel they are entitled to see this content without meeting any requirements. This would happen to your raids as well, they will cry it’s too hard to get so many people, and that they NEED to see this content simply because they bought the game. Current dungeons also only give out cosmetic items, yet they just want to be able to see them and admire the scenic dungeon interior without actually playing them as they were intended to be played.

If there’s a reasonable amount of players that think Dungeons are too difficult or intimidating, then that’s something I didn’t know about.

If you spent only a few days on the forums you would know that many players find dungeons difficult without stronger parties or guild mates to help. The general PUG group does not cut it in all instances. I did not need to read every bit of your post to realise what you were asking for, others have asked for it, most don’t want it.

Turial.1293:

GW2 sets itself apart, which is why I have to ask do you want to add raids (another games idea) to this? How can it continue to evolve if it just copies the tired old formats of what came before it?

GW2 in itself isn’t entirely innovative, rather it has taken things from other games and attempted to polish them, in some cases succeeding, and others still needing work: World Bosses, Dungeons, Leveling, Exploration, Dynamic Events, Dailies.

That’s what evolution is: strengthening parts of something. Not chucking things away and starting from scratch.

I think the majority of people have a stigma against raids because they’re also usually associated with the gear treadmill:

> Raids = Content
> Treadmill = System

They’re not necessarily one in the same.

GW had ‘raids’, which IMO were way more fun that the ones you find in games such as WoW. Instead of a linear path, these were massive areas with multiple places, sometimes multiple levels, and quest chains that took you all over the place which you had to do before confronting the final boss.

Elite dungeons you mean such as FoW/UW still had the same party size as everywhere else and these were the end-game. If you mean Urgoz/Deep where you had a party of 12 well all I can say is how many people were playing it often after 6 months of its release? They became dead areas due to the hassle of finding full teams for it, even guilds had trouble keeping players interested in doing it.

Turial.1293:

GW2 sets itself apart, which is why I have to ask do you want to add raids (another games idea) to this? How can it continue to evolve if it just copies the tired old formats of what came before it?

Every game is influenced and build upon earlier titles. It doesn’t matter how innovative an FPS might be, it’s base mechanics will always be heavily build upon games such as Doom 1. This is the Game industry, evolving genres. This is what it always have been. Guildwars 2 is a breath of fresh air in the MMORPG genre and a great evolution. None the less, it’s build upon earlier titles. The main thing that Guildwars 2 does different is it’s philosophy, but there’s still alot of old features that’s very common to the genre, such as:

dungeons, loot, bosses, (some) grinding, leveling up, maximum level, expansions, minipets, races, classes (professions), different colored tiers of item quality, an in game auction system, capital city for every race, “Traits”, the classic clothy, leather & plate armor-tiers, emotes, racial dances, character customization, armor upgrades, crafting, the idea of different zones. . . etc.

Guildwars 2 is not evolving by revamping the whole genre, it’s adding new features and evolving the old ones by it’s great philosophy.

Turial.1293:

If you spent only a few days on the forums you would know that many players find dungeons difficult without stronger parties or guild mates to help. The general PUG group does not cut it in all instances. I did not need to read every bit of your post to realise what you were asking for, others have asked for it, most don’t want it.

I’ve already answered such a question, you quoted a part of that answere.

Turial.1293:

You lost me in your title but I clicked just in case I was wrong but you again lost me before the end of the first sentence. Your idea won’t be received well by players, I would like to point out;

Example A:

As in every other new MMO

Example B:

Raids was a great way for other MMOs

Raids are not in GW2, GW2 does not have raids, GW2 is not every other MMO.

And yet, it is Every MMO. Dungeons. Dungeons that do not allow their much promoted dynamic encounter system. Dungeons that are already seen as the only meaningful endgame content and the only rewarding content. Dungeons that are already escalating, adding gatekeeper mechanics (agony) and so Dungeon required gear. Already. What is going to happen in a year? We are going to see Guild Dungeons very soon I think. Those, undoubtably, will ramp up and become Tiered.

Meanwhile, comparable level 80 content, goes undone. People guest to get to Karma vendors in Orr. They pushed DE as innovation.. eh not really, but they indeed took it to new levels. And they are letting it wither and die, apparently, in favor of a VERY “everymmo” dungeon Progression. And with that.. will come Gear Progression. It’s already happening.

I predict Raids will come. Not called raids, perhaps not identical, but content requiring 20 players happening in, a Dungeon, of course. And every player partaking in that content will be expected to be in “the gear” needed for the Tier.

Also, someone will mention.. but GW1 had dungeons. Yes, they did. And only a very few were considered Elite. No “non elite” dungeon was undoable with Heros/Hench, and later Heros, and many “elite” areas could be done the same way. No dungeon was gated, there was no “gate” besides infusion, easily applied to any gear. With Vanquishing, HM, enhancements to PvE at no time in GW1 were Elite dungeons the only endgame option.

There was no gear beyond what the normal game offered EVER needed for any Dungeon.

If you toss out EoTN, the dungeon count drops drastically as well. In the short period GW2 has been up the dungeon count has increased substantially, wonder what it will be in 2-3 years.

IMO.. Fractals introduction put the kiss of death on “GW2 is not every MMO”