Guild Wars 2

Crystal Reid.2481:

Hi guys!

I thought I’d swing by and leave a quick introduction as I’ll be working with Chris to monitor this thread (and because I don’t post nearly as much as he does on the forums so most of you are unfamiliar with me in these CDI discussions).

I previously worked on some of the Fractals, Tequatl/Triple Trouble, and the Boss Blitz. Much like you all, I have an invested interest in raiding and I’m extremely excited to discuss what that could mean in Guild Wars 2!

There are already some really great discussions going on! I’m trying to get caught up on everything now and looking forward to reading more of your ideas.

Welcome to the discussion.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Hi guys!

I thought I’d swing by and leave a quick introduction as I’ll be working with Chris to monitor this thread (and because I don’t post nearly as much as he does on the forums so most of you are unfamiliar with me in these CDI discussions).

I previously worked on some of the Fractals, Tequatl/Triple Trouble, and the Boss Blitz. Much like you all, I have an invested interest in raiding and I’m extremely excited to discuss what that could mean in Guild Wars 2!

There are already some really great discussions going on! I’m trying to get caught up on everything now and looking forward to reading more of your ideas.

Welcome to the discussion! Hope you find some good ideas/inspiration in here

Crystal Reid.2481:

Hi guys!

I thought I’d swing by and leave a quick introduction as I’ll be working with Chris to monitor this thread (and because I don’t post nearly as much as he does on the forums so most of you are unfamiliar with me in these CDI discussions).

I previously worked on some of the Fractals, Tequatl/Triple Trouble, and the Boss Blitz. Much like you all, I have an invested interest in raiding and I’m extremely excited to discuss what that could mean in Guild Wars 2!

There are already some really great discussions going on! I’m trying to get caught up on everything now and looking forward to reading more of your ideas.

Yay thanks Crystal, so who from this thread is getting a job at ANET cause of all these awesome ideas? =P

Crystal Reid.2481:

Hi guys!

I thought I’d swing by and leave a quick introduction as I’ll be working with Chris to monitor this thread (and because I don’t post nearly as much as he does on the forums so most of you are unfamiliar with me in these CDI discussions).

I previously worked on some of the Fractals, Tequatl/Triple Trouble, and the Boss Blitz. Much like you all, I have an invested interest in raiding and I’m extremely excited to discuss what that could mean in Guild Wars 2!

There are already some really great discussions going on! I’m trying to get caught up on everything now and looking forward to reading more of your ideas.

Awesome, welcome Crystal! I look forward to hearing your own thoughts and questions towards the community, as the discussion continues!

It’s great to see the key designer for most of the existing challenging content getting involved in the discussion!

How about this as a compromise to the scaling issue:

1. The developers create the raid assuming it would be completed by a set number of people. So, they create a 12 person (arbitrary number) raid that involves a huge amount of coordination and eats our faces. Drop something extremely hard into the game that takes weeks for a 12 person group to beat.

2. Developers then go back and add scaling in anyway. The instance is open for groups ranging up to 40 people. The scaling is the same basic scaling we see in the open world. The mechanics arent changed at all, just the scaling. The raid remains somewhat challenging, but is now open to a much wider range of players.

3. Finally, they implement unique achievements (and possibly minis or titles) for completing the raid with 12 or fewer people. This is where hardcore groups can find their challenge, without depriving others of the experience or potentially fracturing guilds with players at divergent skill levels.

I think this would address both issues. Groups dont have to leave people out, but those people looking for a very difficult raid still have it. Additionally, it gives hardcore groups a way to practice (if they want it) and see mechanics with larger groups before taking the smaller groups in for the achievement runs (which should be tuned to take weeks to complete at the 12 person level).

Just a thought in the spirit of compromise. I believe scaling is crucial – for the reasons Ive posted in previous pages, but I also understand the desire for something brutal and torturous. If they can do both, even at the expense of a little additional development time, it is worth doing.

Proposal Overview
Multi-targettable body parts, each with its own condition stacking, defiance, etc.

Goal of Proposal
GW2’s combat works better in small skirmishes. Ex. 2v2 or 3v3 pvp encounters. Any larger pve encounter is handicapped by condition stack capping, defiance, melee stacking and other mechanics that take away from combat’s depth.

What is the difference between PvP and PvE? Opponent’s intelligence, plurality and encounter improvization. If, for the first and the third points, we can demand better AI and roaming monsters, what about the second? Should Anet’s developers be forced to take the “GW1’s route”, and have each encounter simulate a pvp match? That wouldn’t be an elegant solution, because it would greatly restrict them from designing one-boss encounters.

Thus, my proposal was born. Design boss encounters where one entity (the boss) can simulate several entities (each body part = each other opposing player in a pvp match).

Proposal Functionality

1. All boss encounters would have multi-targettable body parts.
2. The Health value would be shared across all parts, but not the other stats.
3. Each body part would have its own defiant stacks and condition stacks.
4. Each body part would have its own skillset, and skills would occur simultaneously. For the purpose of interruption, each part would count individually. Ex. Interrupting an arm’s punch won’t interrupt any leg’s stomp that would occur at the same time.
5. Some body parts would only be targettable by ranged attacks, based on situational mechanics. Ex. Arms while elevated into the air, head is the foe is not knocked down, etc;

Example:

Let’s imagine a 5-part boss: the legs, the chest, the head, the left arm and the right arm. Add or take away some, based on each encounter. For example, a dragon can have a targettable tail and neck, but no arms.

Now imagine a raiding scenario that consists of: 10 players, 15 players and 20. Different players would be assigned to focus on different body parts.

10 / 5 = 2 players assigned to each body part.
15 / 5 = 3.
20 / 5 = 4.

This makes it incredibly harder to hit the condition cap for each individual part, or to “perma-stun” a boss without defiance, when parties are not any bigger than 10-15 players. In a 20-player scenario, the problem comes back, but never to the extent of the current 5-man dungeon scenario vs 1 boss. Always an improvement.

Of course, things become increasingly complex when we take into account AoE skills. But, there’s always secondary objectives to make players spread further. Or even solutions as simple as 2-boss encounters.

Associated Risks
?

As for rewards… Something that is NOT already in the game. Something really desireable!

• Class specific weapon skins (can only be used by xxx class). Can still be of already existing weapon types though.

• Pets/pet skins that can be unlocked by rangers (maybe instead of weapon skins)

• Racial armour pieces. (Think of those poos charr who have had a hard time since launch)

• Unlocking of racial features (like horns, tattoos, ear designs… etc). U unlock one racial feature for the race that u participate with in the raid, on sucsess. There could be a pool of 6 new racial features per race and gender (for example 6 new horn designs for female charr, and 6 for male charr). That would keep me busy guaranteed!

When all the limited ammount of skins etc are unlocked by the player, the rewards could be of the kind that u find in BLT chests. A ticket scrap, a makeover kit, a mini, a pile of boosts, a really rare dye… etc

Dalanor.5387:

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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?

bahaha this is funny, a cross between a strawman and reductio ad absurdum.

You will notice I never said anything like you suggested. In fact, I said mechanics. You will notice that, in the quote that I used the person used the word “more” over and over. I thought it was obvious I was extending that sentiment (ie “more” mechanics), but apparently not. Skipping is just not playing content usually. On the other hand, if one type of raid were designed to be “covert” and had more interesting mechanics where avoiding contact was the point and it was harder than just run through the middle of stuff with stealth or running until you deaggro it could be a nice change. Who said melee bothers me, other than you. I am saying that it would increase the difficulty if the AI were smarter than to stand in a corner with everyone stacked and make for more interesting encounters.

Symph.8407:

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).

Got it now, thanks.

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.

Same as tanky builds which renders mechanics such as active defenses completely meaningless.
The way i see skipping is just another way to deal with things and honestly, killing trash is not fun after a lot of runs when the novelty wears off and they still don’t worth the effort lootwise. Back in the days Hrouda posted about the issue why they can’t really do something about this which can be read HERE.

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).

Link your participation in the most recent dungeon tournaments please. I bet you and your team was in the top 3 if encounters are that easy.
What enables “mindless corner stacking” are the powerful nature of active defenses and slow enemy attacks. Press one button, damage completely negated.
With rapid damage income you just promote passive defense, which would be a dumb idea since this isn’t what GW2’s PvE combat is about. Or at least it shouldn’t.
Tanky setups should outlive the opponent and slowly kill it, while full offensive ones just blows it up before they run out of active damage mitigation tools otherwise they just die in 1-2 hits. Everything in between well thats another issue, but thats what we call unoptimized, right?

I agree with the Defiance issue partially. They way it works with the stacks and such are great, maybe it can be reduced by one, but the incentive is nearly non-existant since a lot of ability just won’t go on cooldown if you interrupt a mob / boss (try it on an ettin with their big windup attack, it just stops for a brief moment). Thats why Deep freeze and Fear me are such great skills. 4-5 seconds of free time to dps the hell out of the boss.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

I’d say:

Anyone can start or join a group for one.

However, guild should have features that help organize them.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

I don’t really see any benefit to strictly restricting Raids to Guilds other then maybe tieing Guild rewards to Raids and even then I’d argue there should be a “non-guild” backdoor to Raids.

Further examples and thoughts on the Guild Campaign concept:

1. A Campaign modeled on the Urban Battleground fractal where the objective is to essentially replay the Charr invasion of Ascalon. The large raid content is focused on taking cities (Ascalon City, Surmia, Rin), smaller raids on individual villages, fortresses and keeps, smaller 5-player groups on weakening smaller objectives.

• Remember that these are not dynamic events but play out more like dungeon paths!

2. A Campaign set up like a traditional “Big dungeon” raid would play out like the city of Moria from the Lord of the Rings; a sprawling, labyrinth of caverns, chambers, and mines that takes several days to cross. 5-player groups can unlock new routes, find hidden caches of weapons that the raids can use to their advantage, or even make the whole campaign harder (but more rewarding) by stirring up the enemies. It might actually be really cool to have a guild campaign that had the objective of just advancing forward until you reach an exit, with players picking different routes.

3. The potential for asymmetric gameplay is possible; a 10-player raid through a heavily-defended valley is made easier by a 5-player group clearing the enemy out from defensive positions above. These don’t have to occur simultaneously, but in theory they could, meaning that the number of players who can participate in a campaign is much more fluid; in this example we have essentially created a “15-player raid” even though technically no such construct exists. This means that, if there are enough objectives a raid could extend to the player cap for the entire map. For example, if 25-players is the largest group for which content is created, but there are four 25-player encounters in the campaign, they could theoretically all be occurring at the same time for what is essentially a 100-player raid.

• Using the above example, having both the 10-player “Valley” Raid and the 5-player “Cliffside” encounter run simultaneously would be the most efficient method. Because campaigns are envisioned as open maps with isolated routes rather than tightly instanced sections, the 5-player group could utilize siege to rain arrows down into the valley while the 10-player group is running through it, making this “15-player raid” the optimal route while still remaining optional.

4. The dynamics of the map can change based on the different group content. For example, a large 25-player group completes an encounter, which in addition to creating new encounters for them to complete unlocks a small 5-player objective that unlocks a waypoint. In theory, smaller groups could constantly nip at the heels of the larger ones to add lots of support options.

• This works both ways! A 5-player group runs through a small path and randomly triggers an event like the Troll in Ascalon Catacombs. The wall the troll comes through could then lead to a new raid where players must wipe out a hidden troll den. This optional content would never have been discovered without the smaller group’s efforts.

5. I like the idea that Campaigns have no set time restriction. In theory, a guild could have a campaign running for months, taking down a chunk of content a week at a time.

Still poking at this idea, any feedback thus far?

Dalanor.5387:

Same as tanky builds which renders mechanics such as active defenses completely meaningless.
The way i see skipping is just another way to deal with things and honestly, killing trash is not fun after a lot of runs when the novelty wears off and they still don’t worth the effort lootwise. Back in the days Hrouda posted about the issue why they can’t really do something about this which can be read HERE.

..
What enables “mindless corner stacking” are the powerful nature of active defenses and slow enemy attacks. Press one button, damage completely negated.
With rapid damage income you just promote passive defense, which would be a dumb idea since this isn’t what GW2’s PvE combat is about. Or at least it shouldn’t.
Tanky setups should outlive the opponent and slowly kill it, while full offensive ones just blows it up before they run out of active damage mitigation tools otherwise they just die in 1-2 hits. Everything in between well thats another issue, but thats what we call unoptimized, right?

I agree that killing trash is usually not fun, which is why my proposal in this thread suggested a format with very little attention on trash, as I’m much more interested in the challenging boss encounters, and most trash are simply delays with rarely any loot in exchange for the time they took from you.
An option would be to design “Trash-Bosses” which would basically just be boss encounters, but instead of one boss, it would be alot of trash mobs you had to deal with in one way or another (haven’t given it much though, just a quick idea I just got).

I am aware of how stacking works, but it’s still in no way an interesting way of fighting a boss, and while it requires the players in the party to bring their share of defenses, I personally cannot remember the last time I stood in a corner in a dungeon thinking: “wow, this is challenging”..
Which is why I want encounters that makes stacking impossible. However they choose to do that, well, I guess that’s one of the things we need to figure out in this thread.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp. If raids are enterable instances like a normal dungeon, then you would need to come up with a way to have large party sizes be handled sometimes while not increasing the party size for normal (read current, non raid) circumstances. Thus, you can pug, but only those within your selected group may enter.

If it is a map instance (not dungeon style instance), then there should be a way for a person to “claim” a map and add a code so that his guild/friends/invitees can join him specifically on that instance while keeping others out. This would negate the need for altering the way party sizes are handled. Of course, the “claim” would need to have a time out so that there arent a crazy number of instances clogging the servers. For instance, once claimed, you have 15 minutes to start the event chain or reach some minimum number of characters or your map shard is disposed of and you are sent back to somewhere or some other way, this method could have other issues. In this way, anyone may enter, but there is then an option to restrict to a select group be that friends or guildmates.

Daala.4258:

I think the general consensus to the accesibility of raiding is in its flexibility. A lot of good ideas were proposed and all (more or less) revolve around dividing raid instance into “paths” or “shards” that will require 2-5 man teams. Multiply team numbers by number of shards and you got your max raid size. This flexibility allows small raid parties complete only portion of all paths and receive reward scaled to number of shards completed.

But can you still consider 2 / 5 people a raid? Personally I think there should simply be multiple different raid content. some for 10, some for 15, some for 20 and some for 25. If you try to use scaling and more of that sort tricks you end of with something they to easy for bigger groups and then only gets grinded as an easy way of loot. You would really want to prevent to make another brainless zerg thing.

So far the majority of suggestions seem to replicate the boss-focused raid designs of other MMOs, including all the flaws and problems those designs inherit. With GW2 already missing one of the main design objectives of other MMO’s raids (provide continuous power progression to stretch player retention), a raid in GW2 can (and should) take completely different approaches.

Proposal Overview

Multi-objective raid design with several parallel encounters to facilitate multi-group play that leverages the design of event chains from the GW2 open world instead of isolated single-target boss fights.

Goal of Proposal

Provide a compartmentalized, structured, replayable piece of content for larger groups of players that provides challenge by requiring planning and strong coordination between smaller groups, without overemphasising minmaxing or extreme build-dependency.

Proposal Functionality

This raid design revisits the idea of a GW2 map containing a number of event chains that, when played from start to finish, represent a progression from a starting state to a resolution state. The raid could use instanced copies of existing world maps as well as new maps, and incorporate both existing events that are retuned and linked and new event chains with new encounters. The challenge of such a raid scenario lies in reaching the resolution state within a certain range of win conditions. These could be time limits, resource limits, resolved events, player death count and many more. One core element of the design is that it doesn’t rely on the whole raid group fighting a single encounter, but rather to require coordination between several smaller groups to resolve a number of encounters in parallel to progress the scenario and reach the resolution state.
Instead of a single encounter which tends to be solved rather formulaic by maximizing damage for some, survivability for others, and a few specialists with key skills to counter boss mechanics, this raid design can be tuned to require players to have a plan over multiple encounters, allocating and changing resources to the individual groups, syncronizing progress across groups and more, to optimize the outcome towards the resolution state.
This favours encounters that play to GW2 combat’s strength, namely small groups with strong cooperation, where every single group member has a significant part in the success of the whole group, instead of the classic “100 warriors attack a dragons toenail”-school of encounter design.

With the raid playing out over multiple parallel encounters, this also allows for more win-states than just succeed/fail, as well as more scaling options by adding or subtracting more parallel encounters. Newbies can be rewarded for partial completion, while players looking for harder challenges and associated prestigious awards can be presented with much more tightly-tuned win-conditions or even optional encounters if the raid group managed to exceed in pushing through the scenario.

Thematically, these raids can lean on a number of existing conflicts within the GW2 world, e.g. the centaurs siege in Harathi, Flame Legion conquering Fireheart, Icebrood overrunning Frostgorge, or playing through historic scenarios like the siege of Ebonhawke when Kralkatorrik created the brand, the Foefire, the various attacks on Lion’s Arch etc.

Associated Risks

The biggest ‘risk’ as I see is that this approach requires significantly more resources than creating a number of boss encounters. Also, just like everything else that aspired to provide ‘endgame’ in GW2, the percieved worth of the reward system will eventually decide if player deem this a worthy investment of their time. I’d like to see the character title system revisited as a possible type of reward

That Guy.5704:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp.
…

I think you are heading the right direction with this.

This could be accomplished easily through something similar to the custom spvp interface, which has a section at the bottom allowing the owner to add either guilds or individuals to the invite (or allowed entry) list.

They could take a further nod from that interface and include a “public/private” toggle to accomodate pugs. Participants could then either visit an NPC in Lion’s Arch (or wherever) or open their own list that shows all of the active raid instances they can join – whether they are created by their guild or by an individual.

The question becomes how does the leader gain access to the interface. To answer Crystal’s question, I say why limit it to one method.

Why not allow the following:

- A permanent version purchasable for a guild using influence/merits. Then the guild leader could manually determine who in the guild can access the interface based on guild rank (much the way we determine who can start guild missions now).

- A one time version purchasable with either gold or gems. This would allow individuals to form raid parties as well to experience content.

- A permanent version purchasable with tokens acquired inside the raids themselves. This would promote diversity and allow guilds/groups that raid alot to have multiple raid leaders/raids going simultaneously.

Not a perfect solution, but I think the general idea is there somewhere.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

I’m in favour of having a sort of raid that needs a high amount of coordination and cooperation. This would make it innately easier for guilds to complete, while still making it possible to open it up to the full public.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

Heya Crystal!

I don’t think raids should be limited to guild currency simply because it is exceptionally time consuming, costly, and a serious gate to smaller guilds of 20-25 members that may or may not rep 24/7. As is to keep my 2 Teq spawns running I’m churning out 60 gold/week plus SORC runs guild missions twice a week for merits in order to keep us going, which is hard for a guild that doesn’t require 24/7 rep. You also run the risk of having guild become even more inclusive and demanding the 24/7 rep to generate the influence/merits to run with will lend to the “elitist” tag setting in.

I would much rather see some sort of pre event, or a simple achievement/# of teq or wurm kills/a hard quest (would be a great chance to be a sort of raid tutorial so people know what they are getting into) that players can obtain an account wide raid unlock for. This would allow for the most people to be able to participate without having to jump through ridiculous hoops to play the content they love.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

Hell no!
Squad system needs a proper revamp to be able to use it in PvE for such activities and maaaaaaaybe it will have more value in WvW as well.
That way you gate the content behind 300g so i’m not sure it’s a good idea so yeah …
But no restriction for guilds please.

Naqaj.6219:

snip

Glad someone else came to the same conclusion I did a few posts ago particularly about playing out various things from the lore that have not been played before, merely explained. I would like to see something that isnt just a large party dungeon as well. Could have a complex more difficult meta event chain. the centaur wars is something I mentioned in my post as well.

Could have some sort of fortress assault where you have to gather materials, build up an kitten nal (all while potentially under attack from your target) and then assault a target.

You could have a “behind enemy lines” style one as well. Upon starting the event chains, everyone is randomly moved to different places around a “fortress” (i mean the individuals are randomized and moved to specific, designated places) and you have to escape. Some could be placed in different jail cells. The story could be that you had been there for x months so some are in prison, some are slaves in various areas essentially randomizing the composition of a couple different teams who have to find equipment (whatever they can come up with) and fight their way out.

Proposal Overview

Many players want raid type content to bring about another layer for rewards. I would like the idea of rewards to mean that people successfully completed challenging content, not that they were lucky after completing the content.
Goal of Proposal

A discussion of RNG and rewards was started here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss/first#post4488821

After reading and responding to this thread I have come to understand rewards a little differently. Well designed rewards elicit player dedication through healthy means. Poorly designed rewards create player dedication through unhealthy means.

Well designed rewards work because people know what the reward is ahead of time, setting goals to achieve them, and accomplishing each goal. This leads to better player retention and attitude.

A poorly designed reward is exemplified by an attempt to access core brain functioning that leads to addictive behaviors, leaving players frustrated, unfulfilled, and disliking content.

Proposal Functionality

Basically, to keep players happy, the reward system must reward players for the effort put forth. This is undermined by RNG drops. If I finish a raid I expect some symbol that I have finished it. As long as I know I am working towards that symbol I will play the content. I will not play the content as much if I have no idea when I would receive the reward. I would look at some type of token system, or some sort of pseudo RNG that increases ones chance of getting an item the longer one goes without that particular item dropping.

Associated Risks

The risks of min/max over farming are inherent to this design desision, however, the risk of player dissatisfaction with pure RNG is more corrosive to the game at this time.

Proposal Overview
Raids Gw2 Style

Goal of Proposal
To have guilds and players play together and be as inclusive as possible

Proposal Functionality
My Idea is a bit crazy but it could also be cool at the same time. I am not sure all is doable but then again the idea here is to brainstorm so I’d hope at least it might inspire some idea.

In a guild you find different people from hardcore to casual and it would be nice if all had the chance to participate. So I had this idea. What if the raid opened a map like say the size of one of the WvW borderlands. The whole instance would run for a maximum of 1 week. It would have a lot of different things going on in it though not just boss fights. There would be goals that need to be reached in order to unlock the actual boss fights. If a fight is unlocked and it fails, the guild can be repeat these events to re-unlock the boss and try again as many times as one wants until the week expires if the bosses aren’t killed in that time span the raid fails.

Raid isnt limited to guild members, people can be invited into the raid party and are able to join the raid (this helps make up for numbers if there is a wish to make an attempt but not enough guild payers online or for smaller guilds)

Example of one such raid to better illustrate what I mean
Raid objective is to kill the sky pirate boss and his 3 2nd in command.
The sky pirate has a fortress in the mountain only reachable by airship, his helpers are in fortresses that require siege weapons to break down the walls and gain players access.

Players start in a fortress in the middle of the map. To the far south are resource nodes (not the regular ones you harvest) and to the north are the objectives. Players have to start gathering resources which need to be escorted to the fortress. Those mats can be used to upgrade the fortress or to build the siege weapon / the airship necessary to access the boss. Its the players decisions but if while most of the players are out gathering more supplies the fortress is destroyed attackers burn what is already there and players need to start over.

The map itself can take more then the regular raid size (say 20 people) but only that group can attack the actual boss (in game reason could be only 20 fit on the air ship or the convoy taking the siege weapons etc..)

each person taking part would get reward based on contribution. with a maximum cap IE killing the bosses multiple times in that week will not give you more reward though you might still make it to help guildies (perhaps you may not get raid tokens but karma or even gold instead… thats an option I guess)

what I am trying to achieve
The raid is a co-operative operation. even the new player with sub par gear can contribute and join in the success of the guild as a whole in defeating the raid. In my example by helping getting the supplies and holding the fort for example and thus allowing the more hardcore players to retry when/if they fail their attempt at the boss.

The week long map solves the issue of people not able to play at certain times while at the same time giving an avenue for guilds to play together in the long term rather then a couple of hours a week.

Risks

- Since this is instanced it may steal players for a long period of the time from the open world.

- There may be conflict of who gets to face the bosses

- if alternative rewards are given when reward cap is reached some people might be tempted to farm potentially taking other people’s spot / cut them out entirely for the open world.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

I think we want progression, without the you-need-that-equipment-to-enter we know from other MMOs. I don’t see how this would be possible without a guild that “unlocks” tier after tier.

Blaeys.3102:

That Guy.5704:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp.
…

I think you are heading the right direction with this.

This could be accomplished easily through something similar to the custom spvp interface, which has a section at the bottom allowing the owner to add either guilds or individuals to the invite (or allowed entry) list.

They could take a further nod from that interface and include a “public/private” toggle to accomodate pugs. Participants could then either visit an NPC in Lion’s Arch (or wherever) or open their own list that shows all of the active raid instances they can join – whether they are created by their guild or by an individual.

The question becomes how does the leader gain access to the interface. To answer Crystal’s question, I say why limit it to one method.

Why not allow the following:

- A permanent version purchasable for a guild using influence/merits. Then the guild leader could manually determine who in the guild can access the interface based on guild rank (much the way we determine who can start guild missions now).

- A one time version purchasable with either gold or gems. This would allow individuals to form raid parties as well to experience content.

- A permanent version purchasable with tokens acquired inside the raids themselves. This would promote diversity and allow guilds/groups that raid alot to have multiple raid leaders/raids going simultaneously.

Not a perfect solution, but I think the general idea is there somewhere.

unless, in the case of the prepared group style, it functions more like solo-pvp. Players “sign in” to a list and the person starting the list can pick the map to be played/difficulty etc, EDIT: with the public private options. When the list reaches either some minimum or the otherwise required number of players you get the little dialog that sad “your map is ready. go now?” or something like that. You still have to take scaling and rewards into consideration, but it might be the easiest, non-small guild gated way to do it.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

Seperate from Guilds please, As stated already My lets say “Raid Group” consists of people who are leaders/commanders in other guilds, it would be a nightmare for us to do raids if we had to choose a guild to support.

That Guy.5704:

Blaeys.3102:

That Guy.5704:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp.
…

I think you are heading the right direction with this.

This could be accomplished easily through something similar to the custom spvp interface, which has a section at the bottom allowing the owner to add either guilds or individuals to the invite (or allowed entry) list.

They could take a further nod from that interface and include a “public/private” toggle to accomodate pugs. Participants could then either visit an NPC in Lion’s Arch (or wherever) or open their own list that shows all of the active raid instances they can join – whether they are created by their guild or by an individual.

The question becomes how does the leader gain access to the interface. To answer Crystal’s question, I say why limit it to one method.

Why not allow the following:

- A permanent version purchasable for a guild using influence/merits. Then the guild leader could manually determine who in the guild can access the interface based on guild rank (much the way we determine who can start guild missions now).

- A one time version purchasable with either gold or gems. This would allow individuals to form raid parties as well to experience content.

- A permanent version purchasable with tokens acquired inside the raids themselves. This would promote diversity and allow guilds/groups that raid alot to have multiple raid leaders/raids going simultaneously.

Not a perfect solution, but I think the general idea is there somewhere.

unless, in the case of the prepared group style, it functions more like solo-pvp. Players “sign in” to a list and the person starting the list can pick the map to be played/difficulty etc, EDIT: with the public private options. When the list reaches either some minimum or the otherwise required number of players you get the little dialog that sad “your map is ready. go now?” or something like that. You still have to take scaling and rewards into consideration, but it might be the easiest, non-small guild gated way to do it.

I’m not particularly sure what problem you’re trying to solve here? what is wrong with a standard instance?

Also in your idea, how do you prevent someone entering at a later stage of the raid say at the last boss and being there for the kill , getting all the rewards for none of the effort? This shouldn’t be like a dungeon where its come and go, otherwise you’ll end up with path sellers and guilds kicking people at the end.
My vision would be that a person has to defeat each boss in the raid to progress to the next, no skipping or ferrying in to a later stage.

Conski Deshan.2057:

That Guy.5704:

Blaeys.3102:

That Guy.5704:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp.
…

I think you are heading the right direction with this.

This could be accomplished easily through something similar to the custom spvp interface, which has a section at the bottom allowing the owner to add either guilds or individuals to the invite (or allowed entry) list.

They could take a further nod from that interface and include a “public/private” toggle to accomodate pugs. Participants could then either visit an NPC in Lion’s Arch (or wherever) or open their own list that shows all of the active raid instances they can join – whether they are created by their guild or by an individual.

The question becomes how does the leader gain access to the interface. To answer Crystal’s question, I say why limit it to one method.

Why not allow the following:

- A permanent version purchasable for a guild using influence/merits. Then the guild leader could manually determine who in the guild can access the interface based on guild rank (much the way we determine who can start guild missions now).

- A one time version purchasable with either gold or gems. This would allow individuals to form raid parties as well to experience content.

- A permanent version purchasable with tokens acquired inside the raids themselves. This would promote diversity and allow guilds/groups that raid alot to have multiple raid leaders/raids going simultaneously.

Not a perfect solution, but I think the general idea is there somewhere.

unless, in the case of the prepared group style, it functions more like solo-pvp. Players “sign in” to a list and the person starting the list can pick the map to be played/difficulty etc, EDIT: with the public private options. When the list reaches either some minimum or the otherwise required number of players you get the little dialog that sad “your map is ready. go now?” or something like that. You still have to take scaling and rewards into consideration, but it might be the easiest, non-small guild gated way to do it.

I’m not particularly sure what problem you’re trying to solve here? what is wrong with a standard instance?

Also in your idea, how do you prevent someone entering at a later stage of the raid say at the last boss and being there for the kill , getting all the rewards for none of the effort? This shouldn’t be like a dungeon where its come and go, otherwise you’ll end up with path sellers and guilds kicking people at the end.
My vision would be that a person has to defeat each boss in the raid to progress to the next, no skipping or ferrying in to a later stage.

Maybe instead we could cut up the rewards so you get 1/4 of the rewards 1/3 of the way, 1/4 2/3s of the way and 1/2 when you beat the last boss so you can join mid-raid, you just won’t get all the rewards.

Conski Deshan.2057:

That Guy.5704:

Blaeys.3102:

That Guy.5704:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp.
…

I think you are heading the right direction with this.

This could be accomplished easily through something similar to the custom spvp interface, which has a section at the bottom allowing the owner to add either guilds or individuals to the invite (or allowed entry) list.

They could take a further nod from that interface and include a “public/private” toggle to accomodate pugs. Participants could then either visit an NPC in Lion’s Arch (or wherever) or open their own list that shows all of the active raid instances they can join – whether they are created by their guild or by an individual.

The question becomes how does the leader gain access to the interface. To answer Crystal’s question, I say why limit it to one method.

Why not allow the following:

- A permanent version purchasable for a guild using influence/merits. Then the guild leader could manually determine who in the guild can access the interface based on guild rank (much the way we determine who can start guild missions now).

- A one time version purchasable with either gold or gems. This would allow individuals to form raid parties as well to experience content.

- A permanent version purchasable with tokens acquired inside the raids themselves. This would promote diversity and allow guilds/groups that raid alot to have multiple raid leaders/raids going simultaneously.

Not a perfect solution, but I think the general idea is there somewhere.

unless, in the case of the prepared group style, it functions more like solo-pvp. Players “sign in” to a list and the person starting the list can pick the map to be played/difficulty etc, EDIT: with the public private options. When the list reaches either some minimum or the otherwise required number of players you get the little dialog that sad “your map is ready. go now?” or something like that. You still have to take scaling and rewards into consideration, but it might be the easiest, non-small guild gated way to do it.

I’m not particularly sure what problem you’re trying to solve here? what is wrong with a standard instance?

Also in your idea, how do you prevent someone entering at a later stage of the raid say at the last boss and being there for the kill , getting all the rewards for none of the effort? This shouldn’t be like a dungeon where its come and go, otherwise you’ll end up with path sellers and guilds kicking people at the end.
My vision would be that a person has to defeat each boss in the raid to progress to the next, no skipping or ferrying in to a later stage.

The problem being discussed is how to handle groups bigger than 5.

your question: easy, when the event chain inside is begun, the roster is immediately closed to more people, and the instance is either immediately closed to more entering or closed to entrance after 5 minutes. consideration would need to be made for disconnects however.

If this is token based rewards, then to solve the issue you see with sellers, just have the boss drop the tokens/rewards on a 100% basis rather than having them in a bouncy chest. There are various ways to require full participation, my and Blaeys’s discussion was just about large party maintenance and getting that group all on the same map.

Conski Deshan.2057:

That Guy.5704:

Blaeys.3102:

That Guy.5704:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp.
…

I think you are heading the right direction with this.

This could be accomplished easily through something similar to the custom spvp interface, which has a section at the bottom allowing the owner to add either guilds or individuals to the invite (or allowed entry) list.

They could take a further nod from that interface and include a “public/private” toggle to accomodate pugs. Participants could then either visit an NPC in Lion’s Arch (or wherever) or open their own list that shows all of the active raid instances they can join – whether they are created by their guild or by an individual.

The question becomes how does the leader gain access to the interface. To answer Crystal’s question, I say why limit it to one method.

Why not allow the following:

- A permanent version purchasable for a guild using influence/merits. Then the guild leader could manually determine who in the guild can access the interface based on guild rank (much the way we determine who can start guild missions now).

- A one time version purchasable with either gold or gems. This would allow individuals to form raid parties as well to experience content.

- A permanent version purchasable with tokens acquired inside the raids themselves. This would promote diversity and allow guilds/groups that raid alot to have multiple raid leaders/raids going simultaneously.

Not a perfect solution, but I think the general idea is there somewhere.

unless, in the case of the prepared group style, it functions more like solo-pvp. Players “sign in” to a list and the person starting the list can pick the map to be played/difficulty etc, EDIT: with the public private options. When the list reaches either some minimum or the otherwise required number of players you get the little dialog that sad “your map is ready. go now?” or something like that. You still have to take scaling and rewards into consideration, but it might be the easiest, non-small guild gated way to do it.

I’m not particularly sure what problem you’re trying to solve here? what is wrong with a standard instance?

Also in your idea, how do you prevent someone entering at a later stage of the raid say at the last boss and being there for the kill , getting all the rewards for none of the effort? This shouldn’t be like a dungeon where its come and go, otherwise you’ll end up with path sellers and guilds kicking people at the end.
My vision would be that a person has to defeat each boss in the raid to progress to the next, no skipping or ferrying in to a later stage.

Standard instancing would require people be in a party larger than five, so that would have to be addressed. There is also the question of how scaling would work with a standard instance portal.

The simple solution to the arriving late issue is simple. Inside the “instance” there is a flag just like the flags used to start guild missions. Once the raid leader clicks that flag and starts the raid, the raid closes to new entries (or not – there could be a toggle in the interface for that as well).

Edit: That Guy beat me to it. (Darn that guy ).

Blaeys.3102:

Conski Deshan.2057:

That Guy.5704:

Blaeys.3102:

That Guy.5704:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

This depends on the way raids are set up. There was a sort of “pre-thread” to this one where there was discussion on raids being either an enterable instance or actually a small map that people could enter and exit freely. Personally, I think both could work. It would essentially be the difference between hot-join and team pvp.
…

I think you are heading the right direction with this.

This could be accomplished easily through something similar to the custom spvp interface, which has a section at the bottom allowing the owner to add either guilds or individuals to the invite (or allowed entry) list.

They could take a further nod from that interface and include a “public/private” toggle to accomodate pugs. Participants could then either visit an NPC in Lion’s Arch (or wherever) or open their own list that shows all of the active raid instances they can join – whether they are created by their guild or by an individual.

The question becomes how does the leader gain access to the interface. To answer Crystal’s question, I say why limit it to one method.

Why not allow the following:

- A permanent version purchasable for a guild using influence/merits. Then the guild leader could manually determine who in the guild can access the interface based on guild rank (much the way we determine who can start guild missions now).

- A one time version purchasable with either gold or gems. This would allow individuals to form raid parties as well to experience content.

- A permanent version purchasable with tokens acquired inside the raids themselves. This would promote diversity and allow guilds/groups that raid alot to have multiple raid leaders/raids going simultaneously.

Not a perfect solution, but I think the general idea is there somewhere.

unless, in the case of the prepared group style, it functions more like solo-pvp. Players “sign in” to a list and the person starting the list can pick the map to be played/difficulty etc, EDIT: with the public private options. When the list reaches either some minimum or the otherwise required number of players you get the little dialog that sad “your map is ready. go now?” or something like that. You still have to take scaling and rewards into consideration, but it might be the easiest, non-small guild gated way to do it.

I’m not particularly sure what problem you’re trying to solve here? what is wrong with a standard instance?

Also in your idea, how do you prevent someone entering at a later stage of the raid say at the last boss and being there for the kill , getting all the rewards for none of the effort? This shouldn’t be like a dungeon where its come and go, otherwise you’ll end up with path sellers and guilds kicking people at the end.
My vision would be that a person has to defeat each boss in the raid to progress to the next, no skipping or ferrying in to a later stage.

Standard instancing would require people be in a party larger than five, so that would have to be addressed. There is also the question of how scaling would work with a standard instance portal.

The simple solution to the arriving late issue is simple. Inside the “instance” there is a flag just like the flags used to start guild missions. Once the raid leader clicks that flag and starts the raid, the raid closes to new entries (or not – there could be a toggle in the interface for that as well).

Edit: That Guy beat me to it. (Darn that guy ).

:) good to see we are on the same page though

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.

Support consist mainly of Reflect, condition removal, some boons, and maybe a little healing.

Reflect and Condition removal requires to know when to use it. So it requires a little bit of knowledge. If 3 players have 10 stacks of bleed, a guardian can instantly remove it with its condi removal. If an enemy is using a a deadly projectile, the guardian would have to reflect it.

Stacking also makes reviving easy. Maybe have a shadow refuge to revive players, if it actually matters at all. This is as deep as support gets, Small bits of thinking is used.

Now, a new scenario:

• What if the group cannot stack, no matter what event happens in this scenario. The ‘support’ has choices on what to do otherwise the group will wipe. The support guard has several choices but cannot do them all in time. Let say that the entire group has 10 stacks of condi and they will all die; however, one and three party members are away from each other. The guard can only save one group. The one warrior has a warbanner that can party revive everyone, however this was his third down, and another one will kill him. Maybe saving the three party member will be the safer choice.

• One party member leads the boss away so that 3 party members can mass revive their fully dead party member.

• The party members have to position themselves so they can run to the wall of reflect when needed.

• A guard can buff up a nearby player that is going to finish off a mob, the guard goes forward to protect other player.

• A ranger mass-immobilize a cluster of mobs, then ele uses meteor shower.

• Much much more because movement allows flexibility.

Maybe people like stacking because it makes thinking easier, which is okay for casuals

In my humble opinion, I feel the difficulty threshold should be very high. This means that only a very small set of the population can complete the raid until it is nerfed(normally when the next raid is released or a specific amount of time). The expectation that one should be able to complete the raid without much time invested is silly.

Tree.3916:

In my humble opinion, I feel the difficulty threshold should be very high. This means that only a very small set of the population can complete the raid until it is nerfed(normally when the next raid is released or a specific amount of time). The expectation that one should be able to complete the raid without much time invested is silly.

I’m all for high difficulty.

I’m not for a later nerf and onto the next one style thing as that is actually a treadmill. “oh you completed this super hard raid and spent 50 hours doing so? bam that 50 hours is now worth 1 hour and anyone can do it. Go do the same on the next raid”. It devalues effort input. A raid should be as hard to complete day 1 as it will be in 5 years (with obvious exceptions being if some form of power creep occurred in which case difficulty should be raised to compensate.)

No content will retain the difficulty it presented on the first day due to the fact that we learn. The main reason people think the current dungeon content in the game is “easy” is because we’ve been practicing them for 2 years. The same will happen with raids. The hardcore guilds will complete the raid, create guides for the raid, then simplify the raid strategies. Once this is done, it allows people with less time to complete the content.

Tree.3916:

No content will retain the difficulty it presented on the first day due to the fact that we learn. The main reason people think the current dungeon content in the game is “easy” is because we’ve been practicing them for 2 years. The same will happen with raids. The hardcore guilds will complete the raid, create guides for the raid, then simplify the raid strategies. Once this is done, it allows people with less time to complete the content.

I’m well aware of that but what you stated in your first post was intentionally nerfing it at a later point. If people manage to bring their skill level up to the required level with the help of guides fine, bringing the difficulty down to them is not.

Devata.6589:

I would rather see having rewards that you sure you will get for completing, but you only get that the first time.

Then some RNG drops of unique items that only drop in there. (one or two) and that should be something that people would really want to have.

Tokens is yet another currency so not a big fan of that especially not as main thing. However if you get some tokens while doing it as a side thing (secondary) that helps you to get a armor set that fits with that content that would be fine.

If however the tokens will be the main thing and just a currency, you are creating yet another currency grind and we really already have more then enough (read: to much) of that in GW2.

First time drops? Tie it to an acheivement reward chest. Problem solved. Let RNG sometimes drop the items in the chest in case you want multiples but the first time you win, “Achievement Unlocked! You get a chest!”.

Still reading most of the topic

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

I would rather see having rewards that you sure you will get for completing, but you only get that the first time.

Then some RNG drops of unique items that only drop in there. (one or two) and that should be something that people would really want to have.

Tokens is yet another currency so not a big fan of that especially not as main thing. However if you get some tokens while doing it as a side thing (secondary) that helps you to get a armor set that fits with that content that would be fine.

If however the tokens will be the main thing and just a currency, you are creating yet another currency grind and we really already have more then enough (read: to much) of that in GW2.

First time drops? Tie it to an acheivement reward chest. Problem solved. Let RNG sometimes drop the items in the chest in case you want multiples but the first time you win, “Achievement Unlocked! You get a chest!”.

Still reading most of the topic

Yeah an achievement unlock would make sense for that. The way that is implemented I do not mind so much. Just for completing it you know 100% sure you get a reward and that should only be once else that reward becomes low in value. And then next to that some RNG rewards. Look to the original Molten Facility dungeon for that who had the mini and the backpack. But it could also be a blue-print for the guild-hall or a weapon or whatever.

If there would be tokens I would do that only as a side thing for something extra you can work towards if you like (like the dungeon sets) but that should not be the reason why you do the raid content. The reasons (other then liking it) should be the RNG and the 100% drop / unlock.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

I was thinking that raids shouldn’t be explicity limited to guilds, but the de facto situation should be that initially they should be tuned so that the difficulty is such that only organized groups can clear them. If the raid is puggable with randoms the first (week/month) of existence then it really isn’t tuned to be difficult enough.

Taking into account issues with groups and dungeons right now, 10-20 player groups would leave a lot of space open for Raid sellers that are fast enough to kick the other members. Plus these raids should NEVER be exclusive what so ever.

While a 10 player raid/dungeon would be neat to see, there are other aspects such as the kick feature and disconnection issues that need to be fine tuned first.

I’m all for new content and I’d be willing to try these out, but until certain things are fixed there will be problems.

runeblade.7514:

Controversal Topics that I see around this thread.

• Scaling- Should Raids be rigid to make balancing easier or, should Raids be very flexible so that all guilds can be more inclusive to their members?

I think it’d be best if we had a form of the Assault Knights’ scaling. That is, sure, any number of people can come but only 50 can actively help and the rest just upscale the boss with no help. (N.B. this only useful in a raid structure where there are multiple targets to take down not being near each other.)

I somewhat agree with Blaeys’ comment about a 5, 10, 20 person raid has problems if there’s an odd number (7, 14, or 26) of people wanting to come. I’ve been in the position of “too many people, you’ll have to sit out” even in GW1. One of the reasons I made it a point to start a healer class in all my MMO games was so I could get into raids.

I’d like to see if scaling can be solved as an “issue”.

• Difficulty- Should Raids be easy enough for casual players, or should raids be difficult so it requires skill on the risk of excluding casual player.

It should be noted casual players can do things like Tequatl and Triple Trouble just fine. If they know what they’re supposed to do. Which, from my experience, has been a large part of the “set up time” and “get there early” – “Any new players here not know how to do this? Okay, this is what you do in the turrets…”

• Stacking- What steps should be taken to remove stacking or should it even be removed at all?

To remove it, I suspect the entire engine would have to be re-written.

To discourage it? Enemies which can pierce through any number of players with a swing rather than hit just one. Stack at your own peril.

• AI- What AI should be in place?

Anyone here remember the War in Kryta and how the Peacekeeper/Mantle behaved and were built? Yeah, let’s try to take that over to GW2’s engine. Toxic Alliance were an interesting attempt which worked pretty well.

• Rewards- How rewarding should Raids be?

Unique/restricted rewards in the form of skins (armor and weapon, not backpiece) and not great piles of Gold/Karma/Laurels/T6 components. Sorry, I’d like raids to be something less than “must do this to stay in the game” and more “that looks cool, I want it, better learn to do the Sifhalla raid”.

• Punishment- How punishing should failing a raid be? How punishing should dying be?

It’s pretty punishing with equipment damage, I think – if you die more than . . . six? . . . times, your equipment stops counting. Make it so the options to repair are limited, also make it so at certain points if you die you’re locked out of the fight until it resets.

How punishing should failing it be? Same as any current world event – now you wait X hours until you get another shot. This is already pretty punishing for most casual players, and even some hardcore ones who have limited windows to play in.

hybrid.5027:

Size Raids will have a fixed player scale of 8-15. Any smaller than 8 is hardly worth of being called a raid, any larger than 16 some of the nuance of the unique combat system is lost due to particle effects and decreased mechanical complexity.

There will be no waypoints, and no ability to resurrect in case of a full party wipe. If you wipe players will be returned to the open world. Players can hard res each other as normal in cases of a partial wipe.

As an example of the suggested difficulty, I would cite Lupicus as an example of the baseline easiest difficulty and complexity of these subbosses. Each quest will have Raid Reward Chest (detailed below) upon completion.

This boss will be extremely mechanically challenging and tuned to a level of difficulty that would commensurate with challenging raid bosses in other games in the genre…

To be blunt, the end boss, like the ones mentioned above, will be especially mechanically challenging and guilds should not have the expectation to defeat the boss (or even get to the boss as the sub bosses will be challenging) until they have significant practice.

I don’t have time to write up all of my thoughts right now but these are things I for the most part agree with. Perhaps not all raids would have to be this unforgiving but it’s what I personally and my friends in game would like to see.

Tree.3916:

No content will retain the difficulty it presented on the first day due to the fact that we learn. The main reason people think the current dungeon content in the game is “easy” is because we’ve been practicing them for 2 years. The same will happen with raids. The hardcore guilds will complete the raid, create guides for the raid, then simplify the raid strategies. Once this is done, it allows people with less time to complete the content.

This seems more in line, and frankly is what we got with Tequatl and Wurm. Without a real understanding of the mechanics the content shouldn’t be completable, no matter how much dps a raid can bring. Even with understanding the mechanics failure should still be a real possibility without good communication. Progressive bosses that get more and more difficult allows everyone to at least participate in raids, with the more hardcore guilds progressing faster, not being the only ones able to progress at all.
Making it so difficult that 97% of the game population can’t do it before it gets nerfed isn’t good game design. It also isn’t in line with the game philosophy of GW2. This isn’t a game where we have content that requires zero mistakes for success, and it wouldn’t help the game at all.

I don’t think limiting raids to 15-20 is the answer, it should allow for the majority of a large guild to enter. There are ways to handle scaling better so that it doesn’t turn into a massive guild zerg fighting a boss.
One way to counter zerg mentality is to simply have additional events spawn during boss fights that requires more people to peel off and deal with as player numbers increase. Lyssa is a good example. When the three points start to become contested some players need to go handle that event or everyone gets locked out of the boss. This could turn into 4,5, or more events as players numbers hit 20, 30, 50 etc. Balling up at the boss then is no longer an option when you have several events that must be handled or the boss resets.

The goal of this post is to highlight issues with the current iterations of large scale content so they aren’t replicated in raids.

Most content is not mechanically suited for large groups of players. Be it guild bounties, guild puzzles, temple bosses, world bosses, Tequalt, Marionette, boss blitz, or most other large scale content, they all have issues when it comes to dealing with large groups of players.

For typical bosses without side mechanics, such as most world boss and guild bounty bosses, they are not designed to handle more than a small group of players. The more players that join in, the more trivial the fight becomes, to the point where it’s an “auto-attack blob”.

For more complex bosses that feature side mechanics, such as Tequalt, there is a limit of players that are mechanically meaningful in the fight. You need players on the turrets, defending the turrets, and attacking the boss. However, this caps out at around 30 meaningful player roles, so what was done to account for all the other players? Increase spawns and Tequalt’s health so you need a lot of players for the sheer damage, not because of the true mechanics, and this brings me to my next point.

Large scale content uses too much artificial difficulty and mechanics and not enough of the core game mechanics.

What makes Tequalt hard? Coordination, numbers, and damage.
What made Holographic Scarlet and the Assault Knights hard? Numbers and damage.
What makes temple events hard? Numbers and damage.

Just what makes any of these bosses, or any large scale content for that matter, difficult? It’s definitely not the core combat mechanics. Instead the common theme seems to be side mechanics often revolving around coordination, number of players, and damage. The combat mechanics aren’t present enough in the mechanics or difficulty of the fight which brings me to my final point.

What happened to traditional combat values? What happened to death being the deciding factor in a fight? What happened to the skills available to your character being your main tools?

Large scale content neglects these basic parts of the combat system. Your characters skills are not the main tools in the mechanics of the encounter, rather side mechanics are. Death is of little concern due to the low combat risk and the few players that die only serves as an inconvenience to your groups DPS due to the combined lack of risk and ease of recovery.

If you want to create a better large scale experience these things should be addressed.

In summary:

• The raid mechanics need to be suited for the number of players participating, with each player having an important role in the mechanics, not just there as damage filler.
• Combat needs to play a larger role in the difficulty of the fight. Added mechanics and coordination based around those mechanics are fine to have but should not be the core means to create difficulty.
• Death needs to play a deciding role. We need more things were defeat is caused by, and the difficulty designed around, the entire group of players getting wiped and less around things like defeat timers.
• The skills available to a player need to be more important. Things like projectile reflects, condition clears, stability, blocks, and crowd control need to play a larger role in the mechanics of the raid.

Proposal Overview

Implement instanced, scalable guild-based raiding content as more challenging versions of guild missions or dungeons.

Goal of Proposal

Address the lack of interesting, challenging, rewarding end-game group content. Breathe new life into guild-based content. We are tired of guild missions and need new content that isn’t static.

Proposal Functionality

Concept: This proposal combines multiple design elements and mechanics already in place. We already have instances, scalable content (events), guild missions, and challenge achievements/gambits in various parts of the game. This proposal would combine them to achieve high-end guild-based raid-like content.

Proposal: Introduce a set of new instances that scale from 5-25 players. There would be a set of default objectives, and also a set of optional, more challenging objectives similar to the challenge achievements for Living Story, or the gambits from the Queen’s Gauntlet. The more challenges completed, the better the rewards. Like guild missions, runnable once a week for personal credit and guild credit.

Example: A timed rescue mission for a cave-in, with jumping puzzle elements. The instance scales to appropriate difficulty based on the number of people who enter. If the guild members do not ask for additional challenge, they must simply rescue the victims of the cave-in within the allotted time to receive credit. But if they choose, they can add in difficulty, such as: 1) random elites spawning 2) everyone is drunk 3) time allotted is reduced or 4) a boss spawns on the way out, and you must defeat her before time runs out. Having additional, OPTIONAL extra challenges means the content stays relevant and interesting for much longer, and can be whatever level of difficulty the guild is comfortable with.

Associated Risks

There needs to be a way to implement this as guild content without having the kinds of issues presented by the original set of guild missions, namely the problem of small guilds. If the instances can scale down to 5 players, that should be sufficient for even the smallest guild’s needs. The only remaining issue would be unlocking them: they shouldn’t need to be unlocked. All guilds should have immediate access, and they should constitute a good method for earning influence and merits. The challenge should lie in the content itself, not in earning access to it. The last thing we want to introduce with GW2 raiding is unnecessary gating mechanisms. Let everyone in.