Guild Wars 2

Hello, my name is Light Guardian Jack and I’m one of the leaders of TTS, I’ve talked with the other leaders about what we would want from a Raiding system and I’ve come up with this proposal. To me, Raiding has always existed in Guild Wars 2 just in the form of Tequatl, the Triple Trouble Wurm, and even some living world events in Season 1. I would like new tools to allow more players to experience the same Raids as us and to serve as a platform so that Anet can deliver new content for all the community who desires quality High-Player count experiences.

Proposal Overview
An expansion of tools to allow current “Mega-Organized Events” and old Living Story events to become Raids to allow more inclusive play.

Goal of Proposal
-Provide more tools so that old “Mega-Organized events” can be organized easier.
-Allow for a variety of content to be presented to the player without too much work for the Developers
-Reduce the barriers that normally block most players from Raids.
-Revive old classic living world events fans of the game are screaming for a return.

Proposal Functionality
-Guilds would be allowed to create their own separate instances for either certain current world events (Mega-Organized Events) or old living story events (Marionette, Tower of nightmares, Scarlet Hologram fight), this could use the current “Guild World Event” Spawner.
-This instance would allow player up to a certain cap (15-150 depending on the raid)(could have multiple sizes for the same raid).
-Once inside, if the Guild does not have enough players to fill the instance, they may use the LFG tool to allow players to connect directly into the map from the LFG tool itself (there might need to be restrictions on how to control who gets into the raid but there are several different ways you could do this).

Associated Risks
-Even with the LFG tool, players may find organizing with other players to be difficult if they are in a small guild.
-Recycled content may not feel “difficult” enough to satisfy hardcore raiders.
-Players may abandon Open-World events in favor of instanced ones and thus alienating those who can’t network as well.

I believe that such a system would give developers the freedom to develop a variety of raiding content of various player counts without a lot of restrictions and would address many of the issues players have with raiding in other games and in this current game. The Triple Trouble world event is fun but often hear how players are sick of doing the “overflow dance” to try to get into an organized instance and I hardly blame them. Instead of abandoning old content, build this new content onto of the old raiding system and old raiding communities to allow us to include even more players.

I also personally would enjoy many old Season 1 living story events to return as revamped Raids. The Tower of Nightmares could return as an epic 10-15 raid where you have to clear all the bosses to climb up the tower, the Battle of the Breachmaker could be revamped into a small 25 man raid with everyone split up fighting the 3 color knights in the beginning and coming together to fight scarlet and the Marionette could return. The possibilities are endless once we break apart from this 5 man dungeon or 150 man open world box.

I also want to point out the “Smaller” or “locked scaling” instances of the existing raid Mega-Bosses (Tequatl and Triple trouble) would be possible under this system and every raid new and old could in theory have multiple raid sizes with scaling in order to accommodate multiple sizes of guilds.

I believe that such a system would encourage more players of various skill levels to have a greater variety of content to indulge in with minimum barriers to entry.

Woot! Woot!

Excited to see what this thread will bring.

Huzzah! We’re off and running! (Yay TTS). I have to leave any second now, darn Tuesdays, so I’ll hold off on any proposals I might have until I have time to write them.

Meanwhile, I think the TTS proposal above is a strong way to modify current content. However, I hope we’ll be brainstorming brand new content that would come under the Guild Raid heading.

I think implementing Raiding will be a great step forward for GW2.

Saying that I do also believe that there needs to be progress (ie. other game have the gear treadmill)

Although the gear treadmill is damaging to economy and social play, the same idea can be implemented to fit our game.

Agony is currently used in Fractals and creates a great mechanic that can increase difficulty and provide a challenge.

I therefore propose that any future raids and dungeons have a sort of agony stat treadmill, giving the player to continuously increase their agony resistance as harder content is introduced and as harder modes of any raid or dungeon are released.

(Content and final rewards also need to be decent, this is what will bring the players, also a CHALLENGE!)

Good Luck to Anet, I believe in you, you can pull this off and it can be amazing!
(think GW! = UW and FOW=Pathway to Success)

Before I go into suggestions on how I would like raids implemented I wanted to post some links that may give people who have never done any form of raid a brief tutorial of traditional ones (spoilers for Log Horizon and FFXIV). Just so they are not out of the loop. I’m using anime as opposed to actual in game videos as its clearer and more fun.
For why raids should not be open world: watch the first 10 minutes of this.
http://www.animefreak.tv/watch/hack-quantum-episode-1-online
For a brief overview of the basics of a raid: watch the first minute of this:
http://www.animefreak.tv/watch/log-horizon-2nd-season-episode-2-online
For a more detailed overview of a raid including party roles and teamwork expectations: watch the first 10 minutes of this:
http://www.animefreak.tv/watch/log-horizon-2nd-season-episode-3-online
For an example of a mechanically impressive boss that would fit into a raids style: (the video doesn’t show it the best)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csDO9seFLdM
It’s The Ministrel’s Ballad: Ultima’s bane if someone wants to look at the complete mechanics.

How are they different?
One question I’m sure is going to come up is how these will be any different that WOW’s raids, here are how I see it being different:
-Guaranteed rewards, next to no RNG drops (will be outlined in my later proposals)
-Not vertical progression rewards (i.e no stat increases).
-No lockout timers, you want to try and run it daily by all means go ahead.
-Only a minor entry gate (Thinking Dungeon master or 30 AR)
-Size I see GW2 raids coming in 2 sizes, 10man (half raid) and 20man (full raid) I don’t see 40 man raids due to the shear logistical issues.
-Time they could be shorter than traditional long raids.

Expectations for a raid Player
These are some things I would expect of players thinking of entering a raid and an understanding players should have that it is not something you just waltz into for a quick 15 minute farm:
-Experience, a new player probably shouldn’t be able to enter a raid from fresh 80 and my later proposal will outline that.
-Teamwork, a player should be able to work with their party and the other parties , notice the fields ,cover a flagging player, if someone on the team is only looking out for themselves the entire team should wipe.
-Skill, Dodges, positioning, intelligent use of skills, keeping an eye on defiance stacks, memorizing attack rotations, verbal team co-ordination. If you consider yourself average you will fail, if your raid team has weaker members the whole team should fail, there will be no “carried” players.
-Patience, I would expect them to fail and I would expect them to expect to fail.

Proposal Overview
Raid Reward structure

Goal of Proposal
To outline a reward structure that fits my ideals of
-Fair
-Accessible only by those who complete the raids successfully (no token system).
-Minimal RNG.

The single most important thing is that raid rewards are only available from raids, no buying, and no Pvp reward track. I know there’s a lot of hate towards exclusivity in this particular community but I’d like some recognition for players who can go above and beyond.

Proposal Functionality
For this example I’m going to assume a raid has six bosses. Rewards increase exponentially the further a group makes it (I’m going by a high probability that the group fails horrifically at some point and doesn’t make it to the end). I’m using Raid in place of whatever the specific raid in question is called.

Trash:
Past the first boss has a chance to drop:
SOME raid ingredients, special cosmetic infusions (like the new gems added in the Halloween update), these infusions are also craft able using the account bound raid ingredients for the RNG unlucky.
Each boss has the following as a 100% drop for each player and all rewards even when opened are account bound.

Boss 1:
Drop a “Raid Resource Reward Box” which contains ingredients for new raid only recipes for the crafting disciplines.
Boss 2:
Drops 2 “Raid Resource Reward Box”
Boss 3:
Drops a “Raid Weapon skin Box”
Boss 4:
Drops a “Raid Weapon box” (This time an actual item not just the skin)
Boss 5:
Drops a “Raid Armor skin box”
Boss 6:
Drops a “Raid Armor box” and since it is the final boss drops a unique ingredient that can be used by a player in some raid recipe.

Each box contains one skin not an entire set to ensure that players have a reason to run the raid at least 10 times. Raid boss tonics could be an additional RNG reward added on top to encourage repeated attempts.

Associated Risks:
-If a raid is made too easy to complete players will blow through all those rewards in a week.

Proposal Overview:
Raid party structure.

Goal of Proposal:
To lay out how parties should operate and what sort of composition to expect.

Proposal Functionality:
As previously mentioned I believe raids should come in two forms
10 man (Half Raid)
20 man (Full Raid)
I don’t believe it should go above that as even a hardcore WOW vet should be able to recognise that 40 man raids are more a logistical nightmare than a gameplay challenge.
Interface wise the Event window on the right side of the screen is replaced with smaller health bars of the raid party members while in a raid.
At points throughout the dungeon the raid party gets separated into their sub parties and must survive/complete challenges (not boss fights all boss fights are full party affairs). So each party should consist of a standard dungeon distribution.
If one party fails the whole raid fails and has to start that section over, the objective here is to cause any weak links to drag down the rest of the raid.

Associated Risks:
-Some frustration may be directed at the party causing the fail if it is occurring from them consistently.
-Some may want larger scale raids.

Proposal Overview:
Raid length and save/resurrection points.

Goal of Proposal
To outline the amount of time the raid should take and a concept for saving/maintaining progress.

Proposal Functionality
On time I see raids being the same length as elite areas in gw1 were so 3-6 hours. That should be even for the top team, so no skipping/rushing should be possible.

Resurrection Shires:
Similar to GW1 this becomes your resurrection point once you run past it, with the addition that each shire you run past allows you to leave and return to the raid ONCE (disconnects do not remove you from the dungeon) at the same point you left.
This gives you a 24 hour buff say “x Raid boss 3” that will allow you to enter at that point, EVERY PARTY MEMBER MUST HAVE THE BUFF TO ENTER AT THAT POINT and additional members can’t join an in progress raid unless they have the buff to the same point, the buff is removed once you enter and cannot be regained from the same shire.

E.G: A party stuck at boss 2 cannot piggy back into a raid that has made it to boss 3 skipping the fight.

This is mainly to address meal times/ needing to sleep /take a break without losing your progress.

Associated Risks
There is a great potential for loopholes that allow skipping, any such occurrence would have to be dealt with swiftly and heavily (rewards taken away from offenders and the raid shutdown until the loophole is fixed).

Here are my thoughts on how raiding could work in GW2. Basically, I think there are three components –

• how we form/get into a raid
• what we do once were in, and
• how we are rewarded

Below is an overview of ideas around those three areas.

Forming/getting into a raid –

The general premise is to use existing maps and instances with triggers similar to those found in guild missions. The big difference would be that the person forming the raid would have control over who gets onto that map (much as the owner of a customized spvp map has control over the same factor).

Specifically, the interface (which, again, could mirror the custom sPvP interface) would include:

• Permissions: Would allow the guild leader to assign who has permission to trigger a guild raid/add people to the Invite list

• Raid Size: This would be to allow guilds of different sizes to complete content. Level 1 would be for 10+ people, Level 2 for 20+ and Level 3 for 30+ (they would, of course, be scalable)

• Map Used: Public (would spawn the boss or activity in a currently active map or instance open to anyone); Guild Only (would push the guild to a private map only members could access); and Invite Only (map would be accessible to guild member + other guilds/players specifically on the invite section)

• Invite List: would allow guild leaders/officers to create a list of non-guildees who could participate in “Invite Only” raid instances

Raid Content:

This would be the perfect place to resurrect past living story fights and activities, as well as brand new bosses and encounters. Below are several examples of what “raids” could look like:

• The Ancient Karka. This would be a scaled down (and much shorter) version of the first living story event GW2 ever did – the epic karka fight/race in Southsun (would be a great chance to redo that event without the lag issues). The fight would take place across the Southsun map (with the population determined by the settings outlined in the interface, above), culminating in the fight in the cave (basically, the exact same fight with the same mechanics, just scaled so guild sized groups could do it in about 20-30 minutes).

• The Tower of Nightmares. Basically, the tower of nightmares returns just as it was, on a copy of the Kessex Hills map – again scaled for guilds to complete in 20-30 minutes. At the top of the tower, the guild would encounter the boss from the mini instance from that event.

• The Marionette. Same fight, in a copy of Lornar’s Pass, only scaled for guild sized groups.

• The Breachmaker Battle. The final fight from the retaking of LA, fought aboard the Breachmaker – again, scaled for guild sized groups (this one would require adding the breachmaker fight map back in and giving us a way to get there).

• New Potential Raid: The Heart of Zhaitan. After the brave expedition downed Zhaitan in the Lost City of Arah, the original dragon (remember, he was a dragon made of dragons) that made up the “Heart of Zhaitan” is attempting to escape and go into hibernation. The raid would be an epic fight again that dragon, chasing it across a version of the Cursed Shores map, to ensure it doesn’t return for millennia to come. (the idea would be to combat the general feeling that the final fight with Zhaitan felt underwhelming and anticlimactic)

• Future Bosses: Any core large scale boss or open world content from future living story steps would be potential content. Raids would become yet another way ANet keeps the living story permanent – allowing them to change the world as needed without needing to completely remove large scale content from the game.

Rewards System:

• Rewards should be similar to guild missions, specifically a set number of guild commendations (3 or 4 seems about right) + a chest on par with a world boss chest (potentially with unique skins or minis – similar to Tequatl and Triple Worm). To make it more interesting, the introduction of raids would be a good time to introduce new rewards to the guild commendation vendor (mini versions of guild bounty bosses/new raid bosses, new weapon sets, guild armor sets, etc).

I know this exceeds 300 words and doesn’t really follow the format set forth. I didn’t feel I could convey this idea within those parameters.

That said, I am happy to see this conversation underway and look forward to many productive posts from the community. Even though we dont always agree, I think something good will come of this long term.

Proposal Overview
That all the new raids be instanced.

Goal of Proposal
Open world raids have several problems, some objective, some subjective. Instancing removes these.

Objectively:
Bystanders: people who happen to be in the area, or get caught up in the event, The result is players who are not prepared for a raid to happen get caught there and lead to failure. This can be seen in the current harder world bosses, you get one or two people on the turrets who are new and Teq’s bone wall goes up.

Organization: Map limits may be filled by other people causing some of your team to get misplaced or otherwise cause issues with ensuring everyone you want on your copy of the map gets there.

Control: A core aspect of a raid is control, you control the conditions, the combatants and the overall flow of the combat, in the open world unexpected elements can occur which are extremely detrimental, someone exploring could run through dragging some mobs leading to a wipe, someone triggers a second event causing chaos etc.

No Conflict: Lower skilled players can attempt casual runs (I’m not saying they should be able to complete it, just if they want to experience it/practice/improve) without wrecking some top tier players day and vice versa. It’s essentially how the dungeon system works at the moment. Two distinct groups not in conflict due to the ability to tailor their group.

Subjective:
Personally I don’t like when people just happen to wander through a piece of content and get over rewarded for no effort, A few weeks ago I was soloing guild bounties and teq popped as I happened to be on the map, I wandered over and happened upon a guild run. I got the completion, I invested no effort, planning or skill all I did was run in and hit teq a few times. I would like that to not happen with the newer raids.

Proposal Functionality:
Special coloured entry portal like the entrance to other instances.

Proposal Overview:
Hide raid items from the wardrobe until they are collected.

Goal of Proposal:
This serves two functions
1. To keep the initial surprise of what items await at the end of the raid and to keep players imaginations running. Plus it allows you to add secret items that players don’t notice have been added for a while which is fun too, as opposed to currently where we know any new skin instantly (I consider the hunt to find out what it is as much part of the game too).

2. I’ve seen a few people try to use the excuse that because you can see all the items in the wardrobe that it makes everyone completionists and as such there can be no exclusive items, this keeps it out of sight and out of mind.

Proposal Functionality:
The bank wardrobe acts like the character menu wardrobe on these items, its shown if you have it (or if you have part of the set maybe) but not if you don’t have it.

I’d love to see content that is deliberately designed to be un-trivialise-able.

Every single dungeon in the game, from AC to fractals, is a boring sequence of stack here, run here, do this, do that, which makes the dungeons seem more a chore than an actual fun task. (admittedly, this is mainly the fault of the players, but design flaws are what makes it possible)

If raids become a thing, I’d like to see them designed specifically to prevent this trivialisation occurring. Either with random mechanics, massive displacement to prevent stacking, or other such things.

I’d like a challenge rather than a chore, in short.

Proposal Overview:
A Raid legendary (This is still horizontal progression)

Goal of Proposal
To take the role of what legendries were originally meant to be, a statement of
complete mastery.

Proposal Functionality

TL/DR An account bound legendary and RNGless precursor combo so that it can’t be bought only achieved through an individual persons efforts.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

hehe you have all been doing ninja work in the back ground (-:

Chris

This is the cut down version,
I kind of expected this :P raiders tend to be the most used to organizing and planning so it makes sense they’d have planned out the raid discussion ahead of time. (I also have premade replies to three of the issue I predict will arise).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

hehe you have all been doing ninja work in the back ground (-:

Chris

In fairness, you were warned

Oh man, so excited for this CDI you have no idea. Prepare for one long post once I get home from work lol.

Hey, is there any reason why raids wouldn’t just scale to your size? So like… 5-20 man, bring what you can, and it scales.

GUILD WARS 2 RAIDS

Raids in Guild Wars 2 are completely different to that in other MMORPGs. There is no “Holy Trinity” so encounter mechanics have to be tailored to everyone helping each other.
We wanted raids to differ from the world boss content therefore each raid will have a portal in the zone the raid is situated.

UNLOCKING RAIDS & ACCESSABILITY

Raids in Guildwars2 are a guild activity.
We decided to do this to encourage a higher level of communication and organisation between players so you can take on this increased challenge and promote competition between guilds.

• New guild upgrades category: RAID
  1. Research Raid (Mordremoth’s Lair) Unlock – 10000 Influence over 1 week
  2. Research Raid (Tower of the Dead) Unlock – 20000 Influence over 1 week

• This is the one time research to unlock the raid.

• Guild Raid (Mordremoth’s Lair) 3 days – 200 Influence.
  (This opens the raid instance for 3 days for your guild.)

• The Instance area is only accessible to guild the members while the guild buff is activated.

PEOPLE, CAPACITY & SCALING

There are small guilds and there are big guilds, each community of players varies in size and we can cater for both with instance scaling. Like any open world encounter it scales to the amount of players in the event, your guild instance will dynamically scale to the players inside.

• Only guild members can access this instance.

• 10 person minimum and content scales up to the map capacity of 150 people.

• While encounters inside the raid are in progress it will not scale down, so don’t die!

RAID CONTENT: BOSSES

Raid content in Guildwars2 is hard.
Unlike most world bosses each encounter will be uniquely tailored to challenge your skill as a team and an individual.

• Hard boss fights with multiple phases.

• Unique roles for individual players such as; kiting, pressure plates, jumping puzzles, cannon firing, etc.

• Each boss has at least one attack that ignores agis and downstate to instantly kill you. Beware!

• If a boss is rooted to the ground there will be a reason for it.
  (no more dragons standing still.)

RAID CONTENT: ENCOUNTERS

Events and regular foes throughout the raid instance are interesting and unique mini encounters no longer trash in which you skip or run past.

• All foes will no longer leash to their origin, they will now pursue relentlessly until you or they are killed.

• Some creatures can sense you through stealth, so hiding won’t work!

• Loot table with; unique and rare drops, raid currency, mystic forge components and mini pets.

PROGRESSION

There is no gear treadmill in Guildwars2 so content is gated by how well you can work as a team and navigate the mechanics of the encounter. To progress in this new raid environment you must overcome each challenge as it comes.

• As content gets harder you must get better and you are rewarded for your effort.

• As new raid content is released the older raids will be rebalanced to make it more accessible

• The currency based rewards are high while the content is at its newest.

REWARDS

Unique armour and weapon skins, achievements and titles
Rest TBA

Proposal Overview
Scaling of Raiding difficulty

Goal of Proposal
Allow any sized guild to participate in the raid, with a set minimum that can be determined later

Proposal Functionality
Use the current scaling system in the game to determine the hp of the mobs and damage. This function will kick in after a short period of time given for all raiders to enter such instanced event.

Example:
10 raiders enter into said raid, there is a 10 second window for anyone else to join. If no one does, then the raid scales to those 10. This is to try and prevent people from trying to scale it low, then flooding the boss fast with more than enough players.

Mobs shouldnt drop loot in these events, only bosses give items.

Associated Risks
Getting more people into the raid instance after its started. If there are trash mobs to clear in the dungeon, then leaving and reentering would be a pain to rescale the Raid. This goes the same if someone has to leave for some reason (I believe one of my old raiding companions had to leave because “couch on fire”) thus the group is down one, and facing a more uphill battle.

If a dynamic scaling system is possible, then that could be better, perhaps checking the raid size at each checkpoint, and before each boss.

The whole purpose is to make sure that people can’t abuse the raid by making it too easy by overflowing it, while at the same time, keeping it challenging for guilds who can’t field more than 10 people.

When I say raid, I mean the instanced event

One of the problems (which I currently have no solution for but am interested to hear solutions to), involve ‘teaching’ current mechanics to a wider player base before the raids are introduced.

For example; In the Labyrinth, you have 3 different bosses. They can be overcome with sheer numbers, but raids are generally done with a finite number of players. In smaller groups it is essential the players have a greater understanding of things such as;

- vigour control
- use of non damaging conditions such as blinds and cripples
- use of stability

and how players can rotate them into their builds. Without “zerg countering” mechanics, raids will become stale, so how does the game do a greater job in teaching the players in preparation for raids? Improving base content like core world bosses maybe?

The other problem is who are raids being aimed at? Right now, anything with hard mechanics are avoided by open world groups or played to a lesser degree;

- Grenth
- Skeletal Lich
- Dust Devil
- Triple Headed Worm

It could simply be that rewards are not appropriate for the difficulty in the game right now. Certainly Wurm is well below par. Legendary Giant isn’t worth the effort vs chaining easier, quicker bosses.

Anyway, thats’ some random headache induced musings I came up with!

Proposal Overview
That raids not be a guild activity

Proposal Functionality
A raid works using an entry portal or entry NPC at the appropriate location that can be used when in a raid party of appropriate size.

Goal of Proposal
To not lock raids to specific guilds,
What would likely be my “Raid Group” in this game consists of leaders/commanders from a few different guilds. This means they can’t and won’t leave their current guilds or join a new one for raids so it needs to be accessible for an organized guildless party (Accessible as in you can enter I’m not talking about succeeding or anything, it should be extremely likely that you fail).

Associated Risks
-One less thing specifically for guilds
-No enforced community aspect on raiding

Another question is re-playability especially about rewards. Do we want daily access to guild raids or weekly?

TPenny.5071:

GUILD WARS 2 RAIDS

Raids in Guild Wars 2 are completely different to that in other MMORPGs. There is no “Holy Trinity” so encounter mechanics have to be tailored to everyone helping each other.
We wanted raids to differ from the world boss content therefore each raid will have a portal in the zone the raid is situated.

---

UNLOCKING RAIDS & ACCESSABILITY

Raids in Guildwars2 are a guild activity.
We decided to do this to encourage a higher level of communication and organisation between players so you can take on this increased challenge and promote competition between guilds.

• New guild upgrades category: RAID
  1. Research Raid (Mordremoth’s Lair) Unlock – 10000 Influence over 1 week
  2. Research Raid (Tower of the Dead) Unlock – 20000 Influence over 1 week

• This is the one time research to unlock the raid.

• Guild Raid (Mordremoth’s Lair) 3 days – 200 Influence.
  (This opens the raid instance for 3 days for your guild.)

• The Instance area is only accessible to guild the members while the guild buff is activated.

---

PEOPLE, CAPACITY & SCALING

There are small guilds and there are big guilds, each community of players varies in size and we can cater for both with instance scaling. Like any open world encounter it scales to the amount of players in the event, your guild instance will dynamically scale to the players inside.

• Only guild members can access this instance.

• 10 person minimum and content scales up to the map capacity of 150 people.

• While encounters inside the raid are in progress it will not scale down, so don’t die!

---

RAID CONTENT: BOSSES

Raid content in Guildwars2 is hard.
Unlike most world bosses each encounter will be uniquely tailored to challenge your skill as a team and an individual.

• Hard boss fights with multiple phases.

• Unique roles for individual players such as; kiting, pressure plates, jumping puzzles, cannon firing, etc.

• Each boss has at least one attack that ignores agis and downstate to instantly kill you. Beware!

• If a boss is rooted to the ground there will be a reason for it.
  (no more dragons standing still.)

RAID CONTENT: ENCOUNTERS

Events and regular foes throughout the raid instance are interesting and unique mini encounters no longer trash in which you skip or run past.

• All foes will no longer leash to their origin, they will now pursue relentlessly until you or they are killed.

• Some creatures can sense you through stealth, so hiding won’t work!

• Loot table with; unique and rare drops, raid currency, mystic forge components and mini pets.

---

PROGRESSION

There is no gear treadmill in Guildwars2 so content is gated by how well you can work as a team and navigate the mechanics of the encounter. To progress in this new raid environment you must overcome each challenge as it comes.

• As content gets harder you must get better and you are rewarded for your effort.

• As new raid content is released the older raids will be rebalanced to make it more accessible

• The currency based rewards are high while the content is at its newest.

---

REWARDS

Unique armour and weapon skins, achievements and titles
Rest TBA

Simply AWSOME.

Would absolutely LOVE to see something like that implemented!

Randulf.7614:

One of the problems (which I currently have no solution for but am interested to hear solutions to), involve ‘teaching’ current mechanics to a wider player base before the raids are introduced.

For example; In the Labyrinth, you have 3 different bosses. They can be overcome with sheer numbers, but raids are generally done with a finite number of players. In smaller groups it is essential the players have a greater understanding of things such as;

- vigour control
- use of non damaging conditions such as blinds and cripples
- use of stability

and how players can rotate them into their builds. Without “zerg countering” mechanics, raids will become stale, so how does the game do a greater job in teaching the players in preparation for raids? Improving base content like core world bosses maybe?

The other problem is who are raids being aimed at? Right now, anything with hard mechanics are avoided by open world groups or played to a lesser degree;

- Grenth
- Skeletal Lich
- Dust Devil
- Triple Headed Worm

It could simply be that rewards are not appropriate for the difficulty in the game right now. Certainly Wurm is well below par. Legendary Giant isn’t worth the effort vs chaining easier, quicker bosses.

Anyway, thats’ some random headache induced musings I came up with!

Actually I had a proposal on that but did’nt post it because I thought it would cause conflict.

Proposal Overview
A small gate before a person can enter a raid.

Goal of Proposal
I know gating base access to content is unpopular here but hear me out:
In a raid your team is only as strong as your weakest link, to ensure that the player has displayed some basic competence and familiarity with boss mechanics. I believe a gate should be introduced.

Proposal Functionality

I see the gate acting as a tutorial of sorts forcing the player into situations where you’ll gain some of the required experience, some potential examples are:

1. Requires Dungeon Master, simple, ensures boss mechanic knowledge, effective and a fairly short gate.
2. AR/Fractal level gate, Requiring level 20 fractals or 40AR would ensure mechanic knowledge, but would likely be a less popular method as people flip out over being “forced” to do fractals.
3. Hybrid gate, A mix of the two methods above or an either/or choice for it.
4. Something else appropriate that forces contact with advanced bosses.

Associated Risks
-people don’t like gates.

My 2 cents is I would like to see difficult content. My favorites times in GW1 were doing The Deep, Urgoz Warren, Fissure of Woe, and the Underworld. Groups with more than 5 players FOR SURE.

Tired of the hand-holding content and for once would like to see something that caters to veterans combat-wise, and I want to see a boss that whips peoples _ _ _ . I am not talking about one shotting either, which I consider cheap, and do not like at all. Bosses desperately need new and different mechanics.

I remain unconvinced that instancing all raid content is a good idea. There are plenty of open-world raid-like scenarios – Marionette and Dry Top for example – where it’s possible for ad-hoc additional players to contribute meaningfully without being amazing players.

So long as the organised group has the ability to start a map instance and get all their people in first it means that a) they don’t have to have a full map queue, and b) random players get to experience and complete this content without it being gated by membership to specific player communities.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

guardian.6489:

Hello, my name is Light Guardian Jack and I’m one of the leaders of TTS, I’ve talked with the other leaders about what we would want from a Raiding system and I’ve come up with this proposal. To me, Raiding has always existed in Guild Wars 2 just in the form of Tequatl, the Triple Trouble Wurm, and even some living world events in Season 1. I would like new tools to allow more players to experience the same Raids as us and to serve as a platform so that Anet can deliver new content for all the community who desires quality High-Player count experiences.

Proposal Overview
An expansion of tools to allow current “Mega-Organized Events” and old Living Story events to become Raids to allow more inclusive play.

Goal of Proposal
-Provide more tools so that old “Mega-Organized events” can be organized easier.
-Allow for a variety of content to be presented to the player without too much work for the Developers
-Reduce the barriers that normally block most players from Raids.
-Revive old classic living world events fans of the game are screaming for a return.

Proposal Functionality
-Guilds would be allowed to create their own separate instances for either certain current world events (Mega-Organized Events) or old living story events (Marionette, Tower of nightmares, Scarlet Hologram fight), this could use the current “Guild World Event” Spawner.
-This instance would allow player up to a certain cap (15-150 depending on the raid)(could have multiple sizes for the same raid).
-Once inside, if the Guild does not have enough players to fill the instance, they may use the LFG tool to allow players to connect directly into the map from the LFG tool itself (there might need to be restrictions on how to control who gets into the raid but there are several different ways you could do this).

Associated Risks
-Even with the LFG tool, players may find organizing with other players to be difficult if they are in a small guild.
-Recycled content may not feel “difficult” enough to satisfy hardcore raiders.
-Player may abandon Open-World events in favor of instanced ones and thus alienating those who can’t network as well.

I believe that such a system would give developers the freedom to develop a variety of raiding content of various player counts without a lot of restrictions and would address many of the issues players have with raiding in other games and in this current game. The Triple Trouble world event is fun but often hear how players are sick of doing the “overflow dance” to try to get into an organized instance and I hardly blame them. Instead of abandoning old content, build this new content onto of the old raiding system and old raiding communities to allow us to include even more players.

I also personally would enjoy many old Season 1 living story events to return as revamped Raids. The Tower of Nightmares could return as an epic 10-15 raid where you have to clear all the bosses to climb up the tower, the Battle of the Breachmaker could be revamped into a small 25 man raid with everyone split up fighting the 3 color knights in the beginning and coming together to fight scarlet and the Marionette could return. The possibilities are endless once we break apart from this 5 man dungeon or 150 man open world box.

I also want to point out the “Smaller” or “locked scaling” instances of the existing raid Mega-Bosses (Tequatl and Triple trouble) would be possible under this system and every raid new and old could in theory have multiple raid sizes with scaling in order to accommodate multiple sizes of guilds.

I believe that such a system would encourage more players of various skill levels to have a greater variety of content to indulge in with minimum barriers to entry.

Thanks TTS for your first proposal. Looking forward to chatting with you guys.

By the way, recently I was kicked from your guild (-: Would love a re-invite (-:

Chris

Thanks Chris. I personally look forward to this discussion as well and I can say a lot of our members and leaders are too. Off-topic but you can apply again at our website if you want to get back into the Guild, we’re almost always open to recuit new members. Also I’m speaking more personally, I think Merforga will swing by here to give TTS’s general thoughts on things.

I’m also glad, I’m not the only one who thinks the old Living story events should be converted into raids! It’s prime Raid content just lying on the table being unused!

Some thoughts to consider as we dig into this CDI that I thought were worth sharing;

• Not everyone has a large guild. Creating raids in which hundreds of players are required is not an option as it excludes guilds that maybe have 10 to 20 members. I do not believe that extremely small guilds (1 to 5 members) should be able to raid, in the same way that they cannot execute most Guild Missions. However, setting the bar at “Mega-Organized Events” for enormous guilds only is a mistake and goes against the “accessibility and strengths of existing GW2 core functionality.”

• Not everyone has a small guild either. Some guilds actually have hundreds of active members. One of the worst parts of managing a guild in Traditional MMOs is the drama (infighting, politics, favoritism) that springs up around deciding who gets into a raid. Smaller raid sizes, such as one built around 10 players for example, is easier to wrangle because there can be multiple raids running simultaneously (it is, essentially, two dungeon groups).

To address the two points above, ideally raids should scale based on the number of players present or should come in a variety of different size options. Guild Missions are an excellent model here because with very few exceptions there are no hard limits on who can participate.

• Not everyone wants them to be instanced, so do not treat this as a foregone conclusion. Organizational tools for large-scale events should not be built around the notion that they are private or exclusive and that players can be kicked out. For example, Tequatl groups organize by all loading into a map at once in order to secure as many spots as possible for themselves. Instead of allowing that group to have a private area in which they can kick players out (exclusive), the tools should be built to make moving as a group easier (inclusive).

• We already have dungeons and we already have World Bosses. Raids should not just be “Bigger Dungeons” or “Private World Bosses”, but something meaningfully distinct (even if, at the end of the day, it looks like a hybrid of those two). How are Raids going to be something distinctly “Guild Wars 2” and not a regurgitation of the same gameplay constructs that have been seen a dozen times before? How will Guild Wars 2 “do raiding right” where so many others have failed or been mediocre?

• Keep the current Progression system in mind as you think on your ideas. It may be tempting to transplant gear progression systems from other raid-centric MMOs into Guild Wars 2, but this goes against the current endgame which many players (many of whom will not participate in this CDI!) enjoy and do not want to see changed. Currently, players can return after several months or even years away from the game and not be behind all of their friends.

• Keep the community AS A WHOLE in mind, with special attention to how player habits change over time. While you may have thoroughly enjoyed staying up until 3am trying to beat that raid boss when you were in middle school, please consider how incompatible that type of gameplay is with a lifestyle in which employment, families and non-gaming hobbies figure prominently. Many players automatically assume they want “hardcore raiding like in the old days” without realizing that a decade or more has passed and that despite wanting to indulge in that experience again, it may not be realistic to do so (and it can have dire consequences for developers who work under such assumptions; see Wildstar).
  • Raids should probably take longer than a dungeon, but not excessively so (remember, not everyone has hours to spend gaming!)
  • Raids should not require an excessive amount of preparation (Attunements, buffs, etc.)
  • Raids should occur when it is convenient for the individual; time locks and such should not dictate when a player can raid. (Not everyone has a regular work schedule!)

Feel free to disagree with any of these particular points, strongly if you must, but please keep them in mind just the same. The perspective, needs and lifestyles of others needs to be considered as you make your way through this CDI.

Thanks for reading, have a great CDI everyone. I’ll probably start tinkering with some ideas soon, even though raids were never really my thing (though the games in which I raided were all fundamentally flawed, so that may be why).

Ben K.6238:

I remain unconvinced that instancing all raid content is a good idea. There are plenty of open-world raid-like scenarios – Marionette and Dry Top for example – where it’s possible for ad-hoc additional players to contribute meaningfully without being amazing players.

So long as the organised group has the ability to start a map instance and get all their people in first it means that a) they don’t have to have a full map queue, and b) random players get to experience and complete this content without it being gated by membership to specific player communities.

You do realise that with every single piece of raid/pseudo-raid content ANet have put out (Tequatl, Wurm, Crown Pavilion 2.0) that guilds have ferried all of their people in to specific instances because doing it with randoms is just too risky and too frustrating for them?

Instancing raids at this point basically just means ANet giving actual in-game tools to choose who you want to play with rather than people having to “game” the megaserver system. For all intents and purposes, for the people who perform these raids nowadays they’re all instanced, it’s just that it takes hours of preparation to be able to filter out randoms who they would not want to play with either in an official instanced system or the current open world system.

TPenny.5071:

• New guild upgrades category: RAID
  1. Research Raid (Mordremoth’s Lair) Unlock – 10000 Influence over 1 week

• 10 person minimum and content scales up to the map capacity of 150 people.

• not scaling down, so don’t die

• Each boss has at least one attack that ignores agis and downstate to instantly kill you. Beware!

• All foes will no longer leash to their origin, they will now pursue relentlessly until you or they are killed.

• As new raid content is released the older raids will be rebalanced to make it more accessible

some problems that might arise here:

• costs for unlocking raids: you mentioned the importance of scaling for smaller guilds, but the price seems to be the same. Might get too difficult/expensive for smaller guilds.

• scaling for up to 150 people: I think it might be too difficult to create an interesting encounter that scales from 10 to 150 people. Seeing so many people (the clutter and the overboard-effects) in WvW makes you wonder if it makes sense at all to have such numbers in a raid.

• no scaling down, so don’t die: I think this could lead to a lot of drama towards certain individuums. Imagine player xy has to go because he has real-life duties (like a little baby crying etc.)… GW2 was always nice to such players. Why not scale back when someone has to leave, not screwing everyone else over?

• insta-kills. Not sure that’s fun. Playing with low/decreasing health feels more thrilling than some insta-kill which you might not even see coming (due to lag, hard to see telegraphs (because of effects),… )

• pursuing trash: I like that one

• making old raids accessible: I don’t think this would be fun looking at the disappointment returning players felt when they realised that a lot of content was temporary and isn’t there for them anymore. Making hardcore-encounters only temporary and “accessible” afterwards seems to be the same mistake.

Things I want: Split up raids unless you’re gonna reduce particle effects. Stop adding timers, challenge skill, not time! Make these raids impossible!

Unique titles, armor, weapons, achievements is a must.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

Hey, is there any reason why raids wouldn’t just scale to your size? So like… 5-20 man, bring what you can, and it scales.

Very hard to get the balance we would want from this kind of content.

The experience we are looking for would also be diluted the more players you have in an instanced raid.

This said, let’s say the number was ten. We shouldn’t top folks from trying to beat content with 5 for example.

Chris

I agree, but I’d kinda hope that a raid wouldn’t be so easy that you could do it with half the numbers (I.E I’d expect it to be an accomplishment to 9 man a 10 man raid, not like soloing a dungeon like we have now).

It’s worth noting while I wouldn’t exclude players from attempting to do the content I would not expect someone to be able to just grab a pug and go successfully. The variability and risk should be too high to even attempt that along with poor coordination, you should know your teams strengths and weaknesses which is not clear with a pug.

Proposal Overview
Structuring / designing RAID dungeons in a way that they are fun and engaging to do.

Goal of Proposal
Fun content and preventing the next zerg-content.

Proposal Functionality
If you ask people what a raid-dungeon should be about the answer usually is: A dungeon for a bigger group that is very hard and takes very long.

Well I would start with removing the last element. A Raid dungeon does not have to be very long. A 20 min raid dungeon could also be fun and I think the best you could have is raids.

Of course you need a bigger group then the 5. I think it’s something between 10 and 25 for a game like GW2.

It should also be hard but not because there are a lot of mobs or because bosses are very strong (do much damage and have much HP) no they should be hard because of good mechanics and good or smart AI.

What is also important is to require many roles. Lack of real roles have always been a problem in GW2 dungeons turning much of the dungeon in to just DPS spam but for raid-dungeons this is ever more important because else it it will become just another zerg fest where everybody presses some buttons.

When I talk about roles I don’t just talk about the trinity. That are 3 specific roles. But think of any type of roles. A pet role (rangers) a portal role (mesmers) a invisibility role and also maybe heal and tank roles. Ranged roles, close combat roles. But even something like to destroy ice you need fire, to destroy fire you need water and so on.

Use mechanics in the dungeons that require all these roles. Am not afraid to split the group up.

Require communication. Make it hard because of mechanics, (usually implementing those roles) not because the amount of mobs or because of the damage and the HO from the bosses.

An example to require communication could for be that you can’t fight a boss directly but we go power ranger style. Having to control some huge robot. Imagine if you need 15 people to control it, everybody moving different parts of that robot. Then you are requiring team-play and communication to kill the boss in stead of just zerging him.

And then also make it rewarding.. Not with gold but with awesome unique rewards.

Associated Risks
People complaining it’s to hard because the are used to easy content.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

Hey, is there any reason why raids wouldn’t just scale to your size? So like… 5-20 man, bring what you can, and it scales.

Very hard to get the balance we would want from this kind of content.

The experience we are looking for would also be diluted the more players you have in an instanced raid.

This said, let’s say the number was ten. We shouldn’t top folks from trying to beat content with 5 for example.

Chris

I think if you allowed scaling with a hard ceiling players would adapt to find the “ideal” Raid sizes and plan according like:

Well let’s use Triple Trouble as an example because I know that Fight inside and out.

Currently I’ve seen 11 people decap Cobalt (it’s on youtube somewhere) so I know the fight scales extremely well already except in one aspect, the amount of items (spears/colors/kegs) needed to put each wurm into a burn phase. I’m oversimplifying but let’s say each at 1-50 people you need 10 keg/spears/etc. 51-100 you need 15 and anything higher you need the current 20 items.

As a Raid leader I could look at my Raid team’s size (let’s say it’s 75) and seek advice from the community in order to decide if I can take on the Raid. The community could point out that the Raid is easiest at 150 player and hardest at the 51, 101ish however 75 Raids of that instance are possible with X strategy. I then make a judgement on whether to proceed with that plan or just use the LFG tool or something. However this is better then if I either have to leave 25 members behind for a 50 man Raid or be forced to play a 100 man scaled Raid with 75 people.

So essentially the community could police itself on how to tackle content and what Raid sizes are “ideal” or “meta” for each piece of content and various Guild sizes would use this information to decide what’s the easiest way for their particularly sized Guild to tackle a Raid.

EDIT: I should also add, with scaling in an instanced environment, you don’t have to make sure content is “too hard” at certain raid sizes, you only need to make sure it isn’t “too easy” and makes the content too trivial.

What about a random effects each time the content is played. Example: sometimes fire, cold, lightning, poison attacks etc. so teams will not know what to expect and have to react on the fly. More and more intelligent interrupts by enemies. Unpredictable things in games are always fun to me.

This is not exactly about raid content, but close enough in my books…

Proposal Overview

• EPIC OVERWORLD (excuse me for being dramatic, but couldn’t miss the chance)

Goal of Proposal

• To create meaningful battles that affect the state of the world.

Proposal Functionality

• Infrequently at set times, say, once a week, a BIG event occurs across the map copies in a specific zone, say, a massive centaur invasion in Queensdale, culminating in a climactic boss battle. Depending on the success rate of the event across map copies, the zone faces permanent changes until the next time the zone faces that kind of an epic overworld event that can change the state. In the previous example, if the event was failed on too many map copies, centaurs would take over most of the map, replacing events and heart tasks with relevant ones. With enough success, centaurs would be pushed out.

Associated Risks

• Megaserver creating too small map copies that would have no chance of success that would drive down the success rate. Some solutions would be to only count the map copies with significant enough amount of players contributing to the events and to make it scale to a broad amounts of people.

Proposal Overview
Potential Raid mechanics Part 1: Boss buffs

Goal of Proposal
Example of possible raid mechanics for both bosses and in general that could force some interesting gameplay.

Proposal Functionality

Boss buffs: These are applied when you fight each boss (could last only for the boss fight or then persist throughout the dungeon once the boss is defeated, kind of like fractal instabilities (would only work for some of them) ).

“The best defence is a good offence” Health is reduced by 10% and damage is increased by 5% for each buff present. (forces either going boonless, or a high risk strategy of attacking with buffed long range fighters).

“lone wolf” Each player within 500 of the player reduces damage by 20% (prevents stacking and adds risk to being downed).

“The Chosen one” This buff switches player every 15 seconds, only players with this buff can damage the boss, any other attacks by unbuffed players are reflected and inflict retaliation.

“Rock Papers scissors” A changing buff where only condition attacks/ Range attacks / melee attacks work , changes every 15 seconds.

“Marco Polo” When applied you have 7 seconds to locate a player with “marco” or “polo” (depending which you have you want the opposite) and get within 500 range of them, if you fail you loose half your total health , if you are within range of two or more of the same buffed person you get downed. (interesting pair buff while preventing everyone just stacking on each other to bypass it).

“Holding out for a hero” For each downed player damage is increased by 10% for each dead player 20%. (I can see this one being abused but thought of it when I was last man standing against the molten Duo today).

Proposal Overview
3 groups play a raid-instance parallel on 3 paths; paths do not intersect but players on a path can help players on other paths (via ranged, siege,…)

Goal of Proposal
1.) it allows for some interesting cooperative gameplay
2.) too many players on 1 enemy = problem. If parties have their “own enemies” it would be spread out, allowing for different roles in these different paths.

Proposal Functionality
Party-size is 5 at the moment, this doesn’t have to change with raids. These raids have a player-limit of 15 players. Each raid has 3 paths which are played parallel/at the same time, players can see the other 2 groups on their paths most of the time.

A party doesn’t have to be the full 5-man team all the time. Good groups may enter with 3 per group, which allows a relatively free grouping. A leader with 12 players available might suggest three very good players in group 1, four in the 2nd group and five in the last. It’s up to the players.

Paths could also help with scaling problems. Imagine a raid where only people on path 1 get a buff which can hurt the next boss directly. The players on other paths can try to damage the boss but they won’t do damage. Those players in path 2 and 3 have different roles to play in that battle.

Paths could also be designed with casual players in mind. Path 1 may be the hardcore path and the others would play more of an supporting role. Example: Guild xxXYxx has only 7 players online. They put five of their players in path 1 and spread the others in path 2 and 3. Now players in 2 and 3 can use lfg to look for more players. The boss – a huge dragon – will be faced by path 1 group directly while path 2 and 3 support the hardcores with ranged-attacks doing damage on the boss as well and killing some spawns here and there… or they support with some ranged healing/reflection/… spells.

Associated Risks
Requirement for ranged weapons; there should be some interesting mechanics in all paths to make ranged weapons less important/not 100% required.

Some paths might be more fun than others and players would like to do the other path. This might get solved by path-specific rewards (like a 3part-key which can be collected in each part for the final reward chest —> 3 runs)

are we allowed to post encounter ideas and mechanics in this thread?

Also, the thread title makes it sound like raids only as part of a Guild. I presume the discussion is about raids in general as a concept?

My only hope for raiding is that it doesn’t come with a gear treadmill. Ascended gear should remain the highest tier. New skins should be the rewards, not new stats.