Guild Wars 2

Like many, I would love to see harder more complex fights with set numbers (no scaling), but I think the place for that content is in 5-player dungeons – and not in raids.

The reason is accessibility. With 5-player dungeons, it is very easy for any player, at any commitment level, to find a party willing to attempt the content. Even if they struggle or fail miserably, they get the chance to experience and attempt the content. It’s easy to find 4 other people willing to make the attempt.

If 10, 15, 20 or 25 player raids (with no scaling) were implemented, this wouldnt be the case. Many players would be left on the sidelines due to the arbitrary number requirements. Even worse, groups that play together now in larger numbers would be forced to leave friends out of weekly raids (again, the thought of this turns my stomach and would be devastating to the way I enjoy playing the game).

Raiding can still have a level of difficult and necessary coordination, but everyone should be afforded the opportunity. Scaling does that.

A developer brought up the point of scaling requiring more design effort and limiting the number of raids they can produce. I’m okay with that. Give us a few fun raids that scale between 8 and 30 people (with a moderate difficulty level) and focus more developer effort on making 5-player dungeons/instances that cause us to cringe in fear ((with adaptive AI, anti-stacking/zerg mechanics, etc). Basically use new dungeons to turn us into quivering piles of Jello.

Raids should be something every player can enjoy – while still requiring coordination and commitment (but not requiring numbers set in stone).

tldr: Players of any commitment level can still usually find a party willing to attempt an ultra hard 5 player dungeon. They wouldn’t be able to do the same with set number large scale raids. They would never even get the chance. Take that into account when implementing raiding in GW2.

Few things I’m picking up on:

Seems pretty clear most want raids to be less than 20 people, but more than 5.
8 (gw1 party size) up to 15 (good number to not run into too many logistical headaches) seems like the happy medium here.

So 8-15 party size.
Or perhaps 3 parties, and the raid starter (whoever clicks the button) can invite 2 others to join the instance (like the tpvp invite system), which then allows those 3 (or 2) to invite 4 party members (thus allowing up to 15). Maybe make it scale from 8-15.
Next there seems to be a split in desires for raids between:

[*]Open world farming zerg blobby raids

Pros:
Easy access to content.
Easy access to loot.

Cons:
mindless and boring for anyone who’s played for a few months.
Too easy access to loot.
We already have world bosses for this type/level of play/skill.

[*]Challenging High end PvE

Pros:
Content for the veteran players.
Large enough that 5 good players could train 3 less skilled players (assuming party size.

Cons:
Requires players to learn to play more effectively (not a con in my opinion, but this is contestable), thus restricted to experienced players only.

Balancing time – Not everyone can spend hours at a time in a raid, and so they would have to be completable in shortish times, or allow for smaller chunks of progress ( for the slower/lesser skilled teams).

My personal opinion goes to the DnT proposal for design schema. Nike even suggested a way in which existing dungeon instances could be reused (with new foes), reducing the dev work tremendously. A lot of players who left because they got bored may well return with the introduction of that type of content (provided there is enough of it).

Proposal Overview
Possible Raid Mechanics Part 4: Traps and Tricks

Goal of Proposal
More potential mechanics this time focusing on the instance itself and not the players.

Proposal Functionality
Static puzzles don’t really work as once solved they no longer pose a threat and if a large part of the scenario it gets much shorter over time. This is where Variable Traps could come in.

Variable Traps:
This is where the trap is truly (or as close as possible) random each time in layout:
Examples for this would be:
-A Door code that’s found from four parts of the map and is randomised each time so the player must find out the code:
-A minefield where the players have to use a detector and navigate around (random each time so they have to move slowly and can’t run through after the first time). Bonus if only a few people can carry the detector and see the mines so that the rest of the party has to trust them and follow their lead.
-An alarm triggering laser grid that is randomised each time and will cause reinforcements to spawn if hit.
-Spotlights/detection golems/dragon minion that move through an area and if disturbed/ walked into causes a hostile patrol to spawn.
-Pressure plates that if stepped on cause the floor to start to collapse forcing the group to attempt to make it to the next room before they fall to their death.

Tricks and Treats
-Holographic walls that can be run through can lead to bonus chests or act as a way to avoid a patrol, ideally randomly distributed (works for inquest/ather style raids).
-Hallucination gas: could be a fight mechanic or occur when someone accidentally hits a prop. Could either flip the screen upside down for players in the effected area (I’ve seen this one a few times), Reverse the control scheme, or Enable friendly fire. Generally to cause chaos.
-Hidden Treasures: Only revealed when walked near with a light source (FDS,Balth backpiece, All torches, Cobalt, consumable torches etc). No other indication that they are there. (Would only spawn after the first boss is dead to ensure no instance farming.

Blaeys.3102:

If 10, 15, 20 or 25 player raids (with no scaling) were implemented, this wouldnt be the case. Many players would be left on the sidelines due to the arbitrary number requirements. Even worse, groups that play together now in larger numbers would be forced to leave friends out of weekly raids (again, the thought of this turns my stomach and would be devastating to the way I enjoy playing the game).

i am forced to leave friends out because i can only play with 4 friends at a time in dungeons.

Hello again.

Here we go for the summary. The summary does not include many ideas that are ahead of the current “accessibility” theme:

Accessibility
- guild limitation: it seems up to there that there is a weak opposition between “guild” raids and “open” raids. Many people advocate for raids that should not be limited to guilds (fear of logistic/access problems for smaller guild). There are also several suggestions of raid integration through guild missions or a similar guild system possibly requiring guilds to buy access to raids. However, I feel like the opposition on this point is weak as guild favorable suggestions seems more like suggestion on how to implement raids within the current system and I did not read opinion saying raids should only be guild content. Moreover, several guild oriented suggestions included a use of the LFG.
- player access to raids: someone suggested raids be opened to every player starting from level one. Most other opinion suggest raids require some sort of requirement before allowing players to enter: completing all dungeons, some task, equipment level, AR level… Several people made this interesting suggestion: raid (combat) tutorials that players would have to succesfully complete before being allowed to join raids. This would ensure at least a basic knowledge of combat mechanics. In my opinion, these tutorials if they are implemented should also be retrofitted into the NPE to allow new players to learn combat mechanics as they progress through the game.
- instanciated: rather strong division here. Around 2/3 players favorable to instanciated content, arguing that it allows for better control on who joins, thus allowing more challenging encounters. 1/3 favorable to open world content, suggesting that it will help cement the community. I think the definition of raids given by Chris definitely rules open world content out.

Scaling
Here we have two different and stronly opinionated groups each representing around half of the players speaking here. The first half is in favor of fixed raid size (with possibly 2-3 different sizes) for the reason that it allows for more challenging encounters, while the second half is in favor of variable raid size with scaling, for the reason that it lowers the logistical burden (finding x players to raid with) and puts an end to the jealousy between raiding players and players left out in the cold because there was not enough room in the raid. Some offer fixed sizes with a little scaling around. Anthony seems to be in favor of less scaling.

Difficulty
Here we find the two usual answers: raids must be brutally hard and challenging, and raids must allow every players to take part in. Both options are mutually exclusive and will frustrate a part of the playerbase. Various difficulty levels could be used to accomodate everybody.

Rewards
I think almost everybody here agrees on the fact that raid rewards should only add to horizontal progression, not vertical (except DnT which suggests T7). Suggested rewards include skins, new raid limited legendaries, titles, achievements. Most suggestions lean toward increasing rewards as groups progress within the raid (with the obvious idea that raids are made of several encounters) or with raid difficulty. There is some disagreement concerning how rewards should be tied to RNG dependent loots, to a token system or to a PvP reward track akin system.

I will stop here for now. There are a lot of interesting suggestions concerning content, encounter design and mechanics but that are not inline with the current direction given by Chris for this CDI start.

Best regards all

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

If 10, 15, 20 or 25 player raids (with no scaling) were implemented, this wouldnt be the case. Many players would be left on the sidelines due to the arbitrary number requirements. Even worse, groups that play together now in larger numbers would be forced to leave friends out of weekly raids (again, the thought of this turns my stomach and would be devastating to the way I enjoy playing the game).

i am forced to leave friends out because i can only play with 4 friends at a time in dungeons.

Yes, but it is alot easier to fill out a second 5 party group if you end up with 1 or 2 extra players than it is to fill out another 10, 15, etc. group. I did this just last night in setting up dungeons in my guild.

I can tell you from years of experience forming set number (10 and 25 player) raids that raiding in other games leads to exclusionary behavior primarily because of the math more than because of the difficulty of the content. GW2 is in a position to do something about that. Scaling seems like the most logical solution.

Blaeys.3102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

If 10, 15, 20 or 25 player raids (with no scaling) were implemented, this wouldnt be the case. Many players would be left on the sidelines due to the arbitrary number requirements. Even worse, groups that play together now in larger numbers would be forced to leave friends out of weekly raids (again, the thought of this turns my stomach and would be devastating to the way I enjoy playing the game).

i am forced to leave friends out because i can only play with 4 friends at a time in dungeons.

Yes, but it is alot easier to fill out a second 5 party group if you end up with 1 or 2 extra players than it is to fill out another 10, 15, etc. group. I did this just last night in setting up dungeons in my guild.

I can tell you from years of experience forming set number (10 and 25 player) raids that raiding in other games leads to exclusionary behavior primarily because of the math more than because of the difficulty of the content. GW2 is in a position to do something about that. Scaling seems like the most logical solution.

scaling also brings alot of problems. mainly balance and tuning issues and no competition between guilds. id prefer a fix number of players tbh. as long as its not 40 man raids with lots of logistical problems. something between 10 and 20 should be alright and even smaller guilds should be able to recruit enough players to fill the spots.

Blaeys.3102:

I can tell you from years of experience forming set number (10 and 25 player) raids that raiding in other games leads to exclusionary behavior primarily because of the math more than because of the difficulty of the content. GW2 is in a position to do something about that. Scaling seems like the most logical solution.

Exclusion is the inevitable (and desirable) result of challenging content. I was excluded from the tPvP tournament in china (and rightly so!) but I in no way feel entitled to it.

Also, keep in mind no matter how difficult they tune the content eventually it will be on farm status. Once content is on farm status the casuals (in the non-pejorative sense) who were initially excluded will be able to complete it. This is how raids in every game work. Hardcore players finish first, less hard core players finish it later.

Proposal Overview and Goals

1)To make GW2 raiding designed around and require above average knowledge of the combat system that is existent in the game.

2)To make GW2 raiding more structurally akin to GW2 dungeons rather than world events and lessen preparation and waiting time for the content to start, but retain a certain level of organization required.

3)To make raiding accessible to all players but scalable in difficulty and rewards.

4)To implement worthy guaranteed rewards, alongside bonus RNG drops.

5)To make GW2 raiding feel impactful and epic on the level of visual presentation and lore.

Proposal Functionality

1)GW2 combat system has much depth that is poorly utilized in most of current meta-events and even dungeons. Players should be actively engaged and individually contributing to the timely success of an event. There should be a time during the event for most of the skills on a player’s skillbar where the player has an opportunity and is encouraged to use them. Timely use of combo fields, reflections, stealth and specific trait effects should be encouraged and required throughout the event.
Current world bosses such as Tequatl and Great Jungle Wurm do utilize this versatility of GW2 combat system but to a very low extent. For example, in these events players are encouraged to use combo fields, reflections and some boons at specific times during the event, but these times are too few. Most of the player’s time is spent standing in front of the boss and doing pure damage by commonly using at most 2-3 skills in their skillbar (anything more is not required).
Of course there should be a time for doing pure damage just as well, but why make the player have to park his character in front of the boss and try to find the invisible hitbox with his auto-attacks (the problem of world bosses being structures instead of mobs), when the player could be actively engaged movement-wise, skill-utilization-wise and boon-utillization-wise while preforming skill rotations for optimal damage (or support), thus making the combat infinitely more engaging. Similarly less static and predictable bosses would be welcome (e.g. Lupicus, Liadri, that Moa in Dry Top, many more…)

2) While completing raid content players the group of players completing it should not have the risk of another random player intruding upon it. Similarly, players should have to go trough the trouble of finding an empty map trough various workarounds for completion of the event. Ideally raid content should be instanced. Also, boss “spawn time” should be excluded from raid content.
If the content would be instanced some sort of solution would be neccecary that expands on the current Party format and UI (possibly an expansion or adaptation of the Squad format).

Continued in following post…

Continuation from the previous post…

3) All players should have an easy access and be lead into completing the raid content by the game itself, similarly as they’re driven to completing dungeons by in-game mail or f.e. in-game representation of associated rewards at vendors (information about what the raid content is and consists of should be provided to begin with).
No restrictions of having(!) to join a specific community or guild or having to “taxi” into an organized map.
LFG tool support for raid-content.
In line with easy accessibility raiding content should also be scalable difficulty and reward wise. More dedicated players should be rewarded appropriately for completing content in a more difficult or timely manner.
Example: Let’s observe Mai-Trin fractal boss as if it was a raid encounter on a daily reset. Implementation of a daily achievement version of Personal Space achievement would provide an opportunity for more skillful players to gain a better reward for completion of this raid encounter by completing the said daily achievement associated with it.
The scalability of number of players required for the event is of second nature to aforementioned features. A set number of players required is better if it ensures implementation of mentioned features. Similarly bonus rewards for completing the content with a lesser number of players than required is not essential but welcome.

4) Implementation of rewards that require multiple steps to obtain throughout the raid content is welcome (e.g. “scavanger hunts” similar to process of obtaining Mawdrey, Mad King Memoires and Spinal Blades backpieces, Ambrite weapons). Obtaining a piece or a high probability of obtaining a piece required for completion of these rewards should be ensured for each completion of the raid content. Repetitivity of raid content could be ensured by making completion of these “scavanger hunts” be worth-while more than once (e.g. to craft one piece of unique armor skin each time, an ascended weapon, a precursor weapon, any pice of gear or an item that could be useful to have more than one of).
More instant gratification, something for a player to show or have application in other areas of the game after each completion of raid content (gold, laurels, karma, infusions, tokens for obtaining a raid content related gear). These should be scaled in regard to time-investemnt and skill level required in comparison to the existing content in the game.
In re-iteration of the point 3) I would like to add that it is important for players completing the raid content in a more diffucult fashion to have something unique to show off or be rewarded appropriatley, thus driving the players into approaching the raid content in a more difficult manner (making it worth-while).
RNG drops should not be absolutley excluded, for all their advantages.

5) This point speaks for itself. Raid content should be visually engaging each time of completion, feel epic and massive in scale and have strong relevance in lore. Something that truly moves the world of GW2 forward.
Avoidance of boss encounters where the player swings the sword repeaditly at an invisible hitbox (e.g. Tequatl). Bosses and enemies that are less static and more engaging with their surroundings (second phase of GJW is one good example).

Associated Risks

1) Players could feel there is a skill barrier to accessing raid content and deem themselves unskillful to even attempt completing it. Proposal for solution is more encouragment of player skill development and learning of their class trough in-game content, ease of access as detailed in point 2) and encouragement of participation.

2) Seperation of raid content from the open world content and the absence of natural player transition from one to another that comes with it could be seen as a negative side.

3) LFG tool problems such as waiting for a party. Having to meet requirements specified by the party that made a lfg post that may be unrealistic. Similarly, players not complying to requirements specified by the party (such as having appropraite rarity gear).

4) Impacts that volume or nature of some rewards could have on the game economy.

5) Some players may feel excluded from experiencing certain parts of the game lore by not wanting to participate in raid content.

This is just some stuff off the top of my head of things that I had in mind for some time. Sorry, I tried to keep it short but one thing lead to another. Devs or players, feel free to comment or ask any questions. Tyvm

Raiding Overview:
Time limits, dungeon mechanics, and Chain Events are the topics of this proposal.

Goal of Raiding:
The goal to this is to bring Raids into Guild Wars 2 using the core elements already embedded into the game. In addition to bring more players into the game, keep veterans in the game and bring back older players.

Raiding Functionality
The Raiding function will run similar to what you’d see in fractals of the mists and world bosses such as Tequatl the Sunless. The raid will have multiple levels where once completed it will bring you to the next part of the raid. The difference between Raids and FotM will be difficulty, party size, format, and content. Other mechanics are always welcome, such as; mistlock instability, jumping puzzles, and hidden item location.
You may want a checkpoint system for people getting left behind for things such as jumping puzzles.

The Content of the raids I’d rather leave to the designers, but each “level” of the raid should be similar to world bosses minus the constant 15 minute timer. Each phase, or level, will be a large meta event chain meant for a large party to do. these events should force players from time to time, to split up and do things that cannot be done with the “stacking” meta. This can be done via boss mechanics and occ content.(think similar to Dredge FotM) But at a larger scale.

Associated Risks
The risks of adding raid are a few things.
first people may be expecting a WoW type of raid which does not work well with Guild Wars 2 Concept or mechanics.
second difficulty scaling and current meta causing problems within the community. (stack and swing = loot)
third being AI mechanics of being dragged into a wall and DPS’d.
lastly…. Elitism.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Example:
Raid 1:
Power/Stealth/Teamwork base level.
Floor 1- Collect Bombs and kill some Elite/ Legendary scouts. Blow up entry door.
Floor 2- Sneak past patrol units and continue to room XYZ. Kill Legendary Commander.
Floor 3- Split into X groups of Y and go into Z different rooms to activate a switch that will open a door in the main room. These X groups will have one member using a switch while the other 3 kill normal and vet mobs(9/1 ratio). the last team then runs into the room that will open when the others open it and kill a Champion of some sort. All progress to next floor.
Floor 4- Group tackles groups of champions head on to progress to the main room of this floor. After the main room is a trap room where X people must defuse different bombs while the rest defend players killing hordes of normal mobs and a few champions, coming in three different directions. When completed go to fifth room.
Floor 5- Last room for level 1 Raid Instance. Group faces 6 max difficulty mobs in groups of 2 coming from two directions and must kill them before they reach the main room.These bosses will ignore player interaction and are immune to cripple For the amount of enemies that pass and get into this room final boss difficulty increases(think of Lupi).
Floor 5.5- Reward room.

Raid 2:
Toughness base level.
Raid 3:
Stealth base level.
Raid 4:
Teamwork base level.
Raid 5:
Power non crit base level.
^ examples to break the meta, does not have to be used.

If players fails
leave raid.
else continue next raid.
^ this would be used for any part of the raids.

guardian.6489:

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

I would very much like to encourage ANet take the old limited time LS map designs and put them in as raid content so that those of us that were not here for season 1 can catch up on that story. LS2 has been designed to be replayable and includes bonus achievement and such, aside from current technical limitations there is no lore or progression reason that I can see that LS1 cannot be added as raid style content.

Blaeys.3102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

If 10, 15, 20 or 25 player raids (with no scaling) were implemented, this wouldnt be the case. Many players would be left on the sidelines due to the arbitrary number requirements. Even worse, groups that play together now in larger numbers would be forced to leave friends out of weekly raids (again, the thought of this turns my stomach and would be devastating to the way I enjoy playing the game).

i am forced to leave friends out because i can only play with 4 friends at a time in dungeons.

Yes, but it is alot easier to fill out a second 5 party group if you end up with 1 or 2 extra players than it is to fill out another 10, 15, etc. group. I did this just last night in setting up dungeons in my guild.

I can tell you from years of experience forming set number (10 and 25 player) raids that raiding in other games leads to exclusionary behavior primarily because of the math more than because of the difficulty of the content. GW2 is in a position to do something about that. Scaling seems like the most logical solution.

No matter how large the party is, some people will always feel cheated and excluded from content. Look at the people trying to join a specific shard to do teq with friends.

GW2 chose to limit the party size to allow easier pugging (and it worked). Scaling can alleviate the exclusion problem but can’t solve it entirely (nothing can solve it entirely).

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 stop folks from trying to beat content with 5 for example.

Chris

THIS! Scaling might “work” in PVE, but for raid content, I want it to be tailored for X people(10-15-20).

Like Chris says, nothing is stopping you from doing it with less. But I also think that doing it with Less should up the rewards.

you know how in GW1, your loot was shared with Heroes/hench, well this could be the same, add an extra percent on the drop rate, for every player less than the “required” amount

Gilgalas.7860:

Difficulty
Here we find the two usual answers: raids must be brutally hard and challenging, and raids must allow every players to take part in. Both options are mutually exclusive and will frustrate a part of the playerbase. Various difficulty levels could be used to accomodate everybody.

I see no reason why difficulty could not be fractals style. perhaps not with agony increasing, but with increases to mob number, hp, rank etc and boss aoe cooldown, movement speed, damage, etc.

I wanted to chime in and say something I feel is VERY IMPORTANT TO EVERYONE when looking to add any new content to the game.

Difficulty – This is something that is DIFFERENT for almost every player. What is hard for you is easy for others and vice versa.

What are different types of Challenging/hard/Difficult content:

• Jumping Puzzles – Mouse movement skills and visual awareness
• Solo game play – Happy to learn/support your self
• Small team composition – Working with the team not selfish
• Large scale organization – Able to Communicate with many players
• Reactions – Reacting to something with great speed
• Multi Tasking – Doing many things at once
• Flawless – Make a mistake = fail, 1-hit KO’s

Some of these are easy to relate to in GW2:

Teq = Organization
Liadri = Had a few, Reaction, Flawless and Multi Tasking
Pvp = Team Comp + Reactions
Etc……

MANY players find one of these easy and other hard. When making a Raid you have to look at the fact that Everyone should be able to do it, with a little planing and learning.

A Raid isnt something to walk in and Win 1st try (IMO) but It needs to be balanced in a way to not Over due one or the other of the Different Difficulties.

Example: If every boss has a 1-hit kill with a JP right before it, then anyone that doesnt like JP or 1hit kills wont do the Raid.

But if you have 1 JP and 1 boss with a 1-hit KO then players are more willing to over look those to get to the end for its rewards.

Please remember that there are many player bases in the game and not to over do something b.c you may feel its good, but others may not. Think about all player types, even a casual should be able to to them with some learning/practice and multi attempts

PS. End game doesnt have to be blood dripping overly done hardcore only content, End game is something an Experience player can enjoy b.c of that players experience and knowledge of the game. have mechanics that test your knowledge of gw2 compare to make flawless fights is a huge difference in types of difficulty.

hybrid.5027:

Blaeys.3102:

I can tell you from years of experience forming set number (10 and 25 player) raids that raiding in other games leads to exclusionary behavior primarily because of the math more than because of the difficulty of the content. GW2 is in a position to do something about that. Scaling seems like the most logical solution.

Exclusion is the inevitable (and desirable) result of challenging content. I was excluded from the tPvP tournament in china (and rightly so!) but I in no way feel entitled to it.

Also, keep in mind no matter how difficult they tune the content eventually it will be on farm status. Once content is on farm status the casuals (in the non-pejorative sense) who were initially excluded will be able to complete it. This is how raids in every game work. Hardcore players finish first, less hard core players finish it later.

This is not about casual versus hardcore. This is about the practical problem of forming raid groups. Someone who puts the effort in and makes a greater commitment should finish first, but if you have 12 people at that level, two will either be left out because of simple math or be forced to find another guild or group to play with (fracturing the community).

This is not an issue in dungeons because it is easier to fill in multiple slots in smaller groups. That is why I think the hardcore content in GW2 should be in dungeons.

Set number raids bring a logisitics problem that will fracture groups and that goes against what GW2 has come to represent (at least for many of us).

Let me say this loud – I DO WANT HARDER CONTENT. I love hard challenges (25 man Alone in the Darkness Yogg Saron level challenges).

What I dont want are those challenges at the expense of comraderie and guild/large group cohesion. It’s why I left WoW and quit leading traditional raids. It is why I got so excited about GW2 when I saw what they were doing in this game – precisely because they werent following the model other MMO were using.

Its about math, not difficulty level or hardcore vs casual.

So, let them grind us into little chunks of pixelated chum in 5-player dungeons (or, just as good, shorter instances they deliver much more often). I say, bring it on. Up the game and get nasty with it.

But, the simple math of set number raids would have a potentially devastating effect on established communities, and makes it a bad idea (imo) to not use scaling in raids.

Proposal Overview

I’d like to touch on the accessibility of raids. I think it’s important for everyone to be able to experience raiding content, you shouldn’t be forced to be part of a big organized guild. Then again the big organized groups also deserve some really hard raiding content and the experience shouldn’t be dumbed down just so that less skilled players can acces it too.
What I’d like to propose is to have multiple versions of the raids. At the very least an easy PuG version and a hard guild version.

Goal of Proposal

• Everyone can experience the raiding content
• Different versions for different skill/organizing levels with rewards scaling accordingly

Proposal Functionality

Start with designing the challenging version of the raid for the organised groups. Once that’s done, figure out what will make less skilled/organized groups struggle and proceed to make a dumbed down version of the raid for them. You could just lower the health pools and damage, or you could even remove certain mechanics from the fight. Your goal here is make the raid accessible to PuGs while keeping the experience as close to the original as possible.

A simple example: The original raid has a phase where lots of adds spawn and the group has to work together to kite/kill the adds. A PuG might get overwhelmed too easily, so get rid of that phase in the PuG version. They’ll still be fighting the same boss, the only difference will be that they won’t get distracted by those adds.

The guild raid will obviously be an instanced version that is started by the guild leader/officers. There already are some great proposals out there about how this could be implemented, so I won’t talk about it.
For the PuG version you have two options. Either make it an open world raid like the current world bosses or also make it instanced. Have this version on a rotation like all world bosses. I personnaly feel like putting it in the open world will make the world feel more epic and alive, but then again an instanced version probably gives you more freedom in designing the fight. I really don’t know which one would be better.

When it comes to rewards, make sure to give the PuG version some interesting and good rewards, but keep some exclusive rewards for the guild version. Maybe add a new armor set much like the glorious (hero) armor. The PuG raid gets the simple version while the guild raid gets a really shiny version. New minies with some exclusive to the guild raid, new titles,…

Associated Risks

Not sure, haven’t put enough thought in it. It’ll probably be more time consuming to design multiple versions of the same raid and have them go through QA etc. But I believe the outcome is very much worth it.

Extra

One more thing I’d like to mention that isn’t necessarily a part of my proposal, but is somewhat related to raiding. People disliked the living story because it was mostly temporary (see mariotette), they wanted permanent content. What I loved about the marionette is that we fought it in the open world and afterwards we actually saw the remants of the marionette lying there. It made the living story that much better, the world felt alive. You can’t really do that with permanent content, unless you use instances. I’m going to use the marionette as example:
You introduce the marionette as a new raid boss with the living story. There is the challenging instanced guild version and the easier PuG version. The first two weeks the PuG version is in the open world only, no instances. Then the LS chapter ends and we get to see the remants of the marionette in the open world. Now instead of completely removing the fight, give us an instance of that fight as PuG version of the raid. Everyone is happy! (:

This post is just to express a couple considerations.

raiding should be more difficult content that requires coordination and some amount of skill at any selected difficulty level. As such, mechanics should (in my opinion, others may disagree) make what has become the dungeon norm of skipping to the boss or stack and pull either highly discouraged or likely to cause things to fail. I also think that, if possible, there should be some amount of randomization in the event progressions so that players dont just go from point a to b to c to “stack and spank” but they must adapt to changing situations.

As for scaling and design considerations, There are a few raid type “stories” (for lack of a better word at the moment) that could be accomplished with current, in game assets so that focus can be made on getting the scaling and mechanics developed. While some people might not like familiar content to be the first thing offered in a raid (and long term it shouldnt be the only thing) it may allow the mechanics, scaling etc to be more finely tuned so that completely new content raids can be easier to develop in the future. for instance, you could have a smaller version of kessex hills, basically the center portion with smarter AI and the players are playing out a more complex centaur wars.

Proposal Overview
A raid in form of an elite area with a difficult endboss.
Multiple events unlock this endboss, but it doesnt matter in which order the events are completed.
Allows different tactics to split a group in order to complete these events faster or complete the events slower but safer as a zerg.

Goal of Proposal
Add non-linear challenging content with long term replay potential, which is not exclusive for only “leet gamers”

Proposal Functionality
In my opinion a raid in Guild Wars 2 should be a mix of the current dungeons and open world with a few new features.
Raidsize: 8-15 players, (less than 8 player can hardly be called a raid, but more than 15 players could be difficult to complete for smaller guilds)
What i propose is a wide area which has multiple ways to go from point A to point B.
You spawn in the middle of this area and have to complete several events to get to the last big boss.
The last boss should be a difficult boss with multiple phases.
There is no waypoint, the only way to resurrect someone is the normal hard-rez. If all players die the raid fails.

There are two types of events:
Primary events:
These are events which you have to succeed in order to get to the last boss.
If a primary event fails, it cannot be restartet and the raid fails.

Optional events:
These are events which give certain benefits to the party. (e.g. allied npcs, buffs, disable certain enemies, disable debuffs) Some of these optional events can make primary events easier and some of these events can make the endboss a little bit easier.
So you have to choose whether you want a fast but really difficult run or a slower run but a little bit easier.
If a optional event fails it cannot be restartet, but you can continue with the raid. (perhaps add a little temporary punishment for failing the event?)

Different tactics:
- beginners could complete this raid with practice as one big group which is slow but safe (estimated time: 2-3h)
- average players can split into a 2-4 teams to speed it up (estimated time: 1h30min – 2h)
- experts (players who know everything that you could know about this raid and have skill, e.g players who are able to solo the current dungeons without bugs/exploits) can split into 1-3 player teams for record runs (+ one main team) (estimated time: 45min-1h)

Important: all these times are only a rough estimate for practised players

There should be a huge chest after defeating the endboss, with appropriate loot (NOT account- or soulbound).
For example new unique raid loot, or ascended weapons/armor.

Only a few short, skippable cutscenes.
No endless talking of NPCs who prevent progress.

Associated Risks
Splitting up in different teams could not be an improvement in time, if the encounters have a much shorter duration with a bigger team.
The encounters could be too easy for one huge team that runs as a zerg. (too difficult could also be the case)
The encounters could be too easy for experts that split up. (too difficult could also be the case)

Proposal Overview

1 – Raid selection
2 – Raid difficult scaling
3 – Raid structure
4 – Raid Rewards

Goal Of Proposal/Functionality

1 – Raid selection:
opening raids should be allowed up to medium size guilds (100k), but non-guild players can partecipate, under invite only (lfg will work only to sponsorize the event, not to partecipate)
Raid opener should have some tools to keep the raid always clean and smooth:
- Kick players during the raid (/kick Name)
- Invite players in the raid istance (/invite Name)
- Check players equipment for keep the max quality of players in the istance, and for being sure that a DPS, Condition, Support class has joined the raid respecting the request (/check Name)
- Add a “raid officer” title that will have same roles of the opener (opener can’t be kicked), for facilitating the work for the leader during the event (/officer Name)

2 – Raid difficulty:
Raid difficulty should scale for each single player in the istance, from 10 to 50 (a counter on the right side like the Color Knights in the last battle against Scarlet should be perfect).. 50 is a random number i think that Devs should take a decision about the max number of partecipant..
Second proposal for raid difficulty: let’s assume dungeons are standard difficult, raids should have 3 different difficulty: standard, hard, elite.. (for rewards, i’ll be focusing later)
Difficult factors could be:
Agony Resistance
Bosses life/dmg
Environment hostile (roots, falling stones, disappearing pads, bridges falling)
Debuff (like the achilles bane in lyssa event)

3 – Raid Structure:
Raids should be totally different to dungeons and fractals, the ability of players will influence the 100% of the raid, while the dynamics of events and roles of the player should be the jump to a new way to play in guild wars..
Great dynamics could be siege weapons (like teq), splitting in 2/3/5 teams, jumping puzzles, stun the boss on an exact time, switch bosses stats (like increasing toughness for give condition a role)..
Roles of the player should be greatly defined, Condition Dps and Support classes will work together simultaneously (I’m still hoping an inverted triple trouble event, with dps classes defending the condi team that hits the boss)
Last, but not last, give this raids a LORE! Talking personally, i love to know why we are fighting a battle, and i think many would find this great

4 – Raid rewards:
As i said before, raids should have 3 different levels: Standard, Hard, Elite
Rewards should be standard for each level (T6, rare, exotics), what changes only are the special reward that a raid could offer…
First, keep the RNG alive and add the chance to drop from “The final chest” unique items like rare skins, back recipes, Endless tonic that can be selled, so that players will be extra-rewarded for the hard run, but introduce also a Token system like dungeon (guild raid commendation?), that allows player cursed by the RNG to have what the raid reward has to offer (Items got by token system should be ACCOUNT BOUND)
Token system could be:
1 token for standard mode
2 tokens for hard mode
5 tokens for elite mode

Each item will have a number of token needed (example: 15 off hand only weapons, 20 Main+offhand weapons, 25 two-handed weapons, 35 backpack recipe, 40 mini/tonic)
Last, Reward should be daily account- bound

Example Raid Name

Realm of the Gods

Story

The Underworld, The Fissure of Woe, and the other (as of yet unexplored) god realms were connected to The Temple of Ages before the place fell to flood and ruin. It is no longer suitable as a gateway to these realms, but, with the Pact’s march into Orr, Priory scholars have discovered that the Orrian temples can be attuned to these planes of existence, creating temporary portals.

Pre-entry

In order to gain entry to this Raid, players must go through a series of required events.

- All temples must be captured. Including a new event chain at the sunken Abaddon Temple in Straits of Devastation.

- Once every temple is held, there will be simultaneous events at each to defend the scholars while they attune the portals.

- If this is successfully accomplished at every temple, the portals stabilize, allowing entry into the Raid until the temples are lost to the Risen.

- Failure to accomplish the portal attunement events at any temple will de-stabilize them at all temples.

- This steep entry requirement forces a move away from zerg play for the duration of the event and also adds a similar mechanic to traditional raid time gating. Instead of a time gate, however, the community will have control over their entry into the Raid.

*Note – This would also come with a large reward increase to temple defense events and allow them to count towards Trait unlocks.

Group Size

8 minimum.
10 maximum.

Past 10 players, the game’s excessive particle effects tend to weaken the combat experience. It doesn’t help that group sizes past 15 tend to fall into the zerg mindset. As such, you want to lean closer to the 8-10 range.

Map description (Vague)

This Raid is a combination of six tiles, each associated with one of the six human gods. It is entered through the portal attunement events described above and your choice of portal dictates which of the six tiles your group will start on. The group may even choose to split up and tackle multiple tiles at once to speed up the Raid by entering different portals.

Each tile has a number of challenges associated with it. These appear as Dynamic Events when they occur – marked by regular and group events to denote ones that can be feasibly be done by 1-3 people and those that require most or all of the team to complete. These events have much higher rewards than regular ones (of course), and each completed one contributes to the end of the Raid, much like the events of the Underworld and Fissure of Woe in the first Guild Wars.

Success in the Realm of the Gods will require that a large number of the available events be completed, though it will not require all of them. As you move closer to completion, you will draw the attention of Dhuum (or perhaps another powerful figure), who will be the group’s final challenge. He will be incredibly difficult, but the rewards for defeating him are substantial.

The group’s choice of events is important here. Each one provides unique advantages in the final boss fight by freeing up some of the map and garnering favor with the more loyal servants of the (missing) gods.

Associated Risks

This is primarily with the unlocking feature. As more content is added, this content may become less popular and the Raid may be unlocked more rarely. I would argue, however, that this is a positive on both ends. On one hand, the Raid should ensure a continued level of activity in Orr and be readily supported by any Living World renovations to Orr. On the other, rarer unlocks of the Raid will also lend it a form of exclusive status and make it feel like an earned, elite dungeon.

Alex.9106:

There should be a huge chest after defeating the endboss, with appropriate loot (NOT account- or soulbound).

I would like to disagree on the last part here. I think it’s extremely important that any kind of unique loot from the(se) raids will be account-bound (not soulbound).
The unique skins should be a testament to your accomplishment, not something you can just grind your way to.

In terms of skins, that’s what’s really missing at the moment.
The best PvPers have their special glorious armor
The goldmakers (grinders, TP-players, lucky people etc.) have the legendaries
But there’s nothing in the game to really show off that you defeated something really challenging, so if they actually implement hard raids, there should be unique skins in there that you can ONLY get by beating it yourself.

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

CDI Rules:

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

CDI Rules:

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

Thanks for quoting your own rules violation. You shouldn’t use terms like “casual” as a pejorative if you don’t want to be called out on it. Additionally, you shouldn’t throw a stone inside of a glass house. If you’d like more advice please PM me.

That Guy.5704:

Gilgalas.7860:

Difficulty
Here we find the two usual answers: raids must be brutally hard and challenging, and raids must allow every players to take part in. Both options are mutually exclusive and will frustrate a part of the playerbase. Various difficulty levels could be used to accomodate everybody.

I see no reason why difficulty could not be fractals style. perhaps not with agony increasing, but with increases to mob number, hp, rank etc and boss aoe cooldown, movement speed, damage, etc.

It all comes down to the Rewards issue (this being a recurring theme in any CDI).
People have different visions for what they mean for example I want raid rewards to be considered the PvE version of Glorious Hero’s armor. While others want it to be another tick on their checklist of items to collect.

In my version the difficulty is critical and non-optional a person can’t have an easy mode to the rewards (even if it takes 10x longer) because the value in the reward is that it states you’re competent at quite difficult content not really being about the skin.
I’m aware that is exclusionary so two compromises could be:
-Story mode, see the content do an easy mode of the fight but none of the unique rewards.

-Similar to the Glorious Hero’s armor, have a lesser Glorious armor for easier difficulties. (I actually only thought of this now and people are far more likely to be ok with this option.) (will make it a proper suggestion in a minute)

Boss Reward Suggestion Part 2
This post refers to Part 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/2#post4522745

Proposal Overview

Instead of adding “style infusion slots and infusions” you can add a quest or quests to each item skin. After successfully finishing the quest/quests, the special effect on the item skin will be partly/fully unlocked.

Goal Of Proposal and Functionality

How could such a quest look like?
http://wildstar.mmorpg-life.com/item/Brutal_Eldan_Gauntlets/38773/
Like this.

The quests should be tied to the raid and be about fulfilling special tasks such as speedkilling bosses in a set amount of time, not get hit by any aoe attacks and stuff like that.

This will give players a long term goal and a reason to improve their gameplay even further.

Associated Risks

Some players might not be able to finish the quests because they are more difficult to fulfill than just clearing the content.

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

CDI Rules:

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

Thanks for quoting your own rules violation. You shouldn’t use terms like “casual” as a pejorative if you don’t want to be called out on it. Additionally, you shouldn’t throw a stone inside of a glass house. If you’d like more advice please PM me.

You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person

Proposal Overview
Raid Leader boards – A scoreboard similar to the challenge leader boards in GW1.

Goal of Proposal
Keep people interested in content they’ve already finished and perfected together with create an interesting competition between different guilds.
I believe this was what the Fractal leader boards was intended to be, whatever that was created for it could be utilised here.

Proposal Functionality

• The raid leader board is a global guild rank that can be viewed through signs placed outside of the entrance of the raids in every major town or in a new tab in the PvP/WvW windows.
• The leader board resets weekly the same way other guild missions reset.
• Upon reset, each player of the top 3 Guilds/Teams will receive a Raid Chest for their efforts.
• A second tab of the score board shows the overall record times of the current Raid.

Associated Risks
Long development time for low incentive.
The underlying reason for this suggestion is fear that more experienced players will lose interest in the raid content if/when they find them too easy.

Proposal Overview

Raids based in past lore

Goal of Proposal

explain/expand the lore around past events and allow players to experience guild wars history

What problem are you trying to solve with your proposal

provide a content base for raid while also giving players a purpose in their missions

How does your proposal work in regard in relation to the current design of GW2

Lore is a big part of this franchise, but there are alot of things that are we are merely told happened or given some information about but that we were never able to experience. Just going through the timeline on the wiki, there are quite a few items that could be made into raids.

Play as the Charr in the Human-Charr wars and the events around the Searing and Foefire.

Play as the humans defeating the Charr’s Titan gods.

Play with Pyre Fierceshot in his rebellion against the Shaman Caste.

unfortunately, Asura, Norn and Sylvari history section are all “unclear” or “not much is known”, but this could be an opportunity to fill in some history about each.

Associated Risks

Could take some significant time to make sure all the lore is cohesive an consistent with that which already exists.

Proposal Overview
If difficulty scaling must be used a system similar to the Glorious armor/ Glorious Hero armor would be useful.

Goal of Proposal
To reward players doing easier versions of the content while not detracting from the achievement of doing the harder versions successfully

Proposal Functionality
(Whatever difficulties are introduced the “Hero” version should be limited to the top one)
Two versions of whatever the new raid set is are introduced.
The Standard version: Is basically the same as the Glorious armor or WvW Hero’s weapons (the non-glowing ones).

The “Hero” version: Is the standard one on steroids and is only obtainable from the hardest difficulty:, this could be achieved by giving effects to the Hero version many of which already exist, Lightning, Wind, Glow , crystals floating around it whatever. All I ask is that it be distinct and that people won’t mix up the two.

Associated Risks
-Far less than the alternatives, I actually did’nt see much opposition to the introduction of the glorious Hero set so it may be the compromise needed.

Conski Deshan.2057:

That Guy.5704:

Gilgalas.7860:

Difficulty
Here we find the two usual answers: raids must be brutally hard and challenging, and raids must allow every players to take part in. Both options are mutually exclusive and will frustrate a part of the playerbase. Various difficulty levels could be used to accomodate everybody.

I see no reason why difficulty could not be fractals style. perhaps not with agony increasing, but with increases to mob number, hp, rank etc and boss aoe cooldown, movement speed, damage, etc.

It all comes down to the Rewards issue (this being a recurring theme in any CDI).
People have different vision for what they mean for example I want raid rewards to be considered the PvE version of Glorious Hero’s armor. While others want it to be another tick on their checklist of items to collect.

In my version the difficulty is critical and non-optional a person can’t have an easy mode to the rewards (even if it takes 10x longer) because the value in the reward is that it states you’re competent at quite difficult content not really being about the skin.
I’m aware that is exclusionary so two compromises could be:
-Story mode, see the content do an easy mode of the fight but none of the unique rewards.

-Similar to the Glorious Hero’s armor, have a lesser Glorious armor for easier difficulties. (I actually only thought of this now and people are far more likely to be ok with this option.) (will make it a proper suggestion in a minute)

I did not intend to suggest that rewards be the same for each difficulty, In fact, I agree that they should not. If there were, say, 5 tiers of difficulty, and there were a single armor set that (single basic style, 5 different skin unlock sets), for each tier, becoming more and more intricate, elaborate, etc in each tier, this would be great, same with armor, back pieces whatever. My post was merely to address the difficulty considerations itself not its affect on rewards.

I, personally, love the idea of skins being locked behind content completion. We have some of this in the dungeons, but those, honestly, arent difficult to acquire. New ones that unlock tiers of skins to show off completion of difficult content is a very good thing. Its something I think that we need more of. They become a sort of “visual title”. The new crafting backpieces function in the same way.

it would also be nice if some of the highest tiers of these types of items became achievement skins and were free to apply but thats beside the point.

How would raids differ from Fractals apart from the bigger party size and lack of gear gating (agony resist) … ?

Dalanor.5387:

How would raids differ from Fractals apart from the bigger party size and lack of gear gating (agony resist) … ?

more difficult and challenging content for a bigger party size. more teamwork, more coordination, more mechanics… the list goes on.

Hello, I am a player that has long been awaiting the arrival of raids

Just going to give my short 2 cents on the subject

A raid would be found around Tyria such as dungeons, and you could enter the raid in the same way (by just walking through the portal). The raids could have multiple difficulties, resulting in the need for more players to join.

The difficulty of the raid could be adjusted by the player (the more difficult, the more AR needed) and so in this way, the hardcore players can do the most difficult version of the raid, having high AR values.

The raid itself would consist of multiple bosses, and would last more than a normal dungeon would. Each boss is to have his/her own Loot Table and that way no more RNG and getting random greens. Instead, one can look at the table to see his/her potential loot, giving people the initiative to do these raids even more if they see some epic l00t that drops from that one particular boss!

NoTrigger.8396:

Dalanor.5387:

How would raids differ from Fractals apart from the bigger party size and lack of gear gating (agony resist) … ?

more difficult and challenging content for a bigger party size. more teamwork, more coordination, more mechanics… the list goes on.

Also, preferably, mechanics that discourage skipping and stack-and-spank.

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

CDI Rules:

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

Thanks for quoting your own rules violation. You shouldn’t use terms like “casual” as a pejorative if you don’t want to be called out on it. Additionally, you shouldn’t throw a stone inside of a glass house. If you’d like more advice please PM me.

You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person

In my defense, you didn’t seem like you understood. Generally, when someone says “lolz gw2 is just stack here dps win lolz” I assume they are a simple person who is used to being carried through dungeons and don’t realize what support mechanics are happening to allow that to happen.

Your post fit that mold; yet another person who mistakenly believes that some how it is the act of stacking that makes the content easy or that stacking grants some mysterious invulnerability quality. Neither of these are the case. So either you don’t know that or you pretend not to know to further your sophistry.

Spartacus.9743:

2 – Raid difficulty:
Raid difficulty should scale for each single player in the istance, from 10 to 50 (a counter on the right side like the Color Knights in the last battle against Scarlet should be perfect).. 50 is a random number i think that Devs should take a decision about the max number of partecipant..
Second proposal for raid difficulty: let’s assume dungeons are standard difficult, raids should have 3 different difficulty: standard, hard, elite.. (for rewards, i’ll be focusing later)
Difficult factors could be:
Agony Resistance
Bosses life/dmg
Environment hostile (roots, falling stones, disappearing pads, bridges falling)
Debuff (like the achilles bane in lyssa event)

I would add Counter-stacking in the Hard and Elite versions. AI specifically to counter stacking is implemented so that Stackfest becomes a wipefest.

With it, Hard and Elite versions will actually play very differently than the standard version. Players will actually have to move. Cripple/Immobilize/Chill/CC will actually be useful. Commanders have to command groups to move effectively instead of “Stack on me!” Well, that is what the end-result should be.

Elite should then have AI that counter stacking + counter spreading out. Groups have to spread out and also stack effectively at a moment notice. Raid groups will always be in the edge of wiping.

Standard Raid should work exactly like dungeon. Easily stackable so that casuals can play with very little difficulty. Players can easily say, “Stack here” and then pull mobs in just like dungeons. They don’t need to use cripple/immobilize/chill/CC, they just need DPS.

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

If 10, 15, 20 or 25 player raids (with no scaling) were implemented, this wouldnt be the case. Many players would be left on the sidelines due to the arbitrary number requirements. Even worse, groups that play together now in larger numbers would be forced to leave friends out of weekly raids (again, the thought of this turns my stomach and would be devastating to the way I enjoy playing the game).

i am forced to leave friends out because i can only play with 4 friends at a time in dungeons.

Yes, but it is alot easier to fill out a second 5 party group if you end up with 1 or 2 extra players than it is to fill out another 10, 15, etc. group. I did this just last night in setting up dungeons in my guild.

I can tell you from years of experience forming set number (10 and 25 player) raids that raiding in other games leads to exclusionary behavior primarily because of the math more than because of the difficulty of the content. GW2 is in a position to do something about that. Scaling seems like the most logical solution.

scaling also brings alot of problems. mainly balance and tuning issues and no competition between guilds. id prefer a fix number of players tbh. as long as its not 40 man raids with lots of logistical problems. something between 10 and 20 should be alright and even smaller guilds should be able to recruit enough players to fill the spots.

I think we could get around these issues if we accept that not all player counts will get the same difficultly even with some scaling.

Like there’s one playercount (probably the raid cap) that’s “meta” and most Guilds competing at launch focus on trying to complete it then us it. However once the raid is “figured out” a month down the line, the playerbase could figure out how to achieve certain objectives with lower player counts while the mobs/boss still have some scaling to make everyone “possible” even if it might not be the most efficient way of completing a Raid.

I mean, Triple Trouble seemed “impossible” to most of the playerbase at launch and we had a fun race to see who could defeat it first but now it’s figured out and I can see (if I can instance it) myself completing it with a lower playercount (like 75 or something crazy) because it still scales even if it’s designed for 150 people.

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

CDI Rules:

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

Thanks for quoting your own rules violation. You shouldn’t use terms like “casual” as a pejorative if you don’t want to be called out on it. Additionally, you shouldn’t throw a stone inside of a glass house. If you’d like more advice please PM me.

You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person

In my defense, you didn’t seem like you understood. Generally, when someone says “lolz gw2 is just stack here dps win lolz” I assume they are a simple person who is used to being carried through dungeons and don’t realize what support mechanics are happening to allow that to happen.

Your post fit that mold; yet another person who mistakenly believes that some how it is the act of stacking that makes the content easy or that stacking grants some mysterious invulnerability quality. Neither of these are the case. So either you don’t know that or you pretend not to know to further your sophistry.

There are underlying support mechanics (as well as mob shortcomings) that make stacking possible, but it is still a heavy detractor from the quality of the dungeon experience. It defies the game’s mobile combat system, hurts profession balance (creating even more bias towards and against certain professions), and highlights a lot of the game’s core flaws (highlighting a bad zoomed and corner camera and creating a generally boring style of play).

So while it’s more than just “trololol, stack and dps for easy wins,” it’s still very much a negative aspect of the game that should have been adjusted months ago.

BenGrech.3912:

The difficulty of the raid could be adjusted by the player (the more difficult, the more AR needed) and so in this way, the hardcore players can do the most difficult version of the raid, having high AR values.

The raid itself would consist of multiple bosses, and would last more than a normal dungeon would. Each boss is to have his/her own Loot Table and that way no more RNG and getting random greens. Instead, one can look at the table to see his/her potential loot, giving people the initiative to do these raids even more if they see some epic l00t that drops from that one particular boss!

In my opinion, they should keep Agony far, far away from the raids. Agony is a bad gate. All Agony did was gate some of Fractals behind a grind for ascended armor and infusion.
The gate here should instead be actually difficult encounters. No stacking possible, adds that needs to controlled/taken care of, levers that need to be pulled at the right time, npcs that need to be kept alive etc.

Unique loot tables and unique skins are more than welcome. Account-bound of course, you can’t sell achievement.

Hi everyone! I’ve been mostly reading the CDIs, but because contents with lots of people is my favourite part of GW2, I decided to pitch in and join the conversation.
Proposal Overview
To make Raids in GW2 an experience that challenges players and makes them use all of the mechanics present in the game, creating challenging content that fills the gap between dungeons/fractals and megabosses.

What is a raid? How many people should be able to join?
People here have been talking about Lich Kings and other guys and places with funny names: GW2 was the first MMO I ever played, so the word ‘Raid’ doesn’t carry a particular meaning to me. The closest thing I know are the Elite Missions from GW1, like Urgoz’s warren, Fissure of Woe and the like: in my head, that is what GW2 raids should strive to be. A challenging PvE content meant for an high number of players, meant to fill the gap between Dungeons (5 people), guild groups in WvW (30 or so people) and Mega-Bosses (150 people).
As such, I think that raids should be instance made for 15 people or so: I agree with most people that scaling raids would be awesome, even in 10-15-20 intervals, but I’d say it’s best to focus on one and maybe add the other in a second time.

Accessibility
First thing: Don’t make it so only guilds can join raids! I’m in a big guild, but I know a lot of people that aren’t, or that just have friends in other guilds. We could make it so that it’s easier for a guild to open a raid, or a guildie to join, but I think it would do a disservice to a lot of people to make such a big part of PvE content (I hope) only to people in guilds.
Regarding gating: there shouldn’t be limits on how much raids a person can join in a single day (or week. I’ve seen people suggest that: was it something that there was in other games? It sounds awful.). Period. As I will say after, though, I agree that certain rewards (like tokens) should be limited once per day. But going back to the accessibility part, I don’t see the reason to put big requirement in joining a raid: maybe a little gold/karma costs for the instance opener, but making things such as AP, titles, agony requirements to enter is pointless, as they can’t be used to gauge the ability of a player.

Encounter Design
Finally the part in which I have more to say.
First: keep up the good work! The encounter design’s getting better and better since launch! You just have to look at the bosses of the first dungeons (with a couple exception) and the bosses in the original Personal Story (looking at you, Blightscale and Zaithan <.<), and then at the new Tequatl, the fights against Scarlet during the first jubilee, the Marionette, the holograms, the sylvary that jumped around at the start of LS2 and the salad dragon in the Grove: we’re leaps and bounds ahead since we started! So, as a rule of thumb, [I] raid bosses should be more similar to LS2 bosses[/i].

To expand on that: first, bosses in raids should promote build and class diversity. And I’m not saying this from a perspective of ‘OMG NERF ZERK’. Talking form personal experience, I’ve run a Condi Necro since launch: I’ve long stopped doing dungeons run with it, and nowadays I mostly run around in my WvW well build.
But during the battle of Lion’s Arch, I felt really satisfied against the three clocworks knights: I was using a build that I liked very much, and I was being useful!
I was about to cite one of GW2’s slogans at launch, but seeing as that usually creates bitter arguments out of nowhere( something that we don’t want in this thread), I will say this instead: GW2 has tons and tons of traits, stats and whatnot, and it’s a shame that most of them are rather useless as of today. We would have to rebuild PvE from scratch to make most of them viable, but raids could be used to put a ‘band-aid’ on that: the LS fights have shown us that ANET can do it, by creating bosses that, while not shaking up the system, give every player an occasion to shine.

Some practical examples:
-Make some very mobile bosses: if Chotorrak, the skritt on crack doesn’t stop for a second, that puts the players with Condi builds and ranged weapons at an advantage.
-On the other hand, in the next room there is The very big earth elemental: stacking is a rather efficient tactics here, but the boss has an attack that throws boulders on top of each player, resulting in disastrous results for the stacked players. This can be avoided, though, if a couple of tank-ish players stands on the near dais, as a number of adds swarm them.
-And you could always recycle some of the boss from the LS. We get to replay awesome content, you save money and man-power
-In short: give different builds a time to shine, while encouraging players to be fluid and flexible in about them.

Continue in the next post….

Also, making so that in an encounter there are different objectives makes it so players with different skill levels can still participate in a raid: while tanking adds alone is something someone proficient with a class should do, a player not used to the instance may join the DPS group, and learn how to tank alone while watching the other player.

Rewards
Raids shouldn’t give rewards better than ascended! That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be rewards specific to raids (read, skins). I fully support the idea of pseudo-RNG: you are fully capable to drop the Headgear of Ascended Flashiness from the boss, but you can do raids regularly and acquire tokens to buy it. In that case, I would put a limit on either the number of tokens you can acquire in a single day, or award them only on completion. Keeping it completely RNG is both frustrating and doesn’t make sense: I, for example, have 2 Fractal Focuses, but I’m not a diehard fractal runner, nor a good player. On the other hand, I know people that ran fractal ad nauseam and still have to drop the weapon they want.

Risks
1) Giving the number of people required, PUGing may be required in some cases to pick the last 1-3 players: this carries the usual problems of PUG groups (usually you get nice, skilled people that like to work together. Other times, not so much).
2) Striking the balance between difficulty and rewards will be crucial: if we aren’t able to do that, it will be Fractal/Aetherpath all over again (Immensely fun, but not worth it )

So this is a very rough, very early stab at a concept a few guildmates and I are working on, but I though it would be useful to post it and get some feedback.
—-
Proposal Overview
“Guild Campaigns”

Goal of Proposal
Create large zones with multiple objectives for a variety of group sizes without stringent limits on time and organization.

Proposal Functionality
Traditional raids are essentially “bigger dungeons.” A specific number of players go in together, fight bosses and leave. Progress is either lost or preserved for a period of time when players are not inside the raid.

Our proposal is to create large, instanced maps that are persistent over a long period of time (perhaps indefinitely) and contain a large number of objectives intended for a variety of group sizes. These objectives can be completed separately and even simultaneously, but all contribute towards the overall goal.

To present a familiar example, the Pact effort to take the Temple of Balthazar in Straits of Devastation is a three-pronged approach that each operate independently and require different tactics and group sizes, but all feed into the main meta event to retake the temple. All three approaches do not necessarily have to be completed to advance, though it does help tremendously.

A theoretical Campaign of this scenario would give players a global objective (“Retake the Temple”), but in place of open world Dynamic Events would have a more structured, group-oriented approach.

For example, a 5-player group enters the campaign map on Monday and starts a dungeon-like encounter to clear a route for supplies to be delivered to the southern front. When the 10-player raid starts later that day, they can chose from several different encounters, but decide that since there are supplies already delivered to the south, they’ll push through the “Lasciate Gate” raid.

On Tuesday another 5-player group enters and fnds that since the southern route was advanced the previous day, they now have access to an Orrian Reliquary that will give a map-wide buff if completed.

On Wednesday night, the big 25-player raid enters to find that instead of the direct approach to the temple, they can take an alternative route through the Lasciate Gate, and they have all of these valuable relic buffs activated to boot.

The campaign continues until the Temple is retaken; perhaps the route through the Lasciate Gate was too difficult or the push towards the temple needed more artillery. 5-player content continues to complete smaller objectives, which compliments or unlocks new 10-player content, which in turn gives the large 25-player groups more options. The large 25-player group can all log in Monday, however, and recapture the Temple if they’re good enough, but a more diverse experience (different routes with different bosses, different tactics, rewards, etc.) is achieved by having smaller groups work on the campaign as well.

Associated Risks
If a ton of development resources are being spent on large scale dynamic content, it might just be better to spend them on open-world content that all players can enjoy.

Being more open-ended, players who want a linear raid (“Kill boss, clear trash, kill boss, clear trash, kill boss, done”) may be disappointed.

Larger guilds may still consider 25-player encounters to be too small, though it is possible that multiple large-scale encounters could feed into much larger, world-boss style fights.

Sadly I don’t have time for a full post at the moment, but here are some brief thoughts. I’ve already seen a lot I like in the thread

Size: I like the 10 to 15 I’ve been seeing. I think that is better for smaller guilds.
Entering the raid: I don’t love the idea of merits to start it. I would prefer swirling portals that just kind of lead to them. But if this is going to be a guild thing, it makes sense. Just don’t make it as cost prohibitive as something like a world boss spawn.

Duration: I would love variety in raids. I’ve seen desire for zone sized sprawling adventures with multiple objectives. I suppose like your old elite zones (I’m a gw1 noob, only did it for some Hom points.) those might take awhile, and that is fine. But give guilds a choice of raid. If people have the time for that, awesome. But marionette would be a shorter kind of raid, just the boss. Other raids can be largely
linear with bosses along the way, like tower of nightmares! Perhaps between 30 minutes and an hour and a half? 2 hours?

Comat: again, variety, phased bosses like lupi are lovely. I like clockheart, the molten duo, Mai trin. The one golem in fractals has a Thaddeus move, that electrical charge mechanic. That would make for a lovely stack splitter. Oh, and try to avoid fights that will devolve into a stackfest. It’s fine sometimes, but I think an attempt to break up the ball would be nice. Someone previously mentioned a boss/enemy mechanic similar to spiteful spirit in gw1. That would be dirty. But just make it fun overall. I enjoyed shadow dragon. I like fighting spark and slicki. Try to bring out the mechanics in our professions.

Rewards: Tough. I think a mix of unique loot or tokens to obtain unique loot, as well as stuff you can sell. Perhaps give titles for doing the hard stuff, but let the items be sold. Allow people to show off their accomplishments, but don’t cause the average player to go “f” this game. As others have mentioned, raids are usually super hard at first, and then people figure them out. At that point everyone can pretty much do it. While I don’t see the GW2 raid being as “tough” as raids are elsewhere, they should certainly be challenging. So as long as they aren’t absurdly difficult, I don’t think it’s unfair to require players that want the reward to do the content.

That’s all I have now, but I’m glad this discussion is happening! Thanks.

I’m against a weekly/monthly reset of your raid progression. You managed to kill 2 of the 10 raid-bosses and then… family, children… all gone, just because you had to take a longer break.

Instead make it about tries. Let’s say (random number:) everyone has 15 tries. Doing damage to the next boss counts as a try. If you succeed, you stay at 15. If you lose/log out you lose one.

Why not let the player decide when he wants to progress? Let average Joe take a longer break and try the next bosses with some other guys.

NoTrigger.8396:

more difficult and challenging content for a bigger party size. more teamwork, more coordination, more mechanics… the list goes on.

Any example? Didn’t read the whole thread yet sorry.

That Guy.5704:

Also, preferably, mechanics that discourage skipping and stack-and-spank.

Removing the active use of Swiftness, Stealth and melee in general is a great idea in your opinion, am i understand this right?
Why skipping bothers you?
Why melee fighting bothers you?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Why not let the player decide when he wants to progress? Let average Joe take a longer break and try the next bosses with some other guys.

Thats exactly what weekly / monthly resets do.

Blaeys.3102:

[…]

tldr: Players of any commitment level can still usually find a party willing to attempt an ultra hard 5 player dungeon. They wouldn’t be able to do the same with set number large scale raids. They would never even get the chance. Take that into account when implementing raiding in GW2.

I don’t want to crash anybody party, but I’m also concerned about implementing larger group instances (a.k.a. “Raids”) in the game.

A party of 5 seems the perfect number for this kind of content, and I really like to see more of them added to the game, rather than 20 people raids that won’t be accessible to most of your playerbase (we’ve all seen how it ended up in Wildstar).

Dalanor.5387:

NoTrigger.8396:

more difficult and challenging content for a bigger party size. more teamwork, more coordination, more mechanics… the list goes on.

Any example? Didn’t read the whole thread yet sorry.

That Guy.5704:

Also, preferably, mechanics that discourage skipping and stack-and-spank.

Removing the active use of Swiftness, Stealth and melee in general is a great idea in your opinion, am i understand this right?
Why skipping bothers you?
Why melee fighting bothers you?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Why not let the player decide when he wants to progress? Let average Joe take a longer break and try the next bosses with some other guys.

Thats exactly what weekly / monthly resets do.

Larger teams opens up possibilities for splitting the team into smaller parts, some players focusing on damaging the boss, others maybe have to defend an npc, some maybe have to deal with adds that shouldn’t be allowed to reach the boss or some other point in the room, someone might have to periodically pull a lever somewhere..
You might say these things can be done in a 5 man group, but the options are just more limited with 5 people (you can only split up in increments of 20%, while with 10 or more players, you have more options for splitting).

Skipping is bad, because it renders part of an instance obsolete (you know, because you skip it), and as such, the instance should be designed in either a way to prevent skipping or to make skipping meaningless.

And no one has anything against melee combat, there’s just nothing challenging about standing in a corner spamming skills while occasionally pressing “F” if someone gets downed. It’s not an interesting use of mechanics.
The boss encounters should have more focus on the use of control and support. This of course requires that the bosses are designed, so that control skills actually work on them (changing how Defiance works, or replace it with something new).